Credit: Brantley GutierrezFoo Fighters have been touring pretty hard over the past year-and-a-half in support of their latest album, Concrete and Gold, and Dave Grohl is looking forward to things slowing down soon.

"I'm ready to take a break," Grohl tells Billboard. "But I'm ready to do it again at some point."

As for whether the Foos are gearing up for another album, Grohl says he has ideas for the band's next direction but there's no timeline in place just yet.

"I can see the next record, I know that there's another one there," he says. "I don't know when but I think I know what we should do."

Foo Fighters' current run of dates concludes October 23 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. They'll play two shows in New Orleans in February, followed by two European festival stops in June.

In other Foo happenings, Grohl and drummer Taylor Hawkins stopped by Metallica's show in Milwaukee Tuesday. The metal legends posted a video on their Instagram of Grohl and Hawkins hanging out with comedian Jim Breuer backstage.

Copyright  2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.President Xi Jinping has urged redoubled efforts to win the tough battle against poverty on schedule.

China should stick to its poverty relief target and work harder for a victory in the battle, Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, stressed when giving instructions on poverty reduction work, as the country observes the fifth National Poverty Relief Day, which falls on Oct. 17 every year.



Chinese President Xi Jinping [File Photo: gov.cn]

China has gradually been eradicating poverty since the country's reform and opening-up policy was launched in 1978. Continued hard work for 40 years has helped more than 700 million of the population shake off poverty and created miracles in human poverty reduction history, said Xi.



The extreme poverty that has existed for thousands of years for the Chinese nation is now close to being historically solved, and China's tough battle against poverty has entered the most crucial stage, said Xi.



"What the most critical moment needs is the firm belief in success and determination to summon up courage. As long as all regions and departments take on responsibilities and conduct solid work, cadres and masses in poverty-stricken areas forge ahead and work hard, the whole party and the people of all ethnic groups unite as one and stick to the poverty relief target and work harder for a victory, we will certainly win the tough battle against poverty on schedule," stressed Xi.



Premier Li Keqiang, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, said that all regions and departments should intensify targeted poverty alleviation through integration with the rural vitalization strategy, offering more support to deeply impoverished regions.



Premier Li also called for stronger measures to help special groups in poverty-stricken areas, stricter supervision of poverty relief funds and improvement of poverty relief work evaluation and inspection.



China will reduce the poor population by 10 million in 2018, in order to deliver the country's target of eradicating poverty in rural areas and eliminating regional poverty by 2020.



China held a commendation meeting on poverty alleviation Wednesday in Beijing, where 99 people and 40 institutions were honored for their efforts in reducing poverty.



Hu Chunhua, a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and chief of the State Council Leading Group of Poverty Alleviation and Development, underlined that to win the battle against poverty, Chinese people should be self-reliant and hardworking, unite and create a good atmosphere by remaining true to the country's original aspirations and taking responsibilities to overcome difficulties.Now President Donald Trump gives every indication that, far from fighting for freedom, he would rather fight against it. This is the president who said it's "great" that Xi is declaring himself ruler for life, praised Duterte for the "unbelievable job" he was doing "on the drug problem," congratulated Recep Tayyip Erdogan for winning a rigged referendum that spelled the death of Turkish democracy and declared his "love" for Kim Jong Un of North Korea. When confronted by Lesley Stahl on "60 Minutes" about Kim's catalog of crime  "repression, gulags, starvation"  Trump was dismissive. "I get along with him really well," Trump said. "I have a good energy with him." He was equally blase when Stahl asked him about reports that Putin is involved in "assassinations" and "poisonings." He probably is, Trump conceded  but "it's not in our country," so who cares? Britain can deal with Russian hit teams on its own.While Als Beefs website says people must like or follow one of the companys social media accounts to get the deal, Curry said thats more of a friendly suggestion and they wont turn anyone away if they dont want to do that.322 Kenilworth Ave., Kenilworth: $2,745,000 | Listed: Sept. 13, 2021



This five-bedroom home has five full bathrooms, one half-bath, a rounded front porch, exterior friezes and original custom moldings and millwork. The living room has multiple seating areas, a fireplace and built-ins, and opens onto a professionally landscaped yard and bluestone patio. The kitchen features a double oven, a separate breakfast room and a mud room. The primary bedroom suite is on the second floor and has a custom marble bath, a fireplace, and a dressing room with built-ins and closet space. Three additional bedrooms are on the second floor and a fourth is on the third floor. A coach house with a kitchen and full bath, a three-and-a-half car garage, a brick paver patio and a private fenced-in backyard complete this home.



Agent: Megan Mawicke Bradley and John Mawicke, @properties, 847-881-0200 and 312-342-4278



*Some listing photos are virtually staged, meaning they have been digitally altered to represent different furnishing or decorating options.



To feature your luxury listing of $800,000 or more in Chicago Tribunes Dream Homes, send listing information and high-res photos to ctc-realestate@chicagotribune.com.



Join our Chicago Dream Homes Facebook group for more luxury listings and real estate news.Fire crews responded to WestRock, formerly known as RockTenn, at 705 N. Farnsworth Ave. after one of the machines on the second floor ignited in the plant, said Aurora Fire Department spokesman Capt. Jim Rhodes. The total estimated loss is $200,000, officials said in a news release Thursday."It's unusual in the sense that there was an unusual circumstance," Village Administrator Steve Bosco said, referencing a recent federal ruling that made ComEd's rates for the next eight months more attractive for customers than what the village had offered through its program."I have proudly lived and raised my family in Oswego for over 30 years. The last several years, Ive seen many changes in direction on how the Village is planned and managed. I believe the decisions that are being made will adversely affect the future of the Village we know and love," his statement read.Without properly regulated pet stores, consumers will be forced to obtain pets from unregulated sources, such as rescues and internet sales that are not required to provide  and typically do not provide  information on where the dog or cat originally came from (including many dogs that are imported from overseas or purchased from dog auctions), Swanson said in a statement.Chinese Premier Li Keqiang arrived in Brussels on Tuesday for a working visit to Belgium and the 12th Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) summit.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (2nd L) arrives in Brussels, Belgium, Oct. 16, 2018. Li Keqiang arrived here on Tuesday for a working visit to Belgium and the 12th Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) summit. [Photo: Xinhua]

This is the third visit to Belgium by the Chinese premier in four years.



During his visit, Li will hold talks with Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel. The two heads of government will also jointly meet the press and witness the signing of a series of documents on cooperation between the two sides.

Peace, development, opening-up and cooperation remain the mainstream of our time despite the complicated changes and uncertainties the world is facing, Li said upon arrival.

He suggested that Asia and Europe, as two major economic blocks and stabilizing forces in the world, enhance dialogue and cooperation, safeguard world peace, jointly meet challenges and pursue development.

Noting that Belgium, where the EU headquarters is located, has been a staunch supporter and participant of the European integration, Li said he is looking forward to having an insightful exchange of views on bilateral ties as well as China-Europe relations with the Belgian side.

Li also called on the two sides to cement political mutual trust, deepen pragmatic cooperation, and work to bring the China-Belgium all-round partnership of friendship and cooperation up to a new level in line with the principles of mutual respect, equal treatment and mutual benefits.

At the ASEM summit, Li is scheduled to exchange in-depth views with Asian and European leaders on jointly safeguarding multilateralism, building an open world economy as well as facilitating connectivity and people-to-people exchanges between the two continents.

"Li will also propose China's initiatives on Asia-Europe cooperation and share views on international and regional hotspot issues," Assistant Foreign Minister Zhang Hanhui said at a press briefing ahead of the visit.

Launched in 1996, the biennial ASEM summit has served as a venue for dialogue between Asian and European countries.

This year's summit, themed "Europe and Asia: global partners and global challenges," is expected to bring together leaders from over 50 Asian and European countries and representatives from international organizations.

This is the third stop of Li's Eurasian trip from Oct. 11 to 19. He has paid official visits to the Netherlands and Tajikistan, and attended the 17th meeting of the Council of Heads of Government of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Tajik capital Dushanbe.Not knowing where hes at, the worry that he is out there suffering somewhere, the confusion we all feel, and watching my mother who has so much hope that he is OK, has been really hard, she said. I want to be hopeful. I dont want to accept that hes not coming home. But its been really exhausting.Bill wants to see future generations of Elginites reap the benefits associated with enjoying the outdoors, just as he did when growing up, recently retired Elgin Parks and Recreation Director Randy Reopelle said. Bill is also very tenacious  when he sets his mind to getting something done he sticks to it, no matter how long it takes. He worked on the shoreline stabilization project for Willow Creek for over three years, before any work started on it. Despite all of the bureaucracy, and how it frustrated him, he never gave up.We keep reading in Speak Out how these Trump haters and the Republican haters think everything the Republicans do is wrong. I am neither Republican or Democrat. I vote for the person who does the best job. What bothers me about this is people talking about morals and ethics. Your morals and ethics dont depend on the president or the government, or anyone else. If you have good morals and ethics, the law will not matter. The judicial system will not matter. The president will not matter. What matters is that you have strong morals and ethics, and you will not accuse anyone without proper evidence. You will obey the law. You will do whats right.I dont have any ghosts or spirits, as far as I know, but thats not to say that our area is free of all things spooky. This is the time of year, of course, when spooky stories crop up.New this year, Nov. 15 we are doing a town-wide Girls Night Out with after party, she said. Girls Night Out is a $10 pre-registration fee. You get a fun keepsake bag  we bought really cool bags  and then you get a map of participating businesses and they have snacks and refreshments out in their stores. Then youre given a shopping wish list (to keep track) of what you want your special Santa to buy for you and the stores will also make a note of what it is you liked and probably give you a coupon for savings if your special Santa should come back and buy it for you.The planned robbery was actually part of a sting operation targeting Farella and two others set up by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, according to court records. Authorities said the three agreed with undercover officials to rob a drug stash house of 50 kilograms of cocaine.Perhaps it is the shiny newness of Mellody Farm or the Whole Foods market that generated the crowds at the grand opening, as attendees searched for parking spaces in between sauntering among the shops and cafes, despite alerts from naysayers about the future of neighborhood malls. Once built out, the development will have 14 restaurants among its 50 tenants.Rain is still a leading factor in why the wall may have collapsed, according to Gillis, but he said nothing definitive has been determined. He said once crews get to the base of the bridge in order to install the new wall they might learn something new.In secret, behind locked gates, our Nation's Oldest City dumped a landfill in a lake (Old City Reservoir), while emitting sewage in our rivers and salt marsh. Organized citizens exposed and defeated pollution, racism and cronyism. We elected a new Mayor. We're transforming our City -- advanced citizenship. Ask questions. Make disclosures. Demand answers. Be involved. Expect democracy. Report and expose corruption. Smile! Help enact a St. Augustine National Park and Seashore. We shall overcome!EPA looks to finish Pueblo smelter site cleanup in 2022

The Environmental Protection Agency has completed 90% of its soil sampling in residential areas in the Colorado Smelter Superfund site.In recent years, Northwestern Polytechnical University has given priority to international cooperation in education and many foreign students have come to NPU for further studies.



NPU, a top university in China, based in Xi'an, Shaanxi province, was among the earliest in Northwest China to launch such programs.

The university is multidisciplinary and research-oriented, featuring programs in aviation, aerospace and marine technology engineering.

At the 80th anniversary celebrations of NPU in Xi'an on Saturday, Wang Jinsong, president of the university, said colleges and universities shoulder the task of cultivating talents, research, social service, cultural inheritance and innovation, as well as international exchanges and cooperation.

"NPU is striving to be a world-class university with global influence in aeronautics, astronautics, marine technology and other fields, and regards educating students as a core mission and takes talent cultivation as an essential task," he said.

To date, NPU has made cooperative agreements with 14 of the world's top 200 universities, covering many fields. About 1,800 students are taking the outbound study programs, a number that has grown by over 60 percent during the past year. University of Oxford, Cambridge, Asia-Pacific Space Cooperation Organization and the International Labor Organization, many world-class universities and international organizations are also destinations for NPU teachers and students.

Recently, NPU has signed agreements on talent cultivation with Warwick University in the United Kingdom, University of Technology of Belfort-Montbeliard and National Institute of Applied Science in France, the Mongolian University of Science and Technology, and the Mahanakorn University of Technology in Thailand.

QMES, an engineering school jointly launched by NPU and Queen Mary University of London in 2015, set a model for international talent cultivation cooperation.

Andrew Bushby, professor and director of the Nano Vision Center of Queen Mary University of London, and executive vice-president of QMES, expressed his willingness to see cooperation between both sides and felt it could promote relations between the two cities.

NPU has established channels to recruit foreign students in senior high schools by organizing high-tech lectures and activities and to inspire their passions on technology and innovation.

The Belt and Road Aerospace Innovation Alliance, launched by NPU and the Chinese Society of Astronautics in last April, is a joint effort inspired by the Belt and Road Initiative, and intends to be a platform for talent development, production, teaching and knowledge transfer in the aerospace field.

At present, 51 universities, research institutions and academic organizations in China, the United States, Russia, France, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Ukraine, Egypt, Algeria, UK, Australia and other countries involved in BRI have joined the alliance.

The Sino-Australian Engineering Universities Consortium was launched on Oct 12 at NPU. The consortium includes nine domestic universities of The Excellence League and four leading engineering universities of The Australian Technology Network of Universities.A training project run by Yunnan Agricultural University and funded by the United Nations is using heritage to provide economic sustenance.

Dorlma, a Tibetan woman who learned weaving from her family as a teenager, is now helping her family even more, thanks to a United Nations-funded training project on producing Tibetan carpets run by Yunnan Agricultural University.

So, now, while her husband works as a day laborer, the main income of the family comes from her weaving Tibetan carpets and separately selling handmade blankets, clothes and home ornaments, something she used to do earlier.

Speaking about the training, her first professional course in Tibetan carpet weaving, Dorlma says: "I was very thrilled to see the teacher weave carpets at the course. And I immediately learned the different patterns the teacher demonstrated, and really hope to further improve my weaving skills."

Dorlma is one of the beneficiaries of a project funded by the UN China Gender Fund for Research and Advocacy, which offers courses to women in Dechen county in the Dechen Tibet autonomous prefecture in Yunnan province.

The project - run by the Institute of New Rural Development at Yunnan Agricultural University, which began in last November - targets Tibetan women in Yunnan, and is expected to run through June 2019.

One of the main aims of the project is to find ways to encourage women's participation in community activities, and to increase the income of the migrant families.

The project that was devised by Du Fachun, the associate dean of the Institute of New Rural Development, was one of the seven ideas picked in 2017 for funding by UN-China Gender Fund 8th Batch Projects.

Speaking about the Yunnan university project, Ma Leijun, an officer from UN Woman China, says: "The UN pays special attention to the development of ethnic minority regions, especially the development of women. And as this project is concerned with the development of ethnic women, it met our selection criteria last year. It is also fairly mature in its project design, impact estimation and other submitted materials."

Meanwhile, the training courses, co-hosted by UN Women China, the Dechen Prefecture Women's Federation and the university, are based on research by the institute on the eco-migration areas of Dechen county.

"Most of the women attending the training moved to this place due to environmental issues or government mass relocation programs aimed at poverty alleviation," says Du.

"Also, most of the families live on state subsidies and face economic pressure due to a lack of regular income. Therefore, these women support their families by engaging in traditional industries."

Among the traditional industries the local women participate in are Tibetan carpet weaving and bee-keeping, according to an initial report of the project. The report also shows that many locals feel that the government should devote more effort to promote these two industries.

Giving her view on the courses, Sun Hongmei, the president of the Women's Federation of Dechen county, says: "The majority of those who attended the carpet-weaving course had a background in weaving. Also, the textile products they weave not only satisfy household use, but also help support the family. Besides, the weaving of carpets is not limited by time or space, and is easy to learn."You are here: Arts

The 11th Panchen Lama Bainqen Erdini Qoigyijabu returned to Beijing on Tuesday after three months of Buddhist activities in southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region where he visited Buddhist sites and conducted rituals.

During the three months, the Panchen Lama visited several monasteries, held Buddhist activities and met believers in Lhasa, Xigaze and Shannan.

He performed head-touching rituals to give blessings to tens of thousands of believers in Tibet.

While visiting the city of Shannan in mid-August, the Panchen Lama paid his first visit to Lhamo Lhatso, a sacred lake.

In Xigaze, he attended a donation ceremony and visited some local seedling bases, vegetable greenhouses and workshops. He extended congratulations to the farmers for good harvests and encouraged workers to work hard for a better life.

He also visited a local farm and a relocated village in Lhasa.

The Panchen Lama currently serves as vice president of the Buddhist Association of China and is a member of the Standing Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the country's top political advisory body.Chinese Premier Li Keqiang will attend the 12th Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) summit in Brussels this week and pay a working visit to Belgium, which is known as the "Heart of Modern Europe."

In 1971, the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Belgium opened a new chapter for their relations. In spring 2014, Chinese President Xi Jinping made a historic state visit to Belgium, elevating China-Belgium relations to a new height.

Today, frequent political communications, close trade cooperation and booming people-to-people and cultural exchanges between China and Belgium are adding fresh impetus to bilateral relations.

Many of Belgium's renowned productions, notably The Smurfs and the Adventures of Tintin, are now very popular in China. Likewise, China's giant pandas have become an important emblem of friendship, and baby panda "Tianbao," born in Belgium in June 2016, has become a Belgian superstar.

The Brussels China Cultural Center, which was launched in 2015, has hosted nearly 300 events, large and small, and established key intercultural forums and avenues of dialogue through such initiatives as the "Media Breakfast Meeting," "Cultural Experience Day" and "Chinese Movie Night," among others.

Today, the center has more than 2,700 registered members and has become one of the main entry points for cultural exchanges between China and Europe.

Given that China's image can be sometimes misunderstood in the West, the cultural center is playing a vital role in promoting Chinese culture around the European Union, benefitting from its strategic location in proximity to the EU institutions.

Overseas Chinese living in Belgium are also an integral force in strengthening cultural exchanges between China and Belgium. Since 2016, the Chinese Embassy has cooperated with local Chinese communities to hold a Chinese New Year parade for three consecutive years in Brussels, Dinant and Ghent, attracting tens of thousands of local Belgians in the process.

A growing number of students are also heading to China to pursue their higher education, thus providing a growing platform for Belgian and Chinese younger generations to interact, which in the long term will create a solid foundation for the future development of Sino-Belgian relations.

Belgium boasts many top universities in Europe, and has unique cutting-edge technologies in the fields of microelectronics, biomedicine, energy conservation and environmental protection, and modern agriculture. Thousands of Chinese students come to the country for education or exchanges each year.

Chinese language education is also on the rise in Belgium. In addition to Chinese studies and Chinese translation programs on offer at several universities across the country, there are now six Confucius Institutes which have recently opened their doors.

In recent years, hundreds of Belgian high school students have participated in summer camps in China for short-term study exchanges. They have learned Chinese language and got an insight into Chinese culture, which help promote exchanges and friendships between students as well as between schools of the two countries.

In November 2017, the Chinese Embassy in Belgium handed out "China-Belgium Friendship Award" to six of its outstanding representatives for their active role in promoting Chinese culture and help enhance Belgian people's understanding of China.

Situated in the heart of Europe, Belgium has been in the vanguard of cultural exchanges between China and Europe.

In April 2016, the Europe-China "One Belt One Road" (OBOR) Culture & Tourism Development Committee was officially launched in Brussels. The Committee promised to place a greater emphasis on culture and tourism in the framework of the OBOR project. It also aims to promote EU-China cooperation by acting as the "European pillar" of the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative.You are here: Business

China's new yuan-denominated loans stood at 1.38 trillion yuan (about 200 billion U.S. dollars) in September, up from 1.28 trillion yuan in August, central bank data showed Wednesday.

The M2, a broad measure of money supply that covers cash in circulation and all deposits, rose 8.3 percent year on year to 180.17 trillion yuan at the end of September, the People's Bank of China said in a statement on its website.You are here: China

The 11th Panchen Lama Bainqen Erdini Qoigyijabu returned to Beijing on Tuesday after three months of Buddhist activities in southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region where he visited Buddhist sites and conducted rituals.

During the three months, the Panchen Lama visited several monasteries, held Buddhist activities and met believers in Lhasa, Xigaze and Shannan.

He performed head-touching rituals to give blessings to tens of thousands of believers in Tibet.

While visiting the city of Shannan in mid-August, the Panchen Lama paid his first visit to Lhamo Lhatso, a sacred lake.

In Xigaze, he attended a donation ceremony and visited some local seedling bases, vegetable greenhouses and workshops. He extended congratulations to the farmers for good harvests and encouraged workers to work hard for a better life.

He also visited a local farm and a relocated village in Lhasa.

The Panchen Lama currently serves as vice president of the Buddhist Association of China and is a member of the Standing Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the country's top political advisory body.A middle school student seriously injured in a car accident was transferred from Inner Mongolia's provincial capital Hohhot to Beijing, a distance of around 500 kilometers, in only five and a half hours thanks to the joint efforts of medical staff, police, and the public.

According to a report by Xinhua News Agency, after a traffic accident on October 3, the 13-year-old patient was diagnosed with a severe head injury, a collapsed lung, and multiple fractures. After receiving treatment at a hospital in Hohhot, on Monday the decision was taken to transfer the teenager to Beijing.

On Monday evening, a notice was sent out about the medical transfer that included detailed information about the planned route. It called for drivers along the route to give way to the convoy carrying the seriously ill teenager. News about the trip quickly spread online, and the story was picked up and shared by several media organizations in China.

At around 5:15 a.m. on Tuesday, the convoy of three vehicles set off from Hohhot, accompanied by local police at various points along the way as they traveled from Inner Mongolia, through Hebei Province, and into Beijing. They arrived at Beijing Tiantan Hospital at around 10:36 a.m.  two and a half hours earlier than expected.

Upon arriving, the 13-year-old was immediately transferred into intensive care, where they are currently being treated.

"Relevant treatment will be carried out after experts have finished assessing the patient's condition," said Zhang Dachun, a doctor with the Beijing Emergency Medical Center who accompanied the Hohhot-Beijing transfer.China's top court has told a villager jailed for life after being found guilty of killing a boy with rat poison that his case will be retried on the grounds of insufficient evidence, following his family's decadelong efforts to appeal his sentence.

The man's daughter, Wu Lili, showed a Supreme People's Court statement about the retrial decision to China Daily on Tuesday, adding that her father, Wu Chunhong, had been told the news on Monday.

In the statement, the top court ordered the Henan High People's Court to rehear the case, "as the evidence in the original judgment is not sufficient to prove Wu committed the crime of intentional homicide".

"Hearing the news, Wu wept loudly for a few minutes, telling me he has been waiting for it for almost 14 years," said Li Changqing, Wu's lawyer, who visited Wu in a prison in Zhejiang province on Monday.

Wu Lili said, "Although we're not sure whether the ruling will be overturned, the highest justice authority's decision we received early this month still makes our family excited and brings us hope."

The provincial high people's court was unable to say whether the case had been filed when China Daily contacted it on Tuesday.

On Nov 15, 2004, a 3-year-old boy in Minquan county, Shangqiu, died from poisoning after eating homemade food containing flour. His 6-year-old brother was admitted to hospital but recovered.

Several days later, Wu Chunhong was named as the suspect and criminally detained, "as the police said he had a dispute with the victims' father, Wang Zhansheng, who was responsible for collecting electricity charges in the village", according to the indictment.

It said Wu was not happy when Wang urged him to pay the charges on Nov 14 and put tetramine, a rat poison, in flour in the Wang family's kitchen.

In June 2005, Wu was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve for intentional homicide by the Shangqiu Intermediate People's Court, but the provincial high people's court ordered a retrial after Wu appealed.

In the following few years, the intermediate people's court gave the same sentence to Wu twice, with the high court rejecting both results and returning the case to the intermediate court each time.

At a fourth trial, in October 2008, Wu was given the life sentence, with the provincial high people's court upholding that ruling.

"My father has not pleaded guilty since he was detained, as our family had no conflict with Wang's family," Wu Lili, 26, said. "We believe he is innocent."

Li, who began helping the family's appeal efforts in 2015, said his client was tortured during interrogations and no physical evidence related to him was found in the victims' house.

In 2016, Wu appealed to the country's top court, and his daughter and lawyer have visited Beijing several times to provide materials related to the appeal.

"Wu Chunhong was forced to confess to the crime before he stood trial 13 years ago," Li said. "He has not pleaded guilty and has refused any commutation."

Wu Lili said, "We're looking forward to the retrial, hoping we can have a family reunion in the near future."During the National Mass Innovation and Entrepreneurship Week in Beijing on Oct. 15, the Beijing Municipal Science & Technology Commission announced 100 major science and technology achievements by the national science and innovation center, with more than 60 from enterprises and 30-plus from universities and research institutes.

Along with the announcement, the commission said Beijing will take an active part in major national science and technology projects, such as aircraft engines, the deep-sea space stations, and other major projects listed in the "scientific and technological innovation 2030 project." The commission said the city will lead 40 percent of the national key R&D projects, and establish three national research centers.

The 100 major achievements cover various fields in cutting-edge science and technology, national major development strategies, the development of sophisticated industries, the capital's construction, and social development and reforms in science and technology mechanisms.

For instance, Shougang Group's technologies in high-strength and easy-welding thick plates and supporting welding materials have been applied in the construction of nine large hydropower projects in countries along the Belt and Road. Tsinghua University's key technologies for environmental and energy-saving designs of green public buildings can save 260 million kilowatt hours and cut carbon dioxide emission by 223,000 tons annually.

Over 60 percent of the achievements come from enterprises, who have become the major player of technological innovation. Part of the achievements have been put into application through cooperation among industries, universities and research institutes.

During the announcement event, the Beijing Municipal Commission of Economy and Information Technology held a signing ceremony for 10 projects, all focusing on high-tech and sophisticated fields, such as the 2G DNA sequencing equipment and its supporting diagnostic reagents, as well as the self-driving systems.

Among the 10 projects, four will be based in Beijing E-Town, three in Shunyi district, two in Fangshan district, and one in Daxing district. The projects cover fields of biomedicine, automobile transport, electronic information, intelligent equipment, software, and energy. The signing of the projects demonstrates Beijing's remarkable achievements in original innovation, technological innovation, achievement transformation and industrialization, guiding enterprises to focus on sustainable urban development, improvement in people's livelihood, and development of sophisticated industries.

At the event, the Beijing Business Incubation Association also announced the top 10 sci-tech achievements for mass innovation and entrepreneurship, and "hard" innovation.



Last year, China and Croatia celebrated the 25th anniversary of the establishment of their diplomatic relationship. Croatia, a member of the 16+1 Initiative, has welcomed Chinese investments and believes they can complement EU funds. In 2014, for instance, Chinese company CNBM International Engineering signed a contract with the Croatian company Ploce port to equip a new bulk cargo terminal in its Adriatic port. Also, approximately one year ago, Croatia media reported that China had agreed to invest 30 million in the popular Croatian thermal spa Krapinske Toplice. In addition, Chinese companies such as Huawei and Lenovo have entered the Croatian market while Croatian companies such as food producer Podravka and vintner Badel have begun to make inroads into China.



This year, Sino-Croatian partnership looks set to further deepen. In particular, the Chinese company Luxury Real Estate became the owner of a 75 percent stake in Zadar Port. Furthermore, six Chinese police officers patrolled together with their Croatian counterparts for a month during the summer in Dubrovnik, Zagreb and Plitvice Lakes National Park. This was the first ever joint patrol between the two countries. China, along with the Republic of Korea and Japan, are among the first Asian countries collaborating with Croatian authorities to monitor tourists traveling from Asia.

More importantly, a consortium led by the China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC) also won a tender to construct the Peljesac Bridge. This bridge will connect the Dubrovnik-Neretva County to the rest of mainland Croatia by crossing the Mali Ston Bay over the Adriatic Sea. As a result, the Neum corridor, a strip of the Adriatic Sea coastline in Bosnia and Herzegovina, will no longer function as the only land-based communication route. The contract between highway operators Hrvatske Ceste and CRBC was signed last April.

The State Secretary at the Croatian Ministry of Sea, Transport and Infrastructure Tomislav Mihotic said the Peljesac Bridge is the first EU-funded project that has been won by a Chinese consortium in a public tender. The European Commission has allocated 357 million of Cohesion Policy funds to build it and this covers the largest part of the total value of the project that will amount to approximately 420 million. Other competitors  Strabag of Austria, Astaldi of Italy and IC Ictas of Turkey  had attempted to question the tender result but failed. As Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic explained, the bidding was transparent and had respected public procurement guidelines set by the EU.

The start of construction of the Peljesac Bridge by a consortium led by the CRBC is sparking new fears in the West about alleged advantages Chinese companies enjoy over European ones. The EU, which is in the process of finalizing its connectivity strategy vis-a-vis Asia, is continuously seeking to pose obstacles for Chinese investors. Even when these investors win tenders according to standardized rules, their success is regarded as unfair because they are subsidized by the Chinese state. Brussels is now playing the political card to restrain or prevent the wave of Chinese investments, which itself is another form of protectionism.

From another perspective, it is not surprising that leading international media have found a new opportunity to blame China. The Chinese consortium, for instance, is being criticized for ignoring Croatian workers and employing only Chinese ones. Foreign journalists also foresee violations of labor laws. But other examples of Chinese investments in South-Eastern Europe  with the one in the Piraeus port being the most characteristic one  demonstrate that Chinese companies are relying on existing personnel and local companies. In the case of the Peljesac Bridge, Mihotic expects that there will be as many Croatian subcontractors employed as possible.

Despite some criticism from the West, Sino-Croatian relations will likely still flourish. The important agreements that have been reached this year mark a new chapter in this successful partnership and it is not a coincidence that Croatia will host the 16+1 summit of 2019. Brussels and Berlin accuse China for attempting to divide the EU, but the 16 European countries that participate in this Initiative are benefiting through a "win-win" approach. Croatia is certainly one of them.

George N. Tzogopoulos is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:





http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/GeorgeNTzogopoulos.htm





Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn. Flash





The official 2019 China-New Zealand Year of Tourism opening ceremony will be held at Museum of New Zealand in February 2019, New Zealand tourism Minister Kelvin Davis said on Monday.





The opening ceremony, scheduled on Feb 20, 2019, will feature a special event at the national museum Te Papa, hosted by China National Tourism Office. It coincides with the hosting of 2,300-year-old Chinese artefacts as a part of the Terracotta Warriors: Guardians of Immortality exhibition.





"The 2019 China-New Zealand Year of Tourism is a fantastic opportunity for New Zealand to showcase what it is that makes us a world class destination, and for us to think about how we can best welcome Chinese visitors to our shores," Davis said in a statement.





"It's also a great opportunity for New Zealanders to learn more about China and its culture, through the Te Papa exhibition and two-way tourism," he said.





More Chinese visitors are coming to New Zealand than ever before, with 450,000 people visiting in the year to June 2018. This is set to increase to 800,000 visitors by 2024, the minster noted.





"New Zealand and China's shared tourism relationship is a special and enduring one and the Year of Tourism is a fitting way to celebrate this," he said.





The closing ceremony will be held in China near the end of 2019, and will be hosted by the New Zealand government.







 Flash

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday reiterated China's commitment to free trade and economic globalization while meeting with Stephen Perry, chairman of Britain's 48 Group Club in Beijing.



Briefing the guest on the Chinese people's pursuit for its "two centenary goals" as well as China's history, Xi said the great achievement of economic and social development in the past 40 years has strengthened China's determination of reform and opening up.

The "two centenary goals" refer to China's aspiration to finish building a moderately prosperous society in all respects by the time the Communist Party of China (CPC) celebrates its centenary in 2021 and turn the People's Republic of China into a modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced and harmonious by the time it celebrates its centenary in 2049.

"Under the current world circumstances, China is even more determined to support trade liberalization and economic globalization," Xi said.

"We advocate that countries should enhance exchanges, cooperation, understanding and mutual trust, and avoid suspicion, prejudice and misunderstanding in international affairs," he said.

Xi said China will not seek hegemony even if it grows stronger, but will steadfastly safeguard world peace and uphold the building of a community with a shared future for humanity.

Xi hailed the "ice-breaking trip" made by Jack Perry, Stephen Perry's father, together with a group of far-sighted people from the British business community in spite of lots of obstacles in the early 1950s. He said the China-UK friendship has been deeply rooted in the peoples of the two nations today, and it has become a consensus shared by the two governments and peoples to develop the "Golden Era" of bilateral ties.

"I'm very glad to see the spirit of the 'ice-breaking trip' is being carried forward from generation to generation," Xi said, referring to the 48 Group Club's continuous enthusiasm for China-UK friendship.

Lauding China's tremendous development achievements and the ambitious blueprint made at the 19th National Congress of the CPC, Perry said he is sure that China will achieve its goals.

Perry said the 48 Group Club is committed to enhancing the exchanges between China and other countries, and is ready to participate in China's process of development and rejuvenation.

Perry spoke highly of the Belt and Road Initiative and the notion of building a community with a shared future for humanity raised by Xi. He said the 48 Group Club will continue supporting globalization and an open world economy and promoting the UK-China cooperation within the Belt and Road framework with the spirit of the "ice-breaking trip." Flash

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang arrived in Belgium on Tuesday for a working visit and the 12th Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) summit.

This is the third visit to Belgium by the Chinese premier in four years.

During his visit, Li will hold talks with Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel. The two heads of government will also jointly meet the press and witness the signing of a series of documents on cooperation between the two sides.

Peace, development, opening-up and cooperation remain the mainstream of our time despite the complicated changes and uncertainties the world is facing, Li said upon arrival.

He suggested that Asia and Europe, as two major economic blocks and stabilizing forces in the world, enhance dialogue and cooperation, safeguard world peace, jointly meet challenges and pursue development.

Noting that Belgium, where the EU headquarters is located, has been a staunch supporter and participant of the European integration, Li said he is looking forward to having an insightful exchange of views on bilateral ties as well as China-Europe relations with the Belgian side.

Li also called on the two sides to cement political mutual trust, deepen pragmatic cooperation, and work to bring the China-Belgium all-round partnership of friendship and cooperation up to a new level in line with the principles of mutual respect, equal treatment and mutual benefits.

At the ASEM summit, Li is scheduled to exchange in-depth views with Asian and European leaders on jointly safeguarding multilateralism, building an open world economy as well as facilitating connectivity and people-to-people exchanges between the two continents.

"Li will also propose China's initiatives on Asia-Europe cooperation and share views on international and regional hotspot issues," Assistant Foreign Minister Zhang Hanhui said at a press briefing ahead of the visit.

Launched in 1996, the biennial ASEM summit has served as a venue for dialogue between Asian and European countries.

This year's summit, themed "Europe and Asia: global partners and global challenges," is expected to bring together leaders from over 50 Asian and European countries and representatives from international organizations.

This is the third stop of Li's Eurasian trip from Oct. 11 to 19. He has paid official visits to the Netherlands and Tajikistan, and attended the 17th meeting of the Council of Heads of Government of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Tajik capital Dushanbe.(CNN)  A bride is born?

Lady Gaga has apparently confirmed her engagement to boyfriend, Christian Carino, by referencing her "fiance, Christian" during a speech Monday at Elle's 25th Annual Women in Hollywood Celebration.

The "A Star Is Born" actress wiped away a tear as she spoke and thanked "all the loved ones" in her life who take care of her every day.

Lady Gaga engaged

Gaga and Carino, a talent agent, have been low-key about their relationship since they were first spotted together in January 2017.

It's been a big month for Gaga, who was honored at the Elle event and is earning rave reviews and Oscar buzz for her performance in "A Star Is Born" with Bradley Cooper.

The soundtrack to the film debuted at the top of the Billboard 200 album chart this week, marking Gaga's her fifth chart-topper and Cooper's first.

Gaga was previously engaged to actor Taylor Kinney, who she dated for four years before Kinney proposed on Valentine's Day 2015.

Gaga announced that she and Kinney were taking a break in 2016, following speculation they had split.

She posted a photo with the actor on Instagram at the time of her breakup with a caption that began, "Taylor and I have always believed we are soulmates."

"Just like all couples we have ups and downs, and we have been taking a break," Gaga wrote. "We are both ambitious artists, hoping to work through long-distance and complicated schedules to continue the simple love we have always shared."

Gaga used her Elle speech to talk about the role women play Hollywood and referenced her own experience with sexual assault.

"We women in Hollywood, we are voices," she said. "We have deep thoughts and ideas and beliefs and values about the world and we have the power to speak and be heard and fight back when we are silenced."

CNN has reached out to reps for Gaga for comment.

This story was first published on CNN.com "Lady Gaga thanks her 'fiance' during speech" Flash

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday said that Turkey could take necessary operation against Kurdish militants' presence east of the Euphrates River in Syria.

Speaking to parliamentary group of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), the president said if the United States does not take action in east of the Euphrates River or the implementation is delayed, Turkey will take all necessary steps at the highest level against Kurdish militants in that area.

Erdogan referred to an agreement with the U.S. that was brokered between the two foreign ministers on June 4, which stipulates the removal of People's Protection Units (YPG) militants from Manbij in a 90-day timeline.

Erdogan said that Turkey would take measures in the area "not only for the peace of our country but also for the people living in this region."

Erdogan's words came one day before the U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's visit to Turkey, amid an ongoing investigation of the Khashoggi case in Istanbul.

Earlier this year, Turkey carried out Operation Olive Branch to seize control of Syria's Afrin region from the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, which Ankara considers a terrorist organization. The YPG also controls the Syrian region east of the Euphrates.



 Flash

China and the Netherlands agreed to enhance exchanges and cooperation between the two legislative bodies for the further development of the two countries' relations.





Interactions between the two legislative bodies serve as an important part of China-Netherlands ties, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said when meeting with Ankie Broekers-Knol, president of the Senate, and Khadija Arib, president of the House of Representative of the Netherlands on Tuesday.





He hoped the two legislative bodies will give full play to their role as representatives of public opinion and a bridge between the two peoples to forge a more solid public foundation for closer cooperation and ties based on the principle of mutual respect and treating each other as equals.





Chinese President Xi Jinping and Dutch King Willem-Alexander exchanged visits in recent years, Li said, adding that the two countries have witnessed close exchanges between governments and legislative bodies and enjoyed fruitful results from cooperation in various fields.





China is willing to work with the Netherlands to reinforce communication and consultation over global affairs and jointly safeguard multilateralism and free trade, Li said.





The parliamentary leaders welcome Li's visit, saying that the Netherlands is one of the first western countries to recognize the establishment of new China.





Highlighting the frequent high-level exchanges and the close economic ties between China and the Netherlands, they said the two countries' practical cooperation scores continuous achievements.





The Dutch parliament highly values the two countries' relations, they said, noting that it is willing to strengthen exchanges with the Chinese legislative body and continue to play a constructive role in the healthy and stable development of Netherlands-China ties.(CNN)  The number of people facing starvation in Yemen could rise to nearly 12 million as conflict intensifies around the port of Hodeidah, a vital aid delivery link, the World Food Programme told CNN Monday.

A collapsing currency and deteriorating economic situation in the Middle East's poorest country are also aggravating the situation, the UN agency said.

The WFP said 18 million people in Yemen already do not know where their next meal is coming from and eight million of those are "considered on the brink of famine."

"Since June, some 570,000 people have had to flee their homes from fighting in Hodeidah, while the Yemeni riyal has undergone an alarming depreciation, and the cost of basic food items has gone up by a third since this time last year," WFP Yemen country director Stephen Anderson told CNN.

"If this situation persists, we could see an additional 3.5 million severely insecure Yemenis, or nearly 12 million in total, who urgently require regular food assistance to prevent them from slipping into famine-like conditions," he said.

Earlier Monday, the UN's Humanitarian Coordinator in Yemen, Lisa Grande, told the BBC that unless the hostilities stop, Yemen would witness the worst famine the world has known for 100 years.

Hodeidah, with its key port installations that bring in UN and other humanitarian aid, has become the center of the conflict in Yemen between Arab allies led by Saudi Arabia and Houthi rebels backed by Iran. Ground troops allied to the Saudi coalition are trying to drive out the rebels controlling the city.

"Civilians in Yemen are not starving, they are being starved. Let it be known that the worst famine on our watch is wholly man-made by Yemen's local conflict parties and their international sponsors," Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, said in a statement.

"Yemen has long been bombarded with air strikes and subjected to strangling tactics of war. Mass starvation is a deadly byproduct of actions taken by warring parties and the Western nations propping them up. The way the war is waged has systematically choked civilians by making less food available and affordable to millions of people," he said.

WFP's Anderson told CNN that conflict around Hodeidah is currently blocking the aid group's access to wheat stocks there.

"Due to the highly volatile security situation in Hodeidah city, WFP does not have access to its 51,000 tons of wheat stocks at the critical Red Sea Mills facility, which is sufficient to feed 3.7 million of the hungriest people in northern and central Yemen for one month," Anderson said. "We are doing everything we can to ensure access to these wheat stocks."

CNN has been able to prove that weapons supplied to the Saudi-led coalition by the U.S. have been killing children in Yemen.

A spokeswoman for the Pentagon told CNN last month that "the final decisions on the conduct of operations in the campaign are made by the members of the Saudi-led coalition, not the United States."

The Saudi-led coalition said its targeting operations in Yemen resembled the "highest international standards" and pledged to investigate the incidents uncovered by CNN.

UK charity Save the Children said last week that five million children in Yemen face famine and the average child there has already witnessed a staggering 18,000 airstrikes.

The NRC's Egeland said in order to avoid widespread famine in Yemen, the US, the UK, France and Iran must call for an immediate ceasefire and warring factions need to come to the table and agree on a peace deal.

He also called for measures to rapidly revive Yemen's economy and allow the free flow of goods and aid into and across the country.

This story was first published on CNN.com, "Twelve million face famine in Yemen if bombs don't stop, WFP warns."Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 17)  After declaring a Senate bid, former Senator Bong Revilla's family hopes he will be out of detention by the end of the year  giving him time to hit the campaign trail before elections in May 2019.

The Senator filed his candidacy on Wednesday through his wife, Bacoor, Cavite Mayor Lani Mercado-Revilla. She said the family was keeping its fingers crossed that he would be released by December 10.

"We are waiting for the decision of the court," she told CNN Philippines' The Source. "Hopefully, we are all praying that the decision will be in favor of Sen. Bong, that he will soon be free and he will be campaigning for his senatorial bid."

Revilla will be running under the banner of Lakas-CMD, the party of former President-turned-House Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

The former Senator is detained for plunder charges arising from his alleged involvement in the multi-billion peso pork barrel scam, where government funds were funneled into bogus non-government organizations.

After his colleagues Jinggoy Estrada and Juan Ponce Enrile filed their candidacies on Tuesday, Revilla throwing his hat in the ring means all three senators tagged in the multi-billion pork barrel scam are seeking a comeback.

Facing these charges does not automatically disqualify aspirants from running for public office, according to the Commission on Elections and Sandiganbayan Presiding Justice Amparo Cabotaje-Tang.

Tang said a conviction must be final before it can be a ground for disqualification. "So if there is a pending [motion for reconsideration] or appeal from the judgement of conviction, the disqualification does not yet attach," Tang said in a text message.

Revilla's case in particular is already up for judgement at the Sandiganbayan after both the prosecution and defense rested their case earlier this year.

This is supported by the Omnibus Election Code. Section 12 of the Code states a candidate can be disqualified if he has been sentenced by final judgement to a penalty of more than 18 months, unless he has been granted pardon or amnesty. Plunder carries a penalty of lifetime imprisonment.

Mercado-Revilla said that her husband had not initially planned to run, but he was prompted to do so after performing well in surveys.

"The party visited him in Camp Crame and encouraged him to run," Mercado Revilla recounted. "There are some members of the family who would like to spare him of the hurt because of what happened... But since filing ends today, deep in his heart, he has decided."

"Sabi niya, ikulong man ako, pero hindi puwedeng ikulong ang diwa at pagmamahal sa ating bayan [He said, even if I am jailed, they cannot jail my love for the country]," she added.

When asked what the family would do if he was not released from detention, Mercado-Revilla said they had not discussed it.

"We have not thought about this particular instance yet. If that happens, then we shall decide," she said. "But so far, tuloy po ang laban ni Sen. Bong Revilla."

CNN Philippines Correspondent AC Nicholls contributed to this story.Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 17)  The Boracay Inter-Agency Task Force is planning to take legal action against a resort company for allegedly faking papers so it could operate on the island.

In July, the government suspended the permits of all resorts and hotels in Boracay due to the massive six-month cleanup. These establishments would then be subjected to a reassessment as part of the rehabilitation.

So far, only 68 of the more than 400 establishments have passed muster.

None of the six establishments under the Henann Group of Resorts, the company being accused by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), were included in the list.

The Task Force, however, discovered the company submitted what appeared to be a fake DENR environment compliance certificate.

The document did not have a control number, an embossed seal, and a DENR endorsement letter.

The Department of Tourism discovered the discrepancy and brought it to the DENR's attention.

The DENR said it will file legal action against Henann.

"We will be filing legal action against them, because this kind of action will not be tolerated. This is a big hotel chain here in Boracay... Hindi naman po sila lulusot dahil nagkakaroon pa kami ng counter checking e. At the end of the line, pagkarating sa dot, chinechek pa rin po namin e [They will not slip through because we conduct counter checking. At the end of the line, we check]," Environment Undersecretary Benny Antiporda said.

The resort group is denying the allegations.

On Wednesday, Dindo Salazar, resort manager-Boracay of the Henann Group of Companies told the media, "As far as I know, our management has an ongoing investigation of this case. And our president, Ms. Helen Lim, hasn't authorized anybody to submit unofficial or fake documents and that is why we are having this investigation which we will update the Boracay Inter-Agency Department in due time."

Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu said Monday he met with Henann's owner in Boracay who tried to explain what happened  that it was an office staff member who prepared the document, and the owner had no knowledge about it.

Despite the explanation, Cimatu said a case would still be filed.

"Nagso-sorry nga e, nagso-sorry yung may ari kahapon. Nagso-sorry sya. Na, pasensya na lang yung ginawa ng aking, sabi ko hindi pasensya. Kaso yan," he said.

[Translation: The owner was apologizing yesterday. I said it was no good. That's a case.]Courtesy Lauren Hugelmaier family(RALEIGH, N.C.) -- The family of Lauren Phelps, who was brutally murdered by her husband last year, spoke out in an exclusive interview with Good Morning America on Wednesday to warn other families about the signs of domestic violence.



Matthew Phelps, an aspiring pastor, told police that hed taken too much cold medicine when he fatally stabbed his wife inside their North Carolina home on Sept. 1, 2017, but her family offered a more sinister explanation for the murder.



He planned the whole thing from the get-go in my opinion, right from day one to the end, the slain womans father, Dale Hugelmaier, told Good Morning America on Wednesday. The last time I saw my daughter, she came over looking for a three-ring binder. She was nervous and a little edgy and it didnt look Lauren at all. ... She looked a mess.



I regret it now -- that I didnt ask questions about what was going on, he added.



Sitting alongside his wife, Laurie, and his older daughter, Beth Anger, Dale Hugelmaier said his 29-year-old daughter was being abused by her husband and was too afraid to tell anyone. Now, hes haunted by memories from her last days and constantly wondering whether he could have saved her, he said.



I think about it everyday. What I did wrong. What I missed. Till this day I just regret not knowing or keeping my eyes open and watching, Dale Hugelmaier said. I just took everything as is.



Matthew Phelps, who called 911 to report the murder, apologized to the Hugelmaiers in court earlier this month after pleading guilty to first-degree murder. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole, but the family says theyre still not satisfied with the result.



When asked about forgiving Matthew Phelps, Dale Hugelmaier replied: No. Never. I mean, I'll take him to my grave. And I'll still hate him.



Two months before her death, Lauren Phelps revealed horrifying details about her husbands previous marriage, including claims that he assaulted his prior wife and lied to her about the nature of their separation, according to the family.



He was so good at manipulating the situation, her mother, Laurie, said before breaking down in tears. They told us that he had killed her and that he had stabbed her. And he had stabbed her so many times that they would have to count the stab wounds in the autopsy.



She was laying on her stomach on the floor. He was sitting on her back stabbing her, she added.



The couple had been married for 10 months at the time of the murder, but the family said Lauren Phelps was ready to end it.



I think, that night when he left with another woman, she just said, Im done. I cant do it, Anger said. That was the night he killed her.



Anger said shed spoken to her sister just a few hours before she died. She said the couple had been arguing over Matthew Phelps alleged cheating and Lauren Phelps said she notified him about her plans to leave.



I think that he made a decision that day that Lauren was not gonna leave him, even if that meant he had to kill her, Anger told GMA. The police called him a monster. And we're talking about homicide detectives who see homicides every day.



Investigators said Lauren Phelps was found lying in the fetal position on the couple's bedroom floor, suffering from 123 stab wounds, including some to her head, neck and arms, according to an autopsy report.



"I have blood all over me and there's a bloody knife on the bed," Matthew Phelps, said in a 911 call. "I think I did it."

Copyright  2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 17)  Three ex-Senators  all slapped with graft and plunder charges  are seeking a return to the political scene.

Former Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, and former Senators Jinggoy Estrada and Bong Revilla are all eyeing a comeback to the upper chamber and have filed their certificates of candidacy (COC) for the 2019 midterm polls.

The three former lawmakers were charged with graft and plunder back in 2014 for alleged involvement in the multibillion-peso Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) scam. They were implicated by alleged pork barrel scam mastermind Janet Lim-Napoles, who was accused of funneling 10 billion of lawmakers' funds into bogus nongovernment organizations.

Enrile, 94, told CNN Philippines Tuesday that age is but a number, as he remains "physically and mentally fit" to serve the public if elected.

The veteran official also shrugged off this past controversy, saying he is "innocent until proven guilty" in the pork barrel scam case.

Enrile was ordered arrested in 2014 for his supposed links to scam. In 2015, the Supreme Court allowed him to post bail.

READ: Enrile forgets his political party, forced to personally refile Senate candidacy

Estrada, for his part, remains confident that he'll be elected despite the pending raps against him. The former Senator, who filed his COC on Tuesday, said that if he had done it before, then he can do it again.

"The first time I ran for senator in 2004, I also have a pending plunder case which has not been resolved by the courts. It did not affect me since I won during the 2004 elections. And I don't think it will affect now," said Estrada, who will be running under the Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino party.

Estrada was detained at the Philippine National Police Custodial Center in 2014 for allegedly receiving 183 million in kickbacks from his PDAF or the funds set aside for lawmakers' projects.

He was temporarily released in September 2017 after the anti-graft court Sandiganbayan allowed him to post a 1-million bail for the plunder and graft charges.

Revilla, the remaining solon detained, also filed his candidacy on Wednesday through his wife Bacoor, Cavite Mayor Lani Mercado-Revilla.

His family hopes that the former Senator will be out of detention by the end of the year, giving him ample time to campaign.

"We are waiting for the decision of the court," Mercado-Revilla told CNN Philippines' The Source on Wednesday.

"Hopefully, we are all praying that the decision will be in favor of Sen. Bong, that he will soon be free and he will be campaigning for his senatorial bid."

Revilla will be running under the banner of Lakas-CMD, the party of former President-turned-House Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

READ: Bong Revilla's family hopes for his release from detention in time for Senate campaign

In response, Liberal Party President and Senator Francis "Kiko" Pangilinan said the former solons' bid for reelection shows "the level of disrespect and cynicism" in the country's democracy and electoral system.

CNN Philippines' Alyssa Rola, Eimor Santos, and Regine Cabato contributed to this report.Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 17)  The Philippine Competition Commission (PCC) announced that it will impose a P16-million penalty on ride-hailing apps Grab Philippines and Uber for violations including failing to maintain separate operations before their merger was approved.

PCC Commissioner Stella Quimbo said Uber halted operations on April 8 even after the PCC issued an order for it to continue its services while the anti-trust body reviews the merger transaction.

"Ang sinabi namin sa Uber na hindi pa siya pwedeng mag-exit ng market sa April. Sabi namin diyan na muna kayo, manatili kayo diyan at ito naman ay temporary lamang [habang] nirereview namin kayo," Quimbo told CNN Philippines' Balitaan.

[Translation:What we told Uber was they are not allowed to exit the market just yet. We told them to remain temporarily while we review their merger]

The PCC earlier cleared the merger between Grab and Uber, setting several conditions that would control price levels amid Grab operating as a "virtual monopolist."

"The PCC's commitment decision holds Grab to a standard as if Uber were present in the market," it said in August this year.

Quimbo added that they have detected ten counts of violations on two of the conditions set for their merger.

The parties were fined P4 million each for failing to keep their businesses separate as ordered. Grab was fined with an additional P8 million for failing to comply with price policies and incentives as set by the conditions. On the other hand, Uber was slapped with a P4 million fine for the same set of violations.

In response, Grab said it will review the anti-trust body's order before giving further comments.

"We are currently studying all our legal options with regard to the fine imposed by the Philippine Competition Commission," Leo Gonzales, Grab Public Affairs Head said.

READ: Anti-trust body clears Grab-Uber merger subject to service, price conditions

This is not the first time that Grab and Uber are being fined for alleged violations.

In July, transportation officials ordered the TNC to pay a P10-million penalty for allegedly overcharging its passengers. Meanwhile, the previous year, transport regulators slapped a 5 million peso-fine on Grab and Uber for accrediting new drivers while a suspension order was in effect.

The Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) also suspended Grab's P2 peso-per-minute charge on rides - a fee that was not approved by the agency.

Grab merged with its competitor Uber on April 8. Uber agreed to the decision to "compete with real focus and weight in the core markets where we operate, while giving us valuable and growing equity stakes in a number of big and important markets where we don't."

READ: Uber to transition services over to Grab in AprilMetro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 17)  House Majority Leader Rolando Andaya, Jr. survived what seemed to be an attempt to take his life when he formalized his bid for Camarines Sur Governor on Tuesday.

Shortly after Andaya filed his certificate of candidacy in the Capital Complex of Camarines Sur, a gunman sneaked up on him and tried to pull out a firearm, which he dropped that caught the attention of Andaya's companions, a police report said.

Andaya's close-in security later seized the gunman and recovered a caliber .38 revolver loaded with five bullets. They turned over his weapon to PO3 Renan Bongalon at the Comissions on Elections in Camarines Sur where he was the on-duty personnel, the report said.

The gunman was identified as Ray John Musa, a member of the Capitol Complex Security Unit. He was arrested and charged with attempted murder and the violation of the Comprehensive Firearms and Ammunition Regulation Act following the incident.

A statement from Andaya's camp said he suspects "powerful political figures" in Camarines Sur to be behind the attempt, but he did not disclose names. However, his resolve to run for the position remains firm.

"Kung akala nila matatakot ako, diyan sila nagkakamali. Wala nang atrasan ito," he added.

[Translation: If they think they can scare me, they are making a mistake. There's no backing out from here.]

Andaya is the 1st District Representative of Camarines Sur. He replaced Ilocos Norte 1st District Representative Rodolfo Farinas as House Majority Leader in July.Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.

0108263 License for publishing multimedia online



Registration Number: 130349 Registration Number: 130349We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on!

Go to formWe attempted to send a notification to your email address but we were unable to verify that you provided a valid email address. Please click here to update your email address if you wish to receive notifications. Otherwise, you may click here to disable notifications and hide this message.Marawi City (CNN Philippines, October 17)  Nature is slowly eating up what's left of battle-ruined Marawi. Vines and weeds cover structures pockmarked by bullets and bombs.

A year since the city was liberated from Islamic State-inspired Maute Group, Marawi's ground zero Marawi's ground zero has become almost a ghost town. Only a few soldiers occasionally patrol its streets day and night.

Residents in this part of the city cannot return home just yet. The closest that they can get is by passing through a road temporarily opened to divert traffic.

For displaced residents like Joari Pacasum, having a glimpse of their destroyed houses through the windows of their vehicles is like their dream to return home - so near yet so far.

"Habang nakikita namin ang Marawi, parang di pa kami nakakabalik, parang sumasariwa sa amin ang nangyari. Nararamdaman namin 'yung sakit," Pacasum said.

For a year and five months, Pacasum said they have been enduring each day of uncertainty to survive, hoping that tomorrow will be a better one.

As what Muslims say, "Inshallah!" or In God's will.

But anxiety also attacks from time to time. That's why Pacasum said they can't help but ask:

"Ano ba ang plano ng gobyerno? Kailan kami. Kailan sisimulan. Kasi sabi nila rehab, rehab, rehab... Hanggang ngayon, di namin alam kung may nasimulan na ba."

[Translation: What is government's plan? When will it begin? They say rehab, rehab, rehab, but up until now, we don't know if they started on anything.]

Drieza Laninding of Moro Consensus Group reiterated Pacasum's sentiments.

The scheduled rehabilitation of the war-torn city had been postponed several times because of failure in negations with the supposed developer. With this, Laninding said frustration among the affected residents grows bigger each day.

"Kung gaano kabilis ang pag-decide nila na bombahin 'yung mga bahay, religious institutions, madrasah, mga mosque, lahat-lahat ng nandiyan sa Marawi, e hindi naman ganon kabilis ang pag-aksyon nila sa rehabilitasyon," Laninding said.

[Translation: The speed at which they decide to bomb our homes, our religious institutions, our madrasah, our mosques, everything is in Marawi, is quicker than their ability to act upon rehabilitation.]

"Let us go home!" Laninding added.

Groundbreaking

Task Force Bangon Marawi recently announced that the groundbreaking will happen on October 17, in time for the anniversary of Marawi Liberation Day.

But since President Duterte will not be available on that date, it's being delayed again.

The Task Force expects the groundbreaking to take place on October 28.

"If the president could not make it on Oct 17, we are open to have it one week later. But we are doubling our efforts for the preparation of the ground breaking activity. And the president's presence is very important," said Task Force Bangon Marawi Chairperson Eduardo Del Rosario in a briefing in Malacanang.

Task Force Bangon Marawi (TFBM) said the 75-million-pesos debris clearing project was awarded to FINMAT International, a local company that partners with Power China, a state-owned construction company of Peoples Republic of China. The project will commence in a six-hectare pilot site. It's the first of the 24 sub-projects under the Marawi Rehabilitation Program.

But the military reported that around 50 unexploded bombs are still buried somewhere around ground zero which poses possible harm.

And finding those UXOs may take some time as well.

TFBM clarified that locating the unexploded bombs is part of the debris clearing project since FINMAT and Power China have the equipment to do it.

"The strategy that we will apply is for this pilot project, there will be six hectares. Before the contractor will clear the debris, it will be subjected to another clearing of unexploded ordnances," said Del Rosario.

Del Rosario added that the government may save more money as they intend to carry-out negotiations with developers for every sub-project.

For instance, TFBM said the entire debris clearing works was initially pegged at 3.25 billion but now, it's down to 200 million. Also the construction of road networks with underground utility lines was initially at 207 millionper kilometer but now, it's at 175 million per kilometer.

While Del Rosario admits that everything except for the awarded project is still fluid, what he is certain of is that the price of the rehabilitation will still go lower.

"It's fortunate for us because we are lowering the cost with even the same or better quality," Del Rosario said.

Despite changes in schedule and developer, authorities are confident, they will be able to finish Marawi's rehabilitation by the end of 2021 or around three years from now.

If everything goes smoothly and as planned, based on TFBM's schedule, displaced Maranaos from the most affected area of the city may start returning and rebuilding their homes by 2020.

Permanent Shelters

While private companies and non-government organizations have expressed their preparedness to build permanent shelters for bakwits, the difficulty to find parcels of land has been delaying it.

"San Miguel Corporation and UN Habitat in coordination with JICA, they'll be providing a total of 3,500 housing units. However, we don't have the lots where the permanent houses will be constructed," Del Rosario explained.

Initially the alleged overpriced land ranging from P1000 to P2000 per square meter was an issue. But Del Rosario said that they will not buy land that will cost the government more than P500 per square meter.

So far, the National Housing Authority (NHA) through TFBM has negotiated for a total of 93 hectares of land.

TFBM Secretariat head Undersecretary Falconi Millar said they negotiated the first 39 hectares at P310 per square meter and the remaining 54 hectares at a cheaper P250 per square meter because it's farther from the city center.

Millar says they are still securing the approval of the NHA board to proceed with the purchase.Concurs de granturi adresat COMUNITATILOR (APL) pentru sporirea rezilientei lor la schimbarile climatice si FEMEILOR ANTREPRENOARE in vederea dezvoltarii unor afaceri prietenoase mediuluiMetro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 17)  The Philippines stayed at 56th of 140 economies assessed in the World Economic Forum's (WEF) global competitiveness report for 2018.

The new version of the Global Competitiveness Index released Tuesday reported the Philippines got an overall score of 62 out of 100 points. It showed that the country is one of five developing economies in the East Asia and Pacific Region where growth increased more than 6 percent.

However, the same report pointed out that the Philippines is one of the countries with notable problems linked to violence, crime or terrorism. It added Philippine police are considered unreliable.

The WEF report looked at 12 pillars to assess country rankings: institutions, infrastructure, information and communications technology adoption, macroeconomic stability, health, skills, product market, labor market, financial system, market size, business dynamism, and innovation capability.

The Philippines was strongest in market size (32nd), labor market (36th), financial system (39th) and business dynamism (39th).

The report also revealed that the Philippines was weakest in institutions (101st), health (101st) and infrastructure (92nd). Indicators showed that the country ranked low in the efficiency of train services, road connectivity, and electrification in terms of infrastructure.

It stated that under the institutions pillar, the country ranked low in terrorism incidence (136th), organized crime (120th), regulating conflict of interest in institutions (121st), and the reliability of police service (123rd).

United States led the index with an 85.6 score, folowed by Singapore at 83.5 and Germany at 82.8.

Factors to assess economies were revised under the new Global Competitiveness Index. Last year, the Philippines ranked 56th, using the 2017 version of WEF's index.

This year's index studied drivers of a nation's productivity and long-term growth by asking what areas it must prioritize.(CNN)  U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo held talks with top Saudi leaders Tuesday as sources told CNN that the kingdom is preparing to acknowledge that missing journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.

Pompeo had a short discussion with King Salman before a longer meeting with the King's son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert described the meetings as "direct and candid." Pompeo "thanked the King for his commitment to supporting a thorough, transparent, and timely investigation" of the Khashoggi case, she said.

CNN's sources said Saudi Arabia plans to contend that the Washington Post columnist died when an interrogation went awry, but there was no public mention on Tuesday of any new Saudi explanation of Khashoggi's disappearance.

Pompeo will fly to Ankara Wednesday to meet with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, Nauert said. A Turkish official told CNN on Tuesday that Khashoggi's body had been cut up after he was killed in the consulate.

In Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said officials, who searched the consulate for nine hours on Monday, are looking into "toxic" and "painted over material" as part of their investigation.

"My hope is that we can reach conclusions that will give us a reasonable opinion as soon as possible, because the investigation is looking into many things such as toxic materials and those materials being removed by painting them over," Erdogan told reporters.

Saudi Arabia has been under intense international pressure to explain Khashoggi's apparent death after he visited the consulate on October 2 to obtain papers that would have allowed him to marry his Turkish fiancee.

The affair has created a diplomatic rift between Saudi Arabia and the West and led to international firms pulling out of a high-profile summit in Riyadh. The CEOs of three top banks -- Standard Chartered, HSBC and Credit Suisse -- announced their withdrawal from the conference Tuesday.

UK Opposition Leader Jeremy Corbyn said Khashoggi's disappearance calls into question the close relationship many Western countries have with Saudi Arabia and called for an immediate suspension of arms trade with the kingdom. He added that there needs to be an international investigation into the events in Turkey, describing it as an "abominable tragedy."

Flurry of meetings

Trump dispatched Pompeo to the region shortly after a phone call on Monday with King Salman. He was met at the airport in Riyadh on Tuesday by the Saudi foreign minister, and undertook a flurry of engagements with top officials throughout the day.

Pompeo's meeting with the King was relatively brief. Based on the arrival and departure times of his motorcade, CNN estimates the encounter can have lasted no more than 15 minutes. Pompeo met with the Crown Prince for about 35 to 40 minutes, and was due to meet him again for dinner later.

The State Department provided little information about the substance of the discussions, beyond saying that Pompeo expressed concern about Khashoggi's case and the need for a full investigation.

Turkish authorities have said privately that Khashoggi was killed at the consulate in Istanbul as his fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, waited outside. Saudi Arabia has previously insisted he left the building alive, but Cengiz says she never saw him again.

She tweeted a Quranic verse on Tuesday promising "eternal hellfire" for the killers of "deliberate believers."

Sources told CNN on Monday that the Saudis are preparing a report that will acknowledge that the death of Khashoggi, a former Saudi royal insider who became a critic of the crown prince, was the result of an interrogation that went wrong. The sources said the interrogation was intended to lead to Khashoggi's enforced return to Saudi Arabia.

One source said the report will likely conclude that the operation was carried out without clearance and transparency, and that those involved will be held responsible. A source acknowledged that the report was still being prepared and cautioned that the Saudis' plans could change.

If Riyadh goes public with its new explanation, it would require a reversal of its previous claim that Khashoggi had left the consulate alive.

After Trump's call with King Salman on Monday, he floated the possibility that Khashoggi died during an unauthorized operation. "It sounded to me like maybe these could have been rogue killers -- who knows," Trump told reporters.

Trump's comments may be a sign that Washington is preparing to accept Saudi Arabia's efforts to distance its leaders from whatever fate befell Khashoggi.

Turkish investigation

At a press conference in Ankara, the Turkish foreign minister said Saudi Arabia had not yet acknowledged its role in Khashoggi's disappearance.

"We didn't receive any confession or information from Saudi Arabia," Cavusoglu said, adding that Turkey expected to get more details about the Saudi position when Pompeo arrives in Turkey on Wednesday.

Turkish investigators were expected to carry out a search of the Saudi consul general's residence in Istanbul later on Tuesday. CCTV footage, which has served as a focal point in the investigations, showed vehicles moving from the consulate building to the nearby consul general's residence on October 2.

The semiofficial Anadolu news agency said Saudi's Istanbul Consul General Mohammed Otaibi had now left Turkey.

On Monday, Turkish officials conducted an investigation of the main consulate building that lasted well into the evening. Earlier in the day, CNN reporters saw a cleaning crew enter the consulate.

Khashoggi's family issued a statement in which they acknowledged for the first time that the journalist was no longer alive.

"The strong moral and legal responsibility which our father instilled in us obliges us to call for the establishment of an independent and impartial international commission to inquire into the circumstances of his death," they said in the statement.

United Nations human rights chief Michelle Bachelet called on Riyadh to lift immunity -- bestowed by the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations -- on its diplomatic premises, given the seriousness of the allegations leveled against Saudi Arabia.

"Under international law, both a forced disappearance and an extrajudicial killing are very serious crimes, and immunity should not be used to impede investigations into what happened and who is responsible," Bachelet said in a statement released Tuesday.

In the United States, Attorney General Jeff Sessions left open the door to potential U.S. involvement when asked about Khashoggi's disappearance. He would offer no additional information and he would not comment on the credibility of the investigation.

"The matter is being given serious evaluation," he said.

This story was first published on CNN.com, "Pompeo meets Saudi King as Khashoggi family calls for inquiry into 'death'."A website devoted to Colorado Wine and beyond.Questo comunicato e stato pubblicato piu di 1 anno fa. Le informazioni su questa pagina potrebbero non essere attendibili.

Market Overview:

Food Anti-Caking Agents Market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 4.5% over the forecast period. Food anti-caking agents are fine powdered substances, used as an additives to prevent the formations lumps in food. They are used to absorb excess moisture or to create a water-repellent coating on the food surface. They are also used in the food products to increase the shelf-life of food. Apart from these properties, they also helps in maintaining the taste and physical appearance of the food product. Owing to these listed properties, it has increased the global food anti-caking agents market.

Anti-caking agents are fine powdered substances, which is used as an additives to prevent the formations lumps in food or other sources. Anti-caking agents are mostly water soluble in nature, while some are also soluble in alcohol and other organic solvents. They are used as a coating on the matrix to absorb excess moisture or to create a water-repellent coating on the surface.

Europe is the leading market for food anti-caking agents and is expected to grow substantially over the forecast period 2017-2023. In Europe, Germany and France are dominating the food anti-caking agents market because of changing lifestyle of the consumers, which has increased the demand for the use of convenience food. High demand in the food industry has increased the demand for food anti-caking agents in this region.

Furthermore, regulations for the use of anti-caking agents in food under the European Food Safety Authority is expected to hinder the growth rate of the market in upcoming years. Considering these factors, Europe is projected to grow at a CAGR of 4.5 % during the forecast period 2017-2023.

Request Sample Report Here @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/4592

Major Key Players:

This report includes a study of strategies such as mergers, acquisitions, and product launches by the major food anti-caking agents market players. It further includes product portfolios, developments of leading players, which includes

The key players profiled in the food anti-caking agents market are Solvay S.A. (Belgium), Evonik Industries (Germany), Agropur MSI, LLC (the U.S.), Univar Inc. (the U.S.), Brenntag (Germany), PPG Industries (the U.S.), International Media and Cultures, Inc. (the U.S.)

The Global Food Anti-Caking Agents Market is segmented on the basis of type and applications. Based on the type, calcium compounds-based food anti-caking agents holds a major share amongst the various types. On the basis of application, the soups and sauces industry hold a bigger market share.

Key Findings:

Anti-caking agents market has increased demand from industries such as food, feed and fertilizers. Top exporters of food anti-caking agents include countries such as the Egypt, Japan, Germany, and the U.S.

Segments:

Food anti-caking agents market is segmented on the basis of type, which includes calcium compounds, sodium compounds, magnesium compounds, microcrystalline cellulose compounds, others. Among all, the calcium compounds hold a major share of the global market because of rising consumption of food ingredients and the demand for food products with longer shelf-life.

The global food anti-caking agents market is segmented on the basis of application, which includes bakery products, dairy products, soups and sauces, seasonings and condiments, others. Among all, the soups and sauces show a high growth followed by seasonings and condiments because of their high consumption by the population.

Access Report Details @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/food-anti-caking-agents-market-4592

Regional Analysis:

The Global Food Anti-Caking Agents Market is segmented into Europe, North America, Asia Pacific, and Rest of the World (RoW). Europe market is dominating the global anti-caking agents market followed by North America. In Europe, Germany and France are the major consumers of food anti-caking agents, due to high consumption of ready to eat foods. Moreover, Asia Pacific region is expected to grow in the food anti-caking agent during the forecast period 2017-2023. Owing to rising population and consumer shift towards convenience food.

Furthermore, China, India & Japan are expected to show a high market share of the global food anti-caking agents market in Asia Pacific region.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.WLS(CHICAGO) -- The U.S. Postal Service is now getting involved in the search effort for one of their own.



Kierra Coles, 27, disappeared after being seen on video two weeks ago outside her home. She has not been heard from since, authorities said. On Tuesday, the U.S. Postal Service Inspection Unit announced it was offering a $25,000 reward for help in her safe return.



Coles is 3 months pregnant and has a boyfriend, officials said.



The postal worker was last seen on surveillance video from outside her apartment in Chicago's South Side on Oct. 2. Police said she called out of work that morning saying she was sick, but was seen on the video wearing her uniform and her car was found outside her apartment.



Police said they are treating the case as a non-suspicious missing person.



Coles' mother, Karen Phillips, said it's possible she became overwhelmed by everything that was going on in her life. Phillips told Chicago ABC station WLS her daughter recently moved out of her home and into the apartment.

"Maybe something did happen where she was overcome with a lot, you know when you are pregnant you are emotional," she said. "I want to say she just went somewhere and didn't want to tell nobody and then she will just come home but I don't feel that." USPSThe $25,000 offered by the USPS Inspection Unit is in addition to $3,500 offered by her postal union, WLS reported.



"Whoever it might be knows something," her father Joseph Coles told WLS. Joseph lives in Wisconsin, but has been in town for two weeks handing out flyers and said he "would not leave" before finding her.



"We're not going to sit idly by and we're not going to rest until we find our sister," Mack Julian, from the Letter Carrier's Union, said.



Cole is 5-foot-4 and about 125 pounds with black hair and brown eyes.



Copyright  2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.People and Govt. of India make Prof. Gamini Senanayakes dream a reality

The People and the Government of India saw Senior Professor Gamini Senanayake realize his dream of building an auditorium in memory of Rabindranath Tagore when Indian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka, Taranjith Singh Sandhu dedicated the state-of-the-art Rabindranath Tagore Memorial Auditorium at the University of Ruhuna on October 9.

The Vice Chancellor of the University of Ruhuna speaking at the event recalled that it was in 2011 when he was the Deputy Vice Chancellor that he had mentioned to the Indian High Commissioner at the time of his dream of building an auditorium in memory of the great Indian author Rabindranath Tagore for the University of Ruhuna. The High Commissioner had asked him to submit a proposal for it as soon as possible. He said that he had worked through the night and with the help of the Universitys works engineer he had been able to submit the proposal to the Indian High Commission. Though the Indian government agreed to the fund the project, the Sri Lankan government raised objections and refused to approve it saying that the proposal had not been channeled through the Department of External Resources.

But only when the Indian Government indicated that Premier Narendra Modi in 2015 said he would be looking forward to sign the MOU when he would visit Sri Lanka. The MOU was signed in the presence of the two leaders of the country at a ceremony to which I was not even invited, said Prof. Senanayake.

Nevertheless I am extremely grateful to the people and the government of India for making my dream a reality he added.

The foundation stone for the state of the art auditorium with seating capacity for 1500 was laid by the former Indian High Commissioner Y. K. Sinha on July 21, 2016. The Indian Government has granted Rs. 265 million. Construction of the auditorium was done by Link Engineering (Pvt) Ltd while the State Engineering Corporation of Sri Lanka were the consultants of the project. The consultation fees and all taxes were borne by the Government of Sri Lanka.

Welcoming the distinguished guests on behalf of the University of Ruhuna, Deputy Vice Chancellor Prof. Nayana Alagiyawanna thanked Prof. Gamini Senanayake for devoting his valuable time and energy to obtain the state of the art auditorium and thanked the government of India for providing the funds.

Indian High Commissioner Taranjith Singh Sandhu said that Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore was an intellectual and a giant among men whose contribution to arts, music, education and literature was unparalleled and he was the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. The auditorium has been built conforming to the designs of Sri Lankas most famous architect Geoffrey Bawa as we have always believed in delivering as per your choices and priorities

Quoting Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the High Commissioner said We should remain students for life a time and we should yearn to learn from every moment in life He also said that Universities are not mere lecture theatres but meeting places of minds where new ideas are born and where all boundaries that differentiate one man from the other are transcended.

He urged the students of the University of Ruhuna to connect with the youth of India and take advantage of the scientific and educational development in India. India of today is very different from yesteryear. He said that India has the third largest scientific and technical manpower in the world and that Indias internet user base is the second largest in the world and leads the world in mobile data consumption. The government of India offers 750 scholarships to Sri Lankan students for undergraduate, postgraduate and doctorate study.

The High Commissioner reiterated that India remained committed to walking with Sri Lanka in the journey towards development and was always ready to extend offer Indias expertise and skill sets.

We believe in making real difference to the lives of people. The dance troupes from the Faculty of Medicine and the Faculty of Fisheries and Marine Science and Technology were honored to be the first to perform at the new auditorium, the Indian High Commissioner said.SYDNEY REUTERS Oct 16 - Crowds thronged the Sydney Opera House and the shores of the citys sparkling harbour on Tuesday to catch a glimpse of Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, on their first public appearance in Australia since the announcement they were expecting a child.



The royal couple began their official tour of Australia with a ferry ride across the harbour to greet cheering crowds packed in front of the Opera House, which was opened by Harrys grandmother, Queen Elizabeth, 45 years ago.



Were both absolutely delighted to be here. We genuinely couldnt think of a better place to announce the upcoming baby, be it a boy or a girl, Harry told a reception at Admiralty House, the official residence of the governor-general.New brand identity to be unveiled at WTM in London

3-year global promotion campaign within 6 months



By Nishel Fernando

The Cabinet of Ministers yesterday decided to award the US $2 million contract to develop a new brand identity and strategy for Sri Lanka tourism to J. Walter Thompson (JWT) within a period six months, a top Minister told Mirror Business.



Tourism and Christian Religious Affairs Minister John Amaratunga said the Cabinet of Ministers yesterday approved the proposal presented by him to award the US $ 2 million contract to J. Walter Thompson.



Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau (SLTPB) Chairman Dehan Seneviratne said the new brand identity will be launched at the World Travel Mart (WTM) in London in November and the country strategy will be completed within a period of six months.



There is a certain level of publicity going on for promoting the new brand along with some of the footages we already have and with some of the footages that was been created, until the global promotion campaign kicks off, he said. Speaking of the progress of preparations for a 3-year global promotion campaign, Seneviratne was confident that the SLTPB will be able to launch a campaign within six months at ITB Berlin in March 2019.

The SLTPB in an earlier occasion said they were planning to spend around US $40-60 million for the 3-year destination marketing plan.



Meanwhile, SLTPB has awarded the contracts to selected digital media agencies to launch the US $3.5 million digital campaign in five key source markets: China, India, the UK, Germany and France



The six month digital market campaign is expected to be launched by the end of next week.



Seneviratne noted that the agencies have completed the preparation of content, to kick off the campaign.



In addition, the Tourism and Christian Religious Affairs Ministry also plans to extend the CNN advertising campaign by another two months.



Sri Lanka plans to lure 4.5 million tourists to the country by 2020. The island nation has attracted 1.73 million tourists at the end of September this year and expects to attract 3 million tourists by end of this year.Chinese private security companies (PSCs) are increasingly going global. Not so long ago they focussed mostly on providing bodyguard services for Chinas rich and famous and guarding facilities in China. But now, Chinas growing global footprint has driven this sector to start operating beyond Chinas borders.



China has had a private security sector since mid-1990s when a small number of PSCs were set up to provide services domestically. These companies operated in legal limbo until the sector was legalised in 2009 with the passing of the Regulation on the Administration of Security and Guarding Services. Since then, the sector has boomed.



It is estimated that in 2018, there were over 5000 PSCs in China. The vast majority still operate exclusively in China but some are now starting to provide their services abroad. In 2016, there were reportedly about 20 Chinese PSCs operating in the international market.



The main driver behind this internationalisation is the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Involving some 65 countries and an estimated US $ 900 billion of planned investments around the globe, the BRI has substantially expanded Chinas global economic presence, often in unstable countries where risks are high. Be it providing maintenance for power plants in Iraq, developing infrastructure in Pakistan or drilling for oil in South Sudan, they face a growing number of threats  from transnational terrorism to anti-Chinese sentiment.



In many of these countries, Chinese companies feel inadequately protected by local security forces  a perception that is underlined every time a Chinese worker is kidnapped or attacked while working on a BRI-linked project. In Pakistan, home to the ChinaPakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the flagship project of the BRI, attacks have already cost the lives of at least 44 Chinese nationals since 2014, including two teachers and an employee of a shipping company.



Until a couple of years ago, Chinese companies operating overseas often hired well-known international security giants, such as G4S or Control Risks. Chinese PSCs were seen as too inexperienced and their services as inadequate, given that most Chinese PSC employees are unarmed when abroad. But while these limitations remain, Chinese companies are increasingly turning to Chinese PSCs for protection overseas.

The reasons for this shift include the language and cultural barriers faced when working with non-Chinese staff as well as financial considerations, since international alternatives tend to be substantially more expensive. Some contractors estimate that a team of 12 Chinese guards might cost the same as a single US or British guard.



But the most important reason is that the Chinese government reportedly encourages Chinese companies operating abroad to hire homegrown PSCs for their security needs. Beijing knows that it must protect its citizens from the risks they face when going overseas to follow its policy priorities. But it is reluctant to deploy the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) for protection. That would mean an official abandonment of Chinas long-standing non-interference policy and it could lead to serious international backlash. As a result, Chinese private security companies have turned into a good alternative.



Despite their nominally private status, Chinese PSCs are mostly staffed by former PLA soldiers with close, if indirect, ties to Beijing. They therefore operate with the tacit support of the Chinese government. As a result, Beijing can keep an eye on what these companies are doing while still maintaining plausible deniability in case things go wrong.



Examples of Chinese PSCs overseas activities are few, as this remains an opaque sector. But over the last few years, a handful of instances have made headlines. In the summer of 2016, employees from Chinese PSC DeWe Security were caught in the middle of a clash between warring local factions in Juba, South Sudan while protecting workers from the China National Petroleum Corporation operating in the country. And two years earlier in June 2014, VSS Security was hired to evacuate 1000 Chinese workers from the China Machinery Engineering Corporation based in Iraq who were fleeing from a standoff between Iraqi government troops and the so-called Islamic State.



Chinese PSCs are likely to continue their internationalisation through BRI-linked opportunities. This potentially offers a good solution to security concerns in BRI countries  Chinese PSCs could simultaneously secure Chinese interests and improve security conditions in dangerous regions without the direct intervention of Beijing.



But there is a risk that increasingly active Chinese PSCs with little conflict experience  the closely associated PLA has not seen large-scale combat since the brief war with Vietnam in 1979  may mishandle conflict scenarios. Such a situation would be a political disaster for Beijing, undermining Chinas efforts to allay concerns over its international investments and its self-proclaimed intentions to become a responsible global power.(Courtesy East Asia Forum)

(Helena Legarda is a Research Associate with the Mercator Institute for

China Studies)Recently I had the opportunity in listen to a lecture on Alzheimers disease, a condition causing memory loss. The lecturer was Prof. Christopher Butler, a neurologist from the University of Oxford. He highlighted some of the biggest issues we will face globally with the rapidly expanding elderly population. And problems pertaining to memory loss. Petrified by what he presented, I was keen to study some numerical data on how Sri Lankan elderly population would expand.

We now have close to 821,000 people aged 75 and above. Which will exceed 1.4 million by 2030. There will be more than 3.5 million people who are more than 65 years of age by then. (Source: US Dept. of Census  International data base) 65 is the age limit we consider when defining the geriatric population. So as a nation, are we prepared to handle health care and related needs of the elderly?

Imagine the workforce we require to provide the comforts to the geriatric population? One to one care wouldnt be a possibility at all as Sri Lanka will require 3.5 million caregivers to look after the same number of elderly people. Unlike some of the developed countries we do not have a government sponsored support system to look after the aged persons. Even certain elderly care homes are facing numerous administration problems. I witness the dropouts who did not meet the entry criteria on the streets  slow diseased and aged men or women begging for survival.

In Sri Lanka, the extended family concept, which is still preserved in the rural areas might mimic an enriched environment. Sadly the large families that once were, are slowly fragmenting into small units, because of the global trends in independent living

Some of you who are reading my article will be entering the geriatric age group within the next decade. Certain issues that the old aged population will face are cognitive health problems (memory and thinking), mental health conditions (loneliness, depression, suicidal thoughts etc), physical injuries, malnutrition, substance abuse and poor housing. As a country we need to anticipate all these complications.

Advances in health care is a key reason for longevity. Unlike medieval times all the scientific knowledge is dissipated globally within a matter of a few days thanks to information technology. Some say that access to better health care, the latest trends and knowledge is just a few seconds away because of smart devices. Healthy trendy habits are being promoted by media. In the state sector where I am an employee, we make use of this knowledge to provide the best of evidence based treatment to the elderly.

Nevertheless there are certain controversial arguments on whether prolonging lives of the elderly is worthwhile, as they are the group that contributes the least to the society. And also on the costs involved in advanced health care. Some expostulate that the lifespan shouldnt be extended through artificial means. As medical professionals what we try to achieve is the minimum amounts of disability so that the aged population can take good care of themselves. Without depending on a caregiver.

We now have close to 821,000 people aged 75 and above

SL needs 3.5 million caregivers to look after same number of elders

Further talking about elderly care and technology, I saw a video of how Japan is attempting to experiment with robots capable of looking in to the needs of the old. In a developing country using technology to this degree might be too costly. Therefore using the existing extended family concept and enriched environment might be a better solution.

What is an enriched environment? This is a situation where the brain is stimulated through social and physical surroundings. Especially after strokes, an enriched environment is proven to be very effective in bringing back the previous functions/ memory. In Sri Lanka, the extended family concept, which is still preserved in the rural areas might mimic an enriched environment. Sadly the large families that once were, are slowly fragmenting into small units, because of the global trends in independent living.

Being a rheumatologist/ rehabilitation specialist, I am keen to enhance the quality of life of my geriatric patients. If the elderly are treated in such a way that mobility related pain becomes ignorable, they usually recommence their previous activities. By avoiding falls, a huge cost and a burden to the family is prevented. In the absence of memory loss (dementia) component, some veteran professionals can contribute a lot to the society using their vast experience. I have witnessed volunteer schemes in the UK where starting from hospital reception help desks, most tasks are done by the elderly. The sense of importance gifted to them through these schemes, is important in enhancing self-esteem.

Sri Lanka has to prepare for the elderly population expansion. Screening for future health needs, correcting all disabilities, promoting self-care and increasing self-esteem of the geriatric population should be our aims

My suggestion is commencing screening programmes exclusively for the elderly in Sri Lanka. This should be a free access facility in all State hospitals. So far we do not have such an established countrywide scheme of screening. One might wonder why we should waste medical resources on such a programme when the hospitals are already overburdened with work. Assessing their health risks years ahead of catastrophic events might save billions of rupees. As falls/ fractures, heart attacks, cancer, blindness, strokes and other related conditions are time consuming and costly to treat.

Unfortunately to this date we do not have a single consultant geriatrician specialized in Sri Lanka to commence such a herculean task. I remember listening to discussions on starting geriatrics as early as my Medical Officer days. Even as I write this article a group of clever specialists are attempting their level best to start this specialty in Sri Lanka. Even if we commence producing several geriatricians this year itself, the rate of production might not meet the enormous demand for geriatricians by the year 2030.

As a concluding remark, I would like to state that Sri Lanka has to prepare for the elderly population expansion. Screening for future health needs, correcting all disabilities, promoting self-care and increasing self-esteem of the geriatric population should be our aims. So when it comes to elderly care and geriatrics I could say -Its been a long time coming but better late than never!

The author is a Consultant in Rheumatology and RehabilitationSri Lankan politics is full of confusions, contradictions and contrasts. The political situation was hotting up even with the possibility of a change of government a week ago. It happened after speculation was rife that President Maithripala Sirisena was contemplating the formation of a new government. The media reports about a secret meeting between President Sirisena and former President Mahinda Rajapaksa at the residence of MP S.B. Dissanayake gave rise to such speculation.

However, political euphoria, generated by it within the opposition, fizzled out last Sunday as the President communicated that he would prefer such a change of government only after the 2019 budget was passed in Parliament.

The President, through his emissaries informed his position to the JO or the MR camp

After a month-long debate, it will be put to a vote only on December 5, 2018

The Prime Minister is slated to visit India this weekend and will meet with Premier Modi

The President, through his emissaries such as MPs S.B. Dissanayake and Dilan Perera, informed his position to the JO or the MR camp.

Incensed by the latest position of the President, the MR camp now believes that it was yet another ruse by the President to hoodwink them with the false promise to form an interim government. According to the President, the United National Party (UNP) has the numerical strength in Parliament to defeat even the annual budget of the interim government. As such, the President believes it is not advisable to form such a minority government with MR at this hour. So, he indicated his interest in considering such a proposal only after the budget.

The dates are already fixed for the budget debate. After a month-long debate, it will be put to a vote only on December 5, 2018. Afterwards, everyone will be in holiday mood for the New Year. After the holiday vacation, things will be on track properly only in January, next year.

After weighing pros and cons, on the contrary to what the President appears to be thinking, the MR camp sees that it is not the correct timing to form a government. All in all, the formation of a new interim government now remains a remote possibility with such contrasting thoughts between the President and the former President coupled with skepticism. Also, the JO makes it conditional that the SLFP led by the President should detach itself from the government for any dialogue on the formation of a new government. A formal decision by the SLFP to this effect is also unlikely under the current circumstances.

The Presidents meeting MR created rumblings within the UNP last week. Now, the UNP can breathe a sigh of relief because a change of their government is not imminent.

President, PM lash out each other at Cabinet

Be that as it may, animosity between President Sirisena and PM Ranil Wickremesinghe took new heights on Tuesday as the two leaders embroiled themselves in a heated exchange of words at the weekly Cabinet meeting. It started after Ports and Shipping Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe presented a Cabinet memorandum seeking approval to develop the East Container Terminal of Colombo Port by Sri Lanka Ports Development Authority (SLPDA).

The Prime Minister, however, opined that that it should be done under an Indian investment. Development Strategies and International Trade Minister Malik Samarawickrama also stressed the need to hand over the terminal for development to India.

The suggestion infuriated the President. In an excited mood, the President unleashed his verbal barrage in all directions sparing no one, and even charged that the country would compromise its sovereignty by alienating its seaports to external parties in this manner.

While rapping the government for leasing out of the Hambantota Port to a Chinese company, he said it would spell more doom in the event of alienation of a stake of the Colombo Port to another country in the same way. If we act like this, we will not be able to berth our own ship in our own port, he said.

The Prime Minister defended his position saying that a bulk of transshipment business at Colombo Port was done with India. He cited it as justification for handing over the East Container Terminal for development to India. But, the President, at this point, referred to his meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi Sectoral and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) summit in Kathmandu, Nepal last month.

PM Modi does not mind the SLPDA developing it single-handedly, he said.

It enraged the Prime Minister prompting him to remark in Sinhala, Modi agamethithuma dannawanam, ona Bambuwak (Hang it if PM Modi knows it!) The Prime Minister is slated to visit India this weekend and will meet with Premier Modi and discuss the issues at hand. The President did not stop at that. He struck a note of criticism on Chinese involvement in development projects as well. I met with Malaysian Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohammad. He asked me to exercise caution in dealing with China, the President added.

RAW conspires to kill me- President

In addition, the President spoke out his disillusionment with the lack of progress in investigations into the alleged assassination attempt on him.

If I am the person with authority in this case, I will not keep the present Inspector General of Police (IGP) even for a week, he thundered.

Commenting on the Indian national questioned over the assassination plot, the President called him an agent of Indias Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). In this way, he tried to tell that RAW was conspiring to eliminate him physically.

I know Indian PM Narendra Modi does not know about it, he said.

Earlier, the accusation was that RAW played a pivotal role in unseating the MR regime and installing the current President. Today, the President accused the very same RAW of hatching a plot to kill him.

Sirimavos foreign policy the best - Rajitha

Amidst tension between the President and the PM, Health Minister Dr. Rajitha Senaratne tried to douse the fire. He opined that Sri Lanka, as a small nation, could not dictate terms to big powers. Instead, he said Sri Lanka needed cooperation of all. In this respect, he cited the foreign policy of former Prime Minister, late Sirimavo Bandaranaike as the best model for Sri Lanka.

She nicely balanced out relations with China and India, he said.

Come what may, the President seems to be toeing a national-minded approach which is, in fact, characteristic of his political upbringing with the SLFP. The SLFP has given leadership till recent times to the left-of-centre political forces of this country. In contrast, the UNP is pursuing the liberal economic model.

The policy contrasts between the UNP and the President are becoming more and more prominent. It has led to indecision in the government on crucial issues. Some of the UNP Ministers doubt whether the President has struck a deal with MR to topple their government. Rising bitterness between the President and the PM has given reasons for them to harbour such thoughts. However, the JO is not that keen to form a government at this hour. Instead, its leaders who met at MRs Colombo residence and discussed measures to apply pressure on the government to conduct provincial council elections.THE HINDU, 16th OCTOBER, 2018-The rival Koreas and the U.S.-led United Nations Command were meeting Tuesday to discuss efforts to disarm a military zone the rivals control within their shared border under a peace agreement between the Koreas.



South Koreas Defense Ministry said the talks at the Panmunjom border village mark the first meeting between the Koreas and the U.N. Command to discuss ways to demilitarize the villages Joint Security Area.



The Korean militaries in past weeks have been clearing mines from the area following a broad agreement meant to reduce military tensions that was forged between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in in their summit last month.



The Koreas plan to withdraw guard posts and firearms from the Joint Security Area once the demining is complete.DPA, 16th OCTOBER, 2018-Two weeks after the resignation of French interior minister Gerard Collomb, President Emmanuel Macron has announced a successor to the post as part of a wider government reshuffle.



Collombs successor will be the leader of La Republique en Marche (LREM), Christophe Castaner, the Elysee Palace announced on Tuesday.

Castaner, part of Macrons inner circle, will give up the party post.



In his inauguration speech, the new interior minister named the fight against terrorism and the safety of every resident as his priorities.



Laurent Nunez, who had headed the domestic intelligence agency, was appointed to Castaners side as future secretary of state on Tuesday.

The cabinets new culture minister is Franck Riester, the new minister for agriculture is Didier Guillaume and Jacqueline Gourault was named the new minister of territorial cohesion.



Macron and French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe had taken an unusually long time to announce the reshuffle, which drew criticism from the opposition, who last week called the delays a tragicomedy.



The reshuffle comes as Macron seeks to regain momentum in the face of poor polling figures after a difficult summer.



Collombs brusque departure on October 2 added to an impression of disarray after popular environment minister Nicolas Hulot resigned live on air in August. The departure of Collomb was a tough blow for Macron, as the ex-mayor of Lyon was an important, long-standing supporter. The presidents summer had already been spoiled by a scandal over an alleged assault on protesters by a presidential security aide.Ceylon's Teachers' Services Unions General Secretary Mahinda Jayasinghe today lodged a complaint to the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption against Education Minister Akila Viraj Kariyawasam. Pix by Nimalsiri EdirisingheDenying the bribery allegation over the high-speed railway project, State Minister of International Trade Sujeewa Senasinghe said that his mother had asked him to leave politics due to continual issues coming towards him.

He said that he was forced into politics; however, he had scored well and secured more votes gradually.

The State Minister said that though it was difficult to do politics he couldnt give up and let down his voters.

He said that it was unfortunate that anyone could throw allegations by holding a press conference and he was distressed by the issue as he was innocent.

To approve the project or whatever they have said, that the State Minister had asked for a bribe, and that is thuggery.

Most investors come and they want to take a picture with me. Im a person who is very accessible. Anyone can meet me. Im not scared. But now Im scared.

If I meet you what you would tell me next time? Why should I ask a bribe if Im not involved with the BOI? he said.

Ceylon High-Speed Railway (CHSR) Limited had submitted an application to 488 million Euro mega integrated high-speed train manufacturing plant project in October 2016 to the Board of Investment (BOI) approval.

However a year later, the project was sent to be evaluated by the Cabinet appointed Single Window Investment Appraisal Committee (SWIAC).

The director board recently in a press briefing allegedly charged that Development Strategies and International Trade Malik Samarawickrama and State Minister of International Trade Sujeewa Senasinghe kept delaying the project seeking a ten percent of the investment as a bribe.

MP Senasinghe said the project was deferred as the investor had failed to submit the required business proposal requested by the SWIAC.

He claimed that such a company was non-existent and there was no Italian investor, although the Board of Directors claimed so.

He said that the board of Directors of the said company had been given several opportunities to provide necessary documents but they failed to do so.

He added they still could provide the requested details.

When asked the director, where the money was coming from he responded that it was a secret. What is the secret about the project proposal and the financial sources? He said that Italians are involved in the project, which is another lie. There are charges against the whole family in this project. And they are making charges against us. Anybody can bring a proposal to the BOI. But there are many regulations they should fulfil to seek approval, he added.

MP Senasinghe said he had written to the President, the Prime Minister, the IGP, the FCID and the CID seeking justice.

He said that the law enforcement authorities should take swift action and investigate into the matter.

I dont know whether to laugh or to cry. It is very unfortunate we have to face such situations. I obtained the background and the CRIB Reports of two Directors of the company who are residents of Ja-Ela.

Action must be taken against them as there is a huge credit against their names.

In my complaint letters, I have urged them to take action and to safeguard us as politicians. We are young politicians doing politics with principles and dignity.

The media also has a duty to report the truth. Not just publish both sides and say that they are neutral.

Do investigative journalism, go through the documentation, ask questions from these people and then if you are satisfied then publish it.

You dont have to be partial towards any side. I think swift measures should be taken. Through Good Governance, we have brought a lot of freedom to the media. That freedom should not be misused. And I would urge President also to have a responsibility. The Prime Minister also has a responsibility in safeguarding us not only those who are close to them. They have a responsibility to safeguard clean and young politicians, MP Senasinghe said.

Im taking legal action against all the individuals who made this allegation and the media institutions that supported them. Laws must be brought in Parliament to prevent tarnishing political characters. Freedom is good only as long as it is in the right hands, the State Minister said. (Thilanka Kanakarathna)

Pix by Kushan Pathiraja

Video by BuddhiWhile rejecting accusations by various parties over the selling of Trincomalee Oil Tank Farm to India, Petroleum Minister Arjuna Ranatunga said the Ministry has not decided to sell the oil tanks which are not being used.

Speaking to the Media at the Ministry yesterday, Minister Ranatunga said his Ministry had no intention to sell the Trincomalee Oil Tank Farm and will not engage in any agreement that brings disadvantage to the country.

Therefore, the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) had decided to launch a joint venture programme with the Indian Oil Company (IOC) to develop the remaining 85 Oil Tanks.

"Another financial contract need to be signed along with the agreement, but it was not signed as yet. 15 oil tanks are already being used by the IOC following an agreement signed between Sri Lanka and India in 2003 and it will remain for another 18 years," he said.

With the possible launching of the joint venture programme, 16 tanks would be retained for the use of CPC and the remainder would be developed and maintained as a joint venture by the CPC and the LIOC.

As a responsible Minister, I have decided to submit a Cabinet paper to keep the land ownership of the Trincomalee oil tank farm under the Government of Sri Lanka.

The retained 16 oil tanks will facilitate in expediting transportation of fuel in the Northern and Eastern provinces. This would help the ministry to save the transportation cost to bring fuel from Colombo. (Chaturanga Samarawickrama)

Pix by Nisal BadugeThe previous regime is supposed to have had a disastrous foreign policy which made for terrible foreign relations. That was what the detractors of that regime told us. Today they are in power and their detractors say the same thing: This governments foreign policy, like most things, is an unmitigated disaster and this is evidenced by the abysmal state of foreign relations.

To get a hang of it all, a simple question would suffice: How does one measure the worth of foreign policy?

The short answer is, healthy foreign relations. That however can be misleading for foreign affairs is a lot of about saying nice things, smiling for the camera and still getting the short end of the stick. It depends often on who is making the claim, about who is giving medical certificates, so to speak.

A representative of a friendly country can say that it has excellent relations with another country because that other country serves the interests of the first or at least does not subvert interests in any way. So too can a sycophantic leadership of a particular country praise the master-nation and wax eloquent about relations between the two. Weve seen that a lot before and after Independence, the most recent being Mangala Samaraweera in his external affairs avatar and probably with a nod from his political master(s) co-sponsoring a patently anti-Sri Lanka resolution in the UNHRC. The US and its allies hailed it and their local cheering squad duly cheered.

There are two things that need to be studied and understood before we embark on designing foreign policy. First, we do not live in a flat world. There are powerful nations and blocs of nations; there are weak nations. This is in terms of wealth and military might.

The powerful have ways of arm-twisting the weak and forcing representatives of nations so subdued to hail subjugation as victory. The work of and processes within multilateral agencies are marked by this reality. This is why one need not get excited when representatives of powerful nations talk about friendship. That is one of the most abused words in the lexicon of diplomacy. The only difference is that these days they dont use the term White mans burden. They force you to submit to their will and nudge you to say Yaaaay! Thats if you havent said it already!

Given this reality, what we are really talking about when it comes to bilateral or multilateral relations and agreements is the negotiation of the terms of subjugation. This brings us to the second element that has to frame foreign policy: National interest.

Its an easy term and one that is easily abused. Self-interest, say that of incumbent political leaders or coalitions, can be called national interest and since those in power have the inside track on the communications apparatus such subterfuge can easily be marketed (which is why vigilance and voice are important elements of political engagement and which is why, typically, those so inclined are purchased or silenced). What the nations interest, ideally, should be figured out through long and informed dialogue, and moreover should be seen as something that is dynamic, ever-changing and yet amenable to broad definition where core and relatively more robust elements are identified.

If there is no notion of what the national interest is or if leaders are lazy, ignorant or flippant about the nations interests, they are easy prey to the manipulations that abound in international forums.

There are two things that need to be studied and understood before we embark on designing foreign policy. First, we do not live in a flat world. There are powerful nations and blocs of nations; there are weak nations. This is in terms of wealth and military might

Importantly, a nation can and should have multiple interests. Some of them may of course be privileged at specific times and under specific conditions, but it has to be understood that all of them are in the picture, always. There are different ways of defining different interest, this has to be understood as well. Security, for some, could be a military matter whereas for others it could include food security, a secure livelihood, a healthy environment etc. For still others, it would resonate with territorial integrity, sovereignty and true and wholesome citizenship. Apart from all this, as mentioned, the multiplicity has to be taken into account and the entire gamut taken as a matrix. Therefore policy designers will have to contend with prioritizing, giving more weight to certain elements over others and always factoring the long term.

A simple example will illustrate. Some might say, as Dr Harsha De Silva has, that it is prudent to frame foreign policy in terms of economic imperatives. However, economic imperatives, just like development are not givens, but are value-laden and not politically innocent. Dr De Silvas imperatives are essentially neoclassical and are therefore attended with all manner of fallacies. Growth-led stuff, to give another example, may have little room to accommodate environmental concerns. Out goes the future, right there.

National security can dominate the equation, at times. So too a frail economy or a failed/failing state (of affairs), or even a floundering government. Inept, corrupt, dictatorial and/or treacherous leaders could conflate political survival with national interest. They could run to their preferred big brother in the international community, plead their case, genuflect if necessary and obtain relief. Foreign policy can be framed in that way too. They can play Brown Sahib. They can be pawns.

In the end, for as long as we remain deficient in some way, we open ourselves to machinations. If we know what the nations interests are and have the wisdom to anticipate the interests of generations to come, then we can negotiate more effectively, we can contest the beautifully worded but nevertheless pernicious terms and conditions of bilateral friendship.

A candidate or a party aspiring to rule this country, for all these reasons, must first and foremost describe and detail The National Interest and make that definition open to constant debate. Without clarity on this, there cannot be clarity in foreign policy and moreover leaders will be handicapped when negotiation takes place on all bilateral and multilateral issues.

Over to you, Messers Nagananda Kodituwakku, Rohan Pallewatte, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Patali Champika Ranawaka, Ranil Wickremesinghe, Maithripala Sirisena and any other individual entertaining hopes of becoming the next President of Sri Lanka.

Malinda Seneviratne is a political analyst and freelance writer. malindasenevi@gmail.com. www.malindwords.blogspot.comThe parliament reportedly wasted the most amount of food in the country, President Maithripala Sirisena said speaking at a ceremony celebrating the World Food Day.

We all know that the most amount of food wasted daily in the country is from Parliament. A majority of the MPs do not attend the sessions at Parliament. Even if they do so, they never have their meal there. Therefore, most of the food prepared daily, is wasted. I have witnessed this for the last 27 years as a member of parliament. (Sujith Hewajulige)







Following discussions held with President Maithripala Sirisena at the President Secretariat yesterday, he had agreed to release the sugar stocks already at the harbour under Rs.14 customs tax concession, Sugar Importers' Association member Priyantha Senavirathne said.

Speaking to the Daily Mirror he said 5,000 tonnes of sugar was already stuck at the Colombo Port after imposing an extra control price.

A sugar importer has to pay Rs. 44.50 as customs tax and Rs. 58.50 when unloading a kilo of sugar from the Port. Another Rs. 3 has to be spent on transport and service tax, he said.

Therefore, the Association had requested the President to release the Customs tax imposed on sugar imports. But the President did not agree. Finally it came to a conclusion of reducing the Customs release tax to Rs. 31 until the imported stocks get cleared from the Port.

He said the President was also told to have a more detailed discussion at the next Cost of Living Committee meeting.

The price of a metric tonne of sugar in the Indian market which was at US$ 340, US$ 400 in the London market and US$ 390 in the New York Market had been increased by US$ 8 from yesterday, he said.

Mr. Senavirathne said the Association had decided to stop importing sugar temporarily due to the world market and Indian market sugar price hike and after imposing an extra control price on sugar import by the Government.

The Association yesterday requested a discussion with the Finance Ministry and the President. (Indika Sri Aravinda)

Related Article:President Maithripala Sirisena had spoken with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi this evening and had cordial discussions on several key issues including the development activities in Sri Lanka and bilateral ties, the Presidents Media Division (PMD) said.President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe are reported to have had a showdown at yesterdays Cabinet meeting over the proposal to develop the East Container Terminal of the Colombo Port as an Indian investment.

At the meeting, Ports and Shipping Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe submitted a Cabinet memorandum on developing the terminal by the Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA).

However, the Prime Minister, backed by Development Strategies and International Trade Minister Malik Samarawickrama, insisted that it should be on the basis of an Indian investment.

Apparently incensed by the Prime Ministers remarks, the President was reported to have said that it was vital to keep the sea port within the ambit of the Sri Lankan Government and that as a country Sri Lanka would lose its sovereignty in the event of alienating sea ports to external parties.

The President is also reported to have been critical of the leasing of the Hambantota Port to a Chinese Company and said he had discussed the development of the Colombo Port with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he met him on the sidelines of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC).

Indian Prime Minister is not opposed to the development of the East Container Terminal of the Colombo Port by Sri Lanka, he said.

However, the Prime Minister had persisted in saying that a bulk of container traffic for the Colombo Port originated from India and therefore, it was all the more important to develop it with India.

Sources said the President and the Prime Minister had continued hurling arguments at each other. (Kelum Bandara)Phama chamber says importing them has become commercially unviable amid rupee depreciation

Notes with concern that biggest setback is for patients

Says govt has failed to address the issue with a fair and proper pricing mechanism

Health Ministry introduced price ceilings on 48 drugs in 2016; a second round of price caps expected



The Sri Lanka Chamber of Pharmaceutical Industry (SLCPI) yesterday announced the withdrawal of 11 drugs from the local market due to the price controls slapped by the government. The pharma chamber said despite the persistent appeals, the government has failed to address the issue with a fair and proper pricing mechanism in light of the sharply depreciating rupee against the US dollar.

... both the Ministry of Health as well as the National Medicines Regulatory Authority (NMRA) have remained wilful in depriving the industry of adjusting pricing of products as per the prevailing exchange rate, SLCPI said in a statement.



The rupee has depreciated 11.3 percent so far this year and since the new government came into power in 2015, the rupee declined to Rs.171 from Rs.131 to the US dollar.



Sri Lanka imports 85 percent of its medicinal drug market, with 50 percent of the supply met through private sector importers.



SLCPI notes with distress that discontinuation of pharmaceuticals implicates multiple parties such as the manufacturing firms, patients, providers, pharmacies and the health authorities.



The biggest setback would be for the patients who are adversely affected if the drug product that provided excellent therapeutic benefits and resulted in positive health outcomes is no longer available in the market, the statement added. The chamber said some of the drugs in the list of 11 were withdrawn in 2016 due to the price ceiling and in the absence of a price formula.



A gazette notification signed by Health Minister Rajitha Senaratne was issued in 2016 reducing the prices of 48 pharmaceutical drugs, mainly prescribed for non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure etc. under the National Drug Regulation Authority Act No. 05 of 2015.



Although price controls on pharmaceuticals have been discussed since the 1970s, their actual imposition was first done in October, 2016, through this gazette.

It is also expected that a second phase of price ceiling will be implemented in the near future on expensive drugs for treating tumours, benign lumps, and cancers.

According to the Health Minister Senaratne, price controls will make important drugs more affordable and will push importers to expand their pharmaceutical manufacturing capacities locally.



However, the unintended consequences of price controls, despite their much hyped benefits, would be shortages of goods and increase in low quality goods in the market place.London charity Steel Warriors has created a public outdoor gym using 2.5 tonnes of steel that originated from confiscated weapons, donated by the police force. The gym consists of several metal climbing frames, gymnastic beams and parallel bars, ideal for bodyweight resistance exercises like calisthenics. Because the East London gym was literally built from the weapons of those involved in gang crime, it creates a dialogue in the community about violent gang culture and hopefully gives young people an outlet for their energy rather than getting involved in antisocial behaviour.

pic-sky newsSaudi Arabia is preparing to admit that journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed in a botched interrogation - government insiders have revealed.



According to CNN, the Saudi Arabian government is preparing a report which will say Khashoggi died in an interrogation that was intended to end with his abduction from Turkey.



CNN said that two sources had leaked the report, which is said to be still in its preliminary stages, and it will say the interrogation was carried out without clearance and transparency and that those involved will be held responsible.



One of the sources reportedly told the network that the report could change and is still being prepared. U.S. President Donald Trump confirmed on Monday he had seen the news about the Saudi report, but argued nobody knows if it was an official report.



I heard that report, but nobody knows if its an official report. So far, its just a rumor of a report coming out, The President said while visiting Georgia to inspect the devastation caused by Hurricane Michael.



The revelation comes as team of Turkish and Saudi officials tonight entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul for a joint inspection two weeks after the Washington Post journalist apparently vanished inside.



The inspection was agreed after Saudi King Salman and Turkish President Erdogan spoke yesterday for the first time since Turkey accused the Saudis of killing and dismembering Jamal Khashoggi who criticised the Saudi crown prince.(Daily Mail), October 15, 2018

Trump sends Pompeo to Riyadh

THE HINDU, 16th OCTOBER, 2018-Saudi Arabia is preparing to acknowledge the death of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in a botched interrogation, CNN and the New York Times said on Monday, after U.S. President Donald Trump speculated rogue killers may be responsible. Mr. Trump dispatched Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to meet King Salman over the case that has strained the Americans relationship with the Saudis, carefully cultivated by the U.S. President.The Joint Opposition (JO) today said the Indian national, who claimed of a plot to assassinate President Maithripala Sirisena, former President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his family members, was identified as an Indias Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) member bearing the RAW identity card number of RB317217/VJ.

JO member MP Wimal Weerawansa told a news conference that they had investigated on this issue and had found out that the Indian national who was arrested in Sri Lanka was named Rajendra Kumar and he was working for the RAW.

He said the suspect had come to Sri Lanka before the election held in 2015 and had continued working for the RAW during his stay.

The Indian national has tried to meet me in two instances but has failed since I was not available at my residence and office at that time. Right after his arrest, the Indian High Commission announced that the arrested person was psychologically imbalanced. It is the easiest way to tackle such incidents, he said.

Even the RAW is active in Sri Lanka but President Sirisena is still maintaining a silent policy. It is evident that the RAW and the Tamil Diaspora are engaging in some conspiracies in Sri Lanka. The situation has turned quite dangerous, he added. (Kalathma Jayawardhane)

Video by SanjeewaWhat connects Robert Oppenheimer of the Manhattan Project, the oil slick Middle, East, and Navarathri?

The Hindu Pantheon has innumerable Gods- 33 million or so to be more precise. Navarathri which is celebrated (nine plus one) for ten days celebrates three important Goddesses. Among them, namely Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswathi the patron Goddesses of metaphorical courage, wealth and wisdom or education, however, wisdom is more associated with Ganesh.

A pan-Indian Hindu celebration, the ten-day observance falls in October-November based on the Hindu calendar. The days may vary according to different schools of Panchankam (Calendar).

At the end of the nine days of evening poojas, to Goddesses Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati, the tenth day called Vijayadasami is again attributed to Godess Durga. It is the most auspicious festival during Dakshinaayana or the southern motion of the sun. Vijaya is victory. It is the day that Durga defeated the Asura Mahisha (Mahisasura) after nine days of battle.

Durga meaning the inaccessible or the invincible, is the most popular incarnation of Mother Goddess and one of the main forms of the Goddess Shakti in the Hindu pantheon. Durga is the original manifested form of Mother Parvati or Adi-Parashakti. Durga is Adi-Parashakti herself. The Devi Gita, declares her to be the greatest Goddess. According to the Skanda Purana, the goddess Parvati accounted for the name Durga after she killed the demon Mahishasura.

It metaphorically means victory over evil. The puranic tradition has it that Durga vanquished several other the asuras as well during the course of the battle Mahisha (The Asura with Buffalo Head, Chanda-Munda, and Shumbha- Nisumbha. The tenth day is also called Vijaya Kaal  the most auspicious time to begin the journey to accomplish ones aims.

As Ananda Kentish Kumaraswamy observed Hinduism is layered with complex symbolism and metaphors. If one analyses, he/she can see that the nine-day Saraswathi Pooja, in fact, poses the primordial and universal questions on the existence of life and intelligence.

As many would know Durga is the Patron Goddess for Courage; Lakshmi for Wealth and, Saraswathi, always depicted with a string instrument of Veena (Symbol of skill, education and particularly the Vedas) is the Patron Goddess of education. Each aspect of the important aspects of life is celebrated for three days totalling nine respectively.

Many Hindus across the world celebrate the nine holy days in various ways depending on their beliefs.

Setting it up of Golu is in just one of them. The Golu is a representation of society, where all kinds of dolls are placed. The top row portrays images of Gods while the bottom row exhibits inanimate and lowly beings thus reflecting the social pyramid.

Since associated with Saraswathi, the Goddess of learning Vidyarambam (Auspicious time start education) or introducing a child to letters and starting to learn a new skill is also done during these days, on the last day of the three-day Saraswathi Poojas, which is the ninth day (Today).

The question then is which is more fundamental to human existence. However, it seems that the ancient Hindu wisdom has tacitly answered the question by placing Durga as the first and the last in the ten-day observance, metaphorically courage defending both-wealth and knowledge

The nine-day observance poses basic and universal and never ending debate which is important to life: Courage, Wealth or Learning.

The question then is which is more fundamental to human existence. However, it seems that the ancient Hindu wisdom has tacitly answered the question by placing Durga as the first and the last in the ten-day observance, metaphorically courage defending both-wealth and knowledge.

This poses the question Why courage?

The debate is generally considered neverending. But courage in its broader sense seems to be the basis for everything, including wealth and education and/or knowledge. Knowledge is also wealth.

Many authors in Tamil- all Hindu, Buddhist and Jain- have dealt with these issues. One has to keep in mind that almost all of these writings had been didactic works. For example, the Nannool is a work on Tamil Grammar written by a Jain ascetic Bavananthi Munivar around 13th Century AD. One may wonder what a book on grammar has to do with Saraswathi Pooja. A logical question indeed.

A stanza in its First Chapter, on to whom a teacher should not impart his knowledge, Bavananthi Munivar was clear that a teacher shall not take someone, who is afraid of books/education or course of study, as student.

Hence, clearly, to study or to engage in any worldly activity, courage is the basis.

Even to create wealth, even if one has the know-how, to embark on a career of business and wealth, courage is needed.

The courage discussed here should not be confused with gun-toting or sword-wielding courage. It is the concept of courage. One needs the courage to face life in society. It was, it is and it ever will be to anyone in all spheres of life. It also forms the basis, even for the evolutionary process.

One may possess an important piece of knowledge, but if he/she lacked the courage to put it into proper use or prevent improper use- it is useless.

Robert Oppenheimer comes in view. He was the American theoretical physicist and is among those who are credited with being the father of the atomic bomb. In the same vein if he/she cant protect it from wrong hands in can pose a threat to all. Knowledge in the wrong hands is dangerous. So, is wealth. Countries with the wealth of resources should have the courage and the military to protect their wealth. And Iran has all right to have nukes. Makes sense. Or go the way Libya, Iraq and Syria did. If one had wealth, then it goes without saying that he/she should be able to protect it. One should understand the fundamentals. Hope many will hereafter.Western Provincial Agriculture Instructors Association today staged a protest outside the Western Provincial Council against the arbitrary acts by the Western Province Agriculture Secretary. Pix by Damith WickramasingheOops....! We couldn't find that...

404 error

Unfortunately the page you were looking for could not be found. It may be temporarily unavailable, moved or no longer exist.

Check the URL you entered for any mistakes and try again. Alternatively, search for whatever is missing or take a look around the rest of our site.Turkey Delivers First Fleet Tanker to Pakistan Navy



The page you requested is only available to subscribers.





1. If you are a Premium Service subscriber, please log in here to access this story:



Log-in : Password :



2. If you are not a subcriber, you can:



-- buy access to this page: unlimited access for seven days costs 3.00 EUR + VAT (at 20%) if applicable.



Clicking on the "Ok" button below will place the item in your shopping cart and return you to our home page, where you will be able to select additional stories.





-- select additional stories and services from our home page and pay for them at the same time.





-- see your shopping cart. You can also see the contents of your shopping cart at any time by clicking on the "Order" tab on the navigation bar at the top of any page, or by clicking on the "Your order" light blue link in the top right-hand corner of our home page, immediately under the log-on box.



An Upper Darby attorney has been placed on emergency temporary suspension for failing to respond to allegations that he misappropriated client funds, according to an order filed by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania Disciplinary Board Friday.

Dory L. Sater, with offices on the 1100 block of Cornell Avenue, failed to properly account for thousands of dollars when dispersing payments to clients in at least two cases and failed to otherwise complete legal tasks on behalf of others, according to a petition filed with the court by disciplinary counsel Harold E. Ciampoli Jr.

Calls to Saters law firm Friday and Monday were met with a busy signal.

The order indicates Sater deposited a $275,000 check in his PNC Interest on Lawyers Trust Account in April 2016 related to an arbitration settlement, but then wrote more than $103,000 worth of checks to himself over the following months.

The ODC asked Sater to submit all paperwork in that case for review, including complete records of his accounts, according to the order. Though Sater did initially reply to that request, the order indicates ODC was not satisfied and sought additional information. Sater received that correspondence in November 2016 but has yet to submit a response, according to the order.

Supplemental requests for the information were made in August of this year, the order says. Though Sater acknowledged receipt of those requests, he still has not provided any of the requested records or sought an extension of time to respond, the order says.

In another instance, Sater was supposed to hold a contested $20,000 in settlement funds in his IOLTA during a dispute over monies owed to another law firm, but allegedly failed to do so.

In responding to a request from that firm, Sater allegedly understated his fees in connection with the case and overstated the amount provided to the client by thousands of dollars. He also allegedly included amounts owed to the firm for another case when providing a schedule of distribution.

The order additionally references a case in which Sater allegedly took a vehicle accident claim with him after departing a prior firm, but failed to communicate with insurers or file paperwork necessary to move the case along. Sater also allegedly ignored repeated attempts by the client to communicate about the case over nearly two years, according to an exhibit filed with the petition. Sater received notice of the allegations in November 2016 but has not yet responded, according to the order.

Sater similarly failed to respond to another clients requests for her file concerning an auto accident when she notified him that she was seeking other counsel two years after hiring him, according to another exhibit. Sater received notice from the ODC about that complaint in April 2017, but has yet to respond, according to the order.

The petition claims Saters recurring and systematic pattern of failing to address ODC requests demonstrates a manifest violation of the Disciplinary Rules and Enforcement Rules constituting egregious misconduct warranting his immediate temporary suspension to protect the public.

The order indicates Sater is to be placed on temporary suspension until further definitive action by the court and directs Delaware County Common Pleas Court President Judge Kevin F. Kelly to enter orders necessary to protect the rights of Saters clients or fiduciaries with which he is involved.

The order notes that Sater may seek dissolution or amendment of the order if he fully complies with the ODCs record requests.Lisa Blaufuss with her daughter Ciera. Courtesy

The Spooktacular Halloween Dressage Show returns to the Del Mar Horsepark on Oct. 27-28. The triple-rated show by the United States Equestrian Federation, United States Dressage Federation and California Dressage Society brings the equestrian community together for the most fun dressage show of the year, a highly-competitive event that features animals and riders competing in their Halloween best.

This years event will be different than years past, the first Spooktacular without its founder Lisa Blaufuss, who passed away on March 9 after an over seven-year battle with breast cancer at the age of 56.

Dedicated Friends of Lisa Kim Keenan Stordahl and Meredith Grimm are producing the fun first class horse show this year to carry on Lisas legacy and to celebrate her life as a horse show event creator, wife, mother, daughter and dear friend to many.

I think were going to have a great turnout this year because many people didnt get to say goodbye to Lisa and this is their opportunity to honor her and the champion that she was with breast cancer, Grimm said.

Blaufuss Spooktacular shows always supported breast cancer charities and this years event will benefit her daughter Cieras college education. Ciera, 18, stayed home for schooling in the last two years of Lisas life and is currently attending Mira Costa Collegeshe dreams of attending college on the east coast. The show will also benefit White Rock Horse Rescue, the home of Blaufuss retired horse Khaos.

This is not just a horse show, Grimm said of the event that includes the Costume Musical Freestyle Exhibition on Saturday where everyone is invited to attend in costume, a trick or treat tent decorating contest for the show participants, and the Howlin Dog Costume contest on Sunday.

Registration for the Howlin Dog costume contest begins at noon for the 1:15 p.m. competition and dogs will be awarded in the categories of scariest costume, funniest costume, cutest costume and owner/dog look-alike. Judges will also award the inaugural Lisa Blaufuss Best in Show prize. The Howlin Dog event will also include a canine training demonstration by David Greene of Performance K9 Training and an adoption row by Thrive Animal Rescue with about six dogs looking for forever homes.

Sunday at the Spooktacular will also be Wear Pink Day for breast cancer awarenessthey will also be selling Friends of Lisa hats.

A little bit of Lisa will be in everything they do.

Growing up in a rural Illinois town, Blaufuss developed a love for nature and animals and was always especially fond of horses. It was in San Diego that her love of horses was reignited when she was introduced to the sport of dressage -- she was drawn to the art and the challenge of the sport and she loved the community of people.

Grimm, an oncology nurse, first met Blaufuss when she leased Khaos when she was no longer able to rideBlaufuss was sidelined first by a back injury and next by breast cancer, which she was diagnosed with in 2010 at stage 2 and then went into remission in 2012.

She loved the business, she was a real entrepreneur and took the horse show so seriously, Grimm said.

Blaufuss started out as a volunteer for the local California Dressage Societys San Diego Chapter, helping to develop the chapters show circuit. She then started her own company in 2013 called CrackerJack Productions, taking over Keenan Stordahls show The Dressage Affaire to create Spooktacular.

With Spooktacular, Blaufuss wanted to do something a little different. With most of the circuit shows featuring high-quality international competitors and Olympian riders, competition can be fierce. Spooktacular is an opportunity for riders to get out of their head a little bit Blaufuss once told the Review, with the costume freestyle class.

The show delivers a weekend packed with out-of-the-ordinary activities and extreme fun, Blaufuss told the Review last year. Seeing everyone enjoying themselves makes me very happy.

Her favorite part was when people show up on Saturday morning, all dressed up in costume. She loved all the laughter.

Blaufuss worked tirelessly on creating the perfect Spook experience, planning many of the events while fighting a recurrence of breast cancer after it returned as stage 4 in 2015. She acquired the alias of Wonder Woman as even when receiving chemotherapy or when she ended up in the hospital she made it her mission to make others smile and laugh. Grimm said no matter how sick she was, she never seemed to complain and she worked hard morning to night.

She always seemed to glow from within, no matter what she had just endured, wrote her husband John Kelly and Keenan Stordahl in a remembrance.

Grimm cared for Blaufuss for the last three weeks of her life and both she and Keenan Stordahl were at her side with her family when she passed. Grimm said like so many people, she felt such a strong connection to Lisa and knows the Spooktacular will be very hard without her. She said the weekend will hopefully be an opportunity for people to come together to remember Lisa, her smile, her laugh and continue her love for the wicked fun of Spook.

My lasting impression of Lisa is really to live each day to the fullest, Grimm said. She knew her days were numbered and she wanted to enjoy every moment.

For more information, visit friendsoflisa.org.A New York-based woman who began developing her craft for theater in San Diego is returning home next month to show just how far shes come.

Alice Cash, 27, founder of Golden Shards Productions, will direct a production of "8000M" (pronounced 8,000 Meters) from Nov. 15 through Nov. 18 at the Moxie Theatre for the first time on the West Coast. Previously, the San Diego native directed the show in New York, where it garnered favorable reviews and captured sold-out audiences. Many of the actors from that performance are returning for the San Diego shows, Cash said.

The Scottish play, written by David Greig, follows an exhibition team's attempt at climbing the Himalayas. During the journey, the climbers undertake challenges with relationships, as well as physical obstacles.

Cash, a Carmel Valley native, said the show also reveals the struggles of a woman attempting to fit into a "man's world." The director said that theme was important to her because of her own challenges in the field. Golden Shards Productions works to empower young women by bringing them to the forefront of theater.

Prior to directing, while attending Canyon Crest Academy, Cash wrote theater reviews for various outlets (including this paper) and also founded Broadway Kids, a theater group only involving people under 18.

And, despite her growing success, Cash is still finding ways to give back and help others who may be considering careers in the theater. Golden Shards Productions is starting a mentorship program for San Diego-based girls and will also donate all proceeds from opening night to Project Edeline, a San Diego-based non-governmental organization that is developing a school in Haiti.

Cash recently discussed her excitement for bringing "8000M" to San Diego and the importance of women in the theater.

What significance has '8000M' played in your life?

It's about following your passion, especially as a woman, in a pursuit that's mostly a man's world, whether that be about climbing or theater directing. I really identified with the leading character and thought I needed to direct the show. ... It's this crazy play where we're setting it in the Himalayas. I was intrigued with how we could create danger in a space.

Actors performing in a past production of "8000M" Courtesy

What type of research have you done for this?

I've read a lot of climbing books. All of my actors and I also go to climbing gyms every week now so we can get ready for the show and climbing. We also have a climbing consultant on board who climbed Everest. He's kind of been able to talk to us about his experience climbing and make sure that our play is accurate.

What is the set like?

We're creating a whole place with climbing material, so carabiners, ropes, flashlights... that's kind of how we're creating the space and story. We're excited to get doing it again. It's great to be able to figure out what worked and didn't work [in the last production] and push forward and put on the best work possible.

What made you want to bring in young female assistant directors this time around?

We're opening up this mentorship program. What I did in San Diego was assistant direct at the Moxie, where the show is being done, and also other places in the city. That's really how I learned to be a female leader in the theater world. I'm hoping that other young women might be interested in bringing a professional show to San Diego. ... The mentorship program is going to begin once we come to San Diego, so just one week in November.

Why is promoting females in the theater important to you?

Being a female director is unusual, especially in the film world but even in the theater world. I would love to give other young women the opportunity to try being a director. There's not a program in San Diego that allows young people to direct or to create their own [theater] company or learn about the directing craft when they're in high school or college. This mentorship could give young women the opportunity to see what it means to be a female leader, what it means to move forward in the theater business and what it means to be a director.

What are your goals with the Project Edeline fundraiser? Why did you decide to work with this organization?

I've worked with this organization before. I volunteered to create theater and film curriculums for them. It seems like a natural course. This show is all about following your dream, pursuing your passions and pursuing the impossible, which is exactly what building a school in Haiti is as well. We're going to have a talkback after the show with the school's founders and are also going to have a reception before and after for the audience that night.In an endeavor to make a top Jewish private school education affordable to an increasing number of families in San Diego while creating long-term sustainability, San Diego Jewish Academy (SDJA) recently announced its Open Door program beginning in the 2019/2020 school year. In this pilot year, the school will offer half-price tuition for children in kindergarten and 9th grade. SDJAs vision in subsequent years is to offer half-price tuition across all grades, removing cost as a barrier for a world-class private school education.

Open Door can be an absolute game changer for San Diego Jewish Academy to welcome families in the area who felt our school was beyond their reach, says Chaim Heller, Head of School at San Diego Jewish Academy. Now, more students can benefit from the world-class SDJA educational experience. Critically, we also will have more resources to continue to hire the best teachers and to offer more tuition assistance for all students at any grade. Everyone wins with this model as more families experience our welcoming, strong and vibrant community.

SDJA contracted Fisheye Research to learn about the number of families in the area who might consider Jewish Day School at certain price points. According to their data, more than 1,100 Jewish families with children in San Diego would consider SDJA with tuition between $10,000 - $15,000.

A donor is funding Open Door for students entering the program in the 19/20 academic year. Half-price tuition continues for four years for those students as they matriculate into higher grades. At the same time, in order to continue to support and expand this program to all grades, SDJA is asking each family who is willing and capable to then donate that savings back to the Open Door program at the maximum amount they are capable of contributing.

We are piloting this approach in two key grades, and then we plan to expand to all grades as enrollment targets are met, Heller adds. With the right combination of more families enrolling and contributing whatever cost savings they are able to, we are confident we can restructure the cost model for our school. The Open Door program is part of a larger vision that promotes accessibility and affordability for many families out there. This community-building endeavor can yield significant benefits for the Jewish community of San Diego.

San Diego Jewish Academy is a pluralistic K-12 school with a 56-acre campus and with more than 550 students. SDJAs Lower School recently was awarded the prestigious National Blue Ribbon Award for Academic Excellence by the U.S. Department of Education, indicating test scores in the top 15 percent of all schools nationally. The school is in the midst of its $15 million Our Family is One Campaign, which, along with increasing affordability for more families, positions the school as a cutting edge and world-class learning environment. Our Family is One enables SDJA to retain and hire outstanding educators from California and beyond, and to expand resources and learning opportunities, such as its new Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurial Thinking, which creates innovative real-world experiences and entrepreneurial environments for students.

My family continues to experience the long-lasting, positive impact of SDJA first-hand, says Alan Viterbi, a parent of SDJA graduates and previous president of the schools Board of Trustees. The high-level academics, the genuinely meaningful Jewish learning and experiences, and the powerful sense of community simply are second to none I am thrilled that Open Door enables more families to be a part of this warm and caring community.At its Oct. 11 meeting, the Solana Beach School District board gave direction to staff to pursue an expansion of Solana Ranch Elementary School or utilizing existing facilities to handle the influx of students coming from accelerated home-building in Pacific Highlands Ranch rather than purchase the 10-acre site on Golden Cypress Place to build school #8. The board is expected to take action on its next step at its Nov. 8 board meeting.

SBSD President Debra Schade said it was unfortunate that the board is having to make this decision now, with 515 homes on the way between 2019 and 2023. when the district had been anticipating the bulk of build-out to occur between 2027 and 30. The accelerated timeline has 125 new homes coming into the district during the 2018-19 school year, 290 in 2019-20 and 174 in 2020-21. There is not room at Solana Ranch to house all of the incoming studentsthe school currently has 572 students and the district recently added four modular classrooms to the campus to help handle the increased enrollment.

The board is committed to doing whats right for kids first, Schade said. We are very focused on fiscal responsibility and transparency.

With community facilities district (Mello Roos) funds and bond proceeds, the district has about $40 million available to address the Pacific Highlands Ranch community.

The districts pro-forma site acquisition cost with Pardee Homes is $6.8 million and the projected cost to build a small school is about $48.5 million, leaving the district with a $15 million shortfall at this point. A small school of about 350 students would cost an additional $1.3 million a year to run, not including teacher and staff costs.

As much as I would love to have school #8, its not feasible in todays world, said trustee Richard Leib. I want to see the community together rather than disperse everybody into existing schools.

To right-size Solana Ranch would cost an estimated $10 million. The expanded Solana Ranch would include an additional two-story classroom building and possibly a larger multi-use room. The board will also consider using its existing schools to accommodate growth which would require site improvements such as $4.4 million to lease portables for Solana Santa Fe School in Rancho Santa Fe and two new modular classroom buildings at Solana Pacific at a cost of $880,589.

The district is also exploring converting the K-3 Solana Highlands to a K-6 school to help families avoid Del Mar Heights traffic as well as assigning students from the 608 units in One Paseo to K-3 Carmel Creek or 4-6 Solana Pacific, rather than Solana Highlands.

During public comment, Jimmy Ayala, division president of Pardee Homes San Diego, said as the master planned developer of Pacific Highlands Ranch, Pardee Homes is in favor of options that do not force local families to send children outside the community and endure longer commutes. He said it has always been Pardee Homes belief that the best way to accommodate growth is through the purchase of the school site and the construction of a new school, however, they recognize the districts budgetary constraints.

Pardee Homes takes great pride in designing livable and walkable communities that allow families to engage with their neighbors. Plans that would split the Pacific Highlands Ranch community and force families and neighbors to send their children to different schools are not ideal, Ayala said. As a master plan developer, Pardee Homes believes its important for the district to identify a solution that would continue to enhance the community as it was originally planned and utilize its available funds to keep students within Pacific Highlands Ranch schools and their families core villages intact.

Trustee Vicki King said when the board first started talking about the issue, she thought an eighth school was the way to go but after reviewing all of the information, right-sizing Solana Ranch is her preferred option. Clerk Holly Lewry agreed and said that it would be heartbreaking for families to have to drive past their neighborhood school to go through all of the traffic to get out to Carmel Creek and Solana Pacific.

This is the best option for now, Lewry said.

At the Oct. 11 meeting, the board also made attendance assignments for the unoccupied homes in Pacific Highlands Ranch that have never been assigned to Solana Beach School District schools. Housing units in Sendero have been assigned to Solana Ranch; the communities of Terrazza , Vista Del Mar and Carmel to Carmel Creek and Solana Pacific; and Vista Santa Fe to Solana Santa Fe in Rancho Santa Fe.

As new homes are occupied, SBSD Vice President Julie Union said it is important that the district consider transportation as traffic is terrible and the district should do whatever it can to make it easier on families going to outlying schools. She said those accommodations should include inter-district transfers when possible.

Safety improvements for accommodating more students at Solana Santa Fe is also very important to the boardthe Rancho Santa Fe school is slated for a campus modernization beginning in 2021.

Schade said that the boards priority is ensuring students in the new neighborhoods feel they are getting equity in terms of facilities.The Solana Beach School District board provided feedback on conceptual site plans for the new Solana Vista Elementary School at its Oct. 11 meeting, encouraging the development of a one-story campus rather than a partial or full two-story campus on the Santa Victoria site. Despite the boards preference to preserve as much green space as possible at the school, it did not believe the community would support the construction of a two-story school in exchange.

There are competing concerns as there is not enough park space in that area and a second story is very controversial, said board member Richard Leib, noting that one of the concerns he has heard about the new Skyline School is that it is much bigger than the old campus. I think the community would love to see a new school but they dont want to see a bigger, larger school.

In addition to the impact on the surrounding community, a second story could also be a challenge for an elementary school as per California Building Code, kindergarten through second grade students can not occupy a second floor and Solana Vista is a K-3 school. The district might be able to apply for an exception if special exit accommodations are made but most board members, like Leib, were leaning toward a one-story school as the more appropriate option.

SBSD Superintendent Jodee Brentlinger said that the district will continue to work with AlphaStudio Design Group on the schematic plan, as well as continue to gather community inputa 41-member design team has been meeting since May 2017 and the groups next meeting will be held on Oct. 23.

Brentlinger said the board is expected to approve the schematic designs in January 2019. Construction is set to begin in 2020 and during the one-year construction timeline, the district plans to house students off-site at Skyline and Solana Highlands Elementary Schools.

According to Caroline Brown, executive director of capital programs and technology, the district opted for a full reconstruction of Solana Vista rather than a modernization due to the condition and age of the 38-year-old school. Solana Vista only has nine permanent classrooms, 66 percent of the campus is portable classrooms. In an effort to provide equity in facilities across the district, the new design will include adequately-sized STREAM lab, multi-purpose room, media center, food service and student dining. The new design will also seek to provide access to outdoor learning spaces, enhance campus security and improve the parking and drop-off configurationthe preliminary concept includes adding a new entry driveway on Santa Cecelia, in an attempt to prevent back-ups from occurring on Santa Victoria and Santa Helena. The district will have to conduct a traffic study as well as receive City of Solana Beach approval for that option.

All of the conceptual designs for the school remain within the existing campus footprint after the district heard feedback from neighbors on San Patricio who were against a configuration that would move classroom buildings closer to residences and move the ballfields to a new area, affecting views and property values. With those residents in mind, the board gave direction to keep the hard court play area away from that part of campus and keep it toward the front of the campus where it can expand into the covered lunch area and multi-use room.

All of the conceptual options presented on Oct. 11 called for 16 standard classrooms and eight specialty classrooms, smaller than the current 31 classroom spaces on the campus, 26 of which are being used as classrooms. Board member Vicki King said she was concerned about building a new school with fewer classrooms than they have now.

Brown said that the projections show a decrease in enrollment at the school but the board members were not so sureSBSD President Debra Schade said that the neighborhood is aging and many residents are the original homeowners.

Solana Beach is one of the oldest cities demographically in San Diego County, I know the community is going to turn over so I have very serious concerns about downsizing a school in that community, said Schade, prompting the board to request that the design team pursue an option with three additional classrooms.By Euan Rocha, Rajendra Jadhav, and Promit Mukherjee; Editing by Alex Richardson

10 October 2018

KOCHI/MUMBAI (Reuters)  Joby Pathrose, a farmer living a kilometre away from the usually languid Periyar river in southern India, was woken in the night by the sound of rushing waters.

Hours later his plantations and everything he owned were completely submerged.

There was absolutely no warning from the government side, said Pathrose, describing the devastating flooding that hit his village of Okkal, in Kerala state, on 15 August 2018.

Pathrose says local authorities had advised his fields were safe, despite the incessant rains that battered Kerala at the peak of the monsoon.

More than 5mn people in Kerala were affected and over 200 were killed amid torrential rain and floods in August.

The flooding, dubbed the worst to hit the southern state in nearly a century, caused billions of dollars of damage to fields, homes and other infrastructure.

As the rain intensified in mid-August state authorities were forced to release water from 35 dams to manage rising waters in reservoirs, many of which are used to generate hydroelectricity.

Pathrose and others living near the Periyar say the sudden opening of dam gates without proper warnings to those living downstream was a big factor in the devastation.

More than half a dozen experts whom Reuters consulted were divided on the extent to which dam water spills contributed to the flooding, but almost all, including Indias Central Water Commission (CWC), said reservoirs levels were too high ahead of the disaster.10 October 2018 (UN News)  Climate-related and geophysical disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis have killed 1.3 million people over the last 20 years and left a further 4.4 billion injured, homeless or in need of emergency assistance, UN experts said on Wednesday.The findings [pdf], published by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), also show that people in low- and middle-income countries are seven times more likely to die from natural disasters than those in developed nations.This puts a big emphasis on the need tomake sure that we curb greenhouse gas emissions, said Ricardo Mena, UNISDR chief, in charge of implementing the Sendai Framework.Failing to do this, risks letting climate-related hazards get out of control, he told journalists in Geneva, before calling for greater investment in disaster risk-reduction measures, so that we do not allow for countries to create new risk.In terms of the impact of disasters on the global economy between 1998 and 2017, affected countries reported direct losses of $2.908 trillion. Thats more than twice what was lost in the previous two decades.

Illustrating the growing threat from climate change, extreme weather events now account for 77 per cent of total economic losses, $2.245 trillion, the report notes.This represents a dramatic rise of 151 per cent compared with losses reported between 1978 and 1997, which amounted to $895 billion. Poorer countries most vulnerable, worst-hit The increased vulnerability of poorer countries to disasters is illustrated by the fact that, in the last 20 years, only one officially high-income territory  the island of Puerto Rico  has featured in a league table of the top 10 economic losses as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP).Last September, devastation in the US-dependency caused by Hurricane Maria contributed to overall losses since 1998, of more than $71 billion; the equivalent of 12.2 per cent of Puerto Ricos GDP.Apart from Cuba, which is classified as an upper-middle income country in the 20-year review, the other top 10 worst-hit nations, as a percentage of their output, are all lower-income.

Haiti  where a deadly 5.9 magnitude earthquake struck the north-west of the island just four days ago  recorded the highest losses, at 17.5 per cent of GDP.

In terms of fatalities from disasters, the report indicates that more than 747,000 people  56 per cent of the total  died in the last two decades during major seismic events, a total of 563 earthquakes and related tsunamis.Overall, however, more than 90 per cent of all disasters in the last 20 years were in fact floods, storms, droughts and other extreme weather events. Heatwaves are next climate change explosion Heatwaves are an increasing global threat for which solutions need to be found in the next five to 10 years, warned report co-author Professor Debarati Guha, from the Institute of Health and Society (IRSS), part of the Universite Catholique de Louvain (UCL).

The next one that is going to hit us with an explosion is heatwaves, she said. Its going to be both in poor countries, remember, human beings have a limit, a thermal resistance limit  it is also going to be a huge problem in the wealthier countries.We emphasize the need to reduce existing risk to strengthen the resilience of people and nations. Otherwise the success of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is going to be a very elusive target, UNISDRs Ricardo Mena said.

Disasters: UN report shows climate change causing dramatic rise in economic lossesSubscriber content preview

NEW YORK (AP)  Japanese bank Nomura is agreeing to pay $480 million to U.S. authorities for its alleged role in the housing market bubble and the subsequent 2008 financial crisis.

The Justice Department alleges Nomura defrauded investors by knowingly selling mortgages that were not appropriately underwritten, which led to significant losses once those mortgages went sour.





. . .Country

United States of America US Virgin Islands United States Minor Outlying Islands Canada Mexico, United Mexican States Bahamas, Commonwealth of the Cuba, Republic of Dominican Republic Haiti, Republic of Jamaica Afghanistan Albania, People's Socialist Republic of Algeria, People's Democratic Republic of American Samoa Andorra, Principality of Angola, Republic of Anguilla Antarctica (the territory South of 60 deg S) Antigua and Barbuda Argentina, Argentine Republic Armenia Aruba Australia, Commonwealth of Austria, Republic of Azerbaijan, Republic of Bahrain, Kingdom of Bangladesh, People's Republic of Barbados Belarus Belgium, Kingdom of Belize Benin, People's Republic of Bermuda Bhutan, Kingdom of Bolivia, Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana, Republic of Bouvet Island (Bouvetoya) Brazil, Federative Republic of British Indian Ocean Territory (Chagos Archipelago) British Virgin Islands Brunei Darussalam Bulgaria, People's Republic of Burkina Faso Burundi, Republic of Cambodia, Kingdom of Cameroon, United Republic of Cape Verde, Republic of Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad, Republic of Chile, Republic of China, People's Republic of Christmas Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Colombia, Republic of Comoros, Union of the Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, People's Republic of Cook Islands Costa Rica, Republic of Cote D'Ivoire, Ivory Coast, Republic of the Cyprus, Republic of Czech Republic Denmark, Kingdom of Djibouti, Republic of Dominica, Commonwealth of Ecuador, Republic of Egypt, Arab Republic of El Salvador, Republic of Equatorial Guinea, Republic of Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Faeroe Islands Falkland Islands (Malvinas) Fiji, Republic of the Fiji Islands Finland, Republic of France, French Republic French Guiana French Polynesia French Southern Territories Gabon, Gabonese Republic Gambia, Republic of the Georgia Germany Ghana, Republic of Gibraltar Greece, Hellenic Republic Greenland Grenada Guadaloupe Guam Guatemala, Republic of Guinea, Revolutionary People's Rep'c of Guinea-Bissau, Republic of Guyana, Republic of Heard and McDonald Islands Holy See (Vatican City State) Honduras, Republic of Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region of China Hrvatska (Croatia) Hungary, Hungarian People's Republic Iceland, Republic of India, Republic of Indonesia, Republic of Iran, Islamic Republic of Iraq, Republic of Ireland Israel, State of Italy, Italian Republic Japan Jordan, Hashemite Kingdom of Kazakhstan, Republic of Kenya, Republic of Kiribati, Republic of Korea, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Republic of Kuwait, State of Kyrgyz Republic Lao People's Democratic Republic Latvia Lebanon, Lebanese Republic Lesotho, Kingdom of Liberia, Republic of Libyan Arab Jamahiriya Liechtenstein, Principality of Lithuania Luxembourg, Grand Duchy of Macao, Special Administrative Region of China Macedonia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Madagascar, Republic of Malawi, Republic of Malaysia Maldives, Republic of Mali, Republic of Malta, Republic of Marshall Islands Martinique Mauritania, Islamic Republic of Mauritius Mayotte Micronesia, Federated States of Moldova, Republic of Monaco, Principality of Mongolia, Mongolian People's Republic Montserrat Morocco, Kingdom of Mozambique, People's Republic of Myanmar Namibia Nauru, Republic of Nepal, Kingdom of Netherlands Antilles Netherlands, Kingdom of the New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua, Republic of Niger, Republic of the Nigeria, Federal Republic of Niue, Republic of Norfolk Island Northern Mariana Islands Norway, Kingdom of Oman, Sultanate of Pakistan, Islamic Republic of Palau Palestinian Territory, Occupied Panama, Republic of Papua New Guinea Paraguay, Republic of Peru, Republic of Philippines, Republic of the Pitcairn Island Poland, Polish People's Republic Portugal, Portuguese Republic Puerto Rico Qatar, State of Reunion Romania, Socialist Republic of Russian Federation Rwanda, Rwandese Republic Samoa, Independent State of San Marino, Republic of Sao Tome and Principe, Democratic Republic of Saudi Arabia, Kingdom of Senegal, Republic of Serbia and Montenegro Seychelles, Republic of Sierra Leone, Republic of Singapore, Republic of Slovakia (Slovak Republic) Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia, Somali Republic South Africa, Republic of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands Spain, Spanish State Sri Lanka, Democratic Socialist Republic of St. Helena St. Kitts and Nevis St. Lucia St. Pierre and Miquelon St. Vincent and the Grenadines Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Suriname, Republic of Svalbard & Jan Mayen Islands Swaziland, Kingdom of Sweden, Kingdom of Switzerland, Swiss Confederation Syrian Arab Republic Taiwan, Province of China Tajikistan Tanzania, United Republic of Thailand, Kingdom of Timor-Leste, Democratic Republic of Togo, Togolese Republic Tokelau (Tokelau Islands) Tonga, Kingdom of Trinidad and Tobago, Republic of Tunisia, Republic of Turkey, Republic of Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda, Republic of Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom of Great Britain & N. Ireland Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of ZimbabweWe found out today that the DCCC is spending money in Michigans 6th Congressional District to take that seat away from Fred Upton, the man who played a huge role helping to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. Haley Stevens is up by double digits in the 11th District meaning that seat will swing from David Trott, the Foreclosure King. In the 8th District, Republican organizations are pulling money from their support of Mike Bishop and Elissa Slotkin has a real chance to flip that seat. In the 7th District, Donald Trump is under water with higher disapproval numbers than his approval numbers, a district he won handily in 2016.

With some hard work, we are going to see a transformation in November and its all because people around our state and around the country are waking up politically and stepping up to support their values at the ballot box.

Here at Eclectablog, we provide you with the tools, the messaging, and the knowledge you need to be a badass activist. The tagline of our podcast, The GOTMFV Show, is turning words into votes and we mean it.

But, sadly, we cant do it without your financial support. If we were a conservative blog, wed get support from the Koch brothers and the DeVos family, and the Mackinac Center and wouldnt have to worry about money. But we are still waiting for all that mythical Soros money to magically appear so we have to come to you from time to time, hat in hand, and ask you to support your values by supporting us. That allows us to pay our writers and to pay for all the infrastructure that makes Eclectablog and The GOTMFV Show happen.

Please consider making a donation today to help keep strong, vibrant, effective blogging alive and well here at Eclectablog.

You can use the handy PayPal form at the top of the right sidebar to make a one-time donation via Paypal in the amount of your choice. Second, you can send a check (which avoids Paypal taking out a percentage of your donation) to Chris Savage, P.O. Box 32, Dexter, MI 48130. Please make the check payable to Eclectablog.

Want to make a monthly donation? Enter the amount you want to pay each month: $

USD Sign up for

If you simply arent able to make a donation of any kind (and we appreciate support at ALL levels), please continue to share our posts throughout all of your social media platforms to ensure that the hard work of our most excellent staff is seen by as many folks as possible.

By Yahoo , Oct. 16, 2018





WASHINGTON/ESQUIPULAS, Guatemala (Reuters) - The organizer of a migrant caravan from Honduras was detained in Guatemala on Tuesday as the U.S. government threatened to withdraw aid from both countries and El Salvador if the flow of migrants north to the United States was not stopped.





Up to 3,000 migrants, according to organizers' estimates, crossed from Honduras into Guatemala on a trek northward after a standoff on Monday with police in riot gear.

Read More:



Join us - become an Elderado today at: LarryElder.com

Follow Larry Elder on Follow Larry Elder on Twitter

"Like" Larry Elder on Facebook



Yet again the Finns kick our collective butt. Via The Guardian, an opinion piece: Life expectancy is rising in Finland  unlike in the UK. Whats going right? Excerpt:

Earlier this week, a new report from the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health warned that infant mortality in the UK could be 140% higher by 2030 than in comparatively wealthy countries if current trends continue. Infant mortality rates are already twice as high as in Finland. There are also big gaps between the UK and Finland on rising life expectancy. Life expectancy has stopped rising in the UK, and is now actually falling across much of the country.

In stark contrast, Office for National Statistics figures show that out of 20 comparator countries, Finland has experienced the largest increase in improvements in life expectancy for men since 2010, and Finnish womens life expectancy has also consistently risen.

What is it about Finland? And whats wrong with the UK? We know that Finland has some of the best education in Europe. Homelessness rates are falling. And now we learn that the Finns have just experienced the fastest health improvements recorded among 20 affluent countries. In contrast, since 2010 the UK has had the second worst record of the 20 countries, with only the US doing worse.

Finland and its Scandinavian neighbours excel in preventive measures. These are not the measures we are used to talking about in the UK, where you tell people to try harder, eat better, smoke less, and exercise more  implying it is all down to the individual. Finland excels in the provision of healthy, free school meals for all. It takes the eradication of childhood poverty seriously and its politicians are criticised over any apparent lack of action. The Finns spend more than we do on public services and social care.

Unlike the patronising public health information doled out by Public Health England, real preventive measures include genuinely affordable housing for all, so that people can afford good food rather than paying much of their income on astronomical private sector rents. In contrast, the results of a lack of proper prevention services in the UK are shocking. A baby is almost 50% more likely to be stillborn in England and Wales. And the country offers much better maternity packages and paternity and parental leave.

According to the OECD, Finland spends a slightly lower proportion of its GDP (9.5%) on health than does the UK (9.7%). Finland can do far more with that money partly because doctors dont need to be paid as much as they are in the UK, since housing costs are lower. For every 10,000 people in Finland, there are 32 doctors employed, compared to 28 in the UK, and there are 40 hospital beds for every 10,000 Finns, compared to 26 in the UK.

Amazingly, there is now a movement in Finland to introduce more private sector providers across healthcare. If the proposals for reforms are passed these reforms will begin in Finland in January 2021. Perhaps the National Coalition party MPs should come and visit the UK first?Refugee crisis between France and Italy

French police admitted driving two undocumented immigrants over the Italian border without Italy's permission, in what the French authorities said was a mistake.

Tensions between the neighbors have risen as Rome has accused Paris of hypocrisy by refusing to take in a fair share of the hundreds of thousands of migrants who have reached Italy by boat since 2014.

FRENCH POLICE DUMPED TWO AFRICAN REFUGEES

On Friday, witnesses reported seeing a French police van cross the mountain border at Claviere, near the Italian ski resort of Sestriere, and making two black men get out in a wooded area before driving back the short distance to France.

Italy demanded explanations from France and on Monday French media quoted the head of the Hautes-Alpes region that flanks Italy as acknowledging that its police had crossed the border, calling the incursion an error.

French activists parodical refugee crisis protest WATCH

Salvini, who serves as interior minister and is also head of the far-right League, dismissed the explanation and demanded to know the identities of the two men, who he said were migrants.

What happened in Claviere represents an unprecedented offense against our country, Salvini wrote on Facebook. We are facing an international disgrace, and Macron cannot pretend nothing has happened. We cannot tolerate irregularities in the use of public money, even under the excuse of spending it for migrants, said Salvini.

Macron has denounced Salvinis anti-immigrant policies, telling reporters in August that he represented the main opponent in Europe to nationalists like Salvini.Saudis delivered $100 million to US-YPG collaboration

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo got $100 million aid as he arrives in Riyadh to discuss the fate of a missing Saudi journalist.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met on Tuesday with Saudi Arabia's King Salman over the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who vanished two weeks ago during a visit to the Saudi Consulate.

TERROR SUPPORT

The same day that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo landed in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, Saudi government supplied the money support as they promised the Trump administration $100 million for US support for terror organization YPG in Syria.

According to The New York Times, the money landed in American accounts on Tuesday. The timing of this is no coincidence, said an American official involved in Syria policy who spoke on condition of anonymity because this person was not authorized to speak to journalists. The official confirmed that the money arrived on Tuesday.

Brett McGurk, the United States envoy to the coalition fighting the Daesh terror organization, rejected the claims that Mr. Pompeos visit and the disbursement of funds were connected. The Saudis had committed the money in August, he said, and the United States had expected to receive it in the fall. The specific transfer of funds has been long in the process and has nothing to do with other events or the secretarys visit, McGurk said.

But the official involved in Syria policy said the payment process had been unpredictable.Two very different songs came to me in Brooklyn.

The first was perhaps inevitably, given my generation, when I realized we were not only in Brooklyn, but Brooklyn Heights.

"But Patty's only seen the sights a girl can see from Brooklyn Heights...."

The "Patty Duke Show" theme song. My wife was amazed I remembered it. But I have a mind for that kind of thing.

The other came as we shopped around for bagels. That was the ideatake the subway to Brooklyn, sample bagel places, return walking across the Brooklyn Bridge. Edie had Googled "best bagels in Brooklyn" and had a list, and I was following along. As good a way as any to pass a Saturday morning, though we decided that none of the actual New York bagels were as good as the ones at New York Bagels on Dempster Street. Too big and airy, not dense and chewy enough.

We ended up walking down Montague Street. I noticed a plaquehere was where Arthur Miller wrote his first Broadway play. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do with the information, but it did drive home what street I was on, and evoked a line from Bob Dylan's "Tangled Up in Blue."

"I lived with them on Montague Street, the basement down the stairs, there was music in the cafes at night, and revolution in the air."

Must have been nice. But don't look for a plaquewhile Dylan lived in Greenwich Village (on 4th Street, hence "Positively 4th Street") I couldn't find any evidence he lived with anybody on Montague Street, which dead-ends into the riverside promenade. It was just a story he made up.

My wife and I took a right, then found our way to the Brooklyn Bridge and walked across.

For some reason we were surprised to find it crowded, though of course it would be. How many sights in New York are famous, historic and, oh yes, free?

Jammed, the pedestrian half anyway, with enough bikes blowing at top speed along the bike lane to keep walkers packed onto their side. Someone is going to get killed there, one of these days, if they haven't already.

We bought a bag of cucumbers and a bag of mangoes to munch.

Halfway across the bridge I noticed something truly extraordinary: a plaque to Emily Warren Roebling, who completed construction of the bridge after her husband, chief engineer Washington Roebling, became ill, a victim of the bends, it is believed, having taken over from his father, John Roebling, the bridge's designer, who

died, of tetanus. after his foot was crushed while surveying the site, one of dozens of men who perished during its construction.

The New York Times, in their series of belated obituaries celebrating overlooked women, included Emily Roebling , even though she was not overlooked, in her time.

How the Wife of the Brooklyn Bridge Engineer Has Assisted Her Husband, read the headline of one article after the bridge openedshe was the first person to walk across the completed bridge, carrying a roosterit is saidfor good luck.

I pointed out the plaque to my wife, worried she would take the epigram, Back of every great work we can find the self-sacrificing devotion of a woman," in the wrong light. But she seemed unperturbed by it.











Tourism Development Authority looking to grow business even further at IMEX America

Theres now currently over 360 conferences representing more than 117,000 international delegates worth 162m confirmed for Ireland  thats according to the latest Q3 Business Tourism figures announced by Failte Ireland today, which show that the tourism development authority has already, in the first three quarters of this year, surpassed the amount of business won for the full year in 2017.



The Q3 figures also show strong growth in the regions, with Failte Ireland supporting the conversion of a further 31m for locations outside of Dublin through Regional Convention Bureaux in Shannon, Cork, Kerry and Galway.



Failte Ireland is looking to drive these numbers even higher over the coming days as its Meet in Ireland team hits Las Vegas for the annual IMEX America event. IMEX is one of the largest worldwide exhibitions for incentive travel, meetings and events which is attended by over 3,200 suppliers and 5,500 meeting planners who organise international meetings, incentives, conferences and events.



Over the coming days in Las Vegas, Failte Ireland will directly pitch to 230 overseas buyers through targeted presentations, as well as facilitating over 85 one-to-one meetings for Irish trade. The 34 members of Irish trade joining Failte Ireland on the Meet in Ireland stand also have an additional 470 appointments confirmed with international buyers over the course of the exhibition.



Speaking at IMEX America, Failte Irelands CEO Paul Kelly emphasised how the tourism agency intends to leverage the strong potential of Business Tourism to generate greater tax revenue and employment for Ireland over the coming years. He also outlined how Business Tourism has the ability to generate significant jobs and revenue for the regions as well as Dublin, which has traditionally benefitted from this sector.



Paul Kelly said:

Tourism is a significant contributor to Irelands wellbeing, both socially and economically. It supports 240,000 jobs and also generates 7.2 billion in revenue and 1.7 billion in Exchequer earnings  the equivalent of over 1,000 for every household in Ireland. In the Business Tourism sector, we believe theres huge potential for future growth and the business weve won so far this year, exceeding the total figure for 2017 already, is testament to that.



Im particularly excited about the potential of Business Tourism regionally. Conferences and business events are benefitting regions outside Dublin but they could play a much bigger part  and this will be a strategic focus of our work over the coming years and were hoping to convert even more business for the regions here at IMEX America this week.



Speaking about the importance of representing Ireland at events like IMEX America, Failte Irelands Head of Commercial Development Paul Mockler, added:



Thanks to Irelands amazing hospitality, ease of access, venues and leading industries, Ireland manages to punch well above its weight in winning business events and we have been seeking out every possible opportunity to bring even more big events to Irish shores. There are sound business reasons to do so  every delegate is worth more than 1,600 to the Irish economy and Im delighted that, so far this year, weve secured 162m worth of business for future years, in both the capital and the regions, with much more in the pipeline.



Events like IMEX are a key opportunity to get major overseas meetings, conferences and events booked in for the years ahead. We have top-class Irish industry joining us, and I have no doubt they will give these buyers countless reasons to book meetings in Ireland.



Upcoming Conferences



EuCheMS European Chemistry 2022 - Delegates: 2,800 Value:4.5m Location: Co Dublin



EUROk 2019 - Delegates: 2,000 Value: 3.2m Location: Co Dublin



International & European Congress on Obesity -ICO ECO 2020 - Delegates: 2,300 Value: 3.6m Location: Co Dublin



European Congress of the Junior Chamber International JCI - Delegates: 1,500 Value: 2.4m Location: Co Dublin



World Conference on Tobacco or Health - Delegates: 3,000 Value: 4.8m Location: Co Dublin



Aquaculture Europe - European Aquaculture Society 2020 - Delegates: 1,000 Value: 1.6m Location:Co Cork



Wind Energy Science Conference - Delegates: 800 Value: 1.3m Location: Co Cork



FRESH STREET#3 - Delegates: 400 Value: 640,000 Location: Co Galway



IEEE Internet of Things "IOT"2019 - Delegates: 1,000 Value: 1.6m Location: Co Limerick



Law Enforcement Biker Convention US 2020 - Delegates: 1,500 Value: 2.4m Location: Co Kerry

Jump to topWeather to finally dry out for harvest

With the weather drying out from now until Monday, we should be seeing average rainfall and a return to the dry summer we are used to for the rest of the year.It is difficult to put into words the emotions one feels when visiting a gravestone. From that slab of granite or stone comes a flood of memories, as if the deceased is right there with you, recalling all the special memories that were shared.



I am not equating the gravestone of a horse to that of a human being, but sometimes the memories are just as real and just as special, as they bring you back to another time and place in your life that make you feel warm and comforted inside. To be able to rekindle those memories after 50 years as if they are still fresh in your mind is a rare gift.



I have visited Claiborne Farm on several occasions over the years, but have never visited their cemetery situated back in the Marchmont section of the farm, where few get to visit. Buried there are all their great broodmares, including Personal Ensign, her daughter My Flag, and My Flags daughter Storm Flag Flaying  three generations of Breeders Cup winners. There is Thong and her daughter Special, the dam of Nureyev and granddam of Sadlers Wells, as well as Hall of Famers Numbered Account, Inside Information, and Heavenly Prize; and Tuerta, the dam of Swale; Obeah, the dam of Go For Wand; File, the dam of Forty Niner; and Relaxing, the dam of Easy Goer. And so many more.



Among the males are Tom Rolfe, Ack Ack, Danzig, Forli, Devils Bag, Hawaii, Drone, and, again, so many more. Along a strip of grass on your left, cradled under a huge maple tree is a row of seven gravestones that include Easy Goer, Sir Ivor, Coxs Ridge, Majestic Light, and Unbridled. Atop Unbridleds stone lay a single red rose.



But my focus was on the second gravestone from the left, between Easy Goer and Sir Ivor. That was the gravestone of Damascus. It took no more than a second for all the memories, emotions, and everlasting images to emerge. For it was Damascus who opened the world of Thoroughbred racing to a frustrated and often melancholy 20-year-old trapped in a prison of over-the-counter stocks who was looking to break out from the dog-eat-dog world of Wall Street.

Not only did Damascus provide the siren call that lured me into this wondrous new world, he helped pave the path that eventually brought me to my beautiful wife and daughter and grandson and a life that existed only in my dreams. It was a path that somehow led a lost soul with zero skills into the Media Hall of Fame, sharing the same hallowed halls as the horse who guided me there.

Looking at Damascus grave, I could once again vividly see those Belair white with red polka dots silks that he carried to so many spectacular victories. Those colors are ingrained in the memory and still evoke images and feelings of a time long gone; of innocence, the unbridled joy of victory, the gut-pounding sadness and shock of defeat, and butterflies in the stomach..

Drifting back to 1967 when I became immersed in Thoroughbred racing, gone were thoughts of the war in Vietnam, the Six Day War in Israel, anti-war protests spreading throughout the country, and race riots in Detroit. Well, maybe not gone, but pushed farther back in the recesses of my mind, which was mainly occupied by Damascus, who breathed life into a hollow existence, numbed from years of toiling mindlessly on Wall Street. Suddenly I felt as if I was 20 going on 12.



I rejoiced in his many victories and suffered through his occasional defeats. Damascus inspired me to absorb everything I could about Thoroughbred racing, searching everywhere for old racing magazines, reading the Morning Telegraph every day on the subway, looking for whatever books I could find. Because of Damascus I became fascinated and eventually entranced with his arch rival Dr. Fager, who opened more doors for me years later.



I didnt know it at the time, but because of the new world that I was led to by Damascus, I was able to escape the clutches of Wall Street late in 1968 and make my way into that world when hired by the Morning Telegraph as a copy boy in October of 1969.



It would take a column by itself to go over Damascus career. But there is one series of races that defines him.



Damascus was a horse who needed to be raced into shape. In 1968, with only one easy allowance victory in five months after recovering from a grueling three-race trip to California, he was a short horse when he tackled Dr. Fager in the mile and a quarter Suburban Handicap. Carrying topweight of 133 pounds, with no speed to run with the good doctor, he was forced to eyeball his archrival early, making four separate moves at him. Four times Dr. Fager turned back his challenge and went on to equal Aqueduct's track record of 1:59 3/5, with Damascus tiring to finish third. Damascus came back in the mile and a quarter Amory Haskell Handicap carrying topweight of 131 pounds, and after stumbling badly at the start, he ran well to again finish third, beaten 1 1/2 lengths by the top-class Bold Hour, in receipt of 16 pounds. Those two races actually got Damascus 100 percent fit when he took on Dr. Fager again in the mile and a quarter Brooklyn Handicap. This time he was a coiled bundle of energy in the paddock, his coat glistening, muscles rippling, and gaskins appearing ready to bulge out of his skin.



Carrying 130 pounds and getting five pounds from Dr. Fager, he took advantage of the rapid pace set by stablemate Hedevar and finally was able to use his devastating turn of foot to roar by Dr. Fager and win going away by 2 1/2 lengths in a new track record 1:59 1/5, breaking Dr. Fager's short-lived record. That mark amazingly still stands after 50 years.



So, Damascus had run third going a mile and a quarter under 133 pounds, pushing Dr. Fager to a track-record-equaling time, then ran a close third going a mile and a quarter under 131 pounds after an eventful trip, giving the winner 16 pounds, and finally won convincingly going a mile and quarter in track-record time under 130 pounds defeating Dr. Fager. That is three mile and a quarter stakes, carrying 130 pounds or more in each one, and setting a track record in the last oneall in the span of 16 days.



Today, a horse would be considered a sure thing to bounce off that kind of effort and three huge performances in such a short period of time. But Damascus came back three weeks later and won the William du Pont Handicap at Delaware Park carrying 134 pounds.

I will never lose that indelible image of Damascus' explosive move and how he pounced on his opponents like a cat its prey. Those white and red polka dot silks were like a blur, passing horses as if moving in a different time frame. How can anyone forget the sight of Damascus coming from 16 lengths back down the backstretch in the Travers Stakes, blowing by the leaders like they were standing still, and going on to win by a staggering 22 lengths, equaling the track record in the slop.

In 31 races, Damascus never finished out of the money, while defeating future Hall of Famers Buckpasser and Dr. Fager by 10 lengths in the 1967 Woodward Stakes, dubbed the Race of the Century; set a track record winning the American Derby by seven lengths in 1:46 4/5; won the two-mile Jockey Club Gold Cup easily in near-record time; and won two legs of the Triple Crown, the Preakness and Belmont Stakes. After narrowly losing a grueling stretch battle with Dr. Fager in the Gotham stakes, in which Bill Shoemaker took the blame for the defeat, he came back to romp by six lengths in the Wood Memorial...one week later. Today, horses normally run every four to six weeks. In 16 starts as a 3-year-old, Damascus average time between races was 16 days. He truly seemed like a horse of steel.

In his final race, the 1968 Jockey Club Gold Cup, one of the soundest, most durable horses in history bowed a tendon and refused to be pulled up until he reached the finish line. One step past the wire, jockey Larry Adams finally was able to pull him up. It was as if Damascus needed to reach the finish line before giving in to his injury. Yes, he lost a couple of races he probably should have won, but one of those, the San Fernando Stakes run in a quagmire, was explained years later by his jockey Ron Turcotte, who said the colt should have worn mud caulks in the race to get better footing, but trainer Frank Whiteley did not want to risk getting him hurt with caulks. The only other horse in the field who did not wear caulks finished last. Damascus was slipping and sliding the whole way according to Turcotte, who said the colt lost three shoes during the race.



Through the years I visited Damascus at Claiborne Farm, capturing him with my camera romping across his paddock as a young stallion, covered with mud; rolling in the grass and then leaping to his feet; posing in front of his barn, and finally introducing him to my 2-year-old daughter Mandy, who waved to him and blew him kisses.



Although it was not unexpected, it still was an emotional blow when Damascus died on August 8, 1995, at the age of 31.



I had not seen him since until this past Saturday when leading the Legacy Tour as part of the annual Secretariat Festival, which was highlighted by a rare visit to the Marchmont cemetery.



Just seeing the gravestone, which is beginning to show its wear after 23 years, and Damascus name inscribed on it inspired this column as an outlet to release the emotions felt that day. Needless to say, I was the last to leave the cemetery, as it was difficult to say goodbye to the horse who changed my life.



Damascus and the extraordinary feats he performed sadly have faded in the history books, but not the memories that all came flooding back last weekend. After 50 years in Thoroughbred racing, those memories still remain a beacon that guides my way.



This past summer Trust Across America-Trust Around the World assembled a small global team to advise on creating a ranking system for countries, aggregating current data from reputable third party providers.

We identified fourteen indicators of societal trustworthiness including corruption, competition, reputation, sustainability, economic freedom, healthcare and womens rights, to name just a few.

Combining the findings and totaling the scores allowed us to create our 2018 Country Trust Index.

Based on the availability of data, almost seventy countries were analyzed with scores ranging from 66 to 1432. The lower the score, the higher the country ranked. Incomplete data precluded some countries.

Switzerland wins by a landslide scoring a 66 and making the top five in ten of the fourteen categories. The countrys lowest score was in healthcare, ranking #20.

After Switzerland, the scores took a relatively steep drop.

The Top 10 countries and their respective score are listed in descending order:

Switzerland  66

Norway  102

Denmark  119

Canada  120

Sweden  125

Finland  131

New Zealand  137

Netherlands  139

Australia  170

Austria  195

The United States trails the Top Ten at #20 with a total score of 369, and a poor showing on reputation, healthcare and safety.

The following countries represent the bottom of our Index rankings:

Saudi Arabia  929

Brazil  958

India  978

China  1004

Vietnam  1048

Russia  1062

Ukraine  1245

Egypt  1274

Pakistan  1370

Nigeria  1432

While this index may reveal some surprises, its purpose is to highlight the best in breed. Whether one is speaking about companies (as we do in our FACTS Framework) or countries, elevating trust and ethics is a win/win for all stakeholders.

____

Barbara Brooks Kimmel, pictured above, is the CEO and Cofounder of Trust Across America-Trust Around the World whose mission is to help organizations build trust. She also runs the worlds largest global Trust Alliance and is the editor of the award-winning TRUST INC. book series. In 2017 she was named a Fellow of the Governance & Accountability Institute, and in 2012 she was recognized as one of 25 Women who are Changing the World by Good Business International.Aldrich Capital Partners, a Vienna, Virginia-based growth equity firm, closed its debut institutional fund, at more than $256m.

Institutional investors in Aldrich Capital Partners Fund I, LP, include endowments, foundations, pension funds, and family offices.

The fund makes growth equity investments, including both control and minority investments, in North American-based lower middle market companies generally focusing on three technology sectors:

 healthcare IT,

 financial technology, and

 application software.

Launched in May 2017, the fund has already made three investments, in:

 Lavu,

 Woundtech, and

 Paymerang.

Founded in 2014 by Founding Partners Raheel (Raz) Zia and Mirza Baig, Aldrich Capital Partners invests equity capital in privately held growing companies also providing strategic insight and access to a broad network of relationships built in over 40 combined years of entrepreneurship and investing.

The firm also has an office in Silicon Valley.

FinSMEs

17/10/2018Ardian, a private investment firm, acquired a majority stake in Opteven, a Lyon, France-based insurance company specializing in mechanical breakdown cover, maintenance contracts and assistance.

The amount of the deal was not disclosed.

The sellers in the transaction were multinational insurance company Aviva and European private investment management fund Capzanine (which is reinvesting in the company alongside management).

The acquisition will allow Opteven to continue its organic growth and to reinforce its external growth strategy.

Founded in 1985 and led by Jean-Matthieu Biseau, CEO, Opteven is a specialist in mechanical breakdown cover and roadside assistance and also operates in home assistance, healthcare, and personal services.

The company, a leader in the automotive service and mobility contract markets in both France and Europe, currently generates nearly 150 million in turnover and has more than 450 employees.

To track and anticipate changes in the market, the company has an internal lab, which detects and provides information on the development of new trends in areas such as mobility, assistance, the environment, and responsible development and tests and develops innovative solutions integrating new technologies and taking new forms of mobility into account.

Opteven currently operates in seven countries in Europe and has opened subsidiaries in Italy, the United Kingdom, and Spain in order to pursue its growth in major markets.

The transaction has been approved by the ACPR, Frances banking and insurance supervisory authority.

FinSMEs

17/10/2018AsiaCollect, a Singapore-based provider of integrated Credit Management Services (CMS) in Southeast Asia, acquired Creditseva, an India-based credit lifecycle management platform provider.

The amount of the deal was not disclosed.

The acquisition builds on AsiaCollects plans to allow banks and non-bank consumer lenders in Asian emerging markets to manage their non-performing loan (NPL) portfolios through a technology-driven, customer-oriented debt collections approach driven by artificial intelligence (AI) and psychometric analysis.

Going forward, the Creditseva team will operate in India under the AsiaCollect brand and offer its integrated suite of digital CMS, including CMS Outsourcing and Advisory, NPL Purchasing, and Software-As-A-Service (SaaS).

Led by Satya Vishnubhotla, CEO and co-founder, who will assume the role of country manager for India call center operations, office administration, IT and quality control, Creditseva provides a credit life cycle management tool for consumers with an integrated real-time platform for digital collections, connecting banks, credit bureaus and consumers online. The company was seed funded in 2016 by Singapore government backed fund (SG Innovate), Pixvine capital and industry executives from Paypal, Alibaba, HSBC and Citibank.

Launched in 2016 by Tomasz Borowski, CEO, AsiaCollect provides integrated world-class Credit Management Services (CMS) in the Asian emerging markets of India, Indonesia, Philippines and Vietnam. Focused on nonperforming consumer loans, the company provides an integrated product offering, which includes CMS Outsourcing, CMS Advisory Services, Debt Purchasing, and Software-As-A-Service (SaaS).

Headquartered in Singapore, AsiaCollect was seeded and developed by fintech venture builder FORUM and backed by Fintonia Group, Dymon Asia Ventures and SIG Asia Investments.

FinSMEs

17/10/2018Corviglia Capital Fund, a global fintech growth equity investor, launched its first fund with a target of $500M in capital commitments.

The firm has been established in Luxembourg by two experienced entrepreneurs and executives, Petr Smida and Cezary Smorszczewski, who have extensive experience in financial services, banking and fintech.

Petr Smida

Smida has spent more than 25 years in global banking and financial services. In 2010, he co-founded ENERN, an Eastern European/DACH venture capital firm which has invested in 20 tech companies via three different funds since its founding. Prior to that, he worked as a private investor and served as the CEO/Chairman of various multibillion-dollar banks and financial services companies around the world, including Alfa Bank and GE Capital.

Cezary Smorszczewski

Smorszczewski has more than 20 years of experience in finance, holding top positions at a number of prominent Polish banks and serving on the supervisory boards of several financial & technology companies. He is the the co-founder and former deputy-CEO of Alior Bank (2007-2013), the first Polish fintech unicorn, which sold for $2B on the LSE in 2012, and the co-founder and former CEO/Managing Partner of Private Equity Managers (2014-2016), a firm that specialises in fintech within the CEE/CIS/DACH regions.

Corviglia Capital Fund will invest long-term in late-stage fintech companies that are spearheading innovation and disruption in financial services and banking. The fund aims to deploy $250M in the first three years, which has already been secured in the first closing.

The firm  is geographically agnostic  aims to makes minority investments with tickets ranging from $10 to $50M. It is currently building presence in both London and Berlin.

FinSMEs

17/10/2018Fourpost, a New York City-based new retail concept that connects shoppers and brands through community and experiences, raised $5m in funding.

Backers included Susa Ventures, Collaborative Ventures, Blumberg Capital, Ludlow Ventures, Supernode Ventures, T5 Capital, Accelerator Ventures, Social Capital and Hersz Capital, and individual investors Parachute Founder and CEO Ariel Kaye, Warby Parker Co-CEO Dave Gilboa, Rubrik Founder and CEO Bipul Sinha, and InVision Founder and CEO Clark Valberg, among others.

Led by Founder and CEO Mark Ghermezian, Fourpost is a new retail concept that brings people and brands together through community and experiences. The company aims to democratize the traditional department store experience for local, emerging, and digitally native brands, and leverages technology to provide brands with tools and resources to expand their business.

Fourpost curated destinations of Studio Shops and eateries will open November 1 at the two largest malls in North America:

 Mall of America in Minnesota, and

 West Edmonton Mall in Alberta, Canada.

Each Studio Shop comes with fixtures, signage, lighting, POS hardware, and Wi-Fi, as well as access to various amenities such as event space.

Through Fourposts SaaS dashboard, members have access to tools and resources like dedicated onboarding and account management, business training, calendars and event bookings, and billing. The dashboard allows members to navigate storefront data, and gain insights and analytics to grow their businesses.

Members can also connect here and engage in meaningful conversations, share information, and ask questions.

The company will open several new locations in 2019 across the nation.

FinSMEs

17/10/2018Pr3vent, Inc., a Palo Alto, California-based healthcare technology company, raised a seed funding round of undisclosed amount.

Skyview Ventures, the early and growth stage investment arm of global private investment firm Skyview Capital, LLC, Phillip Sarofim and his private equity/venture capital firm Trousdale Ventures, LLC (formerly PS Ventures), made the investment.

The company intends to use the funds to accelerate development of its eye screening diagnostic service designed expressly for newborns.

Founded by medical field veterans Jochen Kumm, PhD and Darius M. Moshfeghi, MD., Pr3vent is a healthcare IT company currently developing Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning screens for ophthalmic newborn conditions. The companys [patented] algorithms and screening service is being developed for applications in newborn eye screening.

FinSMEs

17/10/2018.                 2.      .     ...Following word that the owner of San Jose, Costa Rica-based 5Dimes Sportsbook was reportedly kidnapped three weeks ago, those with money at the book have been scrambling to find out more details. This story is constantly being updated....

The book appears to be running smoothly, however, Gambling911.com can confirm that "Tony", who has already been identified in other media outlets as Sean Creighton of Morgantown, West Virginia, was the sole owner of 5Dimes Sportsbook.

"Tony", now 42, arrived in San Jose, Costa Rica with two High School friends, one of whom has remained close to him to this day. Another, the ex-girlfriend of "Tony", is a close friend of the Gambling911.com website.

One close associate of "Tony", who wished to remain unnamed, said that, despite his many flaws, he would never steal from customers.

"5Dimes is a well oiled machine that can run forever without him," this individual tells us.

But he also provided this ominous prediction: "I'm afraid people will start stealing without Tony there at some point."

This person also confirmed to G911 that "Tony" did not have security, contrary to some published reports.

"He was encouraged to get security but (he) said he didn't need any."

It is not immediately known what will become of 5Dimes should "Tony" not be returned safely.

His current wife told authorities she paid $750K ransom via Bitcoin and have yet to hear back. Experts familiar with the 5Dimes operation were quick to suggest this to be a fraction of what 5Dimes would have on hand.

"Tony" was last seen September 25 in the area of San Isidro, Heredia and driving a Porsche Cayenne Turbo vehicle.

5Dimes has been in business since 1998.

- Chris Costigan, Gambling911.com PublisherKimberly Hall, the new Goodwill SOLAC leader, was chief workforce and economic development officer at Goodwill Industries of South Mississippi.Special forces in Wachtberg : Bonn police keep an eye on family clan

NIEDERBACHEM The police have again taken action against a well-known family clan in Niederbachem. Again and again the police showed up at the building, in which the family resides.

Teilen

Teilen Weiterleiten

Weiterleiten Tweeten

Tweeten Weiterleiten

Weiterleiten Drucken

As has become known now, police officers were at the address at the Konrad-Adenauer-Strae on October 2 around 10am, where they arrested a person on the street. This according to a report by a witness.

The background had been a robbery amongst acquaintances, said police spokesperson Robert Scholten when asked by the GA newspaper. Because there had been hints a gun might be in use, a special forces team was brought in too. We did not find a gun, said Scholten. Two people were arrested but later released. Because the police call-out remained without a significant result, the case had not been communicated in the usual public police reports.

The two people arrested are supposedly members of a family clan from former Yugoslavia residing in the apartment building in Niederbachem, which keeps the authorities busy for quite some time according to GA information. Police spokesperson Scholten did not comment on the exact identity of the people in question.

Again and again the police have been at the building, in which the family lives. In the past 13 months exactly 38 times - mostly because of disturbances of the peace. The clan was not always the cause for the call-outs, sometimes incidents with other residents were the reason. The problem, according to situation insiders: The ownership situations in the apartment block are extremely diverse, making an improvement of the living situation in the partly visibly run down house difficult.

Family appears repeatedly

In 2016, for example, a then 16-year-old Turkish boy lived in the house, who was the leading mind of the so-called Bandana gang, said one investigator. Between June and October 2014, the gang (in various line-ups) robbed young and slightly drunk victims in Bonn and Beuel. The culprits were masked with scarves, or bandanas. The 16-year-old, who has absconded to Turkey in the meantime, appeared to be particularly violent. One proof of this was a fight with a housemate whom he kicked so hard that he fell down the cellar stairs.

Also the family from former Yugoslavia keeps reappearing - like early 2017, when the police succeeded in their investigation against an internationally organised gang of burglars. Seven 20- to 25-year-olds were arrested, also in Niederbachem. They were thought to be responsible for over 70 break-ins and car thefts. They were mostly brothers or cousins, most of them known to the police.

The majority of them were tolerated asylum seekers, who fled their country between 1992 and 1998, said an investigating officer back then. Deportation papers had been issued against some of them previously. Whether they were clan members could not be confirmed, said Scholten, and referred to the data protection act.

The immigration office in Siegburg keeps trying to deport some members of the family clan for quite some time now, which proves difficult because of the unclear origins of some of the persons involved.

It is thought that in total the Niederbachem part of the clan includes the parents as well as four children, two of whom are known to the police because of property offences and causing bodily harm.

Original text: GA BonnNear Hangelar airfield : Two dead after plane crash in Sankt Augustin

Sankt Augustin A small aircraft crashed in Sankt Augustin on Tuesday afternoon. Two people died. The pilot reported engine problems before the crash.

Teilen

Teilen Weiterleiten

Weiterleiten Tweeten

Tweeten Weiterleiten

Weiterleiten Drucken

The two-seat machine of the Tecnam type had taken off in Hangelar and was on a training flight when it crashed onto a field just south of the residential estate Am Pleiser Wald around 3pm. It burnt out entirely.

Several eyewitnesses saw the crash happening. When there are westerly winds aircraft on their way to the Hangelar airfield usually turn over this field in a last left bend from the transverse into the final approach.

This plane was unusually low, way lower than normal. It did not fall from the sky but it did look as if the pilot wanted to land on the field, says resident Gerlind Palm, who became an eyewitness to the crash just seconds later: The plane came over the field too low, then it struck the ground with a bang and it started burning straight away.

Residents who came to help could not get the people on board out due to the flames. Within seconds the machine was entirely ablaze. Any help for the two men, who are thought to be a flight instructor and his student pilot, came too late.

The immediately alerted fire brigade followed the black smoke column to the crash site. Within minutes 48 fire officers under commander-in-chied Herbert Maur arrived at the scene of the accident and extinguished the burning plane wreck. Several ambulances, emergency doctor vehicles, the rescue helicopter Chritoph 3 from Cologne as well as an SAR army helicopter were called to the location within the shortest time. The police diverted the traffic, closed off the scene, also to avoid rubberneckers getting to the site.

Residents gathered at the side of the field

Many residents gathered at the side of the field. A lot of them expressed their sympathy about the accident, but some also spoke of their worries. Pilots would sometimes not perform the required traffic pattern of a circuit and would fly over the residential area despite being prohibited from doing so. One resident said: Such a plane could crash into our house anytime.

In the meantime, police spokesperson Stefan Birk said, when asked about the cause of the crash, that there have been no conclusions yet: We have informed our colleagues of the criminal investigation department as well as the aircraft accident investigation team (BFU) who will investigate the scene and determine the cause of the crash.

According to the Hangelar airfield, the pilot noticed engine problems and informed the tower of those via radio. No details have been given about the identities of the pilot and his student.

The last time a fatal plane crash happened near the Hangelar airfield was on November 1, 2011, when a small aircraft crashed into the Meindorf Siegaue.

Statistically, fatal plane crashes are rare in civilian aviation, as the aircraft accident investigation authority reported in its annual report. In 2017, they counted 22 serious incidents with 24 people killed and 25 people seriously injured. The numbers have been decreasing for years.Caves and entrances to Hell, they seem to be inextricably connected. Hell Cave (Jama Pekel) in Slovenia is one such supposed entrance to the underworld. Many locations have been called the entrance to Hell. Let's check some out -

Stull Cemetery, Kansas

Legends say the devil shows up on the spring equinox and Halloween at the cemetery. It is also said that those who died by murder would rise again. The legends went off in different directions to include the area being settled long ago by people who practiced witchcraft.

Legends say the devil shows up on the spring equinox and Halloween at the cemetery. It is also said that those who died by murder would rise again. The legends went off in different directions to include the area being settled long ago by people who practiced witchcraft.

Tunguska, Russia"The Devil's Cemetery"

The area known for the early 1900s meteor explosion, Tunguska, has developed another reputation. It is said that animals die there but do not rot, that those who wander onto the land go missing, that compasses don't work, and people become ill. Some locations are cursed by their very history and appearance. It has come to be known as the Devil's Cemetery.

The area known for the early 1900s meteor explosion, Tunguska, has developed another reputation. It is said that animals die there but do not rot, that those who wander onto the land go missing, that compasses don't work, and people become ill. Some locations are cursed by their very history and appearance. It has come to be known as the Devil's Cemetery.

The area known for the early 1900s meteor explosion, Tunguska, has developed another reputation. It is said that animals die there but do not rot, that those who wander onto the land go missing, that compasses don't work, and people become ill. Some locations are cursed by their very history and appearance. It has come to be known as the Devil's Cemetery.





Like a lot of legends, this one has a few renditions. One rendition exists that a lunatic asylum burned down. It was said many died and ones who escaped were beaten to death.



SPEED READ:

Governments have struggled to raise revenue since the recession, leading some to start taxing services in addition to sales of goods.

But Arizona won't be one of them: The state has become the second in the nation to ban any expansion of the tax on services.

The November ballot measure was supported by many industries but opposed by policy experts and politicians on both sides of the aisle, including Republican Gov. Doug Ducey.

Its already rather difficult to pass a tax hike in Arizona. Now voters have completely eliminated one option for lawmakers by approving an outright ban on taxing services.By a margin of two to one, voters opted to make Arizona the second state in the country to pass such a ban. Missouri passed a similar ban two years ago. Both initiatives were heavily funded by real estate associations in each state.Arizonas ban comes as more governments are looking to expand their sales tax base to include services such as Netflix and yoga classes. Already, half of the states tax gym classes or memberships, while places like Chicago, Florida and Pennsylvania have all started taxing online streaming services in recent years.Arizona already has a very limited tax on services and only taxes certain types of software services and some transportation services. The new measure, which had been dubbed the Protect Arizona Taxpayers Act, or Proposition 126, prohibits any new tax on a service and any hikes on an existing service tax.Supporters of the ban, which included a wide swath of industries from pet shops to child care operators to physical therapists, argued that expanding the sales tax is a threat to lower-income consumers who already pay a larger share of their income to sales taxes than the wealthy.The proposal in Arizona was is one of a slew of tax-limiting ballot measures across the country this year. Others were also successful, such as in Florida , where voters enacted a supermajority requirement for tax hikes, and in North Carolina, where voters lowered that states income tax rate cap. In Oregon, however, voters rejected new restrictions on raising that states revenue.Policy experts have warned that banning a tax on services limits a states revenue-raising options and could result in a greater burden on the poor. Across the country, states have struggled to keep up the same revenue growth as they experienced before the recession. One big reason is that consumers are spending far more on services -- most of which arent taxed -- than goods, which are. Without the ability to expand the sales tax base, lawmakers looking to stabilize their slowly shrinking revenue would only be left with the option to raise the sales tax rate.That does not portend well for the future of the sales tax as a state revenue instrument, Scott Drenkard, the conservative-leaning Tax Foundations director of state projects, said last month. It prevents Arizona from having a sufficiently broad sales tax base and is harmful to the long-term productivity of the tax.In fact, the centrist think tank Grand Canyon Institute issued a report last month warning that passage of Prop. 126 could make it more likely that lawmakers would let the existing taxes on services expire. If that happened, it would mean an annual $250 million loss in education money starting in 2021 and up to a 44 percent cut in regional transportation taxes in Maricopa and Pima counties when they come up for renewal in the next decade.Even Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, who opposes any tax hike, a bipartisan group of state and local lawmakers and organizations panned the proposition.Gov. Phil Murphy has ordered an investigation into the hiring of a former aide accused of sexually assaulting a campaign volunteer last year, saying Monday that he was "sick to my stomach" when he learned of the victim's story.New Jersey's attorney general also announced another investigation of the original sexual assault complaint, this one to be handled by another county prosecutor after the first recused herself citing a possible conflict of interest.During a news conference in Newark before he was set to leave for an overseas trade mission, Murphy said he did not know of the specific nature of volunteer Katie Brennan's allegation until Oct. 2. The aide, Albert Alvarez, resigned that day, shortly after the Wall Street Journal asked him about the alleged assault.Brennan alleges that Alvarez, who was responsible for Latino outreach during the campaign, assaulted her in April 2017 after a gathering of campaign staff. Alvarez was later hired by the Schools Development Authority for $140,000 in a decision Murphy insisted he was not part of.What Are the Controversies Surrounding Brian Kemp?

When the stakes are high, the temptation is always there to bend the rules to give your own side an advantage. Civil rights groups argue that Georgia GOP Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who is running for governor, is doing just that.Kemp, who oversees the state's election process, faces legal accusations of voter suppression -- particularly among minorities -- as he battles Democrat Stacey Abrams, who would be the nation's first black woman to be governor.Kemp denies any wrongdoing, but the controversy echoes questions raised about whether secretaries of state who oversee elections have irreconcilable conflicts as candidates."It is a problem that we have partisan-elected secretaries of state as the chief election officers," says Rick Hasen, a professor of law and political science at the University of California, Irvine. "It creates an inevitable conflict of interest when the person's allegiance is partly to their own political party. But the problem is of a different magnitude when the elected official is supervising an election where the secretary himself or herself is on the ballot."Kemp is one of several secretaries of state who have come under fire recently for allegedly abusing their power.After complaints, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, now the GOP nominee for governor, recused himself from the recount for his own primary race in August. His rival, Kansas Gov. Jeff Colyer, accused Kobach of giving improper counting instructions to county election officials.In Kentucky, Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, a Democrat, is under investigation by an independent counsel amid accusations that she misused voter data. The executive director of the state board of elections accused Grimes of improperly accessing voter information and using it to check the partisan affiliations of job applicants. Grimes denies the allegations. (Last month, her father, a former state Democratic Party chair, pleaded not guilty to charges that he made illegal campaign contributions.)Meanwhile, Arizona GOP Secretary of State Michele Reagan is being sued for allegedly failing to update voter registration information as required under the federal motor-voter law, potentially disenfranchising tens of thousands of voters.Last week, journalist Greg Palast published allegations that Indiana's secretary of state's office has illegally removed at least 20,000 voters from the rolls using a method that was blocked in June by a federal judge.The cases are all different, but the possibility that secretaries of state might be putting their thumbs down on the scale for partisan advantage encourages suspicions about their ability to be fair and impartial."There is a fundamental conflict of interest for an official to administer an election at the same time that he is running for office," says David Kimball, a voting expert at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. "The tension around this conflict is raised because issues around election laws and voting rights have become more divided and partisan."In most countries, Kimball notes, elections are overseen by independent bodies. The role of secretary of state in overseeing elections was once viewed as purely technical, much like their other responsibilities, such as issuing business licenses. That's changed."We see partisanship shaping the performance of jobs that in an earlier, less polarized age, would have been seen as more functional, more practical and outside of party politics," says Stephen Voss, a political scientist at the University of Kentucky.Secretaries of state have started serving as campaign cochairs for their parties' presidential nominees, while super PACs and other outside groups have sprung up specifically to give partisan secretary of states a boost in elections."There seems to be renewed interest on secretaries' races with all these new PACs. It's a political race, and this year will be no different," said the chair of the Republican Secretaries of State Committee, back in 2014.That person was Brian Kemp.A pair of lawsuits have been filed over the past week challenging Georgia's "exact match" law, which requires voter registration forms to precisely match information on file with Georgia's Department of Driver Services or the federal Social Security Administration. A missing hyphen, an extra space or the use of a nickname can make an application suspect.As a result of the policy, Kemp's office has put more than 50,000 voter registration forms on hold, the vast majority of them filled out by members of minority groups. Voters whose registrations are now "pending" can cast provisional ballots and then seek to rectify their records, or vote by presenting photo IDs that reflect the information on their voter registration forms. But Democrats argue that the policy will lead many potential voters to stay home out of confusion or fail to have their votes counted.Its part of a pattern of behavior where [Kemp] tries to tilt the playing field in his favor or in the favor of his party, said Abrams on NBCs Meet the Press" on Sunday.Separately, Kemp and the Gwinett County elections board are facing two lawsuits over a high rate of absentee ballot rejections. Through Sunday, 8.5 percent of absentee ballots have been rejected in Gwinnett, which is a majority-minority county, compared to the statewide average of less than 2 percent."Gwinnett County is rejecting absentee ballots at an astounding rate, accounting for virtually 40 percent of all rejected absentee ballots statewide," Kristen Clarke, president of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said in a statement. "Our analysis shows the impact is particularly stark on communities of color, with ballots cast by African-Americans rejected at more than three times the rate of ballots cast by white voters."These latest lawsuits aren't the first allegations of racial bias that Kemp has faced.In August, he was accused of encouraging a plan to close seven out of nine voting precincts in majority-black Randolph County. The plan was proposed by consultant Mike Malone, who had made a modest donation to Kemp's campaign and was on a list of consultants recommended by the secretary of state's office. Malone said Kemp had recommended "polling consolidation" in the county, a suggestion emp said he could not recall. The plan was ultimately rejected, and Malone was fired by the county.Last year, Kemp settled a lawsuit challenging an earlier version of the state's exact match requirement. The legislature almost immediately passed legislation offering the secretary renewed authority to implement similar requirements.Since 2012, Kemp's office has rejected or canceled more than 1.4 million voter registrations, including nearly 670,000 in 2017 alone.Kemp says he is merely keeping the voter rolls clean and taking steps to ensure that non-citizens do not vote. His office has said that the New Georgia Project, a voter registration group started by Abrams, has been sloppy in its work and turned in forms that are not legible or complete."I think hard-working Georgians should decide who their governor is, not people here illegally, like my opponent wants," said Kemp, alluding to a comment Abrams made last week at a rally , suggesting that "those who are ... undocumented" would be part of a Democratic blue wave in November.Voting advocates and civil rights groups have homed in on Gwinnett County and what they deem to be its "excessive rejection of mail ballots because of voters' innocent errors and discrepancies."Late Monday, a new lawsuit was filed U.S. District Court in Atlanta against Secretary of State Brian Kemp, the state elections board and the Gwinnett County elections board over the issue. The suit, brought on behalf of five plaintiffs and underwritten by the Coalition for Good Governance, asks a judge to order that all rejected absentee ballots and absentee ballot applications be reviewed and be reinstated if at all possible.A separate letter sent to Gwinnett County officials by the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law made similar suggestions.Both actions come amid media reports, including those by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, that found Gwinnett County was throwing out a disproportionate number of such ballots.Through Sunday, Gwinnett County had rejected about 8.5 percent of such ballots, an AJC analysis found. Across Georgia, less than 2 percent had been rejected.Gwinnett's 390 rejected ballots accounted for about 37 percent of the total rejected ballots statewide.Analysis by the Lawyers Committee suggested that the rejections also affected Asian, black and Latino voters at greater rates than white voters. More than 60 percent of Gwinnett residents are non-white.Gwinnett County has denied any wrongdoing.The most frequent reason Gwinnett election officials rejected absentee ballots was for "insufficient oath information," which is where voters fill out their signatures, birth dates and addresses on the envelope used to mail their ballot."The penalty for even the smallest clerical error or a question about the voter's signature is disenfranchisement, with no meaningful opportunity to cure any perceived discrepancy," the lawsuit says.The suit alleges that Georgia, and Gwinnett in particular, have a history of "rejecting an alarmingly high percentage of mail ballots." It asks for a number of "preliminary and permanent" remedies to be ordered by a judge.Those include that "any mail ballot that was previously rejected for the sole reason of an incorrect of missing year of birth" be reinstated, and that such ballots not be rejected in the future.The suit also asks a judge to require rejected voters be notified by one-day business mail, telephone and email, and for counties to form "bi-partisan signature review teams" to weigh in before ballots are rejected due to potential signature inconsistencies.Further, it asks for voters to "be given until the Friday after Election Day to resolve any ... mail ballot eligibility questions."Advance in-person voting for Nov. 6's general election began Monday."We are asking the Court to intervene to stop these unjust actions in advance of the November election," Marilyn Marks, executive director of the Coalition for Good Governance, said in a news release. "Certain Georgia laws and policies prevent the counting of valid ballots cast by eligible voters merely trying to exercise their right to vote."Gwinnett's comments on the situation have been limited, but the county has said it is following state law. It declined Tuesday to comment on the new lawsuit, citing a policy not to comment on pending litigation.On Monday, the Secretary of State's Office said it's up to individual counties to decide how to process its absentee ballots. A spokeswoman did not immediately comment on the new litigation Tuesday morning.Kemp _ who is also the Republican candidate in a hotly contested race to be Georgia's next governor _ and his office were already being targeted for perceived voting rights issues.News emerged last week that more than 53,000 Georgia voter registrations were on hold because of discrepancies between registration applications and government records. Under the state's "exact match" law, registration applications can be put in pending status even for small inconsistencies, such as a missing hyphen in a last name or a typo.Potential voters whose registrations are pending can still cast ballots if they verify their information with a state driver's license or other form of photo ID.Several groups sued the state over the "exact match" law, alleging it disproportionately harms minority groups.Multiple plaintiffs, including the Coalition for Good Governance, have also previously sued Kemp's office in a quest to conduct elections with paper ballots.Even before litigation was filed, theories abounded about why Gwinnett County appears to reject a disproportionate number of absentee ballots.Gwinnett elections board chairman Stephen Day, a Democratic appointee, said he does not believe elections staff has enacted any kind of "nefarious scheme." He said he is still investigating the issue but did throw out at least one potential explanation."Is it possible Gwinnett is strictly following the letter of the law and other counties use more subjective judgement (sic) in deciding whether or not a ballot should be rejected?" he wrote in an email to The AJC. "Yes, it is possible that other counties may be operating on the premise that if other information on the ballot application or ballot oath firmly identifies the voters as is claimed, then the clerical errors should be overlooked. I have no proof of that, that is just a possible explanation."Michael McDonald -- a University of Florida political scientist who runs the United States Elections Project, which provides data about elections across the country _ has developed another theory.Gwinnett is the only county in Georgia that, because of its high share of Latino residents, is federally mandated to provide elections materials in both English and Spanish. The current election season is just the second time that such bilingual materials are being utilized."In attempting to comply with Section 203 (of the federal Voting Rights Act), Gwinnett County election officials appear to have created a confusing envelope, which places English and Spanish directions side-by-side when requesting a key piece of information, a voter's year of birth," McDonald said. "As a result, Gwinnett has rejected 180 or more absentee ballots because voters failed to provide a correct birth year. This is far more than any other county reports."McDonald said that, while he believes the envelope design could be the most plausible explanation, rejected ballots would have to be reviewed to confirm his suspicions.Government officials in an east Georgia county told about 40 African-American senior citizens to get off a bus taking them to vote Monday, leading to complaints of voter suppression.The bus, run by the group Black Voters Matter, was preparing to depart from a senior center operated by Jefferson County when the center's director said the passengers needed to disembark, said LaTosha Brown, a co-founder of Black Voters Matter.A county clerk had called the senior center to raise concerns about allowing the bus to take residents from the senior center in the city of Louisville, south of Augusta."We knew it was an intimidation tactic," Brown said Tuesday. "It was really unnecessary. These are grown people."The senior citizens agreed to get off the bus and cast their ballots later. Monday was the first day of in-person early voting in Georgia in the election for governor between Democrat Stacey Abrams and Republican Brian Kemp.Jefferson County's administrator said Tuesday that the county government considered the event at the senior center "political activity," which isn't allowed during county-sponsored events.Black Voters Matter is a nonpartisan group encouraging African-Americans to vote in the election, but the county government considered the event political because Jefferson County Democratic Party Chairwoman Diane Evans helped organize it, County Administrator Adam Brett said in a statement."Jefferson County administration felt uncomfortable with allowing senior center patrons to leave the facility in a bus with an unknown third party," Brett said. "No seniors at the Jefferson County senior center were denied their right to vote."ThinkProgress, a progressive news website, first reported the incident Monday.Black Voters Matter had received permission in advance for the event at the senior center, Brown said. The event was originally intended to encourage seniors to vote, and when some of the seniors asked whether they could ride the bus to an early-voting location, Black Voters Matter agreed to take them.But someone apparently saw the bus, painted with the words "The South is Rising Tour," and called county government offices, Brown said. That led to the phone call from the county clerk to the senior center. When they were asked, the senior citizens agreed to leave the bus."It was discouraging that they weren't able to vote," said Evans, who was on the bus. "When they're suppressing votes, they're going to come up with any kind of excuse about what your problem is."Evans said the event wasn't political, nor did its organizers advocate for any candidates. Evans said she helped coordinate the event in her capacity as a private citizen, pastor and community leader, not as the chairwoman of the county's Democratic Party.During the event, the senior citizens got excited about voting and they danced near the bus as "Say It Loud _ I'm Black and Proud" by James Brown blasted through the speakers, Evans said.After the seniors got off the bus, they were initially told they could ride in a county van provided by the senior center to go vote, Brown said. But then the seniors had to get off the van because the senior center's leaders decided it was close to lunchtime, and the seniors could vote another day.Jefferson County Commission Chairman Mitchell McGraw didn't respond to an email seeking comment, and the senior citizens who were on the bus couldn't immediately be located for comment Tuesday. The senior center's staff routinely arranges public transit options for senior citizens to vote, Brett said.Despite the obstacles, the senior citizens will find a way to cast their ballots, Brown said."The seniors were so resolved. They said: 'We're going to vote. Nobody's going to stop us,'" Brown said. "It wasn't the first time someone has denied them or tried to prevent them from voting."(TNS)  For some time, telecommunication companies have been saying that Austin, Texas, is lagging in implementing the next wave of wireless communication, known as 5G.Now, the city is admitting that is the case.Austin has failed to keep pace with federal and state guidelines for preparing for 5G's rollout, city officials acknowledged.The result is that Austin  a place where tech innovation usually flourishes  is playing catch-up in preparing for what is expected to not only become the new and faster standard for wireless communication, but also power tomorrow's cellphones, cars and more.Telecommunication companies say their applications to install 5G connection devices have run into a bureaucratic slowdown at the city's telecommunications and regulatory affairs office.As of last week, Austin's office of telecommunications and regulatory affairs said it had approved 37 applications in total filed by wireless carriers such as AT&T and Verizon.In other Texas cities, it's been a much different experience. AT&T, for example, said it has had 25 times more small-cell devices approved in Dallas. The company is also preparing for a full 5G launch in Houston, San Antonio and other Texas cities."The city of Austin has simply failed to comply with (the state's) timeline," said Bob Digneo, an assistant vice president for AT&T's Texas operations. "The lengthy application review process ... is not seen in any other city in Texas."Austin, like the rest of Texas, is governed by a law passed last year that gives cities up to 150 days to approve or reject applications by wireless carriers to install 5G devices, with applications that are not denied or approved within the 150-day mark deemed approved. The Federal Communications Commission said its guidelines, which have similarities to the Texas rules, mainly apply to states that don't already have 5G-related laws on the books.Rondella Hawkins, director at the city's office of telecommunications and regulatory affairs, acknowledged to the American-Statesman that her office has been slow to process applications.Hawkins said applications have sometimes been held for the entire 150-day timeline because officials have been cautious about protecting the aesthetics of downtown Austin, where many of the small-cell devices will be installed. In addition to getting approval from her office, Hawkins said, companies also secure permits from the city for construction of devices and other factors, which further slows the process.The state law has also limited the costs Austin can charge carriers per application. Records show the city used to charge $1,250 per application. Now, it only charges $100. The change has helped companies push their 5G goals forward, but it also caused the city to adjust."We realized it was time to update how we are doing things," Hawkins said. "We are also meeting with providers to identify any problems."Despite being behind other cities, Hawkins said Austin will be prepared for the oncoming 5G rollout. She said the city has taken steps to speed up the application process, including self-imposing a 40-day timeline to approve or deny applications, and it also plans to add a staff member to focus solely on 5G device applications.Unlike current wireless communications standards, which mainly rely on large cell phone towers outside of city cores that companies share, 5G signals that will carry ultra-fast connection speeds will not be able to travel as far.Signals will instead operate through a network of what are known as small cells, or devices that are latched on to objects such as utility poles. 5G service is expected to begin rolling out in some cities within the next year and be mainstream in the next four to five years."The sheer number of devices that 5G will enable will open up a lot of possibilities for (Internet-connected devices), autonomous vehicles and smart cities in general," said Keith Snyder, a wireless communication analyst at investment research firm CFRA. "These (telecommunication) companies want to go to the epicenter of these cities, so if you're the one city that's hostile toward telecoms, they might eventually decide to not invest in the city.Broadband providers and their customers are depending on cities being ready, according to Verizon spokeswoman Jeannine Braggs.Braggs said since 2015, Verizon has invested $4.1 billion into their wireless network throughout Texas."Next-generation networks," Braggs said, "require next-generation infrastructure."(TNS)  GALESBURG, ILL.  Soon Galesburg, Ill., residents will be able to submit service requests to the city via the Internet.In a 5-0 vote  Aldermen Russell Fleming, Ward 3, and Jeremy Karlin, Ward 7, were absent  the council approved a contract with Public Service Request LLC to provide a software subscription service for public service requests through Dec. 31, 2019.That contract, paid for out of the general fund, is for $6,900.According to council documents, PSR provides a cloud-based subscription service to allow for the public to submit a service request to city staff. For example, a person could take a picture of a pothole with their cellphone and submit the location to city staff.The person who submits a service request would receive updates if they provide an email address.Alderman Peter Schwartzman, Ward 5, asked City Manager Todd Thompson if the new service would be advertised or how awareness about it would spread."We'll use what's available to us, like including items in the water bill" or using handouts, Facebook and other means such as word of mouth, Thompson said.Whether or not there will be an anonymous way to submit requests, another question from Schwartzman, remains to be seen."Typically, it's up to the city what information is required from a user ... (anonymity as an option is) something to look at as we implement it," Thompson said.Alderman Angela Bastian, Ward 1, also asked if information would be available by ward and that was something Thompson said city staff would also would look at.(TNS)  MORGANTOWN, W.Va.  Fifth generation (5G) wireless technology is coming to West Virginia, and the city of Morgantown is among the stakeholders looking at how the digital upgrade can best be implemented.City Attorney Ryan Simonton told members of Morgantown City Council he and Development Services Director Chris Fletcher met with representatives of Charleston, Huntington, the West Virginia Municipal League, the West Virginia Division of Highways and utility companies regarding the deployment of small-cell wireless facilities in the state.What the [wireless] carriers are proposing, in general, is preferential access to the public rights of way. They would like to co-locate on existing poles, usually at the tops of existing power poles, Simonton said.Simonton explained that the small-cell facilities in question are boxes measuring three cubic feet, prompting Mayor Bill Kawecki to ask if these facilities are what people have referred to as refrigerators on a pole.According to the National Conference of State Legislators, at least 20 states passed laws regulating the permitting process for 5G implementation, including access to rights-of-way, application timelines and fees.Similar legislation was unsuccessfully advanced during the 2018 regular session of the West Virginia Legislature. Simonton said he anticipates there will be another attempt in the upcoming session.We may also be introducing some local legislation to address the location of these facilities to the extent were able to provide some guidance, Simonton said, noting the issue is also subject to federal rulemaking.Simonton went on to say the city will charge application fees. If the boxes are placed on city-owned poles in the public right-of-way, permit fees could also be in play, as well as bonding for the necessary work.Morgantown Communications Director Andrew Stacy said its too early to know how many small-cell boxes would be needed to provide coverage in Morgantown.The city plans to reach out to AT&Ts contractor for this part of the state. We will have a better idea of the estimated number once we get in contact with them, Stacy explained via email. There are three or four other carriers who may build this type of network in Morgantown, but we havent heard from their representatives either at this point.Missouris longtime acting CIO will step aside to take a lower role in the state IT department as a new tech leader arrives from the private sector, officials in the Office of Administration (OA) said on Oct. 17.Its the latest shift at the states technology shop following the departure last month of its information security head.Acting CIO Rich Kliethermes, who has held that title since November 2015 but whose IT work history in OA spans 20 years, will make way for incoming CIO Mike Cheles (pictured at left), who was most recently director of quality and enterprise projects at St. Louis-based health-care company Centene Corp. Cheles first day as Missouri CIO, leader of the OA IT Services Division (ITSD) and of nearly 1,000 IT professionals supporting 14 executive departments and three elected officials, will be Oct. 22.His varied resume includes more than two years as CIO at instrument maker Gibson Brands Inc.; as director of IT at UnitedHealth Technologies; and as vice president of IT and CIO at SunEdison when it was known as MEMC Electronic Materials, according to LinkedIn . He was an adjunct professor of operations management at Washington University in St. Louis, prior to joining Centene, and this is his first government position. In an interview with, Cheles said he met and connected early in the onboarding process with Chief Operating Officer Drew Erdmann during a discussion of how government might raise revenue by increasing its productivity.Thats definitely what I would like to do with the government to, No. 1, give back, but No. 2, run it more efficiently because thats a lot of my tax dollars out there too. Maybe the way decisions are made are a little bit different and theres a larger number of stakeholders and things in the government than typically youd find on the commercial side. But the nuts and bolts about what I did in my past and whats needed at the state kind of transcend each other, Cheles said.Among his early priorities, the incoming CIO said hes eager to understand the states existing application portfolio ahead of plans to implement a modern enterprise resource planning system. He also plans to get to know and hear from existing staffers and develop an overall IT strategy during the next roughly six months. Automating older interfaces such as call centers, Cheles said, may be one way to improve residents experience with the state while simultaneously reducing cost.There are clearly ways we can automate to interface with the citizens of Missouri, make it easier for them to transact and get information with the state, as well as for us to be able to do it more effectively. I do see us interacting in a more advanced and updated way with the citizens of Missouri than were doing right now, Cheles said.The COO noted the significance of Cheles role in fine-tuning the partnership between IT and state agencies. For the first time, Erdmann said, the CIO position has been elevated to a co-equal, and Cheles will be a member of the cabinet when we convene the cabinet to discuss management issues.In a somewhat uncommon move, Kliethermes will remain at the state, transitioning as of Oct. 22 to become acting deputy director at ITSD. The C-level technologist has served state IT since 1998, beginning as an application developer/supervisor for OA/ITSD, according to LinkedIn . His move is just the latest high-level shift in state IT following the June resignation of Gov. Eric Greitens and elevation of Lt. Gov. Michael Parson to governor through 2020. Michael Roling, Missouris chief information security officer since 2009, headed to the private sector Sept. 28, to join a private software company.Kliethermes move also marks the complete transition of the Team Missouri leadership  him, Roling and then-Deputy CIO Steve Siegler  collectively recognized byas one of the Top 25 Doers, Dreamers & Drivers of 2017 . The group was lauded for its commitment to improving tech and cybersecurity, evidenced in 2016 when Missouri received an A grade in the Center for Digital Governments* 2016 Digital States Survey . The state repeated the feat in the 2018 Digital States Survey , earning an A in part for an enterprisewide IT modernization that included a new online portal to ease the Medicaid eligibility process and an overhaul of unemployment insurance systems. The effort was centered on governance and guided by a new state IT governance council convened this year for the first time.Erdmann called Cheles hiring critically important, to have a forward-thinking and forward-leaning, experienced technology and digital expert to come to lead us in the 21st century. He praised the previous work of state staffers but said the state is at an inflection point in the process of making government better for citizens. For too long, the COO said, the state has neglected the basic mechanics of how it manages resources to serve residents and create a good employee experience.We are going really back to [basic] management for efficiency, effectiveness and better customer service. And obviously, technology is at the center of that, Erdmann said, emphasizing that focus has been made clear by the governor, whose strategic priorities of workforce development and infrastructure also have a clear intersection with technology and data analytics.Missouri, Erdmann said, needs to make more and better use of its data to make fact-based decisions on assisting citizens  but promoting and incentivizing their re-entry into the workforce.[It's] critically important to have a forward-thinking and forward-leaning, experienced technology and digital expert to come to lead us in the 21st century," he said.Under Cheles leadership, the state also needs to do more with data, Erdmann said, employing it more effectively to combat waste, fraud and abuse; to inform policy design and implementation; and to enhance transparency and thereby, performance. He highlighted the Oct. 2 launch of Missouri Budget Explorer , which offers more comprehensive, detailed information on the state budget.In a few months, were going to be putting on that all the performance measures from across state government, Erdmann said, referring to the new website.Sarah Steelman, commissioner of OA, praised Kliethermes work and "dedication" but said she thinks Cheles can take a look at the big picture in ITSD to find new and different ways of improving service delivery.How do we make the trade-off Drew was referring to? How do we make our limited resources stretch as far as we can and still deliver the services that we need to, effectively, efficiently and on time? And so, all of those go together in a strategic format that I believe Mike has had the experience in the private sector to bring those assets to the public sector, Steelman said.(TNS)  Cybersecurity experts with the Illinois National Guard will be on standby during next month's elections to assist with any suspected security breaches, state election officials said Tuesday.It is part of the additional security arrangements put in place this year after the 2016 incident of Russian hackers subjected the state's election office to a cyberattack."In the immediate aftermath of that incident, we implemented new cybersecurity policies and procedures to guard against a future attack," said Steve Sandvoss, executive director of the state Board of Elections. "The Department of Homeland Security has advised election officials across the country to expect more such attempts to disrupt elections this year."Sandvoss said work has been done to enhance cybersecurity both at the Board of Elections office in Springfield and in all 108 local election authority offices. That includes the state hiring three cybersecurity specialists; it will be launching a cybernavigator program that uses federal funding to assist local authorities in putting in place the latest cybersecurity practices.The efforts also include tapping into cybersecurity experts with the Illinois National Guard to assist when a cybersecurity attack is suspected, either before election day or on election day itself. Already 20 other states have agreements with their National Guard units to provide cybersecurity support to their election authorities."The Illinois National Guard has quite a bit of robust cyber-capability that we've had for many years," said Maj. Gen. Richard Hayes Jr., adjutant general of the Illinois National Guard. "We're in a role to posture ourselves to support the entire state Board of Elections and the counties should they need assistance during the time in which the election proceeds."Hayes described the National Guard specialists as a back-up team to the group employed by the Board of Elections."The skill sets we bring are much like the skill sets we already have in the state, we just have a broader set of people available," he said.Hayes said they number in the hundreds. He said their backgrounds are in protecting Department of Defense systems from cyberattacks.In July 2016, Illinois election officials noticed unusual activity surrounding the statewide voter registration database. They discovered a flaw in the security system and fixed it. Federal authorities discovered it was Russian hackers that got into the system. No records were changed, nor were any votes altered.Since then the state has beefed up its own cybersecurity efforts and hired people to visit all 108 local election authorities to advise them on how to improve their own cybersecurity efforts."I'd say we're prepared," said William Cadigan, chairman of the state Board of Elections. "We're as prepared as we can be right now."(TNS)  With the growing fear of elections being hacked, cybersecurity is foremost on the minds of both candidates running for Will County, Ill., clerk in the Nov. 6 election.Republican Laurie McPhillips and Democrat Lauren Staley-Ferry want to fill the seat being vacated by the retiring Nancy Schultz Voots.We have to be aware that people are trying to hack into computer systems. There has to be checks and balances, said McPhillips, who attended a recent conference on cybersecurity.She said she will explore new technology and upgrade the computer system in the clerks office, and said everything has to be backed up by paper ballots.Staley-Ferry, who worked in a bank for 11 years, dealt with and had professional training in matters of identity theft and credit card security and managed cybersecurity projects for consumers. If elected, she plans to create a task force of cybersecurity professionals to work with the states attorneys office to review the current operations.The focus should be on the security of elections. I will look at security measures in an ongoing fashion, said Staley-Ferry, who is currently a county board member.Both candidates said their main difference is experience.Staley-Ferry said her corporate experience is what sets her apart from her opponent. The management and budget skills she developed at the bank fit the duties of the clerks office, she said.Staley-Ferry, who is completing her first term on the board and also serves as Democratic Minority Whip, said she has a current understanding of the countys challenges.Her opponent has not served in office for some time. Its important to have current experience, she said.McPhillips said she brings a broad range of experience in county government, having served in various capacities for over 20 years.She began her county career in 1985 in the economic development department, became secretary to the county administrator, and later the county executive, when it transitioned to that form of government. She was county administrator for seven years, director of operations for four years, and recorder of deeds from 2004 to 2008.During this time, McPhillips said, she prepared budgets, negotiated contracts, and worked closely with all county offices, including the clerks office.She said she would like to digitize all vital records in the clerks office, as she did in the recorders office.I served both parties, she said, noting that the clerk should be non-partisan.McPhillips also wants to increase voter turnout by educating residents and working with precinct committeemen to keep people informed on issues such as voting by mail and early voting, which are great options for voters, she said.Another convenience that she would like to add, is a cellphone app, which can provide election information, she said.Staley-Ferry said she wants to improve access to voting and make the process more convenient by extending the hours of voting and increasing the number of polling places, especially in Eastern Will County.She said she also plans to do more outreach to make sure they know what clerks office provides and work with high schools and universities to encourage young people to vote.Staley-Ferry said she will seek staff input to improve the efficiency of the office and will examine the budget to eliminate unnecessary expenses.McPhillips, a Plainfield resident, is currently a real estate broker and property manager. She said she will run the office with honesty and integrity.Since the clerk also is a keeper of signatures, she said many people are concerned about Staley-Ferrys previous charge of felony-forgery.There should be no clouds of suspicion, McPhillips said.In November 2002, Maricopa County, Arizona police charged then Lauren Staley with forgery for allegedly writing a $500 check to herself from the business where she worked at the time, and then moved to Wisconsin.Charges were dropped in 2012, and Staley-Ferry admitted her guilt when it came up during the primary campaign, calling it a poor decision.Looking at the past is not necessary right now, she said. Her current campaign is focusing on the positive and what I bring to the office. Residents have been supportive.Staley-Ferry also claimed that when McPhillips was recorder of deeds she inflated her budget by 23 percent.McPhillips said as recorder, she won a fiscal responsibility award from the Will County auditor.A Joliet resident, Staley-Ferry said she has been part of the county board that has reduced the tax rate and constructed new facilities, such as the Public Safety Complex and new courthouse, now under construction.She said she has consistently lobbied for improvements to the Fairmont community in unincorporated Lockport Township, and spends a lot of time in her district, but also attends meetings throughout the county to find out what is important to residents.I am committed to building relationships throughout Will County, she said.Staley-Ferry is an executive board member for Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Will and Grundy Counties. She also serves on the boards of the Spanish Community Center in Joliet, and the Heritage Corridor Convention and Visitors Bureau. More information is at lauren4clerk.com.McPhillips said she is committed to the community, and serves as vice-chairwoman of the Nature Foundation of Will County, and is a member of the Will County Farm Bureau, the Will County Historical Society, and the Will County Emergency Food and Shelter board.Dutch energy storage and battery company Lithium Werks B.V. and Chinese Zhejiang Jiashan Economic and Technological Development Zone Industry Corporation have signed a framework agreement with the intention to construct a 60-hectare battery gigafactory in the Yangtze river Delta. Total investments required are estimated at 1.6 billion (US%1.85 billion).

The Lithium Werks factory and related facilities will produce Li-ion battery cells. Lithium Werks expects to have installed production capacity of 500 GWh per annum by 2030.

The agreement, which was signed in the presence of the Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, marks the start of Lithium Werks plan to build multiple gigafactories across the world as part of a 15-to-20-year program that mirrors the long-term business models of the wind and solar industry.

Lithium Werks expects its revenue to exceed $1 billion by 2020 as it continues to grow its share of the rapidly expanding market for energy storage.MSG provides technical support to Vanuatus Human Rights Committee in the drafting of the national UPR reportMario Batali. Photo: Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images

In the wake of the #MeToo movement, nearly a dozen prominent men in the food and beverage industry have been accused of sexual assault, harassment, and abuse. But many aspects of the stories have come in fits and starts as more victims speak up and the accused negotiate ownership of their companies, take on legal battles, and, in some cases, deny the charges against them.

With the news that Mario Batali has been bought out of his ownership stake in B&B Hospitality, were reminded that the constantly moving parts of his story and other mens have made it difficult to paint a comprehensive picture of whether any real change is being affected within an industry where sexual harassment and assault remains rampant. In an effort to bring an iota of clarity to the situation, Grub has compiled a detailed list of the accused chefs and business owners, the allegations against them, and the aftermath. Unsurprisingly, while many of these mens reputations have taken a serious hit, their wallets and their businesses havent.

That said, women within the industry arent staying quiet. Groups like Women in Hospitality United and the New York Womens Culinary Alliance have made fighting sexual assault and harassment in the industry a part of their bottom lines, while tools like the National Sexual Assault Hotline remain as vital as ever. Whatever the fate of these men, theres certainly no going back now.

Mario Batali

Restaurant Group: Batali & Bastianich Hospitality Group

Accusations

On December 11, four women accused the celebrity chef of inappropriate touching dating back some two decades. Batali admitted that the accusations match up with his behavior, issued an apology, and stepped away from the day-to-day operations of his company. In the days after, further accusations from five more victims came out and Batali was linked for the first time with sexual misconduct at the Spotted Pig, co-owned by restaurateur Ken Friedman, who had also been accused of sexual assault and harassment.

Aftermath

Batali was fired from ABCs The Chew (which was canceled soon after) while the Food Network discontinued efforts to revive Molto Mario. Eleven days later, Eater published a follow-up report in which several staffers claimed that harassment and abuse were rampant within the entire B&B empire. In response, the company announced that it would rename the group, create a new leadership structure that would put chefs Lidia Bastianich and Nancy Silverton in greater positions of power, and focus on bettering the companys work environment. A 60 Minutes segment on Batali and Friedman later confirmed that the NYPD was actively investigating Batali for rape. After the segment aired, B&B issued a statement that Batali would fully divestfrom the company by July 1.

In late May, Joe Bastianich told 300 Las Vegas employees that B&Bs three restaurants in the city would close on July 27 after Las Vegas Sands Corp. opted to end its relationship with the group. On May 30, a group of women outside of the hospitality industry came forward to accuse Batali of groping them and forcibly kissing them, among other things. In August, one of these women sued Batali for an alleged assault in Boston. On March 6, 2019, Batali was bought out of all his shares in B&B Hospitality and began the process of giving up his minority stake in Eataly USA, a process that was completed in August 2019.

In May 2019, Batali pleaded not guilty in the case against him in Boston.

Thomas Carter

Restaurant Group: Matter House

Accusations

On August 9, Eater published a report where more than 30 former employees of Matter House (the group behind Flora Bar, Estela, and Cafe Altro Paradiso) alleged rampant verbal and mental abuse by co-owner Thomas Carter. Among the accusations leveled against him are reports that he made sexually suggestive comments about female employees bodies and personal lives, often berated male and female employees alike, and generally created a culture of fear.

Aftermath

A day after the Eater story, Carter announced that he would step away from the restaurants to reflect and continue the leadership and workplace training that has resulted in vast improvements in my choice of words and in our culture over the past year. On December 21, Matter House announced via a report in the Times that chef and co-owner Ignacio Mattos had successfully bought Carter out of his ownership in the restaurant group after the two came to a mutual agreement to part ways. Accordingly, Carter has resigned from all of his positions and will no longer be associated with the restaurants or management company.

Mike Isabella

Restaurant Group: Mike Isabella Concepts

Accusations

On March 19, the Washington Post reported that Chloe Caras, a former manager at Mike Isabella Concepts, had filed a lawsuit against the company, accusing Isabella and his business partners of subjecting her to extraordinary sex-based hostility and abuse before firing her. A former pastry sous-chef, who described the environment at MIC as degrading to women, also told the Post that Isabella kissed her on the cheek without her consent and often used words like bitch and whore in reference to women in the workplace. Isabella and his partners denied all accusations. In all, 25 employees talked to the press, many of whom declined to go on the record in fear of violating their NDAs.

Aftermath

Following, the Post story, Isabella was dropped by his PR firm, his image and name were scrubbed from a handful of events and websites, and the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington blackballed Isabella from its annual RAMMY Awards. Around the same time, chef Michael Rafidi, who ran MIC restaurants Arroz and Requin, announced that he would leave the company on April 22, saying only that he wanted to focus on opening his own restaurant. Shortly after, the Washington Nationals closed two Isabella restaurants within the teams ballpark. On May 7, MIC settled the Chloe Caras lawsuit for an undisclosed sum.

In September 2018, news broke that MIC had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after closing a handful of restaurants over the summer. In an interview with the Post, Isabella blamed falling profits at his restaurants on bad press following Carass accusations, though he said he was taking full responsibility for everything that has happened. In a Chapter 7 filing made on December 11, Isabella blamed several news outlets, including Grub Street, for incessantly report[ing] on Mike Isabellas failures as a chef and business man.

Under the present circumstances, I am facing the sad realization that I no longer believe that any restaurant associated with my name can recover from the negative press that has enveloped me for nearly the entirety of 2018, Isabella wrote in court documents. In February and March, equipment, decor, and more items from the chefs restaurants were put up for auction by a bankruptcy court.

John Besh

Restaurant Group: Besh Restaurant Group (now BRG Hospitality)

Accusations

On October 21, an eight-month-long investigation into New Orleans celebrity chef John Besh revealed rampant sexual harassment within his restaurant group. Female employees alleged that Besh himself subjected them to unwanted sexual advances, sexual assault, and gender-based discrimination. In all, 25 former and current employees came forward with stories of abuse, including two women who filed formal complaints with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, citing the companys lack of an HR department. Besh denied all allegations of assault against him while admitting that he engaged in an extramarital affair with one female employee.

Aftermath

Two days after the report, Besh stepped down from the Besh Restaurant Group. Over the next few months, he was quietly edited out of episodes of Top Chef and Iron Chef America while American Public Television pulled the chefs shows, Chef John Beshs New Orleans and John Beshs Family Table, off the air. As of today, Besh remains a co-owner of the renamed BRG Hospitality, though there are reports that he is in the process of divesting. In October, Eunice, a Houston restaurant that hes a partner in, opened with no mention of Besh. A few weeks later, the John Besh Foundation removed his name, adopting the name Made in New Orleans instead and hiring local nonprofit expert Lauren Darnell as the foundations new executive director.

Within BRG, server-turned-chief operations officer, Shannon White has taken over as CEO of the company. One of her first edicts was to create an anonymous tip line for employees, which resulted in the firing of four managers and a dozen other employees for inappropriate behavior.

In February 2019, Besh was bought out of all his shares in Johnny Sanchez, a popular Mexican restaurant he co-founded with chef Aaron Sanchez. The new ownership group plan to rename the restaurant as well.

Johnny Iuzzini

Business: Consultancy Sugar Fueled, Inc.

Accusations

Shortly after Thanksgiving 2017, four former employees accused the celebrity pastry chef of sexual harassment, including groping and verbal abuse during the final two years of his tenure at Jean Georges. In a statement, Iuzzini said, I am shattered and heartbroken at the thought that any of my actions left members of my team feeling hurt or degraded, though he went on to deny parts of the allegations. In early December, four more women stepped forward, including two who said Jean Georges management knew of Iuzzinis behavior as early as 2004, while another woman said that she filed a lawsuit against the company in 2010 after Iuzzini physically threatened her.

Aftermath

After the second group of women came forward with allegations against Iuzzini, ABC abruptly canceled The Great American Baking Show, on which the pastry chef was a judge, after airing three episodes of the shows third season. Later, ABC shared a Facebook Live interview with the winner of the canceled season, Vallery Lomas, who said that unfortunately, because of the actions of Johnny Iuzzini, we are not able to broadcast the show as was originally planned, adding that as a woman I have experienced harassment myself, I have experienced disrespectful comments, and I know firsthand the pain those comments and those actions can cause. At press time, Iuzzini maintains control of a bean-to-bar chocolate factory that he launched last year, as well as a regular presence on social media. In December 2018, The Great American Baking Show returned, with Iuzzini replaced by reality-TV chef Sherry Yard.

Ken Friedman

Restaurants: The Spotted Pig, Salvation Taco, White Gold Butchers, and others

Accusations

In December 2017, ten women came forward to accuse Ken Friedman of sexual assault. They also said that they asked Friedmans frequent collaborator chef April Bloomfield for help, but nothing changed. In the same report, Mario Batali, an investor in the Spotted Pig, was accused of sexual harassment and assault during various parties held on the restaurants third floor. While Friedman disputed how some of the interactions were characterized, he publicly apologized.

Aftermath

Shortly after the story went public, Friedman took an indefinite leave of absence from the management of his restaurants. Meanwhile, Bloomfield issued a statement saying that she referred employees with complaints to an outside mediator, adding, Nonetheless I feel we have let down our employees and for that I sincerely apologize. In March, chefs Erika Nakamura and Jocelyn Guest left White Gold Butchers, which closed a few months later. In May, it was revealed that Bloomfield and Friedman were actively working to dissolve their partnership, handing Salvation Taco at the Pod 39 Hotel over to Alex Stupak of Empellon, while in Los Angeles, several key employees left the duos restaurant Hearth & Hound. GFI Hospitality, the company that recruited Friedman and Bloomfield to open the Breslin and the John Dory, both in the Ace Hotel, handed control of the restaurants over to Bloomfield, and in October 2018 sued Friedman for allegedly mismanaging funds at both restaurants.

In June, chef Gabrielle Hamilton and her wife, Ashley Merriman, announced that they planned to take over the Spotted Pig, but in September, the pair shared the news that they were backing out of the deal after the group couldnt agree to the terms of the deal. A day later, April Bloomfield gave her first interview since the accusations against Friedman, saying that she was also a victim of his behavior and that I failed a lot of people. Since breaking with Friedman, Bloomfield has closed their L.A. restaurant Hearth & Hound and will also close The John Dory Oyster Bar.

On December 18, 2019, Friedman agreed to a $240,000 settlement with 11 victims brokered by the New York attorney generals office. Additionally, Friedman agreed to pay 20 percent of his profits from the restaurant to victims over ten years or 20 percent of the earnings should he sell his stake in the restaurant or sell the restaurant itself. Friedman was also barred from any day-to-day role in operations or management at the restaurant.

Charlie Hallowell

Restaurant Group: Analog Food Conspiracy

Accusations

In December 2017, San Francisco chef Charlie Hallowell was accused of sexual harassment and verbal abuse by 17 former employees. Hallowell issued an apology, calling his behavior unfiltered and often completely inappropriate, before stepping down from day-to-day operations of AFC and no longer receiving a salary. Three months later, 14 additional employees of Hallowell and his business partner Richard Weinstein levied charges against the pair, saying that calls for a systematic change at the company went unanswered long before allegations were made public.

Aftermath

Hallowell hired an attorney to conduct an internal investigation and recruited a female COO, Donna Insalaco, to lead the restaurant group. Over the summer, Hallowell and Weinstein sold their restaurant, Boot and Shoe Service, to a former employee after seven chefs and managers resigned en masse in protest of the mens continued ownership. Another report claims that the pair planned to sell their restaurant, Penrose, as well, but that deal never went through. After announcing over the summer that he planned to return to work, Hallowell shared a 12-point plan for his reentry that included making Insalaco a co-owner and managing partner after ousting Weinstein, hiring a third party HR company, and a monthly event where Hallowell will be dropped into a dunk tank (seriously), among other things. In late October, Insalco and Hallowell opened their newest restaurant, Western Pacific.

In her first-ever newsletter as the restaurant critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, Soleil Ho stated that she has no plans to review Western Pacific or any of Hallowells restaurants. I dont have to go anywhere I dont want to go, Ho wrote. I consider my refusal to grant publicity to chefs like John Besh, Mario Batali or Charlie Hallowell as another line that I wont cross, for both public and my personal health.

Jeremy Tooker

Company: Four Barrel Coffee

Accusations

In January, two former female employees filed a lawsuit against third-wave coffee chain Four Barrel Coffee and its owner, Jeremy Tooker. The two women, plus eight other employees, publicly accused the company of creating a hostile work environment, selling sexually explicit merchandise, and summarily dismissing HR complaints. Tooker was individually accused of groping, forcible kissing, and other sexual misconduct.

Aftermath

The weekend after the accusations came out, Tooker divested his 50 percent stake in Four Barrel. In a short-lived attempt to rebrand, co-owners Jodi Geren and Tal Mor temporarily changed the shops name to Tide and announced plans to turn the company into a 100 percent employee-owned venture; they also settled the lawsuit with the two former female employees. At the end of January 2017, the pair announced that after losing 50 percent of their wholesale business, they would move their roastery from Oakland to San Francisco while also laying off seven employees. The company currently pays for counseling for employees and has established an external HR department. Mor and Geren have yet to fully divest from the company, and as of today, ownership of Four Barrel had not been shifted to employees.

Randall Goldman

Company: Patrick Properties Hospitality Group

Accusations

In late February, eight former employees of Randall Goldman, the CEO of Charlestons Patrick Properties, stepped forward to accuse the local businessman of sexually suggestive behavior that included unsolicited back rubs, kisses, and late-night text messages. Goldman denied the charges, saying no complaints were ever filed against him. Owners Celeste and Charles Patrick defended Goldman.

Aftermath

A day after the report came out, the board of the Charleston Wine + Food festival voted unanimously to oust Goldman. Meanwhile, through their attorney, the Patricks said that their company is committed to a safe workplace, will investigate any complaint, and will take appropriate action whenever warranted. Over the next week, Goldman resigned as CEO and as a member of the James Beard Foundations National Advisory Board and the Greater Charleston Restaurant Association.

Mike Ray

Restaurants: Normandy Farm Bakery and One Broad

Accusations

On October 26, Rays event space, One Broad, hosted a cocktail reception for an organization showcasing four female-owned businesses in Charleston, SC. During a photo op, Ray stepped in front of the camera, pulled his pants down to his ankles, and exposed himself.

Aftermath

Three days later, Ray announced that he would step away from his day-to-day duties and seek counseling. In a statement to the press, Ray said, I know that I am better than my actions. I hope to recover and come out a much better and healthier person. On October 31, he was charged with indecent exposure by local police.

Eric Korsh and Junsoo Bae

Restaurants: Union Square Hospitality Groups North End Grill and Gramercy Tavern

Accusations

On March 9, former and current employees of Gramercy Tavern and North End Grill accused former sous-chef Junsoo Bae and former executive chef Eric Korsh of inappropriate touching and comments, as well as verbal abuse. Staffers said that despite filing complaints with HR about Korsh and Bae, leading to an internal slap on the wrist for both chefs, no real action was taken until Korsh and Bae were fired in late 2017 along with other male staffers.

Aftermath

Days after the report, Korsh left his job as the executive chef at Racines NY, a wine bar in Tribeca. In a statement, Korsh said, I sincerely apologize to those colleagues who I made feel uncomfortable through my actions. As I plan the next phase of my career, I am committed to building and maintaining respectful establishments with no tolerance for unprofessional behavior. At press time, Baes employment status is unknown.

Julian Medina

Restaurants: Toloache, Yerba Buena, and Tacuba

Accusations

In August 2017, Olga Ramos, a bartender at Medinas restaurant Toloache, accused the chef of blackmailing her with a sex tape that was recorded without her consent while the two were reportedly having a four-year affair. After the relationship ended, Ramos says Medina harassed her on the job and showed up at her house drunk, leading her to file a lawsuit seeking $500,000 in damages.

Aftermath

A few weeks after Ramoss allegations were made public, the case was voluntarily dismissed with prejudice, which may mean that the two parties agreed on a private settlement. Since the allegations, Medina has announced that he will open a new restaurant on the Upper West Side and another at La Guardia Airport.

This post will continuously updated with new information.A supper spread at Detroits Lady of the House, where mismatched plates are just one way to put diners at ease. Photo: Marvin Shaouni

When she opened Lady of the House last fall in Detroit, Kate Williams didnt want her plates to match. Her family was clearing out a storage unit at the same time she was looking for a way to make her new space  a Tigers bar turned Irish pub turned Williamss soon-to-be-acclaimed restaurant  look more homespun. My aunts told me, We found all of great-grandmas dishes. Do you want them? she recalls. They became the restaurants first dinnerware set. Williams, one of Food & Wines 2018 Best New Chefs, estimates that, now, 90 percent of the servingware at Lady of the House, one of GQs 2018 Best New Restaurants, is made of mismatched hand-me-downs. The idea, she says, was to do everything she could to turn her restaurant into its own kind of escape. She doesnt want diners to feel like theyre eating in a business; Williams wants them to feel like theyre in her dining room.

The late restaurant critic Jonathan Gold once wrote that the first responsibility of any great restaurant is to keep you in the bubble, the soft-serve cocoon of illusion where you forget the world exists for anything but your pleasure. When someone sits down to dinner, the thinking goes, the problems of the real world should disappear, even if its only for an hour or two.

This is not a new or novel idea, but for many operators, its become increasingly difficult to achieve that goal as the news becomes ever more oppressive, divisive, and terrifying. I cant imagine a more miserable time to be alive! says John Currence, the celebrated Mississippi chef. The average household income has never been higher, the economy is great, the market is thriving, yet we all deeply hate half of the country. Just last week, Currence himself quit Twitter and Facebook, which he likens to 24/7 road rage. Things got too toxic, he says, conceding: Ive definitely done damage to my business by participating.

Currence and Williams are among a group of chefs who told Grub Street that  in the current, anxiety-ridden era of, say, world-ending climate change, a president who publicly attacks an adult-film star, famed restaurant owners being regularly outed as predators, and a thousand other things that make us miserable  theyre working harder than ever to simply make their guests feel welcomed and relaxed.

We thought a lot about Irish hospitality, Williams says (her great-grandparents immigrated from Ireland). Plenty of my diners and employees vote different from me. Were also in a racially dynamic neighborhood, in a city that doesnt have many female restaurant owners. The menu features several shared entrees that signal this is not a stuffy, fine-dining temple. (Baby pictures of the staff also adorn the walls.) And first, guests are welcomed, in the traditional Irish fashion, with tea, and Irish rarebitspiced crackers.

This doesnt mean that the owners and chefs themselves are turning their backs on their own political views (Im not gonna stop being vocal about LGBT rights, minority rights, or other rights in general, Currence says), but there is a renewed emphasis on making sure everyone feels happy. Were really in the business of creating memories, says Houston chef Justin Wu. If you need an escape, its our job to feed you something that reminds you of better times in the world.

In 2012, Wu opened Oxheart a tasting menuonly destination that won him nationwide acclaim. He closed it last year, right after winning a James Beard Award for Best Chef in the Southwest. As he explains, hed hear critiques like, I love Oxheart, but I cant take my parents there. That just broke my heart, Wu says. All I ever wanted was a place I could bring my friends to, and Oxheart kind of spiraled out of control. So last year, he opened Theodore Rex, which hes described as both more approachable and intensely personal. Its named after his nephew, focuses on simple shared plates, pipes in trip-down-memory-lane 90s R&B, and features furniture that wouldnt be out of place in your house, like banquettes upholstered in comfy quilts. Our regulars will come in and say, I havent had the greatest day. Itd be great to have a glass of wine and tomato toast, and not be judged for spending $18 and leaving, Wu explains, pointing out that his tables are busy and customers linger longer. I hear a lot of, Thank you for being this to the city; thank you for lightening things up a little bit right now.

As others have noted, this emphasis on relaxation echoes the comfort-food boom that spread across the country in the wake of 9/11, and studies have indeed shown that comfort food does indeed flood the brain with positive memories, of parents and caregivers and a time when every day didnt bring the threat of a stranger harassing you on Twitter. Moreover, these pleasurable foods can actually attenuate the stress responses in our brains, sometimes for days. Everyone could use more of that, but its hard to also not see this as a correction to the chef worship that defined the food world for the last decade-plus.

With a few established exceptions, its difficult to imagine too many new operators convincing diners to endure a three-plus-hour tasting menu that challenges their palates (and their wallets) in the service of demonstrating a single chefs grand vision. In fact, restaurant visits are at a 28-year low, and the smart restaurateurs are signaling to their diners that they care about their opinions and experiences more than ever. Consider David Changs Momofuku empire, just a few years ago it was famous for policies that were not exactly guest-friendly: no menu substitutions, no photos, no backs on the chairs. Things have changed since then. At Momofukus new L.A. restaurant, Majordomo, guests get comment cards asking, quite pointedly, How did we do? And, in a true sign that comfort is the new goal, the chairs at Ssam Bar even have backs now.News

Spare parts dealer robbed of Dhs4,400 and a mobile in Dubai

The details of the incident date back to last July, when a spare parts dealer reported that an Asian gang had assaulted him and stole Dhs4,400 from his wallet after luring him under the pretext of a 'fake' deal for spare parts.Videos

Sorry, there are no recent results for popular videos.Youth And Women From Bentiu, PoC, And Rubkona Celebrate Progress On Peacebuilding

The United Nations Development Programmes and International Organisation for Migration youth peace building project, Beyond Bentiu Protection of Civilian Site conducted key site visits in Northern Liech State to showcase grassroots progress made to date on the peace building initiative.

Showcase of cultural activities aimed to promote social cohesion, strengthen relations and provide spaces for community members from the PoC, Bentiu town and Rubkona to re-connect [Photo|UNDP]

BENTIU 17 October 2018 [Gurtong]-The project aims at creating conditions for peaceful coexistence between Youth, Internally displaced Persons, returnees and host communities.



UNDP Country Director, Kamil Kamaluddeen handed over bicycles, gumboots, and raincoats to the peace committee members as an acknowledgement of the transformation witnessed so far between the youth from the PoC, Rubkona and Bentiu town.



The materials, if used properly, will advance peace and community support activities, especially during the rainy season. These supplies are a starting point; and this collaboration should bring more support, not just from UNDP, but also from other partners. Where there is peace, a lot can be achieved, Mr. Kamaluddeen told the youth leaders at a handover ceremony in Bentiu.



As part of the Beyond Bentiu initiative, 44 youth leaders were jointly trained together as peace champions and took up leadership roles in their respective peace committees.



As an outcome of the ground breaking joint activities, the youth champions took ownership of coordination to improve what is now known as the "Youth and Partners Peace Coordination Forum", where youth from the PoC, Rubkona and Bentiu town, jointly and freely discuss issues and challenges on a regular basis with UN agencies, INGOs and NGOs based in the area.



Many of these youth leaders, and their members, had not met formally since the start of the civil war due to political differences and perceived insecurity.



Previously, youth in Bentiu and the PoC would fight if they met. It was not safe for us to go to town, said Angelina, 20, a deputy of the PoC Youth Forum.



The training we received together taught me about leadership and peace building. Now if I see the youth fighting, I can intervene, and we as youth can do more together  sports, music, dramas. It taught us we are one blood, one people, whether we are in the PoC or living in Bentiu town. We only want peace.



A gathering like today would have not been possible in 2015 or 2016. We, as the youth and the people of Bentiu, Rubkona and the PoC, have started trying to improve our relations and move towards peace  even pre-dating the signing of the revitalized peace agreement in Khartoum. Our message is one of unity, let everyone accept peace and understand the realities of living conditions of the people of South Sudan. The message from the youth in Bentiu is enough is enough, and now is our time for peace. The future belongs to us, said Kang John Bol, Secretary for Peace and Reconciliation in the State Youth Union, mentioning the priorities of the youth in his area are towards livelihood activities, trainings, and how to reduce gender-based violence.



The swell in support of peaceful coexistence, where youth are taking the lead and security is provided by the government, has made it possible to start work on renovation of the Liech Primary School supported by IOM and a forthcoming Youth Centre supported by UNDP.



UNDP and IOM are providing livelihood opportunities for the youth through skills training and start-up kits for businesses. This is aimed at laying the foundation for building resilience and self-reliance among the young people. The delegation on Tuesday visited the construction site of the Youth Centre as well as the Governors office for a meeting with the Acting Governor Laraka Machar.



A showcase of cultural interdependency activities was also on display on Tuesday for the delegation.



Cultural activities are aimed to promote social cohesion, strengthen relations and provide spaces for community members from the PoC, Bentiu town and Rubkona to re-connect.

They particularly provide a space for women and girls to express and build confidence among themselves, share experiences through songs and dances, and promote positive peace building messages. Trophies were awarded for the best song, drama, and gala atmosphere.





Haiti - FLASH : The police commissioner of Petion-ville, c





Michel-Ange Louis-Jeune, the spokesman of the National Police of Haiti (PNH) confirmed that on the night from Monday 15 to Tuesday, October 16, around 2:00 am, the Police Commissioner of Petion-ville Gospel Monelus, was shot and wounded during a patrol at Delmas 95.



The incident occurred while he was getting out of his vehicle, accompanied by agents from the Central Directorate of the Administrative Police to remove barricades erected on public roads.



It was at this time that unidentified individuals opened fire on the patrol vehicle before fleeing, injuring him in the right arm.



The Commissioner was rushed to the hospital where he underwent a minor surgery to extract the bullet. He is doing well and has returned home to rest.



No one has been arrested for the moment said Michel-Ange Gedeon, the Director General of the PNH.



TB/ HaitiLibre





















Haiti - FLASH : Carrying of weapon suspended, the radical opposition refuses to obey !





Jean Roody Aly Minister of Justice and Public Security, in a note dated October 16, 2018 informs that as part of the commemoration of the 212th anniversary of the death of Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the carrying of firearms is provisionally suspended throughout the national territory, from Tuesday, October 16 from 6:00 pm until Thursday, October 19 at midnight.



"All licenses to carry a firearm are considered, in this circumstance, to be a license to possess firearms within the boundaries of the domicile of the citizen who is the holder, in accordance with Articles 268-1 and 268-2 of the Constitution. "



"[...] Law enforcement and judicial authorities are the only ones allowed to travel during this period with their regulatory and service weapons.



Private security agencies are also invited to adopt the necessary provisions in order to prevent their staff from traveling with service weapons during relays.



The National Police of Haiti and the Public Prosecutor's Offices of the Republic have been instructed to crack down with the utmost rigor against the violators of this measure, apprehending them and prosecuting them in accordance with the Penal Code and the laws of the Republic."



Reacting to this note, Me Michel Andre fierce opponent of the PHTK member of the Democratic and Popular Sector of the radical opposition states "The decision of the Minister of Justice to suspend the carrying of arms throughout the territory is illegal. Only the DGPNH can make such a decision. It is a strategy to facilitate the task to the armed groups close to the Power. No question of obeying an illegal order."



Moreover, Clame Ocnam Dameus, the Government Commissioner at the Court of First Instance (TPI) of Port-au-Prince informs the population of the metropolitan area in general and users of the public road, in particular, that "the Parquet will continue to demonstrate its presence on the streets alongside all those who choose to exercise their rights guaranteed by law, including the right to protest or not. However, he also wishes to remind them of their duty to exercise it in order and respect for public freedoms, which are controlled by legal provisions. Accordingly, he intends to enforce the said provisions by taking the necessary measures to counteract all offenders."



"[...] the Commissioner invites the public to keep calm and serenity to prevent any panic and calls for vigilance to avoid falling into the trap of provocation and manipulation [...] While everyone is entitled to peacefully participate in street protests, the fact remains that the rights of those who choose to go about their daily activities should be respected. [...]"



HL/ SL/ Haitilibre





















Haiti - Politic : Haiti is the reference for all people on earth who love freedom





This Wednesday, October 17, the day of the commemoration of the 212nd anniversary of the assassination of the Emperor Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the ceremonies took place in two places. First in Pont Rouge, where President Jovenel Moise accompanied by his wife Martine, the Prime Minister, Jean Henry Ceant, High Dignitaries of the State, the High-General Staff of the National Police and members of the High-State Major of the Army laid a wreath at the foot of the monument erected in memory of the father of the Nation. A ceremony in which there was a serious incident when shots of unknown origin were fired during the ceremony, causing panic and confusion. Despite this turbulent episode, the Head of State safe and sound, went to Marchand Dessalines where he participated in a Thanksgiving Mass in honor of the Founder of the Nation at the Parish Church Sainte-Claire of Dessalines, before going to the Place Dessalines for a minute of silence at the foot of the status of the Emperor and delivred his message to the Nation.



Extracts from the message to the Nation of President Jovenel Moise :



"My brothers and sisters,



On October 17 and a sacred date for Haiti, this is a moment when we commemorate a sad event in the history of the country, a stain that is stuck in the history of Haiti as a free people, who struggled to give to the whole world an example, we have shown to all the people of the earth that slavery is a bad practice that must stop whatever its form or place [...] This is the greatest lesson in the world. Haiti's history is one of the greatest lesson for humanity when we show the world what we can do in the union [...] the Republic of Haiti is the reference for all people on earth who love freedom, who want to work for dignity, for peace, for unity, justice, respect for the rights of all, for inclusion, for progress, like a good education for all children, all young people, for all the citizens who live on this land.



This is what Dessalines had as projects, it is on these projects that I look to go further.



[...]



After having finished fighting for our freedom, unfortunately, we have taken another path, the path of division, of fighting each other, of breaking, of treason today is the day we all Haitian wherever we are, we need to be aware of the situation and the future of our country.



[...]



We all agree that we must change the way we live in the country so that all Haitians can live in peace, so that we can work so that the country can use all its resources so that all its children can better live [...]"



Listen to the full speech of Jovenel Moise :



















HL/ HaitiLibre

















(Reuters)  U.S. hedge fund Livermore Partners has called for an overhaul of the board at Detour Gold Corp and a strategic review, becoming the second activist to target the Canadian mining company.

To read this article:Some representatives, in fact, viewed that the governments inability to justify its position only exacerbated the confusion surrounding its proposal to ease laying off for small businesses.

Members of the Finnish Parliament on Tuesday debated at length a government statement on its employment policy approach, but failed to make any progress in bridging the gulf between the ruling and opposition parties.

The Finnish government was also accused of a lack of commitment to the debate: it launched the employment policy debate with much fanfare  by resorting to as unconventional a method as the government statement  but all of its members had vacated their seats in the session hall by 6.50pm on Tuesday.

Eero Heinaluoma (SDP) expressed his puzzlement with the actions of cabinet members earlier, following the departure of Prime Minister Juha Sipila (Centre).

A moment ago this was billed as a super-important question thats critical for the governments policy approach. Then the prime minister walks away, in the middle of the debate. Im a big fan of television myself, but I do think you should continue a parliamentary debate also after the TV cameras have been turned off, he said.

Heinaluoma added that although the debate had at that point dragged on for three hours, a number of questions remained entirely unaddressed.

My understanding of what the government is doing is even poorer than what it was [before the debate], he said. If I was a business owner, I wouldnt know if I dare to lay off anyone, or hire anyone.

Aleksi Teivainen  HT

Source: Uusi SuomiEveryone eligible should be vaccinated against COVID-19 as a condition of long-distance travel or employment.

Vaccination should be voluntary but those who don't get vaccinated should be frequently tested for COVID-19 as a condition of long-distance travel and employment.

Both vaccination and testing should be voluntary and not required as a condition of long-distance travel or employment.

I defer to the judgment of lawmakers as long as they base their decisions on a consensus of medical professionals.

Vote

View ResultsIn their quest to give U-boats eyes in the sky, the Nazis developed and tested two small sub-carried spotter aircraft.

When it comes to creating extreme aircraftboth good and badits difficult to outdo Nazi Germany. The Reichsluftfahrtministerium (Ministry of Aviation, or RLM) was apparently willing to invest in any aeronautical idea, regardless of how bizarre. For their part, German engineers happily obliged by coming up with some of the most outlandish aircraft ever conceived. Arados little Ar-231 floatplane, designed to be transported and launched from a submarine, has to come near the top of the list.

The concept behind the design, meant to fulfill a very stringent navy requirement for a spotter plane, could in itself be characterized as extreme. Aircraft operating from warships generally have to be compact, but in this case the airplane was to operate from a submarine that hadnt even been built yet, the Type XI Unterseekreuzer. Designed in 1939, the 377-foot-long U-cruiser would have been the second largest sub in the world, after the Japanese floatplane-carrying I-400 class.

Unlike its Japanese counterparts, however, the Type XI would have lacked launching catapults. In addition, the Japanese subs had horizontal hangars, allowing their aircraft to move directly onto the catapult for launching. The U-cruiser, in contrast, was designed to store its aircraft in a vertical tube just forward of the conning tower. The floatplane was to be stowed in a nose-down attitude to protect the airframe from dripping oil and fuel. When needed, it would be hoisted onto the deck with a crane, assembled, lowered over the side and then flown off the water.

As with several of Germanys other ambitious naval programs, construction of the Type XI U-cruisers was cancelled at the beginning of World War II in order to conserve raw materials for more vital weapons production. For unknown reasons, though, Ar-231 development continued. The first prototype of Arados little scout made its maiden flight on July 25, 1940, nearly a year after construction of the vessels from which it was meant to operate ceased.

In most respects the Ar-231s design was fairly conventional for a single-engine, single-seat, twin-float parasol monoplane. The tail fin was unusually low and the elevator stuck out behind the rudder, both features dictated by the subs limited stowage space. What set it jarringly apart from the crowd, however, was its wing configuration. In an effort to facilitate folding, the designers mounted the center section at an 11.5-degree angle, with the left wing higher than the right. In addition, the left wing was rigged with a noticeable dihedral angle, whereas the right wing was almost flat. The wings were deliberately designed that way in order to allow one to fold beneath the other to save space.

Arados engineers went out of their way to produce an airplane that would be easy to assemble. In fact, the Ar-231 reportedly could be deployed in as little as six minutes. The resulting floatplane, however, looked as though it had been assembled incorrectly or had been involved in a nasty accident.

Powered by a 160-hp Hirth engine, the Ar-231 had a wingspan of 33 feet, was 25 feet long and weighed only 2,200 pounds. Maximum speed was listed as 106 mph and range as 311 miles. Since the floatplane had a hard time getting airborne with a full fuel load in normal sea conditions, range under actual operational conditions would undoubtedly have been far less.

Flight testing continued through 1941, and six prototypes were produced. As might be expected, the floatplanes handling characteristics, both in the air and on the water, were less than stellar. The Ar-231 proved to be unstable, underpowered and flimsy. It was incapable of taking off in anything rougher than the smoothest sea conditions unless a few weighty items were removedsuch as the radio and much of the fuel!

In spite of its shortcomings, the Ar-231 got a reprieve from oblivion in May 1942, when two of the six prototypes went to sea in the new surface raider Stier. The proven and much-preferred Arado Ar-196 floatplane was too large to fit into the converted cargo ships hatches, leaving the Ar-231 as the only available alternative. They proved so useless, however, that Stiers captain, Horst Gerlach, regretted taking them along. When Stier fell victim to its last prey, the Liberty ship Stephen Hopkins, on September 27, 1942, both Arados went down with it.



The Focke-Achgelis Fa-330 was launched from a U-boats conning tower. (HistoryNet Archives) The Focke-Achgelis Fa-330 was launched from a U-boats conning tower. (HistoryNet Archives)

No U-boat ever took an Ar-231 to sea. Undeterred, the RLM came up with an even more improbable alternative to serve as the submariners aerial observation platform: the Focke-Achgelis Fa-330. The tiny 150-pound gyrocopter was designed to be towed behind a surfaced submarine at the end of a 500-foot tether, like a rotary-wing kite. The idea was that one of the crew would go up in the little helicopter to scan the horizon for potential victims. If he spotted an enemy ship or aircraft, the tether would be immediately cut and the sub would crash-dive. In a scene reminiscent of the fate of the Zeppelin observer in Howard Hughes famous film Hells Angels, the hapless U-boat lookout would be left to auto-rotate into the sea, to be picked up later by his comrades, or not, as fortune decreed.

Not surprisingly, the U-boat crews exhibited no more enthusiasm for the Fa-330 than they had for the Ar-231. Fortunately for them, new developments in air and surface search radar made all those aerial observation posts redundant.

This article originally appeared in the November 2018 issue of Aviation History. Subscribe here!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.Subscribing to our services is a three step process. First you have to create an account and then you have to pick if you want to subscribe to digital and or print.

Some people only want to be a digital subscriber to get access online and others want to also receive the print edition.

If you are already a print subscriber and want online access, it is free, you simply have to create an online account and then attach your print subscription account number to the online account you create.As an existing print subscriber it is easy to get FREE access to all our online content.

When you click get started below it will walk you through creating an online account to attach your print subscription number to.

After your account is created it will ask you to either add a subscription for online access or click on the print subscriber button. Click the print subscriber button header and it will open a dropdown, now click on get started. The page will reload and you will be prompted to enter an account number and a zip code.

IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO USE THE NUMBER OFF OF THE MOST RECENT ISSUE OR ANYTHING AFTER JANUARY 28, 2019 TO GAIN ACCESS!

OLD ACCOUNT NUMBERS WILL NOT WORK

The account number and zip code are easily available on your most recent issue of the High Plains Journal or Midwest Ag Journal in the address fields as is shown here. Sometimes the account number has extra zero's in front of it, just ignore those.Cyprus PIO: Turkish Cypriot and Turkish Media Review, 18-10-17 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-17.10.18 No. 200/18 [A] TURKISH CYPRIOT / TURKISH PRESS Contents A. Turkish Cypriot Press [01] Akinci is satisfied with the UN Secretary General's report [02] Cavusoglu in a joint press conference with Ozersay: "We do not exclude any alternative in Cyprus" [03] Statements by Ozersay to CNN-Turk in Ankara [04] Ozersay asks for economic cooperation and interdependence with or without a solution to the Cyprus problem [05] Ozersay: "We don't want to be imprisoned in continuously repeated vicious circles" [06] Ozersay's contacts in Ankara [07] Afrika newspaper's "trial" started upon a complaint by the Turkish "embassy" [08] COMAR's survey indicates Tatar to be the winner of the UBP leadership at the second round of "elections" in the UBP [09] Harmanci met with a delegation of experts from Jerusalem and Palestine [10] An ancient tomb with 27 pieces of artefacts are unearthed in occupied Akanthou [B] Turkish Press [A] TURKISH CYPRIOT / TURKISH PRESS [01] Turkey vows op in east Syria if US does not take steps on YPG [02] President Erdogan meets with US Secretary of State Pompeo in Ankara [03] Reports: Saudi journalist Khashoggi decapitated after fingers cut off [04] Istanbul court issues red notice for journalists Dundar, Tan?r [05] Anti-Turkey Weber succeeding Juncker as EU chief would be 'disaster', AK Party spokesman says A. Turkish Cypriot Press [01] Akinci is satisfied with the UN Secretary General's report Under the title "Akinci is pleased with the Report!", Turkish Cypriot daily Detay newspaper (17.10.18) reports that Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci, evaluating yesterday the UN Secretary General`s report, expressed his satisfaction that the report reflected his view that if a possible negotiation process was to resume, it could only be successful only if it is not open-ended, it is a result-oriented with a strategic approach. In his written announcement, Akinci referred to the re-appointment of Ms Lute by the Secretary General as an important aspect, expressing his satisfaction that his views regarding the modality were reflected in the report. Claiming that this important development in order to gain meaning should be discussed within the framework of the same sensitivity of understanding regarding the terms of reference, Akinci added that this is connected to the necessity to act with a strategic understanding and well-structured, focus on the result without being open-ended. Referring to these previous meetings both with the UNSG and his temporary consultant to Cyprus, Akinci said that on all occasions he had voiced his views regarding the Cyprus talks and how they should proceed. He further argued: "The UN Secretary General in his report notes that the status quo in Cyprus is not sustainable and there is a need for permanent solution on the island. In addition to this he underlined the fact that a process that does not bring any outcome has been left in the past and that the only way the efforts towards finding a solution can be successful is if these efforts are result oriented and foreseen in the near future". Referring to the future visit to be carried out by Ms Lute, Akinci claimed that as the side that has always sought a solution and displayed a constructive stance on the Cyprus issue, they will continue to contribute towards the solution process on the island. Noting that he will meet soon with President Anastasiades and commenting on the debate regarding "loose federation" and "central government with less power", Akinci said: "If Anastasiades has some new views regarding the future of the island, then I will gladly listen to these views at the meeting which will be held very soon. However, it should be kept in mind that the solution to be found, regardless what it is called, if it would be a federal partnership state, and the effective participation of the sides in the powers which will be used jointly is inevitable. It is clear that the solution will be found by two founding states and the political equality will be one of the most important principles". Akinci concluded by saying that in the meeting with President Anastasiades, he hopes to discuss and determine the dates for the opening of the crossing points of Deryneia and Apliki. He claimed: "I want to remind that we, as the Turkish Cypriot side, are ready to open both crossing points". (DPs) [02] Cavusoglu in a joint press conference with Ozersay: "We do not exclude any alternative in Cyprus" Turkish Cypriot daily Yeni Duzen (17.10.18) reports that Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has said that no one can endure a new failure in the Cyprus problem and for this reason, before the beginning of the negotiations, the Turkish side does not exclude any alternative, including the federal solution. In statements during a joint press conference yesterday in Ankara with Kudret Ozersay, self-styled foreign minister of the breakaway regime in the occupied area of the Republic of Cyprus, Cavusolglu said that during their two-hour meeting they evaluated the relations between Turkey and the "TRNC", as he called the breakaway regime in the occupied area of the island. He alleged: "We have evaluated especially the situation regarding the negotiations since Crans Montana and also what we should do on the issue of extracting the natural gas and oil reserves, which are around Cyprus and what will be done against the unilate ral steps which have been taken or are being taken". Referring to the trilateral meetings held by the Republic of Cyprus with "some countries", Cavusoglu said that he discussed with Ozersay how the interests of the Turkish Cypriot "people" and Turkey could be protected against these contacts. Cavusoglu described as "important" the fact that no solution or state model is imposed in the UNSG's report on Cyprus and reiterated the allegation that the Greek Cypriot side has not shown a good will for finding a solution in Cyprus. He further claimed: "[] Starting again negotiations for the sake of negotiations is meaningless now. No one can endure a new failure. For this reason we do not exclude any alternative before the beginning of the negotiations, including the federal solution. We should meet beforehand with the sides and agree on what we will be negotiating and the framework of these negotiations. And the negotiations need to be fruitful. We are in close cooperation with the TRNC in this process. Before any step which we will take, our friends come to Turkey or we go to the island. We discuss and consult with Mr president, the prime minister, deputy prime minister Kudret Ozersay and all parties which are in the government or the opposition. We take our steps within this framework. []" Referring to the hydrocarbons in Eastern Mediterranean, Cavusoglu alleged that they will respond to all "unilateral steps" and that during their meeting yesterday they discussed their timing on this issue. He claimed: "Everybody should know this: We say that both peoples have rights on the reserves around Cyprus. And from now on we will not hesitate to take any steps for the protection of the interests of the Turkish Cypriot side and Turkey against unilateral steps. []" In his statements, Ozersay expressed his satisfaction with the fact that Turkey is by the "TRNC's" side on every issue and added that in Turkey he has carried out consultations on the Cyprus problem, the future of Cyprus and the hydrocarbons in Eastern Mediterranean. Referring to the UNSG's report on Cyprus, Ozersay argued that it includes realistic evaluations and added: "The esteemed UNSG stressed the need and the importance of the sides to agree through a dialogue between them first on the issue of what they will be negotiating and how they will be negotiating. Therefore, the sides should have a joint vision for the future, a joint target. In any case, this is what we have been always stressing. In our view the fact that the UNSG underlined this and noted that some conditions exist, instead of saying sit and start negotiations from the point they have left off, is a realistic approach. []" Responding to a question, Cavusoglu said that before a new negotiating process begins, they will meet with all sides and determine what and how they will negotiate. Recalling that they had held a meeting with the Republic of Cyprus' guarantor powers in New York, Cavusoglu argued: "Actually we meet, talk and greet each other with the Greek Cypriot side unofficially either in EU meetings or in UN meetings, but this does not mean that we recognized the Greek Cypriot side. In Crans Montana I held a face to face meeting with Anastasiades. Before that I had met with AKEL General Secretary. He is also a friend with whom I have worked together in the Council of Europe. Upon our invitation, he came to Turkey and we talked. You should know the following: As Turkey, as a country which is not obliged to give no one an account on any issue, the Cyprus issue is our joint cause. We consult with the administration of the TRNC for every step we take and everything we say. [] We hold these contacts when the esteemed president, the prime minister, the deputy prime minister and the chairmen of the other parties say to us that this kind of contacts are useful. That is, we take no step separately from the TRNC's administration. []" Cavusoglu described as "intentional" the news published in the press regarding his meetings with officials of the Republic of Cyprus. Replying on the same issue, Ozersay argued that if the Turkish Cypriot side was not an interlocutor, he would not have been in Ankara and Cavusoglu would not have visited the occupied area to hold contacts with Turkish Cypriot "officials". "If the Turkish Cypriot side was not an interlocutor, the meeting in New York at the UNSG's level would not have taken place", he added and claimed: "It is obvious that especially the door of unofficial dialogue is the only necessary element for solving any problem. Therefore, creating such a debate and discussing on it causes damage and it is not beneficial from the point of view of the relations between Turkey and the TRNC". (I/Ts.) [03] Statements by Ozersay to CNN-Turk in Ankara According to Turkish Cypriot illegal Bayrak (17.10.18, http://www.brtk.net/ozersay-derdimiz-sularin-isinmasi-degil-sogumasidir/), Kudret Ozersay, self-styled foreign minister of the breakaway regime in the occupied area of the Republic of Cyprus, has alleged that the Turkish side has never taken and will never take a step for heating up the waters in Eastern Mediterranean. In statements to CNN-Turk television, Ozersay claimed that the Republic of Cyprus allows various countries, including the US, to use the naval and airbases in the government-controlled area of the island. He said that they closely follow the developments with Turkey and take some measures. Ozersay alleged that as long as the Greek Cypriot side, as he described the Republic of Cyprus, continues taking "unilateral steps" in Eastern Mediterranean, the Turkish Cypriot side will continue taking some measures which will balance these Greek Cypriot steps. "Nothing can be more natural than this. These are closely followed and evaluated with [Turkey's] Minister of Defense Hulusi Akar and Foreign Minister Cavusoglu and we are taking our measures. All these however are not things which could be announced publicly", he argued and claimed that "our proposal especially on energy and similar issues was for cooperation and in the worst possibility for deterrence". Noting that the Republic of Cyprus will most probably carry out a drilling in parcel 10 before the end of this year, Ozersay said that if this happens, the Turkish Cypriot side will also hold a drilling in the same area within the framework of the so-called license it had given to Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPAO). He alleged: "The TRNC will carry out this drilling through the company. What we do is not different than what they are doing. What we do is taking steps and being de facto on the field. What we do is going after our rights [] At the moment we are showing a stance aiming at protecting the rights and interests of both the TRNC and Turkey and we will continue this". Referring to the UNSG's report on Cyprus, Ozersay alleged that the Greek Cypriot side is trying to create the impression that security and guarantees have been cut off by the other issues, in spite of the fact that six chapters exist in the Cyprus problem. He claimed that in the negotiations there is a problem especially on the issue of sharing the administration and the wealth. Commenting on the "loose federation idea", he alleged that by expressing this idea the Greek Cypriots are actually telling the Turkish Cypriots that they are not ready to share the administration with them within the framework of political equality. He argued that it is not possible for the Turkish Cypriots to accept such an approach. (I/Ts.) [04] Ozersay asks for economic cooperation and interdependence with or without a solution to the Cyprus problem According to Turkish Cypriot illegal Bayrak (16.10.18, http://www.brtk.net/ozersay-dogal-zenginlikler-isbirligi-icinde-kullanilmali/), Kudret Ozersay, self-styled foreign minister of the breakaway regime in the occupied area of the Republic of Cyprus, has alleged that a reference to the natural gas in Eastern Mediterranean is made in UNSG's report on Cyprus and that the sincerity of the international community on the issue of cooperation in the area will be seen in the following period. Addressing the opening ceremony of a symposium under the title "Law and Politics in Eastern Mediterranean" in Ankara, Ozersay claimed that they wish for the natural wealth to be used in cooperation in a manner which will create full interdependence. He alleged the following: "[] The ideal thing would be for this to happen within the framework of the overall solution. However, if a comprehensive solution is not reached after 50 years or if it delays, the sides should obtain it [the natural wealth] without waiting for the solution. The thing which will abolish instability which will reduce the danger of conflict in the area is a full economic cooperation and interdependence. And a dialogue and a vision is undoubtedly needed for this. I believe that within the forthcoming period we will be able to achieve this all together and especially with Turkey". (I/Ts.) [05] Ozersay: "We don't want to be imprisoned in continuously repeated vicious circles" According to illegal Bayrak television (17.10.18, http://www.brtk.net/ozersay-tbmm-disisleri-komisyonunu-bilgilendiriyor/), Kudret Ozersay, self-styled deputy prime minister and foreign minister, who continues his contacts in Ankara, briefed the Foreign Affairs Committee of Turkish Grand National Assembly about the "TRNC" and the regional developments. Volkan Bozkir, Chairman of Foreign Affairs Committee of the Turkish Grand National Assembly, speaking at the open session, said that there have been developments recently on the Cyprus issues and that the UNSG's report has been published. Bozkir pointed to the importance of being briefed by Ozersay almost immediately regarding the developments on the Cyprus issue. Noting that he was honoured to be present in the Parliament, which reflects the will of the Turkish people, Ozersay said: "It is important for us that the Cyprus issue is being discussed in the first meeting of the Foreign Affairs Committee. I thank you for the invitation." Noting that the members of the Committee will have meetings in very different platforms in the upcoming period, Ozersay claimed: "The Turkish Cypriot people are unfairly isolated by the world, and unfortunately in some of these platforms our voice is prevented to be heard. It will be extremely important to prevent this and to know that our demands, thoughts, sensitivities will reach some of these places through you. In this context, I believe that our today's meeting and our evaluations will be important." Ozersay further argued: "We want to look to the future as TRNC with confidence and so far we have always revealed a political will towards a solution. We have always shown a peaceful attitude. In the coming period, we do not want to be imprisoned in continuously repeated vicious circles, which are becoming banal with some creative ideas. We want to look to a more stable future with more confidence. I would like to emphasize once again that we will continue to shape our foreign policy together with Turkey, which has been always next to us, as a strategic ally and the relations between Turkey and the TRNC, as it has been until today, will continue after this to be as a serious ally relationship." After the short statement to the press, the briefing meeting at the Foreign Affairs Committee was held. (DPs) [06] Ozersay's contacts in Ankara Turkish Cypriot daily Kibris (17.10.18) writes that so-called foreign minister Kudret Ozersay, who is currently in Ankara, met with the Turkish Minister of Defense Hulusi Akar. He also met with Presidential Spokesman Ibrahim Kal?n. In addition, according to Ankara Anatolia news agency, (17.10.18) Ozersay met with Deputy Prime Minister Fuat Oktay. The meeting was not open to the press. (CS) [07] Afrika newspaper's "trial" started upon a complaint by the Turkish "embassy" Turkish Cypriot daily Afrika (17.10.18) reports that the hearings regarding the "lawsuit" filed against the paper's publisher Sener Levent and editor-in-chief Ali Osman Tabak for publishing a caricature, which had allegedly insulted Turkish President Erdogan, started yesterday at occupied part of Nicosia's "district court". "Police inspector" Isa Sevindik told the "court" that after the publication of the caricature on 8 December 2017, the "embassy" of Turkey in the occupied part of Nicosia filed a complaint that the Turkish President and the Turkish people were offended. The paper's lawyer Tacan Reynar filed an objection when Sevindik attempted to submit this complaint as evidence. In his column, Sener Levent recalls that the caricature showed an ancient Greek statue peeing on Erdogan's head. (I/Ts.) [08] COMAR's survey indicates Tatar to be the winner of the UBP leadership at the second round of "elections" in the UBP Turkish Cypriot daily Kibris newspaper (16.10.18) under the title: "The party's members say that Tatar will win in the second round of the elections" publishes the results of the second part of a survey conducted by COMAR research company on behalf of Kibris Media Group, regarding the National Unity Party (UBP) forthcoming general congress which is scheduled to take place on October 27 and 28. The survey was conducted with the telephone interview method. Asked to reply to the question, "According to your opinion, which candidates will go to the second round of the elections?", the participants in the survey replied as follows: -I have no opinion: 21.4% -Ersin Tatar-Huseyin Ozgurgun: 19% - Sunat Atun-Huseyin Ozgurgun: 5.2% -Sunat Atun-Ersin Tatar: 11.9% -Faiz Sucuoglu-Huseyin Ozgurgun: 11.9% -Faiz Sucuoglu-Sunat Atun: 9.5% -Faiz Sucuohlu-Ersin Tatar: 21%. The paper adds further that the great majority of the the National Unity Party( UBP) members, asked to reply to the question: "Which do you believe will be the winner if there will be a second round at the elections", said that they consider that Ersin Tatar will be the winner. They further expressed the view that the two candidates to go to the second round will be Ersin Tatar and Faiz Sucuoglu. Also, according to the survey, in the case that Tatar goes to the second round of the elections either with Ozgurgun or Atun, he will be again the winner of the elections. (AK) [09] Harmanci met with a delegation of experts from Jerusalem and Palestine Turkish Cypriot daily Kibris newspaper (17.10.18) reports that the mayor of the municipality of the occupied part of Lefkosia Mehmet Harmanci met yesterday with a delegation from Jerusalem, consisting of journalists, researchers, chairmen of several NGO's and academicians. The delegation, headed by Dr. Dahlia Scheindlin was briefed by Harmanci regarding the latest developments on the Cyprus problem and the negotiation process and the steps which are necessary to be taken for the capital of Lefkosia in the case of a solution. The municipality of the occupied part of Lefkosia, in a written statement, explained that the delegation of experts coming from Jerusalem and Palestine, are visiting the "TRNC" as part of a research they carry out about Lefkosia as a divided city. (AK) [10] An ancient tomb with 27 pieces of artefacts are unearthed in occupied Akanthou According to Turkish Cypriot daily Halkin Sesi newspaper (17.10.18), during an excavation by archaeologists of the "department of antiquities and museums of the ministry of tourism and environment" in the occupied village of Akanthou, an ancient tomb of 1050-750 BC belonging to the Geometric period, was unearthed and many important historic antiquities and artefacts were found inside the tomb. The paper reports that a total of 27 ancient artefacts were removed from the tomb. Fuat Azimli, "director of the antiquities department", said that the important findings were obtained during the excavation works, adding that those artefacts are of the most beautiful examples of the art of the geometric period used for ritual purposes. He concluded by saying that the artefacts will be displayed in museums after being maintained in a conservation laboratory. (DPs) [B] Turkish Press [01] Turkey vows op in east Syria if US does not take steps on YPG Turkish Hurriyet Daily News (17.10.18 http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkey-vows-op-in-east-syria-if-us-does-not-take-steps-on-ypg-137945) reports that Turkey has reiterated that it will not tolerate the delay of the removal of YPG troops from the Manbij province of Syria if the United States does not fulfill a bilateral agreement to this end, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said, a day before U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is set to visit the Turkish capital following the release of a U.S. pastor. "We cannot say a 90-day timeline on [the YPG withdrawal from] Manbij has been implemented. It has not. We know what we will do if it is not implemented. If necessary steps are not taken in the eastern Euphrates and if the process is delayed, we will take all the necessary steps at the highest level against the YPG/PYD, more precisely against the PKK," Erdogan said in his weekly address to his Justice and Development Party (AKP) on Oct. 16. Erdogan referred to an agreement with the U.S. that was brokered between the two foreign Iinisters on June 4, which stipulates the removal of YPG militants from Manbij in a 90-day timeline. The U.S. however, has never confirmed the deal introduced an exact timing for the removal of YPG troops from the city. Erdogan's strong words against the U.S. came just a day before Pompeo is set to pay a visit to the Turkish capital to primarily discuss the ongoing investigation on the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. "They are not fleeing the region for no reason. The steps we have taken are to protect them. They are not different from what we did in Idlib, in Afrin or in Jarablus, in the entire terror corridor. Turkey had taken all these steps in full determinacy and will continue to do so," Erdogan said. [02] President Erdogan meets with US Secretary of State Pompeo in Ankara Turkish daily Sabah (17.10.18 https://www.dailysabah.com/diplomacy/2018/10/16/president-erdogan-meets-with-us-secretary-of-state-pompeo-in-ankara) reports that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Ankara, Turkey's Foreign Ministry said, with their talks expected to focus on the disappearance and alleged murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, National Intelligence Organization (MIT) President Hakan Fidan and Presidency Spokesperson Ibrahim Kal?n were also present at the meeting. Cavusoglu will also hold a separate meeting with his U.S. counterpart on Wednesday, the Ministry said. Pompeo arrived in Ankara on Wednesday from a visit to Riyadh where he met with Saudi King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the case of missing journalist Khashoggi. The initial statement Wednesday by the Foreign Ministry said Pompeo and Cavusoglu would discuss bilateral and regional issues including Syria. Pompeo will also welcome the decision to release Pastor Andrew Brunson with his Turkish counterpart, Spokesperson Heather Nauert said, adding that he will also discuss the Khashoggi case and reiterate the U.S. offer to assist Turkey in its investigation. A Turkish official reportedly said late Tuesday that Washington Post journalist and Riyadh critic Khashoggi was drugged, murdered and his body was cut into pieces after he visited the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2. Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said Wednesday that Turkish authorities were waiting for joint agreement to search Saudi consul's residence. [03] Reports: Saudi journalist Khashoggi decapitated after fingers cut off Turkish Hurriyet Daily News (17.10.18 http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/saudi-journalist-khashoggi-decapitated-after-fingers-cut-off-reports-137960) reports that the residence of the Saudi Consul is cordoned off by Turkish police in Istanbul, on Oct. 16, 2018, the day after Turkish police and prosecutors searched the Saudi Embassy after Riyadh gave the green-light amid global uproar over the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi since Oct. 2. Daily Yeni Safak reported Oct. 17 that Saudi Arabia Consul Mohammad Utaybi's voice could be heard in one of the recordings of Khashoggi's "interrogation." After Utaybi told the interrogators to "do it somewhere else outside or I will be in trouble," he was told to "shut up if you want to live when you are back in Arabia." Utaybi returned to Saudi Arabia on Oct. 16 before Turkish police searched his residence in Istanbul. Qatar-based Al Jazeera reported the dissection of Khashoggi's body inside the Consulate took seven minutes. It was conducted by Saudi forensics expert Salah Muhammad al-Tubaigy, who was reportedly heard in the recordings while advising the interrogators to "listen to music" while he dissected the body. According to Turkish police, al-Tubaigy was one of the 15 Saudis who had arrived in Istanbul on two planes and entered the Consulate while Khashoggi was inside. The group, which left Turkey on the same day, also included Saudi intelligence officers and Royal Guards. The New York Times confirmed the identities of nine people in the group on Oct. 16, adding that at least four of them were previously part of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's entourage on foreign trips. A team of Turkish police spent more than nine hours in the consulate on Oct. 15 and Oct. 16 and the Associated Press reported that they found "certain evidence" about the killing of the prominent Saudi dissident. Turkish officials would not comment on the disposal method for the body, pending investigation and a planned search of the Consul's residence. In addition, Ankara Anatolia news agency (17.10.18 https://www.aa.com.tr/en/jamal-khashoggi/turkey-to-solve-saudi-journalist-case-ruling-party/1283689) reports that Turkey will do everything to solve the missing Saudi journalist's case, ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party spokesman Omer Celik said on Tuesday. Speaking to reporters after the party's central executive board meeting, he said: "Turkey will do everything to solve missing Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi's case and share the outcome with the entire world." When asked about reports that Khashoggi was killed inside the consulate and his body was chopped into pieces, Celik said: "We will clear all the questions but now Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office is in charge of the investigation and let's wait how it concludes the case." [04] Istanbul court issues red notice for journalists Dundar, Tan?r Turkish Hurriyet Daily News (17.10.18 http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/istanbul-court-issues-red-notice-for-journalists-dundar-tanir-137942) reports that the 27th High Criminal Court in Istanbul on Oct. 16 issued a red notice for journalists Can Dundar and Ilhan Tan?r on espionage charges, state-run Anadolu Agency has reported. Since both Dundar, daily Cumhuriyet's former editor-in-chief, and Tan?r failed to appear before the court on Oct. 16 for their hearing, a public prosecutor requested the issuance of an international red notice for the fugitives, the agency said. Dundar has been living in Germany since June 2016, whereas Tan?r, a Cumhuriyet journalist, is based in Washington D.C. Upon the prosecutor's request, the court ruled the issuance of a red notice on the grounds that statements could not be taken from the defendants and adjourned the hearing. In May 2016, the 14th High Criminal Court in Istanbul had convicted Dundar following the publication of images purporting to show arms being transported to Syria in trucks belonging to Turkey's National Intelligence Organization (MIT). Dundar was arrested late November 2015 and held in prison until Feb. 26, 2016 when Turkey's Constitutional Court ruled that his rights had been violated and ordered his release. Turkey's Supreme Court of Appeals ruled on March 9 that Dundar should be convicted and handed a sentence of 15 to 20 years in jail on charges of "espionage." [05] Anti-Turkey Weber succeeding Juncker as EU chief would be 'disaster', AK Party spokesman says Turkish daily Sabah (17.10.18 https://www.dailysabah.com/eu-affairs/2018/10/17/anti-turkey-weber-succeeding-juncker-as-eu-chief-would-be-disaster-ak-party-spox-says) reports that German conservative Manfred Weber, known for his anti-Turkey stance, succeeding Jean-Claude Juncker to run the Brussels administration would be a disaster for the European Union, Justice and Development Party (AK Party) spokesman Omer Celik said Tuesday after the party's Central Executive Board (MYK) meeting in Ankara. Weber, 46, who leads the pan-EU conservative group in the European Parliament, announced last month that he would seek nomination as the European People's Party's lead candidate in the May 2019 elections with the aim of then taking over as President of the European Commission. Responding to Weber's comments regarding Turkey's EU membership, Celik said "We know that person, it is clear that he wants to replace Juncker. They [Weber] are making a mistake, they think they can rise to the top in some institutions by showing hostility towards Turkey. The only thing he talks about is opposing Turkey, he thinks he can replace Juncker with it." Weber had called for EU membership talks with Turkey to be scrapped, saying it "made no sense." "It would be a disaster for the EU if such mentalities came into such [leadership] positions. The far-right is the Daesh of Europe, Islamophobes and anti-Semites are Europe's Daesh," Celik added, warning that Islamophobia and an anti-Erdogan stance was poisoning Europe. Reiterating that such hateful discourses could never harm Turkey, Celik reminded that Turkey has been a strong European democracy for a century, and has always been a powerful European state. TURKISH AFFAIRS SECTION (CS/ AM) Cyprus Press and Information Office: Turkish Cypriot Press Review Directory - Previous Article - Next ArticleRegistration, Early Voting Deadlines Set for State Primary

The last day to register to vote or to change voting affiliation for the Sept. 1 Massachusetts state primary is Saturday, Aug. 22.

The offices of town and city clerks will be open limited hours on Saturday, most from 2 to 4 and 7 to 8, for citizens to register to vote; contact your town clerk for times and locations. You can also register online or check whether you are registered to vote through the secretary of state's office . The deadline to register online is 11:59 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 22. You may also check with your local boards of register through your town or city clerk to determine if you are registered.

Citizens may also vote by mail, by absentee ballot or by early voting. Ballots are currently available during business hours of each town or city clerk. Early voting in person begins on Aug. 22 and ends on Aug. 28. Find out the hours and locations in your community here.

All applications for an mail-in ballot must be made in writing no later than Wednesday, Aug. 26. An application can be downloaded here

It is important to request a mail-in ballot as soon as possible, as the clerk must mail the ballot to the voter. The application also includes a request for a mail-in ballot for the Nov. 3 general election and this must be received by Oct. 28.

Voters may request a mail-in ballot and then deliver it directly to their town or city clerk or drop it in a locked box that should be available at their town or city hall.

Note that once a voter has cast an early voting ballot, that voter may no longer vote at the polls on Election Day.

Some of the towns and cities that sent us voting information include:

The town of Adams is holding voter registration Saturday, Aug. 22, from 2 to 4 and 7 to 8 p.m. at Town Hall. Early voting hours will be Saturday from noon to 4, Sunday from 9 to 1, and Monday through Thursday from 9 to 4.

The town of Clarksburg is offering early voting beginning on Aug. 22, at the Senior Center. The times and dates for early voting are as follows:

Saturday, Aug. 22, 2 to 4 p.m.

Sunday, Aug. 23, 1 to 3 p.m.

Monday, Aug. 24, 11 to 4

The town of Cheshire will hold voter registration for the Sept. 1 primary and the annual town meeting on Saturday, Aug. 22, from 2 to 4 and 6 to 8 p.m. Knock on the Church Street entrance door to be admitted to Town Hall. Early voting for the primary will be held from 2 to 4 on Saturday and 1 to 3 on Sunday, and from 9 to 5 on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

The city of Pittsfield is also offering early voting in person at City Hall during regular business hours of 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. and on Saturday, Aug. 22, from 2 to 7 and Sunday, Aug. 23, 8 to 1.

The city of North Adams will hold voter registration at City Hall from noon to 4 and 6 to 8 on Saturday, Aug. 22. Early voting will be held from noon to 4 on Saturday and 9 to 1 on Sunday, Aug. 23, and from 9 to 4 Monday through Thursday and from 9 to noon on Friday, Aug. 28. town of Williamstown, the town clerk's office will be open by appointment from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and additionally 7 to 8 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 22. Residents are encouraged to contact the office at 413-458-3500, Ext. 101, or via email at In the, the town clerk's office will be open by appointment from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and additionally 7 to 8 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 22. Residents are encouraged to contact the office at 413-458-3500, Ext. 101, or via email at npedercini@williamstownma.gov to schedule an appointment. The in-person early voting hours are as follows: Saturday, Aug. 22, 2 to 4 p.m.; Sunday, Aug. 23, 10 to noon; Monday-Friday, Aug. 24-28, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Polls will be open on Tuesday, Sept. 1, from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Find out where your polling place is here

Please do not forget to vote.The building that formerly held a doctors practice will be moved for use as an administrative building, or terminal, at Harriman & West Airport.

North Adams Airport Commission Set to Award Terminal Bid



The Airport Commission hopes to get the administrative building project underway by the end of the month. NORTH ADAMS, Mass.  The Airport Commission will award the administrative building project to a Northampton firm after state forms are finalized.

Peter Enzien of Stantec Consulting Services, the airport's engineer, told the commission Tuesday that once the signed standard contract form is sent back to the state Department of Transportation, the city can award the project to low bidder DA Sullivan & Sons, which bid $3.6 million.

"They will be turned back into MassDOT. We will overnight that which then will allow us to officially award the project," Enzien said. "Once that happens, they will get in contact with all of their subcontractors, we will have a pre-construction meeting and, hopefully, we are breaking ground by the last week in October."

The city plans to move the vacant medical building on the north side of the Harriman & West Airport campus and use it as a new administrative building. The 8,700-square-foot facility was constructed in 2001 on leased airport land and was donated to the city by Berkshire Health Systems.

The only other bidder was Burke Construction of Adams at $3.8 million.

In other business, at a recent MassDOT Capital Improvement Project meeting, the state offered to put funds toward mowing equipment to help maintain the perimeter of the airport.

"We didn't want to be greedy. Certainly, they were already giving us money for the building, but they came out last winter and cut all these trees and if we don't get back in there and maintain it we will see them regrow," Enzien said. "They were nearly begging us to move forward with that."

Enzien said the state will fund 90 percent of the equipment that is slated to cost between $110,000 and $130,000.

The city's Administrative Officer Michael Canales said the city has the funds from a previous borrowing to cover this cost.

Enzien said they also discussed an upcoming airport improvement project and environmental permitting will be funded in 2019 for a 2020 perimeter fence installation.

"The fence only goes a third of the way around the airport now and the goal is to go all of the ways around," he said. "It will go a long way of keeping wildlife out, not eliminating it, but definitely slowing it down in addition to better security."

Before closing, City Councilor Jason LaForest said West End residents have complained of a fuel odor over the past few months.

"They claim it happens with some frequency and I have been spending time in Greylock for some 42 years I have only smelled it once," he said. "It was a sickening smell. We were gagging in the house. I can't say if it was from the airport or from Route 2 or maybe a diesel engine that was idling but I have had a half a dozen neighbors complain to me about it."

The commission said it would investigate the odor and recommended that residents call the Fire Department if they smell the odor again.Presidential candidate of the Peoples Demoratic Party(PDP), Atiku Abubakar in hope of winning the 2019 presidential election, has said his policy document for Nigeria, is ready.

According to the former vice president, while speaking via Twitter on Wednesday, 40 percent of his cabinet will include youths and women as this is the only way to change, Nigerias latest title as the headquarters for extreme poverty.

In his words:

Nigeria under Buhari is now the world HQ for extreme poverty. If we are to change that, we must empower women & youths.

Therefore, I give an undertaking that if by the grace of God, I am elected by you the good people of Nigeria, at least 40% of my cabinet would be women & youths.

During my time in government, we designed our policies to help young people grow  stronger banks, telecoms etc. Many returned to Nigeria to start successful businesses.

Today, those young people are leaving again, to Canada etc. We are losing our best doctors & professionals.

Our policy document which is ready and will be unveiled soon, is dedicated primarily to creating an enabling environment for Nigerian youth and women to return to the path of wealth creation and gainful employment.President of Izu-Umunna Cultural Association of Nigeria, Dr. Patrick Ugo Ihekuna, said the choice of Peter Obi as the running mate of Atiku Abubakar for the 2019 presidential election is in fulfilment of political aspirations of the Ndigbo in Nigeria.

The Nation

THE Buhari Media Organisation (BMO) has flayed Catholic Bishop of the Sokoto Diocese Matthew Kukah for his involvement in the alleged endorsement of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar.

Tribune

Even before voting got under away at the recent presidential primary election of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Port Harcourt, Atiku Abubakar was looking every inch the man to face President Muhammadu Buhari in the scheduled February 16, 2019 election.

Daily Trust

The High Court IV in Gusau, presided over by Justice Mukhtar Yushau, yesterday, granted an interim order restraining all parties involved in Zamfara APC primaries tussle to stay action.

Daily Times

Ogun State Governor Ibikunle Amosun has debunked the rumours making the rounds that he plans to defect from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to another party on account of the recent primaries in the state. In a statement signed by Ogun State Commissioner for Information & Strategy, Otunba Dayo Adeneye and made available to the Daily Times, Amosun described the news report in a segment of the media as a figment of imagination of the writer(s).

LeadershipThe Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, in the September 22 governorship election in Osun, Ademola Adeleke and his party has filed a 593 pages petition to challenge the declaration of the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Mr Gboyega Isiaka Oyetola as the winner.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) after the conduct of the poll on the 22nd of September, declared it inconclusive and asked that there should be a rerun election which was held on the 27th of the same month. Oyetola, in the rerun polled 255, 505 votes to defeat Adeleke, who got 255,021 ballots.

Tarrister Niyi Owolade on behalf of the lead counsel to the petitioners, Mr Kanu Agabi, who is a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), filed a 593-page petition on behalf of Adeleke and his party.

Listed as 1st, 2nd and 3rd respondents respectively in the petition titled The Matter of Election to the Office of Governor of Osun State Held on the 22nd of September and 27th day of September, 2018 in the Electoral Act 2010 (As Amended) with suit number EPT/OS/GOV/1/2018 are the INEC, Mr Adegboyega Isiaka Oyetola and the All Progressives Congress (APC).Former aide to former president Goodluck Jonathan, Reno Omokri has risen to the defence of vice presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP), Peter Obi over controversy of owning no house, outside Anambra state,

A video had emerged online recently, where the former Anambra state governor, Peter Obi was heard saying that the only place I Peter Obi own a house is in Onitsha, but receipt of a house in the UK in the former Governors name was quickly dug out.

In his defense, Omokri said Obi never lied as the latter truly has one house in Nigeria but lived in the UK for many years, so theres no way, he wouldnt have one there.

Omokri wrote:A Media and Society Studies student of Midlands State University, Zimbabwe, has been arrested with a good collection of female panties that he allegedly stole from fellow students on campus.

Prince Danda was arrested, on Monday. He is said to have revealed that he uses the pant to satisfy his own sexual desires. He allegedly told the police that he would often sniff the underwear to feel the female scent and be sexually aroused.

During those moments, he admits, he would get the much desired female scent, while imagining himself having sexual intercourse with the owners. He appeared before Gweru regional courts, today, and was slapped with a community service.

Sources at the university told ZimLive the two students told police that after they had confronted Danda, he still went ahead and took the panties.

He told the two girls that he was going to do something to the panties and when hes done, they will both want to sleep with him and they wont be able to turn down his advances, said a fellow student familiar with the matter.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.For the past two years, C.Y. Stephens Auditorium in Ames has been showcasing local singing and songwriting talent in conjunction witWhen thinking of a weekend trip departing from the US, most people prefer to stay domestic. Or if they are close to any of the borders, Canada and Mexico might just make the list. With extensive flight offerings from the US to Latin America (a lot of them direct) and its premium business class that will guarantee a pleasant travel experience, LATAM Airlines makes the dream of a long weekend in Latin America, not only possible but actually enjoyable. Not to mention that you wont have to deal with any of that dreaded jetlag that sometimes makes short trips to Europe painful. Youve guessed it, Latin America is almost in the same time zone as North America so depending on your departure city, you might only be one of two time zones away at the most.

To make things even easier, eVisas are now available for US Citizens for only $40 and customs is a breeze in Sao Paulos Guarulhos International Airport.

And if 72 hours in Sao Paulo seems like a daunting adventure, we got you covered with a schedule that will give you the best taste of the city and guarantee and amazing time.Chanticleer

The world's reigning male chorus

7:30 p.m. Thursday, October 25

Buy tickets

Called the worlds reigning male chorus by the New Yorker, the San Francisco-based Grammy Award-winning ensemble Chanticleer celebrates its 40th anniversary in 2018. The group has sold well over a million albums and won two Grammy Awards. During its 2017-18 season, Chanticleer performed 51 concerts in 21 states, 27 in the San Francisco Bay area, and eight in Poland, Germany, France and Spain. Praised by the San Francisco Chronicle for its tonal luxuriance and crisply etched clarity, Chanticleer is known around the world as an orchestra of voices for its seamless blend of 12 male voices, ranging from soprano to bass, and its original interpretations of vocal literature, from Renaissance to jazz and popular genres, as well as contemporary composition.Bounty Fresh OctoberFresh World Chicken and Egg Day 2018

Egg or chicken? Chicken or egg? Whichever comes first, I'm sure that everyone loves both! I presume you've seen a teaser weeks ago about Chicky and her missing egg. It took social media by storm with all the guessing as to what happened to Chicky's Egg.





Last October 12, 2018, the egg was found just in time for the World Chicken and Egg Day celebration. Bounty Fresh, the leading Philippine-based farm-to-market poultry producer is at the forefront of the celebration that was held at the TriNoma Activity Center. It was a day full of fun and surprises because of the deals and promotion plus a giveaway of P100,000 cold cash to the lucky raffle draw winner.





Bounty Fresh OctoberFresh World Chicken and Egg Day 2018





Bounty Fresh World Chicken and Egg Day Celebration 2018

The Bounty team prepared different activity booths where eggs and chicken became the superstar in each in-game activities.

There are in-store promos and deals that bought to the event attendees and the whole family during the event.

The event also served as the culminating activity to the brands very own Egg and Chickenovela, featuring Chicky, the character representing all of Bounty Freshs products. She laid an egg and eventually lost it. Fortunately, her friends online did everything they can to find some clues on the whereabouts of her missing baby, which led them to TriNoma Activity Center.

Bounty Fresh OctoberFresh World Chicken and Egg Day 2018

Say 'hi' to Chicky



Bounty Fresh OctoberFresh Event Highlights:





1. Bounty Freshs chicken and egg products, which are strictly produced using only the state-of-the-art, ISO certified technology and processes, was featured in several activities lined up during the whole day event.





Bounty Fresh OctoberFresh World Chicken and Egg Day 2018





2. The culinary segment and cooking demo used only the freshest, most nutritious, and definitely affordable products to every Filipino family. This is in line with Bounty Freshs theme, OctoberFresh, which focuses on the many benefits in buying only the fresh products.





Bounty Fresh OctoberFresh World Chicken and Egg Day 2018

Cooking demo with Chef Sharwin Tee and host Bettina Carlos





3. A great bounty awaits to a chosen few, who helped Chicky in finding her baby egg. But before they do, they will have to battle it out on stage, going through competitions like SWEGG Dance Challenge, Beatbok Challenge, and Eggs Factor Season 2 Cooking Challenge. A grand prize of Php 100,000 was given to the lucky winner along with consolation prizes, and some Masflex items.





Bounty Fresh OctoberFresh World Chicken and Egg Day 2018

Chicky's lost egg





4. Lots of raffle prizes at stake and yes everyone went home with a smile on their faces because a whole chicken was up for grabs for only P20!!!





Bounty Fresh OctoberFresh World Chicken and Egg Day 2018

Activities and the Michaelangelo Gang during the event





Bounty Fresh promises to continuously provide Filipino families with succulent meat of high quality, steroid-free chickens, and the most nutritious and fresh white and brown eggs, all at the most affordable price.





Bounty Fresh OctoberFresh World Chicken and Egg Day 2018





Aside from the Philippines, the event will also be celebrated in countries like Australia, The UK, USA, Brazil, France, and neighboring Asian countries like Vietnam and Indonesia, to name a few. This is Bounty Freshs way of thanking its loyal customers for making them the number one choice in every Filipino feast.





For more information about Bounty Fresh products

Follow them on Instagram: @bountyfreshph

#BountyFresh #OctoberFresh #LakingFarmFresh





Good Times!~



Bob Kay, owner of Kelowna cannabis retailer Be Kind, stands in his shop Tuesday morning. Be Kind stopped selling cannabis, complying with a city order, but Kay plans to apply for a licence to sell it legally.Minister of Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland stands during question period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Monday, Oct. 15, 2018. Freeland says she has "very worrying" questions about the disappearance of missing journalist Jamal Khashoggi. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick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.STEWARTVILLE, Minn. - US Sen. Tina Smith stopped by a new childcare facility in Stewartville on Tuesday to discuss how to make childcare more available for people in Minnesota.

It's called Sprouts Childcare, a fitting name for a growing community.

After being a home childcare provider herself, Krystal Campbell knows the lack of childcare is an issue.

"They're selling houses faster than they can build them," Campbell said. "The need is going to continue to grow, but hopefully the center will be able to help out with that deficit quite a bit."

According to a city-wide survey, that deficit is up to 110 kids.

Smith is hoping to lower the number through new legislation, the Child Care Supply Improvement Act. She said her bill would help fund local solutions.

"It is really important for families and family health," Smith said, "and it's really important for the great companies that are wanting to grow jobs here in this community, but can't find people to do the jobs because it's too hard for them to find a place for their kids to be during the day."

Campbell thinks the state can help with this problem by making more funding and resources available.

"It is a struggle as a new business owner that there isn't other avenues of financial help available because it is a great cost to get something like this up and running," Campbell said.

This election season, Smith is seeking a full term as senator.

Her opponent, Republican Karin Housley is holding a press conference highlighting the need for childcare. It's set for Wednesday at 9:00 a.m. at the Minnesota State Capitol.MASON CITY, Iowa  Tres Caballos has been named Best in Show for the sixth annual River city Sculptures on Parade.

The work by Wisconsin artist Terry Meyer is described as a contemporary depiction of three horses and is on display at the Mason City Police Department on East State Street and Georgia Avenue.

The Mason City program selects and displays work from very accomplished artists, says Meyer. Im honored to receive this recognition.

Meyer will receive a $2,000 cash award. The Best in Show competition was judged by a panel of local artists from the Art on the Plaza studio: Becky Kyhl, Peggy Cornick, and Gloria Beeman.

The purchase price of Tres Caballos is $25,000 and it was not entered in the Peoples Choice competition.ALTOONA, Iowa (AP)  A man has been accused of taking prescription pills seized during criminal investigations when he was working as an Altoona police detective.

Polk County court records say 39-year-old Joshua Copeland is charged with two counts of felonious misconduct in office, two counts of forgery and one count of possession of a controlled substance. The records don't list the name of an attorney who could comment for him.

The Des Moines Register reports that Copeland resigned in April from the Altoona force to avoid termination. Authorities say Copeland switched pills seized during criminal investigations in 2017 and replaced them with over-the-counter medications. The pills were kept in temporary evidence lockers.

Authorities also say a small amount of methamphetamine was found in his squad car. The records say Copeland later tested positive for meth.

___

Information from: The Des Moines Register, http://www.desmoinesregister.comOSAGE, Iowa  A Lime Springs man is accused of drunkenly threatening to kill law enforcement.

Dalton Lee Mulhern Meyer, 22, is charged with assault on peace officers, interference with official acts, and public intoxication.

Osage police say officers saw a Safe Ride vehicle pull into the Spahn and Rose parking a little before 2 am on October 13. The driver waved police over to his vehicle and told them his passenger, Meyer, wouldnt tell him where he wanted to go. Court documents state

Safe Ride is a service sponsored by bars to drive drunk people home.

Officers say the spoke with Meyer and concluded he wanted to go to the Super 8 motel. Police say they followed the Safe Ride to the motel and helped Meyer check in, noticing his speech was slurred and there was a strong smell of alcoholic drinks comes from him.

Police say thats when Meyer turned to an officer, cracked his neck and knuckles, and threatened to kill him. Meyer reportedly got into a fighting stance, raised his fists, and approached the officer. Police say they got Meyer handcuffed and when they tried to put him in a squad car, Meyer started kicking them and threatening to kill them.MASON CITY, Iowa - Election Day is 3 weeks away, and we've all seen stories about changes in voting laws, including those regarding identification. And that may cause some confusion and concern about what to bring to register or to the polls.

That's why AARP Iowa, the Latino Political Network, and a bi-parisan group of county auditors are meeting with voters 50 and older and those in the Latino community this week as part of their "It's Time to Vote" initiative to discuss what has and hasn't changed, and to educate Iowans across the state on how to exercise their right to vote, with a goal to increase voter turnout. In addition to Mason City, they're holding meetings in Marion, West Des Moines, Shenandoah and Bettendorf this week.

Dee Dienst says he's voted in every election since he was 18.

Even though the laws have changed, Dienst believes that seniors will continue to vote, and notes why those his age participate in voting more than others.

"I think it maybe was instilled in us at an early age of voting is important. I think the longer you live, the more important you see of how politics and the different legislatures and representative bodies can have an impact on your life."

In addition, he believes the partnership with the Latino Political Network is a good idea.

"We need every group in the population to get out and vote."

LPN co-founder Rob Barron says this year's campaign is historic for the state because it features TV, radio and social media efforts in Spanish to engage and reassure voters about the process.

According to the AARP, during the 2016 Presidential election, 90.5% of registered voters 50+ participated, though in the 2014 midterm elections, 75.2% of registered voters in the same age demographic participated.MASON CITY, Iowa  A man accused of his second 100 mile per hour chase with authorities is pleading not guilty.

Eric Jensen, 37 of Osage, is charged with possession of methamphetamine-3rd or subsequent offense, eluding, and driving while barred.

The Cerro Gordo County Sheriffs Office says Jensen sped away from a traffic stop just after midnight on September 19 and started a high-speed pursuit that lasted several minutes and entered southern Worth County. Law enforcement says Jensen was caught after he went off the road near Hanlontown and tried to run away. Two sheriffs vehicles were damaged in the chase.

Jensens trial is set to begin on December 4. He was sentenced to a 100 day jail sentence in June after pleading guilty to crashing his car into a power pole after another chase that reached over 100 miles per hour.MASON CITY, Iowa  A man accused of asking two people if they wanted to get shot is pleading not guilty.

McKinley Dudley Jr., 59 of Mason City, is charged with 2nd degree robbery. He was arrested after police say he approached a male and female on September 9 and threatened them with what appeared to be a gun. Dudley is accused of demanding the two empty their pockets and bags and then taking cigarettes from them.

Police say Dudley allowed his victims to leave after he escorted them to an apartment complex where he lives.

Dudley entered a not guilty plea Tuesday. His trial is scheduled to begin on December 4.CLEAR LAKE, Iowa- After a vote at the city council meeting on Monday night, more construction could be coming to the city of Clear Lake sooner than later.

The Clear Lake City Council voted unanimously to approve spending $9,000 for a marketing and feasibility report. Once completed, the result could be a new hotel and convention center.

A local business owner told KIMT that she is in favor of the councils decision.

I think its great, said Niki Monson. As a business owner, the more people we can get into the town, the better. Its a great little lake town and people that come here seem to enjoy it.

A location for the complex will be determined once the feasibility report has been completed.WEST UNION, Iowa  A Fayette County man accused of kidnapping and sexually abusing three children is pleading guilty.

Roger Allen Kline, 53 of Hawkeye, was arrested in April and charged with three counts east of 1st degree kidnapping and 2nd degree sexual abuse. Authorities say he took three children from their home in April 2015, put them in a semi, took them to a park area in Oelwein, then handcuffed them and abused them.

Fayette County prosecutors say the victims were under the age of 11 at the time of the abuse.

Kline pleaded guilty to three counts of lascivious acts with a child and was sentenced Wednesday to two to five years of probation. He will also have to register as a sex offender, spend one year in a residential facility, and be on lifetime parole after his probation ends.MASON CITY, Iowa - Candidates are meeting with voters in North Iowa as Election Day gets closer.

State Senator Rita Hart, who is Fred Hubbell's running mate in Iowa's gubernatorial race, met with voters Tuesday at the Cerro Gordo County Democratic headquarters.

Katie Koehler came to the meeting, and comes these events because she says it's important to be an active participant in the election process.

"I feel that it's a citizen's right and also a privilege in the United States that we get opportunities to choose our leaders, so that's the biggest reason."

Regardless of age or political view, it's important to exercise the right to vote.

"Some people I worry about the most are the people that say, 'I'm not political, I don't vote', and that kind of disheartens me a little bit because it's a privilege to be able to vote."

Hart also met with voters in Storm Lake Tuesday afternoon, and will be in Denison and Ida Grove on Wednesday.

Hubbell and Hart are going up against current Iowa Governro Kim Reynolds and her running mate Adam Gregg.The Roboshield project focuses on the safety of human-robot collaboration. (Photo: Fraunhofer IPA)

Modern production facilities, in which humans, machines, and robots collaborate closely, have to meet high safety requirements. The facilities are to be safe for workers and have to be protected against external cyber-attacks. Within the Roboshield project, scientists of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation IPA, and Fraunhofer Institute of Optronics, System Technologies and Image Exploitation IOSB work on safety and security concepts for small and medium-sized enterprises in Baden-Wurttemberg. The companies are now offered cost-free expert advice.

Digitization and interconnection cause the requirements to be met by modern production facilities to increase constantly, says Dr. Christoph Ledermann, KIT. With Roboshield, we want to help small enterprises to switch to Industry 4.0. First of all, the focus will be on preventing the components of the facility, such as robots, from injuring people.

Security as a Basis of Industry 4.0

In parallel, IT security is gaining importance: Due to the currently observed cyber-attacks against production facilities, this topic is more pressing than ever, says Dr. Christian Haas of Fraunhofer IOSB. Moreover, protection of the employees data must be ensured in the increasingly interconnected and sensor-equipped work environments. Roboshield will cover all these aspects of safety and security and, hence, may become the companys door opener to Industry 4.0, Haas says.

For the companies to convert their facilities rapidly, at low costs, and safely, the researchers work on tools and processes facilitating the development and operation of secure systems and facilities. In addition, a consulting center will be established. Here, companies will obtain advice as to how a robot may be used in their production facility, which advantages this will have, and which provisions and regulations will have to be observed.

Apply now for Participation in the Project

Companies in Baden-Wurttemberg can apply for quick checks until Monday, October 22, 2018. Upon acceptance, they will be given the opportunity to ask questions regarding the safety and security of their production facilities. Companies may ask for a risk assessment of a human-robot workplace or for advice as to how a robot can reliably identify humans working in its vicinity, Ledermann says.

The Roboshield experts also plan to offer training courses on various topics, including the development of secure software. On the Open-Lab-Day on Thursday, February 21, 2019, at Fraunhofer IPA, Stuttgart, companies will have the opportunity to directly talk to experts and ask further questions.

More information: www.roboshield.de (in German only)

More about the KIT Information  Systems  Technologies Center: http://www.kcist.kit.edu

Being The Research University in the Helmholtz Association, KIT creates and imparts knowledge for the society and the environment. It is the objective to make significant contributions to the global challenges in the fields of energy, mobility, and information. For this, about 9,600 employees cooperate in a broad range of disciplines in natural sciences, engineering sciences, economics, and the humanities and social sciences. KIT prepares its 23,300 students for responsible tasks in society, industry, and science by offering research-based study programs. Innovation efforts at KIT build a bridge between important scientific findings and their application for the benefit of society, economic prosperity, and the preservation of our natural basis of life. KIT is one of the German universities of excellence.Test facility for liquid metals at KIT. Liquid metals are particularly suited for transferring high heat outputs. One of the objectives of NADINE is to study their use in thermal energy storage systems. (Photo: Karsten Litfin/KIT)

On the way towards a CO2-neutral energy system, storage of large amounts of energy still is an unsolved problem. In the future, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), the German Aerospace Center (DLR), and Stuttgart University plan to jointly develop appropriate energy storage systems. For this purpose, the research institutions have now agreed on the establishment of a research infrastructure, the National Demonstrator for Isentropic Energy Storage (NADINE). The test facility for the development of power-plant-scale energy storage systems will be built in Karlsruhe and Stuttgart.

Energy storage systems that are able to cope with fluctuating wind and solar power production are indispensable for the success of the energy transition. So far, however, location-independent and low-cost power-plant-scale storage systems have still been lacking. For this reason, KIT, DLR, and Stuttgart University plan the joint construction of the research facility NADINE (National Demonstrator for Isentropic Energy Storage) for the development of low-cost and nearly loss-free energy storage systems. With the help of NADINE, it is planned to study the use of liquid metals for novel thermal storage systems. The exact design of the research facility is presently being developed within the framework of a project of 18 months duration that started early this year. The design project is funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy and the Baden-Wurttemberg Ministry of Economics. On October 08, 2018 the three research institutions signed an agreement in Stuttgart on the establishment of the research infrastructure in Karlsruhe and Stuttgart.

In Stuttgart, the cooperation partners signed an agreement on the establishment of NADINE. From left to right: Andre Thess, Head of the DLR Institute of Engineering Thermodynamics, Wolfram Ressel, Rector of Stuttgart University, Pascale Ehrenfreund, Chair of the DLR Executive Board, Oliver Kraft, KIT Vice-President, and Thomas Wetzel, Head of KITs Institute of Thermal Process Engineering. (Photo: DLR)

Big challenges facing the society, such as the energy transition, can only be mastered by joining forces and close cooperation, says Professor Oliver Kraft, KIT Vice-President for Research. I am very happy that we will be able to contribute our expertise in the area of liquid metal technologies to NADINE. Together with our partners, we will decisively push the development of the urgently required power-plant-scale energy storage systems. The new research collaboration is coordinated by the DLR. Professor Pascale Ehrenfreund, who chairs the DLR Executive Board, says: The energy transition is one of the pressing challenges facing our society. With the development of storage systems, DLR is working on solutions for one of the key topics in energy research. Efficient storage systems can guarantee reliable energy supply with a constantly increasing proportion of renewable energy sources. Moreover, large thermal storage systems can contribute to reducing CO2 emissions of coal-fired power plants after their reconstruction to heat storage power plants worldwide.

Carnot Batteries in Former Coal-fired Power Plants

Storage of electrical energy on the gigawatt-hours scale is already possible with pump storage power plants and battery storage systems. However, it is hardly possible to build any additional pump storage power plants in Germany. Battery storage systems of this dimension are too expensive and do not have any sufficient durability. The concept of NADINE covers the development of flexible and nearly loss-free energy storage systems, so-called isentropic storage systems. An isentropic process takes place in a closed system without any heat or mass exchange with the environment. A very promising concept for an isentropic storage system is the Carnot battery. Here, electrical power is converted into heat with the help of heat pumps and, if necessary, back into electricity. Implementation of such heat storage power plants on the large scale is feasible when using the existing infrastructure of decommissioned coal power plants. In the coalition agreement, the Federal Government declared its intention to do so as a contribution to climate protection.

Nobel Prize winner Robert Betts Laughlin was the guest of honor when the agreement was signed. In a lecture, he advocated heat-based electricity storage that now is planned to be developed within

NADINE. (Photo: DLR)

The NADINE research infrastructure will be designed for three typical temperature levels in energy storage systems and converters. In Stuttgart, a low-temperature and a high-temperature laboratory for technologies of up to about 700C are planned. They will be used for studying innovative concepts of Carnot batteries. By a smart combination of heat pumps, heat and cold storage systems, and heat engines, we cannot only store electrical energy, but generate additional benefits, such as cooling of computing centers, says Professor Andre Thess, coordinator of NADINE and Director of the DLR Institute of Engineering Thermodynamics. The module for temperatures beyond 600C will be built in Karlsruhe. It will be applied to study the use of liquid metals for Carnot batteries and thermal storage devices. Liquid metals have excellent heat transfer properties and can be used at very high temperatures, says Professor Thomas Wetzel of KITs Institute of Thermal Process Engineering. Research into liquid metal technology is presently focusing on the development of promising innovative processes for the highly efficient conversion of heat into electrical energy and fuels, which are excellently suited for the NADINE concept. At the NADINE laboratories, heat sinks and heat sources will be made available via a heat platform. Here, individual components and complete isentropic energy systems will be studied similar to work in a wind tunnel. Researchers will test how the different storage units have to be designed, which materials are suited, and how the individual components interact in the best possible way.

Nobel Prize Winner Advocates Heat Storage Systems

Research into thermal energy storage systems on a large scale is increasingly enjoying popularity in the international scientific community. Physics Nobel Prize winner Robert Laughlin of Stanford University was the guest of honor when the agreement on the establishment of NADINE was signed. Laughlin is the initiator of the MALTA storage project of Google X. In a lecture given at Stuttgart University, he advocated heat-based electricity storage that now is to be developed within the framework of NADINE.

More about the KIT Energy Center: http://www.energy.kit.edu

Being The Research University in the Helmholtz Association, KIT creates and imparts knowledge for the society and the environment. It is the objective to make significant contributions to the global challenges in the fields of energy, mobility, and information. For this, about 9,600 employees cooperate in a broad range of disciplines in natural sciences, engineering sciences, economics, and the humanities and social sciences. KIT prepares its 23,300 students for responsible tasks in society, industry, and science by offering research-based study programs. Innovation efforts at KIT build a bridge between important scientific findings and their application for the benefit of society, economic prosperity, and the preservation of our natural basis of life. KIT is one of the German universities of excellence.Students from De Montfort University Leicester (DMU) have met with government ministers in Cyprus to discuss ways of assisting refugees and asylum seekers.

A group of eight students have travelled to the island on a #DMUglobal trip thanks to a volunteering opportunity through #DMUlocal.

DMU has been asked by the United Nations to take a lead in engaging the higher education sector in the #JoinTogether campaign to help refugees and this trip has been arranged to give students an international perspective on the global refugee crisis.

Along with students from #JoinTogether partner institution Frederick University, they were invited to Cyprus Ministry of Foreign Affairs where they met with Nikos Christodoulides, the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Mr Christodoulides told students that a holistic approach is needed to tackle the issue of migration and that the root causes need to be addressed by the international community.

He answered questions from DMU students about how other EU countries need to share the burden to help countries with high numbers of migrants such as Cyprus and how the younger generation can be better educated about the subject.

The minister closed the discussion by inviting students to continue engaging on the issue of migration and asked them to send any suggestions of improvements to his office.

RELATED NEWS

Students to visit Cyprus to explore new ways of helping refugees

Cyprus student tells Limassol audience: "DMU was best decision I've made"

University visits Cyprus to explore why more EU students than ever are attending DMU

Law student Connall Pugh said that the meeting was thought provoking and provided a unique opportunity to discuss such an important topic with a significant government minister.

He said: It was quite a privilege really, for him to take time out of his day and speak to students says a lot about the administration as a whole and shows that they respect and acknowledge the student voice.

The students also visited the Cyprus Ministry of Internal Affairs where they met with staff members including Stavros Christofi, the head of Cyprus Asylum Service.

Mr Christofi oversees the process for asylum seekers in the country and answered questions from students relating to how asylum seekers are integrated into society, how they find skilled work, the perception of migrants in Cyprus and how cases involving minors and vulnerable adults are handled.

Cyprus currently has 7000 pending asylum applications and only around half of all applicants are granted refugee status. Staff from the Interior Ministry explained how they are planning to speed up the process so that the asylum seekers who are in most need of assistance can be settled more quickly.

Staff and students from DMU and Frederick also had the chance to share information about the various programmes that their universities operate in order to help migrants.

Italian student Wendy Kofi Adu, who studies Criminology at DMU, said: It was so inspiring to see how much work they are doing in Cyprus, even though they are such a small country.

I think its such a great example for bigger countries like the United Kingdom and Germany of how to take care of refugees and make them part of our society, and not just see them as a problem.

During their five days in Cyprus, DMU students have been joined by a group of students from Nicosia-based Frederick University. They also visited the Kofinou Refugee Reception Centre near the town of Larnaca in order to get a first-hand look at how asylum seekers are looked after in Cyprus.

The group was given a tour of the facility by the director of the centre, which is the only permanent refugee reception centre on the island and has space for up to 400 asylum seekers, and were able to speak to staff about the process for asylum seekers in Cyprus.

They will end the trip by attending an event at Frederick University on Thursday 18 October to discuss what else #JoinTogether partners can do to support refugees and asylum seekers worldwide.Shenandoah, IA (51601)

Today

Partly cloudy this evening, then becoming cloudy after midnight. Low near 40F. Winds N at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy this evening, then becoming cloudy after midnight. Low near 40F. Winds N at 10 to 15 mph.South Korea's ranking in global competitiveness rose by two notches this year thanks to improvement in the country's macroeconomic environment and a high-level of information technology, a report showed Wednesday.

In 2018, Asia's fourth-largest economy ranked 15th out of 140 countries surveyed in the World Economic Forum (WEF) competitiveness index, up from 17th the previous year. WEF said this year's gains were tempered by challenges in the country's labor sector and certain structural problems.

The WEF changed some items reviewed, and the rankings are based on the new evaluation scheme.

The country's rankings in terms of basic requirements that measure its institutions and infrastructure came in at 27th and sixth places, respectively. The country ranked No. 1 in both ICT adoption and macroeconomic stability.

South Korea stood at 19th and 27th in terms of health and skills, with the numbers for product market, labor market, financial system and market size being 67th, 48th, 19th and 14th, each, the report showed.

"The country leads the ICT adoption pillar, boasting some of the world's highest penetration rates of ICTs. A global innovation powerhouse ... [South Korea] struggles on the less tangible drivers of innovation," the report said.

The report noted South Korea's two weakest pillars are its product market, mostly due to the lack of domestic competition, and labor market, caused by its rigidity and sub-optimal utilization of human capital. (Yonhap)By Lee Kyung-min







Woori Bank has received the green light from German financial authorities and the European Central Bank to set up a corporate body in Europe, the bank said, Tuesday.







This will pave the way for Woori to provide better services to Korean companies there and expand its presence.







The bank said it will set up its first European corporate entity in Frankfurt this month, which will be used as a strategic base to expand its business across Europe.







It also plans to increase the number of its branches in Eastern Europe where a large number of Korean manufacturers are based.







The bank said that it will get easier access to other European countries under the "single passport rule," under which a financial firm with a license within the European Union (EU) member states can conduct business through much simplified compliance procedures.







Woori's corporate body in Frankfurt will be allowed to handle a variety of businesses, including corporate, investment (IB), export and import, and retail banking, and foreign currency remittance for locals and syndicated loan businesses.







In particular, the body plans to create a strong sales team consisting of experienced IB specialists both from Korea and Europe in a bid to enhance its corporate marketing capabilities







The approval is the latest development in the overseas expansion of the bank with the largest global network. It has a total of 419 overseas branches worldwide.







"Our new corporate body in Frankfurt will complete the European belt connecting a branch in London and Katowice, a city in southern Poland," said an official from the bank.







"We hope the new deal will help us increase our overseas presence in closer connection with our other branches in the U.S., Middle East and Asia."







Woori Bank has established corporate bodies in the U.S., China, Russia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Vietnam, Myanmar, the Philippines, Brazil and Cambodia, and discussions are underway to set up a new body in India.





By Lee Kyung-min





Kyobo Life founder Shin Yong-ho

Kyobo Life Insurance CEO Shin Chang-jae will receive the Order of Cultural Merit in recognition of his extraordinary contribution to raising the profile of Korean literature on the global stage and promoting reading here, the company said Wednesday.



The doctor-turned-CEO became the second recipient in his family of the highly prestigious award, after his late father, group founder Shin Yong-ho.



The Order of Cultural Merit is awarded by the president, and has five levels. It is bestowed upon those who have conducted "outstanding meritorious services in the fields of culture and art in the interest of promoting the national culture and development."



His father won the merit at the Geumgwan (Gold Crown) level, the highest grade, in 1996, and the junior Eungwan (Silver Crown), the second-highest honor.



Given the award is usually given to prominent art and cultural figures, a business leader winning the honor is drawing commendation, attesting to his extensive contribution to fostering cultural enrichment through the continued promotion of reading and the development of literature.





Kyobo Life CEO Shin Chang-jaeRenowned fashion designer Lee Sang-bong, right, and his son designer Chung-chung pose for a photo at LIE SANGBONG boutique in Seoul in this March 2014 file photo. Korea Times file



Lee Chung-chung follows in designer father's footsteps



By Kang Aa-young



Lee Chung-chung, chief director for the fashion label LIE and son of the renowned designer Lee Sang-bong, has become one of the most-talked-about designers at the 2019 Spring-Summer HERA Seoul Fashion Week (SFW) for his rapid rise to the global fashion stage.



His schedule had been fully booked recently with international showcases, including the New York Fashion Week, which was held in early September.



From New York, he flew directly to Shanghai for another show. On Friday, he will hold his much-anticipated SFW show.



Through his month-long journey, he has been focusing each show on each country's style. For example, in New York, he tried to create a more comfortable style, while in Paris he tried to add more "fun" to his experimental show.



Regarding his SFW show, he said he has been preparing another style.



"I have already showed different styling according to each stop. For Seoul Fashion Week on Friday, I have prepared a show focusing on styling which goes well along with Asian skin tones, with vibrant colors, since the buyers and clients are from countries including Japan, China, Hong Kong and Southeast Asian countries," he said in a phone interview with The Korea Times, Wednesday.



Starting with his first fashion show in 2015, he soon stood at the New York show, which was a breakthrough for an up-and-coming designer.



Right before the show, he collaborated with several fashion brands on masks, bags and shoes, and now he's busy working on collaborative pieces with Samsonite, an international suitcase brand.



However, his own namesake brand is a recent development.



The brand LIE was created with his sister Lee Na-na after he graduated from Central Saint Martins in London.



Born and raised in Seoul, Lee had access to art studios since he was a child. The children of a renowned designer of the world famous brand LIE SANGBONG, whose designs have been worn by pop stars including Beyonce, Rihanna, Lady Gaga and Lindsay Lohan, he and his sister were able to travel around the world to attend fashion events for the brand. Immediately after graduation the two worked individually and became award-winning designers. However, as they shared the same desire to make affordable luxury items, in 2011 the siblings created a line that reflected the elegance and sculptural details of their parents' label,  but at a more accessible price  for women seeking a modern look.



The 39-year-old Lee Chung-chung spent nearly 20 years with his father's label, and said he learned to work in a competitive environment thanks to his guidance.



His experience growing up made him who he is today, but many still question whether he can outdo his father.



"I do feel a burden," Lee said when asked about his father's shadow, but added that he feels he has already taken the first step out of his father's fame through his own independent label.



"I will make efforts to handle the show, as an individual designer," he said.



The show on Friday at Dongdaemun Design Plaza represents LIE's 2019 Spring-Summer collection, inspired by Amelia Earhart, the American aviation pioneer and author. The collection presents the story of a powerful woman along with a sense of feminism by depicting the style of the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.



The collection aims to motivate women to stay curious and adventurous, with a combination of 1930s feminine style including ruffles, and masculine trench coats and structured high-waist trousers.

The United Nations is expected to seek to adopt a resolution on the human rights situation in North Korea next month for the 14th straight year, diplomatic sources in New York said Tuesday.



The Third Committee of the U.N. General Assembly is now drawing up a new North Korean human rights resolution, with Japan and the European Union taking the lead, the sources said, adding the document will be submitted to the committee in October.



If the resolution passes the Third Committee, it will be sent to the U.N. General Assembly, which has adopted a resolution on human rights in North Korea for 13 consecutive years.



With the recent progress in North Korea's relationship with the United States and South Korea, however, it remains to be seen whether there will be changes in the expression of the resolution and how strongly the North would react to it, they said.



In this regard, South Korean Ambassador to the U.N. Cho Tae-yul said that the U.N. is expected to again adopt the North Korean human rights resolution this year.



"The U.N. has already adopted the North Korean human rights resolution for several years, and our mission has been deeply involved in the drawing up of the document," said Cho during a parliamentary audit of South Korea's mission to the U.N. in New York.



Cho said that it is impossible for the two Koreas to push to connect their railways and roads and implement other cross-border economic cooperation projects without violating the U.N. sanctions on North Korea.



Seoul and Pyongyang announced after high-level talks early this week that they will hold a ground-breaking ceremony in late November or early December to start the modernization and connection of railways and roads along the eastern and western regions.



The agreement is a follow-up to last month's third summit between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.



Cho expressed views that the proposed inter-Korean railway and road connections, if further pushed in earnest, could be in violation of the U.N. Security Council sanctions on the North.



"Our mission has been in discussions with the U.N. and allied nations to help inter-Korean exchanges and cooperation projects proceed smoothly within the framework of the international community's North Korean sanctions," the ambassador said.



Asked to comment on the recent demand by North Korea, China and Russia that the North sanctions be eased, Cho said sanctions relief could be considered only after Pyongyang implements any meaningful denuclearization measures. (Yonhap)



President Moon Jae-in and first lady Kim Jung-sook are welcomed by Stefano Zaniniafter, vice chief of diplomatic protocol at Italy's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, after arriving at Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino Airport in Rome, Tuesday. Moon will have a summit with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and visit the Vatican for a meeting with Pope Francis. / Yonhap



By Kim Yoo-chul

ROME  President Moon Jae-in is using his ongoing tour of European nations to call for their support for the Korea peace process and to ease sanctions on North Korea.



Cheong Wa Dae said Wednesday (KST) that President Moon will ask British Prime Minister Theresa May at their summit this week to consider lifting some sanctions in response to North Korea's planned denuclearization steps. Moon also plans to hold a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.



"Moon is focusing on winning solid support from permanent United Nations Security Council (UNSC) members and European countries to push the denuclearization process forward. Now is the time for the international community to provide some assurances that Pyongyang has made the right choice toward peace on the Korean Peninsula, and encourage the country to speed up the process," a senior Cheong Wa Dae official told The Korea Times.



Easing some economic sanctions on North Korea is turning into a "major issue" during Moon's European trip after Pyongyang has in recent weeks made its demands explicit. More precisely, the North said sanctions should have been eased as a "corresponding measure" after it announced plans to dismantle a nuclear facility and its inventory.



This move may hurt Seoul's relationship with Washington. The United States is still squeezing North Korea financially, saying no sanctions relief should be permitted without specifics on denuclearization.





France, the United Kingdom and the United States haven't come around to Moon's way of thinking yet. Macron made it clear to the president in Paris that France supports sanctions and pressure on North Korea until the country is fully denuclearized, showing no interest in using sanctions relief as a short-term tool to induce and encourage Pyongyang toward further disarmament steps as Moon proposed.

South Korea is in a challenging position. Without any clear support from the UNSC, President Moon is moving forward with his own inter-Korean rapprochement along several axes, with high-level military talks, exchanges, family reunions and other activities. Economic cooperation has still not materialized.President Moon Jae-in shakes hands with Italian President Sergio Mattarella with first lady Kim Jung-sook and Mattarella's daughter Laura standing next to them during a welcoming ceremony for Moon at the presidential palace in Rome, Wednesday. Moon later had a summit with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, at which they agreed to develop Korea-Italy relations into a strategic partnership. Yonhap



By Kim Yoo-chul



ROME  Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte expressed full support for President Moon Jae-in's drive for complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization (CVID) of North Korea.



"Prime Minister Conte expressed full support for the diplomatic initiatives undertaken by President Moon through the three inter-Korean summits to advance inter-Korean relations, and achieve complete denuclearization and permanent peace in the Korean Peninsula. The two leaders shared the view that denuclearization must be achieved in a complete, verifiable and irreversible manner," Conte said in a joint press statement after the two leaders' summit in Rome, late Wednesday (KST).



Moon, who is on a nine-day European trip, paid an "official visit" to Italy from Oct. 16 to today. He will later attend an Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) to be held in Brussels, Belgium.







By Jung Min-ho







The Korea Customs Service (KCS) has warned Koreans living in Canada not to smoke marijuana as the North American nation moves to allow recreational marijuana sales in just two months.





"It will still be illegal for Koreans to smoke marijuana in Canada or anywhere else," the KCS said Monday. "Koreans who return here after using the drug could face criminal charges."





Canada's Bill C-45, also known as the Cannabis Act, will go into effect on October 17. Canada, the first wealthy nation to legalize marijuana fully, expects the law to keep the drug away from underage users and reduce related crimes.





The KCS said it seized 18 kilograms of marijuana between January and July  up 365 percent on the same period last year  after California began sales of recreational marijuana on Jan. 1. The haul is expected to surge once the Canadian law takes effect.





"We will strengthen inspections of people who come from Canada and their belongings as well as all packages from the country," the KCS said. "We will continue our efforts to prevent drug smuggling."

By Kang Seung-woo



More than 300 Yemeni nationals on Jeju Island have been granted one-year humanitarian stay permits, the justice ministry said Wednesday.



The Jeju Immigration Office decided to allow 339 of the asylum seekers to stay on humanitarian grounds instead of officially granting them refugee status. Now they can leave Jeju and enter mainland Korea



The office rejected 34 refugee applications, while delaying its decision on 85 others.



This year, a total of 481 Yemenis arrived on Jeju and sought refugee status  last month just 23 were granted one-year residence permits, mostly pregnant women, people with injuries and minors.



"Those who received the humanitarian stay permits failed to meet the five requirements for refugee status," said an official at the immigration office.



Humanitarian permits are granted when asylum seekers fail to meet the criteria for official refugee status, but are allowed to stay in the country due to other circumstances. The permit can be extended every year, but can also be canceled if the holder is found to have committed crimes either inside or outside Korea.



Asylum seekers can acquire refugee status if they face oppression for their race, religion, nationality, political stance or membership of a particular social group.



"Thirty-four applicants were denied because they either face criminal charges or are believed to have sought asylum here for economic purposes as they could have safely stayed in other countries," Jeju Office of Immigration chief Kim Do-gyun said in a briefing.



Those whose applications were refused can appeal, and during the administrative process, they may stay on Jeju, but are not allowed to leave the island.



The immigration office is set to finish its review of the pending cases as soon as possible, Kim said.



"Among the 85 pending cases, we have a few that can be accepted as refugees," he added.



The arrival of so many people from the Islamic country has raised concerns over potential terrorist attacks in Korea. As a result, some Koreans have protested against giving them refugee status.



In July, an online petition on the Cheong Wa Dae website calling for the scrapping of the country's Refugee Protection Act gained more than 710,000 signatories  the highest number since the presidential office opened the petition site last year.



The Ministry of Justice announced in August that it would amend the refugee law to create a stricter screening process and block repeated applications.



Korea has only approved about 3.8 percent of total refugee applicants since 1994, when it began to review refugee applications in line with its signing of the 1951 U.N. Refugee Convention.

By Park Si-soo







The number of eligible foreign voters has surpassed 100,000. Foreigners can cast ballots in local elections three years after winning permanent residency status -- although not in parliamentary and presidential elections.







According to

revealed by Rep. So Byeong-hoon of the ruling Democratic Party, the number of eligible foreign voters has rocketed since the revision of the election law in 2005 to grant qualified foreigners voting rights.







In 2006 when foreigners were allowed to vote in local elections for the first time, only 6,726 foreigners qualified. The figure jumped to 12,878 in 2010 and 48,428 in 2014. This year, the number reached 106,049, the lawmaker said, citing data from the National Election Commission.







This trend reflects an increasing number of foreigners are settling in South Korea as their second home, opening a new chapter in their lives. But the disappointing news is that few people use their right to vote.







The 2010 elections had a 35.2 percent turnout of foreign voters -- lower than the nationwide turnout of 54.5 percent. This tumbled to 35.2 percent in the next local elections in 2010 and to 17.6 percent in 2014 and 13.5 percent in 2018.







Some claimed the government's lack of enthusiasm in promoting the policy to foreigners was the main reason for the low turnouts.







"South Korea is Asia's first country to give voting rights to qualified foreigners in sync with globalization and to better protect foreign residents' human rights," the lawmaker said. "We need to find measures for better implementation of the policy."

Members of four taxi associations protest the launch of the Kakao T Carpool application in front of the Kakao Mobility office in Pangyo, Gyeonggi Province, Oct. 11. Over 70,000 taxi drivers are scheduled to suspend operations Thursday and some of them will hold a rally against the ridesharing service in Gwanghwamun Square, central Seoul. Yonhap



By Kim Hyun-bin



Tens of thousands of taxi drivers nationwide are scheduled to hold a strike Thursday in protest of Kakao Mobility's planned launch of a ridesharing application.



The Seoul Private Taxi Association and Seoul Taxi Association jointly announced they would stage a strike Thursday to protest the launch of the application, which they claim will impact their livelihoods drastically. Kakao Mobility is the smart mobility and ride sharing branch of Kakao.



Members of the two associations will halt their operation from 4 a.m. on Thursday to 4 a.m. on Friday. They will instead hold a rally at Gwanghwamun Square in central Seoul at 2 p.m. on Thursday.



The two associations have over 70,000, and it remains to be seen how many will actually participate in the joint action. The strike involves not only Seoul taxis but also the Korea National Joint Conference of Taxi Association, and thousands of other taxi drivers across the country are expected to stop work to join the rally in Seoul.



"We expect around 20,000 private taxi drivers in Seoul to take part and around 100,000 are predicted to strike nationwide," an official from the Seoul Private Taxi Association said. "We are planning to hold a street march to Cheong Wa Dae."



The strike is the third collective action by the groups, following two protests earlier this month in front of the Kakao Mobility office in Pangyo, Gyeonggi Province.



Their halting of operation and the march is expected to cause traffic chaos in Seoul.



"We will extend the hours of buses and subways and come up with other countermeasures," an official from the Seoul Metropolitan Government said, Wednesday.



Despite the strong protest from taxi operators, Kakao Mobility plans to push ahead with its ridesharing business.



Kakao released a statement on Tuesday that it is recruiting drivers for Kakao T Carpool. However, it failed to mention when the service will go into effect.



Kakao says the ride sharing service will only be used during morning and evening rush hours as there have been mounting complaints from the public over lack of available taxis during peak hours.



The app launch date has been delayed indefinitely as Kakao Mobility has been waiting for the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport to announce its new car sharing policy.



Uber launched a lift service in 2013, but was suspended after meeting strong protest by city officials and taxi drivers.



Kakao Mobility has been successful in launching Kakao T Taxi, a taxi calling service, which was launched in 2015. The app was a hit among consumers due to its convenience and easy accessibility. Eighty percent of taxi drivers have been utilizing the app to reel in customers.



According to a survey released by Kakao Mobility, the average taxi driver earned 37.5 percent more after the launch of the application.

U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Harry Harris introduces an edition of Time Magazine at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul, Wednesday, which features Korean boy band BTS on its cover. During his keynote speech, Harris urged South Korea to focus more on its alliance with the U.S. by having a "common voice" rather than putting priority on improving inter-Korean relations to denuclearize North Korea. / Yonhap



By Park Ji-won



South Korea and the United States should have a "common voice" in dealing with North Korea rather than putting priority on improving inter-Korean relations over denuclearization, U.S. Ambassador to Seoul Harry Harris said Wednesday.



"We are, of course, cognizant of the priority that President Moon Jae-in and his administration have placed on improving South-North relations. I believe this inter-Korean dialogue must remain linked to denuclearization, and South Korea synchronized with the United States," Harris said during a seminar co-hosted by the Asan Institute for Policy Studies and the Wilson Center.



"There, of course, remains a lot of work to be done, but I believe that if the United States and South Korea continue to approach North Korea with a common voice, we can turn the commitments that were made in Pyongyang, Panmunjeom and Singapore into reality."



He made his remarks amid the recent dissonance between South Korea and the U.S. in dealing with easing sanction against the North. He reiterated Washington's stance of maintaining sanctions against Pyongyang, while expressing discontent over Seoul's move to prioritize improving inter-Korean relations and easing the sanctions.



The two countries have been showing different approaches to achieving the denuclearization of North Korea. President Moon Jae-in, on a state visit to European countries, has urge them to ease the sanctions somewhat. Meanwhile, the U.S. has been warning South Korea that lifting them, along with related actions, should only take place with Washington's approval.



Stephen Biegun, the U.S. Special representative for North Korea also reaffirmed the U.S. government's policy of achieving "final, fully verified denuclearization of North Korea," Tuesday, in a meeting with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov and Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov in Moscow, according to the Voice of America.



Emphasizing the history of the strong alliance between Seoul and Washington, and President Donald Trump's position on signing a "fair" agreement regarding cost sharing for U.S. forces in the South, the ambassador urged the quick finalization of negations for this.



"It is in both our countries' interests to conclude these negotiations quickly so that through our iron-clad alliance we can focus on the important task of continuing to work hand-in-hand to ensure the denuclearization of North Korea," he said.

President Moon Jae-in, right, shakes hands with UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay in a meeting at the Plaza Athenee Hotel in Paris, Tuesday (local time). / Yonhap



By Lee Min-hyung



South Korea will cooperate with UNESCO to designate the inter-Korean border region as an international conservation area, President Moon Jae-in said in a meeting with UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay, Tuesday (local time) in Paris.



"Areas near the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) will become a wonderful natural legacy once they are designated as natural ecology protection areas," Moon told the UNESCO chief.



His remarks came as the two Koreas are speeding up their joint project to disarm the heavily-fortified border area, thereby easing military tension and bringing lasting peace to the Korean Peninsula. Seoul and Pyongyang are clearing out land mines around the DMZ under the goal of complete disarmament of the region.





By Lee Min-hyung





Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon

By Lee Min-hyung







Lee Seung-woo, the father of late Army Second Lieutenant Lee Sang-yub, is attracting public attention for his warmhearted decision to donate his son's pension to the armed forces.







Last week, the father of the deceased soldier donated 100 million won ($88,790) to Korea Military Academy where his son attended before he passed away due to stomach cancer in 1987.







Lee Seung-woo saved the pension for his son's bereaved family for 31 years before deciding to donate the money to the Academy's development fund on October 8. The donation also included the allowance Lee Sang-yub had saved while he was a teenager, according to his father.







"I hope the money is spent on the military school which trains cadets sacrificing their lives for the nation," the father, 84, said. "I hope the money will help them realize their dreams on behalf of my son."







He made the remark on his visit to Korea Military Academy in Seoul last week where he participated in the special event for his donation.







Entering the Academy in 1984, his son was an outstanding cadet and got a chance to study at the United States Military Academy, better known as West Point. He was the only cadet selected in his class to study abroad.







But he lost his life there when he was a sophomore due to cancer.







The father also expressed his gratitude to his son's colleagues, as they visit the National Cemetery in Daejeon each year where Lee Sang-yub is buried.







"His colleagues visit Sang-yub's grave on the Memorial Day each year and bring flowers to honor him," the father said. "I have always wanted to deliver a word of gratitude to them."



By Kim Yoo-chul



ROME  President Moon Jae-in will visit the Vatican today for a meeting with Pope Francis where he is expected to deliver an invitation from North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to visit Pyongyang, Cheong Wa Dae said.



"As planned, Pope Francis will receive President Moon at the Vatican, Thursday. A closed face-to-face meeting is also planned. During the meeting, Moon plans to persuade Pope Francis to visit North Korea," the presidential office said.



President Moon, a Catholic, arrived in Rome early Wednesday as part of his nine-day European trip to attend the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) to be held in Brussels, Belgium, later this week. This is the third time for Moon to meet with the Pope.







By Kim Jong-nam





For the past two weeks, I was in Europe for two workshops, which were held in Finland and the Netherlands, on national and organizational culture. I was able to meet about 30 professors, consultants and corporate instructors from all over the world.



During these two workshops, I had many opportunities to hear foreigners discussing Korean national culture and corporate culture as they saw it. Even now that the workshops have finished, these discussions linger in my mind: opinions from pundits from other countries led me to reflect on who we Koreans really are and whether we see ourselves objectively and fairly.



In Finland, the foreign participants talked about the educational systems in their own countries, and asked the Finnish people what the distinguishing characteristics of their educational system were. A professor from Finland answered without hesitation, "We tend to think that effective education teaches how to study instead of emphasizing the amount of study or the content itself. Thus, schools do not give a lot of homework  at most, two or three hours after school. We de-emphasize memorization: after all, knowledge is accessible so easily today."



This simple answer made me question whether our educational system is really as good as we think, considering that Korean students spend much more time studying to get similar results (as determined by global rankings each year).



Doing well does not require doing a lot. Do we not understand this, or do we understand yet refuse to change? Or is it rather that we know we need to change but we don't know how? These questions even lead to a broader question about Korean society as a whole: Are we truly doing well?



In the Netherlands, I had the opportunity to see a Swedish professor and a Dutch professor talking about Korean culture. Both of them were knowledgeable about intercultural management and have been teaching the subject for more than 20-30 years. They, as did many others, talked about the rapid growth in Korea's economy over the past several decades. However, some of their knowledge about Korean culture came from non-Korean sources. For example, one professor showed me how Korean culture is interpreted in the world and how Korean culture developed into its present incarnation.



What surprised me was that the material he showed me was based on what a Japanese professor had said about Korean society, the development of the Korean economy and its corporations, and the strengths and weaknesses of Korea. In fact, many people I met during the workshop understood Korea from the perspective of Japanese professors.



This second experience pushed me to another question: Do we see ourselves as others see us? Are we making an effort to close the gap between how we see ourselves and how others see us  that is, to see ourselves more objectively? And who defines us  do we, or do others? Are we making an effort to present ourselves to the world in a comprehensible way, instead of letting the Japanese, or others, do it?





Kim Jong-nam is the founding CEO of META (www.imeta.co.kr) and the author of two books, "Organizations without Meetings" and "Breaking the Silent Rules."



By Na Jeong-ju

Politics editor





Washington is seemingly unhappy with Seoul's "unilateral" move to revive the long-stalled economic projects with Pyongyang.



What worries the Donald Trump administration most is possible damage the progress in inter-Korean relations could bring to the sanctions regime against North Korea while it sees no tangible results from the denuclearization talks.



Trump's frustration with South Korea's approach toward the North is well reflected in his recent remarks. He said Seoul will not lift sanctions on Pyongyang without U.S. approval. South Korea "does nothing" without U.S. approval, Trump said.



Soon after, however, South Korea agreed with the North to begin reconnecting railroads and highways across their border in a couple of months.



From a U.S. perspective, this could be seen as a slap in the face. Some U.S. politicians are even raising concerns that the Moon Jae-in administration's "idealistic" North Korea policy is causing a rift in the alliance.



However, this is rather an expression of South Korea's own frustration with the U.S. stubbornness about maintaining sanctions while they are not working properly and North Korea is showing sincerity. The North Korean economy has become durable despite the sanctions. Most of all, the Moon administration is seeing some existing sanctions as an obstacle in bringing inter-Korean ties back on track, and thus moving the peace process forward.



Probably, Seoul might have consulted details of the envisioned railway project with Washington first before coming to the agreement with Pyongyang. This is because, as Trump described, South Korea's diplomatic options regarding the North are very limited without U.S. backing.



The U.S. has linked lifting sanctions to concrete denuclearization steps North Korea takes. But as we all know, denuclearization is a long process of tough negotiations. It cannot be achieved without concessions from each concerned party.



The U.S. hesitance to ease sanctions could give the impression that it is not willing to proceed with the negotiations with North Korea further. The nuclear talks surely need a fresh momentum now, and the U.S. can provide it.



In this regard, it is time for Washington to consider ending the Korean War as a realistic option for denuclearization. The two Koreas want it, and China wants it as well.



Declaring the end of the war this year has already been agreed upon between the leaders of the two Koreas, and even Trump welcomed it during his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Singapore in April.



Surely, the declaration, if realized, will be a crucial moment in moving the denuclearization process forward and consolidating peace on the Korean Peninsula.



Because the declaration of the end of the war is only a "political proclamation," as President Moon put it, it does not hurt U.S. security interests at all. It is rather an expression of a common will to end mutual hostility and coexist peacefully. Most of all, North Korea, which had demanded withdrawal of the U.S. military from South Korea as a precondition for peace, gave a tacit agreement for the continued presence of troops even after the two Koreas are united.



Washington needs to realize that the declaration of the end of the war is not advantageous for only Pyongyang, but an important means of accelerating the denuclearization talks with North Korea.



In other words, the U.S. demand for North Korea's submission of its nuclear list cannot be met without progress in bilateral relations. They need to set up liaison offices first to promote exchanges and then declaring the end of the war can come next.



The declaration could be a starting point for efforts to ensure permanent peace on the peninsula.



By Richie Santosdiaz





Korea, the United Arab Emirates and the wider Gulf region in the Middle East represent strong, and growing, international trade and cultural exchange between the two global powerhouses.



South Korea has been in global headlines recently, mainly with respect to what is happening with North Korea.



However, Korea has also made regional headlines in the Middle East, particularly in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the wider Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). The GCC is currently made of six member countries in the Arabian Gulf including the UAE and Saudi Arabia.



From international trade to even K-pop, Korea and the UAE are fostering an already strong relationship, especially this year.



When South Korean President Moon Jae-in visited the UAE earlier this year, both nations agreed to upgrade the UAE-Korea "strategic relationship" to a "special strategic partnership."



There was a high-profile UAE-Korea Business Forum in Dubai, which was organized by the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry, in conjunction with the Korean International Trade Association.









The president and CEO of the Dubai Chamber, Hamad Buamim, during the forum highlighted synergies and potential to explore bilateral business opportunities in sectors like ICT, cloud computing, Internet of Things, healthcare and life sciences, as well as establishing new joint ventures focusing on ship production, multi-modal logistics, construction and renewable energy, according to the UAE's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation website.







Korea is already one of the UAE's top trading partners, currently at eighth place in terms of trading and the UAE's seventh-largest import market. Two-way non-oil trade with just Dubai alone grew 8 percent from 2017 to around $7.5 billion, which comprised over $6 billion in imports and over $1.2 billion in exports.







UAE imports from Korea last year were at almost $8 billion, which represented an increase of over 3 percent. Korean-backed investments in the UAE last year were over $2.7 billion, which includes 83 commercial companies, 242 commercial agencies and 2,573 trademarks from Korea in the UAE.







According to the Korea Trade Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA), which is Korea's trade and investment promotional agency, they have 15 offices in the Middle East and Africa, which includes not only Dubai but other cities in the region like Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and Muscat, Oman.







Like other nation's trade and investment promotional agencies, KOTRA has been active in helping facilities trade and investment between the UAE and Korea.







Fun fact  the Burj Khalifa, currently the world's tallest building and one of Dubai and the UAE's most iconic symbols, was helped built by Korean company Samsung C&T.







There is also increasing investment from the GCC to Korea as well. For instance, in 2016 UAE's Investment Corporation of Dubai was investing $100 million in SSangyong Engineering and Construction Co., while Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund was investing more than $1 billion in POSCO Engineering and Construction.







On a cultural and personal level, there is also growing interest between Korea and the UAE. For example, K-pop band EXO not only visited Dubai to a legion of fans, but, had the red carpet rolled out by Dubai, which included and, due to popular demand the band's hit song "Power" being included in Dubai's famous fountain show. It returned by popular demand last month, showing Korea's global influence even in culture  K-pop.







From tourism to even relocating to their respective countries, the movement of people is also evident between Korea and the UAE. For instance, 140,000 Korean tourists visited or transited in the UAE, while 10,000 Emiratis visited South Korea. There are around 13,000 Korean expatriates, or expats, in the UAE (7,000 of them in Dubai and the northern emirates).







Finally, Korean Air and Emirates fly direct between Seoul and Dubai while Etihad Airways offers direct flights between the UAE's capital Abu Dhabi and Seoul, according to the airlines' websites.







The near future, besides those mentioned from this year, includes Dubai Expo 2020. Korea has hosted an international world's fair twice (Taejon Expo '93 and Expo 2012 in Yeosu) so their know-how in organizing the world's largest gathering of people can be valuable.





Korea itself plans to have a large country pavilion presence at Expo 2020. KOTRA recently in August launched an architectural design competition for the Korea pavilion at Dubai in 2020 and interested people who would qualify are encouraged to register and submit their entries on the official Korea Expo website (

).







Dubai Expo 2020 begins Oct. 20, 2020, and will close on April 10, 2021, with 25 million visitors expected, according to their website.







The future of trade, investment and wider cultural exchanges between Korea and the UAE and wider Middle East looks promising and, given current trends, looks to grow and increase more in the future.







It is worth noting both countries have similar histories in economic transformation in a short period. With South Korea, it was not too long ago when it was once a poor country, which at one point was worst off economically than North Korea.







With the UAE, particularly Dubai, it was also not long ago, before the Burj Khalifa, Dubai Mall and other impressive development projects existed, that the city was once a small port city.







Therefore, with similar economic pasts and current aspirations, the relationship between Korea and the UAE makes them natural trading partners.









Richie Santosdiaz is an expert in economic development, mainly around the realm of internationalization, having worked as a consultant and adviser with various governments and multinationals. He is also an adviser for London-based Pax Tecum Global Consultancy. In addition, he also contributes and comments with various outlets with respect to economic development and wider international trade topics. He is currently based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).







Nikki Haley, who last week announced her resignation as the U.S. representative to the United Nations, was less strident than the president who appointed her  not much of an achievement, given President Trump's often reckless rhetoric.



Haley also worked with diplomats from other nations to achieve some important objectives, including sanctions against North Korea that pressured Pyongyang into negotiations about a possible end to its nuclear weapons program.



But Haley's abiding contribution in nearly two years at her post was to defend policies that isolated the United States from the U.N. and the international community  and pushed the job toward irrelevance.



In her resignation letter, the former South Carolina governor echoed Trump's campaign slogan by boasting that "we stood strong for American values and interests, always placing America first."



But like the president, she seems to assume that this country benefits when it refuses to work with other nations. More often, the opposite is true.



In 2017 Haley wielded the U.S. veto to block a Security Council resolution criticizing Trump's provocative and unnecessary decision to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a step previous administrations of both parties had refused to take because of the feared consequences for the peace process. The resolution was supported by all of the other members of the Security Council, including France and the United Kingdom.



Then there is the Iran nuclear accord, which had been endorsed in a Security Council resolution; Haley took a leading role in publicly laying out the case against it.



In May, Trump not only followed Haley's implicit advice, but he also announced that the U.S. was withdrawing from the agreement and would re-impose sanctions on Iran. That reckless decision has unsettled U.S. relations with its European allies, which continue to support the agreement for the simple reason that Iran is complying with its terms.



Finally, Haley and Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo announced in June that the U.S. was withdrawing from the U.N. Human Rights Council, even though she later acknowledged that that body "has brought the injustice suffered by political prisoners to international attention."



She said that the council's positive contributions were "the exceptions, not the rule," and that it had "focused its attention unfairly and relentlessly on Israel." But rather than try to influence the council to be more even-handed, the administration walked away.



This is not a record of which either Trump or Haley can be proud. Her successor will inherit a much diminished position, answering to a president who seems to doubt that this job matters.





The above editorial appeared in the Los Angeles Times. It was distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Authorities should not undermine freedom of speech



It is right to say fake news is the enemy of democracy. Any fake news or disinformation distorts public opinion and may disrupt democratic processes. In this regard, sorting out fake news and preventing its spread is undoubtedly crucial to maintaining our democratic system.



Yet, cracking down on fake news, especially by the government and law enforcement agencies, raises concerns about its true intention because such a move could weaken freedom of speech. Of course, this is not to say the authorities should not do anything about fake news. But we believe these state bodies are not appropriate for the job of clamping down on such misinformation.



In this context, we have to express our worries about measures introduced by Justice Minister Park Sang-ki to fight fake news. Announcing the measures Tuesday, Park instructed prosecutors to crack down on fake news. He noted that the spread of false information could destroy public trust in society and cause serious damage to the country.



We cannot agree more with Park on the mind-boggling ill effects of fake news. But we differ on how to prevent the circulation of false information, especially on his plan to use prosecutors to do so. In this rapidly changing digital age, it is anachronistic for the government to mobilize law enforcement agencies to suppress fake news.



It is understandable that Minister Park has to act on instructions from Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon who declared war on fake new about two weeks ago. Lee is at the forefront in denouncing fake news as a "destroyer of democracy." He has ordered stern measures since he visited the residence of the late Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh. He wrote in the guestbook that he felt "humble before a great leader" who loved his people.



Back home, Prime Minister Lee invited criticism for his guestbook comment. Some conservatives called him a "commie" and lambasted him for what he did not do: pledge allegiance to North Korea's founder Kim Il-sung. Lee must have felt that he too had become a victim of fake news or false allegations. This could have made him initiate the fight against fake news.



However, his fight does not appear to have come too precipitously. Rather it reflects how the Moon Jae-in government views fake news. So the war on this could focus more on deflecting mounting criticism about President Moon's various policies, including the controversial income-led growth formula and his rush to promote inter-Korean economic cooperation despite little progress in North Korea's denuclearization.



What the Moon administration should not do is to hush dissenting voices among the people, especially conservatives, in the name of sweeping away fake news. Such a state-led campaign against fake news runs the risk of undermining freedom of the press and of expression.



It would be better to let civil society do the job of staging the fight against fake news. Media outlets and civil organizations are well-positioned to define what fake news is and find ways to effectively eliminate false information without compromising freedom of speech.

Cho Hyun-gu, CEO and founder of Classting, speaks during an interview with The Korea Times at the education technology startup's office in Seoul, Friday. / Courtesy of Classting



Classting strives to contribute to innovative teaching in Asia



By Jun Ji-hye



Cho Hyun-gu wanted to offer personalized education in accordance with each student's characteristics instead of cramming and repetition when he was an elementary school teacher.



But this was difficult under Korea's public education system in which each one teacher is responsible for dozens of students.



This led him to set up education technology startup Classting in July 2012 and work to develop education services based on artificial intelligence (AI) and big data to contribute to innovative education nationwide and to expand into other Asian countries.





Classting appBoutheina Guermazi, director of Digital Development at the World Bank Group, delivers an opening address for the Digital Development Partnership Workshop, co-organized by the Ministry of Science and ICT, at the Plaza Hotel in Seoul, Tuesday. / Courtesy of the Ministry of Science and ICT



By Jun Ji-hye



The Ministry of Science and ICT has been jointly holding the Digital Development Partnership (DDP) Workshop in Seoul with the World Bank, giving low- and middle-income countries an opportunity to learn from Korea's rapid transformation and digital development experience, the ministry said Wednesday.



The DDP Workshop, which began on Monday for a five-day run, brought together approximately 40 representatives from over 25 countries including Angola, Indonesia and Uzbekistan.



The ministry and the World Bank said the event was designed to help governments navigate the fast-paced digital age at a time when digital technologies are transforming many aspects of economies, governments and societies, serving as a driving force for economic growth and job creation among others.



Recognizing the tremendous opportunities digital technologies offer for development, developing countries around the world are looking to build their digital economies and reap related benefits for their citizens.



"At the World Bank Group, we are keen to leverage these technologies to help our client countries improve internet connectivity and build the digital economy," said Boutheina Guermazi, director of Digital Development at the World Bank Group.



She noted the workshop confirmed the high interest in Korean digital systems.



The event was a part of the World Bank's DDP fund project launched in 2016.



The DDP fund is a multilateral fund participated in by governments of Korea, Japan, Finland and Denmark as well as companies such as Microsoft to help developing countries upgrade their ICT technology and grow their economies.



Korea has donated $4.5 million to the fund over the past three years.



"We are very grateful to be the first donor of the Digital Development Partnership to host this workshop," said Lee Chung-won, senior director of multilateral cooperation division at the ministry. "Through the connections established during the event with the World Bank and the Smart Africa Alliance, I hope Korea's ICT technology and policy experience can be further shared and contribute to practical digital development solutions for developing countries."



The five-day program includes a workshop and study tour where representatives from the DDP's client countries, the Smart Africa Alliance, and the World Bank's strategic partners have the opportunity to exchange and learn from each other as well as Korea's example.

Lee Jae-il, vice president of Samsung Electronics' Creativity & Innovation Center, speaks during a press conference in Samsung Electronics SNU Cooperation R&D center at Seoul National University, Wednesday. / Courtesy of Samsung Electronics



By Baek Byung-yeul



Samsung Electronics said Wednesday it will nurture more than 500 startups here during the next five years by operating a startup support program.



The tech giant has been operating Creative Lab (C-Lab), an in-house startup incubator program, since 2012. Though it was started to nurture innovative ideas from its employees, the firm said it will begin supporting outsiders as well. Samsung said it expects 300 out of 500 startups will be created by those outsiders while 200 will be from its employees.



Samsung said nurturing more startups here is in line with the firm's announcement in August that it would invest about 180 trillion won ($159 billion) over the next three years in response to the government's request to expand investment and employment. Among the total investment, 130 billion won would be allocated to create jobs, foster innovation and share growth with small firms here.



"Nurturing local startups is a duty for a big company like ours. So far, the C-Lab program has spun off 34 startups and those startups created about 170 new jobs," Lee Jae-il, vice president of Samsung Electronics' Creativity & Innovation Center, said during a press conference at Samsung Electronics SNU Cooperation R&D center at Seoul National University.



"Of course, the numbers are small. Among the 34 startups, the largest one has hired about 25 employees. But I believe this will keep increasing to 50, 100 and even beyond 1,000."



Since the company began the C-Lab program, 917 Samsung Electronics employees have taken part in 228 projects. To expand the program to outsiders, Lee said the firm already picked up 15 new startups.



"The startups we chose to support will receive seed money worth 100 billion won ($88.70 million). Not only the seed money, but also Samsung will provide various support programs ranging from product design, applying patents to taxation," Lee said.



Introducing startups that are newly added to Samsung's support program from this month, Jinu Kim, CEO and founder of LINER, said cooperating with Samsung would be a great opportunity for startups.



"I am running a web highlight app LINER and Samsung helped us to promote our business. As Samsung is the largest Android partner, our app has been featured in Samsung's Galaxy Apps store, which brought positive promotion effect," Kim said. "I think working with Samsung has strengths as those startups supported by Samsung can develop their business operations resiliently using Samsung's resources."

Hyundai Motor Styling Vice President Lee Sang-yup introduces the HDC-2 Grandmaster concept SUV during the Busan International Motor Show in June. / Courtesy of Hyundai Motor





By Nam Hyun-woo







Hyundai, Kia and other carmakers here are turning their eyes to the once-neglected segment of large SUVs, with a slew of attractive models ready to make their debut in the coming months.







In the Korean market, large SUVs did not get much of the spotlight because of consumers' recognition that those big builds are fuel-consuming and inconvenient to drive, and brands have kept the segment relatively untapped.







As SUVs become the mainstream, however, carmakers are resuming their pitch in the segment, throwing challenges to the segment leader, SsangYong Motor's G4 Rexton.







According to Hyundai Motor, Monday, the carmaker plans to release a new large SUV in December.







It will become the first large SUV for the company since it stopped manufacturing the Veracruz in 2015. Back then, Hyundai Motor said the model was surpassed by its rivals such as Kia Motors' Mohave, while costs were rising due to the Euro 6 Emissions Standard.







Hyundai said it has not finalized the name of the new model, but it will be based on the HDC-2 Grandmaster concept SUV it revealed at the Busan International Motor Show in June and is "likely to be named the Palisade."







Also, the company's luxury brand Genesis is scheduled to introduce the GV80 as its first SUV model.







Its affiliate Kia Motors has already opened its large SUV salvo by introducing the 2019 Mohave on Oct. 8, which has gone through multiple upgrades with its multimedia features and surround view system.







Also raising expectation is the Telluride. Kia Motors plans to retail the upcoming large SUV in the North American market in the first quarter of next year, but it is uncertain that the company will bring the vehicle to Korea because it is assembled at its Georgia plant.







GM Korea is also planning to import the Traverse to Korea as early as the first half of next year.







The company apparently pins its hope on the seven- or eight-seater, as the previously released the Equinox small SUV is failing to meet sales expectations.







Amid various brands' return to the large SUV segment, SsangYong Motor is striving to defend the G4 Rexton's leadership in the domestic market.







The G4 Rexton saw sales of 1,239 in the domestic market last month, surpassing the Mohave with 154 and Hyundai Motor's Maxcruz with 55. The Maxcruz is a long bodied version of the Santa Fe.







SsangYong released the 2019 G4 Rexton in August, which added a selective catalytic reduction system to meet stronger emissions rules and incorporated several design upgrades.







"As technology advances, large SUVs have become lighter and more efficient in fuel economy," an automobile company official said. "With brands considering the segment as a fresh market, SsangYong may face serious challenges to its market leadership while consumers will have broader options for choice."





Auburn, IN (46706)

Today

Showers early, becoming a steady rain later in the day. High around 60F. Winds SSW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 80%..

Tonight

A steady rain in the evening. Showers continuing late. Low around 35F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%.Freely accessible local news is vital. Please power our reporters and help keep us independent with a donation today.

Start your day with LAist Sign up for the Morning Brief, delivered weekdays. Subscribe

The Los Angeles County supervisors threw their considerable weight behind the statewide rental regulation ballot measure, voting 3-1 on Tuesday to endorse Proposition 10, the so-called Affordable Housing Act.

If voters approve Proposition 10 in November, local governments would have more power to pass rent control policies, which have been largely limited since 1995.

The move comes weeks after the supervisors passed temporary rent stabilization measures in the unincorporated parts of L.A. County. Those rules apply to about 57,000 rented apartments and mobile homes. But there are another 69,000 rented homes in the unincorporated county areas where rent stabilization is prohibited.

Most of those are rented houses, where rent control regulations are blanket-banned by the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act. That's the state law that Proposition 10 would repeal if voters approve the ballot measure.

Should that happen, local governments would be allowed to to apply rent regulations to single-family homes, if they choose to do so.

READ MORE: What You Need To Know About Proposition 10: The Affordable Housing Act

The rise of single-family home rentals has been one of the most notable changes in the housing market over the past decade.

As foreclosed homes flooded the market, many were snapped up by investment firms, and turned around for offer on lease. Today, more than a quarter of all houses in Los Angeles and Orange counties are rentals, according to census data.

The concentration of residential property in the hands of a few investment companies is one of the reasons Supervisor Sheila Kuehl supports Proposition 10.

"Private equity firms have bought up thousands and thousands of rental units in L.A. County," she said. "This is not mom and pop with four apartments. It's become a big business."

Supervisor Kathryn Barger cast the sole vote against the board's endorsement of Prop 10.

So far, the "No on 10" campaign has raised nearly $60 million, according to the Secretary of State's office. In comparison, supporters of Proposition 10 have raised about $22 million.

From the county's perspective, rent stabilization is about preserving neighborhoods and helping people remain in their homes.

"I don't want the rents to be out of control in L.A. County, because it's a wonderful place to live, and it's important for us to keep a mix of the different economic levels that live in L.A. County," said Kuehl. "We want our workers to be able to live where they work, but they're being priced out."

A study released last year by Zillow found a 5 percent increase in the average countywide rent correlates to roughly a 3 percent increase in homelessness.

Right now, only a few cities in L.A. County -- Los Angeles, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills and Santa Monica -- have rent stabilization or tenant protection ordinances on their books.

For example, the city of Los Angeles' ordinance limits rent increases to 3 percent annually, and requires landlords to show "just cause" before evicting tenants living in apartment buildings built before Oct. 1, 1978.

Rules on how much rent can increase, and what buildings are affected, differ slightly in WeHo, Santa Monica, and Beverly Hills.

But in the county's remaining 84 cities, as well as its unincorporated parts, a landlord is legally allowed to raise a tenant's rent without any limitation at the end of a lease, so long as the tenant receives a 30- to 60-day notice, depending on the amount of the rent increase.

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.

Start your day with LAist Sign up for the Morning Brief, delivered weekdays. Subscribe

By Mary Plummer and Aaron Mendelson

The grim, graphic details are public, but sit silently in case files across Los Angeles County. Some lay out heartbreaking accounts of sexual misconduct by county employees, from verbal abuse to physical assault, including rape.

Few of the allegations have been written about before in news stories.

In response to a KPCC/LAist records request, county officials searched employment, general liability, medical malpractice and law enforcement legal filings to identify cases tied to sexual misconduct allegations. They identified 134 cases that ended with settlements or judgments.

In all, the county paid out more than $36.3 million -- including $13.7 million in attorneys' fees -- to resolve these misconduct claims between July 2004 and June 2017.

L.A. County employs 108,000 workers across the sprawl of America's most populous county. Its workforce is spread over 4,000 square miles and 34 departments.

To better manage and protect employees, the county adopted new workplace policies in 2011 and now describes them as a national gold standard. Among the program's goals: shield government employees from sexual harassment in the workplace.

Extensive public records from the county and local courts reviewed by KPCC/LAist show a giant government enterprise at times falling short of that mission.

The cases of abusive behavior include allegations of misconduct by county employees against colleagues, contractors and members of the public.

Among our findings:

Some employees who filed formal complaints said they never heard back from county authorities. In other cases, the county's response was delayed months and sometimes even years.

Staffers for then-Supervisor Michael Antonovich talked about the need to "protect" their boss as they allegedly violated county policies in handling a workplace harassment case involving colleagues.

An outsized share of the county's sexual misconduct cases originated within the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

In several cases, the amount the county spent on attorneys' fees rivaled or topped the payout to victims.

A PATTERN OF HARASSMENT

LAC + USC Medical Center is a public hospital that serves some of the poorest residents in the region. It was where county employee Gilbert Montejo worked, most recently supervising ultrasound technicians.

In the fall of 2010, one young woman was just weeks into her new job when her ordeal with Montejo began.

Montejo called her into his office, locked the door, switched off the lights and began making unwanted advances, she said in a legal claim that he responded to by denying wrongdoing. She was 23. He was 53.

The case resulted in a settlement. In her claim, the woman said Montejo touched her all over her body, in sexual abuse that eventually escalated into forced oral sex.

Three other female ultrasound technicians supervised by Montejo made similar allegations in their claims. Each described Montejo calling her into his office, repeatedly grabbing and kissing her against her wishes, and later asking her to keep his conduct a secret. (KPCC/LAist is not identifying people who alleged sexual assault by name in this article.)

The county ultimately spent nearly $870,000 in taxpayer funds to pay for attorneys and resolve sexual abuse claims against Montejo made by the four women.

The allegations made by the woman who began working for Montejo when she was 23 were graphic.

She alleged in documents filed in L.A. County Superior Court that while she was pregnant, "Montejo would call her into his office and, while putting his finger inside of plaintiff's vagina, he would pull down his pants or take out his penis and masturbate. When he finished, he would wipe his penis with a tissue." Montejo denied the allegation in a court filing. Attempts to interview Montejo were unsuccessful.

The woman's attorney said her client, who was employed through a staffing agency, didn't initially report the abuse because she feared losing her job at the county-run hospital.

Her case alone cost county taxpayers more than $500,000. She reported Montejo's conduct on June 7, 2013, more than two years after she said it began.

And her attorney wrote in her claim that Montejo "was sexually harassing employees that he supervised as early as 2007."

Five days after she filed her complaint, Montejo was suspended without pay for 30 days. A letter from the county's resources division addressed him: "It is alleged you demanded, on multiple occasions, [the woman] to perform sexual favors for preferential treatment."

Montejo initially contested the suspension. A letter written on his behalf states that he "specifically and categorically denies any and all allegations." But he quickly dropped his challenge and retired.

Around that same time, complaints filed on behalf of other victims also claimed that Montejo, who controlled the schedules of ultrasound technicians, warned the women not to report his actions.



via GIPHY

One of the women alleged in court documents that supervisors at the hospital knew of Montejo's actions "but did nothing to stop him."

Los Angeles County's Department of Health Services, which operates the hospital, responded to those claims, saying they "took immediate and appropriate actions in response by launching internal investigations and cooperating with local law enforcement."

"However, because the matter involves confidential personnel matters, DHS is unable to give you a more detailed response," department officials wrote in an emailed statement.

Separately, county attorneys said swift action once they were aware of allegations about Montejo helped limit attorneys' fees in the civil cases.

Montejo's woes weren't over. In 2014, nearly a year after he retired, Montejo pleaded no contest to three counts of battery in a criminal case related to the workplace allegations against him.

He was sentenced to 30 days in jail and dozens of Sex Compulsives Anonymous classes. He was also forbidden from accepting a job as supervisor or one where he controlled the work schedules of others.

The sentencing order requires Montejo to stay 100 yards away from six different women, including the four who settled with the county, and banned communication with them. He is barred from going near his old workplace, the LAC + USC hospital, under the terms of the order.

He kept his county pension. Montejo has collected upwards of $60,000 in pension and benefits from the county every full year since he retired in July 2013, according to the nonprofit Transparent California, which collects public records on government pay and pensions.

KPCC repeatedly attempted to interview the women who settled with the county, through their attorney. The agency that employed two of the women who settled, XPRT Staffing, also did not return interview requests.

'A VERY ROBUST COMPLAINT AND INVESTIGATIONS MECHANISM'

"Please Ring Doorbell And Identity Yourself" a sign says on the door to the CEOP's suite of offices in the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration. (Photo by Susanica Tam for LAist)

When County employees want to complain of workplace sexual harassment, racism and age discrimination, they go through an office in the basement of a downtown Los Angeles building.

The County Intake Specialist Unit takes in all complaints about conduct that violates state and federal protections for religion, race, sexual orientation and other categories. Most complaints are submitted online, but employees can report complaints in person by visiting the suite of offices and ringing a doorbell.

From mid-2011 to late 2017, the unit fielded about 4,800 complaints of sexual harassment, 17 percent of its complaints overall, according to public records.

The complaints include a wide-range of behavior, including issues that don't rise to the legal standard for sexual harassment, such as off-color jokes. County officials told KPCC/LAist that they have encouraged staff to report even minor incidents in order to potentially head off more egregious behavior.

Part 2: Sexual Misconduct At The L.A. Sheriff's Costs Millions -- Outpacing Other County Departments

Late last year, after sexual abuse allegations emerged against high-profile men across the nation, the county saw an uptick in complaints from its employees. At the time, the Board of Supervisors called for a review of countywide procedures and requested some improvements.

But in interviews with KPCC, officials said their process and strategy works.

"We are state of the art. We have been doing this for quite a while," Vickey Bane, the executive director of the County Equity Oversight Panel [CEOP]. "We have a very robust complaint and investigations mechanism in the county, and I'm just proud that we have this in existence."

"Every complaint gets an investigation, which is what the law requires," said County Counsel Mary Wickham.

"So many folks just want to be heard," Wickham added. "They just want to have a place where they can complain, and be listened to, and be assured that something is going to be done. That's really what most people want."

Senior Assistant County Counsel Rose Belda stood behind the County's policies, saying the program has helped to change the county's workplace culture for the better and prevent problems from escalating.

"If there's a better one, call us," she said. "We'll copy it."

Still, the county is making changes.

An updated website launched in March with a goal of making the complaint process more accessible, at the request of L.A. County Supervisors.

County staff drafted new language to advise vendors and contractors of county discrimination and harassment policies.

In June, a memo to the Supervisors cited a need for additional staffing to manage the rising number of complaints.

In September, an audit scrutinized 50 cases to track whether CEOP's recommendations for discipline were followed. Auditors discovered that nearly half the time it had been reduced or eliminated. The audit found the average time it took from the time of the initial complaint to when an employee faced discipline was 18 months. And in six cases, discipline remained unenforced for six months or longer.

Why? The audit noted that departments had discretion to reduce recommended discipline. Auditors said tracking how those decision are made should be a top priority.

Belda did not respond to requests for comment on the audit. CEOP has until early 2019 to implement recommendations that include speeding up responses to complaints.

SECRECY AND SETTLEMENTS

KPCC/LAist reached out to more than a dozen people who sued Los Angeles County with claims of sexual harassment. No one agreed to speak on the record.

Many can't under the terms of their payouts.

In some cases, those who alleged harassment against county employees and were paid settlements are unable to speak about their experiences, having signed confidentiality clauses as part of their agreements.

One woman prohibited from speaking: a mother who was sexually assaulted during a home inspection by a Department of Children and Family Services social worker. According to her account, the county employee threatened to take away her children and then sexually assaulted her during a home visit, all while her baby was asleep in a nearby room. She reported him to authorities.The employee, Yadullah "Eddie" Lorghaba, was arrested in 2010, charged and then convicted at trial of sexual battery. He pleaded not guilty. Lorghaba was sentenced to a year in prison.

In a civil case about the same incident, the woman settled with the county for $32,500.

But she can't discuss the case, even if she'd like to. The settlement she signed forbids her and her attorneys from talking about the case, without written approval from the county. It goes further than most, banning her from disclosing the settlement, which is a public record, to the media.



via GIPHY

KPCC/LAist reviewed the text of 90 of the settlement agreements provided by L.A. County. Forty-one of them include language regarding nondisclosure or nondisparagement, prohibiting the people who say they suffered sexual misconduct from speaking out.

County attorneys said agreements are highly case-specific, and safeguard employee reputations on all sides.

But some question the use of the practice. Plaintiff's attorney Timothy Kearns, who has represented people alleging sexual harassment against their employers, argued that confidentiality agreements protect employers, not plaintiffs.

"You know how many times I proposed a confidentiality agreement? Zero," Kearns said. "I hate confidentiality."

Nondisclosure agreements or NDAs have become intensely controversial in the wake of the #MeToo movement. Critics charge that powerful figures, including Harvey Weinstein and Roger Ailes, have used the agreements to silence their accusers and hide alleged harassment.

Concern that such agreements stifle victims led to action in Sacramento.

In August, following a string of sexual harassment allegations against members of the California Legislature, Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill banning the use of nondisclosure agreements in sexual harassment and sexual assault cases. The bill's author, Sen. Connie Leyva, argued that "secret settlements serve one primary purpose: to keep sexual predators away from the public eye and continuing to torment and hurt innocent victims."

Still, attorneys say sometimes their clients just want to move on, and have little desire to relive details of their ordeal in public. Separately, some hope that large settlements can spur organizations to improve workplaces -- even if they're only worried about their bottom line.

"If we just simply make it financially infeasible to have harassers, then people will stop harassing," Kearns said. "That's the goal."

County attorneys stressed that the decision to settle a case doesn't mean an admission of wrongdoing.

"We settle cases for a lot of reasons. I'm not saying we believe everything in the complaint, or anything in the complaint," Rose Belda said. "That's just not how settlements work."

STILL ON THE JOB

Those who deal with workplace harassment cases say preventing sexual misbehavior comes down to two factors: training and accountability.

"Where employers provide internal remedies to employees that sufficiently address the complaint, they're far less likely to end up in expensive litigation," said defense attorney Traci Park, who has represented several municipalities in Southern California.

Yet it only takes one employee harassing another to spark problems.

In 2012, Paula Ferrell began work as an assistant at the Antelope Valley office of Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael Antonovich. Antonovich was a fixture in local politics, serving over three decades on the powerful Board of Supervisors before he termed-out in 2016.

Ferrell said in court filings that shortly after she started in the office, her boss Sherrie Borzaga began a campaign of harassment. Borzaga frequently and emphatically expressed a romantic interest in Ferrell's husband, who was a sheriff's deputy, according to the documents.

At one point, Borzaga allegedly told Ferrell: "If you die in a car accident, I'll be the woman standing next to your husband in a black dress at your funeral. I always wanted to be married to a Deputy Sheriff."

Ferrell said she informed Norman Hickling, at the time a senior field deputy in the supervisor's office, about the alleged harassment.

In her legal complaint, she said Hickling never reported it, which would be a violation of county policy. Instead, according to the filings, he set up a conference call in an attempt to mediate the conflict. The call included Borzaga, Hickling and Tony Bell, who at the time was Antonovich's assistant chief deputy. Bell now works for Supervisor Kathryn Barger in a similar role; neither he nor Hickling nor Borzaga agreed to interview requests.

During the call, according to the complaint, Hickling encouraged the employees to work things out, saying: "We are all here to protect Supervisor Antonovich. We need to do what's best for him."

In May 2013, court records state Ferrell made a telephone complaint directly to the County Equity Oversight Panel charged with looking into claims. She said she never heard back. County attorneys said they were unable to comment on the allegation, since it involved a personnel issue. Attorneys who worked on the defense for the county and Borzaga denied the allegations in court filings.

The case did not attract news coverage at the time.

Two days after Ferrell's complaint, she was dismissed from her job, the court documents assert. The county settled the case for $42,500.

In the settlement the county said it "denies, repudiates and disputes each and every claim, allegation, and cause of action." The agreement contains a confidentiality clause for Ferrell and bars Ferrell's attorney from publicizing or even disclosing the settlement "in any forum or form."

'AN EXPLOSION IN THE WORKPLACE'

Details on the county's handling of sexual misconduct reports by employees are limited. Of course, accusations are not always true. They're also not all equally serious. L.A. County data shows complaints about equity issues are frequently found to not rise to the level of a potential violation, for many reasons.

Still, when things do go wrong, misconduct complaints can surface serious issues.

"Once harassment happens, on the personal level for workers, it's like an explosion in the workplace," said SEIU Local 721 Communications Director Coral Itzcalli. The union represents about 60,000 public service workers in L.A. County spanning jobs in foster care, sanitation and healthcare.

Itzcalli said she knows of county workers who experienced severe stress after incurring abuse from supervisors at work that led to problems sleeping and tensions with family members. Some problems were so bad, workers felt compelled to take medical leave.

"I didn't feel like I had a voice. I felt frustrated, anxious. Stressed. A lot of anxiety."

"They just couldn't take it anymore to be at work," she said.

Since spring of 2016, Itzcalli said her union has worked to remove or transfer more than 25 supervisors whom it identified as problems from the county's Department of Health Services alone. Sexual harassment was among a range of issues workers there reported to the union. Some said they were spat on or physically assaulted by supervisors.

The 134 cases that ended in settlements or judgments over the period reviewed by KPCC/LAist are the exception, not the rule. Most workers who report harassment never sue.

Medical case worker Cindie Magdaleno took the more common approach. She filed a formal complaint after her female supervisor verbally harassed her.

Magdaleno told KPCC/LAist that she experienced verbal harassment from her supervisor from the late 2000s until the woman was transferred a few years ago.

Magdaleno, who was working at the county-funded Olive View/UCLA Medical Center in Sylmar, first complained to county officials about her treatment in 2011. (County Counsel said such complaints are confidential when asked about her case.) Magdaleno said she kept working for the supervisor for several years while the woman made repeated crude sexual comments to her about her looks and appearance.

"I didn't feel like I had a voice. I felt frustrated, anxious. Stressed. A lot of anxiety. Maybe I want to say poor attendance, no will to come to work," she said. "Having to document and make sure that you create this strong timeline. It was pretty frustrating, you know, sleepless countless nights."

Five additional people filed a group complaint against the same supervisor, according to the SEIU's Itzcalli. The union stepped in to help and negotiated a mediation. Of the six individuals who experienced problems with the supervisor, Itzcalli said the county found two people, including Magdaleno, were victims of sexual harassment. Others experienced verbal abuse and abuse of power, Itzcalli said.

After her supervisor was transferred, Magdaleno said she was able to resume her normal work life.

"I refused actually to be, to transfer myself out or to move. I felt that I needed to protect my co-workers," she said. "It was not any longer just about me. It was about other county workers. And I needed to, you know, be that voice."

HOW WE REPORTED THIS STORY

This story was reported using public records and documents. The county, which does not specifically track cases related to sexual misconduct, identified relevant cases in response to a KPCC/LAist records request. An initial response provided data on a few dozen Employment Practices cases. A subsequent, broader search turned up more than 130 cases by also searching General Liability, Law Enforcement, and Medical Malpractice case types. According to a county attorney who handled the request, "The cases in each of these categories which referenced the term 'sex' or any derivation thereof were examined and those cases involving sexual misconduct, sexual harassment, or any related behavior by County employees were identified."

This universe of 'sexual misconduct' cases is unlikely to match definitions of sexual harassment or sexual misconduct used by other jurisdictions, making direct comparisons difficult.

KPCC/LAist also requested attorneys' fees incurred by the county in its defense for each of the cases identified as sexual misconduct by the county. These costs are rarely reported in the media in stories about settlements and judgments, but help provide a fuller picture of the true costs of such cases.

The county did not include one of the four civil cases that named Gilbert Montejo as a defendant in its data on sexual misconduct. A county attorney said it had been "misplaced" in the process of providing updated data, and it is included in the figures presented in this story.

The details of the cases referenced in this story are typically drawn from the case files. An editorial decision was made by KPCC/LAist to anonymize the names of those who alleged sexual assault, particularly men and women whose names had not previously been in the media in connection with the case. Not every misconduct case involved an allegation of sexual assault. Other records utilized in this story include criminal court records, Los Angeles County Civil Service Commission records, Sheriff's Department inmate records, and publicly available data on the county workforce.

With additional reporting from David Rodriguez.

Investigative journalism matters. Here at LAist, we believe Angelenos deserve hard-hitting reporting that holds officials accountable and shines a needed light on our government and public institutions. Now that we're part of KPCC, those stories are made possible by generous people like you. Independent, local journalism isn't cheap, but with your support we can keep delivering it. Donate now.When asked why she named her inaugural art show Crazy Town, Donna Frye shoots as straight as when she served as San Diegos District 6 City Council member from 2001 to 2010.

Because thats the world were living in now, the 66-year-old says, followed by a convulsive and contagious laugh.

Frye  who co-owns Skip Frye Surfboards in the Morena district with her husband of 28 years  is creating a new mixed-media piece at her backyard patio table. As birds dance and chirp on the retaining wall, she glues doodads to an untitled piece resembling a computer circuit board.

Frye says shes created art in this exact spot since she was 10 years old. She and Skip moved back into her mothers Clairemont house after her father died 20 years ago. Her mom is now 91.

She was by herself and it didnt seem like the right thing to let happen, says Frye, who is alone in the house for the duration of this interview.I love these colors, Frye says, adding that she doesnt really describe her art, I just make it  as the spirit moves me, as the need arises.

Frye, who got the idea to run for City Council when Skip got sick from surfing in polluted seawater, made a name for herself by relentlessly advocating for the environment and open government.



One of the things they always would say about me is that I wouldn't compromise enough, she says. Yeah, there are some things Im not compromising on.



Frye ran for mayor twice and nearly won in the November 2004 run-off election between Ron Roberts and victor Dick Murphy  as a write-in candidate.We did win! Frye insists, referring to the fact that she got more votes than either candidate  if you count the ones an Orange County court threw out because some voters didnt fill in the bubble next to her written name or misspelled her name Fry.

Frye has created art in the backyard of this Clairemont home since 1962. COREY LEVITAN

Art of the state



The whole time she was making political enemies, Frye was also making art. She crafted greeting cards for her Council staff instead of buying them, for instance. (Theyd have glitter and weirdness and oddities, and wed laugh like hyenas, she says.)

Until Oct. 24 at La Jollas Misfit Pictures Gallery, however, Frye never spread her passion beyond her social circle. (Her art will be sold via silent auction, with proceeds donated to the gallery.)

The impetus came from her best friend, Irene McCormack, with whom Frye worked briefly in disgraced San Diego mayor Bob Filners office. (He resigned in 2012, pleading guilty to state charges of false imprisonment and battery following multiple accusations of sexual harassment.)I couldnt last more than four five months under that crazy, horrifying behavior, Frye says. But Irene and I have been friends ever since. She does beautiful photography. Frye and McCormack are splitting the space. (McCormacks exhibit is called Out of the Fog.)

Irene said, We need to do an art show, Frye says, and then Pierce (Kavanagh, owner of Misfit Pictures Gallery) emailed me, because I was joking around about it, but he was like, Lets do it!

Now that she is out of the political arena, Donna uses her artwork to express her opinions, Kavanagh said, calling her work cerebral and weird, to match the times.Another laugh crumples Fryes face. You want to feed the birds with me? she asks.

Frye fetches a cup of meal worms and spreads it beneath the retaining wall. The circle of finches, sparrows and blue jays swells. As this reporter gets in place to shoot Frye feeding them, they frighten and disperse.



Birds dont pose, Frye says, laughing again.Strange as it sounds, Frye credits feeding birds with saving her life. Frye is an alcoholic who has been sober since 1981, when she got it in her head that it would help to drive to Mission Bay every day with bags of day-old bread.

The mama and the baby ducks would come as soon as Id show up, Frye says. So I thought, Id better take care of these ducks, and I cant do that drunk.

Without the ducks, and Skip, Fye says she would probably have died because I didnt know how the hell I was getting home every night.



Doesnt she miss politics?

Frye  who also served as president of Californians Aware, a nonprofit that advocates for open government statewide  says shes still just engaged enough in politics not to miss it.Im just not able to go to all the rallies and do all the things, but I do plenty of things, she says. I just am a little quieter about it. (Shes currently suing the City for what she claims is meddling with conflict-of-interest waivers.)

The next question raises her hackles slightly.

Art is not at all like politics! Frye replies. Politics is nasty and factionalized and tribalized and dishonest. Art is freeing and open and decent and silly and good.

And that sounds like potent medicine for an environmental activist who says she would otherwise grow physically ill watching the reversal of all environmental progress the U.S. has made in the last half century.It helps keep me sane, Frye agrees. It helps redirect what is making me crazy. And its fun. It just makes me happy, and I hope it makes other people happy.



IF YOU GO: Donna Fryes Crazy Town art show and silent auction will be held at 6:05 p.m. (sunset) Wednesday, Oct. 24 at Misfit Pictures Gallery, 565 Pearl St. #100. misfitpictures.com



FISH TO FRYE



We asked the former City Council member for her take on three current hot-button issues.



Short-term vacation rentals

They need to be regulated and we should not be re-zoning our entire City by allowing hotels. If we do, then at the very least, we need to require  like they do at every hotel  a 24-hour person on premises who stays there to check people in and out and make sure people behave. And theyve done no environmental analysis. Whatever happened to CEQA? You can just go in and rezone? Because thats what theyre doing. Theyre ruining communities. Thats what I like about this neighborhood  its a neighborhood. I know my neighbors. I get to see their kids grow up. I shop with them and have dinner parties with them and pick the mail up when theyre on vacation. Its caring and concern.Way to go, Skippy! reads the sign, drawn in blue and pink magic marker and nailed to a tree in front of a Bird Rock house. Its 22-year-old subject is in the backyard, celebrating with 100 of his friends and relatives the highlight of his life so far.

A week earlier, McCullough trounced 128 comers in a prestigious surfing competition in the Philippines that officially makes him, according to the World Surf League, the 75th best surfer in the world right now. (Before, he was ranked No. 148.)

McCulloughs performance at the 24th annual Siargao Cloud 9  a six-day event that ended Oct. 3  was the stuff of dreams. Slicing through six-foot tubes, McCullough easily beat Philippine local John Mark Tokong, the favorite to win, with a heat total of 12.17 out of a possible 20.

Skip McCullough surfs a dream-like wave at Siargao. (COURTESY @mattpowerphoto / @wsl)

All week, he was the guy to beat, says McCullough, a 2014 La Jolla High graduate. His heat totals were so much higher than everybody elses, so I was nervous.

But McCullough caught a break on his all-white Xanadu X22 board that Tokong  who scored only a 2.63 out of 20  missed.

This medium-sized wave just swung straight to me and (Tokong) was too far out to get inside of it, McCullough says. It was just a perfect wave. It went on forever. It was a crazy feeling, like wow, Im in the finals and I got a wave that good? This might actually happen.

As McCullough speaks, two friends hang not only on McCulloughs arms but his every word. They shout Yeah, Skip! whenever he finishes a sentence.

Skip with his dad, Monty McCullough, who cant stop smiling about Skips win. (COREY LEVITAN)

During a separate phone interview, John Rosemond, director of competition for the WindanSea Surf Club, called Siargao Cloud 9 the largest event that a La Jolla surfer has won in a long time, in terms of global recognition. (McCullough joined the club in high school.)

Skips always surfed really well, Rosemond said, but now hes a world-renown surfer at this point. Its official.

McCulloughs father, who floats around the party with a permanent smile, describes himself as just out of my mind about the win.

We went there hoping he was going to do well, Monty McCullough says. But then, all of a sudden, he came up through the quarters and the semis all within about an hour or two. I was stunned.

Although Monty surfs, he cant claim credit for teaching his son how to. Oh, he had planned to, when Skip turned four or five. But Skip was already surfing, on his own, at age 2.

I see this tiny little guy in diapers riding a wave and kind of ripping the thing, Monty says. So I ask my wife, Is that Skip? And she goes: Oh, you didnt know?

McCullough says he still surfs WindanSea Beach every day whenever hes home. However, hes about to be home a lot less. The Siargao win earns McCullough a slot in the upcoming Vans Triple Crown of Surfing, which runs Nov. 12-Dec. 20 on the north shore of Hawaiis Oahu, where winter swells typically reach 50 feet.

Im finally in! McCullough yells, clenching and raising his fist. Its been a dream of mine since I was a kid. John John Florence, Kolohe Andino  now I get to go up against those guys? Win or lose, just to be able to say that will be awesome.

And the prize money at that level would quadruple his $12,000 take from Siargao and  combined with his steadily accumulating endorsement deals  could lead to an indefinite hold placed on his gate and construction business, which he operates through his fathers landscaping office.

Oh man, McCullough says. I dont mind working, but if I could just surf and not have to lift a finger?Bus driver accosted by parent

A parent taking his child to a school bus and the bus driver got into an altercation at approximately 6:55 a.m. Oct. 5 on the 6200 block of Soledad Mountain Road, when the parent got upset by the way the driver spoke to his child. Police report the parent was asked to get off the bus by the driver because he was causing a scene. The driver picked up her bus radio and the parent struck her hand and knocked the radio to the floor. The suspect got off the bus with his child and left the scene.

Person arrested after altercation with Vons security

A woman was arrested after confronting two security guards at the La Jolla Vons at 7545 Girard Ave. around 3 p.m. Sept. 27. Police report the female suspect got into a physical altercation with the guards and was placed under citizens arrest before being taken into police custody. She was booked into Las Colinas Womens Detentions Center.

Man charged with selling drugs, leading to death

A suspected online drug dealer has been indicted for distributing fentanyl-laced pills that caused the death of a La Jolla man, federal prosecutors said.

Trevon Lucas, 23, from Highland, California, is accused of selling prescription oxycodone pills laced with fentanyl to the La Jolla resident, who was not identified in court documents, on the night before his death on June 30.

The La Jolla man was found dead the next morning by his mother, according to court documents. His cause of death was determined to be a fentanyl overdose.

Federal prosecutors said the sale was part of a larger drug selling ring that involved Lucas and three San Bernardino-area residents in which some would post ads for drug sales on popular websites.

Lucas is charged with distribution of fentanyl resulting in death and conspiracy and intent to distribute. He faces a minimum of 20 years to life in prison if convicted.

SANDAG releases safety stats

The San Diego regions property crime rate was 3 percent lower at mid-year 2018 compared to mid-year 2017, but its violent crime rate was 2 percent higher, according to the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) recent report of crime statistics.

The report states there were increases in the number of reported rapes and aggravated assaults, but fewer homicides and robberies.

Noticeable decreased include a 13 percent drop in the number of reported burglaries and 3 percent drop in the number of vehicle thefts.

SANDAG reports at mid-year 2018 in San Diego County, there 18 homicides; 310 rapes; 653 robberies; 1,649 aggravated assaults; 1,074 residential burglaries; 724 non-residential burglaries; 4,530 cases of larceny under $400; 2,487 motor vehicle thefts; and 91 cases of arson.

Police Blotter

Sept. 26

Residential burglary, 1300 block Opal St., 11 a.m.

Oct. 1

Grand theft: Money/labor/property over $950, 900 block Archer St., 6 a.m.

Oct. 2

Petty theft: Theft of personal property/shoplift, 5000 block La Jolla Blvd., 7 a.m.

Oct. 3

Grand theft: Money/labor/property over $950, 5600 block Soledad Mountain Road, 7:30 a.m.

Vehicle break-in/theft, 1200 block Prospect St., 6 p.m.

Oct. 5

Grand theft: Money/labor/property over $950, 2000 block Spindrift Drive, 2 p.m.

Oct. 6

Sex crime (other), 8300 block La Verada, 10 a.m.

Vehicle theft, 700 block Loring St., 6 p.m.

Oct. 7

Vandalism (less than $400), 6400 La Jolla Blvd., 11 p.m.

Oct. 8

Vehicle break-in/theft, 1500 block Copa de Oro Drive, 10:40 a.m.

Residential burglary, 1400 block Caminito Batea, 5:30 p.m.

Vehicle break-in/theft, 7800 block Herschel Ave., 6 p.m.

Vehicle break-in/theft, 8100 block El Paseo Grande, 8:30 p.m.

Commercial burglary, 1100 block Marine St., 10:30 p.m.

Petty theft: Theft of personal property/shoplift, 1000 block Wilbur Ave., 10:30 p.m.

Oct. 9

Residential burglary, 600 block Kirkwood Place, 9:30 a.m.

Threaten crime with intent to terrorize, 500 block Marine St., 7 p.m.

Oct. 10

Vehicle theft, 600 block Loring St., 3:30 p.m.

Vehicle theft, Bird Rock Avenue at Dolphin Place, 5:45 p.m.

Possession of narcotic or controlled substance, 2200 block Torrey Pines Road, 6:50 p.m.

Possession of narcotic or controlled substance, 7200 block Charmant Drive, 8:18 p.m.Two anonymous angels, through the Foundation of La Jolla High School, saved what could have been a disruptive shake-up in student scheduling this year.

On Sept. 30, it was announced the enrollment numbers were lower than projected and the San Diego Unified School District was slated to cut at least two teachers at LJHS. This would result in new schedules for students impacted by the reduction on Oct. 15.

Each year, schools across the district are asked to make staffing adjustments based on current enrollment numbers. This school year, mostly due to families moving out of San Diego, our enrollment numbers were lower than projected, La Jolla High School principal Charles Podhorsky wrote to parents. As a result, we have had to reduce our staffing accordingly. Thankfully, our Foundation was able to cover 0.4 of a teaching position (two classes) to help reduce the impact. But we will still have several departments significantly impacted by this reduction.

A full-time teacher teaches five classes and has one preparation period, and schedules are measured by the number of classes they are available to teach.

On Oct. 11, the Foundation of La Jolla High School met to discuss how to minimize the disruption to students. At that time, two separate individuals came forward and were willing to fund four classes for a Spanish teacher and three classes for a PE teacher. So while some teachers schedules were reduced, none were eliminated as once projected.

Both significant donations have been received by the Foundation, and (I have) directed the funds to be transferred to the district so La Jolla High School could minimize the staffing impact this year. La Jolla High School is fortunate to have such a supportive community, Podhorsky said.La Jolla Shores residents and supporters finally got to preview the long-awaited Map educational installation on Oct. 10. The room-sized display featured examples of the LithoMosaic pieces that will contribute to The Map installation in Kellogg Park.

LithoMosaic artists Robin Brailsford and Wick Alexander presented the completed segments and sketches of what will ultimately be a 2,200-square-foot installation. The Map is currently being assembled and stored in the former Scripps Institution of Oceanography Southwest Fisheries Science building, which was decommissioned in 2012.

This is the largest contiguous LithoMosaic that has ever been made, Brailsford told La Jolla Light. Its an unbelievable, awesome opportunity to be a part of this.

Using the LithoMosaic process Brailsford invented, small tiles are pieced together to create mosaics of the marine life found at sea off the coast of La Jolla Shores and birds. The educational display uses various shades of blue to represent the different ocean depths. In total, almost 450,000 tiles make up the entire installation. The plan is to have The Map installed in March 2019.

Segments of the in-process map installation Ashley Mackin-Solomon

The original Map was created in 2008 using tiny colored beads and bronze fish secured into the ground using the sealant Lithocrete. However, the Lithocrete cracked and the beads began to unearth soon after the installation. The Map had to be closed to the public in 2012.

Friends of La Jolla Shores sued the installer, TB Penick, in 2013. The suit was withdrawn after an agreement was struck. The wait since then has been to get the San Diego Department of Park & Rec and the California Coastal Commission to agree to the terms set by the two parties.

Once that happened, Brailsford was contracted to carry out the work, and got started in January 2018.

She started building the mosaics of the smaller fish in her Del Cerro studio, but soon realized the studio was too small for the project. It was then moved to the Southwest Fisheries building, where it has been worked on ever since.

We are now telling the full (biological) story that was not being told before, because the selection of fish that were represented with bronze was limited because in bronze, there are limits as to how large the fish could be. Conversely, the limitation with LithMosaic is how small we can go. Therefore, whats not depicted are the very tiny creatures that live at the bottom of the deep canyons because we cant articulate them in mosaic. But there are twice the number of fish the old one had, and include predators that werent there before, Brailsford explained.

She added there are also interpretations of scientific drawings drafted by famed oceanographer Walter Munk in 1947 of the waves hitting the shores and refracting back.

Brailsford estimates there is another two or three months needed to complete The Map, and will take four to six weeks to install. She is further constrained by the summer beach moratorium, which starts Memorial Day (May 27) 2019, during which no work can be done at the beach.

Friends of La Jolla Shores president Mary Coakley-Munk predicts The Map will be in place by March 2019. Once assembled and in place, it will be safe and durable and can be walked on without crumbling.

LithoMosaics has been in existence for 12-15 years, we have 50 projects all over the country including Alaska, Nevada, and Florida in every type of weather you can imagine. Its concrete with the aggregates in a pattern. So everywhere you can have concrete and everything you can expect concrete to do, you can expect LithMosiac to do, she said.

Clockwise from left: LithoMosiac artists Robin Brailsford and Wick Alexander, and funders Friends of La Jolla Shores president Mary Coakley Munk and Walter Munk of the Walter Munk Foundation for the oceans Ashley Mackin-Solomon

We couldnt be more fortunate to have Robin and Wick working on this. They are the best and we felt that since the community had contributed and supported the initial Map so strongly, it needed to be replaced with something even better. I think we are going to get that, Coakley Munk said

Coakley Munk has been spearheading this project from the beginning, and besides oh my god, couldnt find the words for how she felt about seeing it coming to fruition.

The best part is that were working with scuba divers, with Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the Birch Aquarium education department, she said. Just like with the original Map, the reason it was a success was that everyone who had an interest in the ocean contributed to the project and we want this to be the same. older | Main Largehearted Boy Page | newer 

October 17, 2018

Kiese Laymon discussed his new book Heavy with BuzzFeed.

Composer Nico Muhly described his music writing process at the London Review of Books.

October's best eBook deals.

eBook on sale for $2.99 today:

White Oleander by Janet Fitch

Florence + the Machine played a Tiny Desk Concert.

Vol. 1 Brooklyn interviewed author Kris Saknussem.

Turning the Tables profiled soul legend Sharon Jones.

Kathleen Hanna has launched a t-shirt line, Tees4Togo, which will benefit girls going to school in Togo.

Stream a new song by SOAK.

Fiction Writers Review interviewed author Donald Quist.

Ms. Magazine interviewed Pussy Riot's Nadya Tolokonnikova.

The Chicago Review of Books interviewed author Nicole Chung.

Stream a new Oh Pep! song.

John Wray talked about his new novel Godsend with The Spine.

Paste listed the best album title tracks of all time.

Esi Edugyan talked to Morning Edition about his novel Washington Black.

Stream a new Thom Yorke song.

Anna Burns' novel Milkman has been awarded the 2018 Man Booker prize.

Stream a new J Mascis song.

New England Public Radio interviewed author Kelly Link.

Stream a new song by How To Dress Well.

Signature recommended poetry collections that celebrate the voices of black poets.

Stream a new Julia Holter song.

Book Riot recommended Clarice Lispector books.

CHVRCHES covered the Blue Nile's "The Downtown Lights."

Literary Hub features an excerpt from one pf my favorite novels of the year. Jeff Jackson's Destroy All Monsters.

Entropy interviewed Jackson about the book.

Ty Segall covered the Dils' "Class War."

Literary Hub listed books that defined the 1920s.

Stream a new Esperanza Spalding song.



also at Largehearted Boy:

Support Largehearted Boy

previous Shorties posts (daily news and links from the worlds of music, books, and pop culture)

Atomic Books Comics Preview (the week's best new comics and graphic novels)

Book Notes (authors create playlists for their book)

Librairie Drawn & Quarterly Books of the Week (recommended new books, magazines, and comics)

musician/author interviews

Note Books (musicians discuss literature)

Short Cuts (writers pair a song with their short story or essay)

weekly music release lists

permalinkAt our house, writes Kiese Laymon  recalling a Mississippi childhood in a startling, essential new memoir, Heavy  there was no pantry. There was hardly any food other than spoiled pimento cheese, the backs of molded wheat bread, a half-empty box of wine, and swollen green olives. When he thought of places like the rich-white folk houses his grandma cleaned for, he imagined stealing all their food while they were asleep.

Anger and beauty, agony and the will to go on: It all goes back to an essay Laymon published four years ago, in Gawker. The searing and upsetting piece My Vassar College Faculty ID Makes Everything OK, felt so fresh and urgent, and introduced many readers to a voice that felt brilliant but brittle, furious but full of a desire to make everyone understand.

The memoir was almost a different project. In early chapters Laymon alludes to a simpler and more uplifting book, about weight loss and African American power. I wanted to do that old black work of pandering and lying to folk who pay us to pander and lie to them every day, he writes. I wanted to pepper and end the book with acerbic warnings to us fat black folk in the Deep South.

But thats not Heavy. Laymon has instead, with this new book, bested probably even the highest hopes put on his shoulders. Quite simply, Heavy is one of the most important and intense books of the year because of the unyielding, profoundly original and utterly heartbreaking way it addresses and undermines expectations for what exactly its like to possess and make use of a male black body in America.

Advertisement

Heavy by Kiese Laymon (Scribner)

Heaviness, for Laymon, is a burden, an obstacle and an organizing principle. Before climbing into bed with his grandmother one night  she plays as much a role in raising him as his mother  he asks if 218 pounds is too much for a 12-year-old. Its just heavy enough. For what, the boy wonders, not yet knowing. Heavy enough, she tells him, for everything you need to be heavy enough for.

His mother beats him. His father doesnt pay child support. There is always the specter of state violence, casual racism and the brutal difficulty of having a body that lets you down. Our heart meat was so thick, Laymon writes about himself and his mother. We stewed. We remembered. We heaved like two hulks. We resented everyone who watched us suffer. In another tense and terrifying moment, he and his mom are pulled over by the police. The officer knelt down and looked in your window, he writes, addressing his mom as you as he does throughout the book. When I saw your face so close to his gun, I wanted to snatch it and watch it melt into black grits.

See Kiese Laymon at Eso Won Books Tue. Oct. 23 at 6 p.m.

Justifying another harsh moment  his mom not only whips her son with a belt but makes him write punishing essays, over and over, a kind of training, he eventually realizes, for making his voice heard  Laymons mother tells him a darker truth. Aint nothing in the world worse than looking at your children drowning, knowing aint nothing you can do because you scared that if you get to trying to save them, they might see that you cant swim either.

Books become life raft, armor: In a mostly white high school, he starts bringing armloads of five, stacking them one by one on the desk, a sort of counter-evidence, daring anyone to doubt him. When a young girl is apparently forced to engage in sexual activity with several boys, Laymons reaction is as chilling as it is succinct. I stood there wondering why the shallow grunts and minisqueaks coming from the boys in Daryls room made me want to be dead.

Whats wrong with you, his mom asks. I did not answer, he writes, because I did not know what was wrong with me.

Admitted to a competitive private college, Laymon gets kicked out. At another smaller college he feels safer, until he doesnt. When he finally attends a third, its a prelude to a fourth and a fifth  none of them perfect, all of them cause for upset, defense, outrage. Usually, when I wanted to run from memory, I transcribed rap lyrics, or I drew two-story houses, or I wrote poems to Layla, or I watched black sitcoms  or I ate and drank everything that wasnt nailed down.

Eventually hes a professor, counting his money and relentlessly trying to post smaller numbers on the scale. The effect on his body and mind accumulates. Can you love your students too much? When youre up for tenure, as he eventually is, how can it be that you end up at the police station, a set of cuffs sitting on the table between you and an officer?

Just when you think things are getting better, or couldnt get any worse, Laymon finds himself in a casino, and its debatable whether its he or his mom whos hit a new low. Confronting this woman whos raised him as best as she could, Laymon finds the gaze turned back on him. Do you ever just feel lonely? she asks. I feel like I walk around this world raw, Kie. Its hard to open up when youre already open....

Theres a broader message here  not just a reckoning with having one stubborn black body, or with being poor and wanting more. Indeed, the book thunders as an indictment of hope, a condemnation of anyone ever looking forward. So much has gone wrong already, Laymon insists. The most abusive parts of our nation obsessively neglect yesterday while peddling in possibility, Laymon writes. Im not sure if any of us are okay.

Deuel is a writer in Los Angeles and author of the memoir Friday Was the Bomb: Five Years in the Middle East.

::

Heavy: An American Memoir

Kiese Laymon

Scribner: 256 pp., $26Public officials in four states say they want Facebook to have an independent board chair, effectively calling for the removal of Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg as chairman due to the social media companys recent scandals.

The state treasurers of Illinois, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania, along with the city comptroller of New York, signed on to a shareholder proposal originally filed by investor Trillium Asset Management in June. They argue that separating Facebooks chairman and CEO roles is in the best interest of shareholders, employees, users, and our democracy.

The public officials are bringing the proposal in their capacity as overseers of various pension funds that own Facebook stock.

However, Facebook shareholders voted down a similar proposal last year calling for an independent chair. The proposal received 765 million votes in favor  and 5.4 billion votes against. This new proposal will almost certainly suffer the same fate, given that Zuckerberg, between his own holdings and voting-rights agreements, holds about 60% of Facebooks shareholder votes.

Advertisement

Facebook declined to comment, except to cite its response to the prior proposal in which it said that it did not believe an independent chairman would provide appreciably better direction and performance, and instead could cause uncertainty, confusion, and inefficiency in board and management function and relations.

A statement from Illinois Treasurer Michael Frerichs cited a bevy of problems at the company, including a recent data breach affecting 30 million users and its sharing of data with Cambridge Analytica.

His statement also calls out the Menlo Park, Calif., company for spreading fake news, helping spread violence in Myanmar and other countries and contributing to depression and other mental health problems.

Facebooks governance structure continues to put its investors at risk, Frerichs said in Wednesdays statement. Now is the time for change. We need to see more accountability of Mark Zuckerberg to the board of directors to restore investor confidence and protect shareholder value.

Pennsylvania Treasurer Joe Torsella said Zuckerberg has amassed unchecked corporate power and needs to be reined in.

Boards of directors should be a check on management teams, not a tool of them, and an independent chair is essential to achieving that result, he said.

james.koren@latimes.com

Twitter: @jrkoren

UPDATES:

11 a.m.: This article was updated with Facebooks response to the proposal.

This article was originally published at 10:45 a.m.U.S. regulators agreed to stop labeling Prudential Financial Inc. as too big to fail, making the insurance company the last non-bank to escape a post-crisis designation subjecting firms to extra oversight.

The Financial Stability Oversight Council agreed in a Tuesday vote that Prudential doesnt pose a special risk to the stability of the financial system, the Treasury Department said in a statement. The other non-banks that had been deemed systemically important financial institutions  American International Group Inc., MetLife Inc. and General Electric Co.s financial arm  were freed by council over the last few years.

The decision to scrap Prudentials designation removes an additional layer of regulatory oversight, potentially saving the life insurer millions of dollars annually in compliance costs. The Newark, N.J., company was named a systemically important financial institution in 2013, along with AIG and GEs finance business.

This is a substantive finding that we dont present systemic risks, so we feel like we have a stable conclusion here, Prudential Vice Chairman Mark Grier said Wednesday.

Advertisement

The insurer said Wednesday that it supported the appropriate conclusion that Prudential does not pose systemic risk. It said in a statement that its longstanding belief was that Prudential never met the standard for designation.

The four non-banks took different paths to escaping the label. MetLife sued and won a ruling in 2016 striking down its designation. AIG was freed last year after privately telling the oversight council that it should no longer be considered a systemically important financial institution, while GE shed assets and petitioned regulators to drop the designation.

The council, which is led by the Treasury secretary and includes the heads of other agencies, was created as part of a broader effort to keep a close watch on firms whose failure could threaten the financial system. Companies efforts to shed too big to fail status has been aided by a shift in the regulatory attitude under President Trump.

Although Prudential will continue to be overseen by state regulators, the move will free the company from extra costs it faced to comply with Financial Stability Oversight Council requirements. During an earnings call last year, the company said it spent $135 million in 2016 on reporting or activities related to being a systemically important financial institution. Executives have said over the last year that they didnt think Prudential would continue to be designated as it saw competitors lose the label.

Grier, who is planning to step down, has said he didnt believe the designation was a particular burden for Prudential. Thats partially because New Jersey regulators will continue to have strict oversight of Prudential and because the company didnt manage its capital in anticipation of certain requirements that federal regulators might have, Grier said last year.

The decision follows extensive engagement with the company and a detailed analysis showing that there is not a significant risk that the company could pose a threat to financial stability, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Wednesday in a statement.A 19-acre site at the Port of Los Angeles populated by dilapidated buildings and rusted cranes is playing a key role in SpaceXs long-standing plan to colonize Mars. In two to three years, hundreds of workers could be swarming over SpaceXs massive BFR rocket and spaceship system there.

About 20 miles north, at SpaceXs Hawthorne headquarters, thousands of employees already build Falcon 9 rockets and Dragon spacecraft.

Thats a lot of heavy manufacturing planned for a region  and state  that are often derided for chasing away factories and large headquarters operations with high costs and regulations.

Although SpaceX has facilities outside California  launch and rocket refurbishment in Florida, test sites in Texas  and it recently accepted an incentive agreement to expand in Coryell County near Waco, Texas, the Elon Musk-led venture is staking its expansion plans on Southern California for a reason. It wants to take advantage of the regions vast aerospace talent pool.

Advertisement

The majority of SpaceXs more than 6,000 employees are based locally.

More important than anything is quality of people, especially in engineering, said Greg Autry, director of the Southern California Commercial Spaceflight Initiative at the USC Marshall School of Business.

Since moving into a former Northrop Corp. facility off Crenshaw Boulevard in 2007, SpaceX now occupies 10 buildings in Hawthorne, said Steve Basham, senior market analyst at CoStar Group, a commercial real estate data firm. Most of the companys expansion occurred from 2014 to 2016. Thats when the company began to notch a number of milestones, such as a $2.6-billion NASA contract to build an astronaut transport capsule and the earliest landings on Earth of its first-stage rocket booster. The first of those boosters stands sentry outside the main Hawthorne facility.

(Los Angeles Times)

SpaceXs other major Southern California facility is at Vandenberg Air Force Base near Lompoc, where the company launches a handful of satellites each year for commercial and civil customers. SpaceX recently landed a first-stage booster on a pad on base for the first time.

Though SpaceX launches far more frequently from its Florida launch sites, Vandenberg is important because its location is ideal for launching to polar orbit. Thats a common destination for satellites that monitor the environment and climate because the spacecraft tends to fly over the same spot of Earth around the same time each day, said Ramon Lugo, director of the Florida Space Institute at the University of Central Florida. Polar orbit launches from Vandenberg also go over the ocean, which is preferable to land, he said.

SpaceX isnt the largest aerospace employer in the L.A. area by a long shot. Northrop Grumman Corp. has 16,600 employees in the county, according to the L.A. Business Journals list of largest private-sector employers, released in August.

The region has long been the center for major industries like automotive, aerospace and tech, and is home to some of the best talent in the nation, Brian Bjelde, SpaceXs vice president of human resources, said in an emailed statement. We continue to recruit and retain the brightest employees from diverse industries who are attracted to our mission and to all that the area has to offer.

Lockheed Corp. and Northrop Grumman once maintained headquarters in the region. Lockheed, then based in Calabasas, announced a merger in 1994 with Martin Marietta to create Lockheed Martin Corp.; the combined companys headquarters was established in Bethesda, Md. And in 2011, Northrop Grumman relocated to Falls Church, Va., to be near government customers.

But those companies still maintain facilities here and mine for talent in the area, particularly now as the U.S. defense budget grows and new, cutting-edge programs get off the ground.

Businesses like SpaceX cant afford to not be in Los Angeles, L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti said. The pipeline for the workforce  access to incredible supply chain and geography really almost demand that Los Angeles would be the top of anyones list.

The burgeoning private space industry has spread out across the country in search of open land and new launch facilities.

Jeff Bezos Blue Origin has a test site in West Texas where it conducts engine firings and flight tests of its New Shepard crew capsule and rocket system, which is intended to ferry tourists to space. Huntington Beach-based Rocket Lab has a launch site and rocket production facility in New Zealand. And Richard Bransons Virgin Galactic space tourism company plans to eventually relocate operations from Mojave, Calif., to a spaceport in southern New Mexico once it is ready to take tourists to space.

SpaceX, too, has scattered some of its operations, such as rocket testing, which requires more open land. In August, Texas Coryell County entered into a development agreement in which SpaceX can receive economic development grants in exchange for material improvements, expansion and hiring local employees at its test site.

SpaceX currently leases about 4,300 acres from the city of McGregor, which straddles Coryell and McLennan counties. That includes hangars and several test sites, said Kevin Evans, McGregor city manager. One of the sites is for testing SpaceXs Raptor methane-powered rocket engine, which will power BFR, a 387-foot-tall booster and spaceship system that is expected to cost $5 billion to develop.

The site is close to Baylor University, Texas A&M and Central Texas College, which are graduating an educated, qualified workforce, said Jack Barcroft, a member of Coryell Countys Economic Development Board, who helped draft the agreement with SpaceX.

We want to accommodate that workforce thats being created, he said. Were interested in a couple of other aerospace companies, but SpaceX is right here. Its in our backyard.

SpaceX told the city of Los Angeles that it preferred to build its next-generation BFR system close to Hawthorne, Garcetti said. The rocket and spaceship system will also carry Japanese e-commerce billionaire Yusaku Maezawa on a tourist trip around the moon in 2023.

On a recent weekday, half of a protective payload fairing could be seen propped horizontally on a stand at Berth 240 of the port site. Mr. Steven, the ship that SpaceX uses to try to catch the protective shells that cover satellites, which also return to Earth, was docked nearby. The company has already built and pressure-tested a massive carbon-fiber tank to hold the BFRs liquid oxygen propellant, and it has started testing the rockets Raptor engines.

Florida has also attracted several space-related manufacturing facilities, most recently with Blue Origin. But the state never attempted to woo SpaceX, said Dale Ketcham, vice president of government and external relations at Space Florida, the states aerospace-specific economic development agency.

Manufacturing and design, those are things [Musk] likes to keep there, Ketcham said of California. We have other things to chase other than that one.

samantha.masunaga@latimes.com

Twitter: @smasunagaTwitter Inc. has published data sets composed of millions of tweets, images and videos and thousands of accounts linked to operatives based in Russia and Iran, shedding light on how bad actors outside the United States sought to manipulate social-media discourse in their home countries and abroad.

The San Francisco social media company has previously disclosed the activities, dating from 2016, but said Wednesday that it was opening up the data to the public to encourage independent analysis by researchers, academics and journalists.

The data sets released Wednesday are made up of 3,841 accounts affiliated with Russias Internet Research Agency and 770 accounts potentially based in Iran, as well as 10 million tweets and more than 2 million images, videos and other media.

Many of the accounts disclosed in the data sets have been previously reported. Whats unprecedented is the size of the archive of information. Researchers were able to glean that the Internet Research Agency posted far more in Russian than in English, especially from late 2014 to early 2015, when Russia was fighting in Ukraine, according to analysis conducted by the Atlantic Councils Digital Forensic Research Lab, or DFRLab.

Advertisement

One of the big takeaways is just how big these operations were. The second point is that these operations started out for the benefit of the countries they were working in, said Ben Nimmo, a senior fellow at DFRLab. It really started out as a domestic tool for repression, and then it was turned into an outward weapon targeting the U.S.

The Iran operation was largely pushing pro-Iranian government messaging abroad and directing users to certain websites. The top three geopolitical phrases mentioned by the Iranian trolls included Saudi, Iran, and Trump. One-third of the posts from the Iranian troll farm led users to AWDNEWS.com, which calls itself an independent news agency, yet Nimmo refers to it as part of the Iranian messaging laundromat.

The Russian operation had multiple goals, including interfering in the U.S. presidential election, dividing polarized online communities, unifying support for Russias international interests and weakening trust in American institutions, according to DFRLab. One main purpose was to prevent a victory by Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, with Russian troll accounts amplifying the hashtag #CrookedHillary and alleging voter fraud in favor of Clinton on election day. One tweet from an account masquerading as the Tennessee GOP read, BREAKING: Machine refuses to allow Vote For Trump in Pennsylvania! RT the hell out of IT! #VoterFraud. It was retweeted more than 25,000 times.

The trove of data revealed numerous instances when Russian troll accounts tweeted on both sides of divisive debates in the United States. After a shooting rampage in San Bernardino in 2015, one account posted, mass shootings wont stop until there are #GunFreeZones #Prayers4California. Another post read, Im tired of this whole anti gun thing. Saying that Guns cause murders is like saying Steering Wheels cause car wrecks #Prayers4California.

Nimmo said the English-language Russian troll accounts defended Russia as well, including posting 781 tweets referring to U.S. special counsel Robert S. Mueller IIIs investigation into Russian election interference as a witch hunt.

Tech companies have come under pressure in the last year from U.S. and European lawmakers to do more to rein in such activity, after intelligence services concluded that Russia spread disinformation across their platforms to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election and Britains Brexit vote.

The data disclosed Wednesday also show that the operatives directing the Russian bot accounts used U.S. businesses that enable users to relay content onto Twitter  such as IFTTT, RoundTeam and dlvr.it  in addition to Twitter products such as TweetDeck and the Twitter mobile apps for iPhone and Android. For instance, San Francisco-based IFTTT offers software that connects multiple apps to run automated tasks. RoundTeam automates the task of searching and sharing tweets. Portland, Ore.-based Dlvr.it, which is used by publishers including Reuters and BuzzFeed, automatically posts content across social media platforms.

Twitter said it doesnt expect such information operations to stop and expects bad actors to keep adapting to new technologies. The company said an independent analysis of the activity is an important step toward a shared understanding of the threats.A Sherman Oaks home where Hollywood actress and sex symbol Mae West once lived has come on the market for $1.1 million.

Tucked behind hedges and fences, the Spanish-hacienda-style home dates to 1937, about five years after West made her first motion picture appearance in Night After Night.

White-painted brick walls, vaulted and beamed ceilings and arched doorways are among features of the home, which has three bedrooms. Vintage and mosaic tile create visual interest in the hallways and two bathrooms.

1 / 18 The Spanish-hacienda-style home sits on a roughly 6,000-square-foot lot with a swimming pool. (Todd F. Goodman) 2 / 18 The Spanish-hacienda-style home sits on a roughly 6,000-square-foot lot with a swimming pool. (Todd F. Goodman) 3 / 18 The Spanish-hacienda-style home sits on a roughly 6,000-square-foot lot with a swimming pool. (Todd F. Goodman) 4 / 18 The Spanish-hacienda-style home sits on a roughly 6,000-square-foot lot with a swimming pool. (Todd F. Goodman) 5 / 18 The Spanish-hacienda-style home sits on a roughly 6,000-square-foot lot with a swimming pool. (Todd F. Goodman) 6 / 18 The Spanish-hacienda-style home sits on a roughly 6,000-square-foot lot with a swimming pool. (Todd F. Goodman) 7 / 18 The Spanish-hacienda-style home sits on a roughly 6,000-square-foot lot with a swimming pool. (Todd F. Goodman) 8 / 18 The Spanish-hacienda-style home sits on a roughly 6,000-square-foot lot with a swimming pool. (Todd F. Goodman) 9 / 18 The Spanish-hacienda-style home sits on a roughly 6,000-square-foot lot with a swimming pool. (Todd F. Goodman) 10 / 18 The Spanish-hacienda-style home sits on a roughly 6,000-square-foot lot with a swimming pool. (Todd F. Goodman) 11 / 18 The Spanish-hacienda-style home sits on a roughly 6,000-square-foot lot with a swimming pool. (Todd F. Goodman) 12 / 18 The Spanish-hacienda-style home sits on a roughly 6,000-square-foot lot with a swimming pool. (Todd F. Goodman) 13 / 18 The Spanish-hacienda-style home sits on a roughly 6,000-square-foot lot with a swimming pool. (Todd F. Goodman) 14 / 18 The Spanish-hacienda-style home sits on a roughly 6,000-square-foot lot with a swimming pool. (Todd F. Goodman) 15 / 18 The Spanish-hacienda-style home sits on a roughly 6,000-square-foot lot with a swimming pool. (Todd F. Goodman) 16 / 18 The Spanish-hacienda-style home sits on a roughly 6,000-square-foot lot with a swimming pool. (Todd F. Goodman) 17 / 18 The Spanish-hacienda-style home sits on a roughly 6,000-square-foot lot with a swimming pool. (Todd F. Goodman) 18 / 18 The Spanish-hacienda-style home sits on a roughly 6,000-square-foot lot with a swimming pool. (Todd F. Goodman)

Advertisement

The 1,596-square-foot interior also holds a step-up dining room, an eat-in kitchen and a family room with a wood-burning fireplace.

French doors open to a shaded veranda and a brick-rimmed swimming pool. Mature pine trees, palms and lawn fill out the roughly 6,000-square-foot lot.

The property most recently changed hands more than a decade ago for $800,000, real estate records show.

Donovan Healey of Hilton & Hyland holds the listing.

West, who died in 1980 at 87, is remembered for her memorable lines and film roles in She Done Him Wrong (1933), Klondike Annie (1936) and Im No Angel (1933). In addition to her appearances in film and stage productions, the blond seductress also wrote much of her own material.

neal.leitereg@latimes.com

Twitter: @LATHotPropertySitting in the Library Center Theatre at the Sundance premiere of her new film, The Kindergarten Teacher, in January, Maggie Gyllenhaal was enjoying herself right up until the point where she felt the audience turned on her character.

The shift came during a scene in which Gyllenhaals caring, creatively starved kindergarten teacher asks a gifted, 5-year-old student about the source of his poetic inspiration. The boys answer produced a burst of intense laughter from that Sundance audience in Park City, Utah, that pained Gyllenhaal  so much so that her mother, seated next to her, leaned over and asked if she was OK.

Nine months later, enjoying the sunshine and a custom-made Caesar salad (substitute vinaigrette, add avocado) at an outdoor Beverly Hills cafe, Gyllenhaal says she has gained a little perspective on the moment. She loves that The Kindergarten Teacher (currently in select theaters and streaming on Netflix) produces passionate, vocal reactions from those who see it. But she still remembers that it felt like being punched in the stomach when the Sundance audience chortled the way it did.

The laughter was like, I was never on your side, which is not true, Gyllenhaal says. The whole movie is designed so that you are on her side. She could be your friend. Shes a wonderful teacher and warm, and a compelling artist even. And then there comes a time in the movie when youre like, Whoa. Wait. I was rooting for her? Then you have to question yourself. What about me allowed me to be on this side of this woman doing these really problematic things?

Advertisement

REVIEW: Maggie Gyllenhaal brings a fierce, layered intensity to The Kindergarten Teacher 

Part of the reason for that empathy, of course, is Gyllenhaal, who, over the last couple of decades, has played a number of complicated women existing on lifes edges. (Clear-headed Candy, the sex worker and porn director on the current HBO drama The Deuce, is but one.) Asking audiences to look at these characters and see their humanity and, by extension, the dark places within themselves, has become Gyllenhaals calling card.

Or, as Seth Meyers put it recently when Gyllenhaal was a guest on Late Night: If somebody said, Hey, theres this movie called The Kindergarten Teacher, youd be like, Oh, that sounds fun. Its got Maggie Gyllenhaal. Youre like, Oh, that sounds scary.

When Gyllenhaal went on The Daily Show to talk about The Kindergarten Teacher, Trevor Noah hadnt seen the film, only the trailer, and asked, Is it a thriller? An intimate movie about a womans mind? A horror movie? Gyllenhaals answer is the reason she signed on board, both as an actor and producer: Its all of them.

Parker Sevak and Maggie Gyllenhaal in The Kindergarten Teacher. (Netflix)

Lisa, the films titular teacher, is, at heart, an artist, though there isnt much room for the sublime in her life. Her husband doesnt understand her, and her connection with her teenage children grows more tenuous with each eye-rolling day. To stave off the mundane, she travels from Staten Island into Manhattan for a weekly poetry class where her work is met with indifference and sometimes outright contempt.

Lisas life changes when one of her kindergartners spits out a transcendent poem after class. Hes gifted, and Lisa becomes obsessed with him. She wants to develop and protect his talent. But the ways she goes about doing this are problematic and, as the film progresses, kind of terrifying.

Certainly, other actresses could have played Lisa, but few could have handled the characters journey into darkness with such sensitivity. Writer-director Sara Colangelo, who based The Kindergarten Teacher on a 2014 Israeli movie of the same name, says she instinctively knew this from watching Gyllenhaals work in projects like Secretary, Sherrybaby and The Honourable Woman. Colangelo was looking for an actor both relatable and capable of moving in extreme, bizarre directions.

I always feel challenged when I watch Maggie, Colangelo says by phone from New York. And I knew that playing Lisa, a woman bulldozed by her life and maybe by the time were living in, would provide a challenge.

That reference to current times resonates deeply with both Gyllenhaal and Colangelo, who see The Kindergarten Teacher as both an allegory and cautionary tale about what happens when you starve a vibrant womans mind. Gyllenhaal recognized in Lisa her own experiences as a woman and appreciated that she wouldnt have to make the little switch that actresses are often asked to do: Find a way to dovetail their feminine perspective into a fundamentally masculine story.

As a woman artist, youre always bending over backwards to fit into something that isnt natural to fit yourself into, Gyllenhaal says. I didnt have to do that with this film. I didnt have to dig it out. There was a magnetic pull inviting me in. Thats rare. Really rare.

Maggie Gyllenhaal in the second season of The Deuce. (Paul Schiraldi / HBO)

Recently, though  it began with her role as an accomplished but deeply conflicted Anglo-Israeli businesswoman in the 2014 limited series The Honourable Woman  Gyllenhaal has been finding more and more projects that speak deeply to something inside her. She cant quite put the feeling into words. But while making The Honourable Woman, she says she arrived at a point that didnt feel like a point. It felt like a new beginning. And through The Kindergarten Teacher and two seasons of The Deuce (shell return to shoot a third and final season in February), she hasnt looked back.

Between promotional appearances for the film and the HBO series, Gyllenhaal has been writing a screenplay adaptation of Elena Ferrantes The Lost Daughter, which she plans to direct. Its an unsettling and unflinching thriller about a middle-aged divorced woman who turns inward after meeting a young mother and her daughter while on vacation.

Its also a probing look at self-identity, femininity and motherhood, and Gyllenhaal has been considering its themes while making school lunches for her children  she and actor husband, Peter Sarsgaard, have two daughters, Ramona, 12, and Gloria, 6  and then writing in concentrated bursts on airplanes while traveling. (You have a big chunk of time with no distractions, she enthuses. In fact, she adds, she has her whole writing session planned for her return flight to New York the day after we talk.)

Gyllenhaal has given herself a Nov. 1 deadline to complete the first draft for The Lost Daughter. Her October calendar is relatively free, outside of family commitments. She and Sarsgaard moved to Brooklyns Park Slope neighborhood 11 years ago, and because their daughters love their current school, theyll likely be there another 11 years until the youngest girl graduates.

 Director Sara Colangelo, actress/producer Maggie Gyllenhaal and actor Ajay Naidu talk about how they found the poetry used in their film, The Kindergarten Teacher. They were with joined by actor Anna Baryshnikov. FULL COVERAGE: Sundance Film Festi

Currently, they live a couple subway stops away, meaning that in the winter, theyre sloshing through the cold with their wet backpacks and soaked shoes to the station during the chaotic morning rush hour. Gyllenhaal dreams of finding a new place where she could walk the kids to school and come back to a cup of coffee thats still warm on her kitchen table. But the neighborhood is expensive and low-budget indies like The Kindergarten Teacher wont add much to a nest egg.

In the meantime, Gyllenhaal has been thinking about both the past and the future. Her oldest daughter just turned 12, and she keeps running into people telling (warning?) her about the coming transition.

Maybe Im projecting something, like I need some information, she says, laughing. Right now, I have a daughter who sometimes is so sophisticated and articulate and incredibly mature, and other times a big 12-year-old in my arms who is crying. And I remember that feeling. Or, at least, Im trying to.

Gyllenhaal turned 40 in November. And though she believes the number is just an arbitrary marker, she spent a lot of time mulling over the meaning of that particular birthday.

I took it really seriously, she says. I feel like it was an amazing thing to turn 40. I made it a marking of really growing up. I see women who are older than me who are alive, who are really living, and accept their age and experience. I have so much admiration for the way theyve digested it all.

I look at them, and here Gyllenhaal discretely nods in the direction of a woman walking on the Santa Monica Boulevard sidewalk in front of the cafe. She knows more than me, and you can feel it. You feel that vibe? Its so strong. Thats where Id like to be headed.

glenn.whipp@latimes.com

Twitter: @glennwhippRoseanne spinoff The Conners killed off its sharp-tongued matriarch in Tuesday nights premiere episode. And the characters maker, Roseanne Barr, has taken to Twitter to weigh in.

The episode revealed that Roseanne Conner had died of an opioid overdose. And Barr, the controversial star who made the character famous, offered her thoughts on how her exit was handled. And it was emphatic:

I AINT DEAD, BITCHES!!!! Barr tweeted during the show to her 902,000 followers.

Advertisement

For the uninitiated, Barr was fired from the popular revival of Roseanne earlier this year after she made a racist comment about President Obamas former advisor Valerie Jarrett.

Barr and her longtime spiritual advisor Rabbi Shmuley Boteach issued a less forceful official statement regarding the premiere of The Conners shortly after the episode aired.

While we wish the very best for the cast and production crew of The Conners, all of whom are deeply dedicated to their craft and were Roseannes cherished colleagues, we regret that ABC chose to cancel Roseanne by killing off the Roseanne Conner character, part of the lengthy statement said. That it was done through an opioid overdose lent an unnecessary grim and morbid dimension to an otherwise happy family show.

The most-read Entertainment stories this hour 

yvonne.villarreal@latimes.com

Twitter: @villarrealyThe bestselling wine brand in California isnt from California. Its not Josh or Barefoot or Coppola, or Two-Buck Chuck. Its an Italian import called Stella Rosa, created by the Riboli family, a wine company based not in Napa or Sonoma but in the shadow of Dodger Stadium, in Lincoln Heights.

Even if you havent tasted Stella Rosa  there are 22 different flavors to try  you cant help but be familiar with the brand. The company has sponsored floats in the Rose Bowl, flown airplanes trailing banners down West Coast beaches, and placed a majority of its 400 billboards around the greater Los Angeles area, extolling you to Taste the Magic and to Stellabrate. So if youve never stellabrated, perhaps its time to get acquainted.

According to data from Nielsen, Stella Rosa is the top-selling import brand in the country. It has enjoyed double-digit growth almost since its inception, and its popularity shows no signs of slowing. Market Watch, an industry analyst, estimates that sales will exceed 2 million cases this year.

For more than a century, through four generations, the Riboli family has been making, importing and selling wine. Even through Prohibition, when they landed a contract to make sacramental wine for Roman Catholic masses, theyve made wine  all kinds of wine, from jug wines to appellation wines; much of the latter now comes from estate vineyards on the Central Coast.

Advertisement

The tasting room at the historic San Antonio Winery. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

They sell most of these wines direct, in their bustling Lincoln Heights winery tasting room, which also houses a restaurant and gift shop. Fifteen years ago, Anthony Riboli and his father, Santo, noticed the rise in demand for a relatively obscure class of Italian low-alcohol sparkling wine called Moscato dAsti, made in the northern region of Piedmont.

Occasionally in the tasting room, the staff would take queries from patrons asking if there was such a thing as a red Moscato dAsti. They were interested in the health benefits of red wine, Riboli says.

The Ribolis had import partners in Piedmont, who were already making versions of such wines, like Brachetto dAcqui, a light, fizzy red wine with sharp, bright aromatics. So they ordered half a dozen prototypical blends, and from those initial samples, Stella Rosa red was born.

Stella Rosa wines are 5.5% alcohol by volume, or less than half as boozy as the average bottle of wine. The arrested fermentation leaves plenty of residual sugar, and the wine is lightly frizzante, which gives it a more pleasant mouthfeel.

The first 1,000 cases of wine were sold in two weeks. The Ribolis re-upped immediately and have been re-upping ever since, adding wines, flavors, testing different tiers, different colors and different flavor combinations. There are Pink, Platinum, Black, Gold and Imperiale versions; there is Stella Peach, Stella Green Apple, Stella Red Apple, Stella Tropical Mango, and other flavors, all natural, all made to order.

Each morning, crowds file into the tasting room at 11 a.m. to buy Stella Rosa wines, T-shirts, tote bags, fans, scented candles, lip balms and jars of Stella Rosa marinara. Cases of the wine are stacked chest-high in the display room and are restocked daily.

1 / 9 The entrance to the historic San Antonio Winery in Lincoln Heights near downtown Los Angeles. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 2 / 9 Old barrels decorate the entrance to the historic San Antonio Winery near downtown Los Angeles. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 3 / 9 Winemaker Anthony Riboli pours with Santo Riboli right behind him. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 4 / 9 Chris Riboli, left, Steve Riboli, Lisa Riboli-Elzholz, Santo Riboli, Anthony Riboli, Cathy Colombatti and Dante Colombatti are part of the Riboli family making Stella Rosa wines at the historic San Antonio Winery near downtown Los Angeles. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 5 / 9 Winemaker Anthony Riboli checks the bottling line at the historic San Antonio Winery near downtown Los Angeles. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 6 / 9 The Maddalena Restaurant located within the historic San Antonio Winery near downtown Los Angeles at 737 Lamar St. on Oct. 9, 2018. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 7 / 9 LOS ANGELES, CA - OCTOBER 9, 2018 - The tasting room at the historic San Antonio Winery near downtown Los Angeles at 737 Lamar Street on October 9, 2018. With 4 generations as a family business, the Riboli family wine estates span from Paso Robles to Napa after Santo Cambianica founded the San Antonio Winery in 1917 on Lamar Street. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 8 / 9 The Maddalena Restaurant located within the historic San Antonio Winery near downtown Los Angeles. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 9 / 9 The tasting room at the historic San Antonio Winery near downtown Los Angeles. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

According to Anthony Riboli, sales of the Stella wines are particularly strong with women, as well as Hispanic and Asian buyers; he will tell you that the tasting room is just like the melting pot that is Los Angeles, and in the several hours I spent there, I saw no reason to dispute this.

So how, you ask, does it taste? The Stella Rosa wines resemble wine, theyre reminiscent of wine, but no one who drinks wine regularly would mistake it for wine. To my palate they have at least as much in common with soft drinks (7-Up comes to mind) as they do with, say, Robert Mondavi Cabernet.

But if you dont drink Mondavi Cabernet, then this comparison may be meaningless to you. You may not be troubled by the rush of sugar, the jumbled terpenic flavors that frame the wine as a stand-in for the missing alcohol. And you may enjoy the soda-pop sweetness, which ameliorates any perception of flaws, at least until the finish.

Residual sugar in wine, of course, isnt anything new  hundreds of more expensive wines, from Kendall Jackson Vintners Reserve Chardonnay to Meiomi Pinot Noir and the Prisoner, employ it to make their wines taste more plush and seductive. And residual sugar inhabits literally thousands of wines from Germany, Austria, France  indeed, from all over the world.

Stella Rosa is decidedly better than Boones Farm, than Arbor Mist or any of the hundreds of concoctions with lurid colors, additives and cloying sweetness that crowd supermarket and bodega shelves. Stella Rosa isnt as fake as any of these, but that doesnt make it altogether real, either.

What it does best is occupy a niche that has been hiding in plain sight for decades. It serves to remind us that the wine market is at least two markets, one that takes itself very seriously, perhaps too seriously, that serves to distinguish itself from the mainstream beverage market. The other engages with that mainstream, seeks out commonalities with it, to sell wine that falls closer to its most common denominators.

The Riboli family  savvy, clever and self-preserving  seems to move comfortably in both.

food@latimes.com

@latimesfoodLife is the greatest novel.

That notion came to me while jogging the other morning. Generally, literary notions come to me when I have no place to write them down, which is one of those real-life ironies that go into a good novel. If I ever have the perfect observation  and the outlook for that isnt good  it will probably come to me while falling backward out of a plane.

Like you, weve had our hands full lately. Posh is pretty sick again but hardly down for the count. I discovered her out in the driveway the other morning hurling f-bombs at the 300-pound beagle, just as she did at me when we first met. Mouth like a sailor, body like a back road  my wife is a country song come to life.

God bless her redneck Sicilian soul.

Advertisement

Anyway, shes out there screaming at the dog, which assures me her energy level is back to normal. My wife is especially ornery in the dark, and it was pitch black that morning, and chilly  the kind of morning the dog always picks to scamper away from her.

We had him tested, you know, this stupid dog. Hes 300 pounds, with no apparent brain, so I asked the vet to administer some sort of canine IQ test. The 300-pound beagle scored a negative 9, which disappointed some family members but was much better than I expected.

He never tests well, our daughter Rapunzel said in his defense.

I think the dog tested very well. To be honest, hes better at multiple choice than the essays. But who isnt? If the standard drivers test had an essay portion, Id still be walking  or crawling  everywhere.

In any case, this was a happy moment for all of us, and we celebrated appropriately this news that the idiot beagle might actually have a brain, all other signs indicating otherwise.

Posh bought a cake, and there were chew toys for everyone in attendance. Were at that stage in our lives when we dont wait around for blockbuster moments. Each day we make our own Mardi Gras. When life gives us lemons, we make lemon-drop martinis.

Bottoms up!

Lets back up a bit  the book critics would call this a flashback. When Posh was out in the driveway in her PJs, note that she was wearing the tops from one set of PJs, the bottoms from another and a ratty old robe she stole from a college boyfriend shes apparently still not over.

It was 6 a.m., still black as a Bible out there, and I didnt have my glasses, so Ill confess the scene was a little smeary. Yet shed managed to pull this odd outfit together like some young bohemian actress and now stood swearing at the dog, with me standing there picking up the newspaper in dewy disbelief.

Of course, I wanted to point out that if she quit screaming at the poor old pooch, perhaps he would turn around and waddle back to her instead of marching off to the neighbors place, where no one was screaming. Plus, I think they were making bacon for breakfast, so she was also up against that.

Were all up against something. For instance, the little guy brought home The Iliad the other day, and if you want to see human dejection at the highest levels, give a teenage boy a book thicker than his favorite pillow, written by some guy named Homer, who as it turns out is not the Homer he knows. Hes a Greek with too much time on his hands, which is never good.

You dont measure The Iliad in pages; you measure it in furlongs. To be honest, it could use a little haircut, as they say in the news business, to mean it needs to be cut back a bit.

I think of The Iliad as a sort of literary hazing. Its a classic, which is code for a notable work that nobody except professors will read all the way to the end.

What is it really? Torture  tougher than its brother, The Odyssey, as leaden as a Lutheran wedding, as dull as a bus ride to Dubuque.

But I dont make the school reading lists. Im here only to encourage him, the dog and the boys mom, as we set about these seemingly impossible daily challenges.

Yeah, lifes the best book. A long read  an impenetrable poem.

Chris.Erskine@latimes.com

Twitter: @erskinetimesAt least 10 state firefighter cadets who were sacked for drinking alcohol earlier this year will be reinstated after serving suspensions, state fire officials said Tuesday.

The cadets were ordered reinstated after the State Personnel Board reached a settlement with the firefighters union, which argued that their dismissal was excessive.



For the record: An earlier version of this report said a Cal Fire battalion chief killed his fiance in 2014. It should have said fiancee.

The decision comes as Cal Fire officials have sought to take a hard line on alcohol use among firefighters after a series of department scandals and the increased stresses firefighters face with a now year-round fire season.

The firefighters involved in the settlement were among a larger group of 16 cadets who were fired amid the crackdown on booze consumption.

Advertisement

The cadets will rejoin the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection beginning in January, said Tim Edwards, director of Cal Fire Local 2881, the firefighters union.

The reinstated cadets had recently completed seven weeks of fire academy training, according to officials. Many of them had been employed for years as seasonal firefighters and were seeking to earn an engineering classification they hoped would lead to increased pay and full-time work, according to the union.

The cadets were fired for having celebratory drinks the Thursday night before their graduation. They had finished their training and testing, but the academy bars cadets from drinking alcohol Monday through Friday, officials said. Cadets are allowed to consume alcohol on weekends, but are considered to be on duty throughout the workweek.

On Tuesday, a Cal Fire official said the agency had acted to enforce necessary policies.

We hold employees to high standards, said Scott McLean, deputy chief with Cal Fire. We have a responsibility to our department and to the public, and we have zero tolerance about drinking on duty.

The crackdown on alcohol use follows a 2014 scandal in which a Cal Fire battalion chief killed his fiancee. That crime triggered a larger ethics probe in which two firefighters were fired and more than a dozen others punished.

Cal Fire officials have also acknowledged that the physical and psychological stress of fighting wildfires has grown tremendously in the last decade, and that this stress can leave firefighters susceptible to alcohol problems.

In years past, the fire season lasted just a matter of months, and firefighters were excited by the prospect of battling a major wildfire for several days or perhaps a couple weeks.

Today the fire season runs year-round, and Cal Fire personnel can find themselves battling multiple major wildfires one after the other.

Now you show up for duty on the first day and the thought is, I dont know when Im going home.  Edwards said. They tell their spouse, I dont know when Ill see you next, because we just dont know. 

The last 12 months have underscored the increasing severity of California wildfires.

Last October, Californias wine country was devastated by a series of fires that killed 44 people and destroyed more than 8,000 homes. Two months later, Southern California was ravaged by the Thomas fire, which burned in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties and killed a firefighter.

Although December is traditionally a quiet time for fires in California, thousands of men and women celebrated last Christmas and New Years at a base camp.

The firefighters have not been getting that kind of break where they can retool, reenergize and get ready for the next one, McLean said. It takes a toll.

For the first half of this year, Cal Fire managed to hold a number of blazes in check, knocking down fires through the spring before they could explode to thousands or tens of thousands of acres.

But then in July, a malfunctioning recreational trailer along Highway 299 outside of Redding kicked sparks into bone-dry tinder, igniting what would become the Carr fire, the deadliest blaze of the year so far.

Within days, the wildfire swept into the city, killing four residents  two of them children. The blaze also claimed the lives of two firefighters.

We have never seen such fire behavior  such intensity and such growth  ever, said Mike Ming, Cal Fires deputy chief of Employee Support Services.

When Cal Fire first created its support services division in the late 1990s it was just two people, Ming said. By 2018, the full-time staff was increased to eight. Those eight individuals, counting Ming, are responsible for steering thousands of Cal Fire employees through the myriad types of trauma and stress they will encounter on and off the job by cultivating peer support groups, supporting their families physical, emotional and psychological well-being and providing them healthy outlets to cope with the stress.

Its an issue that is now, more than ever, bubbling to the top of conversations about fire service in the state.

We have a problem in our department. The workload and stress load is leading some people to have a little bit of an alcohol problem. Were seeing a lot of divorces. Guys and females are leaning on other things to take away that stress, said Edwards, the union head. But there are things that are leading up to these issues that are not being recognized.

Ming said Support Services sees an uptick in calls after every long firefight, such as the Carr fire in Shasta County, the Mendocino Complex fire that followed it, and the Thomas fire late last year.

Crew members are away from their homes and families for 20, 30, even 50 days at a time, according to Edwards. Tension can build between spouses, resentment in children who dont see their mom or dad at pivotal life events like graduations and birthdays.

When firefighters call Support Services, theyre increasingly discussing suicide ideation, drug and alcohol abuse issues, feelings of isolation and depression and burnout, Ming said.

Nobody, even with all the staffing, nobody can sustain that amount of time away from family, the threat to personal safety, the community destruction that we see, the civilian and line-of-duty deaths, Ming said.

Combine that with long stretches of sleep deprivation common to firefighters stationed on wildfires for long periods of time and it all takes a physical and psychological toll, he said.

If theres any silver lining, its that this younger generation of firefighter is more willing to admit that the job is indeed, stressful.

Early on, when I encountered some really horrible stuff, the idea was there was a stigma associated with seeking help, because you were weak,  Ming said. But that behavioral health awareness is not weakness. Its a condition of our jobs. It will impact us as humans, and its OK to seek help.I should have gotten this out earlier. Apologies to anyone who already voted. First and foremost on our list is the U.S. Senate race, in which we strongly back Kevin de Leon against fossilized conservative incumbent Dianne Feinstein.

 Prop 1- YES-- authorizes $4 billion in bonds to fund affordable housing for low-income families, seniors, people with disabilities, farmworkers and veterans.

 Prop 2- YES-- authorizes $2 billion in bonds to provide supportive housing (i.e. ,mental health and drug rehab) for homeless Californians with mental illness.

 Prop 3- NO-- an $8 billion boondoggle for Big Agriculture, while causing environmental problems.

 Prop 4- YES-- authorizes $1.5 billion in bonds to fund building, renovating and equipping childrens hospitals.

 Prop 5- NO-- another boondoggle, this one for wealthy developers and older rich homeowners-- expands Prop 13.

 Prop 6- NO-- overturns the increase in gas taxes and vehicle fees that fund transportation infrastructure. Bad for Climate Change and deincentivizes electric car development.

 Prop 7- YES or NO-- empowers the legislature to adopt permanent daylight saving time, eliminating standard time in the future if it Congress gives the OK.

 Prop 8- YES-- requires notoriously profiteering dialysis centers to stop cheating their patients and to accept Medicare and Medicaid without discrimination.

 Prop 10- YES-- allows cities, towns and counties to pass and strengthen rent control laws by repealing the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act.

 Prop 11- NO-- An anti-union proposal that allows private ambulance companies to require workers to remain on-call during meal and rest breaks.The Andrew Janz for Congress headquarters in an empty storefront on North Blackstone Avenue was supposed to be closed Monday, but I pushed on the glass door and it swung open.

Inside, it was quiet. Like all campaign headquarters, it was messy with a temporary feel in the air. Folding chairs, folding tables, maps on easels. A giant bouquet of flowers sat on a counter.

Three people were working.

Two of them were sitting at a long table, counting money.

Advertisement

This is what came in the mail today, said Janz campaign manager Heather Greven, who, at the ripe old age of 27 has been working in politics for a decade.

She scooped up a stack of checks. There were so many, she had to use both hands. Had she made a single pile, it would have been at least 6 inches high.

From what I could see, the checks came from all over the place, not just the 22nd Congressional District, which runs north from Tulare to the northeast side of Fresno in the heart of the Central Valley.

Donations ranged from $10 to $500.

Wow, I said. Ive been writing about political campaigns for a long time, but Ive never seen a stack of checks like that.

Greven laughed. Wed never show a reporter this, she said. But you walked in.

Democrat Janz, a local prosecutor and first-time candidate, is running against Republican incumbent Rep. Devin Nunes, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee who has been such a close ally of Donald Trump that the president recently suggested Nunes deserved the Medal of Freedom.

Nunes, whose campaign finance statements are awash in donations from individuals who have given the maximum allowed by law, and from corporate PACs, has raised $10 million so far this cycle.

Shockingly, though, Janz has raised more than $7 million.

(Bear in mind, this is a district where 235,000 people voted for their congressional representative in the November 2016 election, and only 133,000 voted for the seat in 2014, the last midterm contest.)

Greven said she thought theyd be lucky to raise $1 million when the Janz campaign began 19 months ago. The unexpected gush of money has allowed the campaign to advertise widely, to pay 10 staffers and 25 canvassers. And thats in addition to the volunteers who have been showing up in droves to make phone calls and knock on doors.

Its crazy, Greven said. I will never run a race that raises this much money again.

MORE: As even long-shot Democrats harvest huge numbers of campaign contributions, Republicans brace for an onslaught 

Democratic Congressional candidate Andrew Janz discusses issues during an editorial board meeting Sept. 4. (John Walker / Fresno Bee)

::

With all that money, which will be hard to spend by election day, Janz and Nunez have been hammering away at each other on TV, radio and online.

Nunes portrays Janz, who grew up in this district, as out of touch with its citizens, of embracing San Francisco values, which is code for  what?  being gay friendly and Trump resistant?

Janz, in turn, has portrayed Nunes as a creature of Washington who has turned his back on his constituents by refusing to hold town hall meetings. Instead of keeping a check on presidential power in his congressional role, says Janz, Nunes has tried to impede the Robert Mueller investigation into whether the Trump campaign was complicit in Russian attempts to influence the 2016 election.

Near Nunes hometown of Tulare, an independent expenditure group working to flip the House, Fight Back California, has plastered billboards along Highway 99 accusing Nunes of being silent on family separations at the Mexican border, of being everywhere but here and of milking the truth, an allusion to Nunes family dairy farm business.

::

I wanted to visit Nunes campaign office to get a sense of the vibe there, but I couldnt find a physical address, just a post office box. I emailed the campaign, but have not heard back.

Not a big surprise.

Nunes, who was spotted at a Fresno Bulldogs game the other night, does not make himself available to newspaper reporters. Last year, he unleashed on a Bee reporter who asked whether he planned to hold any forums that are open to the public during the election cycle.

Your paper is a joke to even raise these issues, Nunes replied. I actually feel bad for the people who work at the Bee because sadly, its become just a left wing rag.

He said he holds plenty of educational meetings with voters, but there is no getting around the fact that he has not been willing to meet in a town hall format with constituents who might confront him about, say, the Russia investigation, or his opposition to the Affordable Care Act, or ethics complaints against him.

In fact, he is not just running against Janz this year. Hes running against the Bee, which he has made into the bogeyman of his campaign.

His now infamous magazine-style mailer 38 color pages on heavy stock  was a sustained attack on the Fresno Bee, which until this year, had endorsed Nunes every two years since he first ran for Congress in 2002. Earlier this month, the Bee endorsed Janz.

The mailers stories accused the Bee of hyping a liberal stunt for simply reporting on a lawsuit challenging Nunes right to call himself a farmer on the ballot. (Nunes won.) It contains reprints of favorable stories about Nunes from the National Review and the op-ed page of the Wall Street Journal.

The back cover shows a rusted-out, sinking ship called The Fresno Bee, flying the colors of Russia, a red flag adorned with a hammer and sickle.

A campaign staffer in Janzs Visalia office, who showed me a paper copy of the magazine, pointed out something I had not noticed earlier: The cover illustrations also depict sinking RESIST banners, in pink, white and blue, the colors of the transgender pride flag, a not-so-veiled attack on those San Francisco values.

At least 110,000 of the mailers were sent to Republican households.

Why run against the local paper? Because it works.

A Nunes supporter told me he thinks that the districts GOP voters, already agitated by the hearings to confirm Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, are delighted by the mailer, that it plays right into their distrust of the media and their love of red meat.

Even with an unprecedented infusion of Democratic cash and energy, Nunes is expected to win handily on Nov 6.

If the House of Representatives flips from Republican to Democratic control next year, the 22nd District, in all likelihood, will not be part of any blue wave.

But Democrats here, at least, will have something to look forward to: A Californian  U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, or Sleazy, as the president calls the Democrat  will likely take over the chairmanship of the House Intelligence Committee.

That will be some consolation prize.

robin.abcarian@latimes.com

Twitter: @AbcarianLATThe two men who could determine whether Los Angeles teachers go on strike sound almost as if they inhabit different worlds. They dont even agree on a set of basic facts, which makes negotiation difficult.

L.A. schools Supt. Austin Beutner speaks of a school system teetering on insolvency and failing so many students that aggressive changes are needed, including new ways to assess teachers and quickly push out ineffective ones.

Alex Caputo-Pearl, who leads the teachers union, says teachers at traditional public schools try valiantly but are besieged  even sabotaged  by outsiders who want to dismantle the district and by officials like Beutner who would rather stockpile money than use it to help teachers and make schools successful.

In the gulf between these competing realities, a teachers strike seems increasingly likely.

Advertisement

The tension between the two sides has been building at a fraught moment for the nations second-largest school system. Enrollment, which is the basis for funding, continues to decline because of population trends and the growing number of privately operated charter schools. And, as officials struggle to offset the problems that come with more than 80% of students living in poverty, student achievement remains well below state averages.

Both leaders believe they are at a crucial turning point that could lead either to disaster or meaningful reform.

This issue is bigger than pay, UCLA education professor Tyrone Howard said of the labor dispute that has now gone more than 18 months without resolution. It is about working conditions, the role of charter schools in the district, standardized testing, and the role that teachers will have in public schools in Los Angeles. The union has framed this as a lets save public education issue.

If salary were the only issue, the divide would seem bridgeable.

United Teachers Los Angeles wants a 6.5% raise retroactive to July 1, 2016. The district is offering a 3% raise that would begin a year later, followed by an additional 3% bonus that would become permanent if budget projections remain in the black.

The contract was the subject of protracted negotiations long before Beutner became superintendent in May. But the previous superintendent and the interim leader who followed started their careers as district teachers and so had natural common ground with the union.

Beutners background is in business and philanthropy, not education. Hes been a donor to local charter schools and has touted their successes. These are the same charters that Caputo-Pearl denounces for being unregulated and for siphoning away students and thus $600 million in resources that would have gone to district schools  and union jobs.

Beutner says the status quo is no longer acceptable  and by that he means schools with low test scores.

Caputo-Pearl, a hard-charging former teacher, used to work at such a school. He recounts his distress at being transferred from his beloved job at Crenshaw High as part of a campuswide shakeup to address low academic achievement.

Instead of working with Beutner, Caputo-Pearl has used Beutner as a foil to stir up his rank and file.

Will we accept lies from those who see the Los Angeles Unified School District as a business to be downsized rather than a civic institution to protect? Will we accept those lies? he said in his keynote address during the unions summer leadership conference.

Money is one issue but not all that could lead to a strike by L.A. teachers, shown here during a rally downtown this year. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

His attempt to stir passions is understandable during an uncertain period for his union and labor. In the last two elections, UTLA has fared poorly, with candidates backed by big-money charter supporters ultimately winning a controlling majority on the Board of Education. And the U.S. Supreme Court this year ruled that union membership is optional  overturning Californias closed shop and threatening the unions financial stability and influence.

And yet, this last school year also saw teachers go on strike in Republican-dominated states such as West Virginia, Arizona, Oklahoma and Kentucky  winning major concessions.

Caputo-Pearl doesnt want the nations second-largest teachers local, in a labor stronghold, left on the national sidelines. Educators across the country are rising up like we have never seen before, Caputo-Pearl said in his keynote. We find ourselves in a defining moment.

This also could be a defining juncture for Caputo-Pearl, who is in the home stretch of his second and final term as president. Hes spent the better part of six years rebuilding local chapters school by school. Now may be his best and only chance to mobilize that strike army.

Caputo-Pearl insists that the battle must be waged outside the familiar yard markers of wages and benefits for current employees. He wants a settlement that will launch a massive hiring of teachers, librarians, nurses and counselors  union members all  to reduce class sizes and fully staff schools. Such measures, the union emphasizes, would directly help students.

Beutners counter is pragmatic: The moneys not there. The district is spending much more than it is taking in, and much of the money in the districts reserve account already is committed.

We want smaller class sizes, better pay for teachers, and additional counselors, librarians and support staff in every school  but we will need more money to pay for it, Beutner said in a speech before invited guests at a school library in Koreatown. Were facing a fiscal cliff. Its not theoretical. Its not debatable.

County and state officials have largely agreed with this analysis, which has driven the districts negotiations.

Beutner and Caputo-Pearl both think the district needs more money, and both believe that the state and federal governments should be pushed to provide it.

But neither Beutner nor the Board of Education pushed to join the many school districts with local tax measures on Novembers ballot. They said the timing was not promising to persuade voters.

Caputo-Pearl has criticized that thinking. Hes also focused on the surplus remaining in district coffers at the end of the last fiscal year in June  which was $1.86 billion, an apparent record. He sees money enough to use now and enough time later to find more.

L.A. teachers union President Alex Caputo-Pearl meets with other union leaders at an October news conference near downtown. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Union leadership and district leadership build their cases around very different understandings of the districts financial state, said UCLA education professor John Rogers. Whereas union leadership envisions a district that provides dramatically more services to large numbers of students in community-based settings, Mr. Beutner seems to look to a leaner LAUSD future in which the district serves alongside an array of school choice options.

Caputo-Pearls vision of disaster  and what must be done to avert it  has more to do with beliefs than budgets. Hes putting a stake in the ground about issues that have distressed teachers for years, at a time when the union still has enough clout to change the course of history.

For that reason, the union leader has seized this moment to demand greater union and district control over charter schools, most of which are nonunion. Nearly 1 in 5 students attending local public schools are now in charters. The result is fewer L.A. Unified teachers  and fewer union members. Teachers union membership in L.A. Unified has dropped from 42,000 to 31,000 since 2007, according to the school system.

The union also has chosen this time to take a stand against what it calls overtesting, the frequent use of standardized tests, which can narrow the focus of instruction and also be used to evaluate teachers.

L.A. schools Supt. Austin Beutner serves food from the culinary program at San Fernando High on the first day of school. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

Beutner also has an agenda beyond finances. For example, he wants to expand the rating scale by which principals can evaluate teachers. The goal, he says, is to recognize and reward great teaching  and to push out teachers who arent delivering.

An ineffective teacher can cause students to lose more than a year of learning, which is setting students up for failure, he said in his library speech. Though the number of bad teachers is small, we need a transparent, efficient and fair process to manage ineffective teachers out.

Many union members fear the beginnings of a system that would lay off or fire teachers based on student test scores or the arbitrary preferences of administrators.

Beutner is resisting union efforts to give teachers more control over such matters as testing as well as how campuses would be shared with charter schools.

He also has yet to reveal a long-term strategic plan, and teachers have filled the vacuum with their worst suspicions.

Last week, the two sides moved from mediation, which failed, into fact-finding  which is supposed to provide an independent analysis of district finances. After that, the district could impose a contract and the teachers could go on strike, perhaps as soon as November.

To avoid a strike  or to settle one  both sides are going to have shift their thinking, Rogers of UCLA said.

Trust has eroded over several years, he said. Building trust requires active engagement of all sides.

howard.blume@latimes.com

@howardblumeThe detective who was once at the center of the sexual assault case against Harvey Weinstein told one of the disgraced moguls accusers to delete information from her cellphone before turning it over to prosecutors, according to a document made public Wednesday.

NYPD Det. Nicholas DiGaudio, who led Weinstein into a Manhattan courthouse in handcuffs earlier this year, gave the advice after the woman said she was concerned some of her personal communications could wind up in a court file, records show.

Manhattan Assistant Dist. Atty. Joan Illuzzi-Osborn disclosed the information in a letter to Weinsteins legal team, which was made public Wednesday. A spokesman for the district attorneys office said it would not comment further on the matter.

Prosecutors learned of the situation last week, during a phone call with the accuser and one of her attorneys, according to the letter. No information was actually deleted from the phone.

Advertisement

This new development even further undermines the integrity of an already deeply flawed indictment of Mr. Weinstein, his attorney, Benjamin Brafman, said in a statement.

Weinstein surrendered to New York police in May and has been charged with sexually assaulting three women between 2004 and 2014, prosecutors have said.

The woman described in the letter made public on Wednesday is the accuser in three of the remaining five charges against Weinstein, court records show.

The accuser described in the letter, whose identity has never been made public, told prosecutors that she consulted with DiGaudio before turning over her cellphones to the district attorneys office, according to the letter.

During that conversation, DiGaudio said the accuser should delete anything she did not want anyone to see before providing any cellphones to the prosecution.

We just wont tell Joan, DiGaudio said, according to the letter, referring to the lead prosecutor, Illuzzi-Osborn.

The accuser insisted that at no time did DiGaudio or anyone else influence her testimony, according to the letter.

DiGaudio is no longer involved in the Weinstein investigation. The NYPD has launched an internal investigation into the detectives handling of the case, according to two people with knowledge of the case.

Wednesdays development marked the latest blow to the district attorneys office in its pursuit of the Miramax co-founder. Last week, prosecutors decided to drop one of the six criminal charges against Weinstein , after questions were raised about the testimony of Lucia Evans, a once-aspiring actress and model who has alleged Weinstein forced her to perform oral sex during a 2004 meeting.

According to records made public last week, a witness who was present the first time Evans met the movie mogul told police that Evans said her sexual encounter with Weinstein was consensual. Evans also wrote a draft email to her husband in 2015 that differed somewhat from the account of the assault she gave to prosecutors, according to the letter.

The Los Angeles Times does not usually identify those who make accusations of sexual assault, but Evans had come forward publicly in the past.

In a dismissal motion filed earlier this year, Weinsteins defense team also questioned the credibility of the accuser described in the letter made public Wednesday. According to that motion, Weinstein and his accuser exchanged more than 400 warm, complimentary and solicitous emails after the purported assault took place in 2013.

In a statement, the New York Police Department said the evidence against Mr. Weinstein is compelling and strong, but did not address the situation involving DiGuadio.

The NYPD will continue its work with the prosecution to deliver justice for the courageous survivors who have bravely come forward, the statement read.

The department did not respond to questions about what, if any, internal investigations DiGuadio may face.

DiGaudio is a veteran sex crimes investigator who has served in the NYPD for more than 30 years, according to Det. Michael Palladino, president of the union that represents NYPD detectives. In a statement, Palladino dismissed the development as irrelevant to the case and accused the district attorneys office of attacking DiGaudio to cover up its own failings in the Weinstein case.

The Manhattan D.A.s office needs to enter the 21st century. This is the age of technology. People keep loads of personal info on their phones that they prefer remains confidential, the statement read. A woman should not have to surrender confidential intimate information thats immaterial to the case to defend herself against a sexual predator.

james.queally@latimes.com | Twitter: @JamesQueallyLAT

richard.winton@latimes.com | Twitter: @LACrimes

UPDATES:

5:20 p.m.: This article was updated with additional details about the accuser described in the documents made public Wednesday and information about the NYPDs internal investigation of Det. Nicholas DiGaudio.

2:40 p.m.: This article was updated with comments from the union that represents NYPD detectives.

1:55 p.m.: This article was updated with additional background on the allegations against Harvey Weinstein as well as comments from his attorney and the NYPD.

This article was originally published at 1 p.m.A mountain lion cub startled a bakery employee this week when it walked through the door of the business.

Deputies from the El Dorado County Sheriffs Office arrived at the bakery in Pollock Pines, Calif., on Monday afternoon after a passerby met the bakery employee outside and called 911, Sgt. Anthony Prencipe said.

A person was working in their bakery and this small mountain lion just walked through the door and they ended up just walking out as soon as they saw it, Prencipe said.

The employee was soon joined by about 10 people who had gotten word about the shops unlikely visitor.

Advertisement

Despite the excitement, it was not a happy ending for the cub, who at about 4 months old was extremely lethargic and dehydrated and too young to be away from its mother, said Jordan Traverso, a spokeswoman for the Fish and Wildlife Department.

The cub was tranquilized at the bakery and taken to a Fish and Wildlife lab in Sacramento, where it was evaluated and euthanized that night.

At the bakery, the wardens could place a hand on it, and all it would do was momentarily raise its head to look at them before putting its head back down, she said. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife determined that the most humane course of action was to euthanize the animal.

A necropsy is being done on the wildcats body to test for underlying diseases that may have contributed to the animals poor health, Traverso said.

Halloween may be the time for scares but not this kind... #edso was able to assist Fish and Wildlife in safely removing this juvenile lion from a local business. #sheriff #ElDoradoCounty #communitypolicing #pleasedontbiteme pic.twitter.com/EkdGY19s50  K9 Apollo (Dep. Vaughan) (@canine_apollo) October 16, 2018

alejandra.reyesvelarde@latimes.com

Twitter: @r_valejandraAn Orange County man was arrested after authorities found him broken down on the side of the road in Tulare County in a dead womans car, police said Wednesday.

Milton Louis Mayfield, 55, of Anaheim, was booked in a Santa Ana jail Tuesday night on suspicion of murder in connection with the death of a woman whose body was found in a local motel earlier in the day.

California Highway Patrol officers encountered Mayfield in a disabled vehicle on the side of the freeway in Tulare County before dawn. When officers tried to help him, Mayfield made spontaneous statements indicating he may have killed a woman, and CHP contacted Santa Ana police, Cpl. Anthony Bertagna said.

Santa Ana officials checked several motels before finding the body of the woman, later identified as Deborah Ann Simon, in a room at the Sunshine Village Motel.

Advertisement

Details about how the woman was killed were not available. Anyone with information about the case is asked to call the Santa Ana Police Department homicide division at (714) 245-8390.

alejandra.reyesvelarde@latimes.com

Twitter: @r_valejandraSurveillance video shows an off-duty Chicago police officer shooting and wounding an unarmed autistic black man, contradicting an initial police description of an armed confrontation and echoing the devastating dash-cam video evidence against a white Chicago officer who claimed a black teen tried to stab him before he fatally shot the youth.

The grainy video from a security camera on a South Side home released Tuesday by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability shows Sgt. Khalil Muhammad shooting 18-year-old Ricardo Hayes around 5 a.m. on Aug. 13, 2017.

Before the shooting, Hayes can be seen running along the sidewalk, then stopping. Muhammad pulls up alongside, with parked cars between them. Hayes takes a few steps toward him and Muhammad shoots the young man in the arm and chest. Hayes turns and runs, despite his wounds.

A lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and another on behalf of Hayes and his family say his caretaker had called police to say Hayes had wandered away from home and that he has developmental disabilities.

Advertisement

As a black teenager with disabilities, Ricky was at a heightened risk for police violence, Karen Sheley of the ACLU of Illinois said in a statement. Thankfully, he survived  but he should never have been shot.

At the time, police officials described the incident as an armed confrontation, mirroring statements by officers after the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald in November 2014. That case became a flashpoint in a city that has struggled with a deep racial divide between police and black residents. The officer in that case, Jason Van Dyke, was convicted earlier this month of second-degree murder and aggravated battery.

The sergeants call to 911 after he shot Hayes in the summer of 2017 was among the audio files released this week.

The guy, like, he was about to pull a gun. Walked up to the car, and I had to shoot, Muhammad told a Chicago Fire Department dispatcher. But according to the lawsuit filed by Hayes and his family, the teen was standing almost perfectly still, facing Officer Muhammads truck, with his hands at his sides when he was shot.

Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson later said Hayes had no weapon and, on Wednesday, department spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said Johnson will be asking Muhammad why he opened fire from inside his SUV  something officers are trained to do only if there is an imminent threat.

The Cook County States Attorneys Office has decided not to prosecute the sergeant and the state attorney general office has not said whether it will investigate the case.President Trump and Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo expressed confidence Wednesday that the Saudi government could be trusted to investigate the disappearance and suspected murder of a Virginia-based Saudi journalist in Turkey  despite the likelihood that senior Saudi officials were involved.

The double-barreled defense of the Saudi rulers signaled a shift in White House strategy and suggested the administration has decided to help its most important ally in the Arab world defuse international outrage over the fate of Jamal Khashoggi, who was a U.S. resident.

But pressure on Saudi Arabia intensified as Yeni Safak, a pro-government daily newspaper in Turkey, said it had obtained audiotapes that provided grisly new details of Khashoggis apparent torture and killing inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2.

The paper said that the dissident Saudi journalist was seized as soon as he entered, drugged with an unknown substance and tortured before he was killed. His fingers were cut off during questioning and he was decapitated, the paper reported. It said he was killed in seven minutes.

Advertisement

The Saudi consul general, Mohammad Otaibi, could be heard telling Saudi operatives sent to Istanbul that day, Do this outside. Youre going to get me in trouble, the paper reported. Otaibi abruptly left Istanbul for the Saudi capital, Riyadh, on Tuesday.

Turkish police investigators, forensic experts and prosecutors searched the Saudi consul generals residence for evidence on Wednesday afternoon. The inspection had been expected Tuesday, but authorities waited until the diplomats family had flown out of the country, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told reporters.

Turkish officials already have searched the Saudi Consulate, but did not disclose the results of their findings.

Speaking in the Oval Office, Trump said U.S. authorities had asked for the tape of Khashoggis killing, suggesting Turkish officials havent yet shared it.

Im not sure yet that it exists. Probably does. Possibly does, Trump said. He said it would be the first question he would ask Pompeo when he returns early Thursday from two days of emergency talks in Riyadh and the Turkish capital, Ankara, that focused on the Khashoggi case.

Pompeo told reporters during a refueling stop in Brussels that his meetings with Saudi King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had focused in part on the allegations of an extrajudicial killing in their consulate.

We had very direct conversations about this, the seriousness of this, how serious President Trump is taking this, how seriously the United States will take this, he said.

Pompeo said the Saudis pledged to conduct a thorough, complete and transparent investigation and would show the entire world the results.

They made a commitment, too, to hold anyone connected to any wrongdoing that may be found accountable  whether they are a senior officer or official, he said. He added, Its reasonable to give them a handful of days more to complete it so they get it right, so that its thorough and complete.

He declined to say if he had asked for or had heard the alleged torture tape, but said he had spoken to Khashoggis Turkish fiancee, Hatice Cengiz. Asked whether he believed the Saudi rulers repeated denial of complicity, Pompeo said he was reserving judgment.

Saudi Arabia is far less popular in Congress than in the White House, and a weak U.S. response will not sit well with many lawmakers, nor with the political and foreign policy establishment, who have denounced Saudi Arabia and the Trump administrations handling of the case.

Really, the president of the United States should be a leader, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) told reporters in Coral Gables, Fla. He should not be a person who makes excuses for countries just because of a financial deal, personal or official.  This strikes to the heart of our democracy, it undermines our values as we are viewed in the rest of the world and, quite frankly, if it werent so serious, I would say it looked silly.

Khashoggi, who was 59 when he disappeared, was a U.S.-educated journalist who covered major international stories, including the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the subsequent rise of Osama bin Laden, whom he briefly befriended, for Saudi news organizations. He later served as an advisor to and spokesman for top Saudi officials, including their ambassador in Washington.

He fell out of favor with the government after the crown prince consolidated his grip on power over the last two years with mass arrests of rivals and critics, holding some hostage until they reportedly handed over vast fortunes. Khashoggi went into self-imposed exile last year in a bedroom suburb of Washington, D.C., and wrote a monthly opinion column in the Washington Post in which he criticized the crackdown.

He first visited the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Sept. 28 to obtain a document certifying he had divorced his ex-wife so he could remarry. He made an appointment to pick up the paperwork at 1:30 on the afternoon of Oct. 2, while his fiancee waited outside.

He reportedly gave her his two cellphones and told her to call an advisor to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan  a personal friend  if he did not emerge. Saudi officials said he left the consulate within two hours, but have offered no explanation as to how he disappeared.

Neither Trump nor Pompeo offered any new facts or insights in the case Wednesday. But unless authorities recover his body or other conclusive evidence of his death, the mystery may remain unsolved.

Pompeo urged Americans to be mindful of the extensive energy, economic and security ties between Riyadh and Washington, including efforts against what he called the worlds largest supporter of terrorism, Iran, Saudi Arabias traditional rival in the region.

The Saudis have been great partners in working alongside us on these issues, Pompeo said in Ankara. We need to make sure we are mindful of that as we approach decisions on whether to impose sanctions or take other punitive steps against Riyadh, as many in Congress and elsewhere have urged.

While Pompeo was in Riyadh, the Saudi government made good on a long-promised pledge and paid $100 million to the U.S. to assist in the rebuilding of war-ravaged Syria, U.S. officials said. The officials called the timing coincidental.

Few experts believe the Saudis will have to expend much capital to buy their way out of the crisis, primarily because of Trumps good favor.

Trump, if you are on his side, is going to defend you, said Daniel Byman, a former CIA analyst specializing in the Middle East who is now an associate dean at Georgetown University.

He sees the Saudis as his friends, Byman said. This is not a moment when the administration is saying, No. Roll back. Make these concessions. He is defending his supporters as part of a broader strategic relationship  for better or worse.

Some experts suggested the Saudis may make nominal gestures, such as more talk of reform in the repressive desert kingdom, or an overture to Israel, an official enemy.

In that view, Khashoggi may be a casualty of harsh political realities. Saudi Arabia lies at the center of Washingtons strategic and political engagement with the region. The Trump administrations enmity for Iran and its allies, including Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syrian President Bashar Assad, dovetails with Riyadhs goals to limit Tehrans influence.

The administration has turned to Saudi Arabia to lead  and finance  its anti-Iran drive in the region, while Riyadh relies on U.S. weapons and logistical support to pursue an increasingly unpopular war in Yemen against Iran-backed Houthi rebels.

The Saudi government is reported to have pressured the Palestinians, and countries with large numbers of Palestinian refugees, including Jordan and Lebanon, into considering a Middle East peace plan that was crafted by Trumps son-in-law and senior advisor, Jared Kushner, and is still under wraps. The White House clearly would like to see what Trump has called the ultimate deal succeed, and would value Saudi support.

The response in the Middle East to the Khashoggi incident has largely reflected where each country sits in the conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran. At least nine countries arrayed around the Persian Gulf closed ranks behind Saudi Arabia, although some say an investigation is required.

Saudi leaders for nearly two weeks denied knowing anything about Khashoggis disappearance. On Monday, they began floating a scenario  initially adopted by Trump  that blamed the death inside the consulate on rogue killers, and then suggested the journalist was accidentally killed during an interrogation that went awry.

On Tuesday, Trump offered more support for Riyadh, saying the Saudis were innocent until proven guilty and comparing the Khashoggi case to the allegations of sexual misconduct that nearly derailed the Senate confirmation of new Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Analysts familiar with the desert kingdom said it was likely that Saudi leaders were hoping the scandal would blow over and that they could wait it out.

We received commitments that they would complete this [investigation], and I am counting on them to do that, Pompeo said. They gave me their word.

Wilkinson reported from Washington and Bulos reported from Beirut. Times staff writers Mark Z. Barabak in Coral Gables and Jennifer Haberkorn in Washington contributed to this report.

tracy.wilkinson@latimes.com

For more on international affairs, follow @TracyKWilkinson on Twitter

UPDATES:

4:35 p.m.: This article was updated with details about the investigation.

10:05 a.m.: This article was updated with President Trumps latest comments.

7:50 a.m.: This article was updated with comments by Secretary of State Pompeo.

This article was originally published at 4:20 a.m.The first black female Republican in Congress is facing a tough challenge from a well-known Democratic mayor in a largely suburban Utah district where many say they are wary of President Trump.

U.S. Rep. Mia Love has sought to create some distance from the president while challenger Ben McAdams criticizes her record and pitches himself as a moderate.

The tight race also has a potential down-ballot wild card: A hotly contested medical marijuana proposal that could bring out new voters.

Love, considered a rising star in the GOP, is fighting to keep her seat in a race targeted by national Democrats hoping to regain control of the House. She contends that she stands up to Trump on issues such as immigration and trade.

Advertisement

I wasnt sent to Washington to walk in lockstep behind the president, or just be there and fight everything, she said, pointing to the federal tax overhaul as a GOP accomplishment.

McAdams, meanwhile, is seeking to burnish his image as a family man planted firmly on the political middle ground who would not support California Rep. Nancy Pelosi as House speaker if the Democrats gain control. I dont like President Trump, but thats not going to stop me from working with him, he said.

In another year, a Democrat would have little chance of making serious headway against a GOP incumbent in a Utah district where Republicans hold a 3-to-1 registration margin.

This year, its a dead heat.

Utah voters, though generally conservative, have long been wary of Trumps brash style and comments about women and immigrants. While Republican politicians elsewhere have fallen after running afoul of the president, Utah GOP voters picked onetime critic Mitt Romney as Senate nominee in a landslide.

Loves district includes suburbs of blue Salt Lake City, where anti-Trump sentiment runs particularly high.

Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams answers a question as he and U.S. Rep. Mia Love participate in a debate earlier this week. (Scott G Winterton / Associated Press)

Aaron Wood of Orem, who works with people with disabilities and is concerned about possible cuts to programs such as Social Security, said hes leaning toward voting for McAdams because he feels like Love is too closely aligned with Trump.

Its a problem and not a good direction for Utah, he said.

The candidates exchanged sharp words during a debate on Monday, with McAdams accusing Love of supporting cuts to Social Security and environmental regulations while failing to be available at town halls.

I feel like youve changed, honestly, you went to Washington and youve changed, he said.

Love says he is distorting her record. She said she supports reforms to Social Security for younger people as well as compromise environmental legislation and is available to voters in small groups or telephone town halls.

We have to let people know honesty still means something, integrity still means something, she said.

The race could be affected by factors that have little to do directly with either candidate.

Voters will also be deciding on a medical marijuana ballot proposal opposed by the highly influential Mormon church. The faith now backs a compromise to legalize it with strict regulations.

The issue could bring more people to the polls, said Damon Cann, a political scientist at Utah State University. New voters can register on election day for the first time this year.

McAdams says hell vote for the medical marijuana ballot proposal, while Love said she supports the compromise, but wouldnt say if shell vote for it.

While that issue could be a bump for McAdams, the ballot also holds a potential lift for Love with Romneys high-profile Senate run. The record there is mixed, though: His presidential candidacy didnt lift her to victory over a well-known Democrat in 2012.

Love, a daughter of Haitian immigrants, became the countrys first black female Republican in the U.S. House in 2014. She was clear when asked whether her race runs counter to a national narrative about more minority women running for office, mostly Democrats: Diversity is great for them until you actually have an independent thought.

McAdams six years as mayor of Salt Lake County included going undercover as a homeless person pushing back against a tax break for a once-planned Facebook data center.The national and international news media continue to obsess about the congressional races underway in Orange County. Just this month I have been interviewed about how my historically conservative and now purple-ish homeland could help turn the House blue by reporters from San Francisco, Switzerland and Spain. (Step up, Sweden and Samoa.)

Democrats smell blood. Theyve poured millions of dollars into O.C. to support candidates Gil Cisneros (39th Congressional District), Katie Porter (45th), Harley Rouda (48th) and Mike Levin (49th). I get the appeal: Winning those races could help snatch a branch of Congress from the GOPs grip, and represent a victory of irresistible symbolic value. Orange County represented solely by Democrats in Washington? Whats next? Beverly Hills turns pro-Purple Line?

But if Democrats want to hold power for a generation instead of just one election cycle, I suggest they lavish some of their cash and attention on Orange Countys country cousin: the Central Valley, which is historically even more conservative. Democratic congressional candidates there face a tougher challenge grabbing seats from Republican incumbents Jeff Denham (10th Congressional District), David Valadao (21st) and Devin Nunes (22nd).

Nevertheless, the Central Valley is competitive in ways that analysts should, well, analyze. Because the national party always overlooks them, Democrats there have had to sharpen their message and organize smarter and better to win against entrenched Republicans. Because of this, Valley ballots are filled with lessons for Democrats if they want to thwart a President Trump reelection in 2020.

Advertisement

Democrats in the Central Valley have had to sharpen their message and organize smarter and better to win against entrenched Republicans.

First off, the Democratic Party across the Valley knows that to get voters to the polls it sure helps to have some candidates who reflect the demographics of the region. In California, that means Latinos.

In the Central Valley, seven of them are running for Congress, state Assembly and the state Senate, only one of them a Republican. (Hey, there always has to be a token.) Its a good mix of veterans and first-timers, the better to appeal to excitable millennials but also older folks who appreciate familiar names and want to reward politicians with proven track records.

Among the rookies is Aileen Rizo, a math educator whos gunning for the 23rd Assembly District but first became famous for suing the Fresno County Office of Education for equal pay  an issue that resonates powerfully with young people.

Meanwhile, Tatiana Matta, a PR person from something called Rosamond, is taking on wannabe House Speaker Kevin McCarthy for the 23rd Congressional District. She has little chance of winning, but knows that its ultimately not about her. Its about running against the guy who just introduced a bill to fully fund Trumps border wall. Theres a big Latino population that needs to be heard, she told the Bakersfield Californian. I think thats where we can make a change. Were hoping to inspire people to join the conversation.

Newcomers like Rizo and Matta notwithstanding, Democratic Party leaders have also been creating a farm system of political candidates from Bakersfield to Sacramento. Local Democratic politicians have been gaining experience on local boards to be ready when for the big time when needed. This election shows the fruits of their labor.

Assemblyman Rudy Salas of the 32nd District started off as a Bakersfield councilman. Sanger councilwoman Melissa Hurtado is now aiming for the seat of 14th state Senate District incumbent Andy Vidak. And Kern County just switched to district elections for its Board of Supervisors to get more minorities elected, ensuring a new pool of candidates for the future.

This Valley resistance draws its power mostly from female-led groups like the Democratic Women of Kern but also young Latino lawyers and entrepreneurs tired of being treated as the regions perpetual peons. Its a base thats ultimately more sustaining and attractive than the Democrats dalliances with union and tech-bro cash.

Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute 

Valley activists are also organizing to make sure that voters get to the polls during the midterm election, which Latinos usually, notoriously sit out. Mother Jones recently published a good analysis about the millennial volunteers at work in districts that are majority Latino and working class yet have some of the reddest Republicans representing them (Nunes is basically crimson).

Reporter Tom Philpott hung out with former Fresno State student body president Pedro Ramirez, who once got Nunes to vow hed vote for the Dream Act. Now, the undocumented Ramirez is working to register voters as revenge, because Nunes obviously reneged on his promise. Philpott also mentioned 99Rootz, a get-out-the-vote group whose strategy director told Mother Jones, People dont see [Latino youth] as the change agents they can be.

I definitely want Orange County to drown in a blue wave this election. But Im more excited about what will happen in the Central Valley  maybe not in 2018, but for sure in 2020 and beyond. The Valley is a lot more like the rest of America than Southern California is, and if the Dems can succeed there, they have a winning message and some tested strategies to take to rural and small-town America.

So journalists, local and not: To find the true California congressional story this year, drive up Highway 99. And stop at La Michoacana Bakery in Delhi on Sundays for some of the best birria in the Golden State. Youll thank me later for both tips.

mexicanwithglasses@gmail.com

Follow @GustavoArellano on Twitter.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.Neil deGrasse Tyson showed up with a substantial backpack whose contents, he assured me, could restart the universe if necessary. It was certainly heavy enough to do the job; perhaps it was packed with a rare mineral  maybe osmium, twice as heavy as lead. Or maybe it contained copies of his new book, also substantial, called Accessory to War: The Unspoken Alliance Between Astrophysics and the Military.

He wrote it with his longtime editor Avis Lang, and it charts the long courtship  sometimes willing, sometimes shotgun nuptials  between the practitioners of space science and the military defenders of the nation. His own thinking on this took an interesting trajectory too. And President Trumps space force? Not an original idea, Tyson says, but not altogether a bad one.

Click here for the full archive of Patt Morrison Asks podcasts 

How did nice astrophysicists like you wind up in a racket like this?

Advertisement

Nearly all of us are nice in the way that I think youre describing us. Astrophysics is perhaps the most humble of all sciences. When you look at what we do, we ascend to mountaintops and wait for photons to travel across the galaxy or the universe to hit our detector, and then we bring the detector to the coffee lounge and debate what happened to the detector.

We dont have direct access to what it is we study the way a chemist would, or a biologist, or any of the other sciences. We dont really interact with or interfere with what it is we study, and so we tend to be a peaceful lot.

Were overwhelmingly liberal, antiwar, I would say, and yet we are complicit with what happens in the military with regard to their inventions that we can exploit, or our inventions or discoveries that they can exploit.

For example, the military might employ a physicist to make a bomb, as happened in the Second World War. Thats the exemplar of this kind of relationship with science. The physicists made the atom bomb. The chemists made napalm or other incendiary bombs that require chemical reactions to generate heat. The biologist in modern times might be tapped to weaponize anthrax.

Their role in war is clear and present. Its not as though were all employed to make war machines. Thats not our expertise; were not interested in that. We just do things that the military happens to care deeply about.

For example, we care about multispectral imaging of dim objects over our head. This is a very high concern for the military: What is flying over your head? Lets detect it. Is it stealthy?

Were overwhelmingly liberal, antiwar, I would say, and yet we are complicit with what happens in the military.

Oh, by the way, the military has the fastest computers in the world for just that purpose. Oh, I might want to visit and use their computer in their code. Oh, and on the other side of the wall are people calculating the yields of hydrogen bombs, which is thermonuclear fusion, converting hydrogen to helium. Thats why theyre called hydrogen bombs.

Its the same phenomenon going on, one used for destruction, the other used to understand stars in the universe. So its this shared interest that has made for quite interesting bedfellows over the centuries.

Consider also the history of astronomers in the service of empire-building. We know the sky really well, we know where stars are, where and when you find them, and you can use this information to help you find out where you are on Earth. This is navigation.

And navigation is about expanding trade and empire.

Im glad you also mentioned trade, because there is military empire-building but theres also trade-building, right? These were equal motives.

If youre not into trade, youre just into hegemony I love that word, that is an underused word today: hegemony  or empire-building, youre going to want an astronomer right there with you.

The best example of that is Captain Cook. Weve all heard of Captain Cook and his voyages in the South Pacific. The top story of why he went to the South Pacific, the one you saw or read about, is, Oh theres a transit of Venus, a planet between us and the sun. Every couple of hundred years or so, it will pass exactly between us and the sun, and you can see the darkened disc of Venus move across the surface of the sun.

And it becomes a way of measuring many other things of consequence too.

And you can only see this transit of Venus from the South Pacific. Thats what the top story is. But then you flip over his instructions: While youre there, shh, take these new navigational tools and map the coastline of every landmass you encounter and bring back those maps. Shhhh  OK, now, go observe the transit of Venus.

So Captain Cook goes, brilliantly measures the transit of Venus, oh, and maps the coastline of all the landmasses he finds  and within 18 years, Great Britain takes over Australia, New Zealand, the Cook Islands, Fiji.

In 2003, at the National Space Symposium, this came to you like a bolt from the blue.

I was on the board of the Space Foundation, which serves space interest organizations and agencies. It just so happened the opening day was three days after the second Gulf War kicked in.

The way that war was conducted was entirely enabled by space assets that had been slowly but surely put into orbit, and that included an entire suite of GPS satellites, something we all take for granted today. This is pre-Uber, pre-all these industries that now rely on using GPS for coordinate tracking of things, and so all these space assets were invoked.

There was CNN up there on the screen. Everybodys watching because some sessions were shortened or curtailed or canceled so that we could all just watch this war unfold in front of our eyes.

And I said, oh, my gosh, there are people dying in there and this is not a video game. Whats going on here? I got a little  I beat back the tears.

My first awareness of the world was in the 1960s, when the Vietnam War became extremely unpopular. So to me war equaled bad, just flat out.

Whats that song, War: What is it good for? Absolutely nothing! Say it again!

The lyric didnt specify the Vietnam War  it just said war. So it was clear to me that there is no good excuse to run around killing people. Why do we do it?

Theres a history of science standing in opposition to some of its own creations, whether its Einstein or physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Correct. Thats science in general. The most vocal scientists were physicists in opposition to the bomb, how the proliferation of the nuclear bombs had occurred during the Cold War in particular. The opposition to the bomb in the Second World War did not take place until it was clear that Nazi Germany was not close to making the bomb. But we just still kept making the bomb. And then the target was no longer Germany; it became Japan.

And this is where peoples moral compass got tested: You have this weapon. Do you still use it, even though the original intent no longer even applies?

So Im there in Colorado Springs [at the symposium], wondering, do I resign? Can I do this in good conscience? This is space. This is my first love. And now its a platform for enabling death and destruction.

And then I realized something. Let not call it epiphany. Let me call it maturity.

I already had a point of cognitive dissonance in my head growing up. You go around town, any town, and there are war memorials. And I say, wow. If war equals bad, why are we glorifying soldiers this way? I just didnt understand it.

Then I realized, Oh, not all wars are the same as the Vietnam War. If you were around watching Hitler rise to power, and you have the power to do something about that, will you sit silently?

You almost have an obligation to invoke whatever resources you have to promote civilization against the forces of evil that could dismantle it. I know that had I been around at other times, I surely would have voted on the side of war. I surely would have said, sign me up because these are evil forces that I want to combat.

So not all war is what one might consider moral or just. But theres a whole category of wars that are, and to the extent that my intellectual capital, my communitys resources would be tapped for that, I no longer stood in judgment of it.

It occurred to me this kind of thing wed been going on for centuries. Look at Leonard da Vinci one of the greatest minds weve ever had, the exemplar of the bridge between art and science. You look at his resume and his sketchbook of military instruments, and he was basically selling his talents to dukes and whoever the heads of state were in his day, so that he could get a job.

I think what happens is, you need a good moral compass. Oh, youre killing people just for the sake of killing people? Are you killing people just for the sake of your own economic gain? Are you killing people just for hegemony, just for empire-building? Or is this conflict something that in fact will serve the greater good of the world?

And you have to think about that every time youre ready to raise a weapon  as a scientist, most certainly.

When it comes to space, before Sputnik in 1957, space was in a sense tabula rasa. Then the United States puts a man on the moon and leaves a plaque that says we came in peace for all mankind. Was that just BS-ing us? Was that just kumbaya on the moon?

First of all, just to make it clear, Sputnik was a little radio transmitter that went beep-beep with radio waves.

And scared the hell out of the entire United States.

Let me tell you why it scared us. There are treaties about who has access to your airspace. However, Sputnik was moving through space-space, not airspace. Theres no rules about that.

So there was Sputnik over our head, A. B, that radio transmitter was in the hollowed-out cone of an intercontinental ballistic missile. So if they can deliver a radio transmitter that goes beep-beep overhead, they can deliver an intercontinental ballistic missile. Period.

Thats why we just lost it. We freaked. And so we reacted.

Then we say, We come in peace for all mankind  but plant an American flag. Not a United Nations flag or anything else. But it is true we didnt put weapons there or anything. There was not a weaponized mission to the moon.

But it was understood in the government that space would be a contested place?

I wouldnt say the government specifically, but the military specifically, yes. The military is always looking for the next high ground. Thats their job. And ideally, you would not want to ever have to fight a war. Youd want diplomacy to prevent it. Youd invest money in ways that rendered the weapons of your opponent obsolete.

By the way  space? There is incalculable value of American assets in space right now. Not just in the value of the satellites that are orbiting there themselves: the GPS satellites, the communications satellites, the spy satellites, the weather satellites.

But then theres the value of the information it provides back on Earth. Theres the value of hurricane forecasting that it enables, so that you can protect industry and life and property. There is the value of entire industries that exist only because of GPS, such as Uber,

You add all of that up, you can now ask the question, what is the role of the military in that? I want them to protect our assets if a rogue player shows up and our assets are in space, as an American citizen, as a scientist, as a human being who has hard-earned tax money that goes into these assets, business money.

To think that you would not want or need to protect those assets would be naive.

When it comes to who is going to govern space, how do you see this evolving? is it going to be who gets there first with the biggest firepower? Is there any agency, any mechanism that can make this place more orderly and perhaps safer than it is now, or than it looks to become?

When we think of governance, we think of governing municipalities, something that has a border that you can draw. Space has no such border because a satellite, to maintain orbit, orbits the entire Earth and it flies over everything.

My point is that jurisdiction becomes difficult if everybodys sharing the same space. So the concept of jurisdiction matters more if you ask the question, who owns the moon? Who owns Mars? Who owns an asteroid? Who owns a comet?

If I invest my own money, if Im an entrepreneur and I lasso an asteroid and I mine it for its mineral resources, is it wrong for me to say that I own it?

Weve been through something like that before. Its called homesteading. What was homesteading about? Here is undeveloped land  undeveloped in a commercial sense  and if you go there and clear the land, make your own house, create a farm, you get to keep it, provided you now contribute to the economy of the region.

Theres a version of that that applies to space. Do you want one country to own the moon? That sounds wrong. Same with Mars. There are are people who are thinking this stuff through right now.

The Trump administration has proposed a space force, and it generated a lot of mockery. Youd conceived the idea of a space force a number of years ago but with different purposes. Obviously theyd have to build a hexagon to replace the Pentagon because wed now have six branches of the military. What could a space force actually be and do?

The mockery was, for my read, primarily driven by people who are in the business of criticizing everything Trump does. But if you really think it through, just because it came out of Trumps mouth doesnt mean its a crazy idea.

You analyze it deeply and youll realize we already have a space force. Its a branch of the Air Force. Its called U.S. Space Command. Theyre the ones who launch the GPS satellites. They and some other reconnaissance branches of the government, care about spy satellites

We already have a military presence in space. A space force would simply group them under one umbrella.

And you might add in a few other tasks.

While youre at it, folks, why dont you protect us from killer asteroids? Right?

And space junk.

Space junk! Throw that in the bin, too, by all means!

I remember suggesting a space force in 2001. I was on a commission appointed by George W. Bush to study the future of the aerospace industry, which was on hard times at the time, and I proposed a space force.

We had a four-star Air Force general on this commission and he felt that they had everything under control.

But for a space force to pull away, become its own branch  thats not any different, really, from the Air Force branching away from the Army. A space regime is as different from navigating air as navigating air is from navigating the ground.

Whats happening with what is essentially a conflict between the military or the government, which wants to keep secrets with technology, and science, which is about opening up knowledge?

Completely open knowledge. And thats the difference. We can make a discovery and publish it and then the military just take it. Whereas they can make a discovery, keep it classified, and we dont have access to it until its declassified.

That happened many times, including when they figured out a way to stabilize a stars image as the light passes through.

So theres no wobble?

So there is no wobble and theres no twinkling. Because if theyre going to track a missile moving through the sky, they want to know exactly where the thing is in that instant, It cant have been jiggled and wiggled by turbulence in Earths atmosphere.

They figured out a way to stabilize it. Wed been grappling with this problem forever and they finally declassified it and we said yes, we want that and we want it now!

We took it and immediately retrofitted our best telescopes with it. Its called image stabilization techniques, and it is the foundation of our best data that we get from ground-based telescopes today.

Maybe youd like to read from the end of your book.

The almost-final word goes to the anonymous carrier of a placard at one of the 600-plus marches for science that took place around the world on April 22, 2017. Think while its still legal, urged the placard. And while youre thinking, try to imagine that each of us is a transient assemblage of atoms and molecules, and that our planet is one small pebble ambling in orbit through the vacuum of space; that astrophysics, the historical handmaiden of human conflict, now offers a way to redirect our species urges to kill into collaborative urges to explore, to uncover alien civilizations, to link Earth with the rest of the cosmos  genetically, chemically, atomically  and to protect our home planet until the suns furnace burns itself out 5 billion years hence. Try to imagine such things not because they are imaginary, but because they are true.

I think the most hopeful message here for me is that one category of war that has existed with us from the beginning, since tribal warfare, is the urge to kill because you dont have access to limited resources that the other tribe does.

Space has basically unlimited resources. The future might be the solar system becomes our backyard where we have unlimited access to resources, and that could be the end of all wars over resources.

We might still kill each other because our skin is different or we worship different gods, but war is over who has access to what? Raw materials? No, that would be a thing of the past.

One of the greatest solutions to conflict that we ever might find is the exploration of space, removing an entire category of war from the history of civilization

Planetary plenty.

Aplenty!

Already a subscriber? Thank you for your support. If you are not, please consider subscribing today. Get full access to our signature journalism for just 99 cents for the first four weeks.

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion or Facebook

MORE PATT MORRISON ASKS

Guess what? The rich really are different from everyone else  and it aint pretty

Have tech companies like Facebook tricked us into abandoning our humanity?

Ken Burns on making his Vietnam War documentary: I was humiliated by what I didnt knowTo the editor: In 2010 I flew from Minnesota to El Salvador to join in the commemoration of Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romeros 1980 assassination. I returned to my privileged life in the United States with two deep impressions. (I want this day to heal me: For thousands, the canonization of Oscar Romero was deeply personal, Oct 15)

First, the Salvadoran people have suffered a long and tragic history of violence and oppression, much of it aided and abetted by U.S. government policies and actions. My second impression was that Salvadorans canonized their monsenor long before Rome did. In chants and signs, viva Romero was everywhere.

Just before his assassination, this courageous man who would become a Roman Catholic saint said this: If I am killed, I shall arise in the Salvadoran people. I say so without boasting, with the greatest humility.  A bishop will die, but Gods church, which is the people, will never perish.

Jay Lindgren, St. Louis Park, Minn.

Advertisement

..

To the editor: While it is not known who shot Romero in 1980, it is well known that ex-Salvadoran Army Maj. Roberto DAubuisson was the person who planned and directed his assassination.

DAubuisson was trained at the U.S. Army School of the Americas, where many Latin American soldiers were trained by U.S. military officials. Those soldiers were involved in brutal massacres and human rights abuses for decades. The Salvadoran military received $1 million each day from the U.S. government in the 1980s.

Thus, while it is true that Romeros gunman is unknown, we know who killed Romero: the American government, which was concerned that democratic regimes would come into power that might introduce policies benefiting the majority rather than U.S. corporations.

Romero was a prophetic, nonviolent voice who said, If I am killed, I shall arise in the Salvadoran people. He has again risen from the dead  and not only in the Salvadoran people. Wherever people are struggling to be free, Romero is there, loving those who are working for dignity and justice.

Ralph Armbruster Sandoval, Santa Barbara

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and FacebookTo the editor: Righteous indignation over the likely death of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi is being expressed by countless Americans. Most of us feel impotent, however, to do anything about it.

The Saudi ruling family is a wealthy bunch and uses its money to intimidate or buy off anyone who would try to interfere in its machinations. But there is a chink in the royals armor: Their wealth comes exclusively from oil, so anything that reduces demand for oil scares them.

This is where you come in. If you drive an internal combustion car, switch to an electric vehicle. Youll not only eliminate the pollution you were generating, you will also forever stop giving money to the oil industry.

As more of us take this step, we will eventually eliminate oil as the energy source for all ground transport. Saudi Arabia will have to deal with the loss of most of its income and the knowledge that its deadly ways hastened that loss.

Advertisement

Paul Scott, Santa Monica

The writer co-founded the electric vehicle advocacy group Plug-In America.

..

To the editor: Trump suggested when he asked Russian President Vladimir Putin if his country tried to influence our election, and Putin denied it, he believed him.

Trump said when he asked North Korean leader Kim Jong Un if he was going to destroy his nuclear weapons program, and Kim said yes, he believed him.

When Trump asked the Saudi crown prince about a Washington Post journalist, and the prince denied his government was responsible for his death, Trump suggested he believed him.

Ronald Reagans pronouncement of trust but verify is somehow lost on this president. How come he believes dictators but not the people around him?

Lou Rosen, Pacific Palisades

..

To the editor: Funny how quick people forget that President Obama had two American citizens killed by drone strikes on foreign soil. I guess a different morality applies to him.

Bob Launius, Oxnard

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and FacebookIn their only scheduled joint appearance before election day, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein and her challenger, state Sen. Kevin de Leon, clashed Wednesday on, well, very little actually.

The two Democrats agreed that the U.S. Senate, if their party takes control, should take another look at the sexual assault allegations made against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Neither are fans of Gov. Jerry Browns proposed $17-billion twin-tunnels project in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

And they agreed immigration should be a priority in the next Congress.

Advertisement

The discussion ended with the traditional handshake, and then a surprise hug and a kiss on Feinsteins cheek from De Leon.

The hourlong public conversation took place at noon Wednesday in San Francisco. The format  a question posed to each with three-minute responses  did not allow Feinstein and De Leon to engage each other, and the two candidates rarely interacted during the cordial event, hosted by the Public Policy Institute of California. (The candidates campaigns disagree on whether the event constitutes a debate.)

Neither directly attacked the other, and the closest thing to criticism came when De Leon promised to be a fresh voice for California, likely a reference to Feinsteins long tenure in office.

Throughout the event, De Leon emphasized what he had been able to accomplish in California on immigration and clean energy as state Senate leader, compared with the lack of achievement in recent years by Congress.

Feinstein emphasized that compromise is necessary because Democrats are in the minority and dont have the power to press forward alone.

I wish Democrats in Washington would fight like hell for Dreamers the way Donald J. Trump and Republicans fight like hell for his stupid wall, De Leon said, speaking of young immigrants brought to the country illegally as children.

That prompted Feinstein to push back, reminding him that while he led a Democratic-controlled California Senate, the United States Senate and House are firmly in Republican hands. She implored those watching to vote for Democrats and at least take control of the House.

You can march, you can filibuster, you can talk all night. It doesnt change anything. What changes things are elections, Feinstein said.

With no other debates scheduled and 20 days until the midterm, it was likely the only time the two will appear on the same stage before Nov. 6.

About 100 people were able to watch the exchange in person. As of Wednesday afternoon, no television station had committed to airing the event at a time of day when more voters would have a chance to watch it. The video will be available on the Public Policy Institutes website.

De Leon, who was relatively unknown statewide before entering the race last spring, would benefit from a major, free-wheeling, televised debate to make his case directly to voters, something Feinsteins campaign has not agreed to.

There were no debates during the primary, and Feinstein hasnt met face-to-face in a formal debate with a general election opponent since 2000. The contest has drawn little interest statewide, and her biggest job for the afternoon was to not make news.

Wednesdays forum almost didnt happen. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley scheduled a hearing to consider federal judicial nominees in Washington on the same day, which temporarily cast doubt on whether the event would go forward. But Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the committee, and every other Democratic committee member skipped the usual recess hearing in Washington. Grassley and most committee Republicans didnt attend either.

Feinstein has led by 20 points in nearly every poll since the primary, which she won with 44% of the vote. With a multimillion-dollar loan to her campaign, she has also dominated in fundraising for the last year and enters the final weeks of the race with a more than 10-to-1 cash advantage.

The funding discrepancy has kept De Leon from running television ads and made it difficult for him to define himself statewide against a senator whom Californians have known for the last 25 years.

The latest from Washington 

More stories from Sarah D. Wire 

sarah.wire@latimes.com

Follow @sarahdwire on TwitterA record number of female combat veterans are on the ballot in congressional races this fall, a test of whether women can repeat the success American men have long enjoyed of parlaying military experience into political careers.

The nine candidates have the potential to more than double the number of female combat veterans on Capitol Hill, the first two of whom were elected only six years ago. And while six of the nine candidates are Democrats, their success or failure could serve as a trial run for both parties in future election cycles.

There has been this long tradition of men leveraging their military service into political service, said Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), who was one of the first female military veterans in Congress when she was elected to the House in 2012. And now youre seeing women do that.  Theyre doing just what the men have done.

The increase traces directly back to the militarys decision to open up combat roles to women in 1993, when many of the current candidates were just starting their careers. A quarter-century later, those women have retired from the military and see Congress as a logical next step.

Advertisement

I flew 89 combat missions in the U.S. Marine Corps and my 90th mission is running for Congress, Amy McGrath, a retired lieutenant colonel who is running in the 6th Congressional District in Kentucky, says in a catchy campaign ad that taps into her military experience as well as the struggles of taking young children to the doctors office.

The candidates also represent a slice of what has become a monumental election cycle with record numbers of Democratic female candidates, many of whom say they were inspired by the 2016 Womens March and are running to serve as a check on President Trump.

A lot of the things I worked so hard for as a member of the military and as a citizen ... I really feel they are in jeopardy, said Chrissy Houlahan, a Democratic retired Air Force captain who is running in a district outside of Philadelphia. She said shes driven in part by concern for people such as her father, who was a refugee to the United States, and her daughter, who is gay.

Elaine Luria, who is hoping to unseat freshman Republican Rep. Scott Taylor in a Virginia Beach, Va., area district, said she sees running for office as a continuation of the commitment she made on her first day at the U.S. Naval Academy  a sentiment many of the candidates have repeated in campaign letters, at neighborhood fund-raisers and in television ads.

I cant sit on the sidelines in our current political climate, she said.

Each candidate has made their military service a leading part of the biography theyve presented to voters, with images of them in uniform on their websites and in television ads. Rep. Martha McSally  the only GOP female veteran on the ballot in a Senate race  has used it to draw a contrast with her Democratic opponent in their Arizona contest. She is going to host President Trump at an event at an Arizona Air Force base Friday.

I put my life on the line for our country, I flew 325 combat hours protecting our freedoms and our way of life, McSally said, one of several military references she made during a debate with Kyrsten Sinema this week.

And theyve combined their military service with other issues, such as an ad in which Gina Ortiz Jones  who is hoping to unseat Rep. Will Hurd in Texas  spoke about her mothers battle with cancer while Ortiz Jones was serving in Iraq.

Democratic congressional candidate Chrissy Houlahan holds a campaign rally in Philadelphia on Sept. 21. (Matt Rourke / Associated Press)

Many of the candidates lean on their military background to frame why they decided to run.

I have been pretty much serving the country my entire adult life, said Mikie Sherrill, a retired Navy lieutenant commander running in New Jersey. To see a lot of the things I had worked so hard for, all the values that I believed in, to come under attack ... I decided it was [time] to run for office.

Three of the candidates are Republicans. McSallys race is neck and neck. Two other Republican candidates face an uphill battle in Democratic-leaning House districts in a year that is unlikely to trend their way: four-time candidate Wendy Rogers, an Air Force pilot seeking to unseat Democratic Rep. Tom OHalleran in Arizona; and Aja Smith, an Air Force veteran hoping to unseat Riverside Democratic Rep. Mark Takano.

Six of the veterans are first-time Democratic candidates pursing House seats  half of them are poised to win their races or are keeping the polls tight a few weeks ahead of election day. The six women are reshaping what has traditionally been an area of strength for the GOP: military service.

The incredible female veterans running for Congress have built some of the strongest campaigns in the country and have helped us to expand the House battlefield, including in districts that President Trump carried by a wide margin, said Meredith Kelly, communications director for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Theres no question that this is both the year of the woman and the veteran, and thats a huge asset for Democrats.

Veteran status helps blunt a frequent stereotype that female politicians face on the campaign trail: that theyre not tough enough to take on significant responsibility, lead others or confront opponents.

Female candidates ran into that, but military women have that advantage where we dont get as much question about whether were as tough as men, Duckworth said. As a woman running for office, having a military background is a real political advantage and it negates the perception that women are not as strong on defense and military issues.

Sherrill once had a man ask her after a small event if anyone thought she wasnt tough enough for the job, perhaps hinting at his own concern. She reminded him that shes a former Navy pilot and a federal prosecutor. He said, Oh yeah, youll be fine, Sherrill said.

Several of the candidates have striking similarities in their biographies. Most of them are in their early 40s; three of them  Luria, McGrath and Sherrill  overlapped at the U.S. Naval Academy. Several of them are mothers  a point they tout on the trail.

Rogers, McGrath, McSally, Sherrill and MJ Hegar, who received a Purple Heart award for her service in the Air Force and is now running for a Texas seat, were all military pilots, a coincidence that Duckworth chalks up to the fact that helicopter pilot was one of the first combat jobs made available to women.

The six Democratic candidates have already formed an alliance. They  along with two former CIA officers who are also running for office for the first time  have the backing of the Serve America PAC, a political action committee organized by Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) with the goal of electing Democratic veterans to Congress. They put together an online video outlining their service.

Despite their geographic distances  they are running to represent districts in Virginia, Texas, New Jersey, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Kentucky  the eight featured in the video have connected over their shared background and the travails of being first-time candidates. Theyve jokingly been dubbed the Bad Ass Tour, Houlahan and Sherrill said.

Most campaigns are really isolating  you run on your own, Houlahan said. We found on our own that we were more powerful together than apart.

Will California flip the House? The key races to watch 

The nine veterans who made the ballot in November represent only a fraction of the 43 female veterans  29 Democrats, 11 Republicans  who raised their hand to run for office this election cycle, according to With Honor, a super PAC that backs veteran candidates of both parties in House races, including all six of the Democratic female veteran candidates. Others lost in primaries or dropped out of their races.

While Democrats strongly embrace the candidates now, in at least one case they have advocated for other contenders. McGrath publicly criticized the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for touting a different Democratic candidate over her before the primary, though the group did not make a formal endorsement.

Historically, the Republican Party has been home to most military veteran lawmakers. Duckworth speculates that the increase in Democratic veterans is likely to continue, given that people in the military today have been surrounded by women in combat roles, LGBTQ soldiers who have come out and men and women who are paid equally.

It has made the military more progressive on a lot those values, and at the same time, the older generation, the Vietnam vets, are all retiring, Duckworth said. I personally think the military is undergoing a major demographic shift that I think will make it far less conservative.

Female veterans are still dramatically outpaced by the number of male veterans in Congress or pursing elected office. According to the With Honor PAC, 198 veterans  including incumbents  are on the ballot in House races this fall, including 102 Republicans and 65 Democrats; the remainder are third-party or active write-in candidates.

There are 81 veterans currently in Congress, according to the Brookings Institution. Only four are women: Duckworth, McSally, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii).

The latest from Washington 

jennifer.haberkorn@latimes.com

Twitter: @jenhabTurkish crime-scene investigators entered the residence of the Saudi consul general in Istanbul on Wednesday to search for evidence in the disappearance of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi, just as a pro-government newspaper published a gruesome recounting of his alleged slaying.

Saudi Arabias green national flag flapped overhead as forensics teams walked into the residence, only 1.2 miles from the consulate where Khashoggi vanished Oct. 2 while trying to pick up paperwork to get married. It was the second extraordinary search of land considered under international law to be Saudi sovereign soil after Turkish police searched the consulate through the early morning Tuesday.

The new search and newspaper report put further pressure on Saudi Arabia to explain what happened to Khashoggi after a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo to both the kingdom and Turkey. Flying back home, Pompeo remained positive about an ongoing Saudi probe into Khashoggis disappearance, but stressed that answers need to come soon.

Sooners better than later for everyone, Pompeo said.

Advertisement

Pompeo offers defense of Saudi rulers as Trump administration strategy shifts in Khashoggi case 

The residence search came after a report by the newspaper Yeni Safak citing what it described as an audio recording of Khashoggis slaying. It said the 60-year-old Washington Post columnist had his fingers cut off and was decapitated after entering the consulate.

The newspaper said Saudi Consul General Mohammed Otaibi could be heard on the tape, telling those allegedly torturing Khashoggi: Do this outside; youre going to get me in trouble. The newspaper said one of the Saudis replied: Shut up if you want to live when you return to [Saudi] Arabia.

Security services in Turkey have used pro-government media to leak details of Khashoggis case, adding to the pressure on the kingdom.

Saudi officials have not responded to repeated requests for comment from the Associated Press in recent days. Otaibi left Turkey on Tuesday afternoon, Turkish state media reported.

On Wednesday, Pompeo held separate meetings with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, each for about 40 minutes in Ankara, Turkeys capital.

Pompeo met with Saudi King Salman and his son, the 33-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, on Tuesday. Before leaving Riyadh, Pompeo told reporters that the Saudi leaders made no exceptions on who they would hold accountable.

They made a commitment to hold anyone connected to any wrongdoing that may be found accountable for that, whether they are a senior officer or official, Pompeo said.

No major decisions are made outside of the ultraconservative kingdoms ruling Al Saud family. Khashoggi had fled the country last year amid the rise of Prince Mohammed, whom he wrote about critically in the Post.

On Tuesday, a high-level Turkish official told the AP that police found certain evidence of Khashoggis slaying at the consulate, without elaborating. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing.

President Trumps previous warnings over the case drew an angry response Sunday from Saudi Arabia and its state-linked media, including a suggestion that Riyadh could wield its oil production as a weapon. The U.S. president has been after King Salman and OPEC to boost production to drive down high oil prices, caused in part by the coming reimposition of oil sanctions on Iran.

Prominent U.S. newspapers have reported, citing anonymous sources, that Saudi officials may soon acknowledge Khashoggis slaying at the consulate but blame it on a botched intelligence operation. That could, like Trumps softening comments, seek to give the kingdom a way out of the global firestorm of criticism over Khashoggis fate.President Trump complained yet again Wednesday about the media  Everythings a fake, he said  and defended his frequent tweeting as his only form of communicating.

Yet it was a media outlet that aired those remarks. Fox Business Network, in its second interview of Trump in as many days, broadcast its three-hour Varney & Co. live from the White House. It was a show that Trump aides helped engineer to tout his economic policies, featuring Cabinet members and administration officials stopping by for interviews in the manner of a telethon or infomercial.

Since the arrival in June of former Fox News executive Bill Shine as the presidents communications director, Trump has been increasingly brazen about indulging his craving for media attention and using the White House as his personal, taxpayer-funded sound stage.

Ordinarily, for this sort of stage-managed event, it would have to be highly consequential  this is not  or you had to pay for the air time, said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, who likened the broadcast to an in-kind contribution by the network to Trump.

Advertisement

When you get three hours to reach the audience you want and youre controlling the message, youre in effect getting advertising without having to pay for it, she said.

Back when even Trump didnt expect him to be elected, Trump TV was an idea floated as as a post-campaign option, a new reality show for the onetime Apprentice star. Now that has arrived, inside the White House: Suddenly, the president is creating almost as much TV content as he consumes.

He has wandered out to the cameras on the North Lawn for a lengthy live interview with Fox & Friends host Steve Doocy, and he also calls into the show. At Shines direction, Trump has begun filming direct-to-camera statements for social media, at White House spots that provide a presidential setting.

Long-routine gatherings of reporters in the Oval Office as the president begins to meet with some visitor, whether a world leader or Kanye West, have morphed from quick photo ops into long, freewheeling exchanges, often broadcast in full on cable networks.

As Trump has increased his media contacts lately  hes done five television interviews in the last five days, including on CBS 60 Minutes, as well as a 37-minute session with the Associated Press  he continues to favor Fox News. Again with Shine as impresario, the president has done several on-camera interviews with Fox hosts before taking the stage at his Make America Great Again rallies, with the crowd of supporters as a backdrop.

Ann Compton, who covered seven presidents for ABC News, said that in her view, Trumps eagerness to engage with White House journalists sets him apart from his predecessors. I think thats incredibly healthy, she said.

Still, she added, What I see is a White House operation that does not have a defined communications strategy. They seem to be testing all sorts of strategies.

Even as Trump has been more widely accessible to reporters, Wednesday mornings broadcast crystallized the fusion of the conservative network and the administration.

Having an event where you have people from the American public, Cabinet members and officials talk to the public  thats something a lot of presidents have done, said Jennifer Psaki, who was a communications director for the Obama administration. But whats most important is what the questions are and whos asking them.

She added: Theres never been a White House thats closer to having a state-run media than this one with Fox News.

Shine, who was at the right hand of former Fox chief Roger Ailes and was implicated in Ailes sexual harassment scandal, did not respond to requests for comment. Shine also remains close to Fox celebrity Sean Hannity. Although he continues to keep a relatively low profile, rarely appearing on camera himself, aides acknowledge his fingerprints on the presidents recent media moves.

Varneys show tweeted Tuesday night: Varney & Co. will be LIVE from the White House this Wednesday, 10/17 for all three hours! Who knows who might show up for an interview? Tune in or set your DVR from 9am until noon...

Varney broadcast from a room in the Executive Office Building adjacent to the White House, a distinction that was blurred in the shows pronouncements of being live at the White House.

Among the administration figures who popped in: Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, budget director Mick Mulvaney, Small Business Administration Administrator Linda McMahon, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, Council of Economic Advisors Chairman Kevin Hassett, counselor Kellyanne Conway and  the not-so-surprise guest  Trump.

The flavor of the broadcast was captured by a segment in which Conway appeared alongside a coal miner, Benson Waller, who described how regulations Trump has targeted had hurt his industry.

Do you owe your job to the presidents policies? Varney asked.

I would say yes, Waller replied.

Conway chimed in: A lot of coal miners owe their jobs to this.

Zinke, appearing with a Southern Ute tribal official who supports administration efforts to boost energy production on Native American lands, was not asked during his five-minute segment about Tuesdays news that he had fired the Interior Departments inspector general, who was investigating allegations of misconduct in the agency.

By the time Varney signed off at noon, the White House had tweeted three video clips from his interviews. Trump also tweeted the clip of his nine-minute interview with Varney.

The interview with Trump touched on a number of topics, including the alleged murder of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi by high-ranking Saudi officials.

But Varney explored the topic on the presidents terms, helping Trump clarify the point he has emphasized about the importance of continued good relations with Saudi Arabia.

Were not going to walk away from Saudi Arabia as an ally? Varney asked leadingly.

Trump responded three times, I dont want to do that.

Trump explained his media blitz to Varney as an effort to get the word out in spite of what he considers to be biased news organizations. He singled out several for criticism, including the AP, CNN, CBS and NBC.

His pique did not extend to Fox, however.

Enjoy the White House, Trump told Varney as the interview concluded with a handshake. We love having you.

The latest from Washington 

eli.stokols@latimes.com

@EliStokolsFor four decades, the most potent brand in California politics has been Proposition 13, the 1978 ballot measure that limited property tax increases and prompted a nationwide revolt against taxation.

Now, the legacy of Proposition 13 stands on the verge of one of its stiffest tests. On Monday, an initiative qualified for the November 2020 ballot that could lead to a $145-million campaign and dismantle Proposition 13s protections for businesses.

The initiative would end the states restrictions on taxing commercial and industrial properties and increase tax receipts for cities, counties and school districts by an estimated $6 billion to $10 billion a year.

Veronica Carrizales, policy and campaign development director for initiative proponent California Calls, cast the measure as part of a generational struggle to support public services she said have been starved of resources since Proposition 13s passage in 1978.

Advertisement

We think California is ready and now is the time to tackle this longstanding and nonsensical inequity in our property tax system so we can put communities and schools first and not corporate greed, Carrizales said.

California homeowners get to pass low property taxes to their kids. Its proved highly profitable to an elite group 

By contrast, business groups and taxpayer advocates are already digging in to defend their interests from a tax increase they contend would worsen a business climate consistently ranked among the worst of any state in the country because of Californias high corporate, income and sales taxes.

We have a clear, united statewide business and taxpayer coalition that is only going to grow in opposition to this measure for 2020, said Rob Lapsley, president of the California Business Roundtable. We are organized. We are ready to start building a campaign and were starting today.

Proposition 13 limits property taxes for both homes and businesses to 1% of a propertys taxable value. The initiative also restricts a propertys taxable value from increasing more than 2% each year, no matter how much its value rises on the market. The longer a person or a company owns a property, the less they pay in taxes compared to its market value.

Under the proposed initiative, protections for residential properties would not change, but local governments would be able to levy taxes on commercial and industrial land based on a propertys market value, a process known as split roll.

As it stands, the disparities in what businesses pay in taxes are wide, depending on when they first purchased their properties. Computing giant Intel acquired its Santa Clara headquarters in the 1970s and pays taxes on its land assessed at $225,000 an acre, according to the Santa Clara County Assessors Office. By contrast, tech company Adobe Systems paid a reported $27 million an acre for land to expand its headquarters in nearby San Jose this year.

Activist groups have talked about charging businesses higher property taxes for years. But theyve been cowed by intense opposition from the business community and voters allegiance to Proposition 13. In 2014, Gov. Jerry Brown called Proposition 13 a sacred doctrine that should never be questioned. Before now, no split-roll initiative had qualified for the ballot.

Jon Coupal, the head of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn., the anti-tax organization whose namesake founder was the author of Proposition 13, said it might seem like Californias changing demographics and political attitudes would weaken Proposition 13s hold on the electorate.

This is not the California of 1978, Coupal said. It has become more progressive.

But Coupal and Lapsley pointed to June polling from the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California, which showed that 65% of likely voters believed Proposition 13 turned out to be a good thing for the state  roughly the same margin by which the initiative passed 40 years ago.

Its withstanding the test of time, no matter what anyone says, Lapsley said.

Early surveys show voters might be more open to the idea of taxing businesses more on their properties.

A new USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll of 980 registered voters found 46% in support of split roll, with 22% opposed and 31% undecided. The poll, conducted between Sept. 17 and Oct. 14 , has a margin of error of 4 percentage points in either direction and larger for subcategories of voters based on voting behavior, age, ethnicity, party affiliation and other demographic indicators.

The survey found especially strong backing among college-educated voters  58% of whom were in support of the proposal  and those in the Bay Area, with 64% behind the measure.

With the measure potentially going before voters in two years, those numbers should put opponents on the defensive, said Bob Shrum, a longtime Democratic strategist who is director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of politics at USC.

I think they will have to spend a very large amount of money to defeat this, Shrum said.

Business groups plan to do just that. Lapsley said the opposition campaign is prepared to raise at least $100 million.

Supporters of the initiative hope to collect $45 million, Carrizales said. They are also pursuing a separate campaign to convince 1 million new or infrequent voters to go to the polls in 2020 during the next presidential campaign.

Expanding the pool of voters is a smart strategy, Shrum said.

I think its one of the only ways to answer or compete with $100 million, he said.

Both gubernatorial candidates, Democrat Gavin Newsom and Republican John Cox, have have said they would like to make big changes to the states tax system, which relies on income taxes paid by the wealthiest Californians and yields volatile tax receipts. Newsom has tiptoed toward embracing changes to Proposition 13, including proposals to levy higher property tax bills on businesses.

Other major changes to rules inaugurated by Proposition 13 also are on the table for 2020. Assemblyman David Chiu (D-San Francisco) wants to end the ability of heirs to inherit their parents low property tax bills when they inherit their homes. The California Assn. of Realtors, a powerful interest group, wants the state to place limits on  but not eliminate  that property inheritance tax break and clamp down on businesses that avoid higher property taxes when they buy commercial real estate. They would do so as part of a broader initiative that would extend other tax advantages under Proposition 13 for homeowners 55 or older.

State law allows backers of qualified initiatives to withdraw their measures in advance of a vote, something that multiple interests groups did this year after working out alternatives with the Legislature.

Sen. Bob Hertzberg (D-Van Nuys), who has been pushing for changes to Californias tax system for years, said two years gives the Legislature plenty of time to make a deal.

This is extraordinary in the sense theyve qualified it two years in advance, Hertzberg said. It gives us plenty of time to have this debate.

For now, though, backers of the measure arent interested in conversations with lawmakers about pulling their initiative back.

Now is the time for bold structural solutions, and we wont settle for incremental or piecemeal change, Carrizales said.

Coverage of California politics 

liam.dillon@latimes.com

@dillonliamDemocratic Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom enters the final weeks of Californias 2018 governors race with a solid lead over Republican businessman John Cox, according to a new USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll.

The surveys findings provide little hope to Coxs long-shot campaign in the left-leaning state as vote-by-mail ballots begin arriving at homes and Newsom, with an immense fundraising advantage, floods televisions and cellphones across the state with a steady stream of campaign ads.

According to the survey, 54% of likely voters in the state favored Newsom for governor compared to 31% who support Cox. The remainder were undecided.

The margin of error for likely voters is 4 percentage points in either direction; the margins of error are larger for subgroups. (Los Angeles Times)

Advertisement

Cox has Mt. Everest to climb when you look at these [numbers]. Barring some massive event, its very difficult to see how he makes up this, said Robert Shrum, co-director of USCs Center for the Political Future and a longtime Democratic strategist.

One of the most telling indicators of which candidate California voters favor is seen in their starkly divergent opinions about President Trump. His performance as president got a thumbs down from more than two-thirds of the likely voters in the state, the survey found. Among likely voters who disapprove of Trump, 77% support Newsom. Among those who approve of Trump, 87% back Cox.

Shrum said the animosity towards Trump is expected to increase voter turnout in California to a level higher than usual in a midterm, election. That would only add to Newsoms advantage in November; the Democrats have close to a 20-percentage-point edge over the GOP in voter registration in California.

Trump endorsed Cox for governor before the June 5 primary, giving the Republicans campaign a boost by helping him consolidate the Republican vote. Cox went on to defeat his top GOP rival in the race, Assemblyman Travis Allen (R-Huntington Beach), an ardent supporter of the president.

Newsoms campaign ran ads highlighting Coxs support of Trump and gun owner rights. That politically strategic move helped the Republican emerge from the crowded primary field of candidates, including beating out former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and state Treasurer John Chiang, Newsoms top Democratic challengers in the campaign.

But Trumps support will probably make Cox more vulnerable in November, when he goes one-on-one against Newsom in an election to be decided by Californias energized, left-leaning electorate.

California is still California. So in a Democratic state, in a Democratic year, with Democratic intensity, its good to be Gavin, said longtime Republican strategist Mike Murphy, the other co-director of the Center for the Political Future. He could be a bag of horseshoes and still do well.

The surveys findings provide a different picture of the race than a poll released in late September by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California. That survey found Cox on the rise and trailing Newsom by 12 percentage points.

According to the poll, Newsom leads Cox among both men and women, Latinos and across voter income and education levels. The former San Francisco mayor also dominates Californias two biggest population centers, the Bay Area and Los Angeles County, home to just under half the voters in the state.

Democratic candidate Gavin Newsom listens to questions during a California gubernatorial debate with Republican candidate John Cox at KQED Public Radio Studio in San Francisco on Oct. 8. (Jeff Chiu / Associated Press)

Cox makes a point during the debate at KQED. (Jeff Chiu / Associated Press)

Cox, a wealthy real estate investor from Rancho Santa Fe, was favored over the Democratic rival in the region comprising Orange, San Diego, Riverside and San Bernardino counties and was neck-and-neck with Newsom among voters living in Californias inland interior. The Republican also drew even with Newsom among white men and voters who said illegal immigration is a major driver of their vote, according to the survey.

Not surprisingly, both candidates had strong support from voters in their own parties. Newsom had more robust support among voters who registered as no party preference, although nearly a third of those independent voters remained undecided, the poll found.

Newsom also entered the final stretch of the 2018 campaign with a substantial financial advantage over Cox. The Newsom campaign had $16.2 million in cash on hand as of Sept. 22 compared with the $1.7 million Cox had in the bank, according to the latest campaign finance reports filed with the state. The vast majority of the money raised by both candidates is being poured into campaign ads, airing on broadcast and cable stations as well as Facebook and other social media platforms.

The poll, conducted between Sept. 17 and Oct. 14, has a margin of sampling error of 4 percentage points in either direction and larger for subcategories of voters based on voting behavior, age, ethnicity, party affiliation and other demographic indicators.

For more information about the poll, visit bit.ly/USCpolldata.

Coverage of California politics 

phil.willon@latimes.com

Twitter: @philwillon

Updates on California politicsHollywood Burbank Airport ended its summer with its highest number of passengers in a month so far this year.

The airport tallied 463,653 passengers during August, up 43,885 passengers over the same period in 2017, said Denis Carvill, deputy executive director of operations, during a meeting Monday of the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority.

Southwest Airlines, the largest carrier at Hollywood Burbank, reported 329,204 passengers in the final full month of the summer, having served 21,256 more than in August last year.

Additionally, Alaska Airlines continues to see its numbers improve, as it reported 63,239 passengers in August. That is 16,348 more than it had in 2017.

After starting the year with passenger numbers below its 2017 figures, American Airlines has now had its fourth month of growth. The airline reported 13,358 passengers, which was 2,154 more than last year.

Other airports in the Southern California region also fared well in August. Los Angeles International Airport reported 8,137,410 passengers, an increase of 207,307 over the previous year.

Ontario International Airport also had gains for the month, reporting 458,029 passengers. That is 70,678 more compared to 2017.

John Wayne Airport saw 991,112 passengers in August, which was up by 56,597 over last year.

Long Beach Airport had 350,286 passengers, a hike of 33,995 over the previous year.

As passenger numbers improve at Hollywood Burbank, so does its parking revenue. Carvill said the airports lots and valet service generated a total of $1,809,780 for the month. Thats a $69,443 jump compared to last year.

In addition to that, the airport received $273,240 from ride-sharing companies, such as Lyft or Uber, an increase of $64,614 over last year.

anthonyclark.carpio@latimes.com

Twitter: @acocarpioConcerts celebrating the centennial of the birth of Leonard Bernstein are common these days, as he was born on Aug. 25, 1918. But an all-Bernstein concert with a direct link to one of Orange Countys most iconic musical figures is not.

The Pacific Symphony has such a direct link: Carl St.Clair will conduct the orchestra in Bernstein @ 100 for three evenings beginning Oct. 25 at the Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall in the Segerstrom Center for the Arts.

St.Clair studied with the legendary conductor-composer-pianist-lecturer-author, who is perhaps known to most as the composer of West Side Story. But there is so much more to the man  and St.Clair knows this first hand.

It was with great anticipation that I met him, and he put me at ease right away, said St.Clair, whom Bernstein called my cowboy, due to St.Clairs origins (born and raised in Texas).

The two met in 1985 at the Tanglewood Music Festival in the Berkshire Music Center in Lenox, Mass., the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra where Bernstein taught St.Clair, one of a number of conducting students.

Every minute we were around Leonard Bernstein was like getting a lesson, St.Clair said. Lessons about self-discovery, self-reflection, looking inside oneself. We experienced his energy, his love, his passion for life. They were life lessons, not just music lessons. And as these were the last years of his life, he was so willing to be open and share his experiences. I was so privileged to get to know him  on several tours of Europe together and on the last concert he ever conducted.

That was at Tanglewood on Aug. 19, 1990, with Bernstein conducting Britten and Beethoven and St.Clair conducting the world premiere of Bernsteins newly reorchestrated Arias and Barcarolles, his last work.

Bernstein, who suffered a coughing seizure during the Beethoven piece (but managed to finish), died of a heart attack brought on by lung disease almost two months later on Oct. 14 at the age of 72.

To honor his friend and mentor, St.Clair has planned an all-Bernstein program  without a West Side Story number in sight.

I wanted to show the wide breadth and scope of his compositional output, he said.

Thus, there are Bernsteins jazz, instrumental, choral and musical sides represented. The concert opens with Prelude, Fugue and Riffs, which shows Bernsteins jazz and big band side. This is followed by Serenade (after Platos Symposium), an all-instrumental 1954 work which premiered in Venice, Italy, and 1965s Chichester Psalms, the full-scale choral-orchestral Bernstein.

And we finish with a collection of songs that go back to his roots, St.Clair said, referring to Bernsteins start as a composer for Broadway shows.

The collection includes songs from Wonderful Town, Candide and the aforementioned Arias and Barcarolles.

He taught us many lessons, St.Clair said of the man born Louis Bernstein. Above all, hed say, have passion and honesty in your music-making, a sense of purpose and serve the composers intentions ... The playing field is much wider than you think. Just open your eyes and open your hearts and envision it.

IF YOU GO

What: Bernstein @ 100"

Who: Conductor: Carl St.Clair, Pacific Symphony: Augustin Hadelich, violin; Celena Shafer, soprano; Joseph Morris, clarinet; Angel Garcia, boy soprano; with the Pacific Chorale

When: 8 p.m. Oct. 25 to 27

Where: Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, Segerstrom Center for the Arts, 615 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa

Cost: Tickets start at $35

Information: (714) 755-5799, pacificsymphony.orgAuthorities have released the name of a man who was shot to death near Ararat restaurant in Glendale on Saturday night, as the suspect behind the shooting remains at large.

Burbank resident Suren Tahmazyan, 48, died after a man approached him and another man in his 40s near the far west end of the restaurant and hookah lounges parking lot off of San Fernando Road and Ruberta Avenue and began to shoot, according to Sgt. Dan Suttles, a spokesman with the Glendale Police Department.

The shooter arrived on foot from the west and fled in the same direction from the scene in a vehicle that was then driven northbound on San Fernando Road, Suttles said.

The vehicle was described as a dark-colored SUV, possibly a Dodge, but it hasnt been definitively confirmed.

The name of the man standing next to Tahmazyan, who was only grazed by a bullet, has not been released. Tahmazyan died at the scene.

Suttles added that its unknown why the two were shot, or what they were doing in the parking lot. Suttles said there has been no indication this was a gang-related shooting or an attempted robbery gone wrong.

After watching security footage provided by the restaurant, Suttles said the shooter, looked purposeful.

The valet parking lot was jam-packed with cars at the time of the shooting, with several people in the middle of the parking lot, Suttles said.

At first, Suttles said he was confused as to how so many witnesses could provide such a limited description of the event and the suspect. After watching the footage, he said, a lot of people were standing around, but it happened very, very, very fast. He estimated the shooting happened within three seconds.

I watched [the witnesses] heads for reactions, Suttles said. The guys all flinched and ducked  and then they all kind of relaxed and looked over. By the time they looked over, [the shooter] was gone.

Those in the parking lot were separated from the crime by about two rows of cars, Suttles added.

According to Ararats owner, who asked to be identified only by his first name, David, the victims were not patrons of the restaurant, which remained open after the shooting.

A hedge partially obscures the view between Ararats back patio and the parking lot, and David said that neither he, nor the patrons sitting outside, witnessed the shooting or saw the suspect.

However, after hearing three gunshots, David went outside and saw the body on the ground.

I immediately understood, he said.

The five or so parties underway at Ararat continued, with many not even aware that a shooting had occurred just outside, the restaurant owner said.

Andre Babajaniyans, shopkeeper at Tobacco World, located in a complex kitty-corner from the restaurant, said Monday evening he had just heard about the shooting that day.

A man claiming to be the friend of one of the victims came into the shop and told Babajaniyans what happened, he said.

It seemed like it just randomly happened, Babajaniyans said.

Its unclear what the relationship between Tahmazyan and the unnamed victim was. They were talking and standing close to each other at the scene of the crime, Suttles said.

An autopsy of Tahmazyan is pending, said Sarah Ardalani, a spokeswoman with the Los Angeles County coroners office.

Andy Nguyen contributed to this report.

lila.seidman@latimes.com

Twitter: @lila_seidmanIn only a weeks time, Glendale High School music instructor Amy Rangel proved shes no one-hit wonder.

The Burbank resident was selected as one of 25 national semifinalists for a 2019 Music Educator Award granted by the Recording Academy, presenters of the Grammy Awards, and the Grammy Museum on Wednesday, Oct. 10.

Fast forward one week and Rangel is at the Grammy Museum on Wednesday to accept another high honor.

She and her music program were selected to receive a 2018 Grammy Signature Enterprise Award, which is a three-year grant that totals $22,500.

The accolades and the possibilities created because of the grant money have been a bit overwhelming, contended Rangel.

All this has been unexpected for me, honestly, Rangel said. Ive been nominated for the [teacher of the year award], but never got past the quarterfinals.

Rangel added, Its been amazing and I really did it for the grant money and to be able to promote the program. I want people to send their kids to Glendale High School because we have great things going on here.

Rangel handles around 250 students in a music program that requires many hats as she runs the marching band, which includes color guard and drumline, a concert band, string orchestra, full orchestra and two jazz bands.

Rangel was one of 25 teachers from 24 cities and 16 states out of a pool of 2,800 hopefuls as the competition was open to instructors from kindergarten to college.

She was also one of four educators from California, but the lone nominee from Los Angeles County.

Rangel will find out if shes been selected in December as one of 10 finalists in the running for the grand prize.

With the title of music educator of the year comes attendance and acknowledgement during the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles in February, where the winner will receive a $10,000 grant along with an additional $10,000 for the school.

In being a semifinalist, Rangel has already secured a $500 grant. Should she be selected a semifinalist, she would receive a $1,000 grant, as would Glendale.

I was excited for Ms. Rangel because shes a cool teacher, said Diego Garcia, a sophomore saxophone player in Rangels class. Its good for her to get recognition, and its really cool for our music department to get recognition because were underfunded.

Rangel, a district 19-year veteran, applied for the Grammy Signature School contest and hoped for the best.

They only pick four schools for the Grammys and I had to do some writing and submit audio tapes, Rangel said. They want to know that your program sounds decent.

She added, The school district does what they can for us financially, but we have to fundraise tens of thousands of dollars to make sure every kid has a working instrument.

Rangel has been part of a flurry of Glendale teachers and staff who have flourished of late.

Rangel and her band played at the Glendale Educational Foundation breakfast on Oct. 4 during which Glendale High special needs instructor Betsy Astor was lauded as a Los Angeles County Teacher of the Year.

A few months earlier, Glendale High custodial supervisor Krista Smiley was named a California School Employees Assn. Member of the Year.

andrew.campa@latimes.com

Twitter @campadresportsIf youve been thinking about your next vacation but putting off a decision, Norwegian Cruise Lines new airfare deal might light a fire under you.

The company is offering free and reduced round-trip airfare for many of its cruises to the Caribbean, Hawaii, Alaska and other destinations in the U.S. and Canada. Sail as early as next month, or as late as next September.

There are a couple of catches: Dont wait too long  the special ends Oct. 31.

And, in most cases, you cant book an inside room. Youll have to upgrade to an ocean view or balcony room to get the deal.

Advertisement

The promotion includes free or reduced round-trip economy class airfare for up to two guests flying from Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) and more than 100 other airports across the U.S. and Canada. Cruises depart from Honolulu, New Orleans, New York City, Fort Lauderdale, Miami and Tampa, Fla., Seattle and San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Most passengers who reserve an ocean-view, balcony or mini-suite stateroom receive free or discounted airfare, as do cruisers who book Haven- and Concierge-level cabins.

But there are differences depending on destination. For instance, round-trip flights to Seattle and New Orleans are free, while to Miami and Fort Lauderdale, theyre $299.

If youre heading for Hawaii to sail on the Pride of America, youd pay $299 round trip from LAX. What would your cruise total be? The lowest price, excluding taxes and port fees, would be $2,897 for two guests staying in an inside cabin, including reduced airfare and a free one-night pre-cruise hotel stay.

Additionally, if you plan to take along family or friends, third through eighth guests (for groups), receive 35% off Norwegians regular air and sea rates.

The free air promotion can be combined with other specials, including an unlimited internet package.

Check Norwegian Cruise Lines terms and conditions for more information. To book, contact the cruise line, or call (866) 234-7350 or a travel agent.

ALSO

Princess Cruises brings a new ship to the Port of Los Angeles

Something different to do for Thanksgiving: Cruise the lower Mississippi River

Savor a rustic-chic weekend escape in Santa Barbara wine country

travel@latimes.com

@latimestravelIan Power was among the first to buy legal recreational marijuana in Canada but he has no plans to smoke it. He plans to frame it.

Canada became the largest country with a legal national marijuana marketplace as sales began early Wednesday in Newfoundland. Power was first in line at a store in St. Johns, Newfoundland.

I am going to frame it and hang it on my wall. Im not even going to smoke it. Im just going to save it forever, Power said.

And there was more good news for pot aficionados: Hours before a handful of retail outlets opened in the countrys easternmost province a federal official said Canada will pardon all those with convictions for possessing up to 30 grams of marijuana, the now-legal threshold.

Advertisement

A formal announcement was planned for later Wednesday. The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly ahead of the announcement, said those who want to take advantage of the pardons will have to apply.

Screened at U.S. border, Canadians who are honest about using marijuana could be banned from the U.S. 

Canada has had legal medical marijuana since 2001 and Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus government has spent two years working toward expanding that to include recreational marijuana. The goal is to better reflect societys changing opinion about marijuana and bring black market operators into a regulated system.

Uruguay was the first country to legalize marijuana.

In St. Johns, hundreds of customers were lined up around the block at the private store on Water Street, the main commercial drag in the provincial capital, by the time the clock struck midnight. A festive atmosphere broke out, with some customers lighting up on the sidewalk and motorists honking their horns in support as they drove by the crowd.

Prohibition has ended right now. We just made history, said the 46-year-old Power, who bought a gram. I cant believe we did it. All the years of activism paid off. Cannabis is legal in Canada and everyone should come to Canada and enjoy our cannabis.

Tom Clarke, an illegal pot dealer for three decades, was among the first to make a legal sale in Canada when his store opened at midnight in Portugal Cove, Newfoundland. He made the first sale to his dad. A crowd of 50 to 100 people waited outside and cheered him.

This is awesome. Ive been waiting my whole life for this, Clarke said. I am so happy to be living in Canada right now instead of south of the border.

Clarke, whose middle name is Herb, has been called THC for years by his friends. His dad, Don, said he was thrilled he was among the first customers of legal pot.

Its been a long time coming. Weve only been discussing this for 50 years. Its better late than never, he said.

Canada just legalized marijuana. How did that happen? Justin Trudeau, for starters 

The Newfoundland stores are among at least 111 legal pot shops expected to open across the nation of 37 million people on Wednesday, with many more to come, according to an Associated Press survey of the provinces.

Canadians also can order marijuana products through websites run by provinces or private retailers and have it delivered to their homes by mail.

Alberta and Quebec have set the minimum age for purchase at 18, while others have made it 19.

No stores will open in Ontario, which includes Toronto. The most populous province is working on its regulations and doesnt expect stores until next spring.

Ryan Bose, 48, a Lyft driver in Toronto, said its about time.

Alcohol took my grandfather and it took his youngest son, and weed has taken no one from me ever, he said.

A patchwork of regulations has spread in Canada as each province takes its own approach within the framework set out by the federal government. Some are operating government-run stores, some are allowing private retailers, some both.

Canadas national approach has allowed for unfettered industry banking, inter-province shipments of cannabis and billions of dollars in investment  a sharp contrast with national prohibition in the United States.

Nine U.S. states have legalized recreational use of pot, and more than 30 have approved medical marijuana. California, the largest legal market in the U.S., earlier this month became the first state with a law mandating expungement of criminal convictions for marijuana-related offenses that no are longer illegal.

Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon said its time for the U.S. government to follow Canadas lead.

Now that our neighbor to the north is opening its legal cannabis market, the longer we delay, the longer we miss out on potentially significant economic opportunities for Oregon and other states across the country, he said in a statement.A high-level Egyptian delegation on Wednesday held urgent talks with Gazas Hamas rulers, seeking to restore calm after a rocket from the Palestinian area slammed into a home in southern Israel and the Israeli military responded with airstrikes on Hamas targets.

The predawn flare-up in violence appeared to be pushing the region toward another conflagration between the bitter enemies. But by late Wednesday, there were signs that the situation was calming down.

As the Egyptian mediators arrived, Hamas and a second militant group, Islamic Jihad, issued a joint statement that made rare criticism of the rocket attack, suggesting that they were trying to defuse the situation.

We reject all irresponsible attempts that try to change the direction and sabotage the Egyptian efforts, including the overnight firing of the rocket, they said. At the same time, we emphasize we are ready to confront the Israeli aggression.

Advertisement

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traveled to the Gaza border area to meet with senior security officials, and planned a meeting of his decision-making Security Cabinet later in the evening.

If these attacks will not stop, we will stop them. And I want to tell you today, Israel will act with great force, he said.

Israel and Hamas, an Islamist group that seeks Israels destruction, have fought three wars since Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007. Israel and Egypt have also maintained a blockade over the territory since the Hamas takeover. The restrictions, aimed at weakening Hamas, have ravaged Gazas economy.

Hamas has led mass protests along the border with Israel for the last six months, seeking to put pressure on Israel to lift the blockade. Those protests have intensified in recent weeks as Egyptian and U.N. attempts to broker a truce have faltered.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Wednesdays rocket attack, which struck a home in the southern city of Beersheba, some 30 miles from Gaza.

Israeli officials said a woman and her three children whose home was hit evaded harm by rushing to a bomb shelter after warning sirens woke them up shortly before 4 a.m.

As a first response, Israeli military jets pounded Hamas targets across the Gaza Strip. The Gaza Health Ministry said a 25-year-old militant was killed inside one of the posts targeted. Three others were wounded.Three days before Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman arrived in the United States this year for a nationwide tour, another Saudi traveler who identifies online as a member of the Saudi Royal Guard also arrived in Washington, passport records show. His stay overlapped with that of the prince.

Two times before that, this traveler had made other trips to the United States that coincided with top members of the Saudi royal family, including King Salman and another one of his sons.

That same traveler, Khalid Aedh Alotaibi, has now appeared on a list provided by Turkish officials of 15 Saudis who Turkey alleges participated in the disappearance and alleged killing of prominent journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Consulate on Oct. 2. On Tuesday, Turkish officials provided passport scans for seven members of what they called a hit squad, and that information helped confirm Alotaibis travels to Washington.

Alotaibi is one of 11 Saudis included on the list who have ties to the Saudi security services, according to their posts on social media, emails, local media reports and other material reviewed by the Washington Post.

Advertisement

Two weeks after the disappearance of Khashoggi, a contributor to The Washington Posts Global Opinions section and critic of the Saudi government, there is mounting scrutiny of the 15 men. Turkey released the list as a way to demonstrate Saudi involvement in the killing.

According to the Turkish account and flight information, the 15 men arrived in Istanbul on Oct. 2  most of them early in the morning  and then departed in the hours after Khashoggis disappearance.

Saudi officials have repeatedly denied any involvement in Khashoggis disappearance and say they have no information about his whereabouts. They say he left the consulate shortly after he arrived to obtain a document he needed for an upcoming marriage.

Saudi Arabia has made no official statement about the men or said why they may have been in Istanbul on Oct. 2. A report on the Saudi-owned Al Arabiya news channel said the 15 were tourists who had been falsely accused.

U.S. officials now expect the Saudi government to accept responsibility for the death of Khashoggi in an explanation that shields the powerful crown prince from fault, said a diplomat familiar with the situation. The diplomat spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.

With President Trump suggesting that Khashoggi might have died at the hands of rogue killers, attention has increasingly focused on the identity of the men on the list and their reported links to the Saudi government, security services and the crown prince himself.

Alotaibi and eight others identified as suspects by Turkish officials, appear to have profiles on MenoM3ay  a phone directory app popular in the Arab world  identifying themselves as members of the Saudi security forces, with some claiming to be members of the Royal Guard.

In one instance, Alotaibi identified himself with a symbol for the Royal Guard. In another, someone else saved him in their contacts with the same symbol for the security force, which is charged with protecting the royal family.

Repeated attempts to contact Alotaibi using the phone number listed in the app were unsuccessful.

Five of the eight others are repeatedly identified in the app as either officers in the Royal Guard or employees of the royal palace.

Two of the Saudis on the list, Naif Hassan S. Alarifi and Saif Saad Q. Alqahtani, are repeatedly identified in the app as even closer to the royal family  specifically as employees of the Crown Prince office.

The Washington Post could not independently confirm that either man works for the crown prince. Phone calls placed to the numbers in the app over several days were not answered or showed that the phones were turned off. The Saudi Embassy in Washington has not responded to repeated requests for comment on the 15 men since last week.

Four men with those same names, however, self-identify in Facebook and other social media posts or have been quoted in Saudi news articles as members of the countrys security forces.

Another one of the suspects who appears to identify himself on the app as a member of the Saudi security forces is Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb. A decade ago, Mutreb was listed as the first secretary at the Saudi Embassy in London, according to a British list of diplomats.

Mutrebs name also appears in hacked emails released three years ago by WikiLeaks. In an email sent to officials at an Italian security firm in 2011, a Saudi official identified Mutreb as among embassy staff who would receive advanced security training.

The New York Times reported late Tuesday that Mutreb had frequently accompanied and been photographed in proximity to the crown prince on official trips to Madrid, Paris, Houston, Boston and the United Nations.

In the article, the New York Times reported that it had found evidence that at least nine of the 15 Saudis on the list provided by Turkey worked for the Saudi military, security services or other government branches.

Another man identified by Turkish officials is Muhammed Saad Alzahrani, who is also identified on the app as a member of the Royal Guard. A video showing a man wearing a black security uniform bearing the same name was posted on YouTube last year guarding the crown prince as he greeted visitors.

The guard in the video closely resembles the picture of Zahrani in a passport image provided to the Post on Tuesday.

Reached by phone Tuesday on a number listed in MenoM3ay, Zahrani denied being in Turkey and declined to say if he works for the crown prince, saying what he does for a living is personal information. When told that the Post had been provided a copy of what purported to be his passport from Turkish officials, which includes patriarchal names, Zahrani asked if a reporter knew his mothers name. The reporter said he did not, and Zahrani hung up.

Among the most prominent names on the Saudi team list is Salah Muhammed al-Tubaigy, a forensic expert known for pioneering rapid and mobile autopsies, who flew to Istanbul shortly after Khashoggi entered the Saudi Consulate and flew out nine hours later, Turkish officials say.

Tubaigy, 47, is a top professor in the criminal evidence department at Naif Arab University for Security Sciences. He presides over master thesis classes on identifying bones through DNA analysis and how the use of formaldehyde limits genetic tissue analysis.

But Tubaigy is also close to Saudi security operations, teaching and providing expert opinions on evidence collection and investigation. In 2014, he persuaded Saudi officials to let him help design and purchase a $2.5-million tractor-trailer-size autopsy lab to accompany Muslims on the hajj to Mecca.

In an interview with Asharq al Awsat, a London-based Arabic news organization, he touted the truck as the first of its kind in the world. The mobile autopsy operation, he said, could provide preliminary analysis on some diseases in seven minutes and provide the dissection service to the security authorities in a record time.

Tubaigy has not responded to email and phone messages left at three numbers associated with the profile he had set up on an Arabic subscription phone app.Islamic State-linked extremists in Nigeria have killed another abducted health worker despite an urgent plea from the International Committee of the Red Cross to spare her life, the global aid organization confirmed Tuesday.

Its utterly devastating that we have to write that sentence, the Red Cross said in a statement, calling the killing a despicable act of cruelty.

Nigerias government announced the killing late Monday.

Hauwa Mohammed Liman, 24, had been working as a midwife in a hospital supported by the Red Cross. Her death comes a month after a health worker abducted with her was killed by the same group, the Islamic State West Africa Province, the largest Islamic State-linked extremist group in Africa. A third female health worker remains captive.

Advertisement

The news of Hauwas death has broken our hearts, the Red Cross regional director for Africa, Patricia Danzi, said. We appealed for mercy and an end to such senseless murders. How can it be that two female healthcare workers were killed back-to-back? Nothing can justify this.

The Red Cross, which does not pay ransoms, has said it was not directly involved in discussions on the extremists demands. On Sunday it issued a plea saying we urge you for mercy and noted that a 24-hour deadline was counting down.

The statement by Nigerias information minister said the federal government did all within its powers to save her life and had kept the line of negotiations open since the abductions. The government said it was shocked and saddened and would continue to work for the safe release of other captives.

The three health workers were seized in March in the northeastern community of Rann, where thousands have sought shelter from the extremist threat that includes the Nigeria-based Boko Haram insurgency. They were praised for volunteering to work in a dangerous area while many others fled or chose to remain in safer communities.

Liman was full of life and truly dedicated to her work helping vulnerable women, the Red Cross said.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was appalled and strongly condemns the killing and called for the release of all remaining hostages, spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. The U.N. chief stresses the importance of protecting those who provide humanitarian assistance to millions in northeast Nigeria, he said.

The killing in September of Saifura Hussaini Ahmed Khorsa also led to outrage. Still held captive is Alice Loksha, a nurse who worked at a center supported by the U.N. childrens agency.

The same extremist organization also is holding Leah Sharibu, a student seized in a mass abduction in February. She remains captive while more than 100 of her fellow students were released because she is Christian. Her mother in recent weeks has said her life was in danger.

We urge the group holding Alice and Leah to release them safely, Danzi said.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, who declared that defeating extremism was a top priority when he took power in 2015, last week sent three Cabinet ministers to meet with the families of Sharibu and the abducted health workers, his office said.

Buhari on Tuesday spoke with Limans father and with the International Committee of the Red Cross President Peter Maurer, appealing to the aid group to continue their services in Nigeria and not give up, a State House statement said.Russian officials said an attack at a technical college on the Crimea peninsula Wednesday left at least 19 people dead, including a gunman investigators believe set off an explosive device before opening fire on his classmates.

The explosion ripped through the Kerch Polytechnic College on the far eastern part of the peninsula around midday. Authorities initially reported it as a gas explosion that killed 10 and injured dozens more. Minutes later, the death toll rose as witnesses at the college reported a shooter on campus.

At least 50 people were wounded, according to Russian investigators. The attacker, identified as student Vladislav Roslyakov, 18, who was in his fourth year at the college, then turned the gun on himself, Crimea leader Sergei Aksyonov told the television channel Russia 24.

Investigators said the victims who were killed died of gunshot wounds, not the explosion as initially thought, Russian news agencies reported.

Advertisement

Security camera images published on Russian news sites showed a man in a white T-shirt wielding an automatic weapon as he descended stairs at the college.

Students on campus at the time of the attack described scenes of panic shortly after the explosion went off.

Just glass everywhere, and then someone started shooting, a student at the college, Margarita, told Russian radio station Business FM. I ran and saw the boys just falling, and the blood flying everywhere. My friend, Dasha, I have not seen her since. There are a lot of my friends there. Im so scared.

Semyon Gavrilov, also a student at the institute, said he had been sleeping in his lecture after being up all night the previous evening. The explosion woke him, possibly saving his life, he said in an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper.

I woke up from the explosion and looked out of the lecture hall, and there goes a guy with a gun and he was shooting everyone, the paper quoted him as saying. I hoped he would not hear me. After 10 minutes, the police arrived with machine guns. What happened to the shooter then, I do not know.

Gavrilov said he left the building when Russian security forces began to evacuate students and teachers. The bodies of the dead were lying on the floor. The walls were charred.

Crimea was officially part of Ukraine until March 2014, when Russia annexed the Black Sea peninsula in a move the West, including the United States, does not recognize. The annexation resulted in sanctions on members of Russian President Vladimir Putins inner circle as well as many Russian state-owned companies.

Since then, tensions between Ukraine and Russia have intensified. An ongoing military conflict in eastern Ukraine between Kievs government troops and Russian-backed separatist fighters continues to produce daily casualties.

Kerch, which is about 1,000 miles from Moscow, is the starting point of a $3.7-billion bridge completed by Moscow this year to link the peninsula to the Russian mainland.

School shootings are rare in Russia, where gun laws are significantly stricter than in the U.S. A student gunman opened fire on a Moscow high school in February 2014, killing a teacher and a police officer.

The director of the Kerch college where Wednesdays attack happened told Russian media that it immediately brought up memories of the Beslan school attack in 2004, when more than 330 people, mostly children, were killed in one of Russias worst terrorist attacks.

UPDATES:

8:20 a.m.: This article was updated throughout with Times reporting.

This article was originally published at 4:45 a.m.The U.S. military on Tuesday announced its deadliest airstrike against the Al Qaeda-linked Shabab extremist group in Somalia in nearly a year, killing about 60 fighters.

The U.S. Africa Command said Fridays airstrike occurred near the Shabab-controlled community of Harardhere in the central province of Mudug. No civilians were injured or killed, it said in a statement.

It was the largest U.S. airstrike since one on Nov. 21 killed about 100 Shabab fighters. The statement gave no further details about what was targeted, and a U.S. Africa Command spokesman said it was not a camp.

The U.S. military has carried out more than two dozen airstrikes, including drone strikes, this year against the Shabab, the deadliest Islamic extremist group in sub-Saharan Africa.

Advertisement

Somalia on Sunday marked the first anniversary of the Shababs deadliest attack, a truck bombing in Mogadishu, the capital, that killed more than 500 people. It was one of the worlds deadliest attacks since Sept. 11 and the worst extremist attack ever in Africa.

The U.S. Africa Command spokesman said the airstrike had no link to the anniversary.

The United States, which also has targeted a small number of fighters linked to the Islamic State group in northern Somalia, has increased its military presence in the long-chaotic Horn of Africa nation since early 2017 to about 500 troops after President Trump approved expanded operations.

The Shabab, which seeks to establish an Islamic state in Somalia, continues to hold parts of the countrys southern and central regions after being chased out of Mogadishu several years ago. The group, estimated at several thousand fighters, still carries out deadly attacks against high-profile targets such as hotels and checkpoints in the capital and other cities. It also remains a threat in parts of neighboring Kenya.

Although some observers have questioned the effectiveness of airstrikes by the U.S. and Kenya and raised concerns about civilians being killed, the U.S. military maintains that they reduce the groups ability to plot future attacks and disrupt its leadership networks and degrade its freedom of maneuver within the region.

Somali forces in the next few years are expected to take over responsibility for the countrys security from an African Union peacekeeping force, which already has started withdrawing hundreds of personnel.

The U.S. says it continues to support that transfer even as some American military officials have joined African Union officials and others in expressing concern that Somalias forces are not yet ready.More than a year after a landmark legal ruling cleared the way for Taiwan to become the first place in Asia to recognize same-sex marriage, Taiwanese voters could reverse that distinction if they approve a ballot initiative declaring that marriage should be limited only to people of opposite sexes.

The initiative, one of three LGBTQ-related measures on the Nov. 24 ballot, could slow, or even halt, implementation of a court ruling that ordered the island to change its civil code by removing a provision that effectively banned same-sex marriage. The Constitutional Court ordered the change be made by May 2019.

A second ballot measure asks whether a process other than the civil code should protect same-sex long-term communal living, while a third seeks to eliminate any classroom lessons on the island about same-sex marriage.

Analysts in Tiawan said the measures are too close to call.

Advertisement

LGBTQ rights activists had hailed last years court ruling as a milestone for Asia, where no other government recognizes same-sex marriage, despite efforts in Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam. Religion and conservative values throughout the continent have slowed the advance of same-sex marriage proposals in other countries.

Now, if voters approve the measure to restrict marriage to opposite-sex couples, lawmakers and government officials would be forced to reconsider how, or whether, to change the civil code as ordered by the court.

As a gay parent and individual, I will have less confidence in the government and legislature to enact marriage-equality protections if the one-man, one-woman measure passes, said Jay Lin, who works with Asias largest online movie service. Its been such a long fight and no guarantee what May 2019 might ultimately bring for Taiwan.

The Taiwan political action group Coalition for the Happiness of our Next Generation, which questions same-sex marriage, is pushing the two primary measures. What the law must protect is public order and good customs, and same-sex marriage is actually not love for Taiwan, coalition member Yu Hsin-yi said on his Facebook page.

Protesters chant anti-same-sex marriage slogans during 2016 protests outside parliament in Taipei, Taiwan. (Sam Yeh / AFP/Getty Images)

Opponents of same-sex marriage had kept largely quiet before the Constitutional Court ruling last May, but mobilized quickly afterward. Some opponents said that same-sex marriage runs counter to their Christian beliefs, while others said it violated traditional Chinese family values. The islands political leaders have largely side-stepped the issue.

This is a bipolar issue in our society  both sides have very strong support and sponsorship, said Joanna Lei, chief executive of the Taiwan-based Chunghua 21st Century think tank.

The ruling party majority in parliament has yet to discuss how it would handle last years court ruling if the ballot measure opposing same-sex marriage passes. Experts expect legislators to leave the civil code as is if the measure passes, but explore other means to help same-sex couples.

The legal implications would be that a separate law is made to address same-sex marriage  not in the name of marriage, perhaps same-sex union or something like that  instead of just modifying the civil law, said Shiau Hong-chi, professor of gender studies and communications management at Shih-Hsin University in Taiwan.

Initiatives that gather about 280,000 signatures qualify for elections in Taiwan. An initiative passes if a majority of 25% of eligible voters cast ballots in favor.

Jennings is a special correspondent.The number of migrant parents entering the United States with children has surged to record levels in the three months since President Trump ended family separations at the border, dealing the administration a deepening crisis three weeks before the midterm elections.

U.S. Border Patrol agents arrested 16,658 family members in September, the highest one-month total on record and an 80% increase from July, according to unpublished Homeland Security statistics obtained by the Washington Post.

Large groups of 100 or more Central American parents and children have been crossing the Rio Grande and the deserts of Arizona to turn themselves in, and by citing a fear of return, the families are typically assigned a court date and released from custody.

Were getting hammered daily, said one Border Patrol agent in south Texas who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the news media.

Advertisement

Having campaigned on a promise to stop illegal immigration and build a border wall, Trump now faces a spiraling enforcement challenge with no ready solutions. The soaring arrest numbers -- and a new caravan of Central American migrants heading north -- have left him in a furious state, White House aides say.

Some 1,500 Honduran immigrants walk north in a migrant caravan on Tuesday near Esquipulas, Guatemala. (John Moore / Getty Images)

Trump has been receiving regular updates on the border numbers, telling senior policy advisor Stephen Miller and Chief of Staff John Kelly that something has to change, according to senior administration officials.

Aides including Miller and Sarah Huckabee Sanders have continually told the president that many of the children coming across the border are being smuggled illegally, and that the United States is being taken advantage of. The presidents welling anger has left him pushing once more for a reinstatement of a family separation policy in some form, which he believes is the only thing that has worked, despite the controversy it triggered.

One senior official conceded that the separations were halted to stanch political fury, but ended up sending a clear signal that people could cross, adding now were actually getting crushed.

GOP strategists working in the midterms said the separations were among the worst polling times of the presidency, and reinstituting the separations would sag numbers for the Republicans, who are already struggling in many close races.

Trump continues to criticize Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and has asked Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo to work with Mexico to make it tougher for Central American immigrants to cross its southern border, inserting the issue into ongoing trade negotiations.

A senior DHS official said Wednesday that Nielsen continues to take the lead role engaging with leaders from Central America on migration issues and has been in regular contact with the Mexican government and the transition team of President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who will take office Dec. 1.

Trump has been lashing out this week at the new caravan of 2,000 migrants, mostly from Honduras, who crossed into Guatemala on Monday, pushing past police roadblocks. On Tuesday, Trump threatened to cut off aid to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador if their governments allow their citizens, or others, to journey through their borders and up to the United States.

Trump urged GOP candidates to campaign on the issue in a tweet Wednesday morning. Hard to believe that with thousands of people from South of the Border, walking unimpeded toward our country in the form of large Caravans, that the Democrats wont approve legislation that will allow laws for the protection of our country. Great Midterm issue for Republicans! he wrote.

The latest DHS figures show 107,212 family unit members were taken into custody during the 2018 fiscal year, obliterating the previous high of 77,857 set in 2016.

There have been several senior-level meetings at the White House about the numbers, administration officials say, where Miller has channeled the presidents frustration.

Miller is pushing for a more aggressive stance, including changes at U.S. ports of entry that would make it tougher for asylum-seeking Central Americans to gain admission.

Another option under consideration, known as binary choice, would detain migrant families together and give parents a choice -- stay in immigration jail with their child for months or years as their asylum case proceeds, or allow their child to be assigned to a government shelter while a relative or guardian can apply to gain custody.

Some Homeland Security officials remain wary of the proposal and the potential blowback it could bring, and they lack the detention space to accommodate the record wave of parents and children coming across. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has about 3,300 detention beds at three family residential centers, but five times as many parents and children are crossing each month. The volume has overwhelmed Border Patrol stations and prompted mass releases.

Though the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas remains the busiest corridor for illegal crossings, Border Patrol agents in recent weeks have seen a new spike in southern Arizona. Busloads of migrant parents and children have been dropped off at churches and charities there by ICE, which has little detention space for families and pregnant women.

The latest Department of Homeland Security figures show U.S. agents made 396,579 arrests along the Mexico border during the governments 2018 fiscal year, a 30% increase over the same period in 2017, when illegal migration dropped to a 56-year low.

Trump viewed the 2017 figures as a validation of his tough rhetoric on illegal immigration, and had plans to campaign on the achievement this year. When border arrests jumped earlier this spring, he berated Nielsen and demanded swift action, furious to be losing ground on one of his core issues.

That led to the zero tolerance prosecution initiative this spring and the separation of at least 2,500 children from their parents, hundreds of whom were deported without their sons and daughters. The president issued an executive order June 20 ending the practice amid public outcry.

Homeland Security officials have seen a particularly large increase this year in families arriving from Guatemala, where smuggling guides have been encouraging migrants to bring children with them to avoid deportation.

Despite soaring numbers of family unit arrests, the number of single adults and minors who arrive without a parent remained essentially flat last month, another indication that more migrants who might have traveled alone in the past are now bringing children with them.

Courts have limited the amount of time minors can be held in immigration jails to 20 days, so many parents who arrive with children are fitted with ankle monitoring bracelets and given a court appointment that may be several months away.

Administration officials blame this catch and release model for the growing number of families arriving at the border, proposing to end it by expanding family detention space and changing rules that limit their ability to hold children in long-term custody.

Agents along the border say the family migration surge has continued this month.

If October is any indication of whats to come, Fiscal Year 2019 is going to be a very busy year, Manuel Padilla, chief of the Border Patrols Rio Grande Valley sector in south Texas, said on Twitter. Agents in the sector, the busiest for illegal crossings, arrested more than 1,900 people last weekend alone, according to Padilla.Mexico sent federal forces to its southern border Wednesday after President Trump called on several Latin American nations to stop a large caravan of Honduran immigrants heading toward the United States.

Mexicos federal police released images of two planes arriving in Tapachula, a Mexican city on the border with Guatemala that is a popular crossing point for migrants heading north. News reports showed hundreds of agents disembarking from the planes, some carrying riot gear.

In a series of sternly worded statements, the government has made it clear in recent days that it will not allow any of the estimated 2,000 immigrants traveling with the caravan to cross into Mexican territory without proper documentation.

Anybody entering the country in an irregular manner will be apprehended and, if appropriate, returned to their home country, one statement said. Immigrants fleeing violence or other threats who want refugee status to stay in Mexico must request it at the border and wait up to 45 days in immigration detention, the government said.

Advertisement

The last time a similar caravan of immigrants captured international headlines, back in April, Mexican authorities gave immigrants short-term visas that allowed them to transit through Mexico and reach the United States border.

That angered Trump, who sent National Guard troops to the border and said the caravans participants posed a threat to U.S. sovereignty.

This time Mexican officials appear eager to please Trump, who has threatened to withhold funding from countries that dont seek to curb illegal immigration.

They are clearly responding to Trumps outbursts, political analyst Carlos Bravo Regidor said of Mexican authorities.

I think that for a really long time, Mexico has outsourced its decisions about our southern border to the U.S.

Immigration crackdowns are also popular within Mexico, Bravo said. Some Mexicans resent Central American immigrants, who are sometimes willing to work for lower wages than Mexicans.

The caravan, which includes people fleeing violence and political repression as well as migrants in search of jobs, departed Saturday from the violence-plagued Honduran city of San Pedro Sula  two days after Vice President Mike Pence prevailed on the leaders of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala to urge their citizens not to enter the United States illegally.

On Monday, the migrants pushed past authorities at the Guatemalan border, and the next day Trump threatened to withhold aid from Central American countries if the caravan is not halted.

Hard to believe that with thousands of people from South of the Border, walking unimpeded toward our country in the form of large Caravans, that the Democrats wont approve legislation that will allow laws for the protection of our country, he tweeted Wednesday.

But the caravan pushed on, mostly on foot. On Wednesday, it was still hundreds of miles from the Mexican border.

U.S. officials announced that Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo will visit Mexico City on Friday to meet with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto. The caravan will be on the agenda, a senior State Department official told reporters.

Im certain that therell be conversations with Mexico about how we can work together on this issue, the official said. Certainly were looking for concrete results and for solutions that work for both countries.

Under Pena Nieto, Mexico has greatly increased security along its southern border and has deported hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Central America. But incoming President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who is set to be sworn in Dec. 1, may be less willing to cooperate.

On Wednesday, he said deportations alone do not solve the problem of immigration.

Speaking at a conference, he said he plans to increase the number of work visas granted to Central American immigrants.

Members of a migrant caravan that is heading toward the United States. (John Moore / Getty Images)

kate.linthicum@latimes.com

Twitter: @katelinthicum

Tracy Wilkinson in Washington and Cecilia Sanchez in The Times Mexico City bureau contributed to this report.Photo for illustration (Source: Tourism Newspaper)

The program will create space for artisans to exchange experiences and improve awareness in the preservation and promotion of traditional cultural values of ethnic groups on Truong Son - Central Highlands mountainous areas and southwestern region, contributing to building an advanced Vietnamese culture imbued with national identities; creating opportunity for tourism enterprises to introduce their new tours; and enlarging the market for local products, contributing to stabilizing and improving ethnic peoples life in the region.

Central Highlands provinces, central provinces of Quang Nam and Quang Ngai, and several provinces from Laos, Cambodia and Thailand are invited to participate.

The opening ceremony will take place from 20h00 to 22h00 on December 14th, while the closing ceremony will be organized at the 16/3 Square, Kon Tum city, from 20h00 to 21h30 on December 16th.

Visitors can enjoy street festival will be from 16h00 to 18h00 on December 15th at several streets in Kon Tum city; exhibition on cultural heritage, performance of traditional folklore, and tours to local areas as well.



Besides, Dong Duong hotel to host a gastronomy culture festival from 17h00 to 19h00 on December 14th, and local tourism products will be introduced at the provincial museum. Folk wood sculpture lovers are also warmly welcome in a festival at Rong house at Kon Klor village, Thang Loi precinct./.17th October 2018

Runtime 1:30:33





16th October 2018 was a night to remember. In the last of the 2018 events programme, London South East hosted the legend that is Malcy Graham-Wood, oil analyst and three of his bucket list company CEO's. Joining Malcy we had the simply amazing Fiona MacAulay, CEO at Echo Energy, who work in Bolivia and of course Argentina, the incredibly knowledgeable Andrew Knott, CEO at Savannah Petroleum who work in in Niger and neighbouring Nigeria, and last but certainly not least Paul Welch, CEO of SDX - who work in Egypt and Morocco, but DIDN'T talk about his almost ready to be talked about deal with BP in Egypt. Malcy is a fan of all three and described them as some of the best managed yet most undervalued stocks on AIM.Download Image: Web

Lycoming College is pleased to welcome attorney Bob Bucknam 81 and Pennsylvania State Senator Dave Argall 80 for a lecture titled, Pennsylvanias Energy Transition: Regulating the Commonwealths Future Energy Portfolio, on Nov. 6 at 6 p.m., in the Mary Lindsay Welch Honors Hall on the Lycoming College Campus. The lecture is part of the Center for Energy and the Future (CEF) Speaker Series, and is free and open to the public.

Pennsylvania has long been at the forefront of energy transitions, with coal mining since the late 1700s and the first oil well drilled in Titusville in 1859. The worlds first full-scale atomic powered plant for the generation of electricity was built in Shippingport, Pa., and horizontal drilling and hydrofracturing have been used to produce natural gas in Pennsylvania since 2004. With this in mind, Bucknam and Argall will focus their discussion on the future of energy in Pennsylvania through the lens of policy and regulation. They will explore topics such as how Pennsylvanias policy and regulatory framework can shape the energy choices made by its citizens, and how these policies should evolve as the legacy of Pennsylvanias energy transition continues.

Bucknam is an attorney and board member for Archer Attorneys at Law. He is the chair of the firms Land Use, Environmental Permitting and Regulatory Compliance Group and co-chair of the firms Energy and Utilities Group. Bucknams legal practice specializes in the area of land use planning, zoning, environmental law and permitting, energy law, utilities law, redevelopment law, administrative agency permitting and regulatory compliance at all governmental levels, real estate transactions and financing, and related litigation. After receiving his bachelors degree from Lycoming College, Bucknam received his Juris Doctor degree from Villanova University School of Law.

Argall represents the 29th District, including 94 municipalities in both Schuylkill and Berks Counties. As the Majority Policy Chairman, he is the Senate Republican leader responsible for exploring new ideas statewide. Argalls top legislative priorities center around promoting job growth, eliminating the local school property tax, and revitalizing the downtown area along with older industrial neighborhoods. He is also a leader in conservation, farmland preservation, and abandoned mine reclamation initiatives. Argall received his bachelors degree from Lycoming, and went on to earn his doctoral degree in public administration from Penn State.

The CEF speaker series is sponsored, in part, by the Atlantic Sunrise Community Grant program, established by Williams, a natural gas transmissions pipeline company committed to being a good community neighbor and environmental steward.It is not a bad thing for us, that the route known as the Goldene Strae or the Golden Road as we will get to know it- has escaped the attention of so many. It has been spared being overrun by hordes of tourists and as you will discoverThe Palace said Tuesday it was not surprised to hear possible destabilization moves against President Rodrigo Duterte as the military again warned that communist rebels were planning another ouster plot by December. I am not surprised that they have a plot because that is precisely the rationale of the creation of the Communist Party of the Philippinesto oust the government, said Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo told reporters. So its doubtful if they dont plan an ouster move every day. For 50 years they have been planning, but so far they have failed. Panelo made his statement even as the police and military said seven alleged terrorists linked to the Red October plot to remove Duterte from power this month were arrested on Tuesday. Among those nabbed in separate operations were five high-ranking communist terrorists and two leaders of the Maute Group, the security agencies said in a joint statement. Panelo said the Armed Forces of the Philippines had the resources and the intelligence to validate any information on any ouster plot.Panelos remark came after military warned of another destabilization plot against the administration in December after the reported Red October plan fizzled out. AFP spokesman Brig. Gen. Edgard Arevalo claimed the communist leadership was planning to proceed with its plan in time for the golden anniversary of the Communist Party of the Philippines on Dec. 26. We described this destabilization plot as rolling as the communist leadership intends to sustain their anti-government moves this October, November and until their December founding anniversary celebration, Arevalo said. He said the Red October plan failed after the authorities revealed it to the public and discouraged groups not to join the opposition. But he said the communists plan to overthrow the government was still on, adding the military could not afford to relax in the face of the communist threat.Silver's Time Is Coming

Technical analyst Clive Maund charts silver and discusses the factors that he believes will lead silver upward.

Unlike gold and precious metals stocks, silver did not break out strongly on Thursday  although it rose, it did not break out at all, nor was volume exceptional, as we can see on its latest 6-month chart below. However, this is not a cause for concern, because in the early stages of sector bull markets gold leads, so we can expect silver to "follow suit" shortly. This is worth knowing, because it means that it is still possible to pick up a lot of silver stocks (and ETFs) at knock down silly prices before it really starts to move.

Silver's latest COT chart, like gold's, is most encouraging too, with the dumb and wrong Large Specs emboldened to try shorting it again  good luck with that.

Meanwhile the silver Hedger's chart is showing record bullish extremes.

Click on chart to pop-up a larger, clearer version. Chart courtesy of sentimentrader.com

On silver's latest 10-year chart we can see that the pattern may have morphed from what we earlier  and erroneously  thought was a downsloping Head-and-Shoulders bottom into a potential Double Bottom. It should turn up, especially given what gold and PM stocks did late last week. While this chart viewed in isolation doesn't look too inspiring, you will feel a lot better about it after you take into consideration the powerfully bullish COTs and Hedgers charts that we looked at above.

The conclusion is that it is time to take positions in silver, silver futures, ETFs and stocks before everyone else gets the same idea. Speculative short positions in silver are huge and could drive a big spike once silver really starts to move against them.

Clive Maund has been president of www.clivemaund.com, a successful resource sector website, since its inception in 2003. He has 30 years' experience in technical analysis and has worked for banks, commodity brokers and stockbrokers in the City of London. He holds a Diploma in Technical Analysis from the UK Society of Technical Analysts.

Disclosure: 1) Statements and opinions expressed are the opinions of Clive Maund and not of Streetwise Reports or its officers. Clive Maund is wholly responsible for the validity of the statements. Streetwise Reports was not involved in the content preparation. Clive Maund was not paid by Streetwise Reports LLC for this article. Streetwise Reports was not paid by the author to publish or syndicate this article. 2) This article does not constitute investment advice. Each reader is encouraged to consult with his or her individual financial professional and any action a reader takes as a result of information presented here is his or her own responsibility. By opening this page, each reader accepts and agrees to Streetwise Reports' terms of use and full legal disclaimer. This article is not a solicitation for investment. Streetwise Reports does not render general or specific investment advice and the information on Streetwise Reports should not be considered a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Streetwise Reports does not endorse or recommend the business, products, services or securities of any company mentioned on Streetwise Reports. 3) From time to time, Streetwise Reports LLC and its directors, officers, employees or members of their families, as well as persons interviewed for articles and interviews on the site, may have a long or short position in securities mentioned. Directors, officers, employees or members of their immediate families are prohibited from making purchases and/or sales of those securities in the open market or otherwise from the time of the interview or the decision to write an article, until one week after the publication of the interview or article.

Charts provided by the author.

CliveMaund.com Disclosure: The above represents the opinion and analysis of Mr Maund, based on data available to him, at the time of writing. Mr. Maund's opinions are his own, and are not a recommendation or an offer to buy or sell securities. Mr. Maund is an independent analyst who receives no compensation of any kind from any groups, individuals or corporations mentioned in his reports. As trading and investing in any financial markets may involve serious risk of loss, Mr. Maund recommends that you consult with a qualified investment advisor, one licensed by appropriate regulatory agencies in your legal jurisdiction and do your own due diligence and research when making any kind of a transaction with financial ramifications. Although a qualified and experienced stock market analyst, Clive Maund is not a Registered Securities Advisor. Therefore Mr. Maund's opinions on the market and stocks can only be construed as a solicitation to buy and sell securities when they are subject to the prior approval and endorsement of a Registered Securities Advisor operating in accordance with the appropriate regulations in your area of jurisdiction.

 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.



US Stocks Mount Impressive Early Recovery

As fast as the downside breakout occurred, the upside recovery appears to be taking place as Q3 Earnings begin to hit the news wires. This past weekend, the news cycles and market experts all seemed to have opinions about where the US equities market was headed after last weeks price collapse. Weve read everything from warnings of a $20 trillion dollar collapse to seeing Bloombergs SMART INDEX chart showing equity valuations are near historic market bottoms. It seems everyone wanted to get out and share their opinions  I guess we are no different.

The facts still remain the same, until the global market dynamics change and the US equities markets break the defined price channels that have been well established, we do not see any reason to consider a 6~8% correction life-threatening. In the total scope of the price range, this move represents less than a 25% price correction from price rotation points (as youll see on the longer term NQ chart below). Yes, eventually, some critical market event might cause the US equity markets to change direction, but until then stay safe and roll in and out of trades with skill.

Our research team, at Technical Traders Ltd., has continued to stay on top of this move by predicting the downside move over 3 weeks before it happened and by calling the bottom near 2700 on the ES. Recently, we posted two articles regarding the Q3 earnings expectations and the longer term price channels that are defining this current move. We suggest you visit www.TheTechnicalTraders.com to read our most recent research posts.

The recent upside price swing in the US Equities markets should not have been a surprise if you had been following our analysis and research. These types of price rotation are actually very healthy for the price and allows the price to establish support, wash out a few weaker positions and allows skilled traders to position themselves for future success.

This Monthly NQ chart shows you what our research team has identified as a price pattern going back 8+ years. Since the 2009-10 bottom in the markets, price rotation has been limited to about 0.25% total retracements for each upward price range. This is interesting in the sense that rotation is occurring in price, but it has historically been somewhat limited to within the 0.25% range. This also suggests that as price continues to climb and expand, the 0.25% retracement range is also expanding.

Still, until we see a deeper price retracement that clearly breaches support channels and confirms a downside move, we dont believe any real danger exists to the downside. We have advised our members appropriately to watch for this move and protect their open long positions as this downside setup was identified by our team over 4 weeks ago. Now, we are advising our members to take advantage of strategic opportunities in selected symbols because of what our predictive modeling systems are suggesting.

This 240 minute ES chart shows the recent upside breakout of the FLAG/Pennant formation near the support levels (2733~2744). These levels were identified by our research team shortly after the bottom had formed and allowed us to understand that as long as price stayed above these levels, an upside price breakout was the strongest possibility. The washout price rotation near the apex of the FLAG formation was expected as well. Our team believes the upside price move is just starting and that price will move to near 2830 before stalling and potentially retracing back to near 2785. Remember, our research shows that a true price bottom will not form in the US markets will somewhere near November 8~12. Somewhere near these dates, the US Equities market should form a very solid price bottom and begin to really accelerate to the upside throughout the end of 2018.

Weve already positioned our subscribers to effectively profit from the future moves we expect in the markets. Our predictive modeling systems are showing us what is the highest probability outcomes and our job is to keep our subscribers well informed and ahead of these moves. We urge you to spend a bit of time reviewing our most recent research posts to better understand the current market environment: visit www.TheTechnicalTraders.com/FreeMarketResearch/ to access all of our public research posts. The Christmas rally should be setting up very quickly and this Q3 earnings season is likely to present some very good trading opportunities. Get ready for 2019 by following our research and staying ahead of these market moves instead of following along after the moves have taken place.

Chris Vermeulen

www.TheTechnicalTraders.com

Chris Vermeulen has been involved in the markets since 1997 and is the founder of Technical Traders Ltd. He is an internationally recognized technical analyst, trader, and is the author of the book: 7 Steps to Win With Logic



Through years of research, trading and helping individual traders around the world. He learned that many traders have great trading ideas, but they lack one thing, they struggle to execute trades in a systematic way for consistent results. Chris helps educate traders with a three-hour video course that can change your trading results for the better.



His mission is to help his clients boost their trading performance while reducing market exposure and portfolio volatility.



He is a regular speaker on HoweStreet.com, and the FinancialSurvivorNetwork radio shows. Chris was also featured on the cover of AmalgaTrader Magazine, and contributes articles to several leading financial hubs like MarketOracle.co.uk

Disclaimer: Nothing in this report should be construed as a solicitation to buy or sell any securities mentioned. Technical Traders Ltd., its owners and the author of this report are not registered broker-dealers or financial advisors. Before investing in any securities, you should consult with your financial advisor and a registered broker-dealer. Never make an investment based solely on what you read in an online or printed report, including this report, especially if the investment involves a small, thinly-traded company that isnt well known. Technical Traders Ltd. and the author of this report has been paid by Cardiff Energy Corp. In addition, the author owns shares of Cardiff Energy Corp. and would also benefit from volume and price appreciation of its stock. The information provided here within should not be construed as a financial analysis but rather as an advertisement. The authors views and opinions regarding the companies featured in reports are his own views and are based on information that he has researched independently and has received, which the author assumes to be reliable. Technical Traders Ltd. and the author of this report do not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any content of this report, nor its fitness for any particular purpose. Lastly, the author does not guarantee that any of the companies mentioned in the reports will perform as expected, and any comparisons made to other companies may not be valid or come into effect.

Chris Vermeulen Archive

 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.



Morgan County Sheriffs Office Daily Call Reports Audio Article Editors Note: The following are initial incident reports from callers to a Morgan County Sheriffs Office Dispatcher. Any details, charges or situations may have been distorted by the caller, or perhaps may have been found to be different after the officer further investigated the incident. Monday, July 12, 2021 ...

Honoring Veterans: Stories and memories of those who have served Audio Article When people are asked the question, What does Veterans Day mean to you? you get many answers such as, It is a holiday, a holiday with a day off, a holiday they dont have to work. And then you hear the real reason: to honor veterans that we have in...

HINDSIGHT 2021 Audio Article 10 Years Ago (2011)  The Morgan Junior Lady Raiders soccer team finished their 5-5-2 season in first place in the B bracket tournament held at Kids America in Coshocton. Coached by Alicia Heigley, the members of the winning team included Jessica Conner, Emma Heigley, Cira Myers, Breylan Pierce, Baylie...

ODOT crews gearing up for winter weather Audio Article Most Ohioans aren't thinking about snow and ice yet, but that's not the case at the Ohio Department of Transportation. ODOT is making sure its equipment is ready for another winter. Statewide, nearly 300 mechanics are conducting 150-point checks on everything from the plow blade to the salt spinner on...

MEMBERS OF THE TRIPLE NICKLE CHAPTER Audio Article Members of the Triple Nickle Chapter of the Independent Bikers of America donated $1,500 to Washington-Morgan Community Action to assist veterans in Morgan County who are experiencing housing instability. Members representing the chapter include Ray Ray, Tonto, Rowdy, Maverick, Pink Floyd, and On Call. Sorry! An active online subscription is...

Grand jury issues indictments in Morgan County Audio Article On June 21, 2021, a Morgan County grand jury indicted Amanda Wallace (DOB: May 20, 1994) on a count of failure to comply with order or signal of police officer, a third-degree felony. The jury said that Wallace recklessly operated a motor vehicle so as willfully to elude or flee...A member of the Pakistani Anti-Narcotic Force (ANF) stands guard beside a pile of burning drugs and liquor during a ceremony on the outskirts of northwest Pakistan's Peshawar on Oct. 16, 2018, after the contraband was seized in raids across the province. (Xinhua/Umar Qayyum)

[ Editor: Zhang Zhou ]Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (L) meets with Dutch King Willem-Alexander in The Hague, the Netherlands, Oct. 15, 2018.(Xinhua/Huang Jingwen)

THE HAGUE, Oct. 15 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang met here Monday with Dutch King Willem-Alexander, urging the two countries to enhance cooperation in various areas and defend multilateralism and free trade.

Li first conveyed Chinese President Xi Jinping's cordial greetings to the Dutch king.

In recent years, China-Netherlands relations have developed rapidly, Li said, noting that the exchange of visits by the two countries' heads of state has opened up broad prospects for bilateral ties.

The development of China-Netherlands ties not only benefits both nations, but also bears major significance for China-Europe relations, he said.

China, Li said, is willing to work with the Dutch side to deepen cooperation in various fields, including investment, financing and inclusive finance, and create favorable conditions for their companies, especially those small- and medium-sized ones, to conduct cooperation.

Dutch companies, he added, are welcome to make investment in China.

Speaking of the international trade system, Li said it is encountering some difficulties.

He called upon the two countries, both being open economies and major global traders, to support the rules-based international political and economic order, abide by commonly accepted norms, work together to defend multilateralism and free trade, and inject more certainties into the world.

For his part, King Willem-Alexander said high-level exchanges over recent years have boosted bilateral ties and facilitated mutually beneficial cooperation and two-way corporate investment between the two countries.

In face of the challenges besetting today's world, the Netherlands and China have even more reasons to enhance unity and cooperation, so as to jointly address risks caused by uncertainties and safeguard the international trade system and the world's stability and development, said the king.

Li arrived in the Netherlands on Sunday for an official visit, the first by a Chinese premier to the European country in 14 years.

[ Editor: Zhang Zhou ]Education

Montgomery County Community College will present the spring installment of the interview/talk show program Issues and Insights April 20 from 12:30 to 2 p.m. in Science Center room 214, 340 DeKalb Pike, Blue Bell. The programs will be simulcast to the Colleges West Campus in South Hall room 216, 101 College Drive, Pottstown. Dr. Kolsky will offer a humorous presentation, Carrots, Sticks and Politics: A State of the Nation and the World Message. In this speech, he will provide his interpretation of domestic and international politics and then welcome questions from the audience for discussion. Issues and Insights, is free and open to the public. For information, contact Dr. Thomas Kolsky, professor of political science, at 215-641-6380 or tkolsky@mc3.edu.

Montgomery County Community Colleges STEM Scholars Program will host a STEM Jam! open house April 25 from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. in the Advanced Technology Center at the Colleges Central Campus, 340 DeKalb Pike, Blue Bell. The drop-in event is designed for students interested in learning more about careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Activities will include STEM program information and career advising, STEM speakers throughout the day from industry and academia, micro-helicopter and robotics competitive obstacle courses and demonstrations and static models of STEM student and faculty work. For more information about STEM Jam! or STEM programs at MCCC, contact William Brownlowe at wbrownlowe@mc3.edu or 215-641-6644, or Robin Zuhlke at 215-619-7440 or rzuhlke@mc3.edu.

Temple Ambler, located at 580 Meetinghouse Road, presents the following events:

International Club Global Bazaar April 15 from 5 to 8 p.m. The Ambler Campus International Club invites all students, faculty, staff and the community to celebrate a multitude of diverse cultures, which will be showcased at the organizations Global Bazaar. This family friendly event will highlight cultural traditions and celebrations in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, South American, North America and Africa through music, entertainment, food and informative displays developed and presented by students at the Ambler Campus. Young visitors will be provided with passports, which they may get stamped at each country they visit. Prizes will be awarded to world travelers who talk to cultural representatives, answer questions about the countries theyve visited and take part in fun-filled activities designed to help them learn about the rich diversity of cultures found throughout the world. Refreshments will be served. The event is free. For more information, call 267-468-8108 or e-mail tuc36466@temple.edu.

EarthFest 2011 April 29 from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. More than 75 exhibitors, including the Philadelphia Zoo, The Franklin Institute, the Academy of Natural Sciences, the Elmwood Park Zoo and the Insectarium, will take part in EarthFest 2011. School students of all ages are invited to attend and develop displays of their own. EarthFest partner the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society also offers its Kids Grow Expo, featuring the Junior Flower Show, as part of the event. For more information, call 267-468-8108 or e-mail duffyj@temple.edu.

Annual Spring Plant Sale May 7 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The plant sale  an Ambler Campus tradition dating back to the early 1900s  will feature woody plants and perennials in portable sizes, hardy trees, shrubs, and vines, native plants that are attractive to wildlife, herbs, and hanging baskets. There will also be numerous special plants for sale to highlight Amblers special anniversary year. Garden books and garden tools will also be available for sale. Students, staff, and volunteers from the Department of Landscape Architecture and Horticulture and the Ambler Arboretum Advisory Committee will be available to answer questions. All proceeds from the Spring Plant Sale will support the Ambler Arboretum Fund and the Pi Alpha Xi National Honor Society. Information: 267-468-8001 or judy.shatz@temple.edu. Learn more at www.ambler.temple.edu/anniversary.

June Homecoming/Louise Bush-Brown Garden Dedication June 5 from 12:30 to 2 p.m. (June Homecoming), Bright Hall Lounge; 2 p.m. (Garden Dedication), Ambler Campus Formal Perennial Gardens. Tickets  June Homecoming: Participant  $18 per person; Sustainer  $25 per person; Benefactor  $40 per person. The 2011 June Homecoming, sponsored by the School of Environmental Design Alumni Association, will include the Alumni Association annual meeting and luncheon. June Homecoming will be followed by the formal dedication of Temple University Amblers Formal Perennial Gardens as the Louise Bush-Brown Formal Gardens. During this 100th anniversary of the campus, Temple University Ambler and the Ambler Arboretum of the Temple University is honoring Louise Bush-Browns many contributions to the history of the campus by formally dedicating the gardens in her honor. During the program, campus Executive William Parshall will welcome guests, Ambler Arboretum Director Jenny Rose Carey will speak about the Bush-Browns and the history of the garden, and an official ribbon cutting will be held for the Louise Bush-Brown Formal Garden. Following the ribbon cutting, guests are invited to take a tour of the gardens, which will wend their way to the Campus Greenhouse for the School of Environmental Designs annual Plant Auction. Information (Garden Dedication): 267-468-8001 or judy.shatz@temple.edu. Information (June Homecoming): 215-482-0722. Learn more at www.ambler.temple.edu/anniversary.

Northview Garden Tour and Fundraiser for the Ambler Arboretum June 12 from noon to 5 p.m. Call for reservations. Tickets: $15 per person or $20 at the door. In addition to the gardens of the Ambler Arboretum of Temple University, Arboretum Director Jenny Rose Carey has a garden oasis all her own right in Ambler  Northview. Visitors will have the opportunity to take self-guided tours throughout the many gardens, where garden experts will be available to answer questions about the various designs. The Ambler Keystone Chapter of the Womans National Farm and Garden Association will also provide tea and refreshments. All proceeds from the tours will support the Ambler Arboretum of Temple University. Information or to register: 267-468-8001 or judy.shatz@temple.edu. Learn more at www.ambler.temple.edu/anniversary.

The Senior Adult Activities Center of Montgomery County, 536 George Street, Norristown, will hold the following events:

SAAC Adult Day Care, an alternative to Nursing Home Care is available  for information call 610-275-1960

Volunteers are needed for Meals on Wheels Program (call the number above)

SAACs Fifth Avenue Boutique opens Monday through Friday from 10 a.m.-1:30 p.m.

Exercise with Theresa will be held every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 1 p.m.

Dance class is held every Monday at 10 a.m.

Tai Chi is held every Monday at 10 a.m.

Yoga is held every Tuesday at 10:30 a.m.

Line Dancing is held every Thursday at 10:30 a.m.

Dancing with Joan is held every Wednesday at 10:30 a.m.

Sculpture Class is held Wednesdays from 2 to 3:30 p.m.

Why Should I Learn Spanish? will be held Wednesdays at 10:30 a.m.

Generations On-Line computer classes for seniors will be held Monday through Friday from 8 a.m.  4 p.m.  computers are available during those hours.

Health Living will be held every Tuesday at 1 p.m.

Boomer U will hold the following events. Boomer U is located at 45 Forest Avenue, Ambler. Registration & payment is required for all events: 215-619-8863.

Pilates Class is held Wednesdays and Fridays at 9:30 a.m. First class is free; please bring a mat. For information call 610-291-5376.

Blue Bell School of Dance, 921 Penllyn Blue Bell Pike, Blue Bell, hosts Argentine Tango Classes and a Milonga dance party every Friday evening. Lessons start at 8:30 p.m. followed by dancing at 9:30 p.m. Andrew Conway, master Argentine Tango dancer, instructor and performer and his partner Linda Chase will instruct. All levels welcome and no partner is needed. Refreshments will be served. Fee is $12 per person and includes lesson and dancing. Information: 215-634-1101 or www.amoretango.com.

The Montgomery Hospital Medical Center will offer the following classes:

Childbirth Education Class- all parents are invited to participate, including those who are delivering at

other hospitals. For more information on maternity services or classes, call 610-270-2020.

CPR and First Aid Courses are offered for beginners to experiences health care providers. Call 610-270-2313.

The Ambler SAAC (Senior Adult Activities Center), located at 45 Forest Ave in Ambler will hold the following events:

Tai Chi every Monday and Thursday at 11 a.m.

Yoga is every Tuesday at 1 p.m. and Friday at 10:30 a.m.

Strength and balance training every Wednesday at 10 a.m.

Armchair Aerobics is held every Monday at 10 a.m.

Gourmet Weight Wise every Thursday at 12:30.

Fitness Center and Pool Room open daily 8 a.m.-4 p.m.

The Diabetes Education Center will offer day and evening classes each month. Health insurance pays for diabetes education classes. Preregistration is required. Call 610-270-2301.

For Kids & Families

The Ambler Kiwanis Club will host its annual Easter Egg Hunt April 26 at 10 a.m. in Ambler Borough Park, located just off of the intersection of Hendricks Street and Valley Brook Road. Members of the Wissahickon Key Club will assist Kiwanians in hiding thousands of wrapped chocolate eggs in a designated area of the park. Also hidden will be plastic colored eggs, which are redeemed for prizes. Elementary school children are separated by age.

Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation will hold its 21st annual Storybook Egg-Stravaganza April 15 fom 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the Upper Dublin Township Building. Toddlers and preschoolers love this annual event where photo opportunities with favorite friends abound! Treasures are collected from UDP&Rs assortment of lifesize cutouts of favorite cartoon characters from Disney, Sesame Street, Nickelodeon and other well-known animation. Children can have their picture taken with Bugsy OHare; bring your own camera. And dont forget a basket for goodies! $7 for UD residents; $12 for non-residents. Pre-register at 215-643-1600 ext. 3443.

Splash Week is a free week-long program that teaches children and families basic swimming skills and water safety practices. All YMCA branches will host multiple classes each day from April 11 to 15. For more information, contact the Ambler Area YMCA at 215-628-9950.

Healthy Kids Day is April 16 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The day is filled with fun, engaging and artistic activities that cultivate healthy living as part of the YMCAs larger efforts to help more kids and families become physically active. All activities are free and open to the community. For more information, contact the Ambler YMCA at 215-628-9950. No reservation is required.

The Ambler Area YMCA has added several new programs for area youngsters. Classes are held late afternoons or evenings on various weekdays. For more information, visit philaymca.org or call 215-628-9950.

Basic Beading: Ages: 10+. Wednesdays 7 to 7:45 p.m. This class will teach you the fundamentals of wiring and stringing along with how color can be used to create unique and vibrant beadwork design. You will create various jewelry including earrings, bracelets, charm pendants and much more! Supplies will be provided. Bringing your own jewelry pliers or tools would be a plus.

Messin with the Masters: Ages: 8-12. Thursdays 7 to 7:45 p.m. Learn about some of the worlds greatest artists. You will be inspired to create your own Starry Night with oil pastels and tempera paints, a tissue paper painted Monet garden, a Picasso head using scraps of paper, a Georgia OKeeffe clay flower bowl and a Rousseau jungle collage.

Super Scientist: Ages: 5-7. Mondays 4:30 to 5:15 p.m. Well be concocting chemistry experiments such as making slime, mixing potions and having fun with magnet magic. Your budding little scientist will enhance his/her creative thinking and motor skills and to top it off will learn that science can be serious fun.

Wacky Junk Art: Ages: 8-12. Thursdays 6 to 6:45 p.m. Why throw it away! Instead join us to make household junk into aliens from outer space, wacky specs, crazy hats, body masks or a recycled train.

Globe Trotters: Ages: 4-6. Tuesdays 4:30 to 5:15 p.m. Youre never too young to start thinking globally. Each week, we explore a new country through crafts, games, music, stories and even some taste-testing. A perfect introduction to our great big world!

Crazy about Crafts: Ages: 5-7, Thursdays 4:30 to 5:15 p.m. Let your childs creative juices flow with our fun arts and crafts projects each week. Fine motor skills and creative thinking skills will be enhanced with this crafty class.

Come out and join the Ambler Area YMCAs Teen and Junior Leaders Club. Participants are given the freedom to plan community service projects year round and truly make a difference in the lives of people in need. Those in Teen and Junior Leaders also attend leadership retreats all along the East Coast three times a year and meet other leaders who are doing the same great work in their respective areas. Dont miss out on this inspiring opportunity. Teen Leaders, ages 13-17, meet every Wednesday from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Junior Leaders, ages 10-12, will begin in the spring and will meet every Monday. For more information, contact Mike Miles, Teen Director, 215- 628-9950 x 1540 or mmiles@philaymca.org.

Did you know that the new Ambler Area YMCA holds childrens birthday parties at its site for members and non members as well. The Ambler Y does all the work from start to finish and birthday parties include a personalized cake, ice cream, beverage and paper products. Parties are held on Saturday and Sunday afternoons and include two party hosts to lead activities, set-up, clean-up and assist with serving. You can have a Splash Party for children ages six to 12 in the new zero depth entry pool with water slide and spray fountains. Up to 25 children have exclusive use of the pool area with 30 minutes in the party room. Sports Parties are offered for kids ages four to 12 with age appropriate activities and games, and sports such as floor hockey, soccer, basketball or dodge ball. Children ages three to five years of age will enjoy parties in the Family Active Center with use of the Moon Bounce and organized activities, such as parachute play and songs. For information, 215-628-9950 ext. 1583.

Community Events at the Ambler Y:

-YAchievers YMCA Achievers is a developmentally based, extracurricular, educational and team mentoring program designed to help students in grades five through 12 prepare for fulfilled livelihoods in college and beyond. Participation is free and all students in this program receive a free YMCA membership. Registration for the 2009 program begins now. You do not need to be a YMCA member to utilize these special services. Call 215-628-9950 to register.

Greater Norristown Art Leagues Childrens Weeklong Summer Art Camps will be held at 800 West Germantown Pike in East Norriton, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday throughout the summer. The cost per session is $125 per student for ages 6 and up. Jo Ann Cooksey Bono teaches an introduction to basic drawing skills and techniques from 10 a.m. until the lunch break each day. In the afternoon sessions, Mary Vogel Lozinak involves the students in hands on projects such as collage, papermaking, T-shirt printing, 3D design and sculpy clay. Fridays Graduation Day includes an art show, awards ceremony and reception for parents, siblings, grandparents and friends. All supplies are included. Students provide their own lunch. A refrigerator is available and the building is air-conditioned. This is the 15th year to run this successful program. Both instructors are professional artists with State Police and Child Abuse Clearances. To register, call Jo Ann at 610-279-1008, or register on-line at www.gnal.org.

Health

Dresher Physical Therapy is hosting an interactive seminar discussing its Golf Assessment Progam April 30 from 10 a.m. to noon at Dresher Physical Therapy, 1075 Virginia Drive, Suite 200, Fort Washington. Physical therapist Chris Miller, certified through the Titleist Performance Institute, will discuss why your body may be the most important piece of golf equipment you invest in and how this can drastically improve your game. $10 in advance; $15 at the door. Call 215-619-4545 to reserve your spot.

The Chestnut Hill Center for Enrichment, Center on the Hill and Chestnut Hill Hospital will host a Senior Health and Resource Fair April 14 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Chestnut Hill Presbyterian Church, 8855 Germantown Ave. The event is free. For more information, call 215-248-0180 or e-mail chseniors@cavtel.net.

The Ambler Senior Adult Activities Center is hosting Help Yourself to Health, a new six-week workshop for older adults with ongoing health conditions such as arthritis, diabetes, high blood pressure, anxiety, heart disease and others. The free workshop will take place at the Ambler Senior Adult Activities Center, 45 Forest Ave. on six Thursdays, May 12 through June 16 from 9:30 a.m. to noon. Although there is no charge to participate, registration is required. To register, call 215-619-8863.

The Ambler Senior Adult Activities Center is sponsoring an eight-week program called A Matter of Balance: Managing Concerns About Falls. Presented by the Montgomery County Health Department, this workshop will be held on Tuesdays, May 3 to June 21 from 10 a.m. to noon at the Ambler Center, 45 Forest Ave. If you pre-register by April 27, the fee is only $5! Registration at the first class is $10. (Checks should be payable to SAAC and will benefit our Meals on Wheels program that serves homebound seniors.) A workbook will be provided and refreshments will be served. Call 215-619-8863 to register or for more information.

Fort Washington Wellness Center classes are ongoing. There are several offered during lunch or right after work, for your convenience: Boot Camp from noon to 1 p.m. on Monday; Zumba is MWF from 11 a.m. to noon and Friday at 4 p.m.; there are 25 cycling classes; Ashtanga and Vinyasana Yoga and Pilates; and a group Womens Strength Training class M-F from 10 to 11 a.m. Questions, call Cathy DeMarco at 215-641-1245.

Following the success of other local area programs, Impact Sports and Upper Dublin Parks and Recreation are delighted to team up again to offer a spring program for the 2011 season! Upper Dublin area children ages 3-5 years old can attend a Sports Program featuring their favorite sports games; soccer, rugby, hockey, track and field, basketball, and more. The program will start on April 27 and run through June 1. Cost for the program is $85 for the six weeks. The classes will be running 12- 1 p.m.; 1- 2 p.m.; 2- 3 p.m. For more info or to register, call Upper Dublin Township on 215 643 1600 or visit their website a http://www.upperdublin.net.

Spring Aquatic Programs  UDHS Pool:

-Summer is just around the corner  Community Aquatic Programs at the UDHS Pool can help get you into shape! Programs begin in March; preregistration is required.

 Shallow Water Aerobics  Two 5-week programs, Wednesday nights, 8-8:45 p.m., $40R/$50NR.

 Adult Swim Instructions  Two 5-week programs, Wednesday nights, 7-8 p.m., $50R/$60NR

-Open Rec Swims are fun for the whole family! Come out on Fridays from 7-9 p.m. or Saturdays from 1-4 p.m. and enjoy use of the pool and diving area. Fridays are offered through June 17; Saturdays are offered March 12-May 21.

-Join a growing group of adult lap swimmers and water walkers. Lanes are set aside evenings and weekends for use; lanes are shared. Monday  Thursday from 7:30-9:30 p.m.; Fridays from 7-9 p.m. and Saturdays (March 12-May 21) from 1-4 p.m.

-Private Swimming & Diving Lessons for ages 3-adult are offered at the UDHS Pool through a partnership with the Upper Dublin Aquatic Club (UDAC). Visit the UDAC website for more information, www.udac.us, and click the link to UDHS Private Lessons.

-Looking for local programs for US Masters Swimming (adults) or Water Polo (all ages)? UDAC and UDSD are working together to develop programs that will be offered at the UDHS Pool. Add your name to Interest Lists by emailing slohoefer@upperdublin.net. emails will be sent about clinics and program start dates.

Questions about Community Aquatic Programs at the UDHS Pool, group use of the pool or pool rental? Contact Susan Lohoefer, Facility & Community Affairs Manager at slohoefer@upperdublin.net or call 215-643-8800 x8994.

SilverSneakers Fitness Program. The Healthyways SilverSneakers Fitness Program is a result-oriented program that enables older adults to take charge of their health. The program is an innovative blend of physical activity, healthy lifestyle and socially oriented programing. Members of the program are eligible for a free YMCA membership, with use of the pool and exercise equipment, along with customized classes designed for older adults who want to improve their strength, flexibility, balance and endurance. If you are a subscriber to Independence Blue Cross (Personal Choice 65 PPO) or Keystone 65 HMO, Bravo Health, or Health Options Programs (HOP), call the Ambler Area YMCA, 215-628-9950 or Hatboro Area YMCA, 215-674-4545. You can also visit www.silversneakers.com.

Zumba Fitness offers Zumba dance/fitness classes at Academy of Dance and Music/BBAD Studio located at 1524 DeKalb Pike in Blue Bell (behind Sherwin Williams). Classes are offered three times a week: Tuesdays at 6 p.m., Thursdays at 6:30 p.m. and Saturdays at 8 a.m. For a free trial pass for your first class, email us at info@danceandmusic.biz or call 610-277-2557. For more info, visit our site at www.academyofdanceandmusic.org.

Chestnut Hill Health Systems presents the following Health Education Programs:

FITNESS CLASSES

Golden Yoga: A Breathing, Stretching and Relaxation Class. Fridays, 2:30-3:30 p.m. Lea Auditorium, Chestnut Hill Hospital, 8835 Germantown Ave. Registration for four classes at a time required. Golden Yoga is Classical Yoga, adapted by the SKY Foundation, to accommodate those who have difficulty getting up and down from the floor. The program includes postures, breathing, relaxation and meditation techniques, all performed while sitting in a chair and standing. Registration required. Call 215-247-3029. Cost: $20 for 4 classes per month.

Tai Chi: Tuesdays & Thursdays, 8:30  9:30 a.m. Springfield Residence, 8601 Stenton Ave. Classes, for the novice or beginner/intermediate student, are designed to improve balance, power, posture, coordination, flexibility and mental focus. Slow, gentle movements are modified to most everyones abilities. For more information or to sign up for a free introductory class, call 215-882-2804. Cost: $8 per class/paid monthly.

SUPPORT GROUPS

Weight Loss Surgery Support Group: Fourth Wednesday of the month, 7-8 p.m. Williams Conference Room, Chestnut Hill Hospital, 8835 Germantown Ave., Philadelphia. Join us for a monthly get-together where well share information for those interested in weight loss surgery, learn from guest speakers discussing current news on issues including lifestyle modification, nutrition and exercise and provide ongoing support for those who have completed surgery. Registration required. Call 215-753-2000.

Breast Cancer Networking Group: Fourth Tuesday of the month 5:30  7 p.m. Williams Conference Room, Chestnut Hill Hospital, 8835 Germantown Ave., Philadelphia. A free, confidential support group for women living with a diagnosis of breast cancer designed to provide a forum for sharing information, feelings and concerns associated with breast cancer. Facilitated by Tish Wakefield, LCSW, Oncology Social Worker. Registration required. To register or for more information, call 215-248-8047.

New Moms Support Groups Tuesdays 10:30 a.m.  12 p.m.; contact Jeanine ORourke, MSW or 2:30  4 p.m.; contact Susan Schack, Ph.D Volunteer Conference Room, Chestnut Hill Hospital, 8835 Germantown Ave. The Center for Postpartum Depression at Chestnut Hill Hospital is pleased to offer two new support groups to support new moms. Both groups will be run by experienced mental health professionals who really get it when it comes to new motherhood and juggling relationships, extended family, work/family balance and self-care. If you are experiencing new mom challenges that often heighten anxiety and involve hormonally driven depression, join us for an informative and supportive forum to connect with other moms. Infants are welcome. $30 per session (flexible based on need). Registration is required. Call Dr. Schack, 646-265-2484, or Ms. ORourke, 215-206-2931.

Man to Man Prostate Cancer Support Group Third Thursday of the month 8-9 a.m. Williams Conference Room, Chestnut Hill Hospital, 8835 Germantown Ave. A networking group for men diagnosed with prostate cancer designed to provide education, support and encouragement. Spouses and partners welcome. Harry M. Baer, MD, Chief, Urology Division, will host Ask the Doctor. Registration required. Call 215-248-8325.

Contact the Senior Center by phone 215-248-0180 or email (chseniors@cavtel.net) with your questions about these programs or any of our on-going activities and classes.

Holy Redeemer HomeCare and Hospice seeks compassionate and emotionally mature volunteers to provide support to local hospice patients and their families in Bucks, Montgomery and Philadelphia counties. Volunteers may also assist with pet therapy and administrative work within the hospice department and are requested to have daytime availability. Hospice patient care volunteers visit with patients in their homes or nursing facilities once a week for two to three hours. They provide emotional support and companionship to patients and family members, assist with errands or provide respite for caregivers. Bereavement volunteers support the families of hospice patients following the loss of a loved one, while administrative volunteers assist with typing, mailings and/or filing. Hospice care workers provide a great service to families and loved ones of hospice patients. Many volunteers also report a great deal of personal satisfaction as a result of their services. Patient care and bereavement volunteers complete an application and attend an 18-hour volunteer training program that covers the medical, psychological and spiritual aspects of hospice volunteering. Day and evening training programs are offered. To sign up for volunteer opportunities in Pennsylvania, contact Holy Redeemer Volunteer Coordinator Jean Francis at 215-698-3737 or email jfrancis@holyredeemer.com.

Librarytalk

Upper Dublin Public Library, 805 Loch Alsh Avenue, Ft. Washington, 215-628-8744

www.upperdublinlibrary.org

APRIL CHILDRENS PROGRAMS:

Storytimes: Please register in the library.

o Wee Ones: 0 to 23 months Thursdays and Fridays 10:30 to 10:50 a.m.

o Tiny Tots: age 2. Wednesdays 10:30 to 10:50 a.m. and Fridays 11 to 11:20 a.m.

o Jr. Book Lovers: ages 3 to 6. Tuesdays 10:30 to 11 a.m.

o Bedtime Storytimes: 7 to 7:30 p.m. April 20 and 27. Wear your jammies, bring your teddy & hear Miss Barbara read bedtime stories! For ages 3 to 6.

APRIL TEEN PROGRAMS:

North Hills Library Teens April 28 from 4 to 6 p.m. Movie Matinee

APRIL UDPL ADULT PROGRAMS:

NEW! ESL Conversation Group. Tuesdays from 7 to 8 p.m. Interested in practicing your English in a safe and caring environment? Come to our conversation group and improve your skills! Please register with Kay Klocko at 215-628-8744 or kklocko@mclinc.org.

One-on-One Computer Mentoring. Get personalized assistance from experienced computer volunteers! Sign-up for a one-hour session. Limit one session per month. Please register  contact info above.

Book Groups Please register with Kay Klocko 215-628-8744.

o Daytimers: April 21 at 1:30 p.m. Tired of book groups where you all read the same book? Read any fiction or non-fiction book on this months theme: Explorers. Please register.

Meetings:

Annual Meeting of the Friends of UDPL: April 14 at 1 p.m.

Board of Directors: April 20 at 7 p.m.

Blue Bell Library www.wvpl.org Upcoming Events: The Wissahickon Valley Public Library, 650 Skippack Pike (Route 73) in Blue Bell, is diagonally across from the Blue Bell Inn. Call 215-643-1320 or visit their website at www.wvpl.org.

For children and teens at Blue Bell:

* Story times with guitar music by Miss Michelle, the singing librarian.

* Mondays at 10:30 a.m. for all ages.

* Wednesdays at 4:30 p.m. for all ages.

* Fridays at 10:30 a.m. for all ages.

* Family Movies, new releases, second Saturdays of the month at 1:30 p.m.

* May 14  Despicable Me

* June 11  Alpha and Omega

* Special Events

* April  watch for date of spring/Easter events

* April 14 at 4:30 p.m.  Junior Lego Club for children ages 3 through 5. Parents and caregivers need to stay with children.

* April 14 at 7 p.m.  Jeopardy for ages 11 to 18. Test your book and library knowledge for prizes. Sign up to be a contestant. No sign up to be in the audience. Snacks provided.

* April 16 at 1 p.m.  Adult Mystery Book Group discussing The Beekeepers Apprentice by Laurie King.

* April 16 at 1:30 p.m.  Childrens event for One Book, Every Young Child celebration. Story and craft for book Whose Shoes?

* April 19 at 7 p.m. and April 26 at 1:30 p.m.- Adult book group discusses The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester. Group led by Adam Button.

* April 30 through May 3  Friends book sale with about 10,000 items for sale for children, teens and adults.

* May  sign up for Science in the Summer

* June  sign up for Enrichment Programs for Elementary-Age children

* June  sign up for Summer Reading, all ages

For adults at Blue Bell:

* Daytime Book Discussion Group  fourth Tuesday, Jan  April at 1:30 p.m.

* April 26  The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester

* Night-time Book Discussion Group  third Tuesday of each month at 7 p.m.

o April 19  The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester

* Art Series with Dr. Sheldon Weintraub, docent at The Barnes and speaker at local colleges

o April 27 at 2 p.m. The Art of Looking at Art-Is She Nude or Is She Naked?

*Mystery Book Discussion Group, third Saturday of the month at 1 p.m.; new mystery theme each month; www.wvpl.org/programs

* Yoga on Mondays at 1:30 p.m. $20 for eight classes; $5 per drop-in class.

* Tai Chi on Mondays at 3 p.m. with Dr. Kurt Findeisen. $20 for eight classes; $5 per drop in class.

* Philadelphia Museum of Art presents class on their Marc Chagall exhibit, April 13 at 2 p.m.

* Giant Book Sale, April 29  May 3

o Starts with almost 10,000 items for children and adults!

o Held during library hours.

o Preview for members of the Friends of the Library, April 28 at 7 p.m.

o Join the Friends and attend the preview sale. Modest fee to join.

* Blooms at Blue Bell Gardening Series

o May 11 at 1 p.m.  Summer Bulbs by PA Horticultural Society

* Knitting group Mondays and Wednesdays at 10 a.m. Work on your project or observe and learn. The groups continue year-round in the community room.

* Socrates Cafe discussion group every Monday at 7 p.m. You pick the topic to discuss each week. No sign-up, nothing to read.

* Bridge every Friday at 12:30 p.m. New players welcome.

* Mah Jong every Wednesday at 1 p.m. New players welcome.

*Chess every Wednesday at 7p.m. for adults and teens 14 and older.

* Movie Matinee showing recent releases every Thursday at 2 p.m. April 14: Maos Last Dancer; April 21: Welcome to the Rileys; April 28: Conviction; May 5: Inception; May 12: Inside Job; May 19 The Kings Speech; May 26 The Fighter; June 2 Rabbit Hole; June 9 Black Swan; June 16 127 Hours

* Ongoing like-new, year-round book sale for adults & children during library hours

* Library opening at 10 a.m. Monday through Saturday!

Ambler Library, a branch of the Wissahickon Valley Public Library, 209 Race St., 215-646-1072. www.wvpl.org. All the following events occur at the Ambler Library.

* Story times with guitar music by Miss Michelle, the singing librarian.

* Tuesdays at 10:30 a.m. for all ages.

* Thursdays at 4:30 p.m. for all ages.

* For adults:

* Beading Group meets the first and third Monday of every month at 1 p.m. Work on your own projects or come to watch and learn.

* Free Family History Lookup with Connie Briggs. Email Connie for an appointment at the Ambler Library. conniebriggs@comcast.net

* Special Events:

* April 14 at 1:30 p.m.  Book Group discusses Skeletons at the Feast by Chris Bohjalian.

* April 19 at 7 p.m.  Travel to Paris with world traveler Harry Balin. Tea and scones at 6:30 p.m.

* April 21 at 7 p.m.  Art with Sara for children in fourth through seventh grades.

*May 2 at 6:30 p.m.  Discuss the movie Lone Star with Temple Professor Lisa Hawkins. Watch the movie ahead of time.

*May 10  Robert Capucci discusses Art into Fashion. Tea and scones served at 6:30 p.m. Program at 7 p.m.

*May 12 at 1:30p.m.  Book Group discusses The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman.

*May 17  Tour the gardens of Devon and Southwest England with Lois McMullen. Tea and Scones at 6:30 p.m. Program at 7 p.m.

*June 13 at 6:30 p.m.  Discuss the movie Blade Runner with Temple Professor Lisa Hawkins. Watch the movie ahead of time.

Meetings and Lectures

The Unisys Blue Bell Retiree Group will meet in the Church on the Mall in the Plymouth Meeting Mall April 14 at 1:30 p.m. Kathy Sacket Young, director/trainer with the North Penn YMCA, will speak on Keeping Fit in Retirement. For more information, contact Membership Committee Chairperson Jerry Feldscher at 610-275-3538 or President Al Rollin at 215-368-4833.

The next FWBA meeting will be April 28 at the Hilton Garden Inn Fort Washington. Networking begins at 11:30 a.m.; meeting from noon to 1 p.m. Leon Singletary, Principal, First Contact HR and FWBA Executive Board, will present: Social Media: How to Use It To Get More Business. Lunch is provided courtesy of the Hilton Garden Inn Fort Washington. Members are welcome to bring a guest. An RSVP is requested by return email or 215-628-0313.

Big Brothers Big Sisters Southeastern PA is hosting a information sessions over the next few weeks on how to become a Big Brother. The information sessions will take place: April 16 at noon, April 19 at 8 a.m. and April 28 at 6 p.m. All sessions will be held at the groups Norristown Office,t 530 DeKalb St., Norristown. For more information, call 610-277-2200.

The North Penn Chapter of the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) normally meets on the third Tuesday of each month from now until May. Meetings are held at the William Penn Inn on Route 202 and Sumneytown Pike, Upper Gwynedd, PA. Social hour starts at 5:30 p.m., dinner is served at 6:30 p.m., and the technical program begins at 7 p.m. Cost with reservation is $28 for members. Members without reservations and guests pay $30. Students with reservations pay $15. Reservations may be made by noon on the Monday preceding the meeting by phoning 215-371-1854 or emailing the reservation to northpennima@yahoo.com northpennima@yahoo.com. Information about the North Penn Chapter is available at http://northpenn.imanet.org/.

LeTip, a professional organization of men and women who are dedicated to the highest standards of competence and service meets every Tuesday at Cedar Brook Country Club, 180 Penllyn Pike, Blue Bell at 7 a.m. -meeting officially starts at 7:16 a.m. and ends at 8:31 a.m. Our purpose is the exchange of business tips, leads, and referrals. Each business category is represented by one member and conflicts of interest are disallowed. Guests are welcome to visit any of our breakfast meetings.

Every third Thursday of month, Sunrise Assisted Living of Blue Bell (795 Penllyn Pike, Blue Bell, PA 19422, 215-619-2777) serves as a satellite site to 148th Legislative district PA congressman Mike Gerber from 10 a.m. to noon. Stop by for help needed with things such as disability placards and license plates, vehicle registration, utilities issues, birth/death certificates,property tax/rent rebates, etc. Notary services arranged by appointment.

The Eastern Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce is an action-oriented organization dedicated to promoting its members and the economic health of eastern Montgomery county. The Chamber is committed to serving as a catalyst by uniting business, community agencies, government and education to make our county a great place to live and work. For information, call 215-887-5122 or visit www.emccc.org.

Do you have a fear of public speaking? Blue Bell Toastmasters Club can help. We meet from 7 to 9 p.m., on the second and fourth Tuesday at the Marriott Courtyard, located on Route 202, directly across from the Montgomeryville Mall. Learn how to improve communication and leadership skills in a friendly and supportive environment. Guests are welcome. Admission fee: $5. For more info, visit www.bbtoast.org.

The PennSuburban Chamber of Commerce will hold the following meetings (for reservations to any of the following, email info@PennSuburban.org)

-Breakfast News Network, 7:30-8:45 a.m. at Normandy Farm Hotel (1401 Morris Road, Blue Bell, PA 19422) $15 members, includes full buffet breakfast. Join us for a networking program at Normandy Farm Hotel every Thursday morning for breakfast, business news, informative speakers, and plenty of networking. The cost includes a full breakfast buffet. Copies of the business cards will be made available to those who would like them.

The BNI, Fort Washington Chapter meets every Monday at The Hilton Garden Inn, 520 Pennsylvania Ave., Fort Washington for a networking meeting. Meetings are from 11:30 a.m. until 1 p.m. Visitors are welcome. The only cost to attend is the cost of your meal. For information or a reservation to attend, please call Luanne Cram at 215-947-7784, or visit our Internet site at: http://www.BNIDVR.Com and click on the menu item Find a Chapter.

For the past seven years, people have enjoyed participating in WVWAs Adopt-a-Tree program. Individuals can support the Association in its reforestation efforts by purchasing native trees to be planted. Supporters can plant their adopted tree or have WVWA volunteers will plant it. Trees cost $30 each. If you would like to volunteer or purchase a tree(s), please contact: Bob Adams at Bob@wvwa.org or call: 215-646-8866 for more information. Check www.WVWA.org for directions and maps.

Sustainable Upper Dublin, http://sustainableupperdublin.org, meets the first Thursday of each month at 6:30 p.m., at the Upper Dublin Township Building, 801 Loch Alsh Avenue, Fort Washington, PA 19034. Please send any questions to suec@sustainableupperdublin.org or call 610-996-6316. To learn more about Sustainable Upper Dublin, view or join the discussion at http://googlegroups.com/group/sustainableupperdublin.

Special Events

The Mattie N. Dixon Community Cupboard will hold its first nutrition class April 19 at 10 a.m. at the Community Cupboard, 150 N. Main St., Ambler. Lynne Sinclair, a nutritionist from Abington Memorial Hospital specializing in diabetic nutrition, will conduct the class. Topics will include healthy eating, beneficial foods, recipes, making meals with every day foods, and how to use unfamiliar produce. A healthy snack will be provided.The class is is open to all residents in Montgomery County.

The Historical Society of Fort Washington presents The History of Conshohocken April 19 at 8 p.m. at the Clifton House, 473 Bethlehem Pike, Fort Washington. Jack Coll will present an illustrated program on the history of the Borough of Conshohocken. Coll is a longtime resident of Conshohocken and a member of the Conshohocken Historical Society. He is co-author with his son, Brian, of the Arcadia Then and Now Series book Conshohocken. He has also done books Conshohocken and West Conshohocken Sports and Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Italian Feast. He has taken many photos for the Conshohocken Record and the Norristown Times Herald. This program is free. Refreshments will be served. For additional information, call 215-646-6065.

Taste of the White House Soiree featuring former White House Chef Walter Scheib will take place April 29 at 6 p.m. at Manufacturers Golf & Country Club in Fort Washington to celebrate HealthLinks 10th anniversary and honor its founders, the Eugene Jackson Family. The evening will heat up with a Chef Meet & Greet, followed by a specially selected presidential menu. Gala tickets are $150 per person. Proceeds benefit HealthLink, a free clinic providing compassionate, quality medical and dental care to uninsured, working adults in Bucks and Montgomery counties who fall in between the health care cracks. Go to http://tasteofthewhitehouse.charityhappenings.org to make reservations online or lend support through sponsorship. For event information, call 267-699-0124 or email jmarushak@healthlinkmedical.org.

The Wissahickon Valley Watershed Association will hold an open house at the Evans-Mumbower Mill April 17 from 1 to 4 p.m. The Mill is at the corner of Swedesford and Township Line Roads in Upper Gwynedd. The open house is free but donations are welcome. For more information, call 215-646-8866 o email info@wvwa.org.

The Eastern Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce will host Breakfast With Your County Commissioners and State Representatives April 21 from 8 to 9:30 a.m. at the Holiday Inn Fort Washington, 432 W. Pennasylvania Ave. Commissioners: James R. Matthews (Chairman), Joseph M. Hoeffel (Vice Chair), State Representatives: Todd Stephens (District 151) and Josh Shapiro (District 153). Register onlineat www.emccc.org. $10 for EMCCC member; $20 for non-members.

Upper Dublins Districtwide Allied Art Show will be held April 27 from 5:30 to 9 p.m. in the Upper Dublin High School Athletic Complex.

The Rev. Alfred Muli, chaplain at Fort Washington Estates, will be the featured speaker at the Kiwanis sponsored breakfast observing the National Day of Prayer May 5 at 7 a.m. at the William Penn Inn. The breakfast is open to the public ($15). Reservations can be made by calling 215-646-4356 or by emailing georgesaurman@Juno.com.

The Upper Dublin Shade Tree Commission invites people to participate in its spring bare root planting events, sponsored in part by Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation and Friends of Robbins Park. On April 9, zix trees will be planted at the Evelyn B. Wright Park & Community Pool, 401 Logan Ave., North Hills, at 9 a.m., followed by the planting of 10 trees at Sheeleigh Park, Loch Alsh Avenue and Douglas Street, Ambler, at 10:15 a.m. On April 29, students from Upper Dublin High School will join the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society to plant 16 trees in Robbins Park, Butler Pike and Meetinghouse Road, Ambler, to help launch the societys Million Trees campaign. This event will occur in conjunction with Temple Amblers EarthFest. Experienced tree-tenders are sought to assist the students. For more information,contact Ron Ayres at 215-653-0421 or 215-483-4348.

The Friends of the Wissahickon and the Wissahickon Valley Watershed Association are teaming up once again to clean the Wissahickon Creek from top to bottom April 30 from 9 a.m. to noon. This spring marks the 41st anniversary of Wissahickon Valley Watershed Associations annual Creek Clean Up, and the second year that FOW has teamed up with WVWA. Volunteers of all ages will clean the creek, the surrounding trails and the many tributaries of the Wissahickon Creek. Armed with bags, volunteers will be assigned to sections of the creek. Following the clean up, all volunteers are invited to WVWAs Talkin Trash picnic in Fort Washington State Park, with food provided by Whole Foods Market of North Wales. The pavilion is located on Mill Road in Flourtown. To help out in Montgomery County, all volunteers must be pre-assigned a section of the Wissahickon Creek to clean. Please contact Bob Adams, WVWA director of stewardship, at 215-646-8866 ext. 14 or bob@wvwa.org. To work with the Friends of the Wissahickon in Philadelphia, meet at the pavilion along Forbidden Drive, a short distance south of the intersection of Forbidden Drive and Northwestern Avenue. Limited parking is available along Northwestern Avenue and other nearby streets. Volunteers are encouraged to bike or carpool to the event. To participate, register at www.fow.org. Contact Kevin Groves with questions at 215-247-0417 ext. 105 or groves@fow.org.

Montgomery County Community Colleges International Club invites the community to the second annual International Festival April 20 from 5 to 9 p.m. at the Central Campus, 340 DeKalb Pike, Blue Bell. The rain date is April 26. The International Club will transform the outside quad area into multicultural celebration with various performances by dancers, singers and musicians. Artists will share their artwork at various display tables. Activities include games, raffles, Easter egg decorating and henna tattoos. Students will have samples of international cuisine at tables representing different countries and will serve food from various local ethnic restaurants. Throughout the evening, volunteers will accept donations and will raffle gift baskets and prizes to raise funds for Habitat for Humanity. Donations of food, international clothes and prizes are needed. Volunteers, including artists and performers, are welcome. For more information or to sponsor an activity, contact Gillian Nel, International Club president, at gnel9277@students.mc3.edu or 267-974-0163.

The Arts and Humanities Division at Montgomery County Community College is partnering with the Philadelphia Writers Conference to host Memoirs Matter: How Life Stories (Including Yours) Can Transform Your Relationship to Literature April 23 from 1 to 3 p.m. in Advanced Technology Center room 101, 340 DeKalb Pike, Blue Bell. The event is free and open to the public. In the first part of this two-hour seminar, professor and author Robert Waxler will explain how writing his two memoirs affected his life as well as his relationship to literature. In the second part, blogger and workshop leader Jerry Waxler will present a sequence of steps to help writers find their own story. For information, contact Dana Resente at dresente@mc3.edu.

The Maple Glen Garden Club will hold its fourth annual Plant Sale on May 7 from 8 to 11 a.m. Perennials, shrubs, vegetables and native plants grown by the club members will be sold. The club uses the plant sale proceeds to fund community projects, a college scholarship and community plantings. The sale will be held in the 500 block of Coach Road, Horsham, as part of a neighborhood garage sale. Plants will be sold at bargain prices. For more information, email MapleGlenGardenClub@gmail.com.

The Relay for Life Craft Show is looking for local crafters to participate in show, which will be May 21 from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. on the Wissahickon High School track, 521 Houston Road, Ambler. There is a $10 entry fee, and 20 percent of sales are donated to the American Cancer Society. Participants will receive a 6-foot table under a tent. For information, contact Joanne at joannescoles@comcast.net or Mindy at mcamsilver@comcast.net.

Spring House Estates is hosting its annual book fair on April 18 from 4 to 7 p.m. and April 9 from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Included will be hardback and paperback used books. Spring House Estates is located at 728 Norristown Road, Lower Gwynedd.

The PennSuburban Chamber of Commerce will present the Penn Suburban/Hatfield Joint Business Card Exchange April 20 from 5 to 7 p.m. at Univest Bank Lansdale Area Financial Service Center, 120 Forty Foot Road, Hatfield. The event is free. To make reservations, visit PennSuburban.org/Events. Join Univest National Bank and Trust Co. for a spring-inspired Business Card Exchange at its newest office in the Hatfield Pointe Shopping Center. Come out and meet members of Univests executive management team while enjoying fine food and beverages.

13th Annual Community Reading Day Kick-off Breakfast Get Together April 26 from 8 to 9:30 a.m. at the North Wales Area Library, 233 Swartley St., North Wales. The event is free. To make reservations, visit PennSuburban.org/Events. For more information, contact the chamber office at 215-362-9200 or info@pennsuburban.org. Join presenting sponsor Verizon, chamber staff and fellow members for the Community Reading Day volunteer get together. The Community Reading Day program allows volunteers to read a designated book to second-grade students throughout 38 area public and private schools and present the book as a gift to each class. Even if you are not a volunteer, you are cordially invited to stop by to network, enjoy coffee and pastries.

Ambler Mennonite Church is hosting a Spring Craft Show and Flea Market May 21 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Rain date will be May 28. The community is invited to shop the great craft booths, find some gifts and deals, as well as enjoy home baked goods and tasty lunch specials. Childrens activities are planned. All vendors are encouraged to contact the church at 215-643-4876 or AmblerMennonite@verizon.net. Advertising, signage, customer parking and a shuttle to auxiliary parking at nearby lots for vendors will be provided. 10 foot by 10 foot spaces can be rented for $5 each and tables for an additional $5 each. All proceeds from space and table rentals go toward school kits for children around the world. The church is located at the corner of East Mt. Pleasant Avenue and North Spring Garden Street, Ambler.

The Wissahickon Valley Watershed Association presents The Life & Times of Aquatic Insects in the Wissahickon Creek April 16 from 1 to 3 p.m. Join WVWA for a hands-on program. RSVP required: www.wvwa.org or 215-646-8866. WVWA member fee: $5 per person / $15 per family. Non-WVWA member fee: $10 per person / $20 per family.

The photography exhibition Natures Palette by photo-artist Judy Miller will run March 18 to May 19 at the Art in the Storefront gallery, 41 E. Butler Pike, Ambler.

JPRN  Networking For People in Transition & People Who Can Help Them  Unemployment remains high. JPRN, the Jarrettown Professional Relationship Network can help. Are you trying to network your way to a new job? Do you have expertise or contacts that can help people in transition? Is your company or organization looking for people in the area? This is a free outreach program to support those seeking work, involve people with contacts and networking know how, and involve local companies. Meetings held monthly at Jarrettown United Methodist Church, Limekiln Pike.

Pennsylvanias Low-Income Home Energy Assistance (LIHEAP) grant program is now open for the 2010-11 heating season. Grants are based on income, family size, type of heating fuel and region. Additional information, such as specific income limits, and applications for LIHEAP grants are available online via the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Access to Social Services (COMPASS) website at www.compass.state.pa.us. Applications are available at most public officals district offices, county assistance offices, local utility companies and community service agencies, such as Area Agencies on Aging or community action agencies.

Begin your holiday shopping at Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation! Entertainment books for 2011, Philadelphia North, are now on sale at $30 each. Regal/United Artists movie tickets are on sale for just $7.50 each, and tickets to the Adventure Aquarium, Baltimore Aquarium, and the Philadelphia Zoo are also available. Discounted ski vouchers to area mountains will be arriving in December; call 215-643-1600 x3443 for more information. Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation office hours are Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

RSVP of Montgomery County and the Wissahickon Valley Public Library have partnered again to offer the public their popular free mock interview sessions. The mock interviews are conducted by RSVP volunteers who are retired professionals, some of whom were in hiring positions themselves. Packets of information which include a sample employment application and interviewing tips with mock interview questions are available at the library to pick up prior to a scheduled mock interview or will be sent via email once the interview is scheduled. To schedule your interview, please contact Janis Glusman at RSVP 610-834-1040, ext. 16. The library is also offering a free resume review service. Bring in your current resume and the professional reference staff will assist you with hints and tips on capturing your work history accurately.

Registration for Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation summer playgrounds, Camp B.I.G. and Small Folks, X-Zone, and sports camps has began. Register online at www.upperdublin.net/store, or at the UDP&R office, 801 Loch Alsh Avenue, Fort Washington. Call 215-643-1600 x3443 for more information.

Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation and Danielles Espresso Cafe presents Mornings at Mondaug Bark Park April 16 and May 21 from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. Meet fellow dog lovers. These events include complimentary coffee, treats for people and pups and raffles/giveaways.

Upper Dublins Annual Spring Flea Market will be held June 4 from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Reserve a table, or come and shop. Tables are $15 for UD residents, $20 for non-residents. This successful event occurs rain or shine. Refreshments available. Call 215-643-1600 ext. 3443 to register for a table.

Regal movie tickets available for purchase at Upper Dublin Township Parks & Recreation. Reduced rate: $7.50 per ticket. Some restrictions apply. Call 215-643-1600 x3443.

Whitpain Township Parks & Recreation movie tickets $7.50 Regal Cinemas, United Artist & Edwards Cinemas on sale throughout the year Monday  Friday from 9 a.m.  4 p.m.

Whitpain Township Parks & Recreation Camp Sign-ups for Stony Creek Day Camp  Stony Creek Tracers and Park n Tots. Register on-line at www.whitpaintownship.org OrCome to Township Building with check or Visa MasterCard Monday  Friday from 9 a.m.  4 p.m. For additional information call 610.277-2400 ext. 374

Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation offers exciting new programs for the fall:

-Returning favorites include UK Elite Petite Soccer, Tiny Dancers, Kiddie Tennis, Fun-nastics, Messy Playtime, Little Chefs, and more. Babysitters Training will be offered in November and December. Continuing Adult Fitness Classes include Cardio Circuit, Core & More, Yoga, Boxing, and Adult G.Y.M. For more information call 215-643-1600 x3443. Register for programs online at www.upperdublin.net/store.

Music and Theater

The community is invited to a Cantors Concert April 16 at 8 p.m. Congregation Beth Or, 239 Welsh Road, Maple Glen. Listen and hum-along to the Yiddish, pop tunes and classical music performed by Congregation Beth Ors own Cantor David Green and his special guest, Cantor Irvin Bell, from Temple Beth Israel in Deerfield Beach, Fla. The cantors will be accompanied by Mark Sobol and his Klezmer musicians. Tickets are $18 in advance and $25 at the door. RSVP with payment to Barb Murtha, 239 Welsh Road, Maple Glen, PA 19002, or call 215-646-5806 ext. 220.

Gwynedd Friends Coffeehouse will host the Jameson Sisters May 14. Doors open at 7:30 pm, performance at 8:00 pm. Gwynedd Friends Coffeehouse is located at the corner of Rte. 202 & Sumneytown Pike, Gwynedd. $5 suggested donation. Light refreshment available at a modest cost. For further information, call 215-393-9576 or visit gwyneddmeeting.org/coffeehouse.html.

Celebrate patriotism through song with Gwynedd-Mercy Colleges choir, the Voices of Gwynedd, as it presents Hear America Singing April 15 at 8 p.m. The choir will perform song selections from all over the country, including Georgia on My Mind, New York State of Mind, and a medley including Philadelphia Freedom and Allentown. The performance will end with When the Saints Go Marching In to acknowledge the choirs upcoming tour in New Orleans. Hear America Singing will take place in the Julia Ball Auditorium, located in St. Bernard Hall. Parking is available in lots A, C and D. Admission is free.

The Choristers will present Anton Dvoraks Stabat Mater April 16 at 7:30 p.m. at Upper Dublin Lutheran Church in Ambler. The choir will be accompanied by a 41-piece orchestra. Tickets are $20 for adults, $15 for senior citizens, $10 for students and children are free. Tickets will be sold in advance or at the door. For more information, call 215-542-7871 or visit TheChoristers.org

Religious News

The Staircase Gallery at Or Hadash: A Reconstructionist Congregation in Fort Washington will feature the work of Emily Ennuat-Lustine. The artist will be showing paintings and graphics inspired by her own personal spiritual journey and quest for meaning. Some of the works to be shown have been inspired by Biblical Psalms and writings. Her work has been shown at Abington Art Center, Cheltenham Arts Center and Old City Gallery of Jewish Art among others. The exhibition is open Friday evenings starting Feb. 18 after Shabbat services. Gallery hours are: Mondays through Thursdays 10-4:30, Fridays 10-3 and following Shabbat Services and Sundays 10-1. The synagogue is located at 190 Camp Hill Road in Fort Washington. For additional information contact the synagogue office at 215-283-0276.

Reunions

St. Matthews High School Conshohocken Class of 1961 is looking for classmates. For details, contact Greg Marincola at 215-646-2239, 215-740-1296 or gregcola@comcast.net.

Olney High School Class of 1971 is Lloking for classmates for a 40th reunion Oct. 28. For details, contact Judy at ohsclassof71@yahoo.com or 215-870-7572.

Abington High School Class of 1961 is seeking classmates for a 50-year reunion to be held Oct. 14-15, 2011.Visit the website, www.abington61.com, for details or call 215-947-1779.

Overbrook High School class of January 1956 is having a 55 year reunion on May 22, 2011 at the Bala Golf Club in Philadelphia. For information please contact overbrookreunion56@comcast.net

Germantown High School Class Of January 1961 is looking for classmates for 50th year reunion to take place in May of 2011. Please contact: 215-362-9148, 856-577-0659 or samdelcomo@comcast.net

The June 1961 class of Germantown High School is holding their 50th reunion on May 15, which will be a brunch. For further details please contact Linda Dorfman Alten at lindaalten@yahoo.com or call 215-441-8411.

Support

New Life Presbyterian Church in Dresher, will host GriefShare, a special seminar and support group which will run on Monday evenings from 7 to 9 p.m., from March 7 through June 6. At each meeting there will be a DVD about the grief process, discussion and reference to a grief workbook. Preregistration is required to secure a place in the group and to purchase a GriefShare notebook (for a one-time fee of $15). The notebook goes along with the 13-week schedule covering such topics as: living with grief, the effects of grief, and stuck in grief. For more information or to register, call: Sandy Elder at 215-884-5149.

PUPS (People Understanding Parkinsons) A self-help group for those adjusting to a new diagnosis or dealing with the early stages of Parkinsons Disease. Meets fourth Tuesday of the month from 1 to 2:30 p.m., at Abington Health Center, Schilling Campus, Willowood Building, 2510 Maryland Road, Suite 251, Willow Grove. For more information or to RSVP, contact Lorna at 215-542-2931.

The North Penn Visiting Nurse Associations Meals on Wheels program is looking for volunteers to pack or deliver meals to the elderly and infirmed. Meals are packed and delivered mornings, Monday through Friday. You can volunteer for as many days per week or month as you would like. Packaging meals requires approximately 2-1/2 hours of your time each day and involves making sandwiches, packaging food into individual serving containers and packing coolers with the meals. Delivering meals requires approximately 1-1/2 hours of your time each day and involves loading coolers into your car and delivering a route of approximately 10 to 15 stops. The Meals on Wheels program is also in need of emergency, winter-weather volunteers to pack and deliver meals in bad weather. North Penn VNA is located at 51 Medical Campus Drive in Lansdale and delivers meals in the Lansdale, North Wales and Blue Bell areas. For more information or to volunteer, please call Bridget, North Penn VNA Meals on Wheels coordinator at 215-855-8296.

Elkins Park Area CHADD (Children and Adults with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder) meets the first Tuesday of every month, 7- 8:30 p.m., at Einstein at Elkins Park Hospital in Elkins Park. For information on CHADD or ADHD, please see our website www.chadd.net/249 or call Claire Noyes at: 215-779-6656.

Center for Loss and Bereavement, 3847 Skippack Pike, Skippack (610-222-4110) www.bereavementcenter.org Offers professional counseling for individuals, couples, children and families dealing with issues of loss and bereavement. Six-week adult support groups: Newly forming young adult grief support group  every other Wednesday, 7  8:15 p.m. (free of charge); Monthly loss of child support  second Mondays, 7-8:15 p.m.; Six-week young loss of spouse/partner  Thursdays, 10-11:15 a.m.; Other groups scheduled as interest is shown for suicide loss support, adult loss of parent, motherless daughters, adult loss of sibling, coping with chronic illness and disability and mens loss of spouse. Nellos Corner Family Bereavement program offers peer grief support groups for ages 4 through teen and their caregivers  Every other Tuesday or Wednesday (free of charge) Local chapter of Parents of Murdered Children also meets at the Center. Registration required. Call for further information.

CHADD is a national organization for children & adults with Attention-Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder, providing education, advocacy and support for individuals and their families with AD/HD. Einstein at Elkins Park Hospital, 60 Township Line Road, Elkins Park, PA 19027, will host children & adults with Attention-Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder on the First Tuesday of each month 7  8:30 p.m. Free, no childcare provided.

The Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphias Kehillah of Old York Road is sponsoring a free Caregiver Support Group for individuals who care for an elderly person with cognitive and/or physical impairments. The group meets at SarahCare Adult Day Care Center, 101 Washington Lane, Suite G-6, Jenkintown, Pa., on the first Wednesday of each month. Patty Rich,The event has attracted the participation of around 250 enterprises from Vietnam and many other countries, including India, Nepal, Japan, the Republic of Korea and China.

With more than 650 booths, the show offers an opportunity for businesses and trade villages to introduce their latest products, seek more customers and expand their export markets.

During the 2018 Hanoi Gift Show, forums providing consultancy on design and an international workshop on trade village and handicraft products will be held, creating condition for enterprises, artisans and skilled workers to exchange their experience.

A business linkage programme between local businesses and foreign importers will also be a highlight of this years event.

The Hanoi Gift Show, which will last until October 20, is expected to attract around 12,000 visitors, including over 600 foreign importers, mainly from the US, Europe, Japan, Australia, Canada and Brazil.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.Finding new ways to boost local tourism

Born and bred on Ly Son Island, Le Van Thanh spent his childhood along the beautiful beaches of the island. Despite studying far from home, he always nurtured an aspiration of returning to his hometown to start his career.

During summer time and breaks in the semesters, Thanh had the opportunity to join geological and archaeological experts on their journey to explore Ly Sons underwater geological features. The trips helped Thanh explore more about the century-old dead volcano on Ly Son Island and the geological heritage hidden deep under the blue ocean, which urged him to follow his dream of conquering the sea.

After three years as a student majoring in travel management at the Hue Tourism College, Thanh decided to return to his island district and established the Ly Son Volcano Dive Centre as his start up project.

After I told my father about my plan and clear goals, I received support from my family. Im young and Im adventurous, so I want to provide customers with fresh and unique tourist products in order to attract visitors, Thanh said.

Thanh was confident that diving beneath the sea to admire a volcano is a fresh experience with rich tourism potential, so he cooperated with an archaeologist to make long-term investment in his business.





Dang Van Sam's bungalow is colourful enough to stand out in the green wild space of the islet. (Photo: zing.vn)

Another story of a youngster returning to their hometown to start a business is Dang Van Sam, 26, the owner of a homestay named Bungalow on Bo Bai isle. Inspired from the Indian-style bungalows he had seen during his trips to Sapa town and Cat Ba Island, Sam made the design for his bungalow on his own, making it colourful enough to stand out in the green wild space of the islet.

As a graduate of Business Administration from Nha Trang University, Sam decided to run his start-up project in tourism.

It is important to establish a new and unique way to approach customers, Sam said, adding that nature-based tourism and a touch of indigenous culture will make visitors stay longer on the island.

Efforts to raise value of local agricultural products

Meanwhile, Le Thi Thanh Thanh has been busy with her project on raising the value of Ly Son Islands seaweed.

Each year Ly Son islanders harvest more than 500 tonnes of fresh seaweed, which is sold for traders and distributors at quite a low cost.

With the hope to raise the projects value and bring it to a larger-scale market, Thanh successfully experimented on dried and fermented seaweeds.

In her first effort, Thanh made 400 boxes of fermented seaweed, with each box sold at VND37,000. The products received great appreciation from visitors.

Ly Son islanders often sell seaweed as a raw material thus the cost is low, while fresh seaweed can not keep for a long time, Thanh said.

Therefore, she buys seaweed from islanders at a higher cost before processing it into higher-valued products, which not only helps the locals improve their income but also contributes to raising the quality of Ly Sons specialty.

Thanhs project received aid of VND 450 million from the Foreign Trade Universitys Startup Incubation Programme SIP100.

In addition to producing edible seaweed products, Thanh has also worked to diversify her products, including making beverages, tea and masks from seaweed.





Le Thi Thanh Thanh (R) at an event to promote her edible seaweed products (Photo: vnexpress.net)

Apart from target benefits, the Ly Son young peoples start-up projects have also paid due attention to protecting the environment and available resources of the island.

As Ly Son Island is known as the Kingdom of Garlic in Vietnam, Ly Son garlic has a distinctive flavour and is in high demand at home and abroad.

With the hope to further promote the brand of the project, Nguyen Van Dinh made an investment in producing organic garlic and onions with the construction of an organic farm in 2017, which covers 2,500sq.m with updated high-tech farming equipment.

Organic and green products are the core value in my strategy of developing my own brand. I have targeted not only meeting the domestic demand for Ly Son garlic but also exporting my products to foreign markets, Dinh said.

Aside from Le Van Thanh, Dang Van Sam, Le Thi Thanh Thanh, and Nguyen Van Dinh, there are many other Ly Son youngsters who have aspirations to boost their hometowns development. Their creativity, innovation, energy, and daring to take a chance have contributed to making Ly Son Island more attractive to visitors while helping to improve the islanders income.Co-organised by the Ho Chi Minh City Union of Friendship Oganisations (HUFO) and the Vietnam-France Friendship Association, the exhibition features 42 art works, including paintings in oil, acrylic and lacquer, and sculptures in ceramic, by five French and 14 Vietnamese painters and artists. The works feature images of people, landscapes and still life.

Addressing the opening ceremony, Huynh Van Muoi, Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City Fine Arts Association, said it is the fourth joint Vietnam  France art exhibition to be held in Ho Chi Minh City.

Through the event, Vietnamese and French artists have a chance to share experience in painting, thus contributing to further tightening the friendship and cooperation between the two countries.

Previously, three joint art exhibitions between Vietnamese and French artists were held in Ho Chi Minh City.

The exhibition runs until October 25.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 []The PM set off for Brussels to attend the 12th Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) Summit and pay official visits to Belgium and Denmark.

Before leaving, PM Phuc visited the IMC University of Applied Sciences Krems (IMC Krems) of Austria on the morning the same day.

Talking to the universitys lecturers and students, he said the Vietnamese people always keep in mind the support of the Austrian youth during the countrys fight against foreign invaders in the 1960s. In the 1970s, Austria was one of the first western nations to set up diplomatic ties with Vietnam.

Over the last four decades, friendship and cooperation between the two nations have developed in multiple areas, especially economy. Vietnam has maintained its position as Austrias largest Southeast Asian trade partner, while Austria has remained Vietnams top 10 export markets within the European Union.

Austrias development assistance in healthcare, the railway sector, and vocational training has been effective in helping Vietnam improve peoples living standards, he noted.

PM Phuc added after over the last 30 years of reform, Vietnam has been developing dynamically, with its young population holding strong aspirations to study and become established in the global community. It considers education a top priority and a breakthrough to maximising learners chances. Education is also a priority field of cooperation between the two countries for the time ahead.

Emphasising the opportunities and challenges facing Vietnamese and Austrian youth, the PM said the Fourth Industrial Revolution is creating opportunities for the two countries to become closer, improve mutual understanding, and increase the sharing of global community responsibilities.

Although peace and development are still a dominant theme, the use or threat to use force and the emergence of unilateralism continue to jeopardise international peace and security. War and conflicts, religious and racial conflicts, separatism, and terrorism still exist in many places around the world, noted the PM.

Additionally, there are other global challenges like unsustainable development, climate change, wealth inequality, gender inequality, environmental degradation, unemployment, and social crimes. They have been threatening efforts towards sustainable development with younger generations among the most vulnerable groups, he said.

The leader expressed his belief that the young people of Vietnam and Austria will be one of the bridges enhancing bilateral friendship and contributing to peace, stability, cooperation, development, and prosperity in their respective regions.

On this occasion, PM Phuc witnessed the signing of a cooperation agreement between IMC Krems and the Vietnam University of Commerce.

Also on October 16, he visited Austrias BIOMIN Research Centre.By Reuters

BERLIN: Euro zone countries must each ensure their budgets are stable and economies competitive, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said ahead of a European Union summit on Wednesday, as Italy weighs expansionary budget plans that risk EU rejection.

Italy, the euro zone's third-largest economy, has prepared an expansionary 2019 budget that sets up a showdown with authorities in Brussels over compliance with EU rules. The European Commission may reject the plans.

Merkel told the Bundestag lower house of parliament in Berlin that all members of the euro zone were responsible for their own economic and budget policy.

"Each state in the euro zone is obliged to take care of stability and to take necessary reforms for its competitiveness - and that applies now in good economic times," she added.

"At the same time, as we have learned from painful experience, in a currency union we are so closely intertwined with one another that national policies can always have effects on the other member states."

She said stable budgets were an important condition for good economic development in each individual country, adding: "Solid public finances are also a condition for trust in the currency union."

"Our guide remains the Stability and Growth Pact. I will continue to make the case that in Europe this principle applies: responsibility and solidarity, liability and control - those are two sides of the same coin," she added to laud applause.By PTI

MUMBAI: Advertising sector watchdog ASCI investigated complaints against 208 advertisements in June, of which 179 were regarding misleading claims including those of Reliance Jio, SpiceJet, PepsiCo India, Hindustan Unilever, among others.

It noted that out of the 208 advertisements, the advertisers promptly ensured corrective action in 63 of them as soon as the complaints were received.

The consumer complaints council (CCC) of Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) upheld 89 advertisements from a total of 145 evaluated by them.

Amongst the 89 advertisements which it held misleading, 25 belonged to the healthcare category, 27 to education, 15 to food and beverages, five to personal care and 17 were from other categories, it said in a statement.

ASCI upheld the complaint against PepsiCo India's Quaker Oats' two ads finding them misleading by ambiguity and omission of the direct reference of comparison in the voice over itself.

It said that the ads said 'Quaker Oats me hai 2x more protein and fibre' was qualified with a disclaimer 'per serve comparison with cornflakes.

Reference: Atlas of Indian Foods', which was not legible and not as per ASCI guidelines on disclaimers (font size, contrast, hold duration).

"The advertisement's claim 'two times more protein' was misleading by ambiguity and implication and the commercial under reference contravened ASCI's guidelines for celebrities in advertising," it said.

The watchdog pulled up SpiceJet for the visual of a man inserting loose wires into a power socket and getting an electric shock, and also shown repeating this act again, which it termed as an unsafe and a dangerous practice, which manifests a disregard for safety and encourages negligence.

ASCI also considered Hindustan Unilever's Lifebuoy soap advertisement to be misleading by ambiguity and implication.

"The television advertisement when seen in totality creates an impression that Lifebuoy is recommended by doctors.

In view of the Code of Medical Ethics prohibiting doctors from endorsing any product and in absence of any market research data indicating that medical professionals, in general, recommend the advertised product, such visual presentation was considered to be misleading by ambiguity and implication," it said.

It also upheld the complaint against Kraft Heinz India's Complan advertisement claim that 'only one cup of Complan has protein equivalent to one egg and other health drinks provide protein equivalent to half egg only', as they were not substantiated and was considered to be misleading by ambiguity and exaggeration as well as in contravention of the ASCI guidelines on disclaimers.

The regulator also noted that PepsiCo India's New Tropicana Essentials-Fruits and Veggies advertisement did not provide any supporting evidence to show that Tropicana Essentials was a 'new' product at the time of publishing the advertisement and found the claim to be misleading.

ASCI also pulled up Reliance Jio Infocomm advertisement's claims of offering the best network and being the world's largest mobile data network for misleading by ambiguity and implication as they refer to only consumption of data and not the extent and infrastructure of network.

Similarly, it found Myntra advertisement's claim, 'here's Rs 300 on us', as misleading by ambiguity and omission that the offer is only on select products and that the offer is subject to terms and conditions.

It added that the advertiser did not provide the terms and conditions of the offer nor a link showing the same which would have informed the customer about the conditions.

The regulator also noted that in Yatra.

com's advertisement, the claim offer related to the fare type 'refundable' was misleading by ambiguity regarding the extent and conditions of the refund, and by omission of a qualifier to mention that it is subject to terms and conditions.

It also found Rasna's advertisement claim, 'natural fruit energy', was inadequately substantiated and is misleading by ambiguity and implication about the fruit content in the product.

"The visual of celebrity Kareena Kapoor, when seen in conjunction with the claim, is likely to mislead consumers regarding the nature of product benefit and contravened the guidelines for celebrities in advertising," it said.Anuradha Shukla By

Express News Service

NEW DELHI: Reeling under the weight of non-performing assets, Dena Bank is set to receive a Rs 4,100 crore infusion from the government ahead of its merger with Bank of Baroda and Vijaya Bank.

While the process of the merger is on, the government is ensuring that the financial health of the merger remains sound. We are considering the infusion of capital to the tune of Rs 4,100 crore in Dena Bank, which will help clean its loan book along with other measures (it) is already taking, a senior government official told TNIE.

As on June 30, the gross NPA ratio of Dena Bank stood at 22.69 per cent and net NPA ratio at 11.04 per cent. The bank had reported a loss of Rs 721.71 crore on a total income of Rs 2,410 crore during the first quarter of this fiscal. The Bank has been put under prompt corrective action by the RBI.

This capital infusion has been on the agenda of the government for a while. In July, the Centre had infused Rs 2,820 crore into Punjab National Bank, Rs 2,550 crore into Corporation Bank, Rs 2,160 crore into Indian Overseas Bank, Rs 2,020 crore into Andhra Bank and Rs 1,800 crore into Allahabad Bank.By Reuters

DUBAI: Saudi Arabia and Kuwait will struggle to resume oil production from jointly operated fields any time soon due to operational differences and souring political ties between the previously close Gulf OPEC allies, sources familiar with the matter said.

The two countries halted output from the jointly run oilfields - Khafji and Wafra - in the so-called Neutral Zone more than three years ago, cutting some 500,000 barrels per day or 0.5 per cent of global oil supply.

As oil prices rose to a four-year high above USD 85 per barrel this year, Washington has been pressing its top Gulf ally Riyadh to reduce crude prices by increasing production.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman visited Kuwait last month to discuss a resumption of oil output from the zone.

But the sources, who asked not to be identified as they are prohibited from discussing the issue publicly, said the talks failed to move the two countries closer to a deal as Kuwait resisted Riyadh's push for greater control of the fields.

"It did not go well because Kuwaiti sovereignty is non-negotiable," one source told Reuters.

Riyadh does not want Kuwaiti laws to apply to US oil major Chevron, which operates the Wafra onshore field on behalf of the Saudi government, the source added.

Another source said Saudi Arabia wanted a bigger say and more control in running oil operations in the zone.

Prince Mohammed met Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah and Crown Prince Nawaf al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah but the visit was cut short from the originally planned two days to just a few hours on the night of Sept. 30, the sources said.

POLITICAL TENSIONS

Adding to the political friction were tensions between the two countries over the embargo of neighbouring Qatar and diverging views on relations with Saudi Arabia's arch-foe Iran, the sources said. Kuwait is trying to mediate the embargo, which is being led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE and Egypt cut diplomatic, transport and trade ties with Doha last year, accusing it of financing terrorism. Qatar rejects the charges.

Kuwait has sought to maintain neutrality, although the Emir's efforts to mediate the rift have had little success so far.

Kuwait, which has a sizeable Shiite Muslim minority, has also maintained dialogue with Shiite Iran. Saudi Arabia and Iran back opposing sides in civil wars in Syria and Yemen.

In a move that may further complicate relations with Riyadh, Kuwait this month signed a defence cooperation plan with Turkey in what it said was meant to strengthen bilateral ties.

Turkey has sided with Qatar in the Gulf row and its relations with Riyadh have been strained due to Ankara's close ties with Iran.

"The (regional) situation is not stable, so every country should think how to protect itself," Saleh Ashour, a member of the Kuwaiti parliament, told Reuters.

COSTLY IDLE WELLS

Oil output in the Neutral Zone, which dates back to 1920s treaties establishing regional borders, is divided equally between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

The Wafra field is operated by state-run Kuwait Gulf Oil Co and Chevron on behalf of Saudi Arabia. The Khafji field is operated by state oil giant Saudi Aramco and Kuwait Gulf Oil.

Tensions have been simmering since the last decade when Kuwait was angered by a Saudi decision to prolong Chevron's Wafra concession until 2039 without consulting Kuwait.

In 2014, Saudi Arabia closed Khafji, citing environmental issues. In 2015, Chevron shut Wafra after failing to agree operating rights with Kuwait.

Shutting output is expensive because it requires investments of tens of millions of dollars per year for maintenance, sources familiar with field operations said.

The Neutral Zone "is the single biggest asset in the world which was deliberately stopped and hasn't been producing for three years", one of the sources said.

"The more the restart is postponed the more it will cost to maintain it. And the more problematic it might be to restart the fields quickly and fully," he added.

Industry sources from both countries say that though Khafji and Wafra are not linked geographically, an agreement to bring one field back online would be tied to the other.By Express News Service

CHENNAI: On World Handwashing Day, the Chennai Corporation conducted awareness programmes in all its schools to encourage students to wash their hands regularly with soap, on Monday. According to a press release from the civic body, more than one lakh students took a pledge to wash hands with soap and encourage their families, friends and relatives to do the same before eating.

Most diseases are caused due to unclean living spaces and lack of personal hygiene. According to the World Health Organisation, around 50 per cent of gastrointestinal disease cases and 25 per cent of pneumonia cases can be prevented just by washing hands with soap. Diseases such as cholera, common cold, typhoid and jaundice also can be prevented by washing hands.

The Directorate of Public Health has also highlighted the importance of washing hands to combat swine flu in the state. Wash hands frequently using soap. Also, wash hands immediately after you reach home from outside. Avoid touching eyes, nose or mouth without washing hands, said K Kolandasamy, director of public health.

Health Education Officer T G Srinivasan took part in the awareness programme conducted in Puliyur Corporation School in Kodambakkam and managed the awareness programmes which included demonstrations on how to wash hands properly. The Corporation also raised awareness about washing hands among conservancy workers across zones.

Why is it important?

 According to the World Health Organisation, around 50 per cent of gastrointestinal disease cases and

25 per cent of pneumonia cases can be prevented just by washing hands with soap

 Diseases such as cholera, common cold, typhoid and jaundice can be prevented by this habit

 Washing hands can help combat swine fluPM Nguyen Xuan Phuc and his Belgian counterpart Charles Michel co-chaired the press conference following their talks.

The Vietnamese PM said he and PM Charles Michel had agreed to bolster ties in agriculture, education-training, culture, transport and facilitation of business and investment, especially when the VietnamEU Free Trade Agreement will be signed soon.

He told the press that many Belgian-invested projects in Vietnam have been successful, adding that Vietnam is making constant efforts to improve its investment environment.

He added that Belgium had agreed to push for the signing of the VietnamEU Free Trade Agreement, thus facilitating trade and investment between the two countries.

Phuc announced that he had invited the Belgian PM to visit Vietnam and his invitation had been accepted.

PM Charles Michel said besides many important issues to bolster the two countries economic partnership, especially in trade and investment, the two sides also considered collaboration in education-training and examined the framework to promote Vietnam-EU free trade agreements.

The Belgian PM said Belgium supports Vietnams candidacy as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council for 2020-2021. The two countries will work together for peace and security in the East Sea and raise voice to protest unilateral actions that violate peace and international law.

He also said Belgium wants to work with Vietnam in agriculture, helping the Southeast Asian country develop clean agriculture and procedures to ensure food safety.

The two PMs said they had agreed on the importance of maintaining peace, stability, security and safety of navigation and aviation in the East Sea.

Disputes should be addressed by peaceful measures, in accordance with international law, especially the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), they said.

Following their talks, the leaders witnessed the signing of some cooperation documents between agencies and businesses of the two countries, covering agriculture, food safety, seaport and other spheres.

They include a strategic partnership agreement on agriculture between the two Governments, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on improving food safety and hygiene between the Vietnamese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Federal Agency for the Safety of the Food Chain, and another MoU on establishing a bilateral political consultation mechanism between the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Belgian Federal Public Service Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation.

A MoU on cooperation in research of smart port in the northern port city of Hai Phong between Vietnams Hateco and Rent-A-Port Group of Belgium and another MoU on cooperation in research of seaport investment and development between Vinalines and Rent-A-Port were also inked on this occasion.By Express News Service

CHENNAI: Sixteen, including children from in and around Chennai, are diagnosed with dengue fever and are under treatment at the Institute of Child Health, Egmore and Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital here.

Health minister C Vijaya Baskar on Tuesday conducted a surprise inspection in these hospitals and instructed doctors to be vigilant. The minister inspected the fever wards in the hospitals after two children died at the Institute of Child Health on Sunday.

Meanwhile, official sources in the hospitals told Express that, Eight children are under treatment for dengue fever at the Institute of Child Health. These children are from in and around Chennai.

"Similarly, there are eight persons undergoing treatment at Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital. One is from Nellore, the other seven are from in and around Chennai, said a senior doctor at the hospital.

The minister also gave instructions to the hospital management to post dedicated nurses in the fever wards, the doctors said.

He also said persons with fever should come to the hospital without delay and follow basic hygiene measures like frequent hand wash.

A press release said There are sufficient tablets for fever. The government has also set up fever clinics at all government hospitals that function 24 hours."

Tamiflu tablets for swine flu have also been stocked in the State. He urged people to keep their surroundings free of mosquito breeding sources like coconuts shells, tyres, tubes, used plastic cups and other materials to prevent dengue.

People should avoid taking over-the-counter drugs, he said.

Take steps to check swine flu: Anbumani

CHENNAI: The government should take steps to check the spread of swine flu in the state as the northeast monsoon is round the corner, said Dr Anbumani Ramadoss, MP and youth wing secretary of the PMK. In a release on Tuesday, he said swine flu, which had already spread in Maharashtra and southern states, had now started spreading in Tamil Nadu too. Anbumani said that some people living in places from Tirunelveli to Chennai had been affected by swine flu and were under treatment.By UNI

CHENNAI: The 47th Founding Day of the ruling AIADMK in Tamil Nadu was celebrated in a grand manner at the party headquarters at Royapettah area in the city on Wednesday.

Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami and Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam, who were also the Joint Coordinator and Coordinator of the party, respectively, were given a rousing reception by hundreds of AIADMK cadres who had thronged the party office.

Tens and hundreds of enthusiastic party workers lined up on both sides of the road leading to the party office as Mr Palaniswami, Mr Panneerselvam, Ministers and senior leaders garlanded the statue of Bharat Ratna and AIADMK Founder M G Ramachandran, popularly called as MGR and Late Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa.

They also distributed sweets to the party cadres to mark the occasion.

AIADMK cadres celebrated the occasion across the state during which several competitions were held and prizes given.

The party was started by MGR on this day in 1972 after he walked out of the DMK.

After his demise, the party was nurtured and guided by Jayalalithaa for 30 years and was now led by Mr Panneerselvam and Mr Palaniswami.

In an epistle to the party cadres to mark the occasion, both the leaders insisted on the importance of maintaining unity in the party and protecting it at all cost.By Express News Service

CHENNAI: Chennai Customs officials on Tuesday foiled attempts to smuggle gold from the Chennai International Airport and seized gold, weighing three kg and worth `98 lakh, from four different passengers.

According to the officials, Masthan Khan, 53, of Kadappa, who arrived from Kuwait via Goa by Air India flight AI-976, was intercepted on suspicion at the exit of the Anna International Airport arrival hall.

A search on him led to the seizure of five gold cut bits, five crude gold kadas and assorted jewellery weighing 1.7 kg and worth Rs 55 lakh.

On inquiry, Khan claimed that he had retrieved the gold from the tissue paper compartment in the rear toilet of the flight.

Later, he was arrested.In three other cases, three passengers - Mohammad Fazizd, 26, of Chennai, Sheikh Hussain Ashraf Ali, 33, of Tiruchy, and Ismail Sheikh Dawood, 22, of Sivaganga, who had arrived from Kuala Lumpur by Air Asia flight, were intercepted on suspicion.

They were found carrying gold strips weighing 1.25 kg in 11 ceiling fans. The gold was found concealed inside fan motors and hollow rods. During a further search on them, 30 grams of gold bits were recovered from each of them.

The officials said they had recovered a total of 1.34 kg gold worth `43.32 lakh from the three passengers.

Gang decamps with Rs 2L from Tasmac outlet

CHENNAI: An unidentified gang decamped with around `two lakh looted from a Tasmac outlet in Jafferkhanpet on Monday night. The incident came to light on Tuesday morning when Madan Mohan, a staffer at the shop, found the money missing.

He immediately informed the police who rushed to the spot and took imprints of scene. The MGR Nagar police have registered a case.By PTI

NEW DELHI: Ex-Congress MLA Kanwar Karan Singh said his son, who was shown a gun by the son of a former BSP MP at a five-star hotel here, was in "trauma" after the incident and that was the reason why he did not inform the police.

Singh said they have recorded their statement with the police and have full faith in the law of the land.

"We have given our version to police and submitted our written statement. We were in trauma after the incident. My son was shown a gun and he was in fear and that is why we did not lodge a complaint before," he told PTI.

The former Congress MLA said he did not believe in violence.

"My son was numb with fear after he was shown a gun. We do not believe in violence and stay away form indulging in fights. Police have started their investigation and we believe in them," he said.

Ashish Pandey, son of former BSP MP Rakesh Pandey, was booked for brandishing a gun in the foyer of a five-star hotel here, a video of which went viral on social media.

ALSO READ | Airports alerted as cops close in on BSP neta's son who brandished gun during Delhi hotel brawl

Pandey hails from Lucknow.

His brother, Ritesh Pandey, is a sitting MLA in Uttar Pradesh.

The Delhi police said an FIR has been registered in the case.

The force also reached out to their Uttar Pradesh counterparts.

A complaint about the incident was received by the police Monday from the assistant security manager of Hyatt Regency Hotel in R K Puram, following which a Look Out Circular (LOC) was issued, police said.

The incident occurred in the early hours of October 14.

In the video, Ashish Pandey can purportedly be seen brandishing a gun in the foyer of the hotel, police said.

The victim told a news channel that the accused, who held the gun, walked up to him and hurled abuses.By IANS

NEW DELHI: Around 10 people were injured on Wednesday, after a Delhi Transport Corporation bus overturned following a collision with a truck.

A fire service official said that the accident occurred on the Wazirabad flyover in north Delhi at 6 a.m.

"The bus overturned after it got hit by a dumper truck. We immediately sent a team to carry out rescue operations," he said.By Express News Service

LUCKNOW/NEW DELHI: Delhi and Uttar Pradesh police teams raided several places Wednesday but failed to trace Ashish Pandey, a politician's son who is on the run after brandishing a gun at a five-star hotel in New Delhi.

'Raids have been carried out at various places associated with Ashish Pandey and we will be able to make the arrest soon,' the state's Additional Director General (Law and Order) Anand Kumar said.

The police are looking for Pandey after a video clip surfaced on social media, showing him in a confrontation with two other guests in the foyer of Delhi's Hyatt Regency Hotel on Saturday night.

The Delhi Police has obtained a non-bailable warrant against him and also issued a show-cause notice to the hotel for alleged negligence.

Ashish Pandey, who is a realtor, hails from Lucknow and is the son of former Bahujan Samaj Party MP Rakesh Pandey. His brother, Ritesh Pandey, is an MLA in Uttar Pradesh.

ALSO READ | Ex-BSP MP son gun brandishing: We were in trauma, hence didn't approach police, says victim's father

ADG Anand Kumar said the licence for the weapon brandished by Pandey was issued in Ambedkar Nagar in 1999. The district administration is carrying out the process of cancellation or suspension of the licence.

Anand said he is not aware if there is any other case lodged against Pandey in Uttar Pradesh, but more information is being gathered.

Gaurav Kanwar, an ex-Congress MLA's son who was allegedly threatened by Pandey, told Delhi Police in a statement that he was too scared to approach them immediately after the incident.

According to him, he was abused by some people when he escorted his woman friend to a hotel washroom when she took ill during dinner.

When the two were waiting for their car at the hotel foyer, Pandey and his friends again approached them.

'I will kill you,' Pandey allegedly told him.

"The man in pink pants (Pandey) walked (up) to me and showed me his gun, and shouted 'I will kill you'. I requested him not to fight and asked the hotel staff to intervene," Kanwar alleged.

"The man (Pandey) got out of his car (again) and pointed his gun at me and said 'I will kill you', 'I am from Lucknow'," Kanwar added stressing that he repeatedly urged Pandey not to shoot or fight.

"The girls (with Pandey) started showing the finger to my friend and she also did the same," he added.Donita Jose By

HYDERABAD: In the already shrinking lung spaces of the city, the morning joggers and walkers are now braving another issue, that of stray dogs. Every morning as walkers get out before the break of dawn, it is a common sight to see packs of dogs rummaging through previous nights waste even as GHMC sanitation workers clean the places. However, making the situation worse are the garbage dumping points flanked near these walking tracks.

The Tuesday morning incident -- in which three people were mauled by dogs -- at Lake View Park near Prasads Imax also stemmed from the fact that two large garbage cans were placed right at the entrance of the park attracting numerous dogs to rummage through the waste.

READ| Pack of dogs goes on biting spree, mauls three at Hyderabad's Lake View Park

The garbage can which takes the waste from at least 100 houses here is placed right at the entrance of the park and colony. So during morning hours when people throw wastes and go, the dogs become very aggressive and fight for the garbage, said Raju Yadava, a resident. These pack of dogs tend to terrorise walkers all the way from Saifabad traffic police station to Prasads Imax parking station.

GHMC to blame

A similar problem is faced on a much larger magnitude at the Indira Park where one of the largest walking associations with 5,000 members spend their mornings and evenings. Though the park is enclosed, the adjoining garbage transfer station of Lower Tank Bund brings in tremendous amount of garbage inside.

The GHMC staff knowingly are using the park premises to dump the rotten waste. Every day hundreds of dogs come to eat the food waste and terrorise the walkers, said Dr Sudhakar Yadav, President of Indira

Park Walkers Association.

The association members have a dog bite or case of dog scare every other day and the members also complained to the GHMC veterinary department, who have failed to capture the dogs.

Meanwhile, activists assert that the fault lies entirely with GHMC officials who have failed to implement the door to door collection of garbage right in the heart of the city.

Pravallika Nigam of Compassionate Society for Animals, meanwhile, said: Not all dogs are aggressive, it is the situation that makes them bite or scratch. These garbage cans must be placed near a dead-end where not many humans walk past.

How GHMC is failing to sanitise danger zones

Is GHMC veterinary department merely a dog menace helpline? Activists allege that the Animal Birth Control is being done in the GHMC limits solely on complaint basis. Hence failure in sanitising the danger zones scientifically. According to officials from the veterinary wing of GHMC, each of the five zones receive anywhere between 70 to 80 complaints of dog menace on a daily basis, forcing the vans to ply to the different areas.

When we catch a dog we bring it to the animal care centre and vaccinate and sterilise it, said one official. At the Institute of Preventive Medicine, at least 20 to 30 dog bite cases are recorded in a day. We are under immense pressure to cater to the 70 to 80 odd complaints we get on a daily basis. However, people need to understand that dogs are part of the urban ecosystem as there would be garbage and there would be animal-friendly people who feed them, leading to conflict. All dogs we catch we sterilize, vaccinate them and release them back, said an official from Veterinary Department of GHMC. However, activists say the approach is extremely wrong. In GHMCs combing activities it is mostly the friendly dogs that get taken away.

Under pressure from public they displace the dog from there post operations which opens up the area for aggressive dogs to come in and be in conflict with the humans, explained Priyanaka N, a dog behaviourist. Further adding to the problem is the fact that there is a steady rise in canine population in the various townships and large residential complexes in the outskirts. Nowhere in Telangana do we have Animal Birth Control except big municipalities of GHMC and Warangal, even in areas like Ghatkesar, parts of LB Nagar, Manikonda, Neknampur dogs are not sterilized by the government worsening the issue. It is as if knowingly the governments are endangering lives of people because dogs cant themselves practice birth control, said Pravallika, an animal activist.By Express News Service

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM : The torrential rains lashing across the state for the past one week did not spare the state capital too as several areas in the capital district, especially those on the banks of the rivers and canals, remained inundated on Thursday. A brief respite came when the water level had a slight decline in most places after the rains kept away until Thursday evening.

Several areas in the city on the banks of the Karamana river and Amayizhanjan canal are lying under the flood waters since Monday night.About 2,066 persons are sheltered in the 34 camps opened in the Thiruvananthapuram taluk under which the most of the city area falls. Flood waters entered houses in Vanchiyoor, Puthenpalam, Pattoor, Manacaud, and Thycaud.

Flooding at Mulavana

The overflowing Thettiyar submerged areas in and around the Technopark phase-III.

Irate local residents blocked the national highway on Wednesday alleging the land filling at Technopark as reason for the unprecedented flooding. They were pacified and dispersed by the intervention of Tourism Minister and local representative Kadakampally Surendran.

The Murinjapalam area witnessed heavy flooding with storm water entering the cellar of the Cosmopolitan Hospital on Wednesday. Functioning of the hospitals OP and administration wings were affected.

At Goureesapattom and Kannammoola several houses were inundated, including that of senior Congress leader VM Sudheeran. He along with family was shifted to the MLA quarters on Wednesday. Taluk officials said those in the camp could not return to their homes on Thursday though the water level had a considerable decline. Most of the houses required a thorough cleaning and utensils and furniture were damaged.

Neyyattinkara, the second most-affected taluk in terms of victim rehabilitation, is running 18 camps with 1700 members. The camps witnessed a heavy rush after the Neyyar dam shutters were raised further.

High tides submerged houses and shops in the coastal areas of Varkala and Edava.

Those residing on the banks of the Pallikkal river were also affected. About 50 persons are being housed at two rescue camps. The district administration is also taking care of 17 flood victims airlifted from Pathanamthitta. They are housed at the Sivagiri convention centre.

Overflowing Vamanapuram river submerged several villages in the Nedumangad taluk. Most affected places were Vamanapuram, Nellanad, Pullambara and Thennoor villages. 300 persons have been rehabilitated in eight camps.

Over 709 persons sought asylum in government facilities at Kattakkada taluk. Most affected places were Kulathummal, Veeranakavu, Ottasekharamangalam and Kulathoor. As many as 18 of the 14 villages in the Chirayinkeezhu taluk lying on the banks of Vamanapuram river were affected by the overflowing Vamanapuram river. 224 families have been rehabilitated in six camps. Of this, one camp at Anchuthengu was opened during the first spell of the monsoon.By Express News Service

VIJAYAWADA: The sanitation workers in 110 urban local bodies (ULBs) across the State, who were on an indefinite strike for the past 13 days, called off their strike on Tuesday evening after getting an assurance from the State government over fulfilment of their demands including scrapping of G.O. No. 279, equal pay for equal work, payment of arrears as per G.O. 151 and others.

The workers called off their strike after a two-day meeting of AP Municipal Employees Joint Action Committee (JAC) with Principal Secretary (Municipal Administration) R Karikal Valaven and Commissioner and Director of Municipal Administration, (C&DMA-AP) K Kanna Babu at the Interim Government Complex in Velagapudi and NTR Administrative Building on the premises of Pandit Nehru Bus Station (PNBS). In all, around 24,000 sanitation workers across the State agitated for 13 days forcing the public to live amid heaps of garbage and stink.

Addressing a press conference here, CITU leader P Venkata Reddy said that out of 110 ULBs in the State, G.O. No. 279 was enforced in 52 ULBs a few months ago. Since then, sanitation workers have been opposing privatisation of sanitation works.

To resolve the issue, the government has agreed to constitute a committee with union members and municipal department officials to study the implications of G.O. No. 279 in 52 ULBs for a span of three months, he said, adding that district level committees will be also constituted parallel to the State committee to discuss the plight of sanitation workers once in a fortnight.

While State committee will meet once a month for the same purpose. Similarly, the government has also agreed to provide wage arrears for 16 months for contract and outsourcing sanitation staff from July last year to October this year as per the guidelines of G.O. No. 151 by December.

Commenting on the implementation of equal pay for equal work, Reddy said that municipal administration department has promised to submit a representation to Finance Department on the matter. Briefing about the minimum wage of `18,000 per month demand by sanitation workers, AITUC State leader A Ranganayakulu said that the municipal administration department has decided to prepare proposals following the guidelines mentioned in G.O. No. 142 and the same will be sent to State government through Cabinet and a decision will be taken accordingly. Measures will be also taken to open General Provident Fund (GPF) for regular public health workers in ULBs shortly, he said.

Earlier in the day, AP Municipal Employees JAC took out a massive rally from Lenin Centre to besiege Chief Ministers camp office demanding that the government scrap G.O. No 279. Police foiled the JAC rally and arrested the agitating union leaders.

They were shifted to various police stations under Vijayawada Police Commissionerate limits to restore normalcy in the city. The arrested leaders were later freed in the evening.

Demands met

Around 24,000 sanitation workers across the State agitated for 13 days forcing the public to live amid heaps of garbage and stink

G.O. No. 279 was enforced in 52 ULBs a few months ago out of 110 ULBs across the State

Government agrees to provide wage arrears for 16 months for contract and outsourcing sanitation staff from July last year to October this year as per the guidelines of G.O. No 151 by DecemberCE Features By

Express News Service

As the countdown to the release of The Terrorist begins, director PC Shekar, who has attempted a sensitive issue through his film, has his fingers crossed. The film, starring Ragini Dwivedi in the lead, has becoming the talking point, especially since the director himself lets us in on the fact that the film revolves around terror and women, which is something that has not been dealt with by filmmakers.

Here, the director gives us a low-down on why The Terrorist is a must watch.

From my point of view....

As a director, I found structuring the story tough. Working on a vast topic like terrorism, which cannot be consolidated in two lines, was a task. My film talks goes beyond language and religion.

Fresh challenge for Ragini Dwivedi

When I decided to cast Ragini in my film, I wanted to explore a different side to her. Her acting skills require to be brought out. Her character was designed around her personality, which has been highlighted. Secondly, she plays a Muslim character for which she learnt the art of offering prayers, and the right posture to be followed during Namaz. She worked on her body language and mannerisms to stay in line with the character. Apart from Ragini, most of the actors featured in The Terrorist have a theatre background.

Women and terrorism

Most films that have been made on the subject focus on men. Heres where my film is different. Weve looked at the connection between terrorism and women.

The Terrorist is a mix of genres

There is action, emotions and love. The pace of the movie will also be one of the highlights. Since the films storyline runs between

10 am and 5 pm, we have depict that by keeping the editing tight and fact-paced. We have consolidated a vast topic like terrorism into one hour fifty minutes.

Music is like a character

With a thriller, you cant create tension with just dialogues and only music could bring that intensity. In our film, music scored by Pradeep Varma almost plays one more character and rerecording is the soul. Since I am cued in about music, I already knew what I was looking for. And getting that took time. The rerecording alone took 102 days, and mixing took 22 days of work.PM Phuc, who is on an official visit to Belgium, said that Vietnam will always treasure its friendship and multifaceted cooperation with the European nation. He thanked PM Michel and the Belgian Government for supporting the bilateral ties over the years.

Michel noted that the trip  which takes place on the threshold of the 12th Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) Summit and amidst the 45th founding anniversary of the countries diplomatic ties  will create a new driving force for the bilateral connections to grow in a robust fashion.

The two PMs said that Vietnam-Belgium relations have enjoyed progress in multiple areas and at many levels, from local to central levels, creating diverse cooperation links that have helped to capitalise on the strength of both sides.

They agreed to increase mutual visits and meetings at all levels. PM Phuc also took the occasion to invite his counterpart to visit Vietnam and Michel accepted the invitation with pleasure.

At the talks, the leaders agreed to enhance economic partnerships and maintain cooperation mechanisms, such as the Vietnam-Belgium Joint Committee. The two sides will also improve the effectiveness of cooperation projects and coordination among mechanisms.

PM Michel said that bilateral trade and investment have continued to expand well, noting that last years trade revenue of US$2.7 billion will be a catalyst for Belgiums trade and investment in Vietnam.

He affirmed his support for the early signing and ratification of the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA), which will provide practical benefits for the EU and form a bridge linking Europe with Southeast Asia and the Asia Pacific.

The PMs emphasised the need to work together to create conditions for connecting Vietnamese and Belgian partners, especially in the fields Belgium holds strength and Vietnam has demand for, namely transportation, seaports, logistics services, green technology, agriculture, pharmaceuticals, and renewable energy.

The establishment of a strategic partnership in agriculture and cooperation in food safety and hygiene between the two countries will provide optimal conditions for high-quality Vietnamese agricultural and fishery products to enter Belgium and vice versa. They will also help the agricultural sectors of both sides to expand their production and apply high technology to meet sustainability requirements, the leaders said.

They added that Vietnam and Belgium should also build on what they have achieved so far in development cooperation and collaboration in education-training, science-technology, justice and culture.

PM Phuc also called on the Belgian Government to continue providing favourable conditions for Vietnamese people in the country.

At the event, the two leaders stressed that their countries need to enhance cooperation and mutual support at multilateral forums and international organisations, especially the United Nations.

PM Phuc welcomed the EU and Belgiums viewpoint on and active role in the East Sea issue. The two sides underscored the importance of peace, stability, and security in the East Sea; the settlement of disputes by peaceful means; and respect for international law and the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.Sajin Shrijith By

Express News Service

From his debut eight years ago in Lijo Jose Pellisserry's Nayakan to the recent Maradona, Chemban Vinod Jose has firmly established himself as one of the most versatile and reliable actors in Malayalam cinema, playing both comic and serious characters with remarkable ease. Recently, the actor demonstrated his most moving performance in Lijo Jose's Ee Maa Yau.

In his latest film Dakini, directed by State award winner Rahul Riji Nair, Chemban Vinod Jose plays the role of a stylish don. The film comes out on Thursday.

You play the main villain in Dakini. Is it a fully serious character?

Well, he is a serious guy but the audience might laugh when they see some of his antics. That's how we've approached the character. And as he is a stylish guy, we have chosen a particular dress code for him.

What can you tell us about the film?

It has a slightly fantastical narrative. It has no conventional heroes  the main characters are four old ladies. It's about the conflict between them and my character. Obviously, they can't use their muscle to deal with him, so they use their brains. This naturally provides enough opportunities for a lot of fun moments.



Given that there are no big superstars in Dakini, what according to you is the film's USP?

The novelty factor. I agreed to do it because it looked fresh and unconventional. Something like this hasn't been attempted in Malayalam cinema before.

You've appeared in several bad guy roles before, and each one is different from the other.

I don't make a conscious decision to do something different. Fortunately, the scripts that come to me present me characters with distinct traits, so there is no chance of repeating oneself. I usually follow the scripts, but sometimes we make slight improvisations on set. It all depends on what the director tells me.

Are you in Lijo Jose Pellissery's Jallikattu?

Yes.



Anything you can say about it?

Not yet (laughs).

Angamaly Diaries is set to be remade in Hindi. Are you involved?

I'm in no way involved with that. I have enough things to do here as it is. I believe one of Lijo's friends will be directing it. No names have been finalised yet.

Can we expect another Angamaly chapter from you soon?

No, actually I'm working on another script that is not set in Angamaly. As I've already done a story based there, I felt like moving on to a different story with a different premise set in a different location. I don't know when I'll be finishing it.

Do you plan to do that with Lijo or someone else?

It's too early to say. The writing is only in the initial stages. As it belongs to a different genre, no final decisions have been made on the director. I'll be discussing it with several of them. Let's see.

Can you tell us about the genre?

Again, it's too early to say, because sometimes the story can go in different directions, and you can only decide on the genre once you're done with the story. But I can tell you that it will be a realistic story.

You're playing the lead in Aanaye Pokkiya Paapan. Is filming over?

The first schedule is done. We have a few more portions remaining which are scheduled for December. They're planning to get the film out by next year. It's a light-hearted film with ample doses of humour.Ashameera Aiyappan By

Express News Service

Early morning shows are a phenomenon intrinsic to Tamil cinema. But to witness packed houses for multiple shows at 4:45 am, despite mild rains, is a sight that our theatres have been yearning for in a while. For the second time in weeks (after Mani Ratnams Chekka Chivantha Vaanam), the crowds had kept their alarms not just to watch their favourite stars first on the big screen, but also to witness their favourite filmmaker. The applause that Vetrimaarans name received at the end of Vada Chennai, was such a gratifying sound. Quite exciting times for Tamil cinema, indeed.

If youre someone who has been following Vetrimaarans interviews that he did for Vada Chennai, you walk out of the film with a sense of holistic comprehension. Through these interviews, he has given us a guide to grasp Vada Chennai and all of his creative decisions. Entering the hall, we already knew that the film would be at a heightened pace due to the five-hour-plus footage now reduced to two hour forty-six minutes. We knew he finds his films on the edit table and during dubbing, which explains the erring lip-sync, the explanatory voice-overs and choice of shots. We also knew of the unplanned songs that he received from Santhosh Narayanan.

However, none of this mars the solid, intense narrative Vetrimaaran has whipped up for his audience. The stellar writing and the research that has gone into Vada Chennai shine through in a gripping story that is fascinatingly convoluted. Loads of characters whose stories are entangled in an intricately layered story, but he ensures we are always in the loop. The strength of Vada Chennai lies in the fact that he doesnt resort to surprises to keep us involved. When the plot twists happen, not only are they organic (like the cuss words used), it is something you actually could sense coming. His writing is so good that it doesn't matter if you guessed it or not - they just are incredibly effective. He ups the ante and pushes the cyclical story of love and revenge beyond a guessing game and that to me is the success of Vetrimaaran. Some incredibly smart filmmaking from the National Award winner and this is the same person who says that he is just trying to make films.

And boy, has he chosen his actors well. Despite the film being condensed and cushioned with voice-overs, every single one of Kishore, Samuthirakani, Aishwarya Rajesh, Andrea, Pawan and Ameer with Dhanush leading the way sell the moments convincingly. We dont need to see it, Vetri Maarans writing and the performances do the trick.

(This article is from www.cinemaexpress.com)By Online Desk

The famed Lord Ayyappa temple in Sabarimala opened Wednesday for the five-day-long monthly poojas in a surcharged atmosphere of protest over the Supreme Court verdict permitting entry of women of all age groups.

READ FULL REPORT: Sabarimala Temple opens amid violent protests, no sign of women whose ban was lifted by SC

Amid chanting of 'swamiye saranam Ayyappa' mantras, the 'melshanti' (chief priest), Unnikrishnan Namboothiri and 'tantri' (head priest), Kandaru Rajeevaru opened the portals of santum sanctorum of the shrine at 5.00 pm and lighted the ceremonial lamp.

As per the custom, no poojas would be held this evening and the shrine would be closed at 10.30 pm.

ALSO READ: Sabarimala opening: Protesters force Andhra woman to back down

This is for the first time that the hill temple, located in the evergreen forests of Western Ghats, opened after the apex court lifted the ban on menstrual age women visiting the shrine.

With the protest intensifying, Pathanamthitta district administration has imposed Section 144 at Sannidhanam, Pamba, Nilakkal and Ilavunkal.

Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) prohibit an assembly of more than four people in an area and restricts people from gathering in the public.

ALSO READ: Hindu outfits camp at Vallakkadavu to prevent women from entering Sabarimala

More police personnel have been rushed to Pamba and Nilakkal, said DGP Loknath Behera. He said police have also filed cases against those who attacked the journalists.

Kerala Devaswom minister Kadakampally Surendran has held the BJP and the RSS responsible for the violence. Attack on women and journalists would not be tolerated, he said.By PTI

JAMMU: A four-year-old girl was bitten to death by a pack of stray dogs outside her home in Samba district of Jammu and Kashmir Tuesday, police said.

The minor was attacked by the canines soon after she came out of her house at village Chack Bogala in Ramgarh area of the district this morning, a police official said.

He said some locals noticed the strays attacking the girl and rushed to her rescue but found her dead after chasing away the pack.Ejaz Kaiser By

Express News Service

RAIPUR: The election campaign by the political parties has gathered steam in Chhattisgarh. The earlier bipolar politics of the state where the BJP was directly pitted against the Congress is expected to be diluted in at least twenty odd seats by the Jogi-led Janta Congress Chhattisgarh-J (JCC-J) - Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP)-CPI coalition, cited as a strong third front contender in the poll fray.

However barring Jogi himself, there is an apparent quietness regarding what lies in store for his wife, Dr Renu, son Amit and daughter-in-law Richa even as the Chhattisgarh has already issued a notification on Tuesday for the filing of nominations for the first phase polls. It remains to be seen among the three who all would be contesting the upcoming polls, from which party and the constituency.

The 72-year-old bureaucrat-turned-politician though had earlier declared that he is keen to contest an election against the chief minister Raman Singh from Rajnandgaon seat. Unconfirmed report doing round in the state capital on the possibility of Richa may be asked to contest on the BSP ticket instead of Jogi's regional outfit JCC(J) from any of the constituency in the Bilaspur district.

Following the pre-poll alliance, Jogi's party will contest from 45 seats, the BSP on 35 of the 90 Assembly constituencies of Chhattisgarh and remaining two in Dantewada and Konta been shared with the CPI. Jogi has already announced the names of 45 candidates from the alliance quota of 53. Beside Jogi himself, his son Amit and Richa are aggressively into the party's campaign. Jogi's wife Renu, seeking a Congress ticket from her existing constituency Kota is yet to get that confirmation whether she will again be offered the opportunity.

Though Ajit Jogi wants the wife should join his party. "You know how difficult it is to convince a wife. I conveyed her my wishes and now it's upto her", Jogi told the Express. Renu, a two-time Congress MLA, might be given a chance by Jogi's party if Congress declines her a ticket this time. The Election Commission of India has allotted "Farmer Ploughing within square", as party symbol to JCC-J, which Jogi floated in June 2016.By Express News Service

NEW DELHI / JAIPUR:Rajasthan BJP MLA Manvendra Singh, the son of former BJP stalwart Jaswant Singh, joined the Congress on Wednesday ahead of the Assembly elections in the state in December.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi welcomed Manvendra Singh into the party fold at his residence in the morning.

It has been a fight for self respect, Manvendra Singh said while addressing the media later in the day in the presence of Rajasthan Congress leaders Ashok Gehlot, Sachin Pilot, Avinash Pande, Jitendra Singh and Randeep Surjewala.It has been a fight for swabhimaan (self-respect). The decision to quit the BJP was not my own but that of our entire Swabhimaan Sena, he said, referring to his supporters who have been targeted by BJP and have also quit.

BJPs Katol MLA in Maharashtra Ashish Deshmukh also joined the Congress on Wednesday. He is the son of Ranjeet Deshmukh, a former president of the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee and former Maharashtra minister.

The Congress believes Manvendra Singh will help bring Rajput votes to the party in the December 7 Rajasthan elections. He had campaigned for his father Jaswant Singh, a former Union minister who had contested the 2014 general elections as an independent. Manvendra was suspended from primary membership of the BJP. AICC general secretary Gehlot said only Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah, were ruling and BJP leaders were feeling suffocated.

Alleging that there was a sense of fear and intimidation in the rule of tyranny, Gehlot said the Modi governments veil was coming off with exposes on corruption, particularly in the Rafale jet deal.Today, every person in the country is frightened and there is an atmosphere of distrust and agencies like Income Tax department, ED and CBI are being abused, Gehlot alleged.

He cited the way Jaswant Singh was targeted as part of a conspiracy and claimed many people wanted to quit the BJP and join the Congress. Rahul will have to take a call on them joining or not, he said.

Rajasthan PCC chief Pilot said, It is a lesson for the BJP and time for them to introspect. The arrogance in the BJP under Raje has crossed all limits and people are looking at alternatives and tying with the Congress.By IANS

NEW DELHI: The Congress on Wednesday asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to break his silence on the Rafale deal, saying that the fresh documents pertaining to minutes of meetings of two trade unions of Dassualt Aviation reveal that he "facilitated a sweetheart deal" and benefited a private entity.

"Modi government's Rafale scam gets murkier and muddier by the day. Fresh documents have again reinforced the fact that PM Modi facilitated a sweetheart deal with Dassault Aviation," Congress Communications Incharge Randeep Sing Surjewala said in a statement.

He said the documents also back the charge made by former French President Francois Hollande. "The BJP is running helter-skelter and throwing all kinds of alibis to defend the indefensible," he said.

Surjewala said new set of additional documents reveal that the deal between Dassault Aviation and Reliance Defence was a "compensation' brokered by Modi government".

He said the French labour laws make it compulsory for companies with over 50 employees to set up a 'Central Works Council' (CCE which is on the same lines as trade unions in India).

He said the council has a role in the financial management of the company as well as in the social and cultural activities of employees.

"The minutes of the meeting held on May 11, 2017 between two such trade unions - CGT and CFDT - and Dassault Aviation's Chief Operating Officer Loik Segalen lifts the lid off the murky sweetheart deal," he said.

He said according to the minutes of meeting with CGT, a complete presentation of the "Make in India" with the creation of the "Dassault Reliance Aerospace" enterprise in Nagpur was made.

"According to Segalen, it was imperative and mandatory for Dassault-Aviation to accept this counterpart in order to obtain the Rafale India export contract."

Surjewala said minutes of the meeting with CFDT state: "This is the inevitable consequence of the Rafale India contract which required making `Make in India' to be signed. A joint venture was therefore created with the Indian Reliance company to achieve this goal. Dassault Aviation is a 49 per cent shareholder, Reliance 51 per cent."

He said that CGT minutes also state that "concerning the production in India: the management presents this as the inevitable `compensation related to the Rafale' contract."

Surjewala said that BJP ministers who have said that Dassault Aviation was free to choose its offset partner should explain Segalen's remarks.

"If Dassault Aviation willingly agreed to partner with Reliance Defence, why was it called an inevitable compensation?" he asked.

He said that Dassault, which took years to conclude a work share agreement with HAL, was able to broker a deal with Reliance Defence in a short span of time.

"Undisputed evidence now corroborates, brazen `crony capitalism' and 'quid pro quo' by Modi government in the multi crore Rafale Scam. Time for PM Modi to break his silence," he said.

Surjewala said this is the third confirmation after Hollande had clearly told a French outlet about PM Modi securing the deal for a private entity.Express News Service By

MUMBAI/BHOPAL: Four Army jawans have been booked by the Pune Police for allegedly raping a deaf-mute woman on multiple occasions for over four years at the Military Hospital in Khadki near Pune.The 30-year-old survivor is a widow with a 12-year-old son. She worked as a Grade IV employee at the Military Hospital since 2014. According to her complaint, a jawan raped her while she was on night shift about four years ago. When she tried to lodge a complaint, her jawan supervisor joined the predator to rape her. Later, two other jawans sexually abused her, videographed the act and blackmailed her.

Finding no internal redress, the victim approached an NGO run by a couple based out of Indore in July last. They work for the welfare of hearing and speech impaired. The couple recorded her statement through sign language interpretation and helped lodge a complaint with the hospital commandant.

The victim also wrote to Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Chief of Army Staff Gen Bipin Rawat. After they took serious note, a complaint was lodged at Indore on Monday and in Pune on Tuesday, said a senior police officer.

Sign language expert Monika Purohit, who along with husband Gyanendra Purohit helps the Indore police manage the helpline for the physically challenged, said: the survivor learnt about our NGO and contacted us over Facebook in July, after which we reached out.

The NGO helped her escalate the matter to the defence minister and the Army chief in August through mail along with all evidence, including the obscene video and pictures used for blackmail since 2015. Her situation worsened after the death of husband (also deaf and mute) a year ago, added Purohit.The survivor has been on day shift since the last three months.

Woman narrated ordeal with help of sign language

Just a few days back, we received e-mail from army officials, about the woman being free to lodge a criminal complaint with police in the matter, but owing to no proper sign language expert being there in Pune to help her, she came to Indore for our help to get a case lodged in Indore. We subsequently met the DIG in Indore on Monday, who helped her all possible support and informed about the entire matter to police higher-ups in Pune. Later, on Tuesday night, a team of sign language experts in Maharashtra which works with us helped the woman to lodge the case at Khadki police station in Pune, added Purohit.

A case has been registered under Indian Penal Code (IPC) Sections 376 for rape and 354 for molestation, said Rajendra Mohite, Senior Inspector at Khadki Police Station adding that an inquiry has also been initiated against the four accused jawans. The Southern Command of the Army too has formed a court of inquiry.Ramananda Sengupta By

Express News Service

NEW DELHI: In another twist to the Rafale controversy, a French aviation portal has published a document which Dassault Aviation COO Loik Segalen presented to a confederation of French trade unions, explaining why Rafale had tied up with Reliance as part of their offset obligations.

Mediapart, a French online journal, had last week cited what it described as an internal document allegedly proving that the partnership with Reliance was obligatory and mandatory for Dassault Aviation to sell Rafale jets to India.

The new article, written by Yves Pagot, a former French Air Force official and defence writer, says the document is actually the unions summary of a mandatory discussion with Segalen, where he explained that Dassault was shifting its production of Falcon business jets to Nagpur in India under the DRAL (Dassault Reliance Aerospace Ltd) joint venture because of its obligations under the offset clause.

The report caused a political storm in India, with the Congress saying it proved that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had made it obligatory for Dassault to partner with Reliance.

ALSO READ | Rafale deal: Dassault claims it 'freely' chose Ambani's Reliance for partnership

Dassault CEO Eric Trappier then told AFP that the document refers to Indias offset clause and shifting of a part of the work to India as a mandatory part of the 36 aircraft deal, and that Dassault has freely chosen to make a partnership with Indias Reliance Group.

Dismissing claims that the document proved effort to browbeat Dassault into accepting Reliance as a partner, a senior Indian official said, Assuming that Reliance is the sole beneficiary of the `30,000, or approximately $5.4 billion which has to be reinvested in India under the offset clause is totally wrong. It is not just Dassault, but three other French outfits involved in building the Rafale jet who are all part of the offset clause. They are Thales, which makes radars and avionics, Safran, which makes engines and electronics, and MBDA, which makes the aircrafts weapons.

According to the official, all of them are scouting for and negotiating with possible Indian partners  including DRDO, L&T and even HAL to fulfill their part of the offset deal. Dassault may eventually only account for anything between 3 to 10 per cent of the total offset deal, he said.

The offset is only a business proposition, the companies involved have to make it commercially viable, said Claude Arpi, a French journalist, author and historian based in India. Dassault or Thales or Safran will never share important papers with journalists. It is just not possible.

They know the factual position. During Antony's days they had selected Mukesh for the offsets because Reliance is a reliable commercial partner. When Modi decided to buy 36 Rafales off the shelf as stop gap, Anil was selected by Dassault."Namita Bajpai By

Express News Service

LUCKNOW: In possibly the first-of-its-kind move, the Uttar Pradesh government has made the man-animal conflict a 'State Declared Disaster' bringing such incidents under the ambit of State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) to ensure better coordination and relief during such mishaps in the state.

Taking the historical decision to this effect, the state government has issued orders which will enable faster monetary relief to the victims of attack of wild animals. As per the provisions of the order, in cases of human death due to man-animal conflict, relief of Rs 5 lakh would be given to the family of deceased while the disbursement of compensation for injury would be in accordance to SDRF guidelines.

The order also makes it clear that the amount of Rs 1 lakh per death would be arranged by the state forest department from its own budget to the Revenue Department.

The order also speaks about creating awareness, ensuring police support in areas where such conflicts happen and proper guidelines to handle situations when wild animals venture into human inhabitation. The government order makes it mandatory for the authorities concerned to disburse the relief amount within 24 hours of the incident and the production of the post-mortem examination report of the victim.

The district authorities have been directed to complete paperwork swiftly so that the financial assistance could be credited to the account of the next kin of the deceased within 24 hours through RTGS. Earlier, it used to take 1-6 months or even more to disburse the relief amount by forest department for want of budget and procedural hiccups.

Notably, as per the central forestry rules, the payment of ex-gratia amount to victims of wild animal attack is provided with a view to reducing retaliatory killings. This move will help mitigate acrimony amidst local villagers, forest department and local administration in the conflict zones, especially, the districts in Terai arc landscape.

Uttar Pradesh has 23 wildlife sanctuaries across 27 districts covering over 5,000 sq km, besides Dudhwa National Park with an additional 490 sq km of area and Pilibhit Tiger Reserve with an area of 726 sq km, according to the data of a report by Wildlife Trust of India and the state government.

For the first time, lion and wild boar have been added to the list of wild animals which includes tiger, leopard, Indian wolf, hyena, crocodile, elephant and rhinoceros as predators. According to sources, 98 cases of human and big cats conflicts have been reported in the state in the last two years. Tiger attacks in Uttar Pradesh have alone claimed seven lives in last three years in Uttar Pradesh.

The declaration of such conflict under SDRF will also mean that police and local administration would now intervene in a situation wherein a herd of elephants enters a village, a leopard being spotted or a tiger venturing in human inhabitation, said a wildlife expert.The Vietnamese PM said Flemish firms are working effectively in Vietnam in seaports and logistics, renewable energy, and mining, thus making important contributions to bilateral ties.

He asked the minister and authorities from the region to facilitate bilateral partnership in fields they hold strength and to uphold their role as a bridge for Vietnamese goods to enter Europe and other markets.

Hailing Vietnam as a leading partner in Southeast Asia for Flanders region, Bourgeois affirmed that the visit by PM Phuc will create a new milestone in the development of Vietnam-Belgium and in particular Vietnam-Flanders ties.

He thanked the Vietnamese Government, ministries, and agencies for their hospitality during his visit in May 2018 and stressed that Flanders wants to double bilateral trade and foster ties across research, education-training, and transportation.

Bourgeois said Flanders supports the signing and ratification of the European Union-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA), considering it a great opportunity to develop trade and investment between Vietnam and the EU, as well as between the country and Flanders.

Following the meeting, both sides witnessed the signing of a memorandum of understanding on cooperation between Flanders and the Vietnamese Government.

At a reception for Minister-President of Belgiums Wallonia region Willy Borsus on October 16, PM Phuc highlighted that Vietnam attaches great importance to multifaceted cooperation with Belgian regions, including Wallonia.

He lauded Wallonia for choosing Vietnam as a place to open a representative office in 1996, which has so far become a dynamic partner of the region.

The PM welcomed effective joint projects in the fields of healthcare, culture, arts, vocational training, environmental protection, and heritage protection  all towards contributing to socio-economic development in Vietnam, including poverty reduction.

The leader wished that Belgiums major businesses will continue investing in Vietnam, adding that the country will offer all possible support to them in the process.

Borsus, for his part, said Wallonia considers Vietnam a priority partner in the region. He discussed promising fields of cooperation, such as farm produce processing and foodstuffs.

He noted that regional authorities support the early signing and approval of the EVFTA to boost trade and investment between Vietnam and Belgium, as well as between Vietnam and Wallonia.

The minister hailed Vietnamese nationals in Belgium for their contributions to socio-economic development in the host country.Sumi Sukanya dutta By

Express News Service

NEW DELHI: Undeterred by a defamation case filed by Union minister M J Akbar against senior journalist Priya Ramani who accused him of harassment and predatory behaviour, yet another woman made public her #MeToo story about him on Tuesday.

Journalist Tushita Patel, in an open letter written for a news portal addressing Akbar on Tuesday, accused him of sexually harassing her, calling her to a hotel room where he met her in his underwear and forcibly kissing her on two different occasions. If I dont speak up now, I feel Ill be complicit in your crimes, Patel wrote.

At least 15 women journalists have called out Akbar so far. Meanwhile, a number of women and journalists have come forward to help fund Ramanis legal costs to fight the defamation case against Akbar.

Senior journalist Sucheta Dalal was among the first to moot the idea of crowd-funding Ramanis legal defence. Dalal said she was sure lawyers would be willing to fight for Ramani free of cost, but there are lots of expenses involved.

ALSO READ: It's not MJ Akbar vs Priya Ramani but government vs Priya Ramani: Husband Samar Halarnkar

Indian Women Press Corps has written separately to Home Minister Rajnath Singh, WCD Minister Maneka Gandhi and National Commission for Women Chairperson Rekha Sharma, demanding immediate inquiry against Akbar.

We are deeply dismayed that despite the long list of complaints involving the Minister of State in the Ministry of External Affairs, no formal inquiry into the complaints comprising of serious charges of sexual harassment has been instituted at any level in the government, the letter written to the home minister said.

Rather, motives have been attributed to the complainants.The letter to Gandhi welcomed her announcement on setting up a panel taking cognizance of all complaints of sexual harassment, and sought her intervention for a fair and impartial probe against Akbar.By UNI

SRINAGAR: Mobile internet services of all cellular companies, including Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), were suspended on Wednesday for security reasons in the summer capital, Srinagar.

The services were suspended as a precautionary measure following killing of two militants and an alleged Over Ground Worker (OGW) in an encounter with security forces at Fateh Kadal in downtown Srinagar in the wee hours today.

A policeman was also martyred in the encounter. Broadband internet service of BSNL was also suspended in some areas in the summer capital in the morning.

The broadband service has been restored though the speed of the internet is very slow.

Authorities have directed all cellular companies to suspend 3G, 4G and 2G mobile internet services in Srinagar to prevent spread of any rumour on social media.

But, the suspension of the facility has led to more rumours. The authorities have ordered closure of all colleges and schools in the summer capital, Srinagar.

This is not the first time that mobile internet has been suspended as a precautionary measure in Srinagar.

In the past also, authorities suspended internet, particularly mobile internet, claiming that the social media is being used to instigate protests and create law and order problems.By Express News Service

BHOPAL: In a significant political development in assembly poll-bound Madhya Pradesh, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan shared the stage with Vyapam scam-tainted ex-state minister Laxmikant Sharma in Vidisha district on Tuesday.

While the opposition Congress questioned about the CM sharing the stage with Sharma, who has already been charge-sheeted in Vyapam scam related cases by the CBI, the ruling BJP remained tight-lipped over the development.

Importantly, the stage pertained to none other but the ongoing statewide Jan Ashirwad Yatra of the BJP, which reached Sironj assembly constituency of Vidisha district. The Sironj seat was won by Sharma as a BJP candidate four consecutive times between 1993 and 2008, but he lost the seat to Congress Govardhan Upadhyaya by just 1500-votes in 2013 polls.

The CM sharing stage with the Vyapam tainted former MP minister Sharma, who is a powerful Brahmin leader of the Central MP region was enough to trigger speculations of BJP fielding, if not Sharma, then his sibling Umakant Sharma from the same assembly constituency  in a bid to pacify the resentment prevailing among the upper castes against the amended SC/ST Atrocities Act.

Chouhan was present on the stage along with his better half Sadhna Singh, the former minister Laxmikant Sharma and Bhopal mayor Alok Sharma, who is another important Brahmin leader of the region.

And the banner on the stages background had pictures of the CM, his wife and Laxmikant Sharma, speaking volumes about the growing clout of the ex-MP minister in regions politics.

This is the second time within a month that Sharma has welcomed and met Chouhan (the former Lok Sabha member from Vidisha Lok Sabha seat) in Vidisha. Prior to that Sharma had welcomed the CM and accompanied him to Ganesh Temple on the occasion of Ganesh Chaturthi last month in Vidisha district only.

Sharma, the former higher and technical education minister of Madhya Pradesh was arrested in June 2014 by the MP STF, just six months after being booked in multiple cases of the multi-layered Vyapam scam. He quit the BJP the same month in 2014.

He was released from jail 18 months later after being granted bail by the MP High Court in December 2015. In January this year, the CBI charge-sheeted Sharma in the case pertaining to Contractual Teachers Eligibility Test (Grade III) 2011 that forms part of Vyapam scam related cases.

Reacting on the development, state Congress leader KK Mishra questioned about the CM sharing the stage of Jan Ashirwad Yatra with Sharma, but state BJP spokesperson Rajnish Agrawal refused to comment on the development.

Political circles are rife with speculations about the former BJP member Sharma either contesting the November 28 poll from Sironj seat as a BJP-supported independent candidate or the ruling party fielding his brother Umakant Sharma from the same seat.By IANS

LUCKNOW: Police from Delhi and Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday continued to hunt for the son of a former BSP MP who threatened a man with a gun at a luxury hotel in Delhi, officials said.

A police officer said that Ashish Pandey's mobile telephone's signals were last picked up in Uttar Pradesh's Basti district bordering Nepal.

The telephone now appeared to be switched off, the officer said.

On Tuesday, authorities alerted airports and Delhi Police personnel reached Lucknow in search of Pandey who whipped out his pistol during a scuffle with another man and his woman friend at Hyatt Regency in south Delhi early on Sunday.

Police fear that Pandey could sneak into Nepal.

Three Delhi Police teams were in Uttar Pradesh and looking for Pandey with the help of Uttar Pradesh Police, an officer told IANS in Delhi.

Pandey is the son of former Bahujan Samaj Party MLA and MP Rakesh Pandey.By Express News Service

RANCHI: Impressed with the alertness shown by two gangmen and a station master after Maoists blew up rail tracks near Chaudhary Bandh railway station on Monday night, Indian Railways has decided to felicitate them in New Delhi. The lives of hundreds of passengers were saved as these three people quickly informed authorities in Dhanbad about the blast, enabling them to halt trains on the route immediately.

Although we already have felicitated them at our level, Railway Board Chairman Ashwini Lohani also wants to felicitate them on his own and has called them to New Delhi, said Divisional Rail Manager of Dhanbad Division, Anil Kumar Mishra. They have been provided AC 1st Class tickets and left for Delhi on Tuesday by Rajdhani Express, he added.

Mishra said the gangmen were on duty near the spot where the blasts were triggered, and informed the station master immediately after the incident. The latter alerted railway officials in Dhanbad, helping them save the lives of hundreds of passengers.

The station master immediately stopped trains running on the up and down lines on the route, and hence saved the lives of hundreds of people, said the DRM. Had there been a mistake, it would have claimed several lives as at least half a dozen trains were running on the route, he added. The DRM said rail traffic on the Dhanbad-Gaya route was restored within five hours of the twin blasts.By Express News Service

JAIPUR: A case of sexual assault was registered on Wednesday against a Sadhvi (Female Hindu monk) running an ashram (shelter) for women in Kanota, Jaipur district.

The complaint, filed by a resident of the ashram on September 29, accused Sadhvi Samdarshi of sexual assault under Section 354 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

In her complaint, the victim who is a mother to a 5-year-old and has been living at the ashram for two months said she was sleeping in the Sadhvis room because she was recovering from an operation. At the time, the victim said, the Sadhvi tried to grope and assault her.

The residents of the ashram, situated in the Jamdoli area, are tribal girls from Assam and Tripura and study in a school in the city, said police officers investigating the matter. They are aged between 6 and 16, said the officers.

The victim, in her complaint, said that after the incident, she informed the other residents about the alleged assault and then filed a complaint with the Jamdoli police station.

Currently we have registered the case of sexual assault in the 354 section of the IPC... We are investigating the details and will be able to tell more after interacting with the victim, " said Mansavi Choudhary, ACP Kanota.

The Sadhvi has been absconding since the complaint was filed.

Following the complaint, the police then raided the ashram where they found 20 residents. Police informed the district CWC ( child welfare committee ) who questioned the other 20 girls staying in the place but no such complaint came from them, she added.

On Tuesday evening, the CWC asked the parents of the residents to take their wards home.By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: The Centre has transferred over 2,000 Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) personnel to the Intelligence Bureau (IB) to strengthen the border security and intelligence apparatus, especially along China and Nepal.

In an October 12 order, Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said a total of 2,104 posts of the civilian component of the force, often dubbed as the dying cadre, will be transferred to the IB immediately. Some of these posts are not occupied at present. A small component of 94 posts, spread across five cadres, will be retained by the SSB.

The ministry has now ordered that out of the total 24 cadres of these personnel in the SSB, 19 will be sent to the IB.These cadres will get integrated with relevant and comparable cadres of IB. They will be governed by service conditions of IB after transfer from SSB, stated the order.

A blueprint prepared in this context said that this cadre, which is trained, experienced and well-acquainted with the border areas, could be effectively used to upgrade the countrys intelligence generation and gathering capability along the 15,000 km of its border. The personnel could undertake tasks aimed at generating nationalist sentiments among the population settled along the border.

Sources in the ministry said the future tasking of these personnel would be charted over the next few months and both the central agencies will mutually decide the detailed implementation modalities, including those related to the transfer of SSBs assets to the IB.

Doval behind move

The move was initiated by NSA Ajit Doval, who in June 2016 wrote to then home secretary Rajiv Mehrishi underlining the need to effectively utilise this manpower for enhancing border security though better intelligence gathering.By Express News Service

MUMBAI: Modi's magic is fading which is why the government is trying to gather people by spending huge money for his function, leader of opposition in Maharashtra legislative council, Dhananjay Munde has said referring to PM Modi's program at Shirdi on Friday wherein he is expected to give away keys of houses to beneficiaries under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY).

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to visit Shirdi in Ahmednagar district on Friday to participate in the concluding ceremony of the centenary celebration of Saibab's Samadhi.

For the program around 20,000 beneficiaries of PMAY too have been invited from five districts viz. Pune, Nashik, Ahmednagar, Aurangabad and Beed and the rural development ministry under whose aegis this program is being organized has cleared expenses of around Rs 2 crore for the program.

Munde took a dig at the amount being spent on one program of Prime Minister. "Maharashtra is reeling under the burden of debt worth Rs 4 lakh crore. Moreover, dark clouds of drought are looming large over the state. However, the government wants to spend money on promotional events rather than giving relief to the common man," Munde said.

He added, "This also shows that Modi's magic has completely faded which is why the BJP government is spending tax payer's money to gather people for his program."

According to a senior rural development ministry official, though PM Modi won't be distributing keys to all 20,000 beneficiaries of the rural housing scheme, he will inaugurate 'e-Grih Pravesh', virtual entry to home at the grand function. 20,000 beneficiaries with one family member each would be provided transport from their respective village to Shirdi and back by the government to attend the function. Around 400 MSRTC buses are being hired for the program at a cost of Rs 15,000 per bus. Rest of the money would be spent on snacks to be provided to the beneficiaries, the identity cards provided to them, the banners put on the buses ferrying them, the taxes that will have to be paid on all the services hired for them etc. The official also said that around three fourth of the amount has already been spent.Faizan Mustafa By

Tamil Nadu Governor Banwarilal Purohit recently said that crores of rupees exchanged hands in the appointments of vice chancellors in the state in the past. The Bharathiar University VC was arrested earlier this year on bribery charges and the former VC of Anna University, Coimbatore, was convicted of graft charges in 2016. A few years ago, the apex court had to cancel appointments of around 10 VCs in various universities of Bihar. A recent UGC audit report on Aligarh Muslim University made a few controversial suggestions about the appointment of its VC.

Who should be appointed as a vice chancellor? What should be the process of appointment? Should the government have any say in their appointment?Even Albert Einstein cannot become the vice chancellor of an Indian university if he is ineligible under UGC regulations, the Madras HC had noted. VCs, the heads of universities and the most visible symbols of the university system, are these days appointed not because they are distinguished academicians, but because they have the right political connections in the MHRD in case of central universities, or appropriate political or caste affiliations in the concerned statein many cases, they pay huge amounts of money with rates varying from `1 crore-`3 crore in some states.

Not surprisingly, expediency, and not merit, decides the choice. Even associate professors and in some cases, even assistant professors, who had worked only in private colleges have been appointed as VCs. Gujarat had many such cases. So a number of appointments have been quashed by the judiciary due to the appointment of ineligible candidates, absence of consultation by the governor with the state government, defect in the composition of the search committee, etc.

In 2015, the SC itself upheld the appointment of Kalyani Mathivanan, who was an associate professor in a private aided college, as Madurai Kamaraj University VC on the technical grounds of non-adoption of UGC regulations by TN, though the incumbent was not eligible as per the UGC regulations, 2010. In 2016, the Allahabad HC had similarly upheld the appointment of General Zameeruddin Shah as the VC of AMU.

A VC is the keeper of the universitys conscience. As head of the university, a VC is expected to function as a bridge between the administrative and academic wings of the university and thats why the VC, in all university acts, is called an officer of the university rather than purely the academic head. It is to facilitate this role that universities are always in search of those with leadership qualities and integrity in addition to academic excellence and administrative experience. The qualifications for a VC were for the first time laid down by the UGC in 2010. As per this, a VC should be a distinguished academician with 10 years experience as a professor, and should have impeccable integrity and morals.

A number of commissions had made recommendations on this issue. The Kothari Commission, in 1964, said, A vice chancellor should be a person with vision ... He should command high respect among all sections of the society. The vice chancellor should be a distinguished academic...(who) has commitment to the values for which the universities stand.

But is such a paragon found only amongst teachers? There has been near unanimity that a VC should be an academician and no bureaucrat, judge, diplomat or army officer should be appointed as VC.

Unfortunately, the government continues to play a crucial role in the appointment of VCs and a universitys autonomy is given scant regard. There are different levels of governmental role, i.e. the VCs of central universities are appointed by the president of India who generally acts on the Centres advice; in state universities appointments are rarely made by the governor on his own and in most cases in consultation with the state government.

In the West, universities have freedom to choose their VCs. Each university has its identity and peculiar problems; so, ideally universities should be free to elect their own VCs. The SC has not so far examined the merits of the UGC qualification or the process of appointment. It has merely held that UGC regulations are mandatory for central universities and institutions receiving maintenance grants from the UGC. It also held that in case of a conflict between the state university act and a central law like the UGC Act, the latter would prevail.

Ideally, the SC should have looked at the merit of confining the vice chancellorship to just professors. Most VCs in India are academicians, yet not a single university finds a place in the top 100 universities of the world. We need to expand our net and make distinguished people from all fields eligible to become VCs. Similarly the court has not clarified on the vital issue of conflict between the UGC Act and acts of central universities. Many central university acts lay down a process of appointment of VC which is at variance with the UGC regulations. The UGC Act is the general law and central university acts are special laws and in case of a conflict between a general law and special law, the special law would prevail. Further, the statutes of central universities which lay down procedure of the VCs appointment are generally passed by Parliament along with the Act and so should be superior to UGC regulations framed by just UGC members. The AMU statute has a highly transparent and democratic process of selection of VC in which all stakeholders such as students, teachers, non-teaching staff, Parliamentarians, etc. suggest three names to Indias president, who eventually appoints one of them as VC.

The new UGC regulations framed this July say that one member of the VC search committee for even state, private and minority universities shall be nominated by the UGC chairman. In respect of private and minority universities, this is violative of their freedom to administer educational institutions under Article 30 of the Constitution as well as the 11 judge-bench SC decision in the T.M.A. Pai Foundation case (2003). Let us trust our universities and give them freedom to choose their VCs.

Faizan Mustafa

Vice-Chancellor of NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad, and an expert on constitutional law

Email: vc@nalsar.ac.inBy Express News Service

VIJAYAWADA: Pegging losses sustained due to the devastation caused by cyclone Titli in the north coastal districts of Srikakulam, Vizianagaram and Visakhapatnam at Rs 3,435.29 crore, Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu has sought Rs 1,200 crore immediate assistance from the Centre to continue relief operations.

In a letter to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, which was handed over to him by a delegation of ministers and MPs from the State at Gannavaram Airport on Tuesday evening, Naidu said the State government had already spent Rs 500 crore on relief operations so far.

Explaining the devastation caused by Titli, which made landfall near Palasa in Srikakulam district on October 10, he said extensive damage was caused due to gales gusting up to 130 kmph.

Power distribution system was damaged in 872 villages in Srikakulam and 358 villages of Vizianagaram district, 360 km of roads in Srikakulam and 19 km of roads in Vizianagaram district were damaged. Besides, 19 community protected water supply scheme and 377 protected water supply schemes went out of gear. As many as 1,590 fishing nets and 447 boats were damaged in Srikakulam and six mechanised fishing vessels capsized in Visakhapatnam.

According to him, 80 minor irrigation sources and canal system and flood banks of Vamsadhara project were also damaged. As many as 30,061 houses, 25 PHCs, roads and street lights in a considerable number were damaged in 11 mandals

I have already requested the Prime Minister to release an interim relief of Rs 1,200 crore. The request was sent to the Union Home Secretary on October 14, Naidu said. He observed that though more than two lakh families are in severe distress, no one from the Centre has visited the cyclone-affected areas so far. He requested a high-level delegation to be sent to the State for taking stock of the situation.

In another letter addressed to Rajnath Singh, which was also handed over to him by the delegation of ministers and MPs, the CM sought action with regard to implementation of the AP Reorganisation Act and the assurances and promises made by the Centre to the State. In the letter, he observed that though 14 assurances are mentioned in the main sections of the Act and 18 in the XIII schedule, not even a single one was fully implemented in the last four-and-a-half years.

In the nine-page letter, Naidu explained that he made a number of representations to the PM and other Union Ministers for implementation of the Act. I had visited New Delhi 29 times for the purpose, he said.Attending the Vietnam- EU-Belgium Business Forum jointly held by the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), Belgian Vietnamese Alliance, embassies and trade offices of Vietnam and Belgium, PM Phuc said that the Government pledges favourable conditions to connect enterprises from both sides for the benefits of the firms and the people.

Two-way trade has increased tenfolds in nearly a decade, he noted, adding that it is likely to rise to US$53 billion this year.

Laying stress on the Europe-Vietnam free trade agreement (EVFTA) which is expected to open the door for the enterprises to capitalise on their cooperation potential when it takes effect, PM Phuc hoped that the European business association, especially Belgian firms, will raise their voice to push the signing of the deal.

Vietnam will serve as a bridge for European enterprises to break into ASEAN market toward a free and fair trade, he said, underlining Vietnams advantages for Belgian investments like stable socio-political and macro-economic conditions, and well-developed port systems.

Together with the imminent signing of the EVFTA, Vietnam has participated in 15 new-generation free trade agreements, which means that if Belgian firms enter Vietnam, they will get into a global market, he underlined.

At the forum, PM Phuc and officials of both nations witnessed the signing of several cooperation documents between the VCCI and Belgian Vietnamese Alliance, Vietnam Post and Telecommunication Group and European mobile network business centre, and Vietnam Project company and Sarens Group.

Speaking at the event, Chairman of the Belgium  Vietnam Friendship Alliance Andries Gryffoy said Belgian firms are interested in seeking opportunities in health care, real estate, green energy, food, beverages, seaport infrastructure and other fields in Vietnam, adding that they are promising investors.

He said Belgium boasts a business-friendly government, dynamic research environment, and education system up to international standards and high labour productivity.

Lying in the heart of the EU with a population of 420 million and modern infrastructure, Belgium focuses on industries such as aerospace, chemicals, energy, waste and wastewater treatment, artificial intelligence and 4.0 technology, which are potential fields for partnership with Vietnamese firms, he said.

The same day, PM Phuc had working sessions with representatives from EU and Belgian leading firms operating in Vietnam, during which they informed the Vietnamese leader on outcomes and investment and business plans in the Southeast Asian nation in such fields as oil and gas, renewable energy, agriculture, fertiliser and insecticide production, seaport infrastructure, rubber, and tire production. They also made recommendations on how to accelerate cooperation between the business communities of Vietnam and the EU, as well as between those of Vietnam and Belgium in particular.

Earlier, on October 16, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc received leaders of Solveigh and Nijhuis  the Dutch businesses with experience in anti-erosion, water exploitation and use and carrying out a climate change adaptation project in central Vietnam.

The PM hailed Solveigh and Nijhuis as well as other Dutch partners in conducting surveys, research and working solutions to minimise coastal erosion in Vietnam. He described their work as a specific action to implement cooperation programmes within the framework of the strategic partnership on adaptation to climate change and water management between Vietnam and the Netherlands.

Menno Holterman, Managing Director of Nijhuis, said the projects partners inspected erosion in Hoi An and agreed to carry out another project to address challenges in the area. It aims to improve safety and livelihood for locals, and protect and restore Hoi An coast, while forming new eco-system tourist sites there. Investment for this will be arranged by European and Dutch organisations and businesses and Vietnams T&T group.

Representatives of the two Dutch groups expressed their wish to continue receiving attention and facilitation from the Prime Minister and relevant agencies of Vietnam during the projects implementation.

Welcoming proposals of Dutch organisations and businesses, PM Phuc said the Vietnamese Government hopes for experience sharing and support on human resources and technology from the Dutch partners to solve urgent issues in Vietnam, especially coastal and riverbank erosion and subsidence, climate change response, and help local peoples sustainable socio-economic development.

The PM suggested Dutch and Vietnamese partners coordinate with the Peoples Committee of Quang Nam province to accelerate the study and survey to have an optimal plan.

The two Dutch groups, T&T group and other partners were asked to work with Vietnams Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and Quang Nam authorities to reach an implementation plan.By Express News Service

KOCHI: Save our Sisters (SoS), which had organised the protest at High Court Junction demanding the arrest of Bishop Franco, has alleged that it was with the consent of the state government that the accused was granted bail by the High Court.

Franco was granted bail based on the submission made by government pleader before the High Court that the investigation against Franco was in the final stages, said Fr Augustine Vattolly, representing SoS, in a statement.

According to him, the bail should not have been granted to the bishop as there are possibilities of him influencing key witnesses. There is another case registered in which the victim nun was threatened by a murder accused. The prosecution could no t establish that the release of the accused in the case will adversely affect the case.

It is after the public protest that the government was forced to arrest Franco. It is clear the governments stance is favouring Bishop Franco, said the release.By Express News Service

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Centre has not granted permission to the ministers to go abroad for mobilising funds for the Rebuild Kerala initiative. Highly-placed sources in the government said the permission was not likely to come on Wednesday either.

Only Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has been granted permission - to visit the UAE from Tuesday to Sunday - so far. Sixteen ministers were planning to visit 15 countries over the next few days to meet the Malayali diaspora for drumming up funds for the post-flood rebuilding of the state. Uncertainty had prevailed during the past few days over the travel plans as the Central nod was not forthcoming, despite the government being in constant contact with the External Affairs Ministry.

READ | To convert a tragedy into an opportunity to build a more resilient Kerala

Several of the ministers were planning to leave on Wednesday and Thursday and others by Friday and Saturday. Speaking to Express on Tuesday evening, Industries Minister E P Jayarajan had said the state was hopeful of a positive reply from the Centre as the trip was aimed at resource mobilisation for rebuilding the state. But by 9.30 pm, the news broke the permission was being denied.

A senior bureaucrat who was part of official delegation said usually the Central nod for such trips were given in the eleventh hour. So, the state was still hopeful of getting a positive reply from the Centre, he said. Meanwhile, the proposed visit of 17 ministers, if permission is granted, along with the Chief Minister raised concern in the background of escalating tension over the Sabarimala issue. The Chief Ministers Office has confirmed no communication regarding the ministers trip has come from the Centre till Tuesday late night.

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, the Chief Minister had said the Prime Minister had responded favourably when he met him in New Delhi. The requests for clearance for all the ministers were send together. Only the CM needs clearance from PMO while the ministers are cleared by the Ministry of External Affairs.Arabinda Panda By

Express News Service

CUTTACK: The ME-BASED welcome gates, glittering silver tableaux and idols of Goddess Durga decked in gold have been attracting devotees in droves to the pandals in the Millennium City. With a total of 160 puja pandals in the city, each of them have come up with a unique theme this year. The trendsetter, Choudhury Bazaar Puja Committee has added three more gold Kalikas to its silver tableau.

A moving vehicle-chassis has been designed to seat the idol along with medha and take it throughout the city. The theme-based welcome arches at Khan Nagar, Badambadi, Malgodown and Chauliaganj are leaving the revellers spell-bound. At Khan Nagar a 60 feet high welcome gate replicating Baba Harbhajan Singh temple located near Nathu La border in Sikkim has been built.

It took more than 30 local artisans around one month to construct the gate worth more than Rs 7 lakh, said secretary of the Puja Committee, Prafulla Kumar Sahu. Similarly, Sankarpur-Badambadi Puja Committees welcome arch at Badambadi replicates Nepals Budhha temple. As many as 24 artisans from Kolkata have constructed the 78 feet by 64 feet Toran at a cost of Rs 9.5 lakh in a months time, said Puja Committee president Sarbeswar Barik.

The Malgodown Puja Committee has set up an arch exclusively made of oyster shells near its altar replicating an imaginary temple housing idols of Lord Shiva, Vishnu a n d Ardhanareswar. The exquisite gate has been constructed with bamboo, ply, sack and oyster shells by a group of 25 artisans from West Bengal at `6.7 lakh in a month, informed Puja Committee secretary Nizamuddin Ahmad.

The Chauliaganj Puja Committee has set up two light gates at OMP square replicating China temple and another near its altar replicating China Gate at a cost of `6 lakh, the College Square Puja Committee has come up with two LED light gates replicating Howrah Bridge. The other Puja pandals at Manglabaag and Ranihaat, Chandni Chowk, Jobra, Chauliaganj, Haripur, Shaikh Bazaar also glittered with equally exuberance. Besides the beautiful idols of Devi Durga and Hara- Parbati, the exquisite light decorations are a crowd-puller in these areas.By Express News Service

BHUBANESWAR: The social media was flooded with birthday wishes for Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik who turned 73 on Tuesday. Prime Minister Narendra Modi took to twitter to wish Naveen on his birthday. Modi wrote, Best wishes to Odisha CM Shri Naveen Patnaik Ji on his birthday. Naveen Ji is one of Indias senior-most leaders who has been serving the people of Odisha for many years. May he lead a long and healthy life.

Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan, former Kendrapara MP Baijayant Panda, internationally acclaimed sand sculptor Sudarshan Pattanaik and Director General of Police Dr RP Sharma were among others who wished Naveen on his birthday. Wishing the Chief Minister, Baijayant in a twitter post wrote, I wish Naveen@Odisha a very happy birthday. I deeply appreciate post cyclone work of Indian forces/ODRAF and AGAIN offer helicopters at no cost to augment that, as in earlier years. 45 reported dead.

Families of the missing would surely want any additional search/rescue/relief efforts. Sudarshan wished Naveen through a sand art at Puri beach. He posted the picture of his creation on Twitter and wrote, Wishing a very Happy Birthday to the chief minister. May Lord Jagannath bless u with good health and long life. The Chief Minister thanked the sand artist.

Naveen on Monday had announced that he would not celebrate his birthday in view of the human suffering due to cyclone Titli. Naveen had requested his well-wishers and ruling BJD party workers and leaders not to organise any function. For the first time, the Chief Minister has replied to the tweets from unknown persons wishing him on his birthday.S Mannar Mannan By

Express News Service

COIMBATORE: The two latest instructions from the Ministry of Human Resource Development -- to make original certificates unnecessary during college applications, and complete refund of the fee for students who withdrew admission 15 days before the last date of submission of application -- has evoked a positive response from the academic and student communities.

Appreciating the decision, academicians wanted the government to take steps to ensure that private institutions complied with the norm.

Union minister Prakash Javadekar, last week, announced that no student will be required to submit any original academic and personal certificates at the time of submission of admission form. He said that the students would also be eligible for a refund of fee from the institution if they withdrew their admission from the programme; the amount of refund was fixed depending on the time of withdrawal.

It was for the students benefit that the University Grants Commission Notification on Refund of Fees and Non Retention of Original Certificates was being brought out, for the students faced several problems during admission, due to the coercive and profiteering practices of educational institutions, he remarked.

To help students make an informed choice during admission, MHRD directed higher education institutions to disclose information regarding the status of institutions, its affiliation, accreditation status, physical assets and amenities, course-wise sanctioned intake of students, various types of fees payable for different programmes, total fees payable for an entire programme, last date of admission, details of faculty, members of governing bodies and minutes of the meeting of bodies, sources of income, financial situation and any other information about its functioning, on their website and prospectus.

Welcoming the move, P Uchimakali, national vice president of Students Federation of India, said, If a student discontinues the course, many colleges in Tamil Nadu ask them to pay full fee for the three or four-year programme. Only after receiving the fee do they return the certificates. This practice is being followed in schools too. Hence, this decision of the MHRD and UGC is a welcome one. Uchimakali also stressed the need to ensure private institutions followed the rules.By Express News Service

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu is among the top 10 priority states for Australia for increased engagement as Australia charts out a strategy to invest $100 billion in India in two decades, said Australian High Commissioner to India Harinder Sidhu, while launching a roadmap for enhancing the Australia-India economic ties for the next two decades.

She said the report An Indian Economic Strategy to 2035: Navigating from Potential to Delivery was prepared as Australian business-making decision was based on outdated information. The report asked Australians not to look at India as another China as Indias economy was different from that of China and a consumption-driven one.

Highlighting the reports recommendations to strengthen the Australia-India research and innovation partnership, she said Tamil Nadu provided a strong base for further growth.Aihik Sur By

HYDERABAD: Law student Raya Sarkar, who published a crowd-sourced list naming alleged sexual harassers from the academic circle and who has been heralded as the founder of the #MeToo movement in India hoped that the current movement could include Dalit, Bahujan and Adivasi women in it.

Speaking to Express, Sarkar said, Dalit, Bahujan and Adivasi (DBA) women have the least access to justice and often face intense hostility from the Savarna community when they attempt to take due process measures or expose predators. The movement does not represent DBA women yet. I hope as a community we can build more resources and support for the most vulnerable and marginalised. Any campaign should not treat the most vulnerable as just an afterthought, she said.

Till now, the #MeToo movement in the country has been an urban phenomenon. Professionals who have been outed are mostly from English media houses, advertising companies, national NGOs and other bodies. Sarkar said, I think it has potential to spread to regional spaces but frameworks do not exist to support and protect survivors there. Exposing a predator is more difficult when one does not have resources, aid or support systems to help and protect them in the aftermath.

READ| Another woman comes out against Union minister M J Akbar

Last year in October, a law student from University of California uploaded a Facebook post naming at least 70 professors from colleges/universities such as Jadavpur University, Delhi University, English and Foreign Languages Univeristy - Hyderabad as sexual harassers. One of the named is a leading political theorist from Centre for Studies in Social Sciences.

The post had caused a furore on social media. While some lauded Sarkar for her initiative, there were a strong group of people who had critcised her. Activists like Kavita Krishnan, Ayesha Kidwai and others had said that her post had delegitimised the work of feminists. The same activists now support the current #MeToo movement  which has irked some.

Sarkar said, I think it is hypocritical of them to condemn the list last year, but support allegations this year. The list had included many names of their friends and colleagues.

Despite the traction on social media and mainstream media, the movement that spurned out from the list of sexual harassers in academics (LoSHA), had fizzled out after a time. It was only a year later with the Brett Kavanaugh-Christine Blasey Ford controversy raging in USA that the #MeToo movement again hit the Indian shores. Sarkar reasoned that her movement might have fizzled out because she was not a Brahmin heterosexual. Many had mocked LoSHA and condemned it.

It is why others were apprehensive to expose predators, I think. Comparing responses to both makes an interesting case study. Maybe I was not considered reliable because I am not a Brahmin heterosexual, Sarkar told Express over email.

She also urged for better enforcement of sexual harassment laws and also setting up of tribunals for women in the informal sector. I would like to see schools and workplaces having functional ICCs. Many people dont know what consent means and its scope  members of the ICC panels need to be educated about this.By AFP

SEOUL: North Korea's state media on Tuesday slammed the United States for an "evil" attempt to maintain sanctions against Pyongyang, accusing President Donald Trump of blocking progress in inter-Korean relations.

The declaration threatens to upset the negotiations between Washington and the nuclear-armed North, in which Trump is expected to hold a second summit soon with Pyongyang's leader Kim Jong Un.

At their first meeting in Singapore in June they signed a vaguely-worded pledge on denuclearisation, but little progress has been made since then with the two sides sparring over the meaning of the text.

Pyongyang has not made any explicit public promise to give up its existing arsenal but has repeatedly called for UN Security Council sanctions imposed over its weapons programmes to be loosened, citing a freeze in its nuclear and missile tests.

For its part Washington has been adamant the measures should be maintained until Pyongyang's complete denuclearisation.

Washington was playing a "double game", said a lengthy commentary carried by the North's official KCNA news agency, and was "little short of destroying" the rare diplomatic opportunity between the two.

"Hostile policy and reciprocity cannot go together," it said, and negotiations would not move forward "an inch with an obstacle called sanctions."

"The US is responding to good faith with evil," it added. KCNA said the article, nearly 1,700 words long and titled "What Do Ill-boding Remarks from US Signify", had been "made public" by Kim Chol Myong.

No further details about its origins or the author's affiliation were given, suggesting that "Kim Chol Myong" is likely to be a pseudonym. But the fact that it was carried by Pyongyang's official news agency indicates that it has the authorities' approval.

It was published just days after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Pyongyang and said he had "productive" talks on denuclearisation with the North Korean leader. After an earlier Pompeo visit in July the North issued an angrily-worded official foreign ministry statement condemning what it called his "unilateral" demands for its disarmament, describing them as "gangster-like".

It cast doubt on the prospects for progress -- even though it proclaimed "our good faith in President Trump" -- and prompted the US leader to cancel a scheduled August trip to Pyongyang by his Secretary of State, before a fresh round of visits and a letter from Kim restarted the process.

But Tuesday's declaration went further, implicitly criticising the US leader -- who is known to consider personal relationships important. Without naming Trump, it referred to his comments last week that Seoul would not lift its own sanctions against the North "without our approval."

"Even the White House made such threatening words," KCNA said, "enraging not only south Koreans but all other Koreans".

South Korea's dovish President Moon Jae-in -- who has held three meetings with Kim this year -- has vowed to honour the UN sanctions but agreed to pursue a handful of joint economic projects with the North.

After his visit this month Pompeo said Kim had agreed to allow international inspectors to visit a nuclear test site that the North dismantled in May but did not elaborate on any offers made by the US in return.By PTI

DHAKA: Two suspected militants, including a woman, were killed and two female university students, believed to be involved in Bangladesh's deadliest terrorist attack in 2016, surrendered on Wednesday, bringing an end to a 40-hour long tight security clampdown in Narsingdi near the national capital.

"We are wrapping up our operation as two women militants both students of Dhaka private Manarat University -- have surrendered," Counter-Terrorism and Transnational Crimes unit (CTTC)," chief Monirul Islam told reporters at the scene in central Narsingdi district, 75 kilometres northeast of Dhaka.

The two women, clad in black burqas, were escorted by law enforcers to a special ambulance around 2:45pm.

They were also wearing helmets at the time. The CTTC officials said the two women, believed to be involved in the July 1, 2016, deadly attack on Dhaka's Holey Artisan Bakery attack, had rented an apartment as ordinary tenants several months ago.

One of them was married to a fugitive operative of Neo Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh or Neo-JMB, an al-Qaeda linked group that carried out the cafe attack.

The cafe attack in Dhaka killed 22 people, including 17 foreigners. All the six terrorists involved in the attack were also killed in a subsequent commando assault.

Earlier, police cordoned off two militant hideouts a five-storey building and another seven-storey building on Tuesday night.

They raided the five-storey building Tuesday night and recovered the bodies of a man and a woman along with firearms.

The officials said CTTC had information that the second woman was set to marry over the phone with another Neo-JMB operative in a secret wedding ceremony.

They raided the building Tuesday night and in an encounter two militants were killed.

However, the two female militants including the "terrorist bride" escaped and "we came to know that they are staying at another hideout at Narsigndi town which we raided in a near simultaneous time", officials said.

The Neo JMB is inclined to Islamic State and is believed to have carried out the cafe attack.

Since late 2015, the Neo-JMB led by Bangladeshi-origin Canadian Tamim Chowdhury was carrying out small scale clandestine attacks on foreigners and non-Muslims.

Chowdhury was killed in an encounter.TORONTO: Ian Power was among the first to buy legal recreational marijuana in Canada but he has no plans to smoke it. He plans to frame it.

Canada became the largest country with a legal national marijuana marketplace as sales began early Wednesday in Newfoundland. Power was first in line at a store in St. John's, Newfoundland.

"I am going to frame it and hang it on my wall. I'm not even going to smoke it. I'm just going to save it forever," Power said.

And there was more good news for pot aficionados: Hours before a handful of retail outlets opened in the country's easternmost province a federal official told The Associated Press that Canada will pardon all those with convictions for possessing up to 30 grams of marijuana, the now-legal threshold.

A formal announcement was planned for later Wednesday. The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly ahead of the announcement, said those who want to take advantage of the pardons will have to apply.

Canopy Growth CEO Bruce Linton, left to right, passes a bag with the first legal cannabis for recreation use sold in Canada to Nikki Rose and Ian Power at the Tweed shop on Water Street in St. John's N.L. at 12:01 am NDT on Wednesday Oct. 17, 2018. (Photo | AP)

Canada has had legal medical marijuana since 2001 and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government has spent two years working toward expanding that to include recreational marijuana. The goal is to better reflect society's changing opinion about marijuana and bring black market operators into a regulated system.

Uruguay was first was the first country to legalize marijuana.

In St. John's, Newfoundland, hundreds of customers were lined up around the block at the private store on Water Street, the main commercial drag in the provincial capital, by the time the clock struck midnight. A festive atmosphere broke out, with some customers lighting up on the sidewalk and motorists honking their horns in support as they drove by the crowd.

"Prohibition has ended right now. We just made history," said the 46-year-old Power, who bought a gram. "I can't believe we did it. All the years of activism paid off. Cannabis is legal in Canada and everyone should come to Canada and enjoy our cannabis."

Tom Clarke, an illegal pot dealer for three decades, was among the first to make a legal sale in Canada when his store opened at midnight local time in Portugal Cove, Newfoundland. He made the first sale to his dad. A crowd of 50 to 100 people waited outside and cheered him.

Thomas Clarke poses for a photo outside his cannabis store, THC Distribution, in Portugal Cove-St. Philip's, Newfoundland and Labrador. (Photo | AP)

"This is awesome. I've been waiting my whole life for this," Clarke said. "I am so happy to be living in Canada right now instead of south of the border."

Clarke, whose middle name is Herb, has been called THC for years by his friends. His dad, Don, said he was thrilled he was among the first customers of legal pot.

"It's been a long time coming. We've only been discussing this for 50 years. It's better late than never," he said.

The Newfoundland stores are among at least 111 legal pot shops expected to open across the nation of 37 million people on Wednesday, with many more to come, according to an Associated Press survey of the provinces.

Canadians also can order marijuana products through websites run by provinces or private retailers and have it delivered to their homes by mail.

Alberta and Quebec have set the minimum age for purchase at 18, while others have made it 19.

Members of the media attend a preview for one of Quebec's new cannabis stores in Montreal, Tuesday, Oct.1 6, 2018. (Photo | AP)

No stores will open in Ontario, which includes Toronto. The most populous province is working on its regulations and doesn't expect stores until next spring.

Ryan Bose, 48, a Lyft driver in Toronto, said it's about time. "Alcohol took my grandfather and it took his youngest son, and weed has taken no one from me ever," he said.

A patchwork of regulations has spread in Canada as each province takes its own approach within the framework set out by the federal government. Some are operating government-run stores, some are allowing private retailers, some both.

Canada's national approach has allowed for unfettered industry banking, inter-province shipments of cannabis and billions of dollars in investment  a sharp contrast with national prohibition in the United States.

Nine U.S. states have legalized recreational use of pot, and more than 30 have approved medical marijuana. California, the largest legal market in the U.S., earlier this month became the first state with a law mandating expungement of criminal convictions for marijuana-related offences that no are longer illegal.Minister Lam noted the important mutual visits by the countries leaders, including an official trip by Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc in May 2017 and a tour by Chairman of the Mongolian parliament Miyegombyn Enkhbold in January this year.

Bilateral cooperation has been expanded in various spheres, including defence, security, culture, and education, he noted, adding that relations between the Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security and relevant agencies of Mongolia have also recorded major outcomes.

In 2013, the two ministries signed a cooperation agreement on crime prevention and combat. Since then, they have increased the exchange of anti-crime information via diplomatic channels, Interpol, and multilateral cooperation frameworks, he elaborated.

To promote substantive cooperation, Lam asked both sides to continue considering the establishment of cooperation mechanisms in security and crime combat to share information of mutual concern, as well as stepping up the building of coordination mechanisms to ensure security for mutual visits and representative diplomatic agencies, diplomatic workers, and the diaspora citizens of each country.

He called for stronger ties in realising multilateral deals to which both countries are members, such as the conventions against transnational organised crime, international terrorism, corruption and torture, as well as other international treaties on crime fighting.

Additionally, the countries should enhance cooperation effectiveness on the basis of the 2013 agreement on crime prevention and combat. They also need to boost the sharing of information and experience between their law enforcement bodies, while improving delegation exchanges and joint human resources training to intensify mutual understanding, the host official added.

For his part, Minister Tsend Nyamdorj applauded the countries political trust, close coordination, and mutual support on the international arena.

He pledged to exert all efforts to contribute to bilateral relations, including between the two ministries, so as to help ensure their respective nations security, social order, and safety, along with regional and global peace and stability.

Following the talks, the two ministers signed an agreement on the transfer of sentenced persons between Vietnam and Mongolia.ANKARA: A pro-government Turkish newspaper on Wednesday published a gruesome recounting of the alleged slaying of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, just as America's top diplomat arrived in the country for talks over the Washington Post columnist's disappearance.

The report by Yeni Safak adds to the ever-increasing pressure on Saudi Arabia to explain what happened to Khashoggi, who vanished Oct. 2 while visiting the consulate to pick up paperwork he needed to get married.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told journalists before leaving Riyadh on Wednesday that Saudi leaders, including King Salman and his son, the 33-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, "made no exceptions on who they would hold accountable."

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, centre, walks to a plane before leaving Riyadh, Saudi Arabia Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2018. (Photo | AP)

"They made a commitment to hold anyone connected to any wrongdoing that may be found accountable for that, whether they are a senior officer or official," Pompeo said.

However, no major decision is made outside of the ultraconservative kingdom's ruling Al Saud family. Khashoggi had fled the country last year amid the rise of Prince Mohammed, whom he wrote critically about in the Post.

The Yeni Safak report cited what it described as an audio recording of Khashoggi's slaying, which it said showed the writer was tortured.

The newspaper said Saudi Consul General Mohammed al-Otaibi could be heard on the tape, telling those allegedly torturing Khashoggi: "Do this outside; you're going to get me in trouble."

The newspaper said one of the Saudis torturing Khashoggi replied: "Shut up if you want to live when you return to (Saudi) Arabia."

Saudi officials have not responded to repeated requests for comment from The Associated Press in recent days. Al-Otaibi left Turkey on Tuesday afternoon, Turkish state media reported.

Security services in Turkey have used pro-government media to leak details of Khashoggi's case, adding to the pressure on the kingdom.

President Donald Trump, who earlier warned of "severe punishment" if the kingdom was found culpable for Khashoggi's disappearance, criticized the allegations against the kingdom and compared it to the accusations of sexual assault levelled against now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearing.

"Here we go again with you're guilty until proven innocent," Trump told the AP in an interview.

That attitude does not appear to be shared with Congress, as one prominent Republican senator said he believed that the crown prince, widely known as MBS, had Khashoggi "murdered."

"This guy has got to go," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, speaking on Fox television. "Saudi Arabia, if you're listening, there are a lot of good people you can choose, but MBS has tainted your country and tainted himself."

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, center right, shakes hands with a Saudi official before leaving Riyadh, Saudi Arabia Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2018. (Photo | AP)

On Tuesday, a high-level Turkish official told the AP that police found "certain evidence" of Khashoggi's slaying at the consulate, without elaborating. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing.

Police plan to search the Saudi consul general's home, as well as some of the country's diplomatic vehicles, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said. Leaked surveillance video shows that diplomatic cars traveled to the consul general's home shortly after Khashoggi went into the consulate.

Police put up barricades around the consul's official residence Tuesday night. The search, however, did not happen overnight and reasons for that weren't immediately clear.

Earlier Tuesday, U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet said the "inviolability or immunity" of people or premises granted under the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations "should be waived immediately." That convention covers diplomatic immunity, as well as the idea that embassies and consulates sit on foreign soil in their host countries.

"Given there seems to be clear evidence that Mr. Khashoggi entered the consulate and has never been seen since, the onus is on the Saudi authorities to reveal what happened to him," Bachelet said.

Nils Melzer, the U.N. special investigator on torture, said that if Turkey and Saudi Arabia can't conduct "a credible and objective investigation," then international involvement may be needed.

Trump's previous warnings over the case drew an angry response Sunday from Saudi Arabia and its state-linked media, including a suggestion that Riyadh could wield its oil production as a weapon. The U.S. president has been after King Salman and OPEC to boost production to drive down high oil prices, caused in part by the coming re-imposition of oil sanctions on Iran.

Prominent U.S. newspapers have reported, citing anonymous sources, that Saudi officials may soon acknowledge Khashoggi's slaying at the consulate but blame it on a botched intelligence operation.

That could, like Trump's softening comments, seek to give the kingdom a way out of the global firestorm of criticism over Khashoggi's fate.

___

Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Press writers Catherine Lucey, Jonathan Lemire and Zeke Miller in Washington contributed to this report.By PTI

LAHORE: A Pakistani serial killer was executed at a prison here on Wednesday after a court dismissed a petition for his public hanging filed by the father of a seven-year-old girl, who was raped and murdered by the convict.

Imran Ali, who was convicted for the rape and murder of the minor girl in the city of Kasur, some 50-km from Lahore earlier this year, was hanged to death this morning in Kot Lakhpat Central Jail.

Ali was executed in the presence of both Magistrate Adil Sarwar and the deceased's father. The girl's uncle was also present at the jail, the Dawn reported.

ALSO READ: Pakistan minor girl's murder: Father petitions court for public hanging of killer

An ambulance had also arrived at the scene, accompanied by a brother of the convict as well as two of his friends.

A two-member Lahore High Court bench comprising Justice Sardar Shamim Ahmed and Justice Shahbaz Rizvi on Tuesday dismissed the plea of Amin Ansari, father of the minor girl, seeking public hanging of the convict.

In January last, police arrested Imran two weeks after he raped and killed the minor girl and threw her body into a garbage dump in Kasur.

The incident triggered nation-wide street protests in Pakistan with people demanding a harsh punishment for the 23-year-old accused.

Violent protests in Kasur city following her murder claimed two lives.

An anti-terrorism court here last week ruled that Imran's death sentence will be carried out on October 17 at Lahore's Central Jail.

Imran, a resident of Kasur, was accused of being involved in at least nine incidents of rape-cum-murder of minors.

The court has given its verdict in five cases. Ansari's counsel had also requested the court to allow a live telecast of the hanging inside the jail.

The court did not agree and dismissed the plea. Contingents of police and anti-riot forces surrounded Kot Lakhpat jail at the time of Ali's hanging.

Talking to the media after the execution, Ansari regretted that the authorities did not allow the live telecast of the hanging.

"Zainab would have been seven years, two months old today," he said.

"Her mother is devastated from grief."

Ansari also thanked the chief justice of Pakistan and said that the "murderer had met his fate today".

After the execution, Ali's family - accompanied by police contingents - took his body to Kasur.JERUSALEM: A US student barred from Israel over past support for a pro-Palestinian boycott campaign appeared before the Jewish state's top court Wednesday in a final appeal against the state's decision.

Lara Alqasem, 22, landed at Ben Gurion Airport on October 2, for master's degree studies at Jerusalem's Hebrew University.

Despite having a visa, she was not allowed to clear immigration, due to a 2017 law barring supporters of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Alqasem, reportedly of Palestinian descent, was president of a chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine during her undergraduate studies at the University of Florida.

The group has supported boycott campaigns against Israel. Alqasem, who says she left SJP in 2017 and was no longer part of the BDS movement, decided to stay in Israel and challenge the decision. Two appeals to lower courts have been rejected.

At Wednesday's Supreme Court hearing, Alqasem's lawyer said the state should apply common sense when applying the law against BDS supporters.

"Why would she want to enter Israel to call for a boycott?" Yotam Ben Hillel asked.

"She committed to not do so, and is aware" she would be deported if she did campaign, the lawyer added.

The Hebrew University wants Alqasem to undertake her studies. A representative said foreign students and researchers provide "oxygen" for local academia, while their presence could counter boycott efforts.

"We think that if people come and live here, theyll see we're not an apartheid state," the university's attorney Pepi Yakirevich said in court on Wednesday.

The state's representative argued that the interior ministry had the authority to prevent Alqasem's entry, based on the law and her past actions, which indicated a "central role" in her organisation.

The panel of three judges adjourned the hearing ahead of reaching and publishing a decision.

In March 2017, Israel's parliament passed a law banning the entry of supporters of BDS, a movement inspired by an international campaign against South Africa before the fall of apartheid.

The judges questioned the point of barring a person who was no longer active in the BDS movement.

But outside court, an attorney for a right-wing NGO that worked with the state on the case insisted Alqasem would resume campaigning activity if allowed to enter Israel.

"There are enough circumstances and supporting evidence to all our claims that prove that Lara Alqasem isn't here in order to be a regular student and gain an education," said Yaakov Cohen of Im Tirtzu.

Her true aim is "to incite and create provocations", he added.At a working meeting, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak and Iranian Petroleum Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh discussed the situation on the world oil market, according to a news release of the Russian ministry.

Noting the world's growing energy demand, the ministers touched upon the possibility of further regulating production under the OPEC and non-OPEC agreement to "prevent overheating of the oil market."

"Having increased production by 1 million barrels per day by joint efforts, we hope to stabilize the market and show ourselves as responsible players creating stable and predictable rules in the oil sector in the interests of all -- producers, consumers and investors," Novak said.

In June, OPEC and non-OPEC oil producers decided to stick to 100 percent conformity of predetermined oil production cap, thus allowing an increase of oil production as the deal participants have reduced the output more than required in the past months.

Novak and Zanganeh also discussed cooperation between the two countries in fuel and other energy sectors.

Novak underlined that constant contacts between Russia and Iran contribute to strengthening their bilateral cooperation in the whole range of trade and economic relations, including the energy sector.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

Lyndsay Jones is a reporter covering education at The News-Gazette. Her email is ljones@news-gazette, and you can follow her on Twitter (@__lyndsayjones).Reporter

Noelle McGee is a Danville-based reporter at The News-Gazette. Her email is nmcgee@news-gazette.com, and you can follow her on Twitter (@n_mcgee).Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup.One of Editor & Publishers 10 That Do It Right 2021Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) meets with Stephen Perry, chairman of Britain's 48 Group Club, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 16, 2018. (Xinhua/Liu Weibing)

BEIJING, Oct. 16 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday reiterated China's commitment to free trade and economic globalization while meeting with Stephen Perry, chairman of Britain's 48 Group Club in Beijing.

Briefing the guest on the Chinese people's pursuit for its "two centenary goals" as well as China's history, Xi said the great achievement of economic and social development in the past 40 years has strengthened China's determination of reform and opening up.

The "two centenary goals" refer to China's aspiration to finish building a moderately prosperous society in all respects by the time the Communist Party of China (CPC) celebrates its centenary in 2021 and turn the People's Republic of China into a modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced and harmonious by the time it celebrates its centenary in 2049.

"Under the current world circumstances, China is even more determined to support trade liberalization and economic globalization," Xi said.

"We advocate that countries should enhance exchanges, cooperation, understanding and mutual trust, and avoid suspicion, prejudice and misunderstanding in international affairs," he said.

Xi said China will not seek hegemony even if it grows stronger, but will steadfastly safeguard world peace and uphold the building of a community with a shared future for humanity.

Xi hailed the "ice-breaking trip" made by Jack Perry, Stephen Perry's father, together with a group of far-sighted people from the British business community in spite of lots of obstacles in the early 1950s. He said the China-UK friendship has been deeply rooted in the peoples of the two nations today, and it has become a consensus shared by the two governments and peoples to develop the "Golden Era" of bilateral ties.

"I'm very glad to see the spirit of the 'ice-breaking trip' is being carried forward from generation to generation," Xi said, referring to the 48 Group Club's continuous enthusiasm for China-UK friendship.

Lauding China's tremendous development achievements and the ambitious blueprint made at the 19th National Congress of the CPC, Perry said he is sure that China will achieve its goals.

Perry said the 48 Group Club is committed to enhancing the exchanges between China and other countries, and is ready to participate in China's process of development and rejuvenation.

Perry spoke highly of the Belt and Road Initiative and the notion of building a community with a shared future for humanity raised by Xi. He said the 48 Group Club will continue supporting globalization and an open world economy and promoting the UK-China cooperation within the Belt and Road framework with the spirit of the "ice-breaking trip."



Former Transport and Infrastructural Development Minister Dr Joram Gumbo has denied any wrongdoing in corporate governance malpractices that dogged the Zimbabwe National Road Administration during his tenure.





The malpractices range from alleged abuse of money and flouting of corporate governance tenets. Dr Gumbo was recently reassigned to the Ministry of Energy and Power Development. Documents reveal that Dr Gumbo directly withdrew allowances from Zinara.





On corporate governance malpractices that border on a clear case of conflict of interest, Dr Gumbos company JMCD won a lucrative tender to supply clothing material to Zinara.





Further, on some occasions Dr Gumbo was paid money for other engagements by Zinara, which had nothing to do with road development. In an interview with The Herald, Dr Gumbo said there was nothing wrong with the dealings.





He told The Herald that his company won the tender competitively and the same company was also supplying other Government departments.





Asked if there was no conflict of interest in having his company supplying material to a line state enterprise under his ministry, Dr Gumbo said: I have a company called JMCD. It is our company and the directors are myself and my wife. It is a sewing company. It is supplying the army, Zanu-PF, the Ministry of Health (and Child Care) and many other companies. It won these tenders. It has got nothing to do with me as an individual.





I cannot go and stop a company and say you cant tender. It is not possible and the fact that I am working and when the company supplies the army and the Ministry of Health it is okay, but when they supply Zinara because they have won a tender competitively like everybody else then it becomes a crime. I do not understand it. When they won their tender I was not even involved, but the company is there and there is nothing to hide about it. It is connected with Nemchem and was supplying a lot of things in Government. We are doing a lot of cleaning and it did not start now. That has always been happening.





One of the Zinara receipts in possession of The Herald subtitled: Application for advances and authority travel, Dr Gumbo on April 12, 2018, signed for an allowance of US$1 295.





I Honourable Dr JM Gumbo am applying for $1 295 for the following purposes: Trips on official business during the period April 12 to April 16, 2018.





The purpose of the allowances according to the receipt was for the minister to go on a continuous assessment of roads in the Midlands Province.





Asked how he was directly accessing allowances from Zinara instead of the Department of Roads in his ministry, Dr Gumbo said everything to do with roads Zinara had to pay.





He said the ministry only supplies fuel coupons for 650 litres for such engagements.





When you go out as a minister you apply for assistance because you do not have the money for hotels and all your staff so there is nothing wrong, he said.





Zinara is for roads. From the ministry you are only given 650 (litres) coupons, but because you are going out you do not go alone. You go with a team to visit the roads. So if you are going to visit all the roads in the Midlands you get the funding from them. Zinara is for roads so they will assist you to go out and do work that we are supposed to do.





Every time you saw me in Nkayi, Chipinge, in Mashonaland Central or anywhere else, accommodation, food and all the other expenses were being paid for by Zinara.





In another case, Zinara paid for $4 380 for Dr Gumbos travel expenses to Malaysia on Zim Airways business. Asked why Zinara was paying his costs that had nothing to do with road development Dr Gumbo said it was official Government business.





What happened when we started this thing about Zim Airways, we were going on trips to Malaysia, he said.





The point was that Zim Airways did not have money. You could not then get money from Air Zimbabwe because they were strained and they could not pay because it was now like two separate accounts or entities  Air Zimbabwe on its own, Zim Airways on its own.





But then how do you go to Malaysia and do Government business, we needed money to go there. What we then did at the ministry was then to say lets look at a parastatal that can fund the trip so thats is how we did it. Zinara was the only place where we could get money, but still it was Government business.



BRUSSELS, Oct. 16 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang arrived here on Tuesday for a working visit to Belgium and the 12th Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) summit.

This is the third visit to Belgium by the Chinese premier in four years.

During his visit, Li will hold talks with Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel. The two heads of government will also jointly meet the press and witness the signing of a series of documents on cooperation between the two sides.

Peace, development, opening-up and cooperation remain the mainstream of our time despite the complicated changes and uncertainties the world is facing, Li said upon arrival.

He suggested that Asia and Europe, as two major economic blocks and stabilizing forces in the world, enhance dialogue and cooperation, safeguard world peace, jointly meet challenges and pursue development.

Noting that Belgium, where the EU headquarters is located, has been a staunch supporter and participant of the European integration, Li said he is looking forward to having an insightful exchange of views on bilateral ties as well as China-Europe relations with the Belgian side.

Li also called on the two sides to cement political mutual trust, deepen pragmatic cooperation, and work to bring the China-Belgium all-round partnership of friendship and cooperation up to a new level in line with the principles of mutual respect, equal treatment and mutual benefits.

At the ASEM summit, Li is scheduled to exchange in-depth views with Asian and European leaders on jointly safeguarding multilateralism, building an open world economy as well as facilitating connectivity and people-to-people exchanges between the two continents.

"Li will also propose China's initiatives on Asia-Europe cooperation and share views on international and regional hotspot issues," Assistant Foreign Minister Zhang Hanhui said at a press briefing ahead of the visit.

Launched in 1996, the biennial ASEM summit has served as a venue for dialogue between Asian and European countries.

This year's summit, themed "Europe and Asia: global partners and global challenges," is expected to bring together leaders from over 50 Asian and European countries and representatives from international organizations.

This is the third stop of Li's Eurasian trip from Oct. 11 to 19. He has paid official visits to the Netherlands and Tajikistan, and attended the 17th meeting of the Council of Heads of Government of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Tajik capital Dushanbe.(Newser)  The man on trial for ordering Helene Pastor's 2014 murder had for four weeks insisted he had nothing to do with her death. The BBC reports that changed in a startling way on Tuesday with the shock 11th-hour confession of Wojciech Janowski, 69. The former Polish diplomat to Monaco was on Wednesday found guilty of ordering the hit that killed his partner's billionaire mother at age 77, as well as her driver. The two were exiting a hospital in Nice where Pastor had been visiting her son when a gunman fired on them. The chauffeur died four days later; Pastor, who was heir to a real-estate empire within Monaco, died roughly two weeks after the attack. The Local reports her family owned some 4,000 apartments, and prosecutors argued the crime was a financial one.

story continues below

They said Janowski's businesses were failing, and that the 500,000 he and his common-law partner of 28 years, Sylvia Ratkowski, received from her mother each month was at risk, as the payments would cease upon Ratkowski's own death; she had been diagnosed with cancer in 2012. Janowski's personal trainer was handed a 30-year sentence for helping arrange the hit. He quoted Janowski as saying to him, "This cannot go on, Sylvia's illness has deteriorated, we have to get rid of the old woman. Can you help me?" Janowski has been sentenced to life in prison, as were the gunman and the man who acted as lookout. The confession was actually read aloud by Janowski's lawyer as Janowski cried next to him. The Times reports the lawyer had asked that his client be acquitted of the driver's murder; he was not. (This billionaire was kidnapped in Tanzania last week.)(Newser)  Vietnam has freed a well-known blogger after two years in prison on the condition that she leaves for the US, the AP reports. Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh, known as "Mother Mushroom," was arrested in October 2016 and sentenced to 10 years in prison on charges of defaming the Communist government. The conviction of the popular blogger, who wrote about human rights and industrial pollution, drew criticism from some Western governments and international human rights groups. Friends of the 39-year-old blogger said she was on her way to the US with her mother and two young children. "After numerous efforts, the family of Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh was reunited in a free country," her friend Nguyen Tin wrote on his Facebook page. Quynh's lawyer, Ha Huy Son, said her release was good news but did not lift the obstacles faced by people who fight for democracy in Vietnam.

story continues below

Nicholas Bequelin of Amnesty International, said in a statement, "While Mother Mushroom is no longer imprisoned, the condition for her release was exile and there are over one hundred people languishing in jail because they peacefully spoke their mind." Vietnam has stepped up a crackdown on dissent over the past two years with dozens of activists and bloggers put on trial for national security law-related offenses. Despite sweeping economic reforms since the mid-1980s that opened Vietnam to foreign investment and trade and made it one of the fastest-growing economies in Asia, Communist authorities tolerate no challenge to their one-party rule. There are more than 100 "prisoners of conscience" in Vietnamese prisons, according to Amnesty International. (Governments reportedly use online trolls to crush dissent.)(Newser)  One of two Roman Catholic priests charged as a result of the damning Pennsylvania grand jury investigation admitted he sexually abused children, pleading guilty Wednesday to corruption of minors and child endangerment, the AP reports. The Rev. David Lee Poulson, 65, of Oil City, was arrested earlier this year during a grand jury probe that concluded hundreds of clergy in the state had sexually abused at least 1,000 children over seven decades. Prosecutors say Poulson abused an altar boy in church rectories and had him confess afterward. They say he also abused the boy and attempted to assault another boy at a hunting camp. "Today's guilty plea by a predator priest in Jefferson County is a clear statement that no matter who abuses a child, no one is above the law," said state Attorney General Josh Shapiro at a news conference after the hearing in the Brookville courthouse.

story continues below

Poulson took the victims to his primitive, secluded hunting camp in Jefferson County about a decade ago, where they watched horror movies on a laptop and he abused them, prosecutors said. The victims were 8 and 15 at the time the crimes occurred, according to authorities. Shapiro said he expected Poulson to have to register as a sex offender for at least a decade. Sentencing has not been scheduled. The Erie diocese turned over a "confidential memorandum" dated in 2010 that contained an admission by Poulson that he had been "aroused" by a boy, prosecutors said. Poulson resigned from the Erie diocese earlier this year, after a military chaplain in Texas reported a 23-year-old had alleged he was abused by Poulson starting at age 8, prosecutors said. The other priest charged in the investigation, the Rev. John Thomas Sweeney of the Greensburg diocese, pleaded guilty to indecent assault this summer and is awaiting his sentencing. (Many of the abuses detailed in the report are shocking.)Changchun Changsheng Biotech Co in Jilin province was forced to pay about 9.1 billion yuan ($1.3 billion) in penalties on Tuesday after the drugmaker was involved in a human rabies vaccine safety scandal in July, the State Drug Administration said in a statement on Tuesday.

A compensation plan for victims was also unveiled. Families of those who died due to the problematic vaccine will receive a oneoff compensation of 650,000 yuan for each victim, and victims who became severely disabled or paralyzed will get 500,000 yuan. The compensation will be 200,000 yuan for those mildly disabled, according to the plan.

The company, based in Changchun, Jilin, is a major vaccine producer and has been entangled in controversy since July 15, when the State Drug Administration announced it found the company to be engaged in falsifying production and inspection records in the making of rabies vaccines.

Changsheng's illegal activities included using expired vaccine raw materials, altering production dates, forging permits and destroying evidence during inspections, the statement said.

The State Drug Administration annulled the rabies vaccine approval document and certificates for related products from the company and imposed a fine of 12.03 million yuan.

The Jilin Food and Drug Administration revoked the company's pharmaceutical production license, confiscated illegally produced vaccines and total income of 1.89 billion yuan from defective vaccine sales, and imposed a fine of 7.21 billion yuan, which was three times the value of the drugs it illegally produced and sold.

The total amount fined or confiscated stood at 9.1 billion yuan.

Fourteen company executives including Gao Junfang, board chairwoman, and others who bear direct responsibility were banned from engaging in drug production or marketing activities for life, according to the State Drug Administration.

Those suspected of crimes related to the case will be held criminally responsible by judicial organs, it said.

On July 29, Changchun police said 18 people from the company, including Gao, were arrested on suspicion of involvement in producing and selling vaccines of inferior quality.

Also on Tuesday, China's top securities regulator imposed a fine of 600,000 yuan on the company and a fine of 300,000 yuan each on four executives bearing direct responsibility based on investigation results and the Securities Law, said a statement published on the China's Securities Regulatory Commission website on Tuesday.

The CSRC also said it will give the four executives, including Gao, a lifetime ban on undertaking any securitiesrelated activities or holding posts of director, supervisor or senior manager of a listed company.

The sums of the fines represented the upper limits stipulated in articles of the Securities Law.

Zhou Lanxu contributed to this story.olalathos

Rachel Carsons book, Silent Spring was written about environmental harm being caused by pesticides. It is credited as helping to jump-start the environmental movement:First serialized in The New Yorker in June 1962, the book alarmed readers across America and, not surprisingly, brought a howl of indignation from the chemical industry. If man were to faithfully follow the teachings of Miss Carson, complained an executive of the American Cyanamid Company, we would return to the Dark Ages, and the insects and diseases and vermin would once again inherit the earth.Monsanto published and distributed 5,000 copies of a brochure parodying Silent Spring entitled The Desolate Year, relating the devastation and inconvenience of a world where famine, disease, and insects ran amok because chemical pesticides had been banned. Some of the attacks were more personal, questioning Carsons integrity and even her sanity.Dr. Cindy Russells 14-page article, Wireless Silent Spring is about environmental harm being caused by sources of wireless Wi-Fi radiation with an emphasis on cell towers. Wi-Fi is microwave radiation  like what cooks food in ovens. It isnt magical or harmless even though its often portrayed that way in marketing as well as TV and film. Insurance companies are aware of this and arent interested in covering wireless exposure related illnesses anymore.Like Rachel Carson, those trying to raise awareness about this are often dismissed, ridiculed, ignored and even targeted by the Telecom Industry (aka Big Wireless) and their supporters. Outdated laws and guidelines protect Big Wireless  not science. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulates Big Wireless and the FCC is not a health or environmental protection agency. Adding insult to injury, The EPA is proposing to weaken radiation regulations as well.Dr. Russells article is especially important right now due to the Race for 5G, implementation of Smart Cities, and continued and increased installation of utility Smart Meters  all of which require wireless Wi-Fi radiating infrastructure and components to operate.Research has also determined that exposure to Wi-Fi radiation along with Electromagnetic Fields (EMFs) has a cumulative toxic effect when combined with other toxins. Blanketing the world with additional sources of WiFi is making a bad situation worse. In the U.S., state and federal legislation regarding 5G millimeter Wi-Fi technology has now been passed that not only allows this  it is enforcing this. https://www.activistpost.com/2018/10/pollution-caused-by-wireless-wi-fi-radiation-is-topic-of-wireless-silent-spring.htmlMarking the World Food Day yesterday, many communities, social groups, and government departments discussed ways of combatting food wastage in the Kingdom. According to a statement issued by Works, Municipalities Affairs and Urban Planning Minister Essam Khalaf, the Kingdom wastes nearly 195,000 tonnes of food annually, which constitutes 35.2 percent of the total domestic waste generated.

Speaking to Tribune, Michelle Bailey, founder of Feed the Need Bahrain said, It is time to rethink how we grow, share and consume our food. If done right, agriculture, forestry, and fisheries can provide nutritious food for all and generate decent incomes while supporting the people-centered rural development and protecting the environment.

Right now, our soils, freshwater, oceans, forests, and biodiversity are being rapidly degraded. Climate change is putting even more pressure on the resources we depend on, increasing risks associated with disasters, such as droughts and floods. Many rural women and men can no longer make ends meet on their land, forcing them to migrate to cities in search of opportunities. Poor food security is also leading to malnutrition among millions of children.

A profound change of the global food and agriculture system is needed if we are to nourish the 815 million people who suffer from hunger and the additional two billion people expected to be undernourished by 2050. Michelle said investments in the field of agriculture are crucial to increase the capacity for agricultural productivity and sustainable food production systems that are necessary to help alleviate the perils of hunger.

It was a simple idea to involve the community to lessen waste and ease hunger. The simple idea of sharing food is one that goes back generations and Bahrain is known for its love for communities. Michelle said 40 percent of the food waste is generated from homes. What Bahrain needs now is a full-time food bank to act as a conduit for any charity or organization dealing with the hunger.Industry, Commerce and Tourism Ministry has announced its plans to launch a new project to further develop SME exports from the Kingdom.

The new project, titled Bahrain Exports, is considered to be one of the main initiatives to be implemented by the ministry as per the instructions of the Coordination Committee, headed by the Crown Prince, Deputy Supreme Commander and First Deputy Prime Minister His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa.

The ministry held the fifth Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) Development Board meeting, chaired by Minister Zayed Al Zayani, and discussed the means to support national exports.

The attendees reviewed a plan to be implemented in cooperation with a number of specialized local, regional and international companies in the field of supporting the exports of SMEs. The supportive programmes and services to be soon implemented through the Bahrain Exports initiative were also discussed during the meeting.Bahrains first ever cryptocurrency exchange will soon be launched, it was revealed. Rain will be one of the first crypto-exchange in the region, officials revealed. The Bahrain-based cryptocurrency exchange will be looking to expand throughout the GCC by securing a full operational license across the region in 2019.

The exchange has already opened its waiting list on its website after spending a year in Central Bank of Bahrains regulatory sandbox. The exchange will facilitate the purchase, sale, and storage of crypto-currencies. Rain, founded in 2016 by four entrepreneurs  Yehia Badawy, Abdullah Almoaiqel, AJ Nelson and Joseph Dallaga, is backed by big names in the industry including Bitcoin core developer Jimmy Song and Cumberland Mining founder Mike Komaransky.

According to Rain founders, it is still very hard to obtain digital currency in the Middle East and Rain aims to solve this issue. The Rain team was united by the belief that Bitcoin (and other digital currencies) will lead to a financial system that is fast, inexpensive, and accessible to everyone. We hail from the digital currency industry having spent time at Abra, BitGulf, Bitquick, Digital Cotton, Glidera, and Kraken.

In order for Bitcoin and digital currencies to reach mainstream adoption, the industry needs exchanges all around the world to provide access to the network. Through our research, we found many companies serving this function around the world; however, it became clear the Middle East was underserved, the founders stated.A car that can fly was among the innovations and futuristic technologies showcased at this years edition of GITEX being held in Dubai World Trade Centre.

Thousands of people including hundreds from Bahrain are attending the prime technology event of the Middle East, where top industry players from around the world are exhibiting their best offerings. One of the main attractions is an autonomous car that can fly.

Bypassing traffic congestion by flying over the high traffic areas is one of the main ideas behind the vehicle. The car was manufactured through a collaboration between Audi and Airbus. A representative of the company behind the concept told Tribune that the idea behind the innovation was sprouted to solve the issue of traffic congestion. One of the biggest problems in big cities is the traffic congestion and this is what we want to be solved. We came up with the idea of flying over traffic. The car can go on the ground as well as fly in the air.

The vehicle can combine these two modes depending on the needs. For example, if you are being picked up from somewhere you could go the first 10 km on land and if you reach a high traffic zone you can fly over the traffic, the representative said. In future, municipalities can provide this as a service to their citizens.

The citizens can subscribe to this service and book the services through an app, he said. When asked about its safety, he said, Safety is one of the issues that our developers are trying to ensure.The High Criminal Court has acquitted a 69-year-old retired Bahraini man of embezzling BD10,000 from his former employers following conflicts in the statements of prosecution witnesses as well as lack of evidence. The defendant was put on trial after he was accused of pocketing money the company received in rents for the buildings it owned.

The company officials revealed that they discovered the misconduct in space of 10 days after performing audits on the cash flow. However, the Bahraini man described the case against as malicious because it was lodged after he demanded a retirement package. I told them I am getting old and I need to retire. I asked them for my end-of-service package but they refused. I was told that I had obligations with the company. I gave them back the car key and my office key as well as other belongings, the 69-year-old man said.

Standing by the companys claims was the employee affairs chief at the firm, who told judges that the defendant embezzled BD11,982. However, the number wasnt matching the one he revealed to prosecutors, as he told them that the defendant pocketed BD10,299.A Bangladeshi man met three clerics in Dhaka Airport while he was waiting for his flight to Bahrain, and they gave him five religious books, the court heard. They asked him to deliver them to a man in Bahrain, pledging that he would certainly go to heaven for the noble act.

However, a few hours later, the customs officers in the Kingdom arrested the Bangladeshi man for bid to smuggle marijuana into the Kingdom. The accused was put on trial before the High Criminal Court which will issue its ruling in the case on November 21, 2018. I was asked to deliver the books.

I didnt know it contained marijuana packets. The three clerics promised me that I would go to heaven for delivering the books, the defendant told police officers.Khairat Bahrain project, Mumtalakats first investment in agriculture outside Bahrain, in Sudan is on track and is expected to see positive outcomes next year, said a top Mumtalakat official.

The project, Mahmood H. Alkooheji, Chief Executive Officer of Bahrain Mumtalakat Holding Company (Mumtalakat) said, will contribute to the growth and enhancement of the Kingdoms food security system both in terms of agriculture and livestock. Khairat Bahrain is located in the worlds richest expanse of groundwater (the great Nubian Sandstone Basin) occupying an area of approximately 100,000 feddans (400 sqkm). We invest in and for Bahrain as we always seek to invest in sectors that contribute to the development of the Kingdoms economy. In the Arabian Gulf region alone, around 70% of our food consumption is imported.

That is why the food and agriculture sector is one of the key areas of focus for us, added Alkooheji. The CEO of the sovereign wealth fund of the Kingdom was speaking while meeting yesterday the Ambassador of the Republic of Sudan to Bahrain, Ebrahim Mohamed Al Hasan. The meeting reflected on economic cooperation between Bahrain and Sudan in addition to the latest developments of Khairat Bahrain, Mumtalakats agricultural investment in Sudan.

I would like to extend my sincere thanks and gratitude to the Republic of Sudan, represented by HE Ebrahim Mohamed Al Hasan for his warm welcome and his continuous support for our investment in Sudan, in addition to the Sudanese governments strong endorsement, Alkooheji told the ambassador. Also present at the meeting were Mohamed ElMoutaz, Embassy Counsellor, Mohamed Abdulqader, Khairat Project Manager and Ahmed Baqer.Google chief executive Sundar Pichai has acknowledged publicly for the first time that the tech giant is considering a search engine for China, saying it could offer better information to people than rival services.

Speaking at the Wired 25th anniversary conference late Monday, Pichai said Google leaders feel obliged to think hard about China despite criticism over the possibly of cooperating with Chinese censorship. We are always balancing a set of values, he said, while adding that we also follow the rule of law in every country. Pichai described Project Dragonfly, which has drawn criticism from Google employees, lawmakers and human rights activists, as an effort to learn about what Google could offer if it resumed its search operations in China.

It turns out we would be able to serve well over 99 percent of the (search) queries, he said onstage in a question-and-answer session. And there are many, many areas where we would provide better information that what is available. Pichai offered no details on the status of the effort but said he was taking a long-term view on China. We dont know whether we would or could do this in China but we felt it was important to explore, he said.

I think its important for us given how important the market is and how many users there are. We feel obliged to think hard about this. He said one area where Googles presence could help in China would be for information on medical treatments including for cancer. Today people either get fake cancer treatments or they actually get useful information, he said.Premier Li Keqiang shakes hands with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte in The Hague, Netherlands on Oct 15, 2018. [Photo/Xinhua]

Premier addresses business forum during visit to Holland

China will devote more effort to protecting intellectual property rights when dealing with foreign investors, Premier Li Keqiang said.

Li made the remark when addressing the China-Netherlands Business Forum 2018 in The Hague, Netherlands, on Tuesday, before wrapping up his first official visit to the country. He attended the forum with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte.

"China will not force any technological transfer on any investors. Cooperation must be based on companies' will, and firmly stick to free trade," Li told a full house of business leaders from both countries.

He said in 2017, the amount of IPR fees paid by China was the second largest in the world.

With China's economy undergoing transformation and upgrading, Li said, high-quality growth requires international cooperation in innovation. He said China welcomes Dutch investors, big or small, to invest in China, adding that China's population of nearly 1.4 billion presents large market potential for the commercialization of technical research.

"China will continue its efforts in opening-up, and will give equal treatment to all investors in China. The country remains a popular destination for foreign investment," Li said.

China's economy shows steady yet slowing growth for the third quarter, but it remains within a reasonable range, he said, adding that China is confident of fulfilling its established goals.

Li said that before the forum, he and Rutte jointly witnessed the signing of business agreements between the two countries worth close to $10 billion. The two leaders also visited a high-tech products exhibition and held talks with some business leaders from the two nations.

"This demonstrates that cooperation between China and the Netherlands is huge," Li said. "Governments from the two countries will work hard to create an enabling business environment for investors."

The Netherlands is China's second-largest trading partner in the European Union, according to Commerce Minister Zhong Shan, who also spoke at Tuesday's forum. Bilateral trade volume between the two countries reached $78.38 billion in 2017, an annual increase of 16.5 percent.

Addressing the forum, Rutte said that in the long run, both China and the Netherlands will benefit from a rules-based multilateral system, and he thinks there is major potential in Sino-Dutch business cooperation.

"Protectionism stands in the way of progress. And on a level playing field, we can all be winners," Rutte said.

The Netherlands is the second leg of Li's nine-day trip from Asia to Europe, which began on Thursday with a visit to Tajikistan. Next, he will go to Belgium.Kanagawa Prefectural Police have arrested a popular male Keio University student over the alleged rape of an intoxicated woman in Yokohama last month, reports the Sankei Shimbun

Over an approximately 20-minute period beginning at 4:05 a.m. on September 29, Yota Watanabe, 22, a second-year student living Tokyoas Minato Ward, is alleged to have sexually assaulted the woman, a first-year student at another university, in a stairwell of a multi-tenant building in Nishi Ward.

Watanabe, who has been accused of quasi-coerced intercourse, denies the allegations. aSince I was drunk, I do not remember,a the suspect was quoted by the Kanagawa Police Station.

According to police, Watanabe was not acquainted with the woman. The incident took place after the suspect spotted her walking alone after she had been out drinking. He then took her to the building to commit the alleged crime.

The arrest of Watanabe is his second in connection with the woman. After committing the alleged sexual assault, the suspect allegedly kicked her in the abdomen on a road about 150 meters from the building. An officer arrested him at the scene on suspicion of assault.

Following that initial arrest, Watanabe admitted to the allegations. However, the charges have been put on hold.It is common for companies to organize various informal events where workers can come with their partners. One of those...Cuban Representative to the UN Anayansi Rodriguez Camejo, holding a picture of a child in isolation, criticizing the US' immigration policy and human rights. (Photo: Yin Miao)

New York (Peoples Daily)  The Permanent Mission of the US to the United Nations launched a campaign Tuesday called Jailed for What? at the UN Headquarters, claiming that Cuba is violating the human rights of some 130 political prisoners by incarcerating them.

Cuban Representative to the UN Anayansi Rodriguez Camejo said the US lacks the moral authority to teach other countries such lessons, since the Trump administration has held an agenda of supremacist, racist, and xenophobic ideas.

Cuba denounces the perverse intention to hold this event using the name and premises of the United Nations to attack one of its member-states, Camejo said. Holding the event would constitute a clear violation of the purposes and principles of the UN Charter and international law, and of the rules of this organization for the conduct of meetings.

Rodriguez called the event and campaign an affront to the sovereignty of the Cuban people.

Bolivian representative to the UN Sacha Sergio, also the current President of UN Security Council, agreed with Camejo and said the US is attempting to use the UN as its own tool.

Sergio also said the US has violated the human rights of many individuals at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib and caused the deaths of numerous civilians in Iraq and Libya.

The United States has withdrawn from the unfavorable things in the United States, Sergio said. The United States has withdrawn from the Paris Agreement, withdrew from some immigration agreements and withdrew from the UN Human Rights Commission. When the United States needs the logo of the United Nations for its own political purposes, it will use the venue of the United Nations. We are firmly opposed to this.The Coalition of United Political Parties, CUPP which include 39 political parties including the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP on Tuesday night commenced the process of selecting a common presidential candidate to challenge the All Progressives Congress, APC.The opposition political parties who are forging an alliance under the Coalition of United Political Parties, CUPP were meeting behind closed doors as at press time on Tuesday.Before they moved into closed door the CUPP chieftains at the meeting pledged their commitment to forge a common front to challenge the APC in 2019.The meeting had in attendance about 39 chairmen of national political parties which are part of the coalition and other strategic partners in the coalition.The meeting which was chaired by the chairman of the CUPP steering committee, Prince Onyinlola Olagunsoye also had in attendance national chairman of the Social Democratic Party, SDP, Chief Olu Falae, National Chairman of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Prince Uche Secondus , Reformed All Progressives Congress (R-APC) Chairman Buba Galadima , Chairman, National Intervention Movement, NIM Alhaji Tafawa Belewa, among others.First spokesperson of the coalition, Ikenga Ugochinyere told newsmen that the various parties in the coalition would highlight the chances of the various candidates at the poll before settling for a consensus pick.President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday spoke with Mohammed Liman, father of Hauwa Liman, the International Committee of the Red Cross (...





President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday spoke with Mohammed Liman, father of Hauwa Liman, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) midwife who was executed by Boko Haram insurgents.





Garba Shehu, the presidents senior special assistant on media and publicity, made this known in a statement.





Shehu said Buhari, in a telephone conversation, commiserated with the family over the unfortunate incident.





He quoted the president as telling Limans father that the federal government did everything possible to save his daughters life.

He expressed sadness that all the efforts turned out unsuccessful.





The president also expressed regret that her commitment to helping victims of the Boko Haram insurgency ended in such a brutal way.





He also spoke with Peter Maurer, president of the ICRC, consoling him over the loss of the midwife.





The president commended the ICRC for the great work it is doing Nigeria, providing healthcare services to victims of insurgency in some of the most affected areas.





He appealed to the ICRC to continue with its services in the country in spite of the unfortunate and painful loss of its staff.





Buhari said Nigeria needs the ICRC, adding that the government will continue to do everything possible to protect staff of the organisation and other aid workers.



Igbo leaders in Lagos APC said on Wednesday that voting for President Muhammadu Buhari in the 2019 presidential elections would hasten the chances of Igbo clinching the presidency in future.The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the group, led by the Lagos APC spokesman, Mr. Joe Igbokwe, made the declaration at an interactive session with political correspondents in Lagos.Igbokwe said there was need for Igbo not to allow the sentiments of a vice-presidential slot to becloud their sense of reasoning over an anticipated Igbo presidency in 2023.We should support PMB, instead of Atiku; and there is need for the Igbo to key in so as not to lose out in the scheme for power.Politics is a game of numbers. Igbo must demonstrate commitment through their support and key in with a political party that would guarantee the realisation of their aspirations, Igbokwe counselled.According to Igbokwe, there is need for Igbo to work towards winning the trust and friendship of other geo-political zones, to guarantee their support for an Igbo president in 2023.The president has even said so, that he will support an Igbo presidency in 2023. It is wise that we also support him in 2019.The APC chieftain argued that the Buhari administration had achieved so much in infrastructure development in the South East and had broken grounds that should guarantee his return.Apart from being members of the APC, as Nigerians, we believe that the President has integrity, is hardworking, intelligent, dependable and is also not corrupt. But sentiments will not allow some people to see it, Igbokwe added.On issues of endorsement of candidates in Lagos, the spokesman urged politicians to be wary of fake Igbo groups in Lagos.We have noticed that all manner of people gather themselves every election year to extort money from the state, promising to deliver Igbo votes to our party in Lagos.Over the years, we have noticed that these political entrepreneurs whose aim is to make money and nothing more continue to swindle leaders every election year.It is our wish, therefore, that all matters pertaining to Ndigbo in APC Lagos will be routed through this body that is set up to provide synergy that will galvanise our people into action.This will lead to more votes for the APC in Lagos State, given the Igbo numerical strength in the state.The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is said to have interrogated Ayodele Fayose, ex-governor of Ekiti state, over alle...





The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is said to have interrogated Ayodele Fayose, ex-governor of Ekiti state, over allegations of N4.7 billion fraud.





Vanguard is reporting that the commission accused Fayose of retaining a part of the money which he allegedly received from the office of the national security adviser (ONSA) during the past administration.





He was alleged to have received the money in the build-up to the 2014 governorship election in Ekiti, through Musiliu Obanikoro, a former minister of state for defence.





The former governor reported at the commissions office in Abuja on Monday.





He was said to have been grilled for hours by a special investigative panel, in the company of Mike Ozekhome, his lawyer.





Vanguard quoted an EFCC source as saying: Fayose has a lot of issues to clear with us and we hope he can clear them on time. He is to write a voluntary statement on all that he knows about the N4.7 billion that he allegedly received from the former Minister of State for Defence.





Interrogators also confronted him on the choice property he allegedly used fronts to acquire in Lagos, Abuja and other places and the allegation that he collected kickbacks from some contractors.





Apart from fraudulently retaining the sum of N1, 219,490,000 being part of the N4.7 billion stolen from the treasury of the federal government through the Office of the national security adviser, the applicant (Fayose) has also received gratification in form of kickbacks from various contractors with the Ekiti state government such as Samchese Nigeria Ltd, Tender Branch Concept Nig. Ltd, Hoff Concept Ltd and Calibre Consulting Ltd.





The applicant (Fayose) received these kickbacks and gratification through Still Earth Ltd and Signachorr Nigeria Limited. In turn, the applicant (Fayose) instructed the Still Earth Ltd and Signachoor Nigeria Limited to use the funds to acquire properties for him.





The source added that some of the properties which Fayose allegedly acquired with the funds received have been marked for seizure.





There are so many issues for which Fayose must provide answers to our interrogators. These things take time and he should know that it is beyond fanfare but being honest and providing answers to the issues, the source was quoted as saying.





Long before he vacated office, the EFCC begun investigating Fayose and his associates, including his wife, over the fraud allegations.



Ex-militants on the platform of Coalition of Progressive Niger Delta ex-Militants, CPNDE, yesterday rose from an emergency meeting in Lagos with a resolve to work for the re-election of President Muhammadu Buhari in 2019.The ex-militants said their decision was based on Buharis efforts at deepening peace in the Niger Delta through the Presidential Amnesty Programme.In a statement by its President, Edeinowei Galabagalaba and Secretary, Gbobgo Eduobor, the group dismissed threats by a self-styled General Isreal Akporodo to work against President Buharis re-election.The statement reads: The so-called National Coalition of Niger Delta Ex-agitators which Akporodo claims to lead, is a phantom group merely on the pages of newspapers to fester his personal interest. He lacks the capacity to drive a process that would negatively affect the political fortunes of President Buhari in the Niger Delta region.We are resolute in our decision to ensure victory for Buhari in the Niger Delta in the 2019 presidential election.Former Ekiti State Governor, Chief Ayodele Fayose, has described the statement credited to Governor Kayode Fayemi that his administration was an error as a mere political statement that shouldnt be taken serious.Fayose, who reacted through his Chief Press Secretary, Mr Idowu Adelusi, in a press statement issued in Ado Ekiti on Wednesday, said that the Ekiti people knew that his administrations both the first and second, were never an error, rather they brought unparalleled blessings and development to the state.Adelusi said, We are not surprised by what Governor Fayemi said because in the first instance going by Nigeria and the kind of politics being played, he cannot praise the good works of Fayose and besides that, as a new governor he must say something to impress the people no matter how ridiculous it may be. If Fayemi said the administration of Fayose is an error, then the road projects, the High Court Complex, the Adunni Olayinka Women Development Centre, the new Governors Office, the Ministry of Finance building, the flyover bridge, the construction of chalets and renovation buildings in the Government House, among others are errors. The old Governors Office used by Governor Fayemi during his first tenure was built by Fayose and now that providence has bestowed second term on his shoulder, he will operate from the new Governors Office also built by Fayose. Are these errors as well? We stand to be corrected that Fayose administration put in place 70 percent of the infrastructure in the state.Governor Fayemi also accused the Fayose administration of plunging the state into debt of N120 billion. I want to reiterate that former Governor Fayose did not borrow a dime to run the state.The debt which Fayemi is referring to are the loans which he took from the Capital Market and commercial banks. This debt was restructured by the Federal Government for easy payment. If Governor Fayemi is sure of what he is saying, let him bring out evidence or set up a probe panel. Governor Fayose is ready to appear before whichever panel.He said he would submit himself to the EFCC and he did that. No state can borrow without the approval of the Federal Ministry of Finance and Debt Management Office ( DMO). We will advise Fayemi not to think the people of the state are gullible and can be hoodwinked into believing lies and cheap propaganda. Already people are counting the number of days he has left in office and it is better Fayemi starts building on the solid foundation laid by his predecessor and stop chasing shadows, he said.(Photo: MFA)

The US tried to shift the blame to China by claiming that China militarizes the South China Sea, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Lu Kang said Tuesday at a regular press conference.

China has indisputable sovereignty over the South China Sea islands and its adjacent waters. China's peaceful construction activities in its own territory, including the deployment of necessary defense facilities, are the right of self-insurance and self-defense given to sovereign states under international law, and it has nothing to do with "militarization", Lu stressed.

Lu said there is no navigation problem and overflight freedom in the South China Sea. However, the US has frequently sent warships, reached the South China Sea reefs and illegally entered the territorial waters of China's Xisha Islands for the so-called FONOPs. It's the US that is creating tensions and attempting to "militarize" the region.

As to the so-called "reckless harassment" Chinese warships made toward US warships, Lu noted that the US confuses right and wrong. The US warship sailed such a long way to the Chinese territory, but to accuse the Chinese warship of "reckless harassment" is totally blame-shifting.

China urges the US to stop stirring up trouble and creating tensions, respect regional countries' efforts to resolve problems through negotiations and consultations, stop harming China's sovereignty and security interests, and become a contributor to peace and stability in the South China Sea, not a destroyer.A Senator from Kano State, Rabiu Kwankwaso has distanced himself from the video indicting the State Governor, Abdullahi Ganduje of all...





A Senator from Kano State, Rabiu Kwankwaso has distanced himself from the video indicting the State Governor, Abdullahi Ganduje of allegedly collecting 5million dollars as bribe.





Two separate videos had emerged online of the Governor allegedly collecting bribe from contractors in the state.





Following the emergence of the videos, the Commissioner for Information, Malam Muhammad Garba, had claimed that Jafar Jafar, Publisher of Daily Nigerian, was working with Kwankwanso.





However, Kwankwaso insisted that there was nothing between the publisher and him.





Kwankwasos stance was contained in a statement by his spokesperson, Hajiya Binta Spikin.





The terse statement reads, Everyone knows that Jafar Jafar is an independent journalist and his medium, Daily Nigerian, is also indepen-dent.



Three senators, Ahmed Lawan, Ali Ndume and Kabir Marafa, clashed on Tuesday over an ad hoc committee set up to probe a $3.5 billion s...





Three senators, Ahmed Lawan, Ali Ndume and Kabir Marafa, clashed on Tuesday over an ad hoc committee set up to probe a $3.5 billion subsidy fund belonging to the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).





Biodun Olujimi, senate minority leader, had sponsored a motion on the need to probe the subsidy recovery fund being managed by two people.





Reacting to the allegation, Ndume said the committee on downstream chaired by Marafa should have known about the fund.





The senator said the committee might have been compromised.





Let us take the matter as it comes into the senate seriously because issues like this when raised should be looked at. I think the committee is not doing its oversight and when all these things happen, the committee is supposed to know, he said.





So I am suggesting that Marafa being the chairman of that committee should be out of this and the committee members too.





But Marafa protested the allegation, saying: I equally have no offence with the submission of senator Ali Ndume. But I have serious exception when he said that the committee compromised.





Let it be on record that this senate split the committee into two of public account to look into this issue of subsidy while the downstream sector was given the responsibility of looking into the volumes on this same matter.





For somebody to come out and say with due respect, that I am managing subsidy programme, that is incorrect. Let all these committees including the ones held by some people before now be suggested to scrutiny. I have no problem with that but for this senate to now leave another ad hoc committee to look into the issue of subsidy, its like some people are looking for campaign money and I dont think thats the best way to get it.





Ndume responded by saying that he was only echoing what Bukar Abba Ibrahim, a Yobe senator, had said.





The suggestion was a very honest one. The offence should go to my senior, senator Bukar Abba. When I was speaking, senator Bukar Abba said the committee might have been compromised and I reported the same. I apologise, he said.





After the motion was adopted by the lawmakers, it was resolved that an ad hoc will be set up to probe the fund.





Senate President Bukola Saraki said Lawan will be on the committee.





But Lawan said he holds his integrity dearly and would not want it damaged.





Therefore I decline. Let me also advise us that this senate is a representative of Nigeria. We are here for all Nigerians. What we do and how we conduct ourselves is a big deal, he said.





I would advise that no matter how sternly and deeply please let conduct ourselves with the respect we are known for. Mr. President, Thank you for the confidence but I am not going to serve in this committee.





The senate president, however, insisted that Lawan cannot exclude himself from a leadership role.



Nigerias Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki said, has said he introduced the use of Automated Teller Machine, otherwise known as ATM ...





Nigerias Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki said, has said he introduced the use of Automated Teller Machine, otherwise known as ATM in Nigeria.





He stated this on Wednesday while giving his remark on a motion, Illicit and excessive charges by Nigerian Banks on customers account with particular focus on Automated Teller Machine (ATM) maintenance and withdrawal charges, sponsored by Senator Olugbenga Ashafa representing Lagos East Senatorial District.





Saraki said, he introduced ATM twenty-five years ago when he was the Chairman of Society Generale Bank before other banks began the use of ATM.





Saraki expressed grave concern over exorbitant charges by banks when customers use their ATM, saying that when he introduced ATM services in the now defunct Society Generale Bank, it was not so.





I quite agree with the motion sponsored by Gbenga Ashafa over the exploitation of ATM users, after all, the use of ATM is not a new thing to banks. I first introduced ATM about twenty-five years ago.



The senate has asked the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to direct commercial banks to increase the maximum amount customers can withdra...





The senate has asked the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to direct commercial banks to increase the maximum amount customers can withdraw from automated teller machines (ATMs) to N40,000 per transaction.





The maximum is currently N20,000. The senate also asked the apex bank to suspend ATM card maintenance fees.





The upper legislative chamber directed its committees on banking and finance to conduct an investigation into the propriety of ATM card maintenance charges and to also invite Godwin Emefiele, governor of CBN, to explain why the charges are allegedly skewed in favour of the banks.





The resolution of the senate was sequel to a motion sponsored by Gbenga Ashafa, senator representing Lagos east.





While moving the motion, Ashafa said the CBN is becoming insensitive to the plight of Nigerians.





Contributing to the debate on the motion, Ike Ekweremadu, deputy senate president, said the numerous charges by the banks are unacceptable.





If we have institutions in Nigeria, they should make sure to do their jobs to protect Nigerians, Ekweremadu said.





Banks should have recognisable charges to let customers know what they are up against.





On his part, Adeola Olamilekan, senator representing Lagos west, said the banks should stop cheating Nigerians of their hard-earned money.





I have stopped using ATM for transactions, Olamilekan said.





On his part, Senate President Bukola Saraki said the lawmakers must always protect the interest of the people.





This is a motion that touches on the lives of every Nigerian irrespective of what party you belong to or political affiliation you might have and that is why we are here, to always defend and protect the interest of our people, he said.





We need to look at ways to ensure that our resolutions go beyond just the debates  so that whatever action we take will come into effect.



The federal government says it has spent a total of N2.7trillion on infrastructural development across the country.The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, disclosed this in his presentation at The Chatham House in London on Wednesday entitled: Nigerias National Unity: Toward Participation and Shared Values.He said the Administration of President Muhammadu Buhari since coming into office in 2015 had embarked on an unprecedented renewal of the nations infrastructure, investing an unprecedented 2.7 trillion Naira on roads, rails, power and other similar projects.Beyond embarking on these projects, the minister said the spread of such projects cut across all the component regions of the country to foster a sense of national unity.Since coming into office, the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari has embarked on an unprecedented renewal of the nations infrastructure, investing an unprecedented 2.7 trillion Naira on roads, rails, power and other similar projects.But it is not enough to embark on these projects, it is important to let the public know the extent and spread of such projects to foster a sense of national unity.This explains why we kick started a nationwide tour of Federal Government projects nationwide, with not less than 25 journalists accompanying me on each trip.Till date, we have inspected many of such projects, including the new Lagos to Kano standard gauge rail line, the Lagos-Ibadan expressway in the Southwest that connects the port city of Lagos to other parts of the country, the new intra-city rail line connecting the Abuja city centre to the international Airport, the Enugu-Port Harcourt freeway in the South-east and the Ilorin-/Jebba-Mokwa road in central Nigeria.Continuing, Mohamed told the audience that the administration went further to launch the FGNiApp, a downloadable on mobile devices, to provide up-to-date information about governments projects and policies to the people, irrespective of where they are.On the abducted Chibok and Dapchi school girls, the minister said the government had made some strive by securing the release of some of the abducted girls, while efforts were still ongoing to secure the release of remaining girls in captivity.As you are all aware, some 276 girls were abducted by terrorists from their school in Chibok, Borno State, in 2014, about a year before the Buhari Administration assumed office. At his inauguration, President Buhari promised to do whatever is necessary to secure the release of the girls. Today, many of the girls have been freed unharmed, even though over 100 of the girls remained in captivity.The civil society group Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG), which has consistently advocated for the release of all the girls, demanded information from the Federal Government on what is being done to free them.In response to their yearnings, we arranged with the military to embed them, so to say, in some of their search sorties.Some Bring Back Our Girls campaigners were subsequently flown on search sorties by the air force to give them a firsthand knowledge of the militarys efforts to rescue the girls. BBOG was later to say, in their report on the trip: We can confirm that the air component of the counterinsurgency war is being prosecuted by a highly-professional, capable, motivated and committed team of the Nigeria Air Force (NAF). We were provided data and imagery evidence to show that the search for our Chibok girls and other abducted citizens is a daily activity by NAF.When some 110 Dapchi school girls were similarly abducted, on 18 Feb. 2018, we ensured that Nigerians were provided with detailed and up-to-date information, having led a number of Federal Government delegations to the school to get first-hand information. When, a few weeks later, most of the girls were released, Nigerians were never in doubt about the efforts that the government had put into freeing the girls.Only last week, I led another Federal Government delegation to Dapchi, in Yobe State, to meet with the mother of Leah Sharibu, the remaining Dapchi girl in captivity, and to Maiduguri, in Borno State, to meet with the families of the three aid workers who were kidnapped by Boko Haram in March this year. Unfortunately, two of the three aid workers have now been killed, the latest one being killed this past Monday. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of the murdered women, even as we continue to do everything any responsible government will do to free the women who remain in captivity. It is important to say that we have regularly met with the various media stakeholders in Nigeria, to discuss with them government policies and programmes. These groups include the umbrella Nigeria Union of Journalists, Online publishers, bloggers and social media influencers, Broadcasting Organization of Nigeria (BON), Newspaper Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN), etc.We have also gone beyond the shores of Nigeria to meet with the global media, policy think tanks and decision makers, especially in the United Kingdom and the United States. My current visit to London is the latest of such visits, which are aimed at engaging with the international media and the think tanks. Since assuming office, I have made a deliberate effort to build consistent and constructive relationships with the international media, especially in key media centres and capitals. I have also attempted to make those visits regular, building consistent lines of communication, not only with media houses, but with specific journalists too.I was here in the UK to engage with the media, think tanks and decision makers in September 2017, then travelled to the US for the same purpose in April 2018, and now I am back here to continue with the engagement.This is in appreciation that correct information and proper briefings  to also dispel rumour and conjecture  are just as important as short-term coverage. I am also aware that stakeholder relations are so vital  that is why Chatham House and other think tanks in the UK and the US are important. I have also met with academics. This is important to inform a wider debate.As the 2019 general elections approach, Nigeria faces a new challenge, a threat not just to the country peace and security, but indeed its very existence. It is the dual challenge of fake news and hate speech. Yes, the fake news problem is not unique to Nigeria, but it poses a more potent threat to the country because of its multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi-cultural status. It is also a clear and present danger to the nations unity. Naysayers have latched onto the fake news phenomenon to exploit the countrys fault lines and inflame passion. For example, the BBC recently did a report on how fake news is aggravating the persistent Farmers-Herders clashes. Pictures of gun-totting herdsmen from other lands are routinely used to depict the herdsmen in Nigeria.Age-long clashes between Farmers and Herders have suddenly been dressed in the garb of religion and ethnicity. Ignored is the fact that the clashes have become more persistent because of a mixture of many factors, including population explosion, effects of climate change, keener contest for dwindling natural resources and sheer criminality. Religion and ethnicity are not the reasons for these clashes.To tackle this, we have launched a national campaign against fake news and hate speech. The aim is to sensitize Nigerians to the dangers posed by fake news, how to spot fake news and what to do. We are under no illusion that the campaign can immediately stop fake news and hate speech. But we want to bring the issues to the front burner of national discourse. And I can say that we are succeeding in that respect. Today, fake news has become a topical issue in Nigeria. To Nigerians, we say: If you cant vouch for the veracity of any news item, dont share it!On the theme of the paper, Mohammed said, the topic could not have been more apt, as Nigeria continues to struggle to forge a national consensus, to accept its diverse ethnic groups as the source of its national power and cohesion, irrespective of religion, status, culture and geographical location. The challenge is made more daunting by the fact that the large country is occupied by diverse people, with diverse languages and culture. In other words, it is a multi-national state, a conglomeration of ethnic nations, each with its distinctive character and ethos.Why is the question of national unity so important? This is simply because without a united country, all its component parts will be working at cross purposes with conflicting signals that will constantly threaten the foundation and the very existence of the country.This is more so in a country as diverse as Nigeria, which has had sufficient doses of ethnic and religious strives at various times in its nationhood journey, including a bitter, 30-month civil war and the Boko Haram insurgency.The relevance of the topic is also accentuated by the fact that, in the next few months, Nigeria will be returning to the polls for the general elections. The run-up to the 2015 general elections tested the nations unity, in no small measure, and it remains to be seen whether we, the people, have learnt any lessons as we move closer to the 2019 polls.He said the Ministry was taking its mandate very seriously in order to ensure that the people get, and consistently too, the detailed information they require to enhance their participation in the political process and, ultimately, to help deepen the nations democracy. Part of the mandate of the Ministry is the strategic communication of government policies and programmes, as well as developing among Nigerians cultural values and awareness that will inculcate the spirit of patriotism, nationalism, self-discipline and self- reliance.This explains why, immediately upon assuming office as Minister in 2015, I decided to take a trip to the North-East, where the Boko Haram insurgency was then raging. The insurgency that started in 2009 had taken its toll on the country by the time we assumed office. The terrorists struck freely at places and times of their own choosing.They strolled into Abuja, the nations capital, several times to wreak havoc, including on the United Nations office and the police headquarters. The terrorists administered a territory the size of Lebanon, collecting taxes and removing and installing Emirs. Nigerians slept with one eye open. It was in the midst of this that the new Administration of President Muhammadu Buhari came into office. The President ordered the relocation of the military campaign against the insurgents to the North-east, and rallied regional and international support for the battle. Shortly thereafter, the insurgents were dislodged from the territories they occupied, and they lost their capacity to freely attack cities or seize territories.We figured, therefore, that in order to carry the people along and get them to buy into the governments effort to prevent Nigeria from being balkanized by the terrorists, they needed to know exactly what was going on.On 5 Dec. 2018, I led over 30 local and foreign journalists to the liberated parts of the North-East, in fact to the heart of the insurgency, the self-declared capital of the terrorists  Bama, over 80 kilometres by road from Maiduguri, capital city of Borno state, touching Konduga and Kaura, all decimated, in the process. It was the first time any Information Minister had visited the battle zone since the slow-motion warfare started.The visit gave us the opportunity to see things for ourselves, and to convey such to Nigerians as vividly as possible. It helped to change the way Nigerians viewed that insurgency, to rally national support for the gallant men and women in uniform and to enlist Nigerians support for the efforts to reduce the cowardly suicide bombings of soft targets that the dislodged terrorists resorted to. If you see something, say something, became the rallying payoff line for the National Campaign Against Insecurity that we launched after the visit.We also realized early on that for democracy to grow, it is important to ensure citizens participation in decision and policies affecting their lives  especially in a direct manner, rather than through their elected representatives only.This informed our decision to launch the Town Hall Meeting series that saw cabinet Ministers meeting, in a town hall setting, a cross section of Nigerians from all walks of life, with a view to keeping them informed about government policies and programmes and, at the same time, getting their feedbacks and inputs. So far, we have held 13 of such meetings, spread across the nations six geo-political zones and covering various topics. Many more are slated to hold between now and the general elections in February and March 2019, he added.President Muhammadu Buhari has expressed his confidence in Kayode Fayemis ability to deliver democratic dividends in Ekiti State, fol...





President Muhammadu Buhari has expressed his confidence in Kayode Fayemis ability to deliver democratic dividends in Ekiti State, following his swearing-in as Governor on Tuesday.





Buhari, who was represented at the swearing-in event by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Mustapha Boss, said Fayemi as a former member of the Federal Executive Council (FEC), had persistently been disturbing him about the development of the state.





The president also slammed the Ayodele Fayoses regime over lost grounds and pleaded passionately with Ekiti voters over his re-election bid in 2019, promising to carry out certain projects.





He said: I know Dr. Fayemi very well; he has always cherished anything that has to do with the development of this state. As Ekiti State governor between 2010 and 2014, he instituted some laudable projects that impacted positively on the lives of the people and this pavilion was one of them.

I know that he will do what is right to justify this mandate. I charge him not to relent in his efforts to serve the state with passion, commitment and candour.





The federal government has given supports to states in the areas of bailouts, budget support, ecological funds and Paris club refunds, of which Ekiti State was a beneficiary.





We have extended the standard rail project to Ekiti State and the construction of the federal secretariat will soon be completed. The federal government is also planning to dualise Ado-Akure road and reconstruct Ado-Ikare road for the use of our people. We have also built another 133kva power source in the state that will be inaugurated soon.





As of today, 11,000 Ekiti indigenes are benefiting from the N-power programme of this administration.



Starbucks Coffee, the global leader in coffee chain stores, signed an agreement with Chinas e-commerce giant Alibaba to develop takeaway services just two months before the US Vice-President Mike Pence spoke on America's China policy on Oct. 4.

Some US media commented that the trade war hasn't stopped the development of American enterprises in China, saying that the cooperation between Starbucks and Alibaba proves the power of the Chinese market.

Starbucks first entered the Chinese market almost 20 years ago. According to its five-year plan for strong global growth, the company's total revenue in the Chinese mainland during the financial year of 2022 is projected to triple that of 2017.

However, US politicians turn a blind eye to such bilateral win-win cooperation and instead complain, mistaking Chinas success as a result of influencing US interests, boasting that the US rebuilt China.

Such voices echo the Washington administrations America First policy frequently mentioned in the top leaders speeches, thus easily leading the country into a self-centered mindset.

For example, the US only talks about its efforts in assisting China in its accession to the WTO and opening the market to China, but seems reluctant to mention the fact that China has been opening its market wider to the US since its accession to the WTO.

According to UN data, exports of US goods to China increased by 577 percent between 2001 and 2017, a far more substantial growth than the increase of US goods exported globally over the same period, which stands at 112 percent.

Moreover, the president of the US asserted that much of Chinas success was driven by American investment in China, but didnt mentioned that US enterprises also gain huge profits from the Chinese market.

Taking General Motors as an example, its production in China accounts for 40 percent of its total global output. Certain American financial institutions, such as Goldman Sachs and Bank of America, have also benefited from investment in their Chinese counterparts.

Over the past four decades of reform and opening up, China has created miracles, such as an average annual GDP growth of 9 percent, lifting more than 700 million people out of poverty, ranking as the worlds second largest economy and the most significant trading country with the most substantial foreign currency reserves.

Steven Rattner from Wall Street has been paying attention to Chinas mixed system, which provides a guarantee for Chinas robust economic development. Lianhe Zaobao, the Singapore-based Chinese-language newspaper, recognized the crucial role of the political system in Chinas success. Moreover, some media outlets have reported the hardship of Chinese researchers under unfavorable conditions. US leaders have been asked to open their ears to such fair comments from the international community.

A countrys development primarily relies on itself. China has not won its success from others, nor has it come from the free China pursued by certain US leaders and political elites. Instead, it is a result of Chinese peoples hard work and the path with Chinese characteristics chosen by Chinese citizens.

Indeed, Chinas development cannot separate from its win-win cooperation with other countries around the world, while the US is a significant partner of China. However, this does not mean that Chinas economic growth relies solely on US investment.

Chinas opening up is worldwide and aims to learn from the development opportunities in all countries. Now, China has established a trading partnership with more than 230 countries and regions and become the largest trading partner to over 120 countries and territories. Trade between China and countries outside of the US account for 85 percent of Chinas foreign trade volume, and has broad prospects.

Chinese people, who are the creators of Chinas achievements in development, ultimately have the biggest say in Chinas development path.French model Maryse Gaspard dances on the Great Wall during her first visit to China in 1979.

From facing insufficient domestic supply to exporting clothing all over the world, with the equivalent of 4 items of clothing for every person alive today, China has seen remarkable changes in its clothing industry since its reform and opening up.

From little choice of material and style to diversified options such as cotton, flax, silk, leather and chemical fiber, in a variety of designs, Chinese people have witnessed tremendous changes to the development of the countrys clothing industry in just 40 years.

Chinese people born after the year 1990 have become the main driving force of fashion today. As the consumers and disseminators of fashion trends, they help to bring minority fashion brands to the world stage.

However, today's fashion industry in China is in stark contrast with the one found 40 years ago, when a clothing industry of this scale could never have been imagined.

In 1979, famous French fashion designer Pierre Cardin held an eye-catching fashion show in Beijing, impressing Chinese people with a range of colorful garments on stage, while the audience watched on in dark outfits of grey, black, and blue.

A worker in a textile plant in Suning county in Hebei province.

Chinese people didnt have much choice in clothing at the time, for the country had been faced with a clothing supply shortage, leading to cloth tickets being issued to restrict how much cloth each citizen could buy, to guarantee that everyones basic clothing needs were met.

With the implementation of reform and opening up, the country stepped into a new era of development and transformation across many industries, clothing included. Cloth tickets were no longer necessary, and small clothing factories gradually found their position in the market, thus providing people with more options in style and material.

In 1993, the first China International Clothing & Accessories Fair was held in Beijing, unveiling a variety of new clothing. Since then, foreign clothing brands including Pierre Cardin, Lacoste, Nike, and Adidas have entered the Chinese market, while domestic brands such as Lilanz, Septwolves, Anta, Saint Angelo, and JNBY have also appeared.

In 2000, the WTO helped Chinese clothing brands enter the international market, while more foreign luxury brands began their exploration of the Chinese market. Meanwhile, various domestic clothing companies with market-featured management and operation gradually emerged.

Today, the country is the largest producer of textiles, improving its textile fiber processing capacity from 2.76 million tonnes in 1978 to 54.3 million tonnes in 2017, with its proportion in the global industry rising from 10 percent to over 50 percent.

In the 40 years since its reform and opening up, China has transformed its textile industry from one which could barely meet its domestic market needs to the largest in the world. China is now the worlds largest producer, consumer, and exporter of textile products. Such achievements in the textile industry would have been impossible without reform and opening up, said Du Yuzhou, former president of the China National Textile and Apparel Council.

To cultivate internationally competitive Chinese clothing brands is the unswerving goal of the Chinese textile industry and Chinese clothing companies. Industry organizations are already attempting this goal, explained Zhao Mingxia, vice director of the industry economic research institute of China National Textile and Apparel Council.

The primary element for a brand is good quality, while it is also important to have rich cultural and creative elements, as well as a good response to market trends and a reliable social image, said Zhao. He added that the research of market needs and a good understanding of popular culture are especially important in the fashion world today.The trade war couldnt stop the development of Chinas economy, many world renowned scholars, mainstream media and prominent organizations expressed their optimism on Chinas future, under the background that the US government initiated the trade war against China and escalated tensions this year.

They believe that China has the ability to safeguard its own interests.

One of the charges that the US accuses against China is the so-called intellectual property theft. However, the charge is indeed groundless.

Former US Treasury Secretary and economist Lawrence Summers noted that the leadership of Chinese companies in some technologies was not a result of the theft from the US, rebutting the premise behind US President Donald Trumps trade actions against China.

He believed China's technological progress came from terrific entrepreneurs who had got the benefit of huge government investments in basic science, and an educational system that's privileging excellence, concentrating on science and technology.

That's where their leadership is coming from, not from taking a stake in some US company, Summers said.

Honorary professor Hiroshi Yoshikawa of the University of Tokyo commented that the US was worried that it might be exceeded by China in terms of GDP, citing an estimate by the Financial Times that Chinese economy would overtake that of the US in about a decade.

Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize winning economist and professor at Columbia University, remarked that the US had already been lost when facing a country like China that might replace it in multiple fields, including the most advanced.

Will July 6, 2018, turn out to be a date of economic infamy? The question was raised by the Washington Post in one of its articles.

The date, which marked the coming of the first round of US tariffs on China, was considered an equivalent of June 17, 1930, the day when US President Herbert Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act. This act led to the rising trade protectionism and deteriorated great depression, and it was also an indirect reason for the outburst of the World War II.

Many international observers have noticed that what the US aims at with its tariff plan is the Made in China 2025 initiative.

The US didnt want to see a rising China in the technological sector, said Zheng Yongnian, director of the East Asian Institute, National University of Singapore. He noted that the US hoped to at least slow down Chinas modernization so the latter would fall into the middle income trap or go back to impoverished socialism.

However, the US efforts to stop Chinas steps in high technologies are not able to hinder the development of Chinas scientific innovation capability, competitiveness of Chinese tech firms or the reserves of scientific personnel.

They are deluded if they see China as ever dependent on Western innovation. The country I have come to know is investing in research and knowledge as never before, said President of the University of Sheffield Keith Burnett.

China had taught a billion people to read and write, and built a modern infrastructure of roads and high-speed trains, he noted, adding that Chinas innovation base was now roughly equal to that in the US.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF), in the 2018 Article IV Consultation report issued on July 26, said that the direct macro impact of tariffs announced to date appeared limited. The report was generally positive about Chinas economic performance, giving an optimistic forecast on the sustainability of Chinas economic development.

As China is continuously deepening reform and opening up, shifting its economy to one that relies on domestic demand and is driven by innovation, and diversifying its foreign trade structure, the trade war initiated by the US will not be able to reverse the developing trend of Chinese economy.

UK expert on Chinese affairs Hugh Peyman pointed out in his newly published book China's Change: The Greatest Show on Earth, that those who doubted the Chinese mode often misjudged the complicated reality faced by China, the second largest economy in the world, and ignored Chinas ability of adjustment and continual reforming.

He believed that China would finally find its own path as long as it continued to reform when facing challenges.

Global analysts explain that the US initiated the trade war out of the strategic consideration to comprehensively contain Chinas rapid development. However, most of the experts hold that there is no sufficient evidence to prove that additional tariffs could stop the economic progress of China.

The fate of China, and its role in the world, is now in the hands of the Chinese and their leaders, noted Kenneth Rogoff, professor of economics and public policy at Harvard University. The globalization train has went a long distance since it left the station, and the idea that one can turn it back is utterly naive, he further added.

China, holding the banner of globalization, is winning more and more friends. However, the US, in the meantime, has lost its reputation in the world due to its protectionist trade policies.

Philip Stephens, associate editor and chief political commentator of the Financial Times said that the US was already surrendering advantage to its rival in the inevitable global contest between these two great powers.

Any short term pain should be set against the immense strategic gain for China flowing from Trumps worldview, and Trump was progressively dismantling the pillars of the US-led international order, he remarked.

Chinas long-term strategic goals are clear enough, and Trump has set about this task with gusto, the associate editor added.Zhang Haofeng and Meng Ying were married at a ceremony in Xinyang city, Henan Province on Oct 14. As Zhang slowly walked towards his new bride singing a heartfelt song, Meng was moved to tears.

Such a seemingly ordinary scene actually has an exceptional backstory.

An accident in which a ship sank off the coast of Phuket Island, Thailand in early July attracted considerable media attention due to the large number of Chinese tourists on board, Zhang and Meng included. As the ship went down, Zhang sent his girlfriend to the lifeboat before rescuing other tourists. Zhang survived, and later returned home with his future wife.

The wedding was warm and romantic according to guests, with one attendee saying, "This couple has already gone through the test of life and death and decided to work together for the future. I'm sure they will be happy."

Zhang and Meng traveled to Phuket Island in early July of this year, and the wedding was already planned for their return. However, at 17:45 local time on July 5, heavy rain hit their cruise while they were on the way back to the island. Panic overcame those on board when the ship began to shake violently. At a critical moment, Zhang sent his girlfriend to the lifeboat without any hesitation, leaving himself in great danger.

Zhang, stuck on the sinking ship after helping other passengers, was forced to abandon it and jump into the turbulent ocean, but was quickly swept far by the waves. At the same time, he saw an old couple in the sea.

"The aunt said she couldn't swim and was frightened," Zhang said, so he kept comforting her. The couple was rescued after Zhang pushed them towards a rescue boat, but he found himself swept away for the second time.

Zhang recalled that as the lifeboat returned to shore, he could only float and hope to be rescued. He came across a crew member, and they drifted in the water together for about 15 hours. It was not until the next morning when a fishing boat discovered them, and they were finally rescued.

Hes a hero, said Meng after the breathtaking incident. Their story has been called a modern-day "Titanic" by Chinese netizens.Wu Yongqian works in his studio.

Presented with the opportunity to put their innovative ideas into practice and tap into their talents, Chinas second-generation e-commerce entrepreneurs have brought various creative goods and individualized shopping experiences to consumers, creating over 2,000 specialized markets on Chinas biggest online shopping website, Taobao, Chinanews.com reported on Oct.15.

According to a recent report on the creativity of young people in China, jointly released by Taobao and a data platform named CBN Data on the e-commerce website Taobao.com, there are over 2 million post-90s generation online shop owners. Last year alone, the platform witnessed over 10,000 shops selling original products being opened by young people.

Unlike their predecessors, these second-generation practitioners, born in the Internet era, are predominantly highly educated young innovators with a keen understanding of social media operations and a shared awareness of the power of creative, individualized, and unique commodities over price and hot sale lists.

Wu Yongqian, the owner of an online shop which sells hand-made wood carvings, was an illustrator in a US-based games company after graduating with a masters degree from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco.

Based on the creativity of combining art with daily use items, Wu's store now has nearly 100,000 followers.

In 2013, three graduates of Tsinghua University, one of Chinas top universities, opened their online shop on Taobao.com to sell self-designed household items. Their products, such as stools in the shape of adorable farmyard animals, won the hearts and wallets of consumers.

Similarly, new products that continuously renew our knowledge of e-commerce, like courses teaching people how to transform old household objects into useful new ones, a goodnight service before sleep, and even cat appreciation sites have all become colorful realities in the ecology of online shopping.

Besides meeting consumers needs by offering creative products, young shop owners engaging in e-commerce have also generated new consumption demand.

Qing Qing paints on shoes.

Qing Qing, a girl who specializes in ancient Chinese style hand-drawn designs, has accumulated a number of regular customers by providing hand-drawn designs on shoes in Hanfu style, a traditional Chinese clothing of Han nationality. Thanks to her shop, fans from all over the world can discover the beauty and fun of these designs.

The creativity of young people and the transformation in consumption have both led to the rapid growth of featured online markets.

As Zhang Yong, CEO of Alibaba, the Chinese multinational conglomerate that created Taobao, said, In the past, Taobao has offered consumers what they like, while in the future, we will help consumers find their consumption demand.

There are allegedly more than 2,000 featured markets and 86,000 sellers engaging in featured products across various fields, including dresses, furniture for children, cosmetics for men and pregnant women, and diving equipment.

Stools in the shape of animals

It seems that young entrepreneurs have unlocked their potential and formed a beneficial circle in online business. With more young entrepreneurs born after 1995 and 2000 joining the team, e-commerce in China is expected to continue to grow and produce even more possibilities.BEIJING, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- China announced Wednesday that another 85 counties have been officially taken off the country's list of impoverished areas, marking further steps toward its goal of eradicating poverty by 2020.

The announcement, made by the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development, came on the fifth National Poverty Relief Day, which falls on Oct. 17 every year.

This is the largest number of counties to shake off poverty since China vowed in 2015 to win the tough battle against poverty, bringing the total number of counties removed from the poverty list since then to 153.

"This is an important achievement in the decisive stage of fighting the tough battle against poverty," said Xia Gengsheng, deputy director of the office.

The 85 counties, from nine provincial regions, went through assessments from third-party institutions before being removed from the list.

Seventy-four of them are in the country's less-developed western regions and 25 are in southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, more than any other provincial region.

A county is removed from the list if less than 2 percent of its population lives below the poverty line, defined by a per capita annual income of 2,300 yuan (around 333 U.S. dollars) at 2010 prices. In the country's western regions, if less than 3 percent of the people live in poverty, the county will be removed from the list.

"Removing the 85 counties from the poverty list was in line with local economic and social development. The decision can stand tests and is recognized by the public," Xia said.

He called for continued poverty relief policies and efforts in these counties.

Poverty reduction has been high on the government's agenda and various means have been adopted, including e-commerce, relocation and improved infrastructure.

Over the past five years, more than 68 million people have been lifted out of poverty, including a total of 8.3 million relocated from inhospitable areas, and the poverty ratio has dropped from 10.2 to 3.1 percent, according to this year's government work report.

The country aims to lift at least 10 million people out of poverty this year and eradicate poverty by 2020, the target year to finish building a moderately prosperous society in all respects.

The counties that have shaken off poverty have seen improvement in infrastructure, including water and electricity supplies, and decent growth in rural residents' per capita disposable income.

Authorities are planning to eliminate poverty in about 270 counties this year, 330 counties in 2019 and 70 in 2020, according to Xia.

The quality of poverty relief work should be given priority over the schedule, he stressed.

The leading group office under the State Council will conduct random examinations on the counties being evaluated for poverty elimination to ensure that standards are not compromised.

Xia believes the country is able to realize the 2020 poverty relief goal as long as authorities stick to the current standards, fully undertake responsibility and intensify the targeted poverty relief work.

While the latest progress is encouraging, the remaining regions still in poverty are hard nuts to crack.

China has pledged to increase policy support in the future to eradicate abject poverty persisting in places such as the Tibet Autonomous Region and parts of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region as well as the provinces of Sichuan, Yunnan and Gansu.

The central government has arranged 12 billion yuan of additional funds this year to address abject poverty in these areas.Black Senior Citizens Ordered Off Georgia Bus Taking Them To Vote Elijah C. Watson Elijah Watson serves as Okayplayer's News & Culture Editor. When

About 40 black senior citizens were told to get off a bus taking them to vote.

A group of black senior citizens riding a bus to go vote Monday didnt get the opportunity to do so, leading to complaints of voter suppression.

The bus, run by the group Black Voters Matter, had picked up about 40 senior citizens from a senior center operated by Jefferson County and was about to depart when the centers director said they needed to stop.

According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a county clerk had called the senior center raising concerns about the bus taking people from the senior center. The county clerk was informed of the event by someone anonymous, who saw the bus painted with the words The South is Rising Tour and called county government offices.

Following the incident, Jefferson Countys administrator said that county government considered Black Voters Matters event at the center political activity, which isnt allowed during county-sponsored events.

However, Black Voters Matter had received permission for the event beforehand. It was originally intended to encourage senior to vote but when some seniors asked if they could ride the bus to an early-voting location, Black Voters Matter agreed to take them.

We knew it was an intimidation tactic, LaTosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter, said. It was really unnecessary. These are grown people.

It was discouraging that they werent able to vote, Diane Evans, who serves as Jefferson County Democratic Party Chairwoman, said. When theyre suppressing votes, theyre going to come up with any kind of excuse about what your problem is.

Evans, who was on the bus, said that the event wasnt political and that none of its organizers advocated for any candidates.

The Jefferson County has since released a statement on the incident:

Jefferson County operates a Senior Center that provides meals and entertainment to senior citizens in Jefferson County three days per week. The Jefferson County Board of Commissioners has a long standing practice of not allowing political activities during normal business hours or at County sponsored activities. These senior citizens are under the complete care and supervision of Jefferson County while they are at the Senior Center. Jefferson County Administration felt uncomfortable with allowing Senior Center patrons to leave the facility in a bus with an unknown third party. Additionally, the event in question that took place at the Jefferson County Senior Center was led by the President of the Jefferson County Democratic Party and as such was considered a political event. No seniors at the Jefferson County Senior Center were denied their right to vote. In fact, Senior Center staff routinely arrange Jefferson County Public Transit to transport senior citizens to vote.

Source: AJCMy Favorite Quotes Recent Quotes

Portfolio Summary Your most recently viewed tickers will automatically show up here if you type a ticker in the Get Quotes box on the top of the page.Mr Porter announces it has partnered with Swiss fine-watch manufacturer Zenith and British watch customiser Bamford Watch Department in creating an exclusive 25-piece limited-edition watch, available for sale on 15 November 2018.

Mr George Bamford and his team worked alongside Zenith in the design of this watch, which was developed and produced in-house at Zeniths Manufacture. Co-creating a project and product of this nature is a first for all three partners in this undertaking.

 Zenith

Based on the Zenith Heritage 146 model, the watch takes cues from several of the brands historical design elements. These touches include the tachymeter inspired by a 1971 El Primero, a red seconds hand, aesthetic reminders of a vintage chronograph case and centric sub-dial rings hark back to the old Zenith recorder tell-tales and motion detecting clock.

Its unique Solar Blue dial is framed by a 38mm stainless steel case, fitted with a navy blue Alcantara strap featuring white stitching designed to complement the white dial markings. Combining all of these various touchpoints, Zenith, Bamford Watch Department and Mr Porter have created a watch that is both familiar and altogether modern and new.

 Zenith

Each of these limited-edition watches will feature a special open case-back engraved and individually numbered one to 25.

This is a first for Mr Porter, working together with both Zenith and Bamford Watch Department, and we are thrilled with the result, said Mr Toby Bateman, Managing Director of Mr Porter. Zeniths approach to modern day watch-making, alongside George Bamfords eye for contemporary customisation, has created a unique timepiece our customers and readers are sure to enjoy and appreciate.

 Zenith

The relationship established last year with the customisation specialist Bamford Watch Department (BWD) has already confirmed the wide range of creative possibilities provided by such cooperation, and this is now the first time that we are producing a BWD design entirely in-house, added Mr Julien Tornare, CEO of Zenith. In 2015, Zenith also became the first Swiss fine-watch brand available on Mr Porter.com.

Since becoming the official customiser for Zenith in June last year, I have had this project in mind with Mr Porter, said Mr George Bamford, Founder of Bamford Watch Department. I am so excited to see it come to fruition and as always, it was a pleasure designing and working with both brands on the project.On the occasion of the celebration of the United Nations day in 24 October, the UN offered a series of interviews exclusively for Al-Ahram online.

The UN day marks the anniversary of the entry of the UN chart into force in 1945.

With the ratification of this founding document by the majority of its signatories, including the five permanent members of the security Council, the United Nations officially came into being.

Will start it with an Interview with Richard Dictus, the UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative in Egypt.

Can you describe the relationship between Egypt and the UN?

In 1945 when the United Nations (UN) charter was signed, Egypt did so along with only 49 other countries. Egypt has been a non-permanent member of the Security Council five times.

This means that other Member States repeatedly expressed their confidence and support for Egypt to perform an important role in pursuit of global peace and stability.

Egypt was also one of the first countries that engaged in peacekeeping operations when in the early 1960s it sent the first contingent of peacekeepers to Congo.

Since then, Egypt has provided more than 30,000 police and military troops to more than 20 different operations on four different continents.

Egypt is an important country for the UN, not just as a founding member or as a troop contributor, but as a country that shapes opinions.

Looking at the current relationship, in late 2016, the UN started to develop the 2018 to 2022 United Nations Partnership Development Framework (UNPDF).

The UNPDF is based on the principal that the work of the UN in Egypt must align with Egypts national Sustainable Development Strategy: Egypts Vision 2030 (SDS).

Egypt is one of the early adopters of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (2030 Agenda) and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and when you study the SDS carefully, you find that all the different elements of the 2030 Agenda are contained in the three national pillars, social, economic and environmental.

When we started our consultations for the new UNPDF, we observed that the Government of Egypt was pursuing a balanced, yet rapid pace of social and economic reforms.

Egypt has been taking a different route than the past, but the big question at this moment is how to upscale. For youth employment for example, we dont need employment for 1,000 people, we need employment for 800,000 school graduates each year.

What does the UNPDF focus on?

In partnership with the Government of Egypt, we developed a framework that deals with People. We are strongly emphasizing Egypts ability to generate benefits from having a young population, and a very highly educated one as well.

We also looked at Prosperity, which is not just economic development but also making sure economic development gives benefit to all segments of society including the poor, that they see their income increase and have better employment opportunities.

We then looked at the Planet, which goes beyond environment or natural resource management and starts looking at the connections between water, land, and temperature.

Finally, we could not but take on the cause of Women. The UN is working with the National Strategy for Womens Empowerment.

This strategy, the first SDG based strategy for gender equality and womens empowerment, will enable Egypt to measure the progress made on gender equality and womens empowerment and on delivering against the SDGs. It is important, not only for Egyptian women, but for all women, for this to be achieved.

The UNPDF was created through a participatory process that involved over 400 government officials from close to 19 government ministries, as well as representatives from civil society and private sector partners.

This is the kind of inclusive and participatory approach that the UN would like to foster as it is the road for a successful partnership.

How is the UNPDF financed?

The total resource envelope of the UNPDF is USD 1.2 billion for the next five years. While this is a significant amount of money, we assess that there is a need for a new and innovative financing partnership between government, civil society, and the private sector to ensure that the SDGs are achieved.

Its clear that the ambition of the SDGs is larger than what can be met by combining official development assistance and public-sector investments.

For example, at this moment we are annually looking for 800,000 decent jobs for new school graduates. However, currently there are 2.3 million Egyptians born each year. This means that in 15 to 16 years time, we are looking at a figure that is significantly larger.

The need for the economy to continue to grow and provide decent jobs for young people and the capacity of the education system to provide a quality education and the health system to provide quality health care is enormous.

Consequently, public services are likely to come under pressure and require large investments. This means, if we continue to operate as we currently are, it is unlikely we will be successful.

The UN in Egypt is therefore committed to work in partnership with the Government of Egypt to find new innovative SDG oriented solutions to overcome the investment challenges that can meet the needs to create a better future for young people and to ensure we honor our commitment to leave no-one behind.

What are the UNs key achievements?

The key achievements over the years, is the fact that we have been able to successfully partner with several institutions in the country. If you for example look at the health sector or the education sector, you will find that the UN is present in health policy development or educational curriculum development as well as developing national statistic capacities.

In 2015-2016, 33 million people benefited from various UN programmes. This included children who received school meals from the World Food Programme; nearly five million people who live in the lower spectrum of Egypts society were given meals while sending their children to school.

Related to health, we supported national efforts in vaccination campaigns and to combat Hepatitis C. There are many human success stories. This includes the incredible stories we have had in the Menya governorate where a new method was discovered to improve the quality of date palms production.

The young men who made the discovery are currently traveling across the country treating date palms and have set up rather successful businesses.

Collaboration with local governments and civil society partners is imperative in creating innovative solutions for complex challenges.

For example, I was tremendously proud when I travelled to Marsa Matrouh and saw the artificial limb center that is supported by the European Union (EU). This center provides for people who were injured because of exploding World War II ordnance, allowing them to continue their lives normally and to take care of their families

Innovative solutions to longstanding and complex challenges are at the center of our work, as well as leveraging global knowledge and experience from other countries and regions.

We are trying to make sure that we are at the forefront of the needs that the government has expressed and that we bring in the additional knowledge and technical capacity required to achieve the ambitions expressed in national development plans and priorities.

Search Keywords:

Short link:

Egypts Al-Azhar and the Vatican have matching views on humanitarian issues, Al-Azhar Grand Imam Ahmed El-Tayeb said in a meeting on Tuesday in Italy with Italian President Sergio Mattarella, according to Egypt's state-run MENA news agency.

El-Tayeb said during the meeting that the two religious institutions are currently working together, while praising his relationship with Pope Francis.

He added that religion plays a very important role to ensure that life runs calmly and smoothly, adding that clerics are in need of support from politicians and governments given their power to accomplish peace and face modern moral challenges.

Italys Mattarella expressed his appreciation for El-Tayebs visit, which he said is a symbol of peace and dialogue.

Mattarella praised the "brotherly relationship" between El-Tayeb and Pope Francis, which he described as a model of how a relationship between clergies should be.

He added that the cooperation between Al-Azhar, the highest seat of Sunni Islamic learning, and the Vatican contributes strongly to boosting the values of coexistence and dialogue, as well as countering attempts by some to use religion as a justification for violence.

Mattarella also hailed Al-Azhar's role in combating extremist and violent ideas, serving as a symbol of moderation and openness, and fostering coexistence and dialogue among Muslims worldwide.

Al-Azhar and the Vatican recently resumed normal relations after ties were strained in 2011 when then-Pope Benedict XVI claimed that Christians faced discrimination in Egypt.

In 2016, El-Tayeb was received by Pope Francis at the Apostolic Palace; a visit that has been described as "significant."

In 2017, Pope Francis visited Egypt to deliver a message of peace in a two-day trip; the first papal visit to the country since late Pope John Paul II visited in 2000.

Al-Azhar and the Vatican resumed dialogue sessions in 2017 in Cairo for the first time in seven years, focussing in particular on efforts to combat religious extremism and terrorism.

Search Keywords:

Short link:

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi said he was especially pleased to have met with Russian President Vladimir Putin as the two leaders held informal talks in Russia's southern city of Sochi late on Tuesday.

"I'm very pleased for meeting my friend, the Russian leader Vladimir Putin, in the wonderful resort [city] of Sochi," El-Sisi said on his official Facebook page on Wednesday. "We discussed several important issues and exchanged views on the most important international and regional issues," he added in a brief statement.

During their unofficial meeting in Sochi, the duo took a stroll along the embankment, talked to holidaymakers and went to one of the citys restaurants, the Kremlin said on its official website late on Tuesday.

El-Sisi's page shared a photo of the two leaders while having dinner at a restaurant along with his statement.

The official talks between the two leaders will take place on Wednesday, the last day of El-Sisi's three-day visit to the country. They will discuss "key issues regarding the further development of Russian-Egyptian cooperation and exchange views on current international matters," the Kremlin said.

Putin and El-Sisi will also discuss the resumption of direct charter flights from Russia to Egyptian Red Sea resorts during their Wednesday's meeting, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters on Tuesday.

A range of bilateral documents are planned to be signed following the talks, according to the Kremlin.

On Tuesday, El-Sisi praised strong Russian-Egyptian ties in an address before Russia's upper house of parliament, the Federation Council, in what Egypt's state news agency said was the first time a foreign president had addressed the council.

Ahead of flying to Sochi, El-Sisi met with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev in Moscow, where the two discussed developing bilateral trade and economic cooperation with an emphasis on large-scale joint projects in energy and industry.

Search Keywords:

Short link:

The interior ministry did not specify the man's nationality or if he has been detained

Egyptian police have seized 121 artifacts from the home of a foreign national living in Cairo, the interior minister said late Tuesday.

Tourism and antiquities police targeted the man's home in the upscale Zamalek district of central Cairo after accusations of illegally smuggling antiquities in another incident, the ministry said in a statement published on its official Facebook page.

The statement did not specify the man's nationality or if he has been detained.

The artifacts include 86 pieces from different eras of ancient Egyptian civilisation. Authorities will examine the rest of the pieces to decide on their archeological value.

The ministry shared video footage of the seized items showing over two dozen wall frames, a number of antique wooden furniture pieces, metal swords and lanterns, and other items.

Search Keywords:

Short link:

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.On the occasion of the celebration of the United Nations day in 24 October, the UN offered a series of interviews exclusively for Al-Ahram online.

The UN day marks the anniversary of the entry of the UN chart into force in 1945.

With the ratification of this founding document by the majority of its signatories, including the five permanent members of the security Council, the United Nations officially came into being.

The second interview in the series is with Karim Atassi, the Representative to UNHCR Egypt and the League of Arab States.

Can you tell us about the history of UNHCR in Egypt and its role today?

Egypt is a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention and the 1967 Protocol, as well as to the 1969 OAU Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa.

In 1954, UNHCR and the Government of Egypt signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) which authorised the establishment of the Branch Office Cairo, UNHCRs first field operation in Africa. The MoU outlined the responsibilities of the government and UNHCR and delegated the registration, documentation and Refugee Status Determination of asylum-seekers and refugees to the latter. Today, UNHCR has four offices located in Cairo, 6 October City and Alexandria with 196 national and 60 international staff members serving refugees.

How would you describe the refugee situation in Egypt?

Egypt has shown great generosity towards asylum-seekers and refugees, and we commend the openness with which Egypt has continued to host refugees in urban settings in spite of its economic difficulties. In this regard, Egypt has been hospitable, and we continuously encourage and support the government to continue to host refugees and give them access to social, health, and education services. We also encourage international solidarity with Egypt from the main donor countries.

Currently, there are over 235,000 registered people of concern to UNHCR in the country from 58 different nationalities, including Syrians, Sudanese, Eritreans, Yemenis and Iraqis.

The mainstreaming of refugees of all nationalities into the public health system is one of the main improvements in the standard of treatment of refugees during the past two years, thanks to the generosity of the Egyptian government. All nationalities now have access to public healthcare services, while Syrians, Sudanese, South Sudanese and Yemenis can access the public education system on equal footing with Egyptians.

How does UNHCR try to foster co-existence and social cohesion in Egypt between refugees and the host community?

The Egyptian society is open, welcoming and generous. This has been the case throughout the long history of this great nation. UNHCR promotes community cohesion through advocacy and awareness programmes. We shed light on resilient refugees who make positive contributions to their host communities and ensure that the public is aware of these contributions and also the challenges they face on a daily basis. Celebrities and media can play an important role in amplifying the voices of refugees.

UNHCR has also developed a community-based programme where refugees and asylum-seekers have the opportunity to participate in capacity building and skill enhancement initiatives side by side with Egyptians. These activities run in cooperation with local institutions and entities to bridge any cultural gaps and foster community cohesion.

What are UNHCRs main priorities in Egypt?

UNHCR supports and promotes the protection and well-being of refugees and asylum-seekers in Egypt. Special attention is given to vulnerable groups such as unaccompanied minors, separated children and survivors of torture or of sexual and gender-based violence. We also work very closely with the various ministries who are providing refugees and asylum-seekers access to their services, in particular in education and health.

What are the main challenges facing UNHCR in Egypt?

UNHCR strives to meet the basic needs of refugees and asylum-seekers. It is estimated that 85 percent of the refugees and asylum-seekers registered with our office are vulnerable and they are in need of assistance. Unfortunately, UNHCR is not in a position to assist everyone due to budget constraints. Additional international solidarity and further support from the donor countries are crucial for UNHCR Egypt and for the front-line public institutions serving refugees and asylum-seekers.

Search Keywords:

Short link:

Morning Briefing: This Saudi Arabia Story Is Insane

By Dustin Rowles | Politics | October 17, 2018 |

From yesterdays Washington Post:

Turkish officials have provided The Washington Post with scans of passports that they say were carried by seven men who were part of a Saudi team involved in the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2.

Donald Trump: I dont want to get into his mind - but it sounded to me like maybe these could have been rogue killers. Who knows? Were going to try getting to the bottom of it very soon. But his was a flat denial.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Saudi operatives beat, drugged, killed and dismembered a dissident Saudi journalist in the presence of the kingdoms top diplomat in Istanbul, Turkish officials said Tuesday.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, after meeting with the Saudis: I dont want to talk about any of the facts and they didnt want to either, he said. Letting the Saudis complete their investigation he said is a reasonable thing to do

More from the WSJ:

Audio recording shows Saudi forensic specialist asked witnesses to listen to music while he dismembered Khashoggis body inside the office of the Saudi consul general, per WSJ https://t.co/ctBsJc4Odc pic.twitter.com/19OAAxa4uJ  Philip Rucker (@PhilipRucker) October 17, 2018

Donald Trump: Well, I think we have to find out what happened first. Here we go again with, you know, youre guilty until proven innocent. I dont like that. We just went through that with Justice Kavanaugh. And he was innocent all the way.

There are audio recordings, dude! What the hell else does Trump need? I mean its not like Trump is benefitting from the Saudis, right?

For the record, I have no financial interests in Saudi Arabia (or Russia, for that matter). Any suggestion that I have is just more FAKE NEWS (of which there is plenty)!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 16, 2018

Trump & Saudi Business:

1991: Sold yacht to Saudi Prince

2001: Sold 45th floor of Trump World Tower to Saudis

Jun 2015: I love the Saudismany in Trump Tower

Aug 2015: "They buy apartments from meSpend $40M-$50M"

2017: Saudi lobbyists spent $270K at Trump DC hotel  Fox News Research (@FoxNewsResearch) October 16, 2018



Hey! Trumps views on climate change have evolved from Its a hoax to Maybe theres been climate change, but itll change back, and I know because my uncle went to MIT!.

From the AP:

Trump: I agree the climate changes, but it goes back and forth, back and forth. So well see 

AP: But scientists say this is nearing a point where this cant be reversed.

Trump: No, no. Some say that and some say differently. I mean, you have scientists on both sides of it. My uncle was a great professor at MIT for many years. Dr. John Trump. And I didnt talk to him about this particular subject, but I have a natural instinct for science, and I will say that you have scientists on both sides of the picture.

-

Meanwhile, Mitch McConnell and the GOP arent even trying to hide from the fact that they plan to cut Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid to pay for the tax cut for the rich.

Republicans seem to have given Democrats the chance in the final three weeks to run against both increasing deficits caused by the existing GOP Congress and the prospect of Social Security and Medicare cuts by a future GOP Congress.  Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) October 17, 2018

USE THAT CHANCE, DEMOCRATS.

-

I have no idea how anyone in Texas can vote for Ted Cruz when theyve got Beto ORourke. He was brilliant in last nights debate against Cruz, and I almost wish he wasnt being wasted in Texas. Come on up to Maine, Beto. Take on Collins. Youd win in a landslide.

Heres a couple of his best moments:

Every single one of us deserves to be treated with dignity and respect. #TeamBeto #TexasDebate pic.twitter.com/ftnrb9w6sr  Beto O'Rourke (@BetoORourke) October 17, 2018

Here he is using Trumps own name against Cruz:

"Senator Cruz is not going to be honest with you," says Beto O'Rourke "It's why the president called him Lyin' Ted, and it's why the nickname stuck." #TexasDebatehttps://t.co/zx11ahFiDT pic.twitter.com/UrneUP0TTr  CBS News (@CBSNews) October 17, 2018

-

Finally, I think this is hilarious. Theres an incumbent Republican, Rep. Chris Collins, running to maintain his House seat up in the Buffalo, NY area. He was indicted last August for insider trading, and his campaign hasnt been going very well of late. In the third quarter, he received individual contributions from only 3 people. Amounting to $80.

Not $80 million. Not $80,000.

$80.

That said, polls show that he still has a three-point lead on his Democratic opponent, although it is a district where he won by 34 points in 2016 (and Trump won by 25 points).

 Ariana Grande Posts to Instagram for the First Time Since Her Break-Up with Pete Davidson | Lin-Manuel Miranda Talks Prince Harry, Helen Mirren And Returning To 'Hamilton' 

Dustin is the founder and co-owner of Pajiba. You may email him here, follow him on Twitter, or listen to his weekly TV podcast, Podjiba.

Header Image Source: GettyOn the international day for the eradication of poverty, Egypt announced that it aims to reduce poverty by half by 2020 and eliminate it by 2030 as part of its strategic development plan, according to the state-run Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS).

According to the last report issued by CAPMAS, Egypt's poverty rate rose to 27.8 percent in 2015, compared to 25.2 percent in 2010/11.

The IMF-inspired austerity measures Egypt has adopted since 2016 have put a strain on many Egyptians living under the poverty line.

The poverty line stands at EGP 482 (about $54) per month, while the extreme poverty line stands at EGP 322 (about $36), according to the latest figures.

Under the auspices of Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, the government has been implementing different programmes to strengthen social protection for the poor and most vulnerable groups.

Among these programmes are the 2015 Takaful and Karama, an income-support programme for families with children that benefits some two million families in 5,630 villages across the country.

There are also other programmes that address population growth, housing, healthcare and health insurance.

Search Keywords:

Short link:

On Saturday, October 13th, Kanye West reactivated his Twitter account after deleting it for a week. He posted a long, winding Periscope video in which he said he is the "best living recording artist" and that the spirits of Fela Kuti, Bob Marley and Tupac Shakur are "flowing through him."

As The Fader reports, Fela Kuti's relatives are not too jazzed about this. In a statement, the legendary musician's son Seun Kuti said, "on behalf of the Kuti family, I want to state that the spirit of Olufela Anikulapo Kuti isn't anywhere near Kanye West."

West's meeting with Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni hasn't gone over well, either. Museveni has held power for over 32 years while being accused of various human rights abuses  Ugandan musician, member of Parliament, and opposition leader Bobbi Wine was arrested and tortured by Museveni's administration in August, and has slammed West for meeting with him.

Wine told The Guardian that it was "immoral" for West to "rub shoulders with the president." "[West] is hobnobbing with a president who has been in power now for 32 years and restricts any freedom, a country where opposition activists are tortured and imprisoned," said Wine. He continued, "It would have been great if [West] had used his voice for the good of people in Africa. I'm a musician but I am not allowed to stage a show in my own country because I disagree with the president. It is very disappointing."

As The Fader notes, West, the world's most famous Trump supporter, may have chosen Uganda to record because of Museveni's stance on the US president. After Trump made comments calling African nations "shithole countries," Museveni claimed to agree with him, saying, "America has got one of the best presidents ever... I love Trump because he tells the Africans frankly... the Africans need to solve their problems, they need to be strong. It is the fault of the Africans that they are weak."

Photo via BFA

Legendary photographer David LaChapelle shot Kim Kardashian for her new KKW Beauty campaign. And from what's been released so far, the pictures look major. Major!

Kim is launching a new collection of "bright and jewel-toned" pressed and loose powder pigments, available this Friday at noon. She tends to promote new KKW launches with gorgeous, outlandish shoots, including one where she was nude, covered in cherry blossoms, and another where she posed covered in glitter to announce her line of "Ultralight Beam" highlighters.

The reality star recently made waves for a wild trip with husband Kanye West to Uganda. They met with President Yoweri Museveni, who has been accused of several human rights violations.

Related | David LaChapelle Gets Candid

LaChapelle, who has shot practically every celebrity you could think of, previously shot the 2013 edition of the famed Kardashian Kristmas kards.

Photo via BFAWhile public awareness of the tragedy of mass incarceration may be growing, less attention has been paid to the experiences of female inmates. The prison population has ballooned over the past twenty years, skyrocketing to 2.1 million, making the United States the largest jailer of its citizens in the world. This explosion of the inmate population has not excluded women, and in fact while overall fewer women are incarcerated than men, as a demographic they are the fastest-growing segment of the prison population.

A 2017 ACLU report found that women are disproportionately stuck languishing in jails, often because even more so than incarcerated men, they can't afford bail. Of the 219,000 women currently held by the correctional system, 113,000 were funneled to state and federal prisons, where inmates with longer sentences are sent. Though violent crime has been steadily dropping nationwide since its peak in 1991, the number of life sentences has nearly quintupled since 1984, and a recent report by the Sentencing Project shows that 3.5 percent of the overall life-sentenced population are female, which is half their representation in the general prison population.

So why do so many women end up incarcerated? Research tells us that between 23 and 37 percent of female state prisoners were physically abused before age 18 and one in four was sexually abusedhigher than the national average. A study by the Department of Justice found that victims of most women convicted of murder were their intimate partner or a family member, and that nearly half of women in state prisons had experienced abuse at some time before their arrest. Drug sentencing laws, a lack of community resources, poverty, and disinterest in the public and policy levels in issues that affect women also contribute to a complex array of factors. But beyond statistics, inmates are people like anyone else, carrying with them into the justice system their histories, relationships, desires, fears, trauma and hopes for the future.

One of the most challenging times in an inmate's life can be their return to society. Photographer Sara Bennett, formerly a public defender specializing in battered women and the wrongly convicted, has spent years capturing intimate moments in the lives of women who were handed a life sentence but eventually received parole. Her series Life After Life in Prison and The Bedroom Project examine the experiences of women as they return to society following decades in prison. Following their transitions, Bennett introduces us to women whose lives have been impacted by the justice system more than anyone else, and who now have to contend with the joys and anxieties of newfound freedom. PAPER spoke with Bennett to learn more about the work and the challenges women face upon returning to life outside prison walls:

Sentence: 25 years to life Served: 25 years Released: June 2016 "When I was released, I didn't feel overwhelmed; I felt as though I was right where I was supposed to be. Later though, the feeling of being overwhelmed came as I found myself on the business side of life: food shopping, rent, bills, metrocards, etc. That was all new to me because I lived at home with my mom until I was arrested. My children were one and three years old when I left them and I felt as if they were one and three the whole time I was away. I feel that way about myself now. I was arrested when I was 19 and being in this big, unfamiliar, advanced world makes me feel like a 19-year-old trapped in a 45 year old body. I am both happy and grateful to be out here, but it's like putting a kindergartener in college." AISHA, 45, in a house she shares with 5 other women 14 months after her release. Flushing, NY (2017)

How do you find your subjects and what's the process of bringing them into the project? For many years, I was the pro bono attorney for Judith Clark, who was serving a 75-year-to-life sentence for her role as a getaway driver in a famous New York Casethe Brinks robbery of 1981. I was trying to get the governor to grant her clemency, something rarely granted, and I had to show that she was extraordinary and worthy of the governor's mercy. I photographed women who had been incarcerated with her and had them speak about her influence on their lives. It was the reaction to that workviewers were surprised that the formerly incarcerated women were just regular womenwhich sparked my second project, Life After Life in Prison, where I followed four women as they went about re-entering society after decades in prison. Judy introduced me to my first subject, Keila. The first time I met Keila, she was on her way to a meeting of formerly incarcerated women, and I tagged along with my camera. There, I told all the women about my project, and they all wanted to be included. A lot of the women at that meeting already knew of me, either through my work on Judy's behalf or because I had represented some of their friends as a Legal Aid lawyer. Each woman I met, introduced me to another, and that's how I ended up with my Bedroom Project series, where, so far, I have photographed 18 women.

Why the designation, specifically, of life in prison? It was really, really important to me. My only criteria for someone to be a part of this project, or any of my projects, is that they had to have a life sentence, because it means that they never know if they were going to get out of prison. If you have a sentence of 15 years to life, it means that in 15 years you are eligible for parole, but the parole board may deny you. I'm not a practicing lawyer anymore and I haven't been for almost 14 years, although I did have pro bono cases for a very long time. But I was really concerned about the long-termers in prison. One of the other things I wanted to highlight was the parole system in general. Every state is different but in a place like New York the granting of parole is very slim and has been for a long time. You can have a sentence of 15 to life, and you go to the parole board and they don't care that you have done 15 years, they just care about what you did 15 years ago. The only time you ever hear about a parolee is when they commit some kind of high profile crime, and then the feeling is, 'We have to clamp down on parole again.' I wanted to show a different lightthe majority of people who come out of prison and lead productive lives and who are just thriving.

TRACY, 51, in her own apartment three-and-a-half years after her release. Jamaica, NY (2017)

Given that it's life sentences that you are dealing with, are the women you photograph mostly convicted of violent crimes? Or is it a lot of drug charges? No, it's all violent crimes. In my Bedroom Project series, all but two women were convicted of homicide. In my first reentry series, all four women were convicted of homicide.

Did you get to know the women well while photographing them? Some of the women I know really, really wellthe four women who were my original re-entry subjects, for example. I spent hundreds of hours with them individually and spent time with them with their families, going to church, going to their jobs, social events, just hanging out. There are only a few women that I don't know very well and have only met once or twice.

What are some common threads with women that you see after they were incarcerated for a long time? Really, resilience. It's just kind of incredible. There's this joy for life and how to get pleasure out of the simplest things. It helps you remember a lot of things that people take for grantedlike a comfortable bed, a pillow, a choice in what you have to eat, the ability to just walk out on the street or go to the park. No matter what seems to come their way, including homelessness, doesn't seem to phase them that much. That's been really eye-opening. One of the women I know really well lives in the homeless shelter and she loves it there. She has a little room, and there's no door, but it's hers. There is no one coming in and telling her she can't have something in there. Even though the shelter has rules, she can put things out if she wants to and she can sit in there with the lights on or the lights off; she can look out the window. She doesn't have to worry that someone is going to come in there at any moment and go through all of her things. There is just a certain peace and autonomy that hasn't existed in these women's lives for so long.

I can imagine the ability to come and go as they please is a great thing for them. It really is. Not that many people know what it's like to live in prison. They get their ideas from movies. But in prison, people are constantly being counted, so you are woken up really early every day and you have to stand and be counted and you go through that five or six times each day. You eat your meals at a time that is designated to you, you take a shower at a time that is designated to youwith a little bar a soap that is given to you and that little bar of soap may have to last you a month. Just the very basic necessities of life have been stripped away, so to be able to get some of those things back, they are just very grateful and I've seen that across the board. They are so content with very little.

NIKI, 55, in transitional housing four months after her release. Corona, NY (2017)

Do you see much anger? Not very much, which is surprising to me. I just heard from someone who has just been given parole after 47 years in prison. He went to prison when he was 17, and is now 64 years old. He was denied parole something like 16 times. I got a card from him that he's so grateful, and I was wondering why he'd be grateful? I believe that the person is just so grateful for being able to come home. I don't see a lot of anger and I don't know why.

Have any of the women you worked with went back to prison? Nope. I don't think any of them will.

What are the biggest challenges you see them face upon re-entry? The number one challenge is finding a place to live. The second is finding a job and a way to support themselves. There are reentry programs, but very few in general and even fewer for women. If you manage to get a place in a reentry program, then you will have a place to live; otherwise you may end up in a shelter. If you have been in prison for a long, long time, it's very rare that you are going to have a family member to go home to, just because everyone has aged or you have been forgotten. Even if you haven't been forgotten, but you come home and you're 45 and still have a living parent, they may not be able to take you in any more. Finding a job is really, really hard. All of the women I know have a lot of skills, because when you are in prison you do work. So they may have plumbing skills, electrical skills, painting skills or culinary skills or maybe got a college degree or were running some kind of program in there. Everyone finds work and does some kind of meaningful work in prison, but that doesn't mean when you come home that an employer wants that experience. You have a huge gap on your resume. I know people who say that they were a chef for 25 years for a large institution and hope that the boss doesn't ask you what the name of the large institution was.

ROSALIE, 70, on her couch bed in her studio apartment five months after her release. Brooklyn, NY (2015)

Even though it's a positive event, emotionally it must be very trying. A lot of people have a lot of anxiety. It's a little scary to come home after all that time away. Little things like walking across the street are hard. Some people get car sick because they haven't been in a vehicle for 25 years. Then there are the technology changesbut they seem to adapt pretty quickly. Reuniting with children which can be difficult. I haven't actually seen any of the people that I have been photographing reunite with children. There may be a couple who have them, but usually, the children are lost to the system or have family members who have turned the children against them. I feel like that's a really deep sadness.

What's the age range of the people you photograph? The age range is from 38-70. The minimum amount of time that any of my photographed subjects had was 14 years, and that was only because that person received clemency from the governor. The next shortest sentence was 17 years and after that, anywhere up to 35 years, which two of my portrait subjects served.

KEILA, 40, in transitional housing six months after her release. Astoria, NY (2014)

What do you think about the way women who are incarcerated are portrayed in the media? I used to watch Orange is the New Black and I have to say that I loved the second season where they showed the back stories of the women. It was the only time where I felt that they showed the women in an un-stereotypical fashion.

Have any stereotypes come up for you that have been confronted? How has the project changed you on this? I think I've really gotten to know the women in a way that I've never gotten to know my clients, which has been really great for me. I was an appellate lawyer, which means my clients had already been convicted by the time I met them, so I never got to know their home settings. When you are in and out of someone's home, you really get to know them. You get to see how they deal with their problems and who they are. I feel really honored that people allow me to come into their homes and be a part of their lives now. I did form close relationships with some of my clients and kept in touch with them after they came home from prison, so, this wasn't completely new to me. But the women I photograph have shared a lot of their lives with me and whenever someone allows you to do that, you really grow as a person.

LINDA, 70, in her own apartment 14 years after her release. Albany, NY (2017)Lady Gaga's oversized Marc Jacobs suit wasn't the only outfit to make a statement at Elle's "Women In Hollywood" reception on Monday night. J.Lo, who presented Gaga with her award, wore an elegant, champagne and blush pink wrap blouse and black ruffled pencil skirt that stood out among the crowd. The look was created by Melbourne-based designer Toni Maticevski. Lesser known in the U.S., Maticevski is a fixture on the Australian fashion scene and has garnered loyal clients from China to Jordan over the past decade.

Since launching his namesake label in 2002, the son of Macedonian immigrants has become known for his sculptural, ultra-feminine demi-couture (ready-to-wear wrought with couture techniques). His high-glamour mix of structured silhouettes and fragile flourishes has caught the eye of celebrities including Australian actor Abbie Cornish and Kim Kardashian West. Although his saucy confections are glamour-puss ready, they're also rooted in personal narratives. His resort 2019 collection  trimmed with Flamenco ruffles and cinched waists  for example, was informed by his late-grandmother's years as a dancer.

In 2016, the same year he released Maticevski: The Elegant Rebel (Thames and Hudson) he was awarded The Australian Fashion Laureate Award, the country's highest industry honor. Since then, he's shown his namesake collection in Paris and continued to expand the custom bridal, leather goods, and made-to-measure arms of his 16-year-old business.

Having made a splash with J.Lo in L.A. earlier this week (thanks to her stylist Rob Zangardi), we anticipate seeing more stars in Maticevski's sumptuous confections soon.

Photo via Getty



Lil Miquela is an Internet star. The style influencer, musician, and outspoken trans rights and Black Lives Matter supporter, isn't real in the typical sense. Miquela Sousa (she assumes a Brazilian-American identity) is an avatar created by Los Angeles-based start-up Burd. While she's a CGI character backed by a team as opposed to a real life 19-year-old girl, the subjects Sousa advocates for, from body positivity to rights for undocumented immigrants, are representative of many in her adopted generation.

That's why California-based footwear label Ugg has enlisted Lil Miquela for its month-long 40th anniversary campaign. Joining British model and founder of Gurls Talk Adwoa Aboah, DJ and artist-turned-designer Heron Preston, and multihyphenate creative Luka Sabbat, Sousa models classic Ugg styles in a campaign shot by Erik Madigan Heck. The simulated Instagram model fittingly appears in the American photographer's signature surrealist environments: seated on jagged rocks over crashing waves and straddling a giant hoop above clouds.

With 1.4 million Instagram followers and counting, Lil Miquela's audience outnumbers the Abloh's and Preston's (Sabbat and Sousa are neck and neck). Though intended to celebrate Ugg's evolution over the years  from surf-shop staple to a ubiquitous style and experimental canvas for designers including Y/Project's Glenn Martens  Sousa's involvement rehashes questions of the future of fashion influencers.

Photos Courtesy of UGG; Photography by Erik Madigan Heck



Aide to Russian President Yuri Ushakov announced that a range of new weapons would be offered to the Egyptian President

Russian President Vladimir Putin has received in the Black Sea resort of Sochi on Wednesday his Egyptian counterpart Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi for bilateral talks in the third official meeting between the two leaders.

El-Sisi arrived in Moscow on Monday for his second official visit to Russia since he assumed office in 2014.

The official talks are set to cover several important topics and an exchange of views on the most important international and regional issues of mutual interest.

Aide to the Russian president Yuri Ushakov announced that a range of new weapons and military equipment will be offered to El-Sisi during his two-day visit to Sochi, according to Russia Today.

The offered military equipment and arms might be purchased by Cairo in the future, Ushakov said.

El-Sisi and his Russian counterpart are expected to sign a range of bilateral agreements, the Egyptian presidential spokesperson said in a statement on Tuesday.

President El-Sisi arrived late on Tuesday to the Russian city of Sochi, where he and President Putin held informal talks ahead of their official meeting on Wednesday.

The two leaders informally exchanged views on crucial topics of common concern and on regional and international issues.

Ahead of flying to Sochi, El-Sisi met with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev in Moscow, where they discussed trade, investment, tourism and other issues of mutual concern.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Egyptian president addressed the Russian Federation Council on a range of bilateral and regional issues.

Search Keywords:

Short link:

US imposes new sanctions targeting Iran banks, companies

10/17/18

Source: Press TV

The United States has imposed fresh sanctions on a number of Iranian banks and financial institutions as well as companies ahead of the start of the next month's new round of the US sanctions against the Islamic Republic. The US Treasury on Tuesday announced fresh sanctions on Iranian banks, including Bank Mellat and Mehr Eqtesad Bank.

According to an announcement on Treasury's website, the US is also imposing sanctions on Iran Tractor Manufacturing Company, Esfehan's Mobarakeh Steel Company, and other companies linked to investment, commodities and engineering.

The Treasury imposed sanctions on a multibillion-dollar financial network that supports the Basij Resistance Force affiliated with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

US President Donald Trump announced in May that Washington was pulling out of the nuclear agreement, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which lifted nuclear-related sanctions against Tehran in exchange for restrictions on Tehran's nuclear program.

The deal had been signed between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council -- the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China -- plus Germany in 2015.

The US administration reintroduced the previous sanctions while imposing new ones on the Islamic Republic. It also introduced punitive measures - known as secondary sanctions - against third countries doing business with Iran.

A first round of American sanctions took effect in August, targeting Iran's access to the US dollar, metals trading, coal, industrial software, and auto sector. A second round, forthcoming on November 4, will be targeting Iran's energy sector and financial transactions.Eighteen pupils have been killed and at least 50 injured in a massacre at a school in Crimea today.



Vladislav Roslyakov, 18, walked into a school canteen and fired a gun, killing 17 students and then himself, officials said.



It is thought the teenager also set off a homemade nail-bomb in the canteen but that the device did not kill anyone.



Terrified students ran and screamed during the attack on Kerch Polytechnic College where the shooter is thought to have studied.



One said: 'There was a guy with a gun and shooting everyone. I did not know what to do'. Another added: 'The walls were covered in blood, we climbed the fence to escape.'



Read Full Story .... dailymail.co.uk >>> :

















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Increased partnership from all stakeholders will drive maximum support for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).



This was highlighted by the Assistant Country Director of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Ghana, Mr. Louis Kuukpen in a remark at the Ghana Finance Summit 2018 held on the theme, Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals through Innovative Financing.



The UNDP Assistant Country Director underscored the need for greater commitment across all sectors and industries to strengthen and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development, as emphasized by the SDG 17.



He said, the level of funding needed for the implementation of the SDGs surpasses government capacity given the volumes of resources required. There is thus the need for increased partnership and for all sectors to get involved.



Citing statistics from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Mr. Kuukpen stated that an annual investment of between $5-7 trillion is required globally for the achievement of the SDGs by 2030, hence the need to mobilize funds through innovative ways.



As the SDGs emphasize localized implementation, there is the obvious need to engineer partnerships with the private sector and philanthropy locally. We need at this moment to explore all innovative instrument being domestic or foreign such as blended finance, development impact bonds, green bonds, trust bonds, challenge funds, guarantees, impact investment and many more, noted Mr. Kuukpen.



Mobilizing more domestic resources towards the achievement of the SDGs, according to the UNDP Assistant Country Director, will require the financial sector to have a sound and stable financial system to improve public confidence in the sector; as well as good corporate governance by strengthening the sectors institutional effectiveness and efficiency.



He added that, for us as a country to ensure that no one is left behind in the achievement of the SDGs, we must ensure that every cedi counts, and this will require accountability, transparency as well as targeted and equitable allocation of resources.



He also stressed on the need to use the countrys natural resources judiciously towards development.



Also speaking at the Summit was the Head of the SDG Advisory Unit of the Office of the President, Dr. Eugene Owusu, who also called on all stakeholders to join hands with the government to push the SDGs.



He especially urged the youth to come up with creative and innovative ideas to facilitate the implementation of the global goals.



He said the youth represent both today and the future. The youth's creativity and innovation can help in the implementation of the SDGs.



The Ghana Finance Summit brought together financial and business leaders to share ideas, discuss the latest market developments and financial trends in Ghana.



It was organized by Precise Communications in collaboration with Financial Inclusion Forum Africa, ARK Events Ghana, GEN Ghana; and with support from many partners including UNDP.

Source: Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured VideoPresident Akufo-Addo yesterday received the credentials of seven new foreign envoys who have been assigned to Ghana.



They are Aboubacar Sadikh Barry from Senegal, Anne Sphie Ave from France, Mohammed Ahmad All Homaid from Qatar, Shani Cooper from Israel, Meyer Kheir from Lebanon, Frances Virginia Anderson from Sierra Leone and Diana Acconcia, Head of Delegation of the European Union (EU) to Ghana.



During a ceremony at the Jubilee House, Israeli Ambassador, Shani Cooper said, friendship and ties, as we share between Ghana and the state of Israel, are precious. Since the reopening of a resident embassy in Ghana, we have witnessed tens of official visits and hundreds of business tours to Israel, which have been led by the Ghana-Israel Business Chamber.



She added that Israel would seek the continuation of this trend to deepen relations between the two countries.



Her colleague Qatari Ambassador, Al Homaid said the Emir of the state of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thank was looking forward to the Presidents next visit to Qatar to further strengthen the relations between Ghana and Qatar.



The French Ambassador, Ann Sphie Ave, indicated that both President Macron and President Akufo-Addo share the conviction that relations between Ghana and France are crucial.



That, she said, was part of reasons why President Macron was the first French President ever to visit Ghana in November last year.



She stressed, France would be honoured to welcome your presidential visit in 2019.



Ambassador Barry of Senegal, on his part, said his country and Ghana signed an agreement in 2014 to establish a Permanent Joint Commission for Cooperation (PJCC) which is yet to be met.



He promised to ensure that the PJCC meets to explore avenues for further cooperation.



New Head of the European Union Delegation in Ghana, Diana Acconcia, was of the belief that no sustainable and sustained development would be possible without building up education and skills that multiply the opportunities for young people to access quality jobs.



She stressed the commitment of the EU to working with Ghana to strengthen the educational drive of government and all multilateral institutions.



Ms Acconia was hopeful political and economic relations between Ghana and the EU would be deepened during her duty tour.



President Akufo-Addo congratulated all the seven envoys and reiterated his administrations resolve to working closely with Israel, Sierra Leone, France, the state of Qatar, Senegal and Lebanon, as well as EU, to further deepen trade relations.



He reiterated governments readiness to assist the envoys to have successful duty tours in Ghana.



















Source: Daily Guide









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured VideoPresident Trump has once again reiterated the fact that anyone who enters the United States illegally will be arrested and detained before they are deported.



President Trump went on to mention some countries saying, 'we have informed the countries of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador that if they allow their citizens, or others, to journey through their borders and up to the United States, with the intention of entering our country illegally, all payments made to them will stop'.









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Akua Donkor who has always shown signs of dislike for the president seems to be getting crazy as she was sighted in a video threatening to shoot the president.



Akua Donkor who is known for making silly remarks and the biggest joker in Ghanas politics was sighted in the video with a gun which is known to be AK47 hanging around her neck and threatening to kill the president if he refuses to step down.



In the video that has gone viral, she said I am very serious about what Im saying,President Nana Akufo-Addo must step down immediately. What hes doing will not help him.

VIDEO BELOW-



















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Actress and Filmmaker Yvonne Nelson has reacted to what she describes as disappointing comments by Politician and Lawyer, Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko.



Gabby Otchere-Darko who is a very influential member of the ruling New Patriotic PartyNPP) party and cousin of President Nana Addo Dankwah Akufo-Addo had said in a social media post that the Ghanaian movie industry is being unproductive.



According to Gabby, he took time to watch 10 random Ghanaian movies and he was very disappointed after watching.



He wrote: I took my time to watch randomly ten Ghanaian movies and never felt so disappointed. It brought home to me one major deficiency in our development. The apparent lack of deliberate consciousness on the part of the creative industry in the development conversation.



The presence of the creative industry appears at best peripheral in Ghanas development narrative. Our movies, our songs, our arts, by and large, do not impactfully plug into a greater development agenda.



Hollywood, for the best part of a century, has been deliberately used by America to push successfully American cultural supremacy agenda; it has been used as an effective instrument of military or economic indoctrination.



But, what has been the underlying consciousness behind our creative industry, if any? What role, for instance, can actors in the creative industry play to define and realize this whole important concept of moving Ghana Beyond Aid? We must elevate consciousness in Ghana if we are serious about winning.



However, actress Yvonne Nelson didnt take kindly to the comment and she has reacted with a couple of tweets.



She had this reply: Kumawood has created jobs for so many people! It has Put smiles on a lot of faces in our country! Your judgement is just so low! Disappointing!



She was not done, she kicked him more:



Hello @GabbyDarko is your interview on peacefm online real?? If it is Im also disappointed! A few of us are pushing really hard for this industry! Since our leaders have also totally abandoned the industry, we contribute too, just like nurses,doctors..etc



She went on: How do you even compare Hollywood to our industry! Its like comparing our economy to theirs! Leadership!!!!! We need structures in place and some encouragement not this! What do we do when TV networks get cheaper content from India and Latin America? she schooled Gabby.

Source: Eugene Osafo-Nkansah/Peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured VideoDuring a bilateral summit in the Black Sea resort town of Sochi on Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Egyptian counterpart Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi signed a comprehensive strategic cooperation agreement, which both leaders described as significant for enhancing cooperation between the two countries during the upcoming period.

The meeting between the two leaders marked their third official bilateral summit since the Egyptian president assumed office in 2014.

The summit witnessed the signing of a number of mutual cooperation agreements involving trade and industry as well as a discussion on the resumption of Russian flights to the Red Sea resorts of Hurghada and Sharm El-Sheikh.

We are satisfied with Egypts efforts on this issue and are working closely to resume flights to Hurghada and Sharm El-Sheikh soon," Putin said at the summit.

The Russian president also highlighted the significance of the decades-long military cooperation between Egypt and Russia.

The talks touched on several regional and international issues.

On Syria, Putin affirmed that he is working closely with his Egyptian counterpart to aid efforts to reach a political solution and rebuild the war torn country.

"I informed president El-Sisi about Russias steps regarding this issue, especially concerning Russian agreements with Turkey on Idlib," Putin said.

"We agreed to continue our fruitful cooperation in this issue during the upcoming period, he added.

On Libya, the Russian president affirmed that the strategic partnership between Egypt and Russia helps maintain safety and stability in the Middle East and North Africa.

"Russia and Egypt will continue coordinating efforts to reach a solution to the crisis in Libya," Putin added.

The Russian president also expressed hope that Egypt's chairmanship of the African Union can open up new horizons for cooperation between Russia and African nations.

"The signing of the strategic partnership agreement marks a shift in relations between the two countries," El-Sisi said.

El-Sisi noted the signing of the agreement crowns the rapidly developing relations between the two countries, especially over the last four years.

"This momentum has been crowned by the start of work on the Dabaa nuclear power plant in December 2017, with Russia providing funding and technical expertise, the Egyptian president said.

El-Sisi also referred to the Russian Industrial Zone project in East Port Said, saying it ushers in a leap in economic relations from trade exchange to industrial cooperation.

El-Sisi also said that the marking of 2020 as a year of cultural exchange between Egypt and Russia reflects the cultural communication between both countries.

El-Sisi said that he and Putin strongly agree on regional issues, particularly on the necessity of reaching a comprehensive solution to the Palestinian issue based on a two-state solution along the 1967 borders, the provisions of international law, as well as the Arab peace initiative.

Regarding Libya, the talks touched on the political and security developments in the country.

El-Sisi said he briefed his Russian counterpart on Egypt's vision on reaching a political solution in Libya and the efforts exerted by Cairo to unify the Libyan military establishment and enable it to carry out its duties efficiently.

"We stressed the importance of the international community's commitment to the full implementation of the initiative of UN envoy Ghassan Salama, involving all elements of the Libyan issue," El-Sisi affirmed.

On counterterrorism, El-Sisi said he and Putin agreed on the importance of exchanging information between security bodies, especially with regards to the transit of terrorists from areas of instability to other states.

We stressed the need to prevent the movement of terrorists to other territories," El-Sisi said.

The president also said that he briefed his Russian counterpart on the latest results of operation Sinai 2018 and Egypt's efforts to counter terrorism.

The Egyptian president also offered condolences to the Russian president, people and government over the victims of the shooting at a Crimea college, which took place earlier on Wednesday and killed 19 people.

El-Sisi arrived in Moscow on Monday for his second official visit to Russia since he assumed office in 2014.

Ahead of flying to Sochi, El-Sisi met with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev in Moscow, where they discussed trade, investment, tourism and other issues of mutual concern.

On Tuesday, the Egyptian president addressed the Russian Federation Council on a range of bilateral and regional issues.

Search Keywords:

Short link:

Members of the evangelical churches of Germany and Switzerland met on Wednesday with Muslim clerics from Al-Azhar, Egypt's top Sunni Muslim authority, to discuss the Islamic institution's efforts to fight extremism.

The talks in Cairo tackled efforts by a department of Al-Azhar responsible for monitoring extremism to combat radical ideology and spread moderate teachings of Islam, the website of Egypt's state TV said.

During the talks, the senior Muslim and Christian leaders also discussed the Islamic authority's role in opening channels of dialogue with other religions and fostering coexistence between Egypt's Muslims and Coptic Christian minority.

Christians make up around 10 percent of Egypt's population of 98 million.

Search Keywords:

Short link:

KAMPALA  Every Ugandan tribe has systems and classification through which they built and established themselves traditionally.

Some of these systems are either territorial, regimental, comradeship or kinship and each of these cultural systems have a fundamental role it plays in the well-being of the community and its very existence.

A clan or clans are people who are related by blood and are symbolised by a totemic animal, an object or a thing, it is a permanent non-political entity that regulated marriage, arbitrated in murder cases, propitiated for curses and payment of blood money.

The number of clans within different tribes vary both in number, description, roles and in type and there are some common clans and totemic symbols across the wider tribe while certain clans are only found in some few sub-communities.

In his book; Clans and Totems of the Banyakigezi, Mr. Ishmaels Kabananukye carefully reveals the age-old connections between the people of Kigezi; the Bafumbira, Batwa, Banyabutumbi, Bakiga, and Bahororo and how these various communities share naming systems that are situational, including those for clan names, totems, stories, myths, proverbs, riddles, values, and beliefs.

Mr Kabananukye believes that because we no longer live with animals, it is important that we live with images which remind us of the totems so that when we are able to interface with these animals, we know them.

So, I did this to open it to the public as a way of setting the record straight so that future generations could have a basis of improving on research, said Mr. Kabananukye.

With the fun that permeates the book, the author scours the ten clans, specific sub-clans, totems, taboos and rituals that some middle-aged Banyakigezi might have forgotten.

The history is told through sometimes sad, but interesting anecdotes, about the heroes and heroines of old. The book takes on a human aspect, by identifying some prominent Banyakigezi and their origins, which makes for a gem of information for future history scholars and avid readers.

For instance, young readers will be interested to realise the role of the woman in history. Every clan is said to have started with a woman. The Mugara clan, whose totem is the cattle egret (enyangi) holds oburunga (wreath) as taboo, and was started by a woman, Nyinarusyaba.

Through this, he reveals the legends behind the mythical Banyakigezi figures such as Rutoogoogo rwa Ncuro Omuheesi, Nyakairima ka Muzoora, Kahaya Rutindangyezi and several others, whose stories had been handed down through storytelling.

The book authored by Mr. Kabananukye is a result of five years of research and gives a rich narrative of what has shaped the identity of the people known as the Banyakigezi who have for decades inhabited the geographical spaces situated in the mountains and valleys of the area known as Kigezi in South Western Uganda.

The Inzu Ya Masaba cultural leader Umukukha Bob Mushikori says the clans in Uganda are each identified by an animal that helped prevent in breeding since marriage within clan was prohibited.

He added that the clan totemic symbols range from, planets, birds, wild animals, amphibians, reptiles and insects. Although the sun is not an animal, it has a clan and is regarded as a totem in the same sense as a lion.

The genesis of the Bamasaba [Bagisu] totemic system of identity seems obscure but some traced it to the biblical times while most point to African mythology, a subject that is still full of lacunae and unknown territory today.

The Permanent secretary Ministry of Gender, labour and social development Mr. Pius Bigirimana says totemism is a belief that there is a special, supernatural relationship between a human being and another thing, usually an animal, sometimes a plant or another natural phenomenon, such as a river or lightening which are also living or spirit beings.

It is believed that the strength and power of the totem-being flows into the human being protected by it so that the latters life is closely tied to his totem, without it he cannot prosper, said Mr Bigirimana.

The Archbishop Church of Uganda The Most Rev. Stanley Ntagali said those who embrace the biblical view argue that the progenitors of the Nilo-hamites interacted with the Semitic descendants who later produced the Hebrew breed that occupied some parts of ancient Egypt and later most regions of the Middle East.

They further urge that Jacob the father of the Hebrew family before dying described characteristically his 12 sons by the use of totems like water, lion, serpent, and horse among others.

In fact, it is here that the famous descendants of Judah got a lion as their totem, said Archbishop Ntagali.

The African mythologists believe that everyone is accompanied by his totem all the time, like a shadow, and when he transgresses against the laws of his totems taboo, it will punish him.

This belief explains the reason why many people abstain from wrongs whether alone or with others for fear of being punished, said Mr Kabananukye

The minister of Gender, Labour and Social Development Mrs Janat Mukwaya said no one is allowed to eat his totem animal or plant, since a totem belongs to a clan which comprises people who are related to each other through a common ancestor and that it was therefore inherited from ones father, and will continue to protect his children.

Totems can be compared to a national emblem or a logo that whenever you see the same the concerned country comes into your mind, said Mrs Mukwaya.

Mr Namangala Mwambu, a retired lawyer and the Inzu Ya Masaba deputy Prime Minister says people trust and believe that their totems cannot harm them unless they are wronged and that this strong bond between clan members and their totems is alien to a western thinking because westerners have lost the closeness to nature, the intimacy with the source of life itself.

About Totems

A totem is a being, object, or symbol representing an animal or plant that serves as an emblem of a group of people, such as a family, clan, group, lineage, or tribe, reminding them of their ancestry. In kinship and descent, if the apical ancestor of a clan is nonhuman, it is called a totem. Normally this belief is accompanied by a totemic myth. Totems have been around for years and they are usually in the shape of an animal, and every animal has a certain personality.

RelatedEmbed from Getty Images

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, crimes related to pimping and sex trafficking have more than tripled in 2018and police believe that the trend may be the result of the government shutdown of Backpage.com, which was notorious for sex-for-sale online classified ads.

Antonio Flores of the San Francisco Police Department's special victims and human trafficking unit told the newspaper, "A few sex workers are becoming violent. Then there are those that tend to prey on sex workers."

Pike Longdeputy director of St. James Infirmary, a peer-based health and safety clinic for sex workerstold the paper, "Without being able to advertise online, a huge number of sex workers were forced to go outside, and many have reported that former pimps came out of the woodwork offering to 'manage their business' again since they were now rendered unable to find and screen clients online."

Long said, "The very bill that was supposed to stop trafficking has quite literally given formerly irrelevant traffickers new life."Embed from Getty Images

A former Dunkin Donuts employeewho was fired for refusing to serve a Cleveland police officerreportedly returned to his former employment location with intentions to rob the store.

According to WKYC-TV News, 30-year-old Shontay Brown was arrested Monday by U.S. Marshals and Lakewood police after his alleged involvement in a robbery in the south western suburb of Cleveland.

In July, Newsweek reported that Brown refused to serve Cleveland Police Officer Frank Garmback, saying "I dont serve cops anyways," according to Newsweek.

Brown later claimed that the remark was a jokebut he was fired nonetheless.

U.S. Marshal Pete Elliott said, "The Lakewood Police Department is to be commended for their efforts on this investigation. The robbery happened over the weekend and by Monday, Brown was named the suspect and now behind bars to answer for his actions."A Will County (IL) Sheriff's deputy was saved by body armor Tuesday night when he was shot in the back while serving a warrant in Joliet. A second deputy was shot and grazed on the arm.

Two men have been charged in connection with the shooting, the Chicago Tribune reports.

The deputies were trying to break down the door of a building in the 200 block of Richard Street about 8:30 p.m. when they were shot. The deputies are both members of the sheriffs office gang suppression unit, Will County Sheriff Deputy Chief Dan Jungles said.North Carolina Highway Patrol Trooper Kevin Conner was shot and killed early Wednesday morning in Columbus County. (Photo: NC Highway Patrol)

A North Carolina Highway Patrol trooper was shot and killed early Wednesday morning at a traffic stop. A suspect is in custody.

The Highway Patrol says Trooper Kevin Conner stopped a white GMC pickup truck on US701 in Columbus County at approximately 12:15 Wednesday morning. The driver of the pickup reportedly pulled over onto the shoulder and the trooper made his initial approach. The driver of the pickup then fired several shots, striking the trooper.

After shooting the trooper, the driver fled the scene, traveling into Fair Bluff, the Highway Patrol says in a statement. Local police attempted to stop the vehicle and the driver fled, initiating a brief pursuit. The driver of the pickup then fled on foot after his vehicle became disabled while attempting to cross over a railroad crossing. After an extensive search, authorities located the suspected driver and placed him in custody without incident. He was transported to the Columbus County Jail by investigators.

Conner was an 11-year veteran of the Highway Patrol, assigned to Troop B, District 5 (Columbus County).

The Highway Patrol family is mourning the loss of a hero and will forever be changed by the tragic events that have occurred, said Colonel Glenn McNeill Jr., commander of the State Highway Patrol. We ask everyone to please keep Trooper Conners family and all who knew him in your thoughts and prayers.

The suspect has not been identified. Charges are pending a further investigation, the Highway Patrol says.Related Jordan reopens main border post with Syria after 3 years

The Syrian government has given approval for the U.N. to deliver aid next week to thousands of civilians stranded on the Jordanian-Syrian border and threatened with starvation, aid workers and camp officials said on Wednesday.

A siege this month by the Syrian army and a block on aid by Jordan has depleted food at the camp in the Rubkan area of southeast Syria. That has led to at least a dozen deaths in the past week among its more than 50,000 inhabitants, mainly women and children, residents and U.N. sources told Reuters.

Rukban lies inside a "deconfliction zone" set up by U.S. forces. Damascus says U.S. troops are occupying Syrian territory and providing a safe haven for rebels.

U.N. officials have contacted local staff in the camp to say they have received authorisation from Damascus to send an aid convoy on Oct. 25.

"The U.N. told us they would bring in aid ... they have promised many times in the past but every time they say we were not able to come because the (Syrian) regime did not allow us," said Oqba al Abdullah, a relief official in the camp.

"We hope this time it's true."

The U.N. children's agency UNICEF warned last week that without aid the lives of thousands of children in the camp were at risk.

U.N. officials have been pressing Moscow to get its ally Damascus to agree to the aid shipment, a senior U.N. source involved in the operation told Reuters.

In the last three years, tens of thousands of people have fled to the camp from Islamic State-held parts of Syria being targeted by Russian and U.S.-led coalition air strikes.

The Syrian army has tightened its siege of the camp, which is also near the Iraqi border, preventing smugglers and traders from delivering food.

Jordan agreed early this year to allow a one-off aid shipment but has said since it should not be held responsible as the camp is not on its territory and all future provisions must come from U.N. stores inside Syria.

The "deconfliction zone" is designed to shield U.S. troops at the Tanf garrison and maintain for Washington a strategic foothold in an area close to a crucial supply route for Iranian weapons entering Syria from Iraq.

U.S.-led coalition warplanes have several times struck Iranian-backed militias allied to Damascus, in what Washington has described as self-defence.

Senior Western diplomatic sources believe the siege of the camp is part of a Russian-led effort to put pressure on Washington to get out of Tanf.

U.S. marines conducted rare military exercises in the area last month.

Search Keywords:

Short link:

WARSAW, Poland, Oct. 17, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- For a 20-year term, Polish Oil and Gas Company (PGNiG) will receive liquefied natural gas from the USA for domestic customers or for resale. Under the agreements, PGNiG will purchase LNG on a free on board (FOB) basis starting from the commercial operation date of the Venture Global Calcasieu Pass LNG export facility, currently expected in 2022, and the commercial operation date of the Venture Global Plaquemines LNG export facility, currently expected in 2023.

The binding contracts were signed between Polish Oil and Gas Company (PGNiG) and two subsidiaries of Venture Global LNG  Venture Global Calcasieu Pass, LLC and Venture Global Plaquemines LNG, LLC. Both contracts are the result of an agreement concluded in June 2018 with Venture Global LNG.

"Recently signed contracts are a milestone towards building PGNiG's position in the global liquefied natural gas market," said Piotr Wozniak, President of the PGNiG Management Board. "Thanks to the FOB formula, we will be able to decide, independently and based on our needs at a given time, whether the purchased LNG load should be directed to Poland or be used for further trading through our London office," added President Wozniak.

"The contract conditions in the USA are very attractive. The LNG price is based on the American Henry Hub index along with liquefaction costs," stated Maciej Wozniak, Vice-President of the PGNiG Management Board for Trade. "These are the first long-term contracts for purchase of LNG from the US announced in Central Europe," he underscored.

Mike Sabel and Bob Pender, co-CEOs of Venture Global LNG, jointly announced: "We are honoured to become a partner of both Poland and of PGNiG, one of Europe's most important international oil and gas companies. We are greatly looking forward to developing a long-term supply relationship with PGNiG, who will be joining our existing, high quality partners: Shell, Edison SpA, Galp, BP and Repsol."

The new contracts will provide a total of 2 MTPA of LNG, which is approximately 2.7 billion m of natural gas after regasification, and this equals  depending on the vessel capacity  over 25 cargoes a year. For a term of 20 years, PGNiG will purchase from each of the companies 1 MTPA of LNG every year on a FOB (free on board) basis, where the seller will deliver LNG to a tanker ship at the loading port and the purchaser will freely dispose of the load, including deciding on the cargo destination.

About PGNiG

Polish Oil and Gas Company (PGNiG) is the leader of the Polish natural gas market. Listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange the company's core business includes exploration and production of natural gas and crude oil. Its key subsidiaries import, store, sell and distribute gaseous and liquid fuels. They also generate heat and electricity. PGNiG holds stake in about 30 companies including entities that provide professional geophysical, drilling and maintenance services. PGNiG holds exploration and production licenses on the Norwegian Continental Shelf and in Pakistan. The exploration and production activity in Norway is carried out by PGNiG Upstream Norway. While Munich-based PGNiG Supply & Trading is engaged in gas trading in Western Europe, also operating the LNG trading office in London. More can be found at www.pgnig.pl.

About Venture Global LNG

Venture Global LNG is a long-term, low-cost provider of LNG to be supplied from resource rich, low cost, North American natural gas basins. Venture Global LNG's liquefaction process system will employ a highly efficient and reliable suite of products supplied by GE Oil & Gas, LLC, part of Baker Hughes, a GE company (BHGE). Venture Global LNG is developing both the 10 MTPA Venture Global Calcasieu Pass facility (on an approximately 1,000-acre site located at the intersection of the Calcasieu Ship Channel and the Gulf of Mexico) and the 20 MTPA Venture Global Plaquemines LNG facility (on an approximately 630-acre site in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, 30 miles south of New Orleans on the Mississippi River). Venture Global has raised $630 million of capital to-date to support the development of its projects. More can be found at www.venturegloballng.com.

Related Links

https://www.venturegloballng.com



SOURCE Venture Global LNGHangzhou, a beautiful city in China, hosted the G20 Summit in 2016. From October 20 th to 22 nd in 2018, the 5th China (Hangzhou) International E-Commerce Expo will be held in the same exhibition hall, Hangzhou International Expo Center. The expo is divided into a series of exciting events such as the theme conference, the industry forum, the six exhibition halls, and the e-commerce celebration day. It is expected to receive more than 100,000 people to participate in the exhibition.

The expo is committed to creating an international e-commerce center and a central city for international consumption. Focusing on topics such as the digital economy and new retail, the expo will carry out the deep integration of the digital economy with imports and consumption. The theme of the expo is new retail, new business new consumption. Through demonstration, experience-sharing and other means, the expo will host discussions of the transformation of traditional business and the upgrading of market consumption, promote the development of the e-commerce and retail industry, and build an effective e-commerce public service platform to connect resources at home and abroad.

'EBE China' is a brand new image of this expo. In the future, this expo can play a more important role on the global stage. The Expo will be divided into three sections: forum, exhibition and conference. It is expected to have an exhibition area of 30,000m2 and 1,000 booths. It will invite 100 domestic and international industry experts, 200 well-known e-commerce and retail enterprises, and 500 retail companies. The Expo will be a new milestone that has never been seen before. To see the future opportunities of e-commerce in Hangzhou, China in October.

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/770501/EBE_China.jpg

SOURCE EBE ChinaHSINCHU, Taiwan and WUHAN, China, Oct. 16, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- JHL Biotech announced that the National Medical Products Administration of the PRC (NMPA) has approved JHL's Phase I and Phase III Clinical Trial Application for a proposed bevacizumab biosimilar, JHL1149, to treat several forms of cancer, including advanced non-squamous non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), metastatic colorectal cancer, metastatic kidney cancer, advanced cervical cancer and recurrent ovarian cancer.

Racho Jordanov, JHL Biotech, Co-Chairman and CEO stated, "We are very excited for our second biosimilar to be approved for clinical trials by the NMPA. This marks the second NMPA approval we have received in just four months and puts us another step closer to our vision of manufacturing biologics of the highest quality from China for the world."

About JHL Biotech

JHL Biotech, Inc. is a biopharmaceutical company founded by a group of industry veterans with deep experience in biologics development and operations. With a mission to provide the world with affordable medicines of exceptional quality, the company is focused on research and development of new protein-based therapies and biosimilars and providing contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) services to global pharmaceutical clients. JHL Biotech is uniquely positioned to be a leading global supplier of high quality biologics because of its experienced leadership team, ongoing global clinical trials for its pipeline of biosimilar candidates, and two Asia-based world-class biologics manufacturing facilities built in accordance with United States, European Union, and ICH cGMP regulations and standards. JHL Biotech is backed by premier financial firms, including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Sequoia Capital, Biomark Capital, Milestone Capital, Fidelity and the China Development Industrial Bank. For more information, please visit www.jhlbiotech.com.

Media Contact:

Amber Chen | Email: [email protected] | Phone: +886 3-658-3899

Lee Henely | Email: [email protected] | Phone: +886 3-658-3899

Forward-Looking Statement

This press release contains forward-looking statements, which are generally statements that are not historical facts. Forward-looking statements can be identified by the words "expects," "anticipates," "believes," "intends," "estimates," "plans," "will," "outlook" and similar expressions. Forward-looking statements are based on management's current plans, estimates, assumptions and projections, and speak only as of the date they are made. JHL undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statement in light of new information or future events, except as otherwise required by law. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties, most of which are difficult to predict and are generally beyond the control of either company. Actual results or outcomes may differ materially from those implied by the forward-looking statements.

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/333015/jhl_Logo.jpg

Related Links

http://www.jhlbiotech.com



SOURCE JHL Biotech, Inc.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:US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday after talks in Ankara that Washington may now lift sanctions imposed on Turkey during the dispute over its detention of an American pastor.

"We'll have a decision on that shortly but some of the sanctions that were put in place were directly connected to Pastor Brunson and there's a logic to now removing those as well," Pompeo told reporters as his plane refuelled in Belgium.

President Donald Trump's administration imposed sanctions targeting Turkish Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gul and Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu in response to Turkey's arrest and prosecution of US pastor Andrew Brunson on terror charges.

In all, Brunson was held for two years and was convicted and sentenced earlier this month of espionage and aiding terror groups, only to be quickly released on the basis of good behaviour and time served.

Trump hailed the release, which has been seen as a opening for Ankara and Washington to restore frayed ties, including with Pompeo, who met President Recep Tayyip Erdogan earlier Wednesday.

In Ankara, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu did not address the issue of the Brunson-related sanctions directly, but declared that any such US measures were "nonsense".

"We agree that in our relations, there should be no sanctions like this and other issues," he said. "As long as there are sanctions, relations can go nowhere."

Search Keywords:

Short link:

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...Against a backdrop of growing threats of Israeli strikes against Gaza, Cairo is expanding its mediation efforts in the hope of securing a two-year ceasefire

Egyptian mediators are consulting with the Israelis and Hamas leaders in Gaza in the hope of concluding a deal that informed officials say has been tantalisingly close for the last 12 weeks.

The delay, say Egyptian sources, is mainly a result of Hamas reluctance to solidly commit to some of Israels security demands.

The consultations are expected to intensify, and be conducted at a higher level than previously, in an attempt to head off strikes threatened by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Official sources in Cairo say Egypt, Israel and the US agreed to the importance of securing a relatively solid and sustainable ceasefire between Israel and Hamas during talks that President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi held on the sidelines of last months United Nations General Assembly in New York.

The aim, they add, is not just to avert a new Israel war on an already devastated Gaza but to halt any further deterioration in the humanitarian situation in the overpopulated and impoverished Strip.

Avoiding an explosion in Gaza over stifling living conditions is essential to the interests of both Egypt and Israel, say the sources, and a ceasefire, tried and tested for a few months, is a prerequisite for the launch of any Gaza economic development plan.

We have managed to secure a level of restraint from both sides during the past few weeks but this ceasefire will remain vulnerable in the absence of a full deal between Hamas and Israel, said a well-informed Egyptian source.

We made it clear to the Palestinian Authority and Hamas that we are not willing to see an explosion in Gaza and we are worried that in the absence of a reliable ceasefire to allow for the start of economic reconstruction anything could happen.

Egypt was close to concluding a ceasefire last month but the deal was scuppered by last minute doubts by Hamas over some of the security commitments it had earlier agreed, and by Israeli concerns that reaching a deal with Hamas apart from the Palestinian Authority (PA) could be portrayed domestically as tantamount to official Israeli recognition of Hamas.

Informed regional diplomats say Israel is now willing to move ahead with an unsigned deal with Hamas, brokered by Egypt, under which Cairo will directly monitor Hamas compliance.

Cairo-based European diplomats say Israel is hoping a pre-Palestinian reconciliation ceasefire will pressure the PA into ending its stalling over the reconciliation plans between Hamas in Gaza and the PA in Ramallah that Egypt has put forward.

Speaking from Ramallah by phone a PA source, who had earlier insisted the ceasefire would not change the position of the PA which has refused any deal that does not bring Gaza back under its authority, this week said the PA might be open to some elements of the reconciliation draft provided they ensure Hamas does not enjoy any unilateral administrative prerogatives in Gaza.

Hamas sources have said repeatedly that they would rather work in parallel on the ceasefire and reconciliation tracks but warned that if the PA is hoping for a situation that overlooks Hamas role in Gaza, or Israel is hoping for a ceasefire in return for limited, conditional improvements in humanitarian conditions in the Strip, then no deals would be reached on either path.

In the words of one Hamas leader: We dont want a war with Israel, and we want to end the current Palestinian divide, but the other sides have to be reasonable.

Cairo officials say they are growing impatient with PA stalling and Hamas equivocation over the reconciliation and ceasefire deals and are sending clear messages to Gaza and Ramallah that their patience is wearing thin.

The same officials warn that if a ceasefire is not concluded in the next couple of weeks there are no guarantees against a sudden deterioration in the situation. While that does not mean an all-out Israeli war on Gaza, it certainly threatens an escalation in Israeli strikes.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 18 October, 2018 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: Ceasefire deliberations

Search Keywords:

Short link:

Crimean Deputy PM arrested in Moscow on suspicion of corruption



14:39 17/10/2018

MOSCOW, October 17 (RAPSI) - Vice prime minister of Crimea Vitaly Nakhlupin has been arrested in Moscow on suspicion of taking bribes, the press service of the republics government has told RAPSI.

According to Deputy Chairman of Crimean Council of Ministers Igor Mikhailichenko, investigative activities in the case are underway now.

Investigation is ongoing into other officials of the region, Crimean leader Sergey Aksenov wrote on his Facebook page. According to the republics head, investigative actions are conducted in the committee on road industry and competition policy, highway service and in Crimeagasseti and Krymenergo companies.

The companies are cooperating with investigators, Aksenov added.Attorneys seek to return embezzlement case against Serebrennikov to prosecutors

 RIA Novosti, Valery Melnikov

13:59 17/10/2018

MOSCOW, October 17 (RAPSI)  Defense lawyers for the Gogol Center theater director Kirill Serebrennikov charged with embezzlement have asked the Meshchansky District Court of Moscow to return the case to prosecutors, RAPSI correspondent reports from the courtroom.

According to the defense, the indictment contains several procedural violations. Attorney Renata Litvina told RAPSI that this position is shared by lawyers of all defendants.

On October 2, Russias Prosecutor Generals Office announced that indictment was approved, and the embezzlement case involving Serebrennikov was forwarded to court for hearing.

Serebrennikov was arrested in late August 2017 and then placed under house arrest. In early November, Moscows Basmanny District Court seized assets belonging to Serebrennikov including apartment, car, and money in the amount of more than 360,000 rubles ($5,300), over 60,000, and $4,000.

Investigators believe that he was an organizer of the budget money embezzlement. He allegedly created Seventh Studio stage company to actualize the Platforma project for promotion of art and called alleged accomplices into the organization. He pleaded not guilty.

Other defendants in the case are ex-head of Seventh Studio stage company Yury Itin, ex-general producer Alexey Malobrodsky, and former Seventh Studio chief accountant Nina Maslyayeva, ex-official of Russias Culture Ministry and current director of the Russian Academic Youth Theater Sophia Apfelbaum. Producer Yekaterina Voronova, has been put on the international wanted list and arrested in absentia as part of the case.

According to investigation, the defendants have embezzled 133 million rubles ($2 million) of 214 million rubles ($3.2 million) allocated from the budget to Seventh Studio for promotion of Russian contemporary art.

Investigators claim that Itin, Malobrodsky, and Maslyayeva were falsifying data for the Platforma projects plans in 2011-2014 on the theater directors request. This data was provided to the Ministry of Culture as the rationale for financing from the state budget.

Maslyayeva has testified against Serebrennikov. She said that Serebrennikov, Malobrodsky and Itin organized embezzlement of money allocated for a cultural event. Serebrennikov and Malobrodsky cashed the money with the assistance of Maslyayeva. The woman also said that she entered falsified data in financial reports.

Apfelbaum, according to investigators, signed contracts on state grants in the amount of more than 214 million rubles with Serebrennikovs stage company on behalf of the Russian Culture Ministry, and provided further agreement of received reporting documents, which contained overstated information on quantity and cost of the held events, thus abetting the embezzlement.

Apfelbaum admitted that she controlled the movement of cash but denied involvement in the crime.Ulmart Internet retailers shareholder declared bankrupt

 ulmart.ru

17:00 17/10/2018

MOSCOW, October 17 (RAPSI)  The Commercial Court of St. Petersburg and Leningrad Region has declared a shareholder of Russian e-giant Ulmart Mikhail Vasinkevich bankrupt, according to court records.

A bankruptcy petition against Vasinkevich was filed in January by the retailers co-owner Dmitry Kostygin.

Kostygin in the meantime stands charged with large-scale credit fraud. According to case papers, the businessman acting as the Board Chairman of Ulmart provided false information on the companys financial position to Sberbank for signing a loan agreement. In April, Sberbank transferred 1 billion rubles ($17.3 million at the current exchange rate) to the companys account. The accused allegedly managed the money in his discretion.

The businessman pleaded not guilty, his lawyer Konstantin Dobrynin told RAPSI earlier.

Ulmart group of companies is the largest Russian private Internet holding focusing on e-commerce segment. The companys distribution network consists of over 400 sales outlets across more than 240 Russian cities and towns.Ukrainian prosecutors press investigators in Vyshinsky case  Russian ombudsman

 RAPSI, Lyudmila Klenko

12:59 17/10/2018

MOSCOW, October 17 (RAPSI) - Ukrainian prosecutors are bringing pressure on investigators in a treason case against journalist Kirill Vyshinsky by speculating on his possible sentence, according to the press service of Russian ombudsman Tatiana Moskalkova.

The Ukrainian Prosecutor Generals Office said that a prosecutor would demand a 12-year prison term for the Russian journalist, the statement reads. It is inadmissible that an opinion on the possible sentence is outspoken when investigation is still ongoing; such behavior should be regarded as putting pressure on investigators, the press service quoted Moskalkova as saying.

Russias Human Rights Commissioner believes that the case against Vyshinsky and his detention are illegal and unjustified. She has repeatedly requested international organizations including UN, Council of Europe and Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to speak in defense of the Russian journalist.

President Vladimir Putin earlier said that Vyshinsky was arrested and then detained for his professional journalistic activities. That is unprecedented and inadmissible policy of Ukrainian authorities, he stated.President Donald Trump said Wednesday he did not want to walk away from Saudi Arabia over the disappearance and alleged killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, arguing the US relies on the kingdom in the fight against terrorism.

Asked during an interview on Fox Business what action he had in mind for Riyadh if he learned it was responsible, Trump said: "Well, I hope we're going to be on the better side of the equation."

"You know we need Saudi Arabia in terms of our fight against all of the terrorism, everything that's happening in Iran and other places."

Asked if the US would not then walk away from Saudi Arabia, he said: "I do not want to do that and frankly they have a tremendous order, $110 billion." The reference was to promised US arms sales to the kingdom.

Search Keywords:

Short link:

'Modi's power rests on the Hindu vote.'

'It is this vote bank that sees the Supreme Court verdict on Sabarimala as an intrusion into its religious practice and is frothing at the mouth.'

'History shows us the ill-fated consequences of a strong government buckling before street power,' cautions Saisuresh Sivaswamy.

IMAGE: Ayyappa devotees protest against the Supreme Court order allowing the entry of women into the Sabarimala temple in Ahmedabad, October 14, 2018. Photograph: Santosh Hirlekar/PTI Photo

For those of us who have witnessed, and lived through the consequences, of the disastrous enactment of the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act 1986, the last few weeks since the Supreme Court's path-breaking verdict on allowing women of all ages into Sabarimala temple, cannot have been pleasant.

It may be a coincidence that the last two full-majority governments in India have been buffeted by a judicial verdict, but the reactions to the latest court ruling mirroring the ones more than three decades ago cannot be a coincidence.

There's a template that has been followed before.

To rewind a bit for those who came in late. The Rajiv Gandhi government of the late 1980s was well ensconced in office, on the back of a brute majority of 400+ in the Lok Sabha, when along came a Supreme Court verdict in the matter of a Muslim woman seeking maintenance from her husband who divorced and abandoned her after paying her the Sharia-mandated maintenance.

The Supreme Court bench found merit in her suit and upheld Shah Bano's claim for maintenance beyond that mandated by the Sharia, and for good measure made some observations on the government's failure to enact a Uniform Civil Code as prescribed in the Directive Principles of the Constitution.

For the Muslim orthodoxy, this was a direct interference in their faith.

And they protested in the only way they could, by coming out on the streets in lakhs.

For a government with a never before or never after seen majority, this should pose no worry. Democracy, after all, incorporates safety valves like the right to protest peacefully.

But despite the fact was that he may have been the prime minister non-pareil, Rajiv Gandhi was only a first-timer in office (and a second-timer in the Lok Sabha), hence easily rattled, and having virtually nil political experience relied on power-brokers and such for advice.

The fact also was that the Congress party's power base rested on three legs: The Muslims, the SC/STs and the forward castes.

Since Independence the Muslims were always in the Congress corner, for among others it promised them a version of secularism that was acceptable to the minorities (like non-interference in religious affairs).

It was this base that was now under threat, after Muslim leader after leader railed and ranted against the Supreme Court verdict.

Since the Muslim community did not have a secular leadership but its own clergy who doubled up as intermediaries and spokespersons, the 'Islam in danger' line was easily sold and bought.

As the Muslim vote seemed primed for revolt Rajiv Gandhi buckled and brought in the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act 1986, restoring the status quo ante.

Then came the cruel twist.

The catapulting before Muslim orthodoxy, and the ugly spectacle of using the legislative route to overturn a judicial verdict, did not go well with the Hindu voters of the Congress party. And in order to assuage them the Rajiv Gandhi government pulled a rabbit out of its hat.

An old mosque that lay under lock and in disuse in Ayodhya following years of litigation by some Hindus claiming it as the birthplace of Lord Ram thus saw its doors reopened and Hindus being allowed to worship at the Janmasthan.

And India has never been the same again.

The Bharatiya Janata Party, with a measly two members in the Lok Sabha, saw its moment of glory in Ayodhya and quickly rode the mandir versus masjid train to where today, it is only the second government after Rajiv Gandhi's to secure a majority on its own.

The intervening 30 years have seen the masjid razed by the lumpen, communal riots, Hindu-Muslim relations plummeting, bomb blasts, in short the societal fabric torn asunder like never before since Partition.

Who would have thought of this grim denouement when a destitute woman knocked on the doors of the Supreme Court all those years ago!

Narrating the above is not only to highlight the dangers of overturning a judicial verdict but also to point out that even the strongest government becomes a deer in headlights when its voter base comes out on the streets in anger.

The Supreme Court verdict on Sabarimala brings together this combustive combination -- of court verdict angering the vote bank -- once again, this time with the Hindu community, and is a cause for alarm.

There have been demands by Hindus on the Narendra Modi government to overturn the verdict like it was done 32 years ago for Muslims, and if the government has been non-committal so far it is only because it doesn't have the numbers that Rajiv Gandhi had to bulldoze virtually anything through Parliament.

If the government does decide to yield to pressure and brings in a bill in the winter session of Parliament, it is anyone's guess what the Congress party, given its new-found sense of Hindu-ness, will do.

If push does come to shove, Rahul Gandhi will do well to hark back to what his father did and the disastrous consequences flowing from it, least of which was the decimation of the Congress party itself.

It is illuminating to consider that more Muslim women than Hindu have come out on the streets to protest the criminalisation of instant talaq, but neither was it covered to any great extent in the mainstream media nor was the government unduly worried -- because Muslims were not, are not, and will not be the BJP's votebank.

So it could trot out the line that it was merely respecting the Supreme Court verdict by enacting a law banning the practice.

But the same respect for judicial pronouncements is now under threat.

For Narendra Modi is in office primarily because he has, for the first time, broken the unspoken rule that the Muslim vote was a sine qua non to form a government in New Delhi. His power rests on the Hindu vote.

It is this vote bank that sees the Supreme Court verdict on Sabarimala as an intrusion into its religious practice and is frothing at the mouth.

History shows us the ill-fated consequences of a strong government buckling before street power. Will the Modi government, too, go the same way, to a similar denouement?'The first time a ban on women aged between 10 and 50 entering Sabarimala came was in 1991 and was by a high court judgment.'

'So, it is only a 27-year-old ban.'

'The high court can fix customs and the Supreme Court can overturn it.'

'I don't see this as an attack on religious freedom or the practice of a religion.'

It appears the Sabarimala controversy will not end anytime soon.

Retired IAS officer and the well-known Malayalam writer, N S Madhavan, through a series of tweets supported the Supreme Court decision allowing women between the ages of 10 and 50 to go to the Sabarimala temple.

"Ayyappa's importance, unlike any other Hindu temple in Kerala, was that all castes could go there. But in the last 30 years, these people (the upper castes) are completely destroying this," Madhavan, below, tells Rediff.com's Shobha Warrier.

Do you think thousands of women coming onto the streets to protest against the Supreme Court order is a spontaneous one? Or, is it orchestrated by political parties?

I don't think it is spontaneous because the women who are coming out are conservative and they have not done any political activities so far.

I think this has happened only because of a bit of prodding, mainly by organisations such as the NSS (Nair Service Society) and similar community-based organisations. But these women are genuinely anti-Supreme Court judgment.

Were you surprised by the number?

It wasn't a surprise. But if you look at the protest rallies, you will see that geographically, it starts in the south and ends in Ernakulam. These are the areas where the NSS has a good hold over its members.

If the CPI-M wants to organise such rallies tomorrow, they can also do the same thing. They have the mechanism to organise such rallies.

You said the rallies are confined to southern Kerala. Does that mean Kerala society is divided over this issue?

Not geographically, but community-wise, yes.

You mean the upper castes and the rest of Kerala?

Yes, if you look at the protests, you will see that there is only one organisation that is behind it, which is the NSS.

The other major Hindu organisation in Kerala which is much bigger than the NSS is the SNDP (Sree Dharma Paripalana Yogam). It is the representative of the Ezhavas, but they are not with the agitation.

Thushar Vellapally, SNDP leader Vellapally Natesan's son, supports the protests and has spoken against the Supreme Court verdict. Of course, his father is on the other side...

I think the father and son are playing a political game like Akhilesh Yadav and Mulayam. I see a kind of adjustment between the father and son.

The SNDP is controlled by Vellapally and it is not with the protests. In fact, they are angry at the upper caste outrage.

The whole narrative is being taken over by the upper castes like the Pandalam family, the priests or the thantri family and the NSS.

The Pulaya Mahasabha representing the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes is also quite a sizeable number but against the protests.

So, the division is not geographical, but on a community basis.

Sabarimala is described as one temple that is beyond caste, creed and religion. People from all religions and castes go there to worship...

It is true that people from all castes and creeds used to worship there, but the customs are all decided by the coteries belonging to the upper castes.

The first time a ban on women aged between 10 and 50 entering Sabarimala came was in 1991 and was by a high court judgment. So, it is only a 27-year-old ban.

Before that, women used to go and take the steps behind the Sabarimala temple, and not the 18 steps (pathinettam padi). Neither the thantri nor the Devaswom Board had any problem with it then.

It was the high court judge who ordered the ban, which has no meaning. So, overturning this judgment was not overturning a custom.

Should the courts be deciding religious issues and customs?

I would say it is not a religious issue. It is a social issue. The person who is supposed to look after the customs is the thantri of the temple.

If you look at the temple entry agitation at Vaikom, the thantri did not allow Gandhiji inside his house.

So, when the customs are arbitrarily decided without the force of law, and when they are not religious customs, they can certainly be overturned by the court.

What is followed at Sabarimala is not there in any other Ayyappa temple or any other Hindu temple in Kerala. So, it is just one temple in Kerala that is following a custom. Should people be so concerned by this?

Those who are concerned are the women who are not permitted to go there and they have every right to feel that way. It is against the Constitution too.

So, it is discriminatory?

Yes, it is discriminatory and it has no divine sanction! You don't find this in any of the Hindu scriptures.

The origin of not allowing women between the age group 10 to 50 in Sabarimala is based on the 1991 high court judgment.

The high court can fix customs and the Supreme Court can overturn it.

I don't see this as an attack on religious freedom or the practice of a religion. It is actually bringing back normalcy to a skewed situation.

You had tweeted that this is not just a gender issue because you saw an upper caste narrative in this. Do you feel the upper castes make decisions on various customs are practices?

Yes, that is the reason.

You take the Travancore Devaswom Board. It has 5,000 employees out of which 90% are Nairs. They are the people who speak of various customs in Sabarimala.

But the story is that when he was young, Ayyappa went to an Ezhava family in Cheerappanchira near Cherthala, stayed with them and studied kalaripayattu.

This Cheerappanchira family was enjoying the right for vedi vazhipadu. This fetched a lot of income to the family, but this was changed and made it into an open auction so that the money went to the Devaswom Board.

Second is the Makara Vilakku. That was always lit by the tribals called Malaya Pandarams. The Devaswom Board took this right from them and they are directly doing it now.

Ayyappa's importance, unlike any other Hindu temple in Kerala, was that all castes could go there. But in the last 30 years, these people are completely destroying this.

You mean, the upper castes have taken over the temple?

Yes.

What kind of political and social impact this will have on Kerala society?

I don't see any impact on Kerala society. I see it as a political game.

The main thing is the Nair vote bank of some areas in Trivandrum and in and around Pathanamthitta, Chengannur, etc has been going to the BJP in the last 10 to 15 years. So, it is actually a fight between the BJP and the Congress to win them.

I think the people of Kerala are intelligent enough to understand this narrow political game. There will not be any mass movement.

Some people say this issue will unite all the Hindus of Kerala who have been fragmented till now. Do you see anything of that sort happening?

This issue has actually disunited them because after a long time, you are seeing upper caste assertion in Kerala.

The Sabarimala issue is actually dividing Hindu society and not uniting them.

Is it not unfortunate?

Very, very. The caste organisations should have left the choice to the people concerned.

The NSS has gone for a review petition. Why should they again fight on the streets?

There are liquor shops in Kerala and any woman above the age of 21 can go there, but nobody goes there.

Similarly, the choice to go to Sabarimala should be with the women and nobody else.'Because of the Supreme Court judgment, I am being denied my freedom of religion.'

IMAGE: Devotees, mostly women, take part in the namajapa (chanting the name of Lord Ayyappa) march against the Supreme Court verdict on the entry of women of all ages into the Sabarimala temple, in Ernakulam. Photograph: PTI Photo

Shylaja Vijayan, president, National Ayyappa Devotees Association, has filed a review petition in the Supreme Court through her advocate Mathew Nedumpara, seeking to reinstate the ban on entry of women of menstruating age into the Sabarimala temple.

As women in south Kerala protest against the Supreme Court decision, Vijayan tells Rediff.com's Syed Firdaus Ashraf why she disagrees with the court ruling.

I have filed a review petition urging the Supreme Court not to allow women (of all age groups) inside the Sabarimala temple because the voice of devotees is not being heard.

The original petitioners were not devotees of Lord Ayyappa and, therefore, I felt that I must intervene.

The first petition was filed by the Young Indian Lawyers Association, quoting an article by journalist Barkha Dutt, on why they want women of all age groups to enter Sabarimala.

Barkha Dutt wrote in her article that women of all age groups are not allowed in the temple. None of the petitioners (who won the case) was an Ayyappa devotee. They were from Punjab.

Article 32 of the Constitution says any citizen can approach the Supreme Court against the violation of their Fundamental Rights.

The women who went to the Supreme Court never said they were devotees of Lord Ayyappa. So being a devotee, my Fundamental Right is being snatched away because of these women.

This is what Justice Indu Malhotra highlighted in her dissenting verdict. But because of the Supreme Court judgment, I am being denied my freedom of religion.

Since childhood, I have been a devotee of Lord Ayyappa. Next year I will turn 50 and then I will enter the Sabarimala temple, according to traditional rules.

You may call it stupid, but I believe Lord Ayyappa wants to meet people like him, or those who have taken penance.

I have been to all other Ayyappa temples, but only in Sabarimala temple are women of all age groups not allowed and I don't see any problem with that.

Lord Ayyappa is a brahmachari (celibate). He lives in seclusion and does not want women (of all age groups) to visit him. This is the belief of millions of devotees.

My parents are from Kottayam, which is thickly populated by Ayyappa devotees.

In our day-to-day life, the values and rituals of the temple are placed very highly.

This is ingrained in our mind from childhood.

We have been brought up with these values that women cannot enter the Sabarimala temple. One fine day, you cannot get up and say we have to delete such thoughts from our mind.

If this verdict prevails, what are we going to teach our future generation? What values will we teach our children?

Our opponents say the Constitution teaches all citizens to have a scientific approach life. I want to ask them: Why do we have voting rights only for adults? Is there any logic behind it? No.

Now millions of devotees have come across in my support and I am happy about it.

Vijayan evaded a reply when asked if the Supreme Court abolishing triple talaq was not a denial of the right to religion.

"When you go to a doctor he gives you medicine and tells you to take it three times a day. You cannot gulp it all in one go. If you do you will die," Vijayan said without elaborating.

Asked if societies evolve with time or not, she said, "There are much more important issues to be addressed in Indian society."

"There are lakhs of women who are homeless, lakhs of them suffer from sexual violence, lakhs of them also suffer from domestic violence. What is society doing about that? Nothing."

"The women who want to enter the Sabarimala temple must find out what the state of women in India is and how they live rather than going after this case."

"Women entering Sabarimala," she said, "will disturb the mental peace of devotees."With concern over his disappearance giving way to presumptions he was murdered, the case of Jamal Khashoggi may see a breach open between Riyadh and the West, writes Manal Lotfy in London

It is undoubtedly one of the toughest foreign policy challenges the West has faced recently. How to balance moral outrage in the light of the disappearance and presumed killing of the self-exiled Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi with cold political realities and calculations.

The circumstances of the disappearance and presumed killing may not be fully known, the in-depth investigation yet to begin, but what is at stake cannot be higher for the West and for the region.

On Tuesday, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet demanded that Saudi Arabia and Turkey reveal all that they know about the case.

She said the diplomatic inviolability of the consulate and the diplomatic immunity of officials should be waived during the investigation.

The Khashoggi family in Saudi Arabia issued a statement calling for an independent and impartial international commission.

Washington and major European capitals are in contact to coordinate a joint statement when the picture is clearer.

They have to act delicately and in secret more than in public. Any move will have consequences.

It is particularly tough for the US administration. US President Donald Trump prioritised relations with Riyadh and he is under mounting pressure to act after a bipartisan group of senators triggered global Magnitsky Act sanctions procedures last week.

Bob Corker, the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was the man behind the bipartisan letter invoking a 2016 law to order a human rights investigation into Khashoggis disappearance and presumed killing.

The Magnitsky legislation forces Trump to determine whether any country or individual responsible for the writers disappearance should be held accountable.

Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, another Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, argued for accountability if it proves true that Saudi operatives went medieval on Khashoggi.

I believe the Trump administration will do something. The president has said that, Rubio said on CNNs State of the Union on Sunday.

But, if he doesnt, Congress will. That I can tell you with 100 per cent certainty. With almost full unanimity, across the board, Republicans and Democrats, there will be a very strong congressional response, Senator Rubio said.

Another Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Jeff Flake was even more assertive. On ABCs This Week, he expressed outrage. I do think that arms sales will be affected, also emphasising that US support for the war in Yemen could also be at risk.

The arms sales have already been held for some time. The defence contractor thats most interested in the most current [deal] was in my office two weeks ago before this happened, and I said, Look, do not push this. If it came to a vote today in the Senate, it would fail, he said.

Lindsey Graham, a prominent Republican senator, promised hell to pay if the allegations are true.

For Trump, any US reactions should avoid hindering a nearly $110 billion defence deal that he proudly pointed at privately and in the media as a great achievement. He called it the largest order ever made and said it would support 450,000 jobs domestically.

Thats a tremendous order for our companies. Its a tremendous order, really from an economic development standpoint, he said.

However, the arms deal still must overcome opposition within the Senate, where Bob Menendez (New Jersey), the top-ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, has put a hold on the transaction.

Trump has suggested rogue killers could be behind the disappearance and presumed killing of Mr Khashoggi in Turkey 2 October.

Speaking to reporters after a phone call with King Salman, he said the Saudi leader had firmly denied knowing what had happened to Khashoggi.

On Saturday, shortly after vowing to hand out a severe punishment as a response to the incident, Trump said he wants to preserve the $110 billion arms deal as Russia and China would rush in to sell their own armaments, potentially costing domestic jobs.

Its the best equipment in the world but if they dont buy it from us, theyre going to buy it from Russia or theyre going to buy it from China or theyre going to buy it from other countries.

Russia and China wanted it very badly, Trump said.

In terms of the order of $110 billion  think of that, $110 billion  all theyre going to do is give it to other countries and I think that would be very foolish of our country, he added.

Trump said other measures can be implemented as punishment.

There are other things that we can do that would be very severe, he said, adding that he would be meeting with his foreign policy and national security advisers to discuss the options.

The signs are Trump will do very little in this regard, leaving Congress to take the lead. If Democrats were to retake the House in Novembers midterm elections, it is very plausible that they will act more decisively in the months ahead.

And if Trump is hesitant to give up the arm deals over Jamal Khashoggis disappearance and presumed killing, Europe is not forthcoming either.

The European Union has joined calls for a transparent investigation.

EU Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini briefed reporters after a meeting of the 28 foreign ministers.

There was full consensus around the table on the fact that we expect transparency, we expect full clarity from investigations to be done by the Saudi authorities, together and in full co-operation with the Turkish authorities, she said.

Britain, France and Germany issued a joint statement emphasising that they were treating the case with the utmost seriousness.

The foreign ministers of the three countries demanded an investigation into Khashoggis disappearance and called for a detailed response from Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

There needs to be a credible investigation to establish the truth about what happened, and  if relevant  to identify those bearing responsibility for the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi, and ensure that they are held to account, the foreign ministers said in the joint statement.

However, one major element was missing from the joint statement that is the mention of potential actions the countries might take.

The three major European countries have not gone beyond casual remarks.

The economic factors are easy to see.

The total goods exports from the UK to Saudi Arabia in 2017 were worth about 4.2 billion, an increase of 120 per cent compared with 10 years earlier.

And in the first six months of 2017, Britain sold Riyadh military equipment worth about $1.4 billion, with thousands of British jobs dependent on the sales.

France is the second biggest exporter after Britain, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

UK Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt came under attack from Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry, who criticised the UKs response to Khashoggis disappearance and presumed killing.

The Labour MP said there had been nothing but pusillanimous mutterings from Hunt over the disappearance.

Theyre playing catch-up with Donald Trump when it comes to condemnation of this and actually taking action and being prepared to stand firm, she said.

While US pressure on Trump has been bipartisan, in Europe, calls for accountability have mostly come from opposition parties.

German Chancellor Angela Merkels spokesman said the Khashoggi case and German exports to Riyadh were two unrelated things.

Nonetheless, several high-profile speakers and sponsors have pulled out of the Future Investment Initiative Conference in Riyadh later this month.

The withdrawals from the event, dubbed Davos in the Desert, including Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, Bill Ford, chairman of Ford Motor Company, Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO of Uber, Lynn Forester de Rothschild, CEO of EL Rothschild, Arianna Huffington, founder of Thrive Global, Larry Fink, chairman and CEO of BlackRock Inc, Stephen Schwarzman, CEO of Blackstone, President of the World Bank Jim Yong Kim and Sir Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group who also halted talks over a $1bn Saudi investment in Virgin space firms, and suspended directorships in two tourism projects.

Branson said in a statement, what has reportedly happened in Turkey around the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, if proved true, would clearly change the ability of any of us in the West to do business with the Saudi government.

We have asked for more information from the authorities in Saudi and to clarify their position in relation to Mr Khashoggi, he added.

Also, various media firms have pulled out from the event, including The New York Times who pulled out as a media sponsor, The Financial Times, Bloomberg and CNN.

The Economist editor-in-chief Zanny Minton Beddoes will not participate and neither will Andrew Ross Sorkin, a CNBC anchor and New York Times business journalist, and Patrick Soon-Shiong, owner of The Los Angeles Times.

The conference organisers removed all the names of attendees from its Website as the number of cancellations grew.

The cruel irony is that with the story unfolding, and the difficulty to hide the truth, the Khashoggi case might prove to be a game changer in Saudi relations with the West.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 18 October, 2018 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: A game changer

Search Keywords:

Short link:

As agitating devotees took to the streets in large numbers over the Sabarimala issue, the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress on Wednesday joined their stir at Pamba and Nilackal, the entry points to the hill shrine.

IMAGE: Police is seen deployed at the Nilakkal Base Camp to prevent clashes. Photograph: Sivaram V/Reuters

With the issue of women of all age groups being allowed into the Lord Ayyappa temple taking a political turn, the BJP and Congress have extended support to devotees who are protesting against the Communist Party of India-Marxist-led Left Democratic Front governments decision to implement the verdict and not file a review petition.

The base camps of Pamba and Nilackal witnessed intensified protests as the Lord Ayyappa temple opens for the five-day monthly pooja on Wednesday evening, for the first time after the landmark top court verdict.

The Left front government termed the agitation as politically motivated and said it would be met politically.

Police evicted members of tantri (head priest) family, including elderly women, and the Pandalam royals who were protesting at Pamba, reciting Ayyappa mantras.

After their eviction, a group of BJP leaders began the namajapa (prayer) meet at the same venue.

BJP state general secretaries, K Surendran, M T Ramesh and Shobha Surendran were among those who led the prayer meet.

They alleged that the police removed the members of the traditional tantri and royal families without any provocation.

BJP state president Sreedharan Pillai observed a fast at the district headquarter, Pathanamthitta, as part of the saffron partys second phase of agitation on the Sabarimala issue.

Thousands of party activists had marched to the state Secretariat in Thiruvananthapuram on October 15 against the LDF governments decision to implement the court verdict disregarding sentiments of devotees.

State Congress working president K Sudhakaran led party workers in the protest at Nilackal to express solidarity with believers.

State Devaswom Minister, Kadakampally Surendran, who held a review meeting at Sannidhanam (temple complex) on the three-month-long Mandalam-Makaravilakku-festival beginning from November 17, said the government would face the agitation politically.

The government is only implementing the court order, he told reporters at the Sannidhanam.

He also alleged that the BJP-RSS was trying to create tension in the state and destroy the peaceful atmosphere for political gains.

We know very well the agenda of RSS and BJP, he said adding the LDF government had no intention to have any confrontation with the believers.

The minister also condemned the alleged attack on media personnel.

Vijayan on Tuesday had stated that there was an attempt to destroy the secular mind of people of Kerala in the name of Sabarimala issue.

He had also criticised the Congress and said the party had joined hands with the RSS and BJP in the agitation.From Venice and the tower of Pisa, dozens of UNESCO World Heritage sites are deeply threatened by rising sea levels, researchers warned Tuesday.

According to a study by researchers at the University of Kiel, in Germany, all but two of 49 United Nations-recognised icons of human civilisation rimming the Mediterranean Sea risk being damaged by the rising watermark, soil erosion, or both, with few options for protecting most of them.

Adaptation planning is urgently needed, lead author Lena Reimann, a doctoral researcher for the Coastal Risks and Sea-Level Rise Research Group in Germany, was quoted as saying, adding, If our common heritage is destroyed or lost, it is not possible to replace or rebuild it.

Among those at risk are the ancient cities of Pompeii, Venice and even the medieval town of Dubrovnik in Croatia.

The Blue Mosque in Istanbul, Turkey is one of the 156 world heritage sites in the coastal Mediterranean endangered by the effects of climate change. Photograph: Suhaib Salem/Reuters

The Leaning Tower of Pisa could end up underwater due to global warming by the year 2100. Photograph: Franco Origlia/Getty Images

The study states that the Archaeological Areas of Pompei are among the seven sites that are suffering from erosion. Photograph: Giorgio Cosulich/Getty Images

The UNESCO Word Heritage site of Venice and its Lagoon is one of the sites most at risk from coastal flooding and erosion in the Mediterranean region. Sea-level rise will exacerbate these risks in the course of the century. Photograph: Manuel Silvestri/Reuters

By 2100, flood risk may increase by 50 per cent and erosion risk by 13 per cent across the Mediterranean. Dubrovnik Old Town in Croatia is an area of high concern due to the high potential impacts of coastal hazards in the highly populated area. Photograph: Marko Djurica/Reuters

Rising sea levels also pose a threat to the wonder of the Golden Shrine of Bab in Israel's Haifa. Photograph: David Silverman/Getty ImagesDelhi and Uttar Pradesh police teams raided several places on Wednesday in pursuit of a politicians son, who is elusive after brandishing a gun at a five-star hotel in New Delhi, even as a court issued a non-bailable warrant against him.

Ashish Pandey, son of former Bahujan Samaj Party MP Rakesh Pandey, had pulled out his gun at Hyatt Regency hotel early Sunday to threaten Gaurav Kanwar, son of an ex-Congress MLA.

A UP Police officer said Pandey, a realtor from Lucknow, held licences for three firearms, which have now been suspended.

Kanwar has said in his statement to Delhi police that Pandey pulled out his gun and shouted, I will kill you which scared him to the extent that he did not approach them.

A video of the incident had gone viral on social media, triggering a massive public outrage and prompting Delhi police to step in and launch a hunt for Pandey, who has since been untraceable.

In the video, Pandey is seen in confrontation with two other guests in the foyer of the hotel.

Raids have been carried out at various places associated with Ashish Pandey and we will be able to make the arrest soon, Uttar Pradesh Additional Director General (Law and Order) Anand Kumar said.

Ambedkar Nagar Superintendent of Police Vipin Kumar Mishra said Pandey held all-India licences for a .32 bore pistol, a .12 bore double-barrel breech-loading gun and .315 bore rifle.

The licences have been suspended and the notice has been delivered at his address in Akbarpur Kotwali police station area, District Magistrate Suresh Kumar said.

An officer from Delhi police said the three women, who were accompanying Pandey and were involved in triggering the incident, were yet to be identified.

Police said they are conducting raids in Lucknow, in eastern Uttar Pradesh including Jalapur, the constituency of his MLA brother Ritesh. His friends, family and relatives are being questioned to gain clues to his hideout.

Delhi Police obtained a non-bailable warrant against him and also issued a show-cause notice to the hotel for alleged negligence.

ADG Anand Kumar said the licence for the weapon brandished by Pandey at the Delhi hotel was issued in Ambedkar Nagar in 1999.

Anand said he is not aware if there is any other case lodged against Pandey in Uttar Pradesh, but more information is being gathered.

According to Kanwar, he was abused by some people when he escorted his woman friend to a hotel washroom when she took ill during dinner.

When the two were waiting for their car at the hotel foyer, Pandey and his friends again approached them.

I will kill you, Pandey allegedly told him.United States President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that Saudi Arabia has started a full investigation into the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who hasn't been seen since entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul two weeks ago.

Soon after talking with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over phone, Trump in a tweet said that answers related to Khashoggi's disappearance would be forthcoming shortly.

"Just spoke with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia who totally denied any knowledge of what took place in their Turkish Consulate, Trump said.

Trump tweeted that the Saudi Crown Prince "told me that he has already started, and will rapidly expand, a full and complete investigation into this matter. Answers will be forthcoming shortly.

Khashoggi, a dissident Saudi journalist, who wrote for The Washington Post and lived in US as legal permanent resident was last seen entering the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. Turkish investigative agencies have said that he was brutally killed inside the consulate. They claim to have audio and video evidence of it.

So far Saudi Arabia has denied the allegations and said that Khashoggi left the consulate. Some US media reports said that Saudi Arabia is planning to come out with a repot in which it is expected to say that the interrogation of Khashoggi went wrong and was killed in the process.

Trump, under tremendous pressure from lawmakers, has warned of severe punishment. However, he has pushed back again any effort to cancel the mega USD 110 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia asserting that such a move will hurt US economy and jobs.

Earlier, Trump said that "I have no financial interests in Saudi Arabia"  but in fact he has boasted in the past that "I make a lot of money with them."

Trump's attempt to distance himself from profiting from Saudi Arabia is undercut by a long record showing deals his companies made with that country's government and citizens, media reports said.In the end, Erdogan caved in, releasing a US detainee he demonised without restraint. Now, he may find Washington soon pressing other demands

For months on end, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, his entire entourage and, of course, the 95 per cent of the Turkish printed and audiovisual media that marches in lockstep to his tune, have stuck to the narrative that the American pastor Andrew Brunson was a spy, a Gulenist and a supporter of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), all rolled into one.

Not that they saw any logical inconsistency in the fact that the pastor is Christian whereas Fethullah Gulen, the founder of the Hizmet movement whose members have been called Gulenists, is a Muslim cleric and Islamist pundit.

Gulen was fingered by Erdogan et al as the mastermind behind the aborted coup attempt in mid-July 2016 that set into motion the waves of purges targeting the Gulenists, or the Fethullah Gulen Terrorist Organisation (FETO), and all critics of the Erdogan regime.

Having heard the three-part litany of accusations for so long, not a soul in Anatolia had the shadow of a doubt that the harshest of penalties would be handed down against that agent who affected piety while perpetrating acts of treachery (never detailed, of course) against the country that had welcomed him for 20 years.

Then, suddenly, the picture began to transmogrify. Touches were added here, patches were erased there and lines were sufficient blurred so that the media could gird the public for a piece of news that might not be pleasant to hear but to the reality of which all must bow when it comes from a judiciary of such unassailable integrity and unquestionable autonomy.

The news came Friday, 12 October, from the Aliaga High Criminal Court in Izmir, where, at 5pm, after a long day of listening to testimonies, the presiding judge pronounced Brunson guilty of assorted terrorist-related charges and added a stay of execution.

Although the court sentenced Brunson to three years and a month, it ruled that he had already served his sentence after two years in detention and it lifted the travel ban against him.

Upon that totally unanticipated pronouncement, the pastor left the court house, not to his Izmir home to catch his breath, say goodbye to long-time neighbours and pack his bags, but directly to the airplane that was already waiting on the runway at Menderes Airport, motors running and ready to take him to Germany.

The opposition newspapers seized upon the opportunity to expose the government for its hypocrisy. The man that public opinion had been led to believe was a spy, FETO member and promoter of the PKK had just been released! The news occupied their banner headlines, in contrast to the humbler, less visible headlines accorded to this event on the part of the ubiquitous pro-government media.

The Cumhuriyet, Sozcu, Yeni Cag, Milli Gazete, Yurt and Aydinlik newspapers agreed that Ankara had come under such pressure from abroad that four witnesses had to radically alter their previous testimonies.

They also maintained that the US had been informed of the presidential decree to release the pastor in advance. They cited US Secretary of State Mike Pompeos prediction, ventured the day before the Friday hearing, that Brunson would be released within 36 hours.

It is little wonder that Republican Peoples Party (CHP) MP Aykot Erdogdu would lament, when Merkel and Trump snap their fingers they get a ruling from the court.

He was referring to how Ankara bowed to German and US pressures to release the German journalist of Turkish origin, Deniz Yucel in February, and Brunson last weekend. So much for the rule of law in Turkey, he added.

The Felicity Party, founded by Necmettin Erbakan, classes itself among the opposition even if many of its positions and attitudes are similar to those of the ruling AKP.

After the Brunson release, it certainly did not see eye-to-eye with the AKP and its boss on the state of the Turkish judiciary.

The partys current leader, Temel Karamollaoglu, tweeted: If there are witnesses who can change their testimonies for the feeblest reasons, that means that the judiciary is not independent.

He recalled how Erdogan kept reminding Turkish public opinion, through all the media he controls, that the American pastor Andrew Brunson was not only an architect of the failed coup but also the cause of the economic difficulties in the country.

Then, addressing Erdogan, he said: But in the end, you put the pastor on his plane and sent him home to his country.

Meral Aksener, leader of the recently founded IYI (Good) Party, held that if Turkish intelligence and security agencies had clear and unequivocal proof that Brunson was a spy with PKK and FETO connections then he should have been tried as such and sentenced to 30 years, not three.

She then asked: But if this was not the case, why was he arrested, jailed and then placed under house arrest? Does not this make one wonder?

According to some Turkish analysts, Erdogan handed back Brunson without getting anything in return. His hostage diplomacy had not paid off in any of the pending bones of contention between Ankara and Washington, most notably the Halkbank case involving violations of sanctions against Iran and Erdogans longstanding demand for extradition of his archenemy Gulen. So, in the case of Brunson, Erdogan just threw in the towel.

While media attention has been focused on Brunson, there remain several other US detainees that Washington wants released. It is not unlikely that Washington will impose a new round of sanctions against top officials in the Erdogan regime if those detainees are not released soon, as well.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 18 October, 2018 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: Brunson release

Search Keywords:

Short link:

China: RSF asks UN to deem Swedish publisher's detention as arbitrary

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 28 July 2018 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, China: RSF asks UN to deem Swedish publisher's detention as arbitrary, 28 July 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5bc6eeeb8.html [accessed 17 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

July 28, 2018  Updated on August 2, 2018

Reporters Without Borders (RSF), yesterday, requested the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention regarding Swedish publisher, Gui Minhai, detained in China for three years and suffering from a neurological disease.

RSF submitted yesterday an application to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD) for Swedish publisher, Gui Minhai, who has been detained in China for more than 1000 days and is suffering from a serious neurological disease. The purpose is to obtain the official recognition of the arbitrary nature of the detention and allow the UN to publicly question China on the subject.

"For already three years, the Chinese authorities have relentlessly persecuted Gui Minhai for his activities as an independent publisher while being deprived of consular rights and medical assistance," said Cedric Alviani, director of Reporters Without Borders East Asia office. "We hope that the UN, by officially recognizing the arbitrary nature of this detention, will fortify the international commitment for his release while he is at risk of dying in prison."

Gui Minhai, 54, is a Chinese-born Swedish citizen is one of the founders of Mighty Current, a Hong Kong publishing house well known for its books exposing the private lives of prominent Chinese leaders. He was initially abducted in Thailand in October 14, 2015 and mysteriously reappeared on Chinese state TV a few months later. Last October 2017, the Chinese authorities claimed they had "released" him while they in fact kept him under close surveillance.

On January 20, 2018, the publisher was arrested on a train while on his way to Beijing to seek a second opinion from the Swedish embassy's doctors following the diagnosis of a severe neurological disease. He is currently detained by Public Security Bureau of Ningbo City, Zhejiang Province and is suspected of "illegally providing state secrets and intelligence overseas."

Both Liu Xiaobo, a Nobel peace laureate and winner of the RSF Press Freedom Prize, and the blogger Yang Tongyan died last year from ailments that were left untreated while they were detained.

The People's Republic of China is ranked 176th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2018 World Press Index.

Link to original story on RSF websiteIsraeli soldiers arrest six Palestinian journalists in past week

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 1 August 2018 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, Israeli soldiers arrest six Palestinian journalists in past week, 1 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5bc6eeeda.html [accessed 17 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

August 1, 2018

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on the Israeli authorities to release Palestinian journalists held solely for political reasons, after six journalists working for reputedly pro-Hamas media were arrested by Israeli soldiers in the West Bank in the past week.

They include four journalists working for the Lebanon-based Al Quds satellite TV channel  Ramallah bureau chief Alaa Rimawi, reporters Mohamed Hamdan and Qoteiba Hamdan and cameraman Hosni Injas  who were arrested at dawn on 30 July.

The Israeli TV channel I24 said they were arrested on suspicion of inciting hatred via Al Quds, which the Israeli defence ministry effectively banned at the start of July, describing it as the "propaganda wing" of Hamas  the movement that controls the Gaza Strip  and as a platform for disseminating messages for this "terrorist organization."

Mohamed Anwar Mouna, a journalist with the pro-Hamas Al Quds Press agency who also manages a local radio station in Nablus, was arrested by Israeli soldiers at his home yesterday.

The columnist Lama Khater was arrested by Israeli soldiers at dawn on 24 July in a wave of arrests of Palestinians regarded as Hamas supporters. In arresting Khater, the Israeli security forces kept a promise to detain her if she continued writing, Al Jazeera said.

"Palestinian journalists held solely for political reasons must be released at once," said Sophie Anmuth, the head of RSF's Middle East desk. "In the absence of any proof to the contrary, these journalists have committed no crime justifying their detention, which is therefore completely arbitrary."

The ban imposed by the Israeli authorities on Al Quds is supposed to concern Israeli territory but the arrests were carried out in the West Bank, a procedure often used by the Israeli security forces.

According to the MADA, an NGO that defends Palestinian journalists, the Israeli military closed a total of 17 Palestinian media outlets last year, accusing some of them of providing video footage to pro-Hamas TV channels such as Al Aqsa and Al Quds. The closures were accompanied by arrests of journalists, some of whom were held for several months.

Mohamed Hamdan, one of the Al Quds reporters arrested on 30 July, was already detained in an Israeli prison for several days last February after filming a demonstration in support of Palestinian prisoners, while Rimawi, the bureau chief, was imprisoned for 12 years in Israel.

Mouna, the Al Quds Press agency journalist arrested yesterday, was already arrested several times by the Israeli military in recent years and, according to the MADA, was questioned about his journalism and about his alleged political activities, which he denied.

Palestine is ranked 134th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2018 World Press Freedom Index.

Link to original story on RSF websiteRSF refers arbitrary detention in Egypt to UN Working Group

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 1 August 2018 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, RSF refers arbitrary detention in Egypt to UN Working Group, 1 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5bc6eeefa.html [accessed 17 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

August 1, 2018

Amid growing persecution of journalists in Egypt, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has asked the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention to formally recognize the arbitrary nature of the detention of two Egyptian journalists, Hisham Gaafar and Wael Abbas, and to publicly call on the Egyptian authorities to release them at once.

"Ever since Gen. Sisi seized power in Egypt in 2013, the press freedom situation has worsened steadily while the number of arbitrary arrests of journalists has continued to grow," said Paul Coppin, the head of RSF's legal unit.

"Many journalists are currently denied their freedom for no valid reason and the cases of Wael Abbas and Hisham Gaafar are just the first that RSF will refer to the United Nations. It is essential that the UN should put pressure on the Egyptian authorities and obtain their release."

A well-known Egyptian journalist and blogger who has often covered police violence, Abbas, 43, has received international awards from such entities as the BBC, CNN and Human Rights Watch. He has also often posted about human rights violations and police abuses on Twitter, which was until recently the last space for (relatively) free speech in Egypt and where he had 350,000 followers.

Arrested at his home near Cairo on 23 May, Abbas is accused of being a member of a "terrorist organization"  the government's label for the Muslim Brotherhood A-a" and of publishing false news. These two charges are used almost systematically against government opponents and have no legal or factual basis. The authorities have not said which information published by Abbas constituted false news. And the claim that he belongs to terrorist organization has no credibility. Furthermore, he has long been an outspoken critic of the Muslim Brotherhood. The only real grounds for his arrest was his use of the right to free speech and the freedom to inform.

Gaafar, 53, has been deprived of his freedom for no valid reason for the past 33 months, ever since his arrest on 21 October 2015. He, too, is accused of belonging to a "terrorist" group. He often criticized the Muslim Brotherhood's positions.

Given the time Gaafar has been held without trial, the lack of appropriate medical care for his various ailments, the conditions in which he is being held (his cell is not even lit) and the spurious grounds for his arrest, his detention is also clearly arbitrary and contrary to international law. In his case, too, the real reason for his arrest was his use of the right to freedom of expression.

RSF is referring their cases to the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, a UN Human Rights Council offshoot, because it has the competence to determine whether individual cases of detention contravene international law. If the Working Group agrees that these two journalists are being held arbitrarily, RSF wants it to say so officially and to call on the Egyptian authorities to free them.

In Egypt, at least 32 journalists and citizen-journalists are currently detained in connection with their work. Few of them have been tried. Most have been detained preventively for months or even years and, in all cases, on trumped up charges.

Egypt is ranked 161st out of 180 countries in RSF's 2018 World Press Freedom Index.

Link to original story on RSF websiteThree Russian journalists murdered in Central Africa Republic

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 1 August 2018 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, Three Russian journalists murdered in Central Africa Republic, 1 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5bc6eef1a.html [accessed 17 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

August 1, 2018  Updated on August 2, 2018

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on the Russian and local authorities to conduct a thorough investigation into the murder of three Russian journalists in the Central African Republic shortly after their arrival to make a documentary about the presence of Russian mercenaries.

Orkhan Dzhemal, a well-known freelance war reporter, documentary filmmaker Alexander Rastorguyev and cameraman Kirill Radchenko were murdered by unidentified armed men on the night of 30 July near Sibut, a city 300 km north of the CAR capital, Bangui.

Communication minister and government spokesman Ange Maxime Kazagui said on TVCA last night that nine "turbaned kidnappers" speaking "neither French nor Sango" (the national language) shot the three Russian journalists after intercepting their vehicle 23 km outside Sibut.

Kazagui said that, thanks to the information provided by their driver, who managed to escape after being wounded, it was known that one of the journalists died on the spot and the other two died of their injuries shortly afterwards

According to the information obtained by RSF, the three Russian journalists had arrived in the CAR several days previously with the aim of investigating the role of mercenaries working for Wagner, a private Russian security company that is also known to be active in Syria.

Kazagui said the three journalists did not have press accreditation. But they were carrying press cards, according to the Russia foreign ministry, which said its embassy in Bangui had not, however, been informed of their presence in the CAR.

"Four years after French photojournalist Camille Lepage was killed in the CAR, this triple murder has shown the degree to which it is still extremely dangerous for journalists to cover the conflict in this country," RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said.

"We condemn these murders in the strongest terms and we urge the CAR and Russian authorities to conduct a serious and thorough investigation in order to identify those responsible."

Investigation Control Centre (TsUR), an online investigative news website owned by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, has confirmed that it asked the three journalists to make the documentary on this sensitive subject. Khodorkovsky is a former Russian oil industry magnate who now lives in exile and is one Vladimir Putin's leading opponents.

Russia has stepped up its military presence in the CAR considerably since France withdrew its military intervention force, Operation Sangaris, in October 2016. President Faustin-Archange Touadera is now protected by Russian soldiers, who provide training to the Central African Armed Forces (FACA). A significant amount of Russian arms were also delivered to the CAR from December 2017 to February 2018.

The CAR has been embroiled in an armed conflict ever since President Francois Bozize was overthrown in March 2013 by the Seleka, a coalition of mainly Muslim militias. Christian self-defence groups called Anti-Balaka were then formed to combat the Seleka, plunging the country into a spiral of violence.

Camille Lepage, a 26-year-old French photojournalist, was murdered on 12 May 2014 while out reporting with an Anti-Balaka militia. RSF recently deplored the fact that her murderers have still not been identified and that judicial problems in Bangui continue to hold up the investigation

The Central African Republic is ranked 112th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2018 World Press Freedom Index.

Link to original story on RSF websiteBelarusian authorities hound critical video blogger

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 3 August 2018 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, Belarusian authorities hound critical video blogger, 3 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5bc6eef3a.html [accessed 17 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

August 3, 2018

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on the authorities in Brest, a city on the Polish border in southwestern Belarus, to stop hounding Syarhey Pyatrukhin, a video blogger who has been subjected to arbitrary detention, a string of prosecutions and economic harassment.

After three days in police custody on a charge on which he was finally acquitted on 1 August, he is now facing up to three years of hard labour for describing how he was mistreated when arrested in February.

Pyatrukhin's most recent arrest was on 27 July, when he refused to let police officers search his Brest home without his lawyer being present, and they responded by arresting him on a charge of refusing to comply with an official order.

His video footage of the incident showed that he offered no physical resistance and did not verbally attack any police officer. He was nonetheless held for three days before being released and acquitted. On returning home he found that the police had nonetheless gone in and taken his computer.

The search was part of an investigation into Pyatrukhin for "public insult." It was prompted by a social network post on 23 July in which he accused a police officer of leaving him for several hours in an unheated police truck in February, at a time when the temperature was minus 27.

On 24 July, he received a summons to report for questioning the previous day, 23 July. The public insult charge carries a possible sentence of three years of forced labour and night-time confinement.

So far this year, Pyatrukhin has been subjected to three stints of police custody (for a total of nine days in detention) and two searches of his home. He has also been fined no fewer than six times and, in May, the police confiscated his laptop, a tablet and a smartphone.

"This grotesque persecution of Siarhey Pyatrukhin can only be regarded as a reprisal for his activities as a critical blogger," said Johann Bihr, the head of RSF's Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk. "We call on the local authorities to stop this harassment and to let him report freely."

Pyatrukhin criticizes the local authorities, police brutality and corruption in his video blog, Narodny Repartsyor ("Popular Reporter), which is widely followed in the Brest region. He actively covered the anti-government protests in the spring of 2017, and local protests against a Chinese company's construction of a car battery plant, which has prompted concern about pollution.

Since the major anti-government demonstrations in the spring of 2017, the authorities have stepped up efforts to control the Internet and media, blocking leading news websites, adopting an even more draconian media law and subjecting independent journalists to an unprecedented wave of fines.

Belarus is ranked 155th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2018 World Press Freedom Index.

Link to original story on RSF websiteChina: RSF condemns the arrest of an on-air source of Voice of America

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 3 August 2018 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, China: RSF condemns the arrest of an on-air source of Voice of America, 3 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5bc6eef5a.html [accessed 17 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

August 3, 2018

RSF demands the release of professor Sun Wenguang, known for his public interventions against Chinese censorship and propaganda, who was arrested on Wednesday by Chinese police while participating in a live telephone interview on Voice of America (VOA) Mandarin.

Professor Sun Wenguang, 84, was arrested at his home in Jinan City, Shandong province, on Wednesday, August 1, 2018 in the middle of a live telephone interview with Voice of America (VOA) Mandarin. The news channel is popular with the Chinese community abroad. Even though it is censored in China, Voice of America's YouTube account has nearly 700,000 subscribers, more than triple the subscribers of the English channel.

Retired from Shandong University where he taught physics and economics until 1994, Professor Sun is known for his assertive public interventions against censorship and propaganda. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) demands his immediate release and stresses that freedom of speech and freedom of the press are explicitly written in the Constitution of the People's Republic of China.

A chilling message to Chinese overseas

"This arrest is a chilling message from Beijing to its people and the Chinese community overseas that the regime is ready to do anything to silence independent voices," says Cedric Alviani, the director of RSF's East Asia bureau. "Pressure on journalists' sources is a new strategy of the Chinese government to control its image abroad."

In its latest report released in February, the Foreign Correspondents' Club of China (FCCC) denounced the escalating steadfastness of Xi Jinping's regime to prevent the foreign press from doing its job by intimidating, attacking and imprisoning sources.

Professor Sun was sent to an internment camp during the Cultural Revolution, and he served four years in prison between 1978 and 1982 for criticizing President Mao Zedong. He signed "Charter 08," a petition that called for democratic reforms in China including freedom of the press, which was started by the Nobel Peace Prize and RSF award laureate Liu Xiaobo who died in detention last year.

Ranked 176th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2018 World Press Freedom Index, China is currently holding more than 50 journalists and bloggers in its prisons.

Link to original story on RSF websiteDay of the Journalist: Colombia's journalists need more protection

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 3 August 2018 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, Day of the Journalist: Colombia's journalists need more protection, 3 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5bc6eef84.html [accessed 17 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

August 3, 2018

As Colombia prepares to mark "Day of the Journalist" tomorrow, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) deplores the increasingly dangerous environment for media personnel in this Caribbean and Andean country, where the past month has seen a disturbing surge in threats and two journalists were murdered yesterday.

Yesterday's victims, local newspaper editor Jairo Alberto Calderon Plazas and local radio host Valentin Rua Tezada, were slain in separate shooting attacks in the western Cauca Valley.

The threats and deadly violence have come at a time of marked political polarization during the transition from outgoing President Juan Manuel Santos to President-elect Ivan Duque, who will take office on 7 August. There has been a surge in attacks and intimidation attempts by the paramilitary armed groups still present in many parts of Colombia, which have stepped up their harassment of human rights defenders, union leaders and journalists regarded as problematic.

Jineth Bedoya, a well-known journalist who is deputy editor of the daily El Tiempo, and journalists with La Silla Vacia, a news website, were among those on a hit-list signed by a far-right paramilitary group called the Bloque Central de Las Aguilas Negras that was circulated on 14 July.

Maria Jimena Duzan, a journalist with the weekly Semana, received exceptionally violent anonymous threats on Twitter the next day: "Ms. Duzan must be raped, spat on, cut up with a chain saw and hanged in Bolivar Square." Vanessa de la Torre, a presenter on Noticias Caracol and Blu Radio, was threatened with death on Twitter a few days later for writing articles critical of former President Alvaro Uribe.

After covering the murders of union leaders, the staff of RCN Radio have been given special attention, with at least five of its journalists, including editor Yolanda Ruiz, receiving repeated death threats by telephone.

"Amid the current political tension, Colombia's journalists are playing a vital role and, as guarantors of the democratic debate, it is unacceptable that they should be the victims of this political polarization and become murder targets," said Emmanuel Colombie, the head of RSF's Latin America bureau.

"They must be given more protection as a matter of urgency. Colombia's judicial authorities must identify and punish those responsible for these threats as quickly as possible and must create a special unit to deal with online and social network attacks."

The many journalists who have been harassed and threatened online include El Tiempo cartoonist Matador, Daniel Samper Ospina of Semana, freelancer and human rights defender Ricardo Ruidiaz, Catalina Vasquez, Jhanuaria Gomez, Laura Montoya, Emiro Goyeneche, Nixon Piaguaje, Giovanny Calcue, Mauricio Rodriguez, Luis Carlos Velez of La FM and Juan Jose Hoyo of El Espectador.

Hoyo, who had been covering judicial proceedings against political leaders, returned to his Medellin home last month to find that someone had forced the door and stolen much of his journalistic equipment.

July's wave of online threats is very worrying, especially as there is no state agency in Colombia that specializes in investigating cyber-harassment and assisting its victims. A report entitled "Online harassment of journalists: the trolls attack," which RSF published on 26 July, includes detailed recommendations for dealing with attacks of this kind.

Yesterday's two murders in the Cauca Valley underscored the fact that Colombia's journalists are exposed to a violent and sometimes extremely dangerous environment, as well as threats.

Calderon, the editor of the local daily Contacto, was gunned down by a man on a motor-cycle in city of Tulua, while Rua, the host of the programme "Salvajina Stereo" on Radio 107.7 FM, was killed by a single shot to the head near his home in the town of Suarez. The motive is not as yet clear in either of these two murders.

Two Ecuadorean journalists and their driver were kidnapped and murdered in March by a breakaway faction of Colombia's FARC rebels in Esmeraldas, a region along the border between Ecuador and Colombia that has been a no-go zone for reporters and information "black hole" for years.

Journalists are also very vulnerable in rural parts of Catatumbo, Arauca, Putumayo, Caqueta and the Cauca Valley, where they are often targeted and have to censor themselves because of organized crime activities, drug trafficking and land conflicts.

RSF calls on President-elect Ivan Duque to make defence of the freedom to inform a priority for his administration and to ensure that journalists are both safe and enjoy freedom of movement and access throughout the country.

Inter alia, this will require providing more resources to the agency that is supposed to protect journalists, called the National Protection Unit (UNP), and reinforcing the justice ministry units that are responsible for investigating threats and crimes of violence against the media.

Finally, the incoming administration must also defend the image of journalists in its public statements and promote respect for their work in the course of its peace talks with the two rebel groups still bearing arms, the National Liberation Army (ELN) and People's Liberation Army (EPL).

Colombia is ranked 130th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2018 World Press Freedom Index.

Link to original story on RSF websiteMalian radio station closed illegally during presidential election

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 3 August 2018 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, Malian radio station closed illegally during presidential election, 3 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5bc6eefa4.html [accessed 17 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

August 3, 2018

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) disputes the legality of yesterday's closure of Bamako-based Radio Renouveau FM shortly before the announcement of the results of the first round of Mali's presidential election, and calls for the radio station to be reopened pending a decision by the competent regulatory authority.

By ordering its closure for allegedly inciting hatred, Bamako's governor prevented the station from commenting on the first-round results, in which President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita was declared the winner but without enough votes to avoid a run-off against his leading opponent, Soumaila Cisse.

Radio Renouveau FM was closed "until further notice" and seals were placed over its entrance a few hours after the governor announced that he had to "preserve public order and calm" because of the comments made during the station's "Cards on the Table" programme the day before.

Comments by programme host Mohamed Youssouf Bathily (also known as Ras Bath), a prominent opposition activist who is part of the Cisse campaign team, constituted "incitement to hatred and revolt," the governor claimed.

"It is clear from Mali's legislation that the governor cannot act as media regulator and does not have the authority to close a radio station," said Arnaud Froger, the head of RSF's Africa desk. "Mali has legal procedures and a High Authority for Communication (HAC) to examine any breaches of journalistic ethics. We ask the HAC to take charge of this case and we call on the authorities not to obstruct the work of the media, especially during an election, as they promised. The authorities must order the reopening of this radio station pending a decision on the substance of this case by the competent authority."

Ras Bath often accuses the Malian authorities of corruption during his very popular programme. On the evening of 1 August, he claimed that election fraud had taken place in several localities, blaming the president and his allies and accusing them of taking advantage of widespread poverty to buy votes.

The governor did not refer this case to the HAC, or consult it, although the HAC is the only regulatory body with the power to issue a ruling on the legality of content in the media. When contacted by RSF, the HAC dodged the issue, saying that it was "not in a position to evaluate the appropriateness of this decision or the level of security in the country."

Under Mali's 2012 law on commercial broadcast media, only the HAC or the minister responsible for "territorial administration" (article 63) can suspend a media outlet and, in the latter case, the suspension can be ordered only on the grounds of a "threat to the interests of national defence or national unity" and when the HAC has given its approval.

Mali's Union of Free Radio and TV Broadcasters (URTEL) has issued a statement voicing "stupefaction" and calling on the Malian authorities to "respect the HAC's prerogatives." The National Union of Reporters voiced its "unreserved condemnation" of the closure.

After three journalists from the French TV channel TV5 Monde were briefly arrested on 22 July on their arrival to cover the election, RSF reminded the authorities of their duty to guarantee unobstructed media coverage. When reached by RSF last week, communication minister Modibo Toure promised that, "no journalists will be blocked in the course of their work covering the election."

Mali is ranked 115th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2018 World Press Freedom Index.

Link to original story on RSF websiteGambian TV crew attacked by former dictator's supporters

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 7 August 2018 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, Gambian TV crew attacked by former dictator's supporters, 7 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5bc6eefc4.html [accessed 17 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

August 7, 2018

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on the Gambian authorities to not allow violence against journalists to go unpunished and, in particular, to investigate the attack on two journalists with the public radio and TV broadcaster GRTS that took place at the funeral of former President Yahya Jammeh's mother on 5 August.

Jammeh was ousted in January 2017 but the harassment of the media that characterized his years of dictatorial rule has not entirely disappeared from Gambia. GRTS reporter Louis Mendy said cameraman Modou Ceesay was slapped and punched by when he tried to film the funeral procession in the village of Bujinga and his camera was seized by his assailants, at least one of whom was wearing garments identifying them as members of the former ruling APRC party's "security." Mendy and Ceesay finally managed to get away when their driver arrived in their vehicle. They then filed complaint at a nearby police station.

"The new government's promises to ensure respect for press freedom must urgently be translated into concrete action, starting with a thorough investigation to identify and punish those responsible for this attack, in order to end the Jammeh era's old reflexes and systematic attacks on journalists," said Arnaud Froger, the head of RSF's Africa desk."As long as the feeling of impunity prevails, the attacks will continue and the authorities will not succeed in ensuring a safe environment for journalists."

In a statement about the attack, the Gambian Press Union (GPU) called on the police to "investigate and bring the perpetrators to justice" and called on "party leaders to educate and sensitise their supporters to understand that journalists are not their enemy." The police and political party supporters have posed the biggest threat to press freedom since Jammeh's departure, the GPU said.

While covering a protest on 18 June, Home Digital FM manager Pa Modou Bojang was beaten by police officers who expressed nostalgia for the Jammeh era. This was just five months after Bojang returned from nine years in exile to escape the dictatorship. Before leaving, he was arrested and tortured for three weeks in 2008.

At an event to mark World Press Freedom Day on 3 May, then information and communication minister Demba Ali Jawo said: "Media freedoms and setting of standards are however meaningless if impunity continues. One way of ensuring that the media and media workers are protected is by ensuring justice and the rule of law."

Gambia is ranked 122nd out of 180 countries in RSF's 2018 World Press Freedom Index, 21 places higher than in 2017. This was the world's biggest rise in the 2018 index

Link to original story on RSF websiteProminent Bangladeshi photojournalist arrested, many attacked

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 7 August 2018 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, Prominent Bangladeshi photojournalist arrested, many attacked, 7 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5bc6eefe4.html [accessed 17 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

August 7, 2018  Updated on August 16, 2018

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on the Bangladeshi authorities to ensure the safety of journalists after a dark day for press freedom on 5 August, when at least 23 reporters were attacked by government supporters while covering student protests in Dhaka and one, award-winning photojournalist Shahidul Alam, was later arrested.

The Dhaka metropolitan police have been holding Shahidul Alam ever since the evening of 5 August, when plainclothes officers forcibly took him from his apartment in Dhanmondi, a residential district, several hours after he posted a photo and comment about the student protests on Facebook.

Detective Branch additional commissioner Abdul Baten confirmed Alam's arrest. Masudur Rahman, the deputy commissioner for media, said detectives were questioning him about his Facebook posts on the ongoing student protests.

"The Dhaka authorities are entirely responsible for ensuring Shahidul Alam's physical integrity and safety," RSF said. "We urge Bangladesh's highest authorities to guarantee his safety and to free him immediately without charge."

Alam is the founder of Drik Picture Library and the Pathshala South Asian Media Institute. According to the Drik, witnesses saw his arrest by 30 to 35 plainclothesmen identifying themselves as members of the Detective Branch.

They entered his apartment building, brought him down and bundled him into an unmarked car. At the same time, they taped up the building's CCTV cameras, removed the hard disks containing CCTV footage, and locked the building's security guards into their room. All this took place at around 10 p.m., the Drik said.

Earlier in the day, Alam was attacked by suspected members of the ruling Awami League's student wing, the Bangladesh Chhatra League, while videoing violence against students demonstrating in Dhanmondi for better road safety. He then took shelter at a guesthouse in Dhanmondi from where he went live on Facebook to share the incident.

"I was attacked a little while ago near City College because I was taking a video of Chhatra League students shouting 'Joy Bangla' and slightly before that attacking students," he said in a video clip that went viral. He uploaded a photo of his vandalized camera on Facebook, with the caption "Remains of my OSMO" and hashtagged "we want justice."

Later, in an interview for Al Jazeera English, he was very critical about the government's role in the ongoing student movement. The video of the interview also went viral in Facebook and Twitter.

The entire Bangladeshi journalistic profession was targeted on 5 August, when at least 23 reporters were injured in deliberate attacks by members of the ruling party and its student wing while covering the widespread protests about road safety. Their assailants were armed with machetes, steel bars and sticks and wore motorcycle helmets.

Bangladesh is ranked 146th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2018 World Press Freedom Index.

Link to original story on RSF websiteThe United Nations envoy for Syria announced on Wednesday he will step down at the end of November after more than four years in the key post as UN efforts to end the seven-year war show no sign of a breakthrough.

"I will myself be moving on as of the last week of November," Staffan de Mistura told the UN Security Council during a meeting on the crisis in Syria.

The Italian-Swedish diplomat, who is the UN's third Syria envoy in six years, said he was leaving for "purely personal reasons," citing the need to give his family "a little bit of attention" after a long stint in the demanding post.

De Mistura will be traveling to Damascus next week to push for the creation of a committee to agree on a post-war constitution for Syria that would pave the way to elections.

That plan has been under discussion since January when it was announced at a conference organized by Russia, a key Syrian ally, but it has since been bogged down in bickering over the committee's composition.

The Syria government is objecting to the UN-led effort to include civil society representatives, religious and tribal leaders, experts and women on the panel, the envoy said.

De Mistura said he hoped the committee will be up and running in November, before he leaves.

"I am not laying down the charge until the last hour of the last day of my mandate," he said.

More than 360,000 people have died in Syria's war, which began in March 2011 as an uprising against President Bashar al-Assad but has morphed into a complex conflict with myriad armed groups, some of whom are foreign-backed.

De Mistura was appointed UN envoy for Syria in July 2014 after veteran Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi resigned following the failure of peace talks in Geneva.

Brahimi spent two years in the position, stepping in after former UN chief Kofi Annan quit just six months into the role. Annan had described the Syria envoy's job as "mission impossible."

De Mistura's departure will complicate UN peace efforts at a time when Syrian forces have made significant territorial gains, prompting discussion about the terms of a political settlement to end the war.

Western powers maintain that there will be no reconstruction aid to Syria before a final settlement is reached.

During his tenure, De Mistura worked to keep UN-sponsored peace talks alive even as fighting on the ground, which has seen deadly chemical weapons attacks, killed off chances of a deal.

Last year, Russia, Iran and Turkey set up the Astana process to advance diplomatic efforts in Syria, a move that effectively sidelined the UN-led process that De Mistura was shepherding in Geneva.

Still, the 71-year-old diplomat, who is said to speak seven languages and favors pince-nez spectacles over conventional glasses, showed tenacity in the job.

While there were no breakthroughs in talks in Geneva, he insisted that incremental progress was being made.

Following his mission to Damascus, De Mistura will return to the Security Council in November for his final briefing.

Among the names being floated as a possible successor are the UN's Middle East peace coordinator Nickolay Mladenov and the UN envoy for Iraq Jan Kubic, according to UN diplomats.

Search Keywords:

Short link:

RSF condemns raids on two independent Belarusian media outlets

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 7 August 2018 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, RSF condemns raids on two independent Belarusian media outlets, 7 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5bc6ef006.html [accessed 17 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

August 7, 2018

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns today's police raids on two leading independent media outlets in Minsk  the news agency BelaPAN and the news website Tut.by  which paralyzed their operations for several hours.

At least four journalists were taken into police custody for questioning: Tut.by editor-in-chief Maryna Zolatava, Tut.by journalists Hanna Kaltyhina and Halina Ulasik, and BelaPAN reporter Tatsyana Karavyankova. Both media outlets reported that further arrests were made in the afternoon.

The police also searched Karavyankova's country home and the apartment of one of Tut.by's editors, Ulyana Babayed.

The Investigative Committee accuses people working with these two media outlets and the scientific publishing house Belarusskaya Nauka of illegally accessing the dispatches of the government news agency BelTA by using a subscriber's account and password. Access to BelTA's dispatches are reserved for subscribers for the first 15 minutes after being posted online.

Staff members of the two media outlets and of Belarusskaya Nauka are being investigated on a charge of "illegally accessing online information," which carries a possible two-year jail sentence.

"These raids, which compromise the confidentiality of journalistic sources, are out of all proportion to the charges," said Johann Bihr, the head of RSF's Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk. "It is hard to see them as anything other that attempts to intimidate leading independent media outlets at a time of growing harassment of critical journalists. We urge the Belarusian authorities to allow these journalists to work freely."

"It's a shame that the authorities are using BelTA to prevent our independent news agency from doing its work," BelaPAN editor-in-chief Iryna Lewshyna told RSF."BelaPAN has legally used BelTA information available in open access and always cited it with references and hyperlinks to the state agency's original reports."

She added that BelaPAN had to use BelTA's reports because it does not have the same access to official news about the president and governmental agencies.

Ever since major anti-government demonstrations in the spring of 2017, the Belarusian authorities have stepped up efforts to control media coverage, blocking leading news websites, adopting an even more draconian media law and subjecting independent journalists to an unprecedented wave of fines.

Belarus is ranked 155th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2018 World Press Freedom Index.

Link to original story on RSF websiteShocking press freedom violations during Bangladesh student protests

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 9 August 2018 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, Shocking press freedom violations during Bangladesh student protests, 9 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5bc6ef02a.html [accessed 17 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

August 9, 2018

No arrests have so far been made in connection with the violence against many journalists that took place on 5 August, while the well-known photojournalist who was arrested is back in police custody after a brief hospital visit. In what follows, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) looks back at more than a week of escalating press freedom violations in Bangladesh.

Three days to find those responsible  this was the ultimatum that Bangladesh's journalists gave to the authorities on 7 August, two days after around 30 of them were the targets of deliberate violence in connection with their coverage of the now ten-day-old wave of student protests in Dhaka.

The Dhaka Union of Journalists (DUJ) and the Bangladesh Federal Journalists Union (BFJU) have threatened retaliatory measures if, by 11 August, the authorities fail to identify those responsible for the violence, in which the police looked on without intervening when not directly participating, according to many witness accounts.

The victims include Shahidul Alam, an award-winning photojournalist who was arrested at his home on the evening of 5 August for covering the violence on Facebook. Because he bore the marks of torture when he appeared in court, a high court judge ordered his release on 7 August so that he could undergo a medical examination.

But he was returned to police custody on the afternoon of 8 August after a rapid hospital visit and he continues to be charged with spreading "fear and panic" by means of "fantastical and provocative lies" under the 2006 Information and Communication Technology Act (ICT Act).

Escalating violence

The judicial persecution of Alam and the violence of 5 August capped a week of escalating press freedom violations that included judicial methods, coercion and intimidation

"It is high time that the Bangladeshi authorities took concrete measures to defuse the tension and demonstrate respect for press freedom and democratic practices," said Daniel Bastard, the head of RSF's Asia-Pacific desk.

"The first step should be to drop the absurd charges against Shahidul Alam and to arrest those responsible for the deliberate violence against journalists on 5 August. For the most part, those responsible are easily identifiable. More generally, the authorities should immediately abandon their use of absolutely unacceptable methods to suppress the freedom to inform, which have been escalating since the start of the student protests."

It was after the deaths of two school students, who were knocked down by a bus on 29 July, that Dhaka's students began staging demonstrations to demand better road safety and the police reacted by trying to prevent media coverage of the protests.

"Fabricated and misleading" content

On 2 August, the Dhaka police brought charges under the ICT Act against 28 social network users who had posted photos, video footage or reports about the protests. They included not only Facebook and Twitter users but also news sites such as Andolonews and Zoombangla, which are now inaccessible. The indictment claims that the content they posted was "fabricated and misleading."

Pradip Das and Sadaat Mahmood, two journalists with the Priyo.com website who were covering the student protests, were attacked by pro-government activists armed with steel bars or sticks on 3 August. They and a third journalist who went to their aid, Rafiqul Ranju, were beaten and their equipment was vandalized. They managed to find refuge in Priyo.com's nearby office, part of which was also vandalized. The police said they were unable to identify any of their attackers.

The next day, 4 August, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting ordered two TV channels, Ekattor TV and News 24, to stop broadcasting any coverage of the student unrest or risk losing their licences.

The same day, the Telecommunication Regulatory Commission announced a complete ban on all 3G or 4G mobile coverage, in order to prevent smartphone owners from sending photos and videos.

Systematic attacks

It was on 5 August that the violence against the media escalated dramatically, with systematic physical attacks against journalists by members of the ruling Awami League's student wing, the Chhatra League. Armed with machetes, metal bars and batons, and many of them wearing motorcycle helmets, they injured at least 23 journalists and attacked six others. The worst injuries were sustained by Associated Press photographer A.M. Ahad, Palash Shikder of Dainik Banik and freelance photographer Rahat Karim.

Five other journalists were later beaten at the same location. They were Channel-i reporter Samia Rahman, bdnews24.com photographer Mahmud Zaman Ovi, Dainik Janakantha's Ibnul Asaf Jawed, a reporter for the US-based Zuma Press known as Rimon, and photojournalism student Enamul Hasan.

Ahmed Deepto, a reporter for the daily newspaper Prothom Alo, was found by a colleague at a nearby location surrounded by 15 to 20 men, who had beaten him. The reporter who went to his aid, the Daily Ittefaq's Sujon Mondol, was also beaten with wooden sticks.

NTV reporter Fahad Mohammad and cameraman Rubel Hossain sustained injuries when they tried to prevent attackers from smashing their cameras in Dhaka's Dhanmondi district.

Eight other journalists and media workers were beaten in the same neighbourhood: Mohona TV reporter Ariful Islam and cameraman Rezaul Karim, Channel i reporter Preema Rahman and her cameraman, a DBC News driver known as Munir, Dainik Naya Diganta's Abdullah Al Bappi and a colleague known as Sharif, the Bdmorning news portal's Abu Sufian Jewel and Prothom Alo photographer Sajid Hossain.

Police passivity

A Nagorik TV crew  reporter Abdullah Shafi, cameraman Ripon Hasana and driver Golam Morshed  sustained injuries when they tried to prevent assailants from vandalizing their vehicle and camera. Bangla Tribune reporter Nuruzzaman Labu was chased away when he tried to take photos on his mobile phone. The police looked on without intervening.

At least six other journalists were slightly injured in violence by Chhatra League members that was equally unacceptable. Daily Star reporter Shaer Reaz was taking photos when a man attacked him with a stick and then handed him over to the police, who detained him for four hours. A journalist with the same newspaper, Selim Sadman Somoy, was also taken to the same police station, where he said he was beaten up.

Sexual assault

Star Weekend editor Sushmita S. Preetha was accosted at around 5:30 p.m. while filming a pro-government demonstration from a bridge. She agreed to delete the video but her assailants insulted her and molested her sexually before letting her leave.

Freelance journalist Rafiul Islam was attacked shortly thereafter and two Channel 24 journalists, Faisal Hossain and Krishna Sarker, were beaten at around 7 p.m. while trying to provide live coverage.

Four days after this terrifying day for the media, none of the attackers has been arrested or questioned by the police.

Bangladesh is ranked 146th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2018 World Press Freedom Index.

Link to original story on RSF websiteRSF calls for Bangladeshi photographer's immediate release

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 13 August 2018 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, RSF calls for Bangladeshi photographer's immediate release, 13 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5bc6ef04a.html [accessed 17 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

August 13, 2018

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) reiterates its call for the immediate and unconditional release of Shahidul Alam, a well-known Bangladeshi photojournalist who was jailed on completely spurious grounds by a Dhaka court yesterday after seven days in police custody.

Arrested at his Dhaka home on the evening of 5 August by around 30 plainclothes officers, Shahidul Alam is facing a possible 14-year jail term for supposedly "provocative" comments  a charge that is at the very least specious  under the notorious and appalling section 57 of Bangladesh's Information and Communication Technology Act.

"The Bangladeshi justice system must try to recover a semblance of credibility by freeing Shahidul Alam at once," said Daniel Bastard, the head of RSF's Asia-Pacific desk. "There are absolutely no procedural grounds for keeping him in detention and, as regards the substance of the case, it unacceptable to prosecute a journalist for doing his job by disseminating information in the public interest."

Bastard added: "Shahidul is clearly being scapegoated in order to intimidate all independent journalists. With just five months to go to a general election, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's government needs to demonstrate that it respects press freedom."

Alam was arrested after what was a dark day for Bangladeshi press freedom, in which around 30 journalists were the targets of violence by members of the ruling party's student wing, the Chhatra League, because of their coverage of a wave of student protests in Dhaka.

RSF has monitored repeated press freedom violations by different branches of the Bangladeshi state  including media censorship, blocking of news networks, arrests of journalists and physical attacks on journalists  since the wave of protests was triggered by the deaths of two school students on 29 July.

At the end of last week, the police announced that they had arrested 12 social network users for "spreading rumours" in a manner similar to Alam.

Bangladesh is ranked 146th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2018 World Press Freedom Index.

Link to original story on RSF websiteVietnamese blogger gets 20-year jail sentence

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 16 August 2018 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, Vietnamese blogger gets 20-year jail sentence, 16 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5bc6ef08a.html [accessed 17 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

August 16, 2018

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns the record 20-year prison sentence that was passed today on Vietnamese blogger Le Dinh Luong for activities "aimed at overthrowing the people's administration," and calls on the European Parliament to block any trade agreement with Vietnam.

Passed at the end of a summary trial in which defence witnesses were not allowed to testify, this 20-year jail term is the longest sentence ever received by a Vietnamese citizen for trying to provide the public with information.

Arrested in July 2017, Le Dinh Luong wrote about a wide range of social issues on Facebook under the pseudonym of Lo Ngoc.

One of his "crimes" was to have criticized the Taiwanese steel company Formosa, whose steel plant in Vietnam's central Ha Tinh province was responsible for a major marine environmental disaster, and the lack of an adequate response from the Vietnamese authorities.

"The extremely harsh sentence imposed on Le Dinh Luong is yet further evidence of the disturbing manner in which the Vietnamese Communist Party's current leadership is stepping up its persecution of bloggers," said Daniel Bastard, the head of RSF's Asia-Pacific desk.

"The European Union is supposed to ratify a free trade agreement with Vietnam later this year, but we call on the European Parliament's members to freeze any such accord in order to avoid supporting such violations of the freedom to inform."

The indictment of Luong  a copy of which has been obtained by RSF  is based almost entirely on an analysis of his Facebook account data, and not just on the content of his posts, as was the case until now with other bloggers convicted in Vietnam.

For this reason, this case is seen as a pointer to the Vietnamese Internet's future under the cyber-crime law that was passed two month ago.

Under the new law, which is due to take effect in January, international digital platforms such as Facebook will have to censor all content regarded by the government as contentious, to store Vietnamese user data in Vietnam, and to hand this data over to the authorities on request. It is expected to deal a death blow to the best of Vietnam's citizen-journalism.

The traditional media adhere closely to the party line in Vietnam, which continues to be ranked near the bottom of RSF's World Press Freedom Index  175th of out of 180 countries in the 2018 Index.

Link to original story on RSF websiteNigerian journalist held over leak of police chief's report

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 17 August 2018 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, Nigerian journalist held over leak of police chief's report, 17 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5bc6ef0aa.html [accessed 17 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

August 17, 2018

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on the Nigerian authorities to immediately free a journalist who was arrested after publishing a leaked police report about a controversial operation by the State Security Service (SSS) and reminds them that the confidentiality of journalists' sources must be respected.

Samuel Ogundipe, who works for the investigative news website Premium Times, has been held ever since his arrest by the Special Anti-Robbery Squad in Abuja on 14 August after posting a copy of the report on the site.

Written by police inspector-general Ibrahim Idris, the report criticizes the action of masked SSS agents who blocked access to the national assembly building in Abuja for several hours on 7 August. According to Premium Times, the police are trying to discover who leaked the report to Ogundipe.

"The confidentiality of sources is one of journalism's fundamental principles and reporters must not be detained for refusing to reveal the identity of those who provide them with information," said Arnaud Froger, the head of RSF's Africa desk. "We call for this journalist's immediate and unconditional release. He has no place behind bars."

The leaked report accused SSS director general Lawal Daura of ordering the operation for "selfish political goals" without consulting other public security officials or the president's office. The operation prevented senators from holding a meeting in which they were to debate removing the senate president, who recently joined the opposition.

Premium Times editor in chief Musikilu Mojeedand one of the site's reporters, Azeezat Adedigba, were also briefly detained.

In an open letter to Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, currently the acting president, the Nigerian Union of Journalists condemned the "incessant attacks on journalists" by the police inspector-general and pointed out that two journalists were held for ten days in January after criticizing the security forces.

The Daily Independent newspaper's Abuja bureau chief, Tony Ezimakor, was arrested by the SSS at the end of February and was held for a week for refusing to reveal his sources for a story about the ransoms that President Muhammadu Buhari's administration allegedly paid for the schoolgirls kidnapped by the Islamist militant group Boko Haram in the northeastern town of Chibok in April 2014.

Nigeria is ranked 119th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2018 World Press Freedom Index.

Link to original story on RSF websiteTo guarantee press freedom, Nepal must amend its new criminal code

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 17 August 2018 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, To guarantee press freedom, Nepal must amend its new criminal code, 17 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5bc6ef0ca.html [accessed 17 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

August 17, 2018

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on the Nepalese authorities to amend several articles in the country's new criminal code, which took effect today, because they limit the freedom to provide news and information in the public interest.

Nepalese journalists could face up to three years in prison if they publish information that is deemed to be "confidential" under the new criminal code. Several of its articles relating to the protection of privacy pose a serious threat to journalistic practices.

Sections 293, 294 and 295 criminalize publishing private information, recording conversations or taking pictures without permission. Under article 306.2, showing "disrespect" towards someone either directly or through satire is also punishable by up to three years in prison.

"We call on the Nepalese authorities to immediately rewrite these provisions because, in their current form, they would seem to constitute an unacceptable censorship tool," said Daniel Bastard, the head of RSF's Asia-Pacific desk.

"They must take account of the need to be able to gather news and information in the public interest. By leaving too much to the judge's discretion, these articles could be used to criminalize all investigative journalism and criticism of public figures. If they are not amended quickly, Nepal is liable to fall sharply in RSF's World Press Freedom Index."

The preamble of Nepal's 2015 constitution proclaims full freedom of the press, while article 19 prohibits censorship. Journalists are nonetheless often subjected to pressure from various authorities, as when the head of the supreme court tried to prevent the publication of any reports criticizing him. He was later removed.

Nepal is ranked 106th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2018 World Press Freedom Index.

Link to original story on RSF websiteEgypt's new cybercrime law legalizes Internet censorship

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 21 August 2018 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, Egypt's new cybercrime law legalizes Internet censorship, 21 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5bc6ef0f3.html [accessed 17 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

August 21, 2018

The "cybercrime law" that Egypt's President Sisi signed on 18 August legalizes and reinforces the existing censorship and blocking of websites and criminalizes both those who operate sites and those who use them, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said.

Under article 7 of this law, Egypt's authorities can now legally block access to any website that is deemed to constitute "a threat to national security" or to the "national economy."

It legalizes a well-established practice. Hundreds of sites have already been blocked in the past few years, apparently on nothing more than the orders of security officials, and the authorities have arrested several online journalists and bloggers, including a news website editor and satirical bloggers.

Even visiting a banned website is now punishable by a year in prison while those who create or manage a website that is subsequently banned could be sentenced to two years in prison.

"This law just legalizes the Internet censorship that is already practiced in Egypt," said Sophie Anmuth, the head of RSF's Middle East desk."In the name of national security, which is defined very broadly and vaguely, the authorities have assumed the right to censor news sites or NGOs whose only crime is reporting human rights violations by the state."

According to AFTE, an Egyptian free speech NGO, and Access Now, which defends an open Internet, "national security" is defined so broadly that it covers "all that is related to the independence, stability, and security of the homeland and its unity and territorial integrity" and anything to do with the president's office and all defence and security departments.

Under another law passed last month, which has yet to be signed by the president, all social network accounts with more than 5,000 followers would be treated as media outlets.

RSF's website is one of the many that are censored. It has been blocked since August 2017 without any explanation by the Egyptian authorities. On the first anniversary of the start of the blocking, RSF restored access to its site in Egypt by creating a mirror site.

Ranked 161st out of 180 countries in RSF's 2018 World Press Freedom Index, Egypt is currently one of the world's biggest jailers of journalists, with at least 36 professional and non-professional journalists detained in connection with the provision of news and information.

Link to original story on RSF websiteJournalist held by Ukrainian separatists "confesses" on Russian TV

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 21 August 2018 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, Journalist held by Ukrainian separatists "confesses" on Russian TV, 21 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5bc6ef114.html [accessed 17 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

August 21, 2018

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns Russian state TV channel Rossiya 24's decision to broadcast a "confession" by Stanislav Aseyev, a Ukrainian journalist held for more than a year by separatists in Donetsk, in eastern Ukraine. RSF is concerned about the pressure that may have been put on him and reiterates its call for his immediate release.

The long "interview" that Rossiya 24 broadcast on 17 August  Aseyev's first appearance since going missing in June 2017  has just fuelled concern about his physical and psychological condition. He said in the broadcast that he spied for Ukraine, in line with the charges brought against him by the authorities in the self-proclaimed "Donetsk People's Republic" (DNR).

The Russian TV channel's "reporter" interspersed the "interview" with criticisms of Aseyev and the Ukrainian authorities but provided no information about the conditions in which he is being held, his state of health or any actual evidence substantiating the spying charge.

One of the media outlets that Aseyev worked for, the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), described the "confession" as "highly questionable." RFE/RL spokesperson Joanna Levison said: "We have no idea when it was made, or under what conditions or duress."

"Broadcasting the 'confession' of a journalist held arbitrarily for more than a year constitutes a grave violation of both journalistic ethics and international humanitarian law," said Johann Bihr, the head of RSF's Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk. "We are extremely concerned about Stanislav Aseyev, who seems to have been acting under constraint, and we appeal again to all parties to do everything possible to obtain his swift release."

Article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which both Russia and Ukraine have ratified, forbids inhuman or degrading treatment while article 14 protects the right of persons not be forced to testify against themselves or to be forced into a confession.

Aseyev was one of the few independent journalists to stay in Donetsk after Moscow-backed separatists seized control there in the spring of 2014. He reported for various Ukrainian newspapers and for RFE/RL's local service under the pseudonym of Stanislav Vasin. According to former fellow detainees, he is being held in the former "Izoliatsiya" factory, which the separatists are using as one of their jails.

The "DNR" and the neighbouring "People's Republic of Luhansk" (LNR) have become news and information black holes. The few critical journalists still there have to operate clandestinely and visits by foreign observers are increasingly infrequent.

Russia is ranked 148th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2018 World Press Freedom Index.

Link to original story on RSF websiteIran: Sufi website journalists sentenced to long jail terms, flogging

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 22 August 2018 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, Iran: Sufi website journalists sentenced to long jail terms, flogging, 22 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5bc6ef134.html [accessed 17 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

August 22, 2018

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns the extremely harsh sentences that a Tehran revolutionary court passed last week on six more people who edited or wrote for Majzooban Noor, a website that is the only independent source of news and information about the Sufi religious community of Gonabadi dervishes in Iran.

Two members of the website's editorial committee, Saleholldin Moradi and Reza Entesari, and the latter's brother, Sina Entesari, a citizen-journalist who wrote for the site, were sentenced to seven years in prison.

Another citizen-journalist who reported for the site, Mohammad Sharifi Moghadam, and another member of its editorial committee, Kasra Nouri, were given 12-year terms. Mostafa Abdi, another member of the editorial staff, received the longest jail sentence  26 years in prison.

All six were also sentenced to 74 lashes each and, on completing their jail terms, to two years of internal exile and a simultaneous two-year ban on all civil society and journalistic activity. The sentences were passed in absentia because the six refused to attend any of the hearings on the grounds that they had no legal representation and the trial was unfair.

Three of Majzooban Noor's women citizen-journalists  Sepideh Moradi, Avisha Jalaledin and Shima Entesari  were sentenced by a separate Tehran revolutionary court on 10 July to five years in prison on charges of "meeting and plotting against national security."

"Rather than judicial decisions, these sentences are examples of how the Iranian judicial authorities persecute independently reported news and information," said Reza Moini, the head of RSF's Iran/Afghanistan desk.

"The Iranian regime has been cracking down harder on independent news providers ever since a wave of street protests began in January. We call on Javaid Rehman, the UN's new special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Iran, to take action on behalf of journalists who have been arrested arbitrarily and given unfair trials. The regime must adhere to its obligations to respect international standards."

The Majzooban Noor journalists were arrested in the north Tehran district of Pasdaran on the night of 19 February during clashes between police and members of this Sufi community. Most of them sustained injuries to the head and hands when they were badly beaten by police and civilian militiamen.

Iran is ranked 164th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2018 World Press Freedom Index.

Link to original story on RSF websiteTajik appeal court frees well-known former journalist

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 22 August 2018 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, Tajik appeal court frees well-known former journalist, 22 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5bc6ef154.html [accessed 17 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

August 22, 2018  Updated on August 23, 2018

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) welcomes today's release of Khayrullo Mirsaidov, a well-known former journalist who had been held for more than eight months, and calls on Tajikistan's authorities to overturn his conviction.

Mirsaidov, who headed the national Comedy Club team at the time of his arrest last December, was freed after an appeal court in the northern city of Khujand today upheld his conviction but commuted his 12-year jail sentence to payment of a fine and damages.

"We are very relieved to know that Khayrullo Mirsaidov is free," said Johann Bihr, the head of RSF's Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk. "The Tajik authorities must now overturn his conviction and release their tight grip on the country's media."

Mirsaidov continues to be convicted on trumped-up charges of misusing public funds, forgery and defamation but the court reduced his sentence to a fine of 80,000 somoni (7,300 euros) and a levy of 20% of his salary for two years.

Link to original story on RSF websiteMore than a thousand people were still missing on Wednesday a week after Hurricane Michael flattened communities across the Florida Panhandle, killing at least 27.

Teams made up of hundreds of volunteers with the Houston-based CrowdSource Rescue organization were searching for more than 1,135 people in Florida who lost contact with friends and family, Matthew Marchetti, co-founder of Houston-based CrowdSource Rescue.

Most of those missing are from Panama City and many are elderly, disabled, impoverished, or live alone, Marchetti said.

Florida officials have not given a number for how many people are considered to be missing. Those who are missing may be with relatives and friends, and not necessarily presumed dead.

Debris, downed trees and power lines have hampered access to stranded people, but CrowdSource said a number of its missing person reports resulted from widespread phone and power outages.

The death toll includes 17 in Florida, one in Georgia, three in North Carolina and six in Virginia, according to a Reuters tally of official reports. Officials said medical examiners were determining whether another four deaths in Florida were due to the storm.

Michael slammed into the northwest coastal strip of Florida last Wednesday with top sustained winds of 155 miles per hour (250 km/h), unleashing a surge of seawater that demolished homes.

About 35,000 Floridians have called Federal Emergency Management Agency seeking help since and the agency has already approved $1 million in assistance for people in those 12 counties, spokesman Ruben Brown in Tallahassee said.

FEMA has distributed about 4.5 million meals, more than 5 million liters of water and 9 million infant-and-toddler kits, he said.

In Mexico Beach, which took a direct hit, the number of people missing dropped to three on Tuesday, said Rex Putnal, a city councillor. A day earlier, it was more than 30. The town of 1,200 residents had reported two fatalities as of Monday.

Nearly 163,000 homes and businesses remained without power in the U.S. Southeast, with residents of battered coastal towns forced to cook on fires and barbecue grills.

At least 80 percent of customers in three mainly rural Panhandle counties were without electricity on Tuesday. Officials said it could be weeks before power returns to some.

Countless others in the region's backcountry have struggled for days without running water or sanitation, awaiting help from authorities. Some have been camping in tents with the belongings they were able to salvage.

The state government is distributing ice, water and about 3 million ready-to-eat meals, Governor Rick Scott's office said.

Marchetti said the search has been hindered by spotty cell phone coverage in the devastated area, though authorities are making progress in restoring communications.

Many residents have also expressed frustration at the slow pace of recovery of wireless networks. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai on Tuesday called for wireless carriers to waive bills for customers affected by the storm.

Search Keywords:

Short link:

Mexico's tragic record on missing journalists

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 29 August 2018 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, Mexico's tragic record on missing journalists, 29 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5bc6ef19a.html [accessed 17 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

August 29, 2018

On International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances (30 August), Reporters Without Borders (RSF) deplores the fact that no fewer that 21 journalists have gone permanently missing in the past 15 years in Mexico, more than in any other country in the western hemisphere.

The Mexican states that have seen the most disappearances  Michoacan, Veracruz, Nuevo Leon, Coahuila, Tamaulipas and Guerrero  are the ones suffer most from organized crime an corruption and where the most journalists are also murdered. An "enforced disappearance" is one in which the state is directly or implicitly involved, one in which authorities, or persons or groups acting with the consent of authorities, abduct and hold someone who is a source of annoyance.

A crime that can take many forms, one that is carried out quietly and with impunity by more and more regimes around the world, enforced disappearance has been recognized as a crime against humanity since 2002.

In Mexico, which is ranked 147th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2018 World Press Freedom Index, the drug cartels are often blamed for disappearances. But the families of victims also often suspect that state agents are involved.

In both kinds of case, the complaints filed by the families produce no results and investigations eventually grind to a halt, including those carried out at the federal level by the Special Prosecutor's Office for Crimes against Freedom of Expression (FEADLE).

In an attempt to address this problem, the Mexican government created a SpecialProsecutor's Office for Investigating Crimes of Enforced Disappearance on 16 February 2018. Its stated mission is to "prevent, investigate, punish and eradicate the crimes of enforced disappearance of persons and enforced disappearances committed by individuals."But this initiative has not been accompanied by any concrete, strategic plan of action.

"Making a journalist disappear is a crime that cannot go unpunished," said Emmanuel Colombie, the head of RSF's Latin America bureau. "Given the scale of this phenomenon, symbolic measures are not enough. Mexico's new government must redouble efforts to improve the effectiveness of investigations. This includes ensuring proper coordination between the FEADLE and the new special prosecutor's office for combatting enforced disappearances."

RSF also deplores the lack of detailed public information about the progress of investigations or about an overall programme of reparations for the families of the victims, as envisaged in one of the recommendations ( Recommendation No. 24) that the National Commission for Human Rights (CNDH) published on 8 February.

In a report published in February 2017, entitled "Veracruz: journalists and the state of fear," RSF called on the FEADLE to adopt special procedures for cases of disappearances and to ensure that the families of the victims are kept full informed. But the situation has worsened this year and the FEADLE is now even less likely than before to use its power to take over the investigation into a disappearance that has been initiated at the local level, where state agents are only too often themselves implicated in the disappearance.

List of Mexican journalists who have gone missing in the past 15 years

Jesus Mejia Lechuga, Noticiario a Primera Hora (Grupo MS-Noticias), disappeared on 10/07/2003 in the state of Veracruz Jose Alfredo Jimenez Mota, El Imparcial, disappeared on 02/04/2005 in the state of Sonora Rafael Ortiz Martinez, El Zocalo, disappeared on 08/07/2006 in the state of Coahuila Jose Antonio Garcia Apac, editor of Ecos de la Cuenca, disappeared on 20/11/2006 in the state of Michoacan Rodolfo Rincon Taracena, Tabasco Hoy, disappeared on 20/01/2007 in the state of Tabasco Gerardo Paredes, TV Azteca Noreste, disappeared on 10/05/2007 in the state of Nuevo Leon Gamaliel Lopez, TV Azteca Noreste, disappeared on 10/05/2007 in the state of Nuevo Leon Mauricio Estrada Zamora, La Opinion de Apatzingan, disappeared on 12/02/2008 in the state of Michoacan Maria Esther Aguilar Cansimbe, El Diario de Zamora, disappeared on 11/11/2009 in the state of Michoacan Miguel Angel Dominguez Zamora, El Manana de Reynosa, disappeared on 01/03/2010 in the state of Tamaulipas Ramon Angeles Zalpa, Cambio de Michoacan, disappeared on 06/04/2010 in the state of Michoacan Evaristo Ortega Zarate, editor of the weekly Espacio, disappeared on 20/04/2010 in the state of Veracruz Marco Antonio Lopez, Novedades, disappeared on 07/06/2011 in the state of Guerrero Manuel Figueroa Fonseca Hernandez, El Mananero de Acayucan, disappeared on 22/09/2011 in the state of Veracruz Federico Manuel Garcia, Punto Critico, disappeared on 14/05/2012 in the state of San Luis Potosi Zane Plemmons, freelance journalist, disappeared on 21/06/2012 dans in the state of Tamaulipas Miguel Morales Estrada, El Diario de Poza Rica, disappeared on 19/07/2012 in the state of Veracruz Adela Jazmin Alcaraz Lopez, Canal 12- CNL Noticias, disappeared on 26/10/2012 in the state of San Luis Potosi Sergio Landa Rosado, Cardel, disappeared on 22/01/2013 in the state of Veracruz Mario Alberto Crespo Ayon, UNO TV, disappeared on 07/12/2014 in the state of Sinaloa Agustin Silva Vazquez, El Sol de Itsmo, disappeared on 21/01/2018 in the state of Oaxaca

Link to original story on RSF websitePakistani reporter killed in Punjab for covering drug trafficking

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 29 August 2018 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, Pakistani reporter killed in Punjab for covering drug trafficking, 29 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5bc6ef1b118.html [accessed 17 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

August 29, 2018

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) notes that the information provided to the police about last week's murder of a young journalist in Vehari District, in eastern Pakistan's Punjab province, clearly indicates that he was killed in connection with his reporting.

Abid Hussain, who was badly beaten on 22 August and died of his injuries the next day in a hospital in the neighbouring district of Multan, had written many articles about drug trafficking in Punjab.

"We will teach you a lesson today for filing reports against us," one of Hussain's assailants shouted before they began hitting him repeatedly with sticks, especially over the head. The attack has been described in detail by the victim's father, Ghulam Farid, who witnessed it.

The statement  called a First Information Report (FIR)  that Farid made to the police, a copy of which has been obtained by RSF, says that, "the attackers warned onlookers that they would face the same fate if they tried to intervene." Farid identified two of the assailants as Tahir Hussain and Muhammad Imran, describing them as "criminals" whose activities had been covered by his son.

"The reason for my son's death is clearly stated in the FIR," Farid told RSF. He filed the complaint together with local journalists, who described Hussain's alleged killers as "influential people."

"Hussain used to report on the drug business in the area and those named are notorious for involvement in the drug business," RSF was told by Muhammad Ilyas, who heads the press club in the nearby town of Sahuka. An outspoken investigative reporter, Hussain worked for the Daily Sagemail.

Fight against impunity

"Pakistan's journalistic community has been hit by yet another tragedy," said Daniel Bastard, the head of RSF's Asia-Pacific desk. "It is high time that the Pakistani authorities took concrete measures to guarantee the physical safety of the country's reporters.

"We call on the Punjab provincial government to do everything necessary to ensure that Abid Hussain's killers are brought to justice. At the national level, Prime Minister Imran Khan must get the parliament that was elected last month to pass firm and specific legislation protecting journalists and combatting impunity for those who attack them."

Hussain is the third journalist to be murdered this year in Pakistan. Zeeshan Ashraf Butt, 29, was shot by a municipal council leader in the north of Punjab province when he tried to interview him on 27 March. Local newspaper subeditor Anjum Muneer Raja was shot six times by men on a motorcycle in a supposedly safe part of the Islamabad suburb of Rawalpindi on 1 March. His killers have yet to be identified.

Pakistan is ranked 139th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2018 World Press Freedom Index.

Link to original story on RSF websiteChina: journalist Zhen Jianghua detained without trial for one year

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 30 August 2018 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, China: journalist Zhen Jianghua detained without trial for one year, 30 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5bc6ef1e4.html [accessed 17 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

August 30, 2018

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on Beijing to release journalist Zhen Jianghua, who has been detained without trial for a year and prevented from seeing a lawyer of his choice, at a charge of potentially costing 15 years of imprisonment.

This Saturday, September 1st, will mark the first year in detention for journalist Zhen Jianghua, who has been accused of "inciting subversion of state power," a charge for which he risks 15 years in prison. Beijing reproached him for managing the Human Rights Campaign in China, a website that lists violations of human rights in China, and Across the Great Firewall, an online media that teaches its readers how to circumvent censorship and avoid surveillance.

Zhen's trial, which was initially scheduled to take place in early August, was postponed without a date. Four independent lawyers who successively offered to defend him were rejected by authorities on the pretext that their assistance "would slow down the investigation." The police is also putting pressure on the detainees' family members to dissuade them from assisting him.

"By preventing the journalist from consulting a lawyer of his choice, the regime of President Xi Jinping violates the rights of defense that are expressly enshrined in the Constitution of the People's Republic of China", said Cedric Alviani, the head of Reporters Without Borders (RSF)'s East Asia bureau, who also urged the international community "to enhance its pressure on the Chinese authorities so they release Zhen and the other detained journalists."

Zhen Jianghua was arrested in Zhuhai on September 1st, 2017. In a month, he was placed under "residential surveillance in a designated location (RSDL)," which are in fact Chinese black prisons where detainees are placed in isolation, deprived of their rights and sometimes tortured. By the Chinese Code of Criminal Procedure, the maximum duration of such detention is six months.

China ranks 176th out of 180 countries in the 2018 RSF World Press Freedom Index, with more than 50 journalists detained in conditions that pose a threat to their lives.

Link to original story on RSF websiteIranian journalists sentenced to imprisonment, flogging

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 30 August 2018 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, Iranian journalists sentenced to imprisonment, flogging, 30 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5bc6ef204.html [accessed 17 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

August 30, 2018

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns the Iranian regime's latest steps to reinforce online censorship, in which two journalists who use social networks have just received harsh sentences  a long jail term in one case and flogging in the other.

The victims include Amir Hossein Miresmaili, a journalist with the daily newspaper Jahan Sanat (Industry World). He was sentenced to ten years in prison on 22 August for a tweet indirectly criticizing Ayatollah Sayyid Ahmad Alamolhoda, a fundamentalist mullah who is Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's representative in the city of Mashhad.

According to Miresmaili's lawyer, a Tehran criminal court convicted him of "insulting the sacredness of Islam," "insulting government agents and officials," "publishing false information designed to upset public opinion" and "publishing immoral articles contrary to public decency." He was also sentenced to a two-year ban on journalistic activity on social networks on completing the jail term.

In his tweet, Miresmaili had tried to suggest that Shia Islam's Eighth Imam, also known as Imam Reza, was not a fundamentalist and was like today's young people. He said the Imam "ate chips and yoghurt and was therefore like us." He was arrested on 23 April, shortly after posting the offending tweet, and was freed on bail 24 hours later. His apologies failed to prevent the trial from going ahead.

"This utterly excessive sentence is clearly designed to intimidate journalists active on social networks," said Reza Moini, the head of RSF Iran/Afghanistan's desk."Afflicted by corruption and the current crisis, the Islamic Republic is using all possible means to silence independent media voices. But it is precisely its censorship of the media, control of Internet content and arrests of journalists  in other words, the policy of suppressing media freedom in effect since the 1979 revolution  that is one of the causes of this crisis."

After his release on bail in April, Miresmaili was arrested again on 12 July because of a tweet about assistance provided by the Imam Khomeini Relief Foundation to Palestinians in Gaza during the month of Ramadan. He had been freed on bail for a second time on 10 August.

The latest crackdown's targets also include Ejlal Ghavami, an independent journalist and human rights defender in Sanandaj, in the northwestern province of Kurdistan, who has been accused of "publishing false information designed to upset public opinion" by posting three articles on social networks about prisoners of conscience in Kurdistan province

After being summoned by the Sanandaj prosecutor's office on 20 August, he was freed on bail of 20 million toman. No date has so far been set for his trial.

Shoja Hossein Zadeh, a citizen-journalist in Baneh, another city in Kurdistan province, was meanwhile sentenced to 74 lashes by a local criminal court in July on a charge of insulting President Hassan Rouhani in a satirical article accusing him of not keeping his election promises. Zadeh ran the Baneh News channel on the Telegram messaging service.

Hengameh Shahidi, a journalist who has been in the justice system's sights for the past 18 months, was briefly arrested again when she left hospital at the end of June. The judicial authorities have said nothing about this latest arrest.

On 15 May, a few days after posting several tweets about her time in detention last year, Shahidi tweeted that she had been summoned by the Tehran prosecutor's office for culture and media for "insulting the head of the judicial system.

The editor of the Paineveste blog, Shahidi was first arrested on in March 2017. Although very ill, she went on several hunger strikes in protest against her detention and against the conditions in which she was held, and was finally released the following August.

Iran is ranked 164th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2018 World Press Freedom Index.

Link to original story on RSF websiteRSF sounds alarm after TV reporter badly beaten in Banja Luka

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 30 August 2018 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, RSF sounds alarm after TV reporter badly beaten in Banja Luka, 30 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5bc6ef224.html [accessed 17 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

August 30, 2018

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls for a firm reaction from the authorities in Republika Srpska, the autonomous Serbian part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, to a brutal attack on Vladimir Kovacevic, an investigative reporter for BN TV, the region's leading TV news channel.

Kovacevic was very badly injured when two masked men beat him with steel bars outside his home in Banja Luka, the de facto capital of Republika Srpska, on the night of 26 August. He had just covered the latest in a series of opposition protests by the "Truth for David" movement, which he has been following for several months.

The local media are appalled by the attack, which the police immediately described as a "murder attempt" and which, in the eyes of all of the country's journalists and media unions, was clearly targeted. Kovacevic had received serious threats on social networks and had repeatedly reported them to the police, but the police never took any action.

"The situation in Bosnia has reached a critical point," said Pauline Ades-Mevel, the head of RSF's EU-Balkans desk. "This attack, the violence of which is extremely shocking and worrying, requires a firm and determined response from the judicial authorities, especially in the run-up to general elections that will be watched by the international community. We call on President Milorad Dodik to stop insulting the country's journalists so that the verbal violence does not open the way to more physical attacks."

There have been threats against other BN TV journalists covering the "Truth for David" movement, which began in March after the police concluded that student David Dragicevic's death was "accidental" although his family and civil society are convinced that he was the victim of a politically-motivated killing. He has become a symbol of revolt against political corruption and his death is the subject of almost daily street protests.

Zeljko Raljic, who heads BN TV's operations in Banja Luka and is the Bosnian Centre for Press Freedom's president, said: "This attack is a clear threat both to BN TV's journalists and to all journalists in Bosnia and Herzegovina because the revolt over David's murder is bothering the country's authorities."

Raljic added: "What's more, with less than two months to go to the general elections scheduled for 7 October, this attack is highly political in nature, because journalists are constantly denouncing the government's grip on the police and corruption in the judicial system."

The tension has been fuelled by recent verbal attacks by Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik, who described BN TV as a "traitor or enemy" and by claims that certain journalist are spies in the pay of other countries.

The identity of Kovacevic's assailants is not yet known by those close to him regard it as a politically-motivated attack designed to deter him and his colleagues from continuing to cover the anti-government demonstrations.

Bosnia and Herzegovina is ranked 62nd out of 180 countries in RSF's 2018 World Press Freedom Index. The political polarization, constant verbal attacks and nationalist rhetoric do not constitute an environment that favours press freedom.

Link to original story on RSF websiteMexico: Young cameraman gunned down in Cancun

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 30 August 2018 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, Mexico: Young cameraman gunned down in Cancun, 30 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5bc6ef24a.html [accessed 17 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

August 30, 2018

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on the Mexican government to do everything possible to end the continuing slaughter of media personnel after a young cameraman in Cancun, in the southeastern state of Quintana Roo, yesterday became the eighth journalist to be murdered in Mexico since the start of the year.

Aged 28, Javier Rodriguez Valladares was gunned down on a street in the resort city's Supermanzana 29 district while interviewing a local craftsman, who was also killed.

Rodriguez worked mainly as a cameraman for Canal 10, a local TV channel, but colleagues said he sometimes did his own reporting on local politics and interviewed people, and was well known to the entire journalistic community in the Cancun area. The local police are investigating his murder but have yet to find any leads or establish a motive.

"The Quintana Roo authorities must conduct an exhaustive investigation into this cowardly murder and identify those responsible as quickly as possible," said Emmanuel Colombie, the head of RSF's Latin America bureau.

"With at least eight journalists killed in Mexico this year, the new government must realize the urgency of the situation and bring the vicious circle of violence to an end by providing the media with effective and lasting protection."

Rodriguez was the third journalist to be murdered in Quintana Roo this year, following Ruben Pat, the editor of the digital weekly Playa News, and Jose Guadalupe Chan Dzib, who was its crime reporter.

Mexico is ranked 147th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2018 World Press Freedom Index.

Link to original story on RSF websiteCambodian court sentences Australian filmmaker to six years in jail

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 31 August 2018 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, Cambodian court sentences Australian filmmaker to six years in jail, 31 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5bc6ef2615.html [accessed 17 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

August 31, 2018  Updated on September 21, 2018

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns the "utterly unacceptable" six-year prison sentence that a Cambodian court passed today on Australian documentary filmmaker James Ricketson and reiterates its call for his unconditional release.

--------------------------------------------------

Update

RSF is relieved to learn that the Cambodian authorities pardoned Australian documentary filmmaker James Ricketson on 21 September 2018. RSF calls for his immediate release and deplores the fact that he spent 15 months and 21 days held in appalling conditions on a trumped-up spying charge before finally learning that he was to be freed.

--------------------------------------------------

"Which country am I spying for?" James Ricketson shouted through the grille of the police truck taking him back to Phnom Penh's notorious Prey Sar prison today after a court convicted him on an espionage charge.

Now aged 69, Ricketson has been held since 3 June 2017, when police arrested him in his hotel on the grounds that he had used a drone the previous day to film a rally by the main opposition party, which was banned a few months later.

The prosecution accused him of coming to Cambodia with the "intention to incite hatred" and based its case on nothing more than a few insignificant photos and emails found on his computer. In reality, Ricketson is respected in Australia for his socially-conscious documentaries and has visited Cambodia often during the past 20 years to film the realities of life for the poorest segment of its population.

Ricketson insisted throughout the trial that his filmmaking was purely journalistic in nature. The defence witnesses, who included the well-known Australian film director Peter Weir, all assured the court of his dedication and the enormous integrity of his documentaries.

"This six-year prison sentence is utterly unacceptable," said Daniel Bastard, the head of RSF's Asia-Pacific desk. "Nothing in this case bears scrutiny. He was arrested on completely spurious grounds. He was held provisionally for 14 months. And finally, the prosecution presented a totally specious case against him."

Bastard added: "This trial has provided yet further evidence  if any were still needed  of the Cambodian justice system's complete lack of independence in press freedom cases. We call on the authorities to overturn this conviction without delay if they want Cambodia to maintain any semblance of credibility on the international stage."

"He could die in there"

The harsh sentence is all the more puzzling given the recent signs of detente from Prime Minister Hun Sen's regime, after it crushed the entire independent press in order to assure itself of victory in the general elections held on 29 July. Former Radio Free Asia journalists Yeang Sothearin and Uon Chhin were freed on bail ten days ago after being held for nine months in the same prison as Ricketson.

"This is really sad for James," Uon Chhin told RSF after learning of his sentence. "We were friends and he lent us books in English. I fear the worst for his health, given the conditions in the prison. It is a living hell." Prey Sar is notorious for overcrowding, malnutrition and appalling hygiene.

Ricketson is suffering from recurrent skin ailments and seemed to have lost a lot of weight when he appeared in court during the trial. On the first anniversary of his arrest, in June, RSF relayed his son's appeal for his release. "He could die in there," Jesse Ricketson said.

Cambodia is ranked 142nd out of 180 countries in RSF's 2018 World Press Freedom Index, ten places lower than in 2017.

Link to original story on RSF websiteChina: RSF asks UN to deem Chinese cartoonist's detention as arbitrary

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 31 August 2018 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, China: RSF asks UN to deem Chinese cartoonist's detention as arbitrary, 31 August 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5bc6ef2811.html [accessed 17 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

August 31, 2018  Updated on September 3, 2018

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) submitted an application to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention yesterday regarding Chinese cartoonist, Jiang Yefei, who has been sentenced to six and a half years in prison for "subversion of state power."

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) submitted yesterday an application to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD) on behalf of Chinese cartoonist Jiang Yefei, 50, who was arrested in Thailand in 2015 and sentenced to six and a half years in prison in China last month for "subversion of state power" and "illegal crossing of the border." RSF's submission purposes to obtain an official recognition of the arbitrary nature of Jiang's detention and to allow the UN to publicly question China on the subject.

"Jiang Yefei has done nothing that could justify his detention under the Chinese constitution, which explicitly guarantees freedom of the press and freedom of expression," said Cedric Alviani, director of Reporters Without Borders East Asia office. Considering that the cartoonist was granted refugee status by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Alviani urges Chinese authorities to "let Jiang settle in Canada with his family, which he was preparing for when he was unduly arrested."

Jiang Yefei, known for his satirical drawings published by US online magazine Boxun, had been a refugee in Thailand since 2008. On October 28, 2015, he was arrested at the request of Chinese authorities and "repatriated" in the same aircraft as Swedish publisher Gui Minhai, who is at the moment still detained in China with no trial date. RSF recently filed a similar application for Gui to the UN.

China ranks 176th out of 180 in the 2018 RSF World Press Freedom Index.

Link to original story on RSF websiteRSF appalled by jail terms for two Myanmar journalists

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 3 September 2018 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, RSF appalled by jail terms for two Myanmar journalists, 3 September 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5bc6ef2aa.html [accessed 17 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

September 3, 2018

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns the iniquity of the seven-year prison sentences that two Reuters reporters received in Yangon today at the end of a sham trial, and reiterates its call for their immediate release.

On what was a dark day for press freedom in Myanmar, Kyaw Soe Oo and Wa Lone were convicted of violating the country's Official Secrets Act for investigating a massacre of ten Rohingya civilians by soldiers exactly a year and a day ago in Inn Dinn, a village in the north of Rakhine state.

"The conviction of Kyaw Soe Oo and Wa Lone is a terrible blow to press freedom in Myanmar," RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said. "As the justice system clearly followed orders in this case, we call on the country's most senior officials, starting with government leader Aung San Suu Kyi, to free these journalists, whose only crime was to do their job. After a farcical prosecution, this outrageous verdict clearly calls into question Myanmar's transition to democracy."

The massacre investigated by Kyaw Soe Oo and Wa Lone was acknowledged by the army and seven soldiers were sentenced to ten years in prison.

During the preliminary hearings in the case of the two journalists, a police officer admitted that his superiors framed them by giving them supposedly classified documents and then immediately arresting them. The entire prosecution case was based solely on this trumped-up evidence.

Myanmar is ranked 137th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2018 World Press Freedom Index.

Link to original story on RSF websiteAlbanian journalists repeatedly threatened, attacked

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 4 September 2018 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, Albanian journalists repeatedly threatened, attacked, 4 September 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5bc6ef2ca.html [accessed 17 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

September 4, 2018

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is appalled to learn that a TV journalist was threatened at gunpoint in a small town in northern Albania yesterday, just four days after bursts were fired with an assault rifle at the home of an investigative reporter in the capital, Tirana.

Julian Shota, a reporter for commercial TV channel Report TV, went to the town of Lac yesterday to cover an explosion that had just occurred in a bar but, on arriving at the bar, was immediately ordered to leave by its owner. After telling Shota not to film, the owner seized a pistol and threatened to shoot him.

"I owe my survival to those who prevented him from shooting and grabbed his wrist at the last moment," a visibly shaken Shota said on the air on Report TV a few hours later.

The police are investigating the cause of the explosion in the bar, which caused no injuries. They also took the bar owner and questioned at the local police station, but released him this morning.

"Lac is reputed to be a dangerous town with very powerful crime rings that are not necessarily targeted by the local police," RSF was told on condition of anonymity by a journalist who specializes in the region. "To do their reporting properly, journalists must deal with organized crime all the time, and yet they are paid very poorly."

The death threat against Shota and the shooting attack four days earlier in Tirana h ave highlighted the climate of violence prevailing in Albania, in which journalists are among the leading targets.

It is not known who fired shots with a Kalashnikov-style automatic weapon on 30 August at the Tirana home of Klodiana Lala, an investigative journalist who specializes in covering crime but, in a Facebook post a few hours after the attack, Lala said she thought it was linked to her reporting. The police have given her protection.

"Firing at a reporter's home with a Kalashnikov and threatening a reporter at gunpoint are unacceptable practices designed to intimidate and silence journalists who dare to investigate suspicious events or organized crime, which is prevalent in Albania," said Pauline Ades-Mevel, the head of RSF's EU-Balkans desk. "We call on the authorities to firmly and publicly condemn each attack and to protect journalists for as long as necessary for them to be able to do their duty to report the news."

Albania is ranked 75th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2018 World Press Freedom Index.

Link to original story on RSF websiteNineteen people were killed and dozens more wounded, most of them teenagers, after a student opened fire in a technical college in Russian-annexed Crimea on Wednesday, the authorities said.

The toll rose to 19 on Wednesday afternoon, regional medical officials told TASS state news agency.

They said 39 remained hospitalised after the attack on the college in the city of Kerch on the peninsula annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

Russia's Investigative Committee said the attack was carried out by 18-year-old student Vladislav Roslyakov.

He was captured on security camera footage and later found dead with gunshot wounds.

Roslyakov enrolled at the college in 2015, according to its website.

RBK newspaper quoted an anonmyous fellow student as saying Roslyakov "really hated the college because of evil teachers and hinted he would take revenge on them."

Violent attacks on schools and colleges are extremely rare in Russia but there have been several high-profile cases recently with far fewer victims.

The Investigative Committee, which probes major incidents, had initially classified the attack as an act of terror and described it as an explosion.

But it later said it was investigating a mass murder after "this young man shot people dead in the college and then committed suicide," adding that all the victims died of gunshot wounds.

The attack had first been reported as an explosion and the Russia's National Anti-Terrorism Committee said an "unidentified explosive device" had gone off in the canteen.

Committee spokesman Andrei Przhezdomsky said that Roslyakov's body was found next to a pump-action gun.

Crimean leader Sergei Aksyonov told Russian television: "It was a mass murder committed by one scumbag."

The reported killer was a "student in the fourth year who was studying at the college. His body was found in the college library," Aksyonov wrote on Facebook.

A source in the emergency services told RIA Novosti state news agency that Roslyakov had legally acquired a gun licence.

The Investigative Committee said most of the victims were teenagers. The college's website says it accepts students in the last three grades of school, from the age of 14.

The regional health ministry said six of the injured were in an extremely serious condition and eight in a serious condition.

Aksyonov announced three days of mourning from Thursday over the "terrible tragedy".

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, said in televised comments that a "tragic event" had happened, speaking during talks with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

"It's already clear that it's a crime, the motive and possible versions for this tragedy are being carefully examined," Putin said.

"I want to express condolences to the relatives of the dead and express the hope that the injured recover as quickly as possible," the president said, calling for a minute's silence to mourn the victims.

Kerch is linked to the Russian mainland by a bridge that Putin opened in May.

Witnesses said that the attacker fired shots but also spoke of hearing an explosion.

A student at the college who asked not to be named told AFP: "I was in a class when I heard shooting on the first floor."

"When we all ran out into the corridor, there were others running and shouting that some guy with a machine gun was randomly shooting everyone in turn."

"Then a strong explosion went off, but thank God, I was already outside and saw our guys being thrown out of the windows by the explosive wave," he said, adding that part of the building collapsed.

Another witness who gave his name as Sergei and who worked nearby said in a video on the Kerch.tv website that he heard "a bang and shots."

Sergei, whose shirt was covered in blood, said victims "were taken away in public transport, in minibuses and buses, with two or three people in each ambulance."

"They are children and staff," the witness said. "I saw people without legs, without arms."

Attacks by disaffected teenagers at their schools and colleges have hit the headlines recently in Russia.

In January, a school student attacked a teacher and fellow students with an axe in Siberia and tried to set fire to the school building and to kill himself.

In April, a school student stabbed a teacher and a fellow student in the Urals Mountains and then set fire to a classroom.

Search Keywords:

Short link:

Australian public channel website ABC blocked in China

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 5 September 2018 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, Australian public channel website ABC blocked in China, 5 September 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5bc6ef2f3.html [accessed 17 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

September 5, 2018  Updated on September 10, 2018

Australian public channel ABC complained on Monday about the recent blocking of its website in China. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) denounces the increasing censorship of foreign media in China.

Access to the website and mobile applications of Australian public channel ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) has been cut off in China for ten days, said the board of the group on Monday, September 3rd.

The Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission, which is controlled by Chinese President Xi Jinping, confirmed that it has classified ABC as a media "damaging [China's] national pride" that should be banned.

ABC's critical coverage of China, especially its publication of a 2017 report denouncing the growing influence of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Australia, appears to have triggered Beijing's recent shutdown of the Australian channel.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) denounces China's increasing censorship of foreign media. "Given the Chinese government's stranglehold on the media, foreign websites such as ABC are the only platforms providing independent information to Chinese citizens," reminds Cedric Alviani, director of the RSF East-Asia bureau. "By adding ABC to its blacklist, which already counts more than 8,000 domain names, Beijing again demonstrates its commitment to keep Chinese citizens in ignorance."

According to official sources, over two million people are involved in China's c ensorship and internet surveillance effort. Its "Great Digital Wall" keeps 800 million Chinese netizens away from countless foreign news websites, including Wikipedia, the New York Times, BBC and Bloomberg News.

China stays at the bottom of the 2018 RSF World Press Freedom Index (176th out of 180 countries).

Link to original story on RSF websiteRSF condemns weekly's "disproportionate and arbitrary" closure in Chad

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 5 September 2018 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, RSF condemns weekly's "disproportionate and arbitrary" closure in Chad, 5 September 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5bc6ef313.html [accessed 17 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

September 5, 2018

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on Chad's media regulatory authority to rescind its decision to close the weekly newspaper Al-Chahedfor three months for "plagiary" and publishing "false news."

Ordering its closure on 30 August, the High Authority for Media and Broadcasting (HAMA) said "no fact or material evidence" justified the newspaper's claim that Qatar and Sudan were linked to rebels operating in northern Chad.

The decision followed complaints by the Qatari and Sudanese embassies  which the foreign ministry passed on to the HAMA  about an analytical article headlined "Who is behind the Chadian rebel forces in the north?".

The article argued that Sudan's policy of cooperation with Chad was contradictory, and it referred to the accusations of "destabilization attempts" that are often levelled against Qatar, including by the Chadian authorities themselves. Diplomatic relations between the two countries were recently severed for a year, until February 2018.

"We call on the media regulatory authority to rescind this closure, which is disproportionate and arbitrary," said Arnaud Froger, the head of RSF's Africa desk. "The HAMA's role is to monitor respect for journalistic ethics, not to issue judgments about opinions. Political analysis is an essential element of journalism. If persons or governments think they have been defamed, legal recourse is available to them, as is the right to have a response published."

Chad is ranked 123st out of 180 countries in RSF's 2018 World Press Freedom Index.

Link to original story on RSF websiteThreat to confidentiality of journalists' sources in Ukraine

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 5 September 2018 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, Threat to confidentiality of journalists' sources in Ukraine, 5 September 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5bc6ef334.html [accessed 17 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

September 5, 2018

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns a Kiev court's decision giving the Ukrainian prosecutor-general's office access to a reporter's mobile phone data in order to pursue its investigation of a leak. The ruling, which sets a very disturbing precedent, was revealed yesterday by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL).

The broadcaster said well-known investigative reporter Natalia Sedletska's mobile phone service provider has been forced to surrender the records of all of her calls and texts between July 2016 and November 2017, along with associated data including the records of her location.

The prosecutor-general's office has pointed out that it has not, however, obtained access to the content of her calls.

"This decision seriously compromises the protection of journalistic sources, which is essential to investigative journalism and which is guaranteed by Ukrainian and European law," said Johann Bihr, the head of RSF's Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk.

"This shocking precedent sends a powerful intimidatory message to investigative reporters in the run-up to Ukraine's general elections. We call on the authorities to reconsider the proportionality of this decision and to restrict, with more precision, the exceptions to the confidentiality of journalists' sources that are allowed by the law."

Sedletska is the host of "Skhemy," a weekly programme specializing in coverage of high-level corruption that Ukrainian public television has been broadcasting with support from RFE/RL since 2014.

The prosecutor-general's office requested access to her phone records as part of its investigation into an alleged leak of "classified information" by the head of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU). Sedletska was interrogated as a witness for several hours in December 2017 but, in accordance with the law, refused to reveal anything about her contacts with sources.

Ukraine is ranked 101st out of 180 countries in RSF's 2018 World Press Freedom Index.

Link to original story on RSF websiteIn embassy protest, RSF and Amnesty urge Egypt to free Shawkan

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 6 September 2018 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, In embassy protest, RSF and Amnesty urge Egypt to free Shawkan, 6 September 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5bc6ef354.html [accessed 17 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

September 6, 2018  Updated on September 7, 2018

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and Amnesty International France staged a joint demonstration outside the Egyptian embassy in Paris today in support of Mahmoud Abdel Shakour Abou Zeid, an Egyptian photojournalist also known as Shawkan who is facing a possible death sentence from a court in Cairo this weekend.

Brandishing placards and cameras in a show of solidarity, the demonstrators called for the immediate and unconditional release of the 30-year-old photographer, who has been held arbitrarily for the past five years.

"This young man has spent a sixth of his life in prison just for doing his job," RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said at a joint press conference with Sylvie Bigot-Vilain, the director-general of Amnesty International France.

"He graduated in 2012 and has been detained since 2013. Five years in prison just for doing his job is intolerable. If the Egyptian justice system sentences Shawkan to death on Saturday, President Sisi's regime will forever bear the stain and activists, including RSF activists, will be there to remind him whenever he travels abroad. We urge all those who can put pressure on Egypt to request Shawkan's release."

During the protest at the embassy, RSF staff members tried to hand in a box filled with the photographs of thousands of journalists, photographers and sympathizers from all of the world who took part in the "#MyPicforShawkan" campaign of solidarity with Shawkan that RSF launched on 10 April.

Amnesty left a package outside representing the 71,350 signatures that it received to a petition for Shawkan's release. The embassy refused to accept either of these highly symbolic items.

The court that is trying Shawkan along with more than 700 fellow defendants is due to issue its verdict and sentence on 8 September. In April, the prosecution requested the death sentence for Shawkan,who is accused of terrorism for trying to cover the use of deadly force to disperse a sit-in in Cairo's Rabaa Square in August 2013.

With at least 32 professional and non-professional journalists currently detained in connection with their reporting , Egypt is ranked 161st out of 180 countries in RSF's 2018 World Press Freedom Index.

Link to original story on RSF websiteIndia: RSF calls for release of Kashmiri journalist held for past 10 days

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 6 September 2018 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, India: RSF calls for release of Kashmiri journalist held for past 10 days, 6 September 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5bc6ef37a.html [accessed 17 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

September 6, 2018  Updated on September 10, 2018

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls for the immediate and unconditional release of Aasif Sultan, a Kashmiri journalist working for the Kashmir Narrator monthly, who has been held by the Indian police in the troubled Kashmir Valley in violation of all criminal procedure rules for the past ten days.

"The charges are very vague," his editor, Showkat A. Motta, told RSF yesterday. "Every day we were told there was no serious evidence against him and that he would be released. We waited for five days after he was picked up before making the news of his arrest public. Within an hour of our issuing a statement, he was booked on a charge of harbouring a terrorist."

Aasif Sultan, 31, was arrested on the night of 24 August when around 50 policemen descended on his home in Srinagar, the Kashmiri capital, searched it and then took him away to a police station. His editor said he has been subjected to a great deal of violence, including being hit in the face, in an attempt to get him to "explain his political ideology."

"He was asked about his stories," Motta said. "He was asked why he doesn't write more positive stories or do developmental journalism."

"Detaining a journalist without any serious evidence to support the charges against him is unacceptable," said Daniel Bastard, the head of RSF's Asia-Pacific desk. "We call on the Jammu and Kashmir authorities to order Aasif Sultan's immediate release, to drop all charges and to take measures against the Srinagar police officers responsible for his arbitrary detention. Allowing journalists to express different viewpoints will help to defuse tension in the Kashmir Valley."

Incident Report

At the start of July, Sultan wrote a story to mark the second anniversary of the death of Buhran Wani, the commander of the Kashmiri militant group Hizbul Mujahideen, killed by the security forces on 8 July 2016. His death set off renewed protests against the Indian presence in the Kashmir Valley. Those close to Sultan think this story was the real reason for his arrest.

"He has been framed," Motta said.

RSF issued an Incident Report on freedom of the press in India at the start of July, two weeks after Shujaat Bukhari, the editor of the Rising Kashmir daily newspaper, was gunned down as he left his office in Srinagar.

It was exactly a year and a day ago today, on 5 September 2017, that Kamran Yousuf, a Kashmiri photojournalist recognized as such by his colleagues, was arrested and handed over to the National Investigation Agency, India's counter-terrorism agency. He was freed on bail after six months but is still facing prosecution.

India is ranked 138th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2018 World Press Freedom Index.

Link to original story on RSF websiteSpate of trials in Turkey on "terrorist propaganda" charges

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 6 September 2018 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, Spate of trials in Turkey on "terrorist propaganda" charges, 6 September 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5bc6ef39a.html [accessed 17 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

September 6, 2018

The end of the summer break in Turkey means the resumption of trials of journalists. More than 50 are being prosecuted for "terrorist propaganda," a catch-all charge that the Turkish justice system has been using for more than 25 years to silence criticism and curb debate, especially about Turkey's Kurdish minority.

Use of this poorly-defined charge has grown again in recent years with President Erdogan's increasingly autocratic tendencies and ever-tougher line on the Kurdish issue. As of 1 July, a total of 57 journalists and media workers were charged with "propaganda for a terrorist organization" or with "publishing terrorist organization's statements."

"Media freedom is part of the solution to the Kurdish issue" (2015) Read the report

They include Sibel Hurtas, the correspondent of the exile TV channel Art TV, and Hayri Demir, a reporter for the pro-Kurdish news agency Mezopotamya, whose trial resumes today. The representative of Reporters Without Borders (RSF) in Turkey will attend as an observer.

Hurtas and Demir are facing up to 18 years in prison on charges of "inciting hatred" and "propaganda" on behalf of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been locked in an armed conflict with the Turkish state for decades.

The charges are based on their coverage of the Turkish military's operations in northern Syria's Afrin region and their social network posts on this subject. The prosecution is using extracts from Hurtas's interviews with politicians as part of its case against her.

Criticizing Turkey's intervention in Afrin

Hurtas and Demir, who are being tried along with ten other people, spent three days in police custody in January, shortly after Turkey's intervention in Afrin began. The military operations triggered hundreds of arrest warrants against Internet users suspected of "terrorist propaganda." Nurcan Baysal, a columnist with the T24 news website, spent two days in police custody because of tweets critical of the intervention.

Ishak Karakas, the editor of the newspaper Halkn Nabz and a columnist for the exile news website Art Gercek, was arrested in late January and was not released until the start of May, when his trial on a charge of "PKK propaganda" got under way. RSF attended the initial hearing, at which he pleaded innocent and insisted that he served the cause of peace.

"The content that I shared online consisted of articles and comments that do not represent any political party and do not consist of terrorist propaganda," Karakas testified. His trial will resume on 18 September and he continues to face a possible prison sentence if found guilty.

"The persecution of journalism is diverting the justice system from the legitimate task of combatting terrorism," RSF Turkey representative Erol Onderoglu said. "A complete overhaul of the terrorism law and a return to the rule of law would be of much greater help in combatting the real threats that Turkey faces. We call for the withdrawal of all charges against journalists and bloggers who are being prosecuted just for doing their job."

TV channel accused of defending both PKK and IS

In a country where the authorities tolerate no deviation from the official line, the "terrorist propaganda" accusations are often very absurd. The trial of the three people who ran Hayatn Sesi TV, a left-wing channel that was summarily closed in October 2016, is a good example.

The channel's editor in chief, Gokhan Cetin, and its two owners, Mustafa Kara and Ismail Gokhan Bayram, are accused of "constant propaganda on behalf of three terrorist organizations" although the three organizations named in the indictment  the PKK, the small, radical Kurdish group TAK and Islamic State  have conflicting aims and ideologies.

The terrorism law, a favourite tool of repression

Turkey's terrorism law, the TMK, was adopted in April 1991, at a time of frequent armed clashes with the PKK and when Turkey was partly under a state of emergency. Article 7.2 of the law, establishing the crime of "terrorist propaganda," has been a favourite tool of repression for all governments ever since, helping to restrict debate about the Kurdish issue.

Despite some amendments, including the insertion of a reference to violence in 2013, "terrorist propaganda" has continued to be a catch-all charge that allows the politicized justice system to prosecute journalists for the opinions they express.

After a let-up, the number of trials soared again when peace talks between the government and PKK ended in 2015 and criminalization of the Kurdish political class resumed. RSF's Turkey representative, Onderoglu, has himself been charged with "terrorist propaganda" along with 40 other people who took part in a campaign of solidarity with the newspaper Ozgur Gundem.

The already worrying state of Turkey's media has become critical since an abortive coup in July 2016. Around 150 media outlets have been closed, mass trials are being held and the country now holds the world record for the number of professional journalists detained. Turkey is ranked 157th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2018 World Press Freedom Index.

Link to original story on RSF websiteRussia: concern about Volgograd website editor missing for three months

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 7 September 2018 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, Russia: concern about Volgograd website editor missing for three months, 7 September 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5bc6ef3da.html [accessed 17 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

September 7, 2018  Updated on September 9, 2018

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is very worried about Leonid Makhinya, a journalist who disappeared in the southwestern city of Volgograd exactly three months ago today, and calls on the Russian authorities to shed all possible light on the case.

Aged 35 and the editor of a local news website called Volgogradsky Reporter, Makhinya has been missing since 7 June. His wife's last contact with him was a phone call that morning, during which she noticed nothing unusual. All attempts to locate him since then have drawn a blank.

The local Investigative Committee opened an investigation into the case in July, treating it as a suspected homicide.

"We are extremely concerned about Leonid Makhinya," said Johann Bihr, the head of RSF's Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk. "His unexplained disappearance casts an intimidatory shadow over the entire journalistic profession. We call on the authorities to do everything possible to find him."

Volgogradsky Reporter styles itself as an independent site "telling nothing but the truth, without any censorship" and often publishes articles critical of the local authorities. Many of his colleagues urge the authorities not to rule out the possibility that his disappearance is linked to his journalistic work.

As RSF reported at the time, someone sabotaged the brakes of the car of Yulia Zavyalova, the editor of another independent news website in Volgograd, in November. Impunity for violence against journalists is a recurrent problem in Russia, which is ranked 148th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2018 World Press Freedom Index.

Link to original story on RSF websiteEgypt: Shawkan will soon be free

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 8 September 2018 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, Egypt: Shawkan will soon be free, 8 September 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5bc6ef404.html [accessed 17 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

September 8, 2018

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is relieved by the 5-year jail sentence passed today on Mahmoud Abdel Shakour Abou Zeid, the young Egyptian photojournalist also known as Shawkan, as he has already spent five years in preventive detention and, having effectively served his sentence, will soon be free.

Today's decision by a Cairo court means Shawkan's long ordeal is over. He was finally convicted at the end of a mass trial with more than 700 fellow defendants.

"We are immensely relieved to learn that Shawkan will soon be released," RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said.

"He spent five years in prison in the most appalling conditions just for doing his job as a photographer, for trying cover a massacre by the security forces in Cairo's Rabaa Square on 14 August 2013. He is in very poor physical and psychological condition and needs to be reunited with his family without delay."

With at least 32 professional and non-professional journalists currently detained in connection with their reporting, Egypt is ranked 161st out of 180 countries in RSF's 2018 World Press Freedom Index.

Link to original story on RSF websiteChina: RSF press freedom laureate falls victim to violence in detention again

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 10 September 2018 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, China: RSF press freedom laureate falls victim to violence in detention again, 10 September 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5bc6ef42a.html [accessed 17 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

September 10, 2018  Updated on September 11, 2018

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns the latest violence inflicted by Chinese officials on Huang Qi, RSF Press Freedom Prize laureate, who has been detained for almost two years without trial despite critical health condition.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns the relentlessness of prosecutors and Chinese prison administration against Huang Qi, 55, RSF Press Freedom Prize laureate, who recently fell victim to violence in Mianyang Detention Center, where he has been detained for 22 months in condition that leaves people fear for his life. His trial, scheduled for June 20th 2018, was canceled without a further date.

Last friday, in one of the rare visits permitted, Huang's lawyer Liu Zhengqing discovered further deterioration of Huang's health and weight loss. Huang, refusing to plead guilty despite pressure, had suffered fifteen interrogations in just the month of August and complained of have been hit by prosecutor Du Peng, apparent by bruises on his chest.

"By torturing a senior journalist respected for the seriousness of his investigations, Beijing is evidently trying to set an example to intimidate the entire profession of journalism," said Cedric Alviani, the director of RSF's East Asia bureau."Their ceaseless effort to force Huang Qi to plead guilty only shows how empty the charge set against him is."

Huang Qi, winner of 2004 RSF prize, founder of human-rights information website 64 Tianwang and winner of the 2016 RSF Press Freedom Prize, was arrested on 23 October 2016 for "divulging state secrets abroad," punishable by death penalty. The journalist suffers from critical liver and kidney diseases as a result from eight years in jail and labor camp.

Last year, two defenders of freedom of information, Nobel Peace Prize and RSF Award laureate Liu Xiaobo and blogger Yang Tongyan, died in detention in China. Ranked 176th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2018 World Press Freedom Index, China is currently holding more than 50 journalists and bloggers in its prisons.

Link to original story on RSF websiteRussian court upholds Ukrainian journalist's 12-year sentence

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 13 September 2018 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, Russian court upholds Ukrainian journalist's 12-year sentence, 13 September 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5bc6ef44a.html [accessed 17 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

September 13, 2018

Russia's supreme court yesterday upheld Ukrainian journalist Roman Sushchenko's sentence of 12 years in a maximum-security prison camp on a charge of spying. Like the original trial, the supreme court hearing was held behind closed doors.

"The complete opaqueness of these proceedings raises major doubts about the accusations against Roman Sushchenko," said Johann Bihr, the head of the Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk at Reporters Without Borders (RSF). "It is all the more unacceptable because he has already spent two years in detention. If the Russian authorities still cannot produce credible proof of this journalist's guilt, it is high time for them to free him."

Russia is ranked 148th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2018 World Press Freedom Index.

Link to original story on RSF websiteEgypt plans to issue its first international sovereign sukuk, or Islamic bonds, in the 2019-2020 financial year, Finance Minister Mohamed Maait told Reuters on Wednesday.

Maait did not give the size of the planned offering. Egypt is aiming to issue about $20 billion in foreign currency-denominated bonds by 2022.

Issuing sukuk could allow Egypt to attract a new class of investor as it implements a three-year IMF-backed economic reform programme agreed in late 2016.

The country has borrowed heavily from abroad since then and faces a tough repayment schedule and a rising bill for oil imports.

Egypt's foreign debt stood at $92.64 billion at the end of June, an increase of 17.2 percent from the previous year.

Egyptian officials have previously announced their intention to issue Islamic bonds, but the plans did not materialise.

Search Keywords:

Short link:

Missing Congolese reporter found "in state of shock"

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 14 September 2018 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, Missing Congolese reporter found "in state of shock", 14 September 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5bc6ef46a.html [accessed 17 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

September 14, 2018

A local community radio journalist who went missing earlier this week in Bukavu, in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, said after being found yesterday that he was kidnapped. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on the authorities to guarantee his safety and to conduct an investigation in order to identify his abductors.

Radio Svein reporter and presenter Hassan Murhabazi was found by passers-by in Bukavu, the capital of Sud-Kivu province, yesterday evening after being missing for two and a half days. No one had heard from him since he left his Bukavu home on the morning of 11 September after receiving an anonymous call.

Radio Svein's director told RSF that he managed to speak with Murhabazi for a few minutes before he was taken to hospital for a medical examination, and described him as being in a "state of shock." "It was an abduction," the radio station director said. "His abductors ordered him to say nothing and told him he would not get a second chance."

Murhabazi hosts "Mkate," a show known for providing critical coverage of political developments. The show's latest broadcast, on 9 September, was partly dedicated to ruling party presidential candidate Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, President Joseph Kabila's designated successor.

The next day, on the eve of his abduction, Murhabazi received several threatening texts saying that Shadary should be "left alone."

"We are relieved to learn that Hassan Murhabazi has been found alive, but the Congolese authorities need to appreciate the gravity of this journalist's abduction and the threats made against him," said Arnaud Froger, the head of RSF's Africa desk."As tension mounts with three months to go to a presidential election that was delayed for two years, the authorities must guarantee Murhabazi's safety and must open an investigation to identify his abductors. They have a duty to protect all journalists so that a political debate can take place in the run-up to the election."

According to RSF's tally, journalists were the victims of a total of 22 attacks and 35 arrests during the first eight months of 2018, with most of these arrests being carried out in a completely illegal manner. Two Bukavu journalists had to flee their homes in July after receiving death threats in connection with their documentary about villagers being evicted from land claimed by President Joseph Kabila.

The DRC is ranked 154th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2018 World Press Freedom Index.

Link to original story on RSF websiteSix months later, nothing known about Haitian journalist's disappearance

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 14 September 2018 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, Six months later, nothing known about Haitian journalist's disappearance, 14 September 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5bc6ef4834.html [accessed 17 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

September 14, 2018

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on the Haitian authorities to come up with answers for the family and colleagues of Vladjimir Legagneur, a freelance photo-journalist who went missing exactly six months ago today in the capital, Port-au-Prince. The investigation into his disappearance has ground to a halt, if one exists at all.

Legagneur never came back after leaving home on 14 March to do a report in Grand-Ravine, a section of the southern district of Martissant that is one of the capital's poorest and most violent neighbourhoods.

His wife reported his disappearance two days later to the Judicial Police Central Directorate (DCPJ) and a complaint was filed with the Port-au-Prince prosecutor's office. A few days after his disappearance, the police said they had found human remains in an unused lot near where he was seen for the last time.

But, despite being pressed by his family and local journalists' associations, the police never released the findings of the DNA tests conducted on these remains.

Neither the DCPJ nor the judicial authorities have reported any progress in the investigation. When questioned at a press conference on 31 August, a senior police officer even suggested that no investigation at all was being conducted. "If there is an investigation, it should be the person in charge who provides information," he said.

"It is unacceptable that, six months after Vladjimir Legagneur's disappearance, neither the police nor the justice system is able to provide any new information about this case," said Emmanuel Colombie, the head of RSF's Latin America bureau. "This silence is a torture for his family. The Haitian authorities have a duty to find this photographer, determine why he disappeared and identify those responsible."

Aged 30, Legagneur worked for the newspaper Le Matin and the online news agency Loop Haiti before becoming a freelancer. As well as news stories, he used to cover social issues and work for NGOs prior to his disappearance.

Haiti is ranked 60th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2018 World Press Freedom Index.

Link to original story on RSF websiteCongolese state TV urged to reinstate three journalists fired arbitrarily

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 17 September 2018 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, Congolese state TV urged to reinstate three journalists fired arbitrarily, 17 September 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5bc6ef4b1.html [accessed 17 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

September 17, 2018

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) joins Journalist in Danger (JED), its partner organization in Democratic Republic of Congo, in calling on the state-owned national radio and TV broadcaster, RTNC, to immediately reinstate three journalists who were fired arbitrarily for covering an anti-government demonstration.

Journalist in Danger (JED) condemns the summary dismissal of three journalists by state-owned Radio Television Nationale Congolaise (RTNC) for filming a political demonstration by opponents of President Joseph Kabila's government and for suggesting that RTNC should broadcast their report.

JED has obtained copies of letters dated 22 August and 3 September by the RTNC's director-general rescinding the contracts of cameraman Syande Emaka, reporter Marie Lelo and editor Benjamin Okakesema without prior warning because "video footage that called for rebellion was submitted for inclusion in the 8 pm TV news programme on 22 August, eluding the entire TV channel's vigilance."

The journalists were fired for covering a demonstration organized by Elie Kapend, the national leader of a political party called the Congolese National Liberation Front (FLNC), who gave President Joseph Kabila an ultimatum to stand down within five days and announced a political transition led by himself before the presidential election scheduled for 23 December.

In his defence, Emaka said they were contacted and asked to cover a demonstration in the National Pedagogic University (UPN). He said that, on arriving there, they were taken to FLNC headquarters on the outskirts of Kinshasa where Kapend gave a speech that did not conform to RTNC editorial policy. Their report on the speech was submitted to the TV channel's management, which refused to broadcast it.

JED condemns the arbitrary dismissal of these journalists, who did not broadcast any part of their report although other Kinshasa journalists and media outlets did cover the demonstration and did broadcast their reports.

JED fears that, with the election campaign due to start soon, the dismissal of these journalists could be the prelude to the reinforcement of censorship in the state-owned media.

Link to original story on RSF websiteRSF concerned about search of Armenian news website

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 18 September 2018 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, RSF concerned about search of Armenian news website, 18 September 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5bc6ef4d4.html [accessed 17 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

September 18, 2018

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns yesterday's search by police of the headquarters of the Yerevan-based Armenian news website Yerevan.Today. It violated the confidentiality of journalists' sources, RSF said.

The police removed some of Yerevan.Today's computer equipment during the search, which lasted seven hours and temporarily stopped the site from operating. They also searched the home of its editor, Sevak Hakobyan.

The authorities insisted that the searches had "nothing to do with the journalistic activities" of Yerevan.Today and were carried out as part of an investigation into the origin of a secretly-recorded phone conversation between two top security officials, which the Armenian media published last week.

In the recording, National Security Service chief Artur Vanetsyan and Special Investigative Service chief Sasun Khachatryan were heard discussing the prosecution of former President Robert Kocharyan and a former defence minister in connection with the bloody crackdown on protests in 2008.

The recording suggested that they had sought and obtained the current Prime Minister's approval before arresting the former officials. Vanetsyan and Khachatryan recognized the recording's authenticity but said their comments have been misinterpreted.

The recording was widely reported in the Armenian media on 11 September after being posted on YouTube. The authorities claim that Yerevan.Today briefly posted it online two days earlier and then deleted it. Yerevan.Today insists that this claim stems from an erroneous technical evaluation. Computer security experts say the website can be right.

"The search of Yerevan.Today's premises and the seizure of its equipment constitute grave violations of the principle of the protection of journalists' sources, which is guaranteed by Armenian legislation and the European Court of Human Rights," said Johann Bihr, the head of RSF's Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk. "We regret that the police did not seek a less intrusive and more proportionate way to achieve their legitimate goal."

A big wave of peaceful protests in April led to Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan's removal and replacement by the protests' main leader, Nikol Pashinyan. The new government has promised to combat corruption and improve the rule of law. Armenia is ranked 80th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2018 World Press Freedom Index.

Link to original story on RSF websiteVietnamese blogger missing since arrest by police two weeks ago

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 18 September 2018 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, Vietnamese blogger missing since arrest by police two weeks ago, 18 September 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5bc6ef4f4.html [accessed 17 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

September 18, 2018

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls for the immediate release of Ngo Van Dung, a Vietnamese blogger and citizen-journalist whose location has been unknown since his arrest by police on a street in Ho Chi Minh City (the former Saigon) exactly two weeks ago.

Alerted by friends who witnessed his arrest on the morning of 4 September, Ngo Van Dung's family tried to reach him on his mobile phone only to receive a message saying simply that he had been arrested by the police in Ho Chi Minh City's Ben Nghe district.

Dung's wife, who like him lives 400 km away in Dak Lak province, travelled to Ho Chi Minh City and visited several police stations there before being told anything about his fate. She was finally told he had been transferred to the public security forces in his home province. But the Dak Lak police deny this.

"We call on the Vietnamese authorities to clarify Ngo Van Dung's situation," said Daniel Bastard, the head of RSF's Asia-Pacific desk. "By holding a citizen in a manner that is completely arbitrary and contrary to all legal procedure, the government has yet again shown, if further proof were needed, its deep contempt for any notion of the rule of law.

"Vietnam's commercial partners must draw the necessary conclusions. In particular, we urge members of the European parliament to delay ratification of the free trade agreement with Vietnam that was supposed to have been voted before the end of the year."

Spiralling repression

Dung is a member of the Reviving Vietnam Campaign (Chan Hung Nuoc Viet), a pro-democracy movement whose demands include the "right to freedom of the press and access to information," as enshrined in article 25 of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam's constitution.

Dung provided video coverage of protests against the creation of special economic zones in June, after previously posting a video analysing the blogger Tran Thi Nga's nine-year jail sentence on a charge of anti-state propaganda in July 2017, which RSF condemned at the time. Nga has become a symbol of the current Communist Party leadership's unrelenting crackdown on the freedom to inform.

Vietnam has been near the bottom of RSF's World Press Freedom Index for years and is currently ranked 175th out of 180 countries.

Link to original story on RSF websiteVietnamese citizen-journalist facing second, longer jail term

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 21 September 2018 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, Vietnamese citizen-journalist facing second, longer jail term, 21 September 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5bc6ef534.html [accessed 17 November 2021] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

September 21, 2018

After being sentenced this week to four years in prison on a charge of "disturbing public order" for filming an eviction, Vietnamese citizen-journalist and video blogger Do Cong Duong could soon face an even longer sentence on a charge of "abusing democratic freedoms."

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) regards this as a flagrant violation of the freedom to inform, one that Vietnam's commercial partners must not implicitly endorse. Instead they should use their trade ties to put pressure on the regime's leadership, RSF says.

Arrested on 24 January while trying to film people being evicted from their homes in Tu Son, in the northern province of Bac Ninh, Do Cong Duong was given the four-year jail term  the biggest possible sentence on a public order charge  at the end of a sham trial before a Bac Ninh provincial court on 17 September.

But this won't be the end of Duong's ordeal. He is due to be tried again next month on the grotesque additional charge of "abusing democratic freedoms" under article 331 of Vietnam's criminal code, which carries a possible seven-year sentence.

"The Vietnamese Communist Party leadership must end its unrelenting persecution of citizen-journalists," said Daniel Bastard, the head of RSF's Asia-Pacific desk. "By covering the rights violations to which much of the population is subjected, independent bloggers and media enable civil society to make its voice heard by an increasingly sclerotic regime.

"If they don't want to disgrace themselves, Vietnam's commercial partners must put pressure on the government to loosen its grip on the freedom to inform. They have the power and the duty to do this."

In the wake of the European Parliament's adoption of an RSF-backed emergency resolution last December, 32 MEPs sent a joint letter at the start of this week to EU high representative for foreign affairs Federica Mogherini and trade commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom urging them to condition any ratification of the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement on a series of measures to improve respect for human rights, including the freedom to inform, in accordance with article 3 of the Treaty of Lisbon.

Vietnam has long been near the bottom of RSF's World Press Freedom Index and is ranked 175th out of 180 countries in the 2018 Index.

Link to original story on RSF websiteQuang Binh Province, Vietnam -- (ReleaseWire) -- 10/16/2018 --Oxalis Adventure Tours and members of the British Cave Research Association are preparing an expedition to explore an underwater passage discovered in Son Doong Cave. It is expected that this smaller passage will connect to nearby Thung Cave, which was explored back in 1994, and which also has a great river running through the cave.



They have invited four of the best cave divers in the world, Rick Stanton, John Volanthen, Jason Mallinson and Chris Jewell, who were all critical players in the cave rescue operation of the young boys in Thailand this past July 2018. This diving team will also be joined by local caving expert Martin Holroyd, who is currently a safety guide on the current Son Doong Cave tourist expeditions, organized by Oxalis Adventure Tours.



Howard Limbert, a member of the British Cave Research Association, and Technical Director with Oxalis Adventure Tours, said about the caves, "When we discovered Son Doong Cave in 2009 and completed its survey in 2010, we realised that the final end of the river in the cave was just 600m in a straight line from the end of Thung Cave."



The team spent the past eight years thinking about different methods to determine where this passage leads, but it was decided that only with a dive could they truly explore and map this section of the cave. A physical connection is the best way to prove these two caves are one. The date of the dive has now been confirmed for early April 2019, when river conditions are expected to be ideal.



Limbert commented on the difficulty of the dive, "It will not be easy as it is a big river in a relatively small passage and hence the current will be strong."



In addition to the cave diving team, a number of support crew will join the trek, including 10 local porters, who will assist in carrying additional oxygen tanks, a compressor, and all equipment necessary to establish a mini-base camp inside Son Doong Cave. These local porters are all well trained having worked alongside with the BCRA team over the past 10-15 years exploring caves in the region.



Limbert finished, "Being the best divers in the world we really think they can be successful in joining these two caves hence making Son Doong Cave even bigger than before."



Participants of the expedition are all caving enthusiasts who respect and admire these underground marvels of nature. Strict guidelines will be followed to ensure the ecosystem of the cave is maintained and formations are not damaged in any way.



Oxalis is seeking partners to assist with this research expedition, particularly media partners who are interested in documenting this incredible discovery, and what may exist within this underwater passage between Son Doong Cave and Thung Cave.



Oxalis offer adventure seekers the chance to visit Son Doong Cave with trips departing January through to August 2019, led by a team of local guides, safety experts and members of the British Cave Research Association.



For more information about the cave and Son Doong Tour visit http://oxalis.com.vn/tour/son-doong-cave-expedition-4d3n/ and http://www.oxalis.com.vn.



About Oxalis Adventure Tours

Oxalis Adventure Tours is a local tour company in Vietnam operating one-of-a-kind tours that are incomparable to anything else in the world. They strive to provide a unique experience for those seeking to explore remote jungles, wild river caves, and quench their thirst for adventure whilst in Vietnam.



For all press enquiries please contact:

Luke Ford

luke.ford@oxalis.com.vn

+84 (0) 919 900 042North Vernon, IN -- (ReleaseWire) -- 10/17/2018 --ISU-Bright Agency has been established in the year 1994. It is a family owned and operated organization that specializes in offering health insurance, homeowner's and commercial insurance and health insurance in Columbus and Seymour Indiana.



They aim at providing their clients with top-notch insurance products that are specifically designed to suit their necessities. As an independent insurance agency, ISU-Bright Agency can efficiently help the clients to get the best insurance policy. They offer insurance solutions custom-made to the needs of their clients, in addition to their budgetary concerns. ISU-Bright Agency maintains a better industry understanding and has a good knowledge of industry trends, which assists them to offer their clients with the most economical insurance solutions.



Life insurance policies play a vital role in offering financial help to the family of a person in times of requirement. A family may go through a noticeable financial crisis, in case of the death of the primary bread-earner. Through ISU-Bright Agency one can avail reasonably priced life insurance in Seymour and Columbus Indiana, which offers extensive coverage. With the assistance of the insurance agents, the customers can avail universal, permanent, group or whole life insurance policies, as per the needs and requirements. By getting a good life insurance policy, a person can be assured of the financial well-being of their family members and do not have to worry about their future, in case of any untoward circumstances.



ISU-Bright Agency is associated with some of the most well-known life insurance companies, and they assist their clients in getting the best insurance policies from them at inexpensive premium rates. Their staff comprises knowledgeable and certified insurance agents, who are trained in identifying the best life insurance policies for each person.



One can give a call at 812-346-2282 right now or can visit the website of ISU-Bright Agency to get a free insurance quote. They can also be reached at their toll-free number which is 800-288-6128.



About ISU-Bright Agency

ISU-Bright Agency is a family owned and operated insurance agency, which offers their services in Columbus, Madison, Indiana, North Vernon, Seymour and the adjacent areas.The exhibition features 8 artists from Egypt in the group show of over 200 artists from the Middle East

The Cairo-based gallery Art Talks is representing Egypt in the Cultural Narratives exhibition held by Selection Magazine in Kuwait, opening tonight at the Contemporary Art Platform (CAP).

The Middle Eastern travelling group show features eight established Egyptian artists; Aly Said, Aly Sirry, Hady Boraey, Guirguis Lofty, Hossam Dirar, Klay Kassem, Riham El-Sadany and Yasser Rostom.

Through approximately 250 artworks by established and emerging artists, the show "provides a visual map of the Arab and Persian worlds," as the exhibition statement reads.

With over 200 artists from Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Tunisia, Palestine, the UAE and Sudan, the works reflect the rich culture of each country and transcend regional boundaries to be as global as they are localised.

The travelling exhibition was held in February and March in Dubai's Alserkal Avenue.

For more arts and culture news and updates, follow Ahram Online Arts and Culture on Twitter at@AhramOnlineArts and on Facebook at Ahram Online: Arts & Culture

Search Keywords:

Short link:

No Egyptian movie director has been as linked to the 1973 October War as the late Mohamed Radi.

He is the only director who has made three films tackling this important military event in which the Egyptian Armed Forces crossed the Suez Canal six years after the 1967 Defeat. The first film was Sons of Silence (1974) followed by Life is But an Instant (1978), and then finally The Wall of Heroism (1998), which hasnt yet been released.

Thus, Mohamed Radis name remains present in the month of October every year amid all the commemorations and festivities accompanying the October War victory. It is a strange coincidence that Radi was born 14 October 1939 and died 11 October 2017.



Mohamed Radi belonged to large artistic family whose most prominent members include actor and stage director Al-Sayed Radi, songstress Afaf Radi, cinematographer Maher Radi and film director Mounir Radi, among others. All were adamant against any cultural and artistic normalisation with Israel.



Interested early on in photography, Mohamed Radi, born in Al-Gharbia governorate, decided to enrol in the Higher Institute of Cinema in 1958 when he was his the second year in the Faculty of Law. He specialised in cinema directing and continued to study law.

He joined Egyptian State Television in its early years where he acquired experience in making a number of documentaries and short films. He has also gained skills from working as an assistant director with big name directors at the time, such as Youssef Chaine, Fateen Abdel-Wahab and Helmy Halim.



In 1968, he made the biggest artistic and intellectual leap in his life when he and other cineastes, including Ali Abdel-Khalek, Raafat Al-Mihi and Ghalib Shaath and critics Samir Farid and Hashem El-Nahas, founded the New Cinema Group. The founding of this group accompanied the state of anger sweeping the world in 1968, especially in Europe, and also in Egypt following the 1967 Defeat.

Radi was an important activist in this group that had a distinct set of objectives: making a different kind of cinema unlike that prevailing at the time, and getting rid of market mechanisms hindering real creativity. Indeed, this group entered the field of cinema production in joint ventures with the Egyptian General Organisation for Cinema. This step resulted in the production of three important feature films. The first was A Song in the Corridor (1971, Ali Abdel-Khalek), the second was Radis debut The Barrier (1972), and the last was Shadows on the Other Side (1974, Ghalib Shaath).



The Barrier was a psychological drama in which Radi used an elevated style that was far-fetched for the audience at the time. However, it was a nice opportunity for this youthful director to display his vision and distinguished skills. Radi attempted in his next two films, Me, My Daughter and Love and The Innocents (both in 1974), to come closer to audience tastes without losing his artistic persuasions.

In his fourth film, Sons of Silence, which was released in 1974, Radi became capable of forging a cinematic formula that satisfied his artistic ambitions without ignoring commercial considerations. The film was concerned with the 1967 Defeats psychological and social impact through a group of soldiers of various backgrounds stuck in one trench on the battle lines. He began shooting in 1972, before the October War by a year. When the war broke out and military victory was achieved, it drove him to add some scenes that were the first portrayal of this military event on the silver screen.



Following this film, Radi directed 11 films in which his cinematic style crystallised; relying on the impact of light for dramatic purposes, consumately utilising space and decor, and paying close attention to facial expressions, especially in close-up.



One of Radi's most prominent films in this period is Behind the Sun (1978) in which he tackled the issue of freedoms in Egypt at the end of the 1960s. In the same year, Radi returned to war films in Life is But an Instant, based on a play by Youssef Al-Sibai. After two years, he directed The Inferno, signalling the beginning of collaboration with the star of the period, Adel Imam. Both worked together in Mothers in Exile (1981) and The Humans and the Jinn (1985).

Other notable films are An Appointment with Fate (1987), An Appointment with the President (1990) and What Goes Around (1992), followed by his final film The Wall of Heroism, after which he moved to directing TV dramas. He directed the TV series Al-Komi (2001) adapted from a Khairy Shalaby's novel starring Mamdouh Abdel-Aleem and Elham Shahin.



During his eventful career, Radi received many awards for almost all of his films, both in local and international festivals, and was honored by a number of film societies in Egypt. Two books were written chronicling his cinematic career as a director and a producer, and sometimes as a collaborator in scriptwriting. He fell ill in his final years and died 11 October 2017 at the age of 78.



For more arts and culture news and updates, follow Ahram Online Arts and Culture on Twitter at @AhramOnlineArts and on Facebook at Ahram Online: Arts & Culture

Search Keywords:

Short link:

Australia will on Wednesday see September numbers for the leading economic index from Westpac, highlighting a light day for Asia-Pacific economic activity. In August, the index was up 0.06 percent on month.

Singapore will release September figures for imports, exports and trade balance. In August, imports were worth SGD43.81 billion and exports were at SGD50.46 billion for a trade surplus of SGD6.65 billion.

Finally, the in Hong Kong are closed on Wednesday for the Chung Yeung Festival and will re-open on Thursday.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Economic News

What parts of the world are seeing the best (and worst) economic performances lately? Click here to check out our Econ Scorecard and find out! See up-to-the-moment rankings for the best and worst performers in GDP, unemployment rate, inflation and much more.International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) Tuesday reported a profit and revenues for the third quarter that trumped Wall Street estimates. Moving ahead, the company reiterated its full year outlook. However, shares of the company fell 4 percent in extended hours after revenues fell short of expectations.

Armonk, New York-based IBM's third-quarter profit dropped to $2.69 billion or $2.94 per share from $2.73 billion or $2.92 per share last year.

Excluding one-time items, earnings from continuing operations rose to $3.42 per share from $3.26 per share last year. Analysts had a consensus earnings estimate of $3.40 per share for the quarter.

IBM's third-quarter revenues rose to $18.76 billion from $19.15 billion last year. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected revenues of $19.10 billion for the quarter.

IBM is divesting off its low-margin and unprofitable hardware businesses to improve profitability. The company is now striving hard to make IBM a company that provides cloud computing and data analytics.

Chief Executive Ginni Rometty said, "IBM's progress and momentum this year in the emerging, high-value segments of the IT industry are driven by our innovative , deep industry expertise and commitment to trust and security."

Total cloud revenue over the last 12 months was $19.0 billion, up 20 percent. The annual exit run rate for as-a-service revenue increased to $11.4 billion, up 21 percent.

Looking forward to 2018, the company continues to expect adjusted earnings of at least $13.80 per share. Analysts currently estimate earnings of $13.80 per share.

IBM closed Tuesday's trading at $145.12, up $3.99 or 2.83% on the NYSE. The stock, however, slipped $6.12 or 4.22% in the after-hours trading.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business NewsFrench food company Danone SA (DANOY.OB) reported Wednesday that its third-quarter total sales declined 4.4 percent to 6.19 billion euros from 6.47 billion euros a year ago.

On a like-for-like basis, sales grew 1.4% including 3.3% growth in value. Volume declined 1.9 percent.

Excluding Morocco where the company continues to face the consequences of a consumer boycott, sales were up 2.2% on a like-for-like basis.

EDP International sales dropped 8.1 percent, Specialized Nutrition sales fell 6.2 percent and Waters sales dropped 1.5 percent. EDP Noram sales, however, increased 1.4 percent.



Looking ahead, the company confirmed full-year guidance. Danone is targeting double-digit recurring EPS growth at constant exchange rate for 2018, excluding Yakult Transaction Impact.

In 2018, the Company will progress towards its 2020 ambition through further sales growth acceleration and an improved recurring operating margin.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business NewsEgypt's Grand Mufti Shawki Allam, the country's most senior Islamic legal official, has called for the modernising of Islamic fatwas and the correction of false religious concepts, as a key measure to eliminate extremist ideas.

The influential Muslim cleric made the remarks on Tuesday during a speech at the fourth international conference by Egypt's General Secretariat for Fatwa Authorities Worldwide on the renewal of fatwas (Islamic religious edicts).

Allam urged countries around the world to unite to confront terrorism, mainly through "renewing and correcting concepts produced by religious institutions", on top of which, he said, are Al-Azhar, Egypt's top Muslim institution, and Dar Al-Ifta, the authority that issues Islamic fatwas.

The three-day conference, which kicked off on Tuesday, brings together Muslim scholars and senior clerics from 73 countries.

Muftis from Palestine, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Chad and Lebanon attended the inaugural session of the conference, state news agency MENA reported.

The gathering is part of the country's efforts to regulate and monitor the issuance of fatwas and empower scholars and clerics worldwide to combat extremist ideology, according to Allam.

He said fatwas should be developed to catch up with changes in cultures and societies, while stressing the need to develop a clear definition of what modernisation means and how it can be achieved.

Search Keywords:

Short link:

Mediclinic International plc (MDC.L) issued a trading update ahead of the publication of its results for the half year ended 30 September 2018 on 15 November 2018.

At the Group level, in constant currency, first-half revenue was up 2% and adjusted EBITDA was down around 4%. On a reported basis, first-half revenue was down around 1% at 1.4 billion pounds, and adjusted EBITDA was down around 8% at 0.21 billion pounds from 0.23 billion pounds. Adjusted earnings per share is expected to be around 10 pence pence compared to 11.3 pence per share, prior year.



Ronnie van der Merwe, CEO, said: "Trading in the first half of the year experienced the customary seasonality in Switzerland and the Middle East. In the Middle East, we delivered a gradual improvement in revenue and margin expansion ahead of the anticipated stronger growth in the second half of the year. For the full year, our performance in Southern Africa remains in line with guidance. In the Middle East, full year EBITDA delivery remains on track with revenue growth lower than previously expected. In Switzerland, we now expect to deliver modest revenue growth in the full year including contribution from Clinique des Grangettes, with an adjusted EBITDA margin of around 16%."

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business NewsBusiness software giant Oracle Corp. (ORCL) said Wednesday it has agreed to acquire goBalto, a developer of cloud-based solutions for clinical trials.

goBalto provides cloud solutions to accelerate clinical trials by streamlining and automating the selection and set up of the best performing clinical research sites to conduct trials.

Oracle Health Sciences offers customers a cloud solution for clinical trial planning, data collection, trial execution and safety management. goBalto adds to Oracle Health Sciences a cloud solution that significantly reduces clinical trial startup time.

Oracle noted that goBalto's study startup solutions are activated at over 90,000 research sites across more than 2,000 studies in over 80 countries to deliver significant savings to customers with over 30 percent quantifiable reduction in study startup cycle times.

Together, Oracle and goBalto will provide an end-to-end cloud platform dedicated to unifying action and accelerating results for the Life Sciences industry.

"Clinical trial site selection and activation is one of the most manual and time-consuming processes for our customers. Oracle Health Sciences is designed to provide the industry with the best end-to-end clinical trial experience and the addition of goBalto will further allow our customers to remove another barrier from delivering treatments to patients faster," said Steve Rosenberg, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Oracle Health Sciences Global Business Unit.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business NewsThe Trump Administration has notified Congress about its decision to negotiate three separate trade agreements with Japan, the European Union, and the United Kingdom.

US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer Tuesday notified Congress of the proposed trade talks, which is mandatory under the Congressional Trade Priorities and Accountability Act of 2015 - often referred to as Trade Promotion Authority (TPA).

TPA requires ongoing consultations with Congress to ensure that USTR develops negotiating positions with the benefit of Congress views. USTR will also publish notices in the Federal Register seeking input from the public on the direction, focus, and content of the trade negotiations.

Lighthizer said the government is "committed to concluding these negotiations with timely and substantive results for American workers, farmers, ranchers, and businesses."

In the notification letters sent to House Speaker Paul Ryan regarding Japan and the European Union, he said US plans to start trade talks "as soon as practicable, but no earlier than 90 days from the date of this notice."

Regarding talks with the United Kingdom, Lighthizer said it will begin "as soon as it is ready" after the Brexit, tentatively scheduled for March 2019.

U.S. goods and services trade with Japan, the world's third largest , totaled an estimated $283.6 billion in 2017. The U.S. has trade deficit with Japan worth $55.5 billion.

The U.S.-EU trade value is estimated at $1.2 trillion in 2017. The U.S. has a $100 billion trade deficit with the European bloc.

U.S. trade with United Kingdom totaled an estimated $235.9 billion in 2017. Unlike the other two, the U.S. enjoys trade surplus of $15.9 billion with the United Kingdom.

The British government welcomed the move.

A top American think-tank recently hailed the conclusion of a new trade deal between the United States and Canada as a decisive victory for President Donald Trump's unconventional approach to trade.

Washington based Hudson Institute said Trump kept the North American trade relationship intact by signing the new US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).

Last month, the Trump administration also inked a trade deal South Korea.

But with three rounds of tariff hike as part of a deepening trade war, about half of all Chinese imports to the US are now subject to new duties, making them costlier in America.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business NewsTesla Inc. (TSLA) has acquired an 864,885-square meter plot in Shanghai's Lingang area for its new factory in China, the world's largest market for electric vehicles, according to media reports. The new factory will be the electric car maker's first Gigafactory outside the U.S.

In July, Tesla confirmed that it has signed a deal with the Shanghai Municipal Government to start building Gigafactory 3, a new electric vehicle manufacturing facility in Shanghai's Lingang area. At that time, the company also said it expects construction to begin in the near future after getting all the necessary approvals and permits.

While reporting its second-quarter financial results in August, Tesla said it expects the first cars to roll off the Shanghai factory's production line in three years.

The facility will initially have capacity for about 250,000 vehicles and battery packs per year, and will eventually grow to 500,000.

Further, Tesla noted its initial investment will not start in "any significant way until 2019," with much of it expected to be funded through local debt.

In early October, Tesla noted that U.S-China trade tensions resulted in an import tariff rate of 40 percent on Tesla vehicles, compared to 15 percent for other imported cars in China. The company added it was currently operating at a 55 percent to 60 percent cost disadvantage compared to the exact same car locally produced in China.

"This makes for a challenging competitive environment, given that China is by far the largest market for electric vehicles," the company noted.

To address the issue, Tesla said at that time that it will accelerate construction of its China factory.

Tesla produced 80,142 vehicles in the recent third quarter, 50 percent more than its prior all-time high in the second quarter. The third-quarter deliveries totaled 83,500 vehicles, of which 55,840 Model 3, 14,470 Model S, and 13,190 Model X were delivered.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business NewsEditors Pick

Alsum Farms & Produce, Inc. is recalling fresh, whole red, yellow and white onions for potential contamination with Salmonella, according to a statement by the U.S. FDA. The affected onions were sourced from Keeler Family Farms. The recall involves yellow onions packed in 3 lb. bags, 5 lb. bags and 50 lb. cartons; white onions packed in 2 lb. bags; and red onions packed in 2 lb. bags.

Shares of Vodafone Group Plc were gaining around 6 percent in the London trading as well as in pre-market activity on Nasdaq after the British telecom major said it now expects fiscal 2022 Adjusted EBITDAaL, a key earnings metric, at the top half of its initial forecast. In the first half, the company recorded weak pre-tax profit, but Adjusted EBITDAaL was higher on revenue growth.

Retail giant Walmart Inc. reported Tuesday a profit for the second quarter that declined 40 percent from last year, despite revenue growth, hurt by lower margins amid increased supply chain costs. However, adjusted earnings per share and quarterly revenues topped analysts' expectations. The retailer also raised its adjusted earnings guidance for the full-year 2022.The Canadian stock market ended modestly lower on Wednesday, after trading in negative territory right through the session, weighed down by lower commodity prices and largely sluggish U.S. and European .

Information , energy and healthcare stocks were among the prominent losers. Industrial and materials stocks too were mostly weak. Financial stocks found modest support, while consumer discretionary and real estate stocks turned in a mixed performance.

Pot stocks saw some hectic activity after the Canadian government legalized the sale of recreational marijuana. Canada has become the second country after Uruguay, where sale of recreational pot is now legal.

The benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index ended down 49.84 points, or 0.32%, at 15,529.90, after scaling a low of 15,452.67 and a high of 15,556.61 intraday.

On Tuesday, the benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index ended up 170.27 points, or 1.11%, at 15,579.74, the day's high.

On the economic front, a report from Statistics Canada said that manufacturing sales in Canada fell 0.4% to $58.6 billion in August, following three consecutive monthly increases.

The Capped Energy Index shed about 1.51%. ARC Resources (ARX.TO) declined by 3.75% and Husky Energy Inc. (HSE.TO) lost 2.8%, while Canadian Natural Resources (CNQ.TO), Vermilion Energy Inc. (VET.TO) and Tourmaline Oil Corp. (TOU.TO) lost 1.7% to 1.85%.

The Healthcare Index declined 2.5%. Canopy Growth Corporation (WEED.TO) declined by 4.2%. The company announced the launch of a new brand for the recreational market in Canada, LBS. The Company has established a curated and world-recognized family of brands, both in-house and through partnerships with icons in the cannabis space.

Bausch Health Companies Inc. (BHC.TO) tumbled by 3.7%, Aurora Cannabis Inc. (ACB.TO) ended nearly 3% down and Knight Therapeutics Inc. (GUD.TO) drifted lower by 1.45%, while Aphria Inc. (APH.TO) surged up 3.8%.

The Capped Information Technology Index shed 1.7%. Shopify Inc. (SHOP.TO) tanked more than 5%, Constellation Software Inc. (CSU.TO) ended lower by 2.1%, Enghouse Systems (ENGH.TO) lost 1.1% and CGI Group Inc. (GIB.A.TO) lost about 1.2%.

Among bank stocks, Royal Bank of Canada (RY.TO), Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS.TO), Bank of Montreal (BMO.TO) and National Bank of Canada (NA.TO) gained 0.25 to 1%.

Celestica Inc. (CLS.TO) ended 2.6% up, Kinaxis Inc. (KXS.TO) gained 1%, Descartes Systems Group Inc. (DSG.TO) added 1.1%.

Wajax Corporation (WJX.TO) shares gained 1.75%, after the company announced that it has acquired all of the issued and outstanding shares of Montreal, Quebec-based Groupe Delom Inc, for an aggregate purchase price of $51.8 million.

In commodities, crude oil futures for November delivery ended down $2.17, or 3%, at $69.75 a barrel, the lowest settlement in a month, after data from EIA showed a jump in U.S. crude stockpiles.

Gold futures for December ended down $3.60, or 0.3%, at $1,227.40 an ounce.

Silver futures for December settled at $14.663 an ounce, losing $0.038 in the session and Copper futures for December ended down $0.015, at $2.7780 per pound.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Market AnalysisThe Enforcement Directorate on Wednesday said it has attached assets in India and abroad worth Rs 218 crore belonging to fugitive diamond merchants Nirav Modi and his maternal uncle Mehul Choksi.

The duo, who have fled the country, are accused of defrauding state-run Punjab National Bank of Rs 13,500 crore.



A senior official of the agency said: "A villa at a foreign location worth Rs 27 crore belonging to Choksi has been attached."



The assets attached by the ED include a Hyderabad property worth Rs 120 crore belonging to A.P. Gems & Jewellery Park.



On specific intelligence, diamonds with a market value of Rs 18.76 crore belonging to the Firestar Group related to Nirav Modi were also seized, the official added.





The agency also attached a flat worth Rs 1.70 crore in Mumbai's Trump Tower. It is in the name of Choksi's daughter.



The official revealed that the agency has attached an overseas flat worth Rs 51 crore belonging to Mihir Bhansali, a close aide of Nirav Modi.



The official also said that Letters Rogatory have been sent to the authorities of foreign jurisdictions to enforce the provisional attachment orders.



The financial probe agency has till date attached properties worth Rs 4,488 crore in the PNB fraud case.



Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi of Gitanjali Group are under probe by both the Central Bureau of Investigation and the ED. The ED had on May 24 and May 26 filed chargesheets against the two. Non-bailable warrants have also been issued against them.



The Interpol had issued a Red Corner Notice (RCN) against Nirav Modi, his brother Neeshal and sister Purvi, who are Belgian citizens, Bhansali and Aditya Nanvati (both close associates of Nirav Modi).



However, a RCN request against Choksi, who acquired Antiguan citizenship earlier this year, is pending with the Interpol.Western intellectual views of Egyptian society can only really be understood by looking at what took place in Europe in the 1970s and 1980s

A proper study of the origins of the discourse on Egypt that prevails in European and French academia today would need to investigate the evolution of the radical left after 1968 and the collapse of Marxist thought in Europe during the 1970s.

We should keep in mind how many of the continents leading thinkers of the time switched from Trotskyism and Marxism to a human rights discourse and multi-culturalism, often in response to the ideas of the late Michel Foucault and Edward Said.

We should also track the evolution of those on the French left who were what the French call tiers-mondistes and who actively supported different national-liberation struggles in the Third World.

One of their favourite remarks is that you Westerners once claimed that former Egyptian president Gamal Abdel-Nasser was a fascist, and you were proven wrong. Do not make the same mistake with todays Islamists.

Nevertheless, in this article I will choose another starting point, with the important proviso that this piece is meant as simple testimony and not as a piece of scientific work relying on the archives.

It recounts what I saw first-hand in the 1970s and 1980s. It also may not be absolutely reliable: while I have a good memory, I was young and naive at the time and did not have the kind of knowledge I later acquired with the years.

At the time, the Western press and many in Western academia relied on Egyptian left-wing intellectuals as a source of knowledge on Egypt.

In fact, they borrowed their analysis, information, and networks. I myself met several times with the late Lotfi Al-Kholi, Mohamed Sid-Ahmed, and Ismail Sabri Abdallah, all brilliant left-wing intellectuals, at dinners with the foreign press at the time.

Yet, for different reasons, many people then started to think that these figures were somehow out of touch with the realities of Egyptian society and the Egyptian state.

They talked dismissively of the burgeoning Islamist movements, which were clearly the most relevant players in the field at the time, at least as far as the opposition was concerned.

More often than not, these intellectuals predictions and their analysis turned out to be wrong. The foreign press and those working in Western academia were implacable in their diagnosis. These brilliant intellectuals were the prisoners of their own left-wing ideology, they said.

Suddenly, at some point between 1980 and 1982, many French academics studying the Arab world including Gilles Kepel, Henry Laurens, Alain Roussillon and Francois Burgat discovered the towering figure of Egyptian commentator Tarek Al-Bishri.

The latter had just published his celebrated magnum opus Muslims and Copts, and he was about to publish a new edition of his The Political Movement in Egypt with a new preface elaborating his views.

Al-Bishri was a lawyer and a former leftist who had written many articles that were especially harsh about the Muslim Brotherhood. However, in the 1970s he distanced himself from the left and slowly became a prominent Islamist theoretician.

While Al-Bishris views developed, they can be summed up by saying that in Egypt there is a permanent dialectical relationship between authentic thought and practices (Islam, of course) and imported thought and practices (the modern state and non-Islamist ideologies).

During the 1980s, Al-Bishri was keen to insist that the secular school did not have real roots in Egypt but had only gained legitimacy as a result of its leadership of the national-liberation struggle.

He also said that Egypt would not be able to improve its lot unless the two sides in the relationship reached an historic deal and started to understand each others concerns.

The secularists would need to understand that cultural authenticity and the defence of identity were crucial issues that would need to be addressed if modernisation in the country was to succeed.

The Islamists would have to understand the need for guarantees to be given of the rights of Christians and women, among other things, and that these things were not irrelevant details that could be sorted out later.

Al-Bishri also thought that secularists and Islamists could agree on the need to counter American imperialism and Zionism.

I was young at the time, but despite my comparative lack of experience I was able to point, in the event to no avail, to two huge problems with Al-Bishris analysis.

The Islamists wanted Sharia Law not because this would defend authenticity and identity, I said, but because it was Gods Law.

Their starting point was not the same as Al-Bishris. Their interests were also simply not the same as those of the secularists. I simply could not see how the two camps could reach a deal that would last.

Slowly, Al-Bishris own views changed and headed in two different directions. He tried to build a solid Islamic foundation for citizenship and for equal rights for people regardless of their origins, and the late sheikh Mohamed Al-Ghazali approved of his conclusions.

However, he also started to say that he considered what he called imported thought to be that of a minority of Egyptian society, though of a majority of the Egyptian state, and that there was an abyss separating the two sides.

Those people who were attracted to imported thought did not really know Egyptian society, he said. They were isolated in their own country, and they systematically scorned its people.

The late Palestinian-American academic Edward Said was also saying something like this at the same time, holding that the racist West had scorned oriental people and had educated an orientalist elite that had adopted the same views.

Al-Bishri never stopped dwelling on such themes, also arguing that the secularists struggle against the former Mubarak regime was ridiculous.

They wrote papers about it in a language that no one apart from them could understand, and they would never be able to organise any collective action since they did not know how to mobilise people behind their views.

At the same time, they had very modest and very unrealistic aims in trying to convince Mubarak to change the countrys constitution and so on.

The only serious opponents of the authoritarian regime, Al-Bishri said, were the Islamists who had a popular base, a common language with the people, and the necessary will to bring about change.

Al-Bishri also developed a conceptual reading of Egypts history that sounded much more interesting than the leftist blah-blah (not my view) and the positivist history that had prevailed in the past, he said.

Starting with Mohamed Ali at the beginning of the 19th century, imported thought had decisively strengthened the state while disrupting the equilibrium between state and society.

As a result, the society in Egypt was weak and was not able to oppose the hegemony of the state and its ever-increasing intrusiveness into peoples lives. It was from here that modern tyranny had developed, Al-Bishri said.

The civil society and the new professions that had emerged at the end of the 19th century organised according to Western principles were too weak to reverse this trend, he said, though they did play a key role in the anti-British struggle.

The Nasser regime then killed or neutralised civil society, never feeling the need for it. Nasser thought it had been useful as long as the state was controlled by the stooges of colonialism.

However, once real patriots had seized power, the state was in charge of the national-liberation struggle and there was no need for civil society.

All this deserves close examination, and I will devote my next article to some criticisms of it. Not everyone in French academia bought this narrative.

But most adopted Al-Bishris reading of the Islamist movement and his devastatingly unfair criticisms of the countrys elite.

The French academics also had their own criticisms of the latter, feeling that Egypts secularists did not really understand the Western tradition.

* The writer is a professor of international relations at the College de France and a visiting professor at Cairo University.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 18 October, 2018 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: The discourse on Egypt

Search Keywords:

Short link:

The South Pacific Tourism Organisation is partnering with New Zealand Maori Tourism for the premiere regional tourism expo, the South Pacific Tourism Exchange (S.P.T.E.) to be held Thursday 9 and Friday 10 May 2019 in Auckland, New Zealand.

The M.O.U. with New Zealand Maori Tourism was signed at the S.P.T.O. Board of Directors meeting held at the Sheraton Samoa Aggie Greys Hotel and Bungalows in Apia.

We are excited to be partnering with NZ Maori Tourism in an effort to bridge connectivity between Pacific Islands and Maori tourism for protection of our cultures, our oceans, our places, our people and our future as well as sustainable development of tourism in our region, said Chris Cocker, S.P.T.O. Chief Executive Officer.

This is a most welcome partnership and we look forward to coordinating together another productive business to business event for our global buyers and regional sellers at S.P.T.E.19.

NZ Maori Tourism and S.P.T.O. will work collaboratively on advocating for and responding to pertinent issues to support the development and sustainable growth of the industry.

By partnering with S.P.T.O. we are providing an opportunity for Maori and Pacific tourism businesses to learn from each other, network, and find opportunities to work together in the future. We know that visitors are seeking authentic cultural experiences when they travel, and Maori and Pacific Islands tourism are well placed to share their culture, stories, people, and places of significance with visitors, said Pania Tyson-Nathan, Chief Executive of NZ Maori Tourism.

The announcement of dates was made after months of consultation and deliberation by S.P.T.O.

We are calling on global travel agents and wholesalers to join us at S.P.T.E.19 for our milestone sixth year in Auckland, New Zealand and encourage your participation in connecting and building more of your South Pacific tourism business. Our goal is to continue to strengthen the position of the South Pacific region as a desirable holiday and travel destination globally, Mr. Cocker.

He added that the S.P.T.E. is an important and one of a kind event for the Pacific Islands that progressively supports the growth of a competitive destination and sustainable tourism development for the region.

S.P.T.E.19 will allow Pacific Island and Maori tourism suppliers and operators to engage and do direct business-to-business (B2B) meetings with travel wholesalers and agents from around the world. It also allows great opportunity to strengthen promotion of the NZ and Pacific Islands travel product for international visitors and creating synergy for the Pacific to piggy back on the booming New Zealand tourism market.

S.P.T.O. is happy to be going back to Auckland, New Zealand where we first started S.P.T.E. in 2014 but most especially since weve just involved in the inaugural NZ Maori Tourism Dragons Den competition where we witnessed first hand some amazing ideas centred on culture and sustainable tourism said Mr. Cocker.

For the past five years, the S.P.T.E. has coincided with T.R.E.N.Z. (NZ) and A.T.E. (Australia), two major tourism travel events in the Oceania region that attract large numbers of travel wholesalers and agents from all over the globe to participate in B2B trade exchanges with local tourism suppliers and operators across New Zealand and Australia.WASHINGTON (AP)  President Donald Trump Tuesday criticized rapidly mounting global condemnation of Saudi Arabia over the mystery of missing journalist Jamal Khashoggi, warning of a rush to judgment and echoing the Saudis' request for patience.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Trump compared the case of Khashoggi, who Turkish officials have said was murdered in the Saudis' Istanbul consulate, to the allegations of sexual assault leveled against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearing.

"I think we have to find out what happened first," Trump said. "Here we go again with, you know, you're guilty until proven innocent. I don't like that. We just went through that with Justice Kavanaugh and he was innocent all the way as far as I'm concerned."

Trump's remarks were his most robust defense yet of the Saudis, a U.S. ally he has made central to his Mideast agenda. They put the president at odds with other key allies and with some leaders in his Republican Party who have condemned the Saudi leadership for what they say is an obvious role in the case. Trump appeared willing to resist the pressure to follow suit, accepting Saudi denials and their pledge to investigate.

The Oval Office interview came not long after Trump spoke Tuesday with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. He spoke by phone a day earlier with King Salman, and he said both deny any knowledge of what happened to Khashoggi.

After speaking with the king, Trump floated the idea that "rogue killers" may have been responsible for the disappearance. The president told AP Tuesday that that description was informed by his "feeling" from his conversation with Salman, and that the King did not use the term.

In Turkey earlier Tuesday, a high-level Turkish official told the Associated Press that police investigators searching the Saudi Consulate had found evidence that Khashoggi was killed there.

Also Tuesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with the king and crown prince in Riyadh and said the Saudis had already started a "serious and credible investigation" and seemed to suggest it could lead to people within the kingdom. The secretary of state noted that the Saudi leaders, while denying knowledge of anything that occurred inside the consulate, had committed to accountability "including for Saudi Arabia's senior leaders or senior officials."

Pompeo was heading next to Turkey, where officials have accused the Saudis of using a 15-member team to kill Khashoggi inside the consulate.

Trump said he hoped the Saudis' own investigation of Khashoggi's disappearance would be concluded in "less than a week."

In the meantime, there were signs at home that Trump's party was growing uncomfortable with his willingness to defend the Saudis.

In an interview with Fox News, a prominent Trump ally in the Senate called on Saudi Arabia to reject the crown prince, known as MBS, who rose to power last year and has aggressively sought to soften the kingdom's image abroad and attract foreign investment.

"This guy has got to go," said Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, turning to speak to the camera. "Saudi Arabia, if you're listening, there are a lot of good people you can choose, but MBS has tainted your country and tainted himself."

Khashoggi, a Saudi citizen but resident of the United States, has been a contributor to The Washington Post and a critic of Saudi leaders, especially Crown Prince Mohammed.

International leaders and business executives are severing or rethinking ties to the Saudi government after Khashoggi's high-profile disappearance. Trump has resisted any action, pointing to huge U.S. weapons deals pending with Saudi Arabia and saying that sanctions could end up hurting the American economy.

He said it was too early to say whether he endorsed other countries' actions. "I have to find out what happened," he said. But his complaint about "guilty until proven innocent" and comparison to the Kavanaugh situation suggested he was giving the Saudis more leeway than other allies.

Khashoggi went to the consulate on Oct. 2 to get documents for his upcoming marriage to a Turkish woman while his fiancee waited outside. She and Turkish authorities say he never emerged and he has not been heard from since.

Khashoggi, 59, had been living in the U.S. for a year in self-imposed exile and writing columns for the opinion section of The Washington Post.

Trump said Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin's trip to attend a Saudi investment conference is still on but could be canceled by Friday depending on what the investigation finds.

"I think we'll also be guided by what other countries are doing," he said.SIDI BOUKNADEL, Morocco (AP)  At least seven people died and nearly 80 were injured after a shuttle train linking the Moroccan capital to a town farther north on the Atlantic coast derailed Tuesday, authorities at the accident site said.

The train derailed about halfway between Rabat and the town of Kenitra, near the city of Sale. Tangled in the wreckage were doors and seats that had been gouged out of place, while passengers' belongings and glass from broken windows littered the accident site.

Emergency workers rushed people to hospitals in Rabat, Sale and Kenitra while rescue teams searched for more victims with the help of cadaver dogs. Military personnel guarded the site as railway workers and authorities started to investigate why the train jumped its tracks.

Local residents were the first to reach the scene in the town of Sidi Bouknadel, helping injured or trapped survivors out of mangled train cars and covering the bodies of the dead. They reported the accident happened at around 9:30 a.m.

"We heard a gigantic explosion. The earth shook and the sound was unbearable," Mourad El Kbiri, who owns a cafe near where the train derailed, told The Associated Press. "I rushed to see what happened. It was horrific. Disfigured bodies all over the place, blood and body pieces."

The Center for Blood Immunization declared a state of emergency and dispatched blood collection vehicles to Rabat, Kenitra, Sale and Sidi Bouknadel to receive donors.

The general director of state-owned railway company ONCF, Mohamed Rabie Khlie, and Morocco's interior and transport ministers visited the accident site briefly but refused to comment.

The Moroccan king, Mohammed VI, offered to pay the costs of victims' funerals out of his own pocket, state news agency MAP reported.On the front page of the Sunday Samoan of 14 October 2018, the headline read: Govt. can assist cash-strapped firms. The story referred to a Government policy that allows certain companies to pay their import duty after 30 days  but only if they pay 50 per cent of the tax upfront.

This was confirmed by the Minister of Revenue, Tialavea Tionisio Hunt, in response to questions from the Sunday Samoan.

You see weve been told that several local companies are being allowed to take their goods from the wharf and sell them before they pay the duty. Immediately you know something is not right here. If businesses are doing that, no wonder the Government finances, especially when it comes to revenue collection, are in the red? This probably then explains why the Government continues to hike different taxes and force more people to pay taxes to make up this shortfall.

To be fair to Minister Tialavea, the system people in Customs often refer to as the side release had existed long before he became the Minister. The system by the way allows the taking of goods and paying later.

The law states that pre-release of cargo can be applied to individuals, the Minister said.

However, 50 per cent up front and a 30-day deadline to settle the payment to the Government, but this is not applied to business goods. The containers are only allowed for release once the duty taxes are paid in full.

Now remember that this is Samoa, there is always the exception. There is the law and then there is the Ministers interpretation.

Its a fine line to walk folks.

For me as a Minister if a business is strap for cash flow, I would help them release their goods and they can pay their taxes within thirty days, he said.

We have to apply common sense. This was my decision although it is not in line with the law.

I am thinking of the bigger picture, if the Government does not help these businesses, they would eventually close down, and the employees would lose their jobs. And we would not collect any revenues.

Well fair enough. There is logic to the Ministers explanation.

But like most things in Samoa, these loopholes are often abused. On top of that, there is the failure on behalf of Government to adequately follow up and collect revenue thats owing the Ministry. Which probably explains why an outstanding debt of $87.6 million has been identified in the Public Account Management Audit report for the 2014-2015 financial years. Such an amount is not a small amount of money. Its money the Government needs to proceed with its development programmes.

Isnt this why the Government has become so desperate it is now moving to tax the Head of State and the Church Ministers? Who knows?

Getting back to the Minister, asked how many businesses have been offered this service and how much is the value of the duty owed, he declined to say.

Now the questions are: Why didnt he reveal who those businesses are?

And why cant he reveal how much revenue remains uncollected?

What is it that prevented him from explaining fully the details of where this matter remains today?

And how much of it is contributing to the suffering and pain of ordinary Samoans, who are being forced to carry the burden created by this system?

It would be wonderful to know.

Stay tuned!Four Cabinet Ministers and three Associate Ministers still have business interests despite a plea from Prime Minister Tuilaepa Dr. Sailele Malielegaoi for them to offload their shares.

According to Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Labour (M.C.I.L.) records, Ministers Papalii Niko Lee Hang (Works Transport and Infrastructure), Afamasaga Rico Tupai (Communications and Information Technology), Sala Fata Pinati (Tourism) and Faaolesa Katopau Ainuu (Justice Courts and Administration) still have shares in private companies.

For Associate Ministers, M.C.I.L. records indicate that Peseta Vaifou Tevaga, Lealailepule Rimoni Aiafi, and Faasootauloa Pati Taulapapa  like their ministerial colleagues  also have shares in private firms.

Peseta is the Associate Minister for the Ministry of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Office of the Attorney General, and the Public Service Commission.

Lealailepule is the Associate Minister for the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology portfolio, while Faasootauloa is the Associate Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries.

Afamasaga, who has 800,000 shares in the company Biogen3 Company Ltd, told this newspaper yesterday that the instructions to divest his shares were given  only to be put on hold  pending the outcome of a court proceeding.

Tried at first but could not as they said there was a pending court case on records for company against one of its employees or something like that and then too busy to follow up."

There have been no operations, transactions, etc. and basically inactive since then and I'm not sure if this company still exists, he said.

The Minister also blamed the M.C.I.L. for the delay in updating its records, after he said he issued the instructions upon his appointment as Minister.

They were all supposed to done immediately after I became Minister. All instructions were to remove me as soon as possible, then I got on with my job assuming it was done.

His Cabinet colleague, Faaolesa, has 2000 shares in Tasi Enterprises Ltd and 8000 shares in Maroon Construction Company Ltd according to the M.C.I.L. records.

But the Minister told this newspaper yesterday that he gave instructions for the two companies to be de-registered.

I assumed that they have been de-registered as I have not received any tax return inquiries on both companies from Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Labour. If those companies are still registered, that is in error and I should follow up with Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Labour, he added.

For Lealailepule, M.C.I.L. records show that he is the major shareholder in the company Sharay Investment Ltd with 50 shares and the company was established in January this year. His colleague Associate Minister, Faasootauloa, has 100,00 shares in a company called Faasootauloa Taulapapa Investment Company Limited. To date both Associate Ministers have not responded to questions sent by this newspaper to their offices.

Attempts by this newspaper to also get comments from Papalii were unsuccessful at the time of going to press, with staff acknowledging receipt of the questions and giving the assurance that they will be passed on to the Minister. The Tourism Minister also did not respond after questions were sent to his office on Tuesday and a follow-up done yesterday.

Associate Minister Peseta Vaifou Tevagas business interests has made headlines in recent weeks, following revelations by this newspaper that his company Aldan Civil Engineering Company Ltd, won a $3.57 million tala contract from the Government to build a new airport at Tiavea. Peseta is the largest shareholder in the company. Coverage of the airport contract by this newspaper, highlighting potential conflict of interest, compelled the Prime Minister to appeal to his ministers and associate ministers to offload their family business interests.The Supreme Court has jailed two National Health Services (N.H.S.) employees for over two years for stealing 16 boxes of paracetamol valued at $10,560 tala.

Pio Fesolai and Amanono Mafualo  former pharmacy technicians in the Pharmacy Division of the National Health Services  appeared before by Supreme Court Justice Vui Clarence Nelson yesterday for sentencing.

The defendants charge sheet stated that last year at Motootua, the defendants dishonestly took 16 boxes of paracetamol tablets valued at $10,560 from their employer and supplied them to an Emma Toamua, who ran a delivery business selling items such as paracetamol to small retail shops presumably around the hospital or Apia area.

According to Justice Vui, the court records showed that Ms. Toamua was also charged. However, he did not know the outcome of her court case.

At least one other person who worked for these defendants have also been charged and the court file note that that person has pleaded not guilty to the charge and his trial has been scheduled for later this year, he said.

The defendants were paid $150 for one box of paracetamol according to the police summary of facts.

The court also heard that police received reports from the Samoa Victim Support Group, about the activities of the defendants, and that is what led to them investigating the matter. Both defendants were taken to a police station for an interview and they both admitted that they stole boxes of paracetamol as alleged and sold it to Toamua.

Justice Vui said custodial sentences is to hold the defendants accountable for their actions and for the harm that they caused to the community through such offending.

And the sentences are design to send the message to defendants themselves as well as to the general public that if you do this sort of thing you steal from your employer you can expect a prison term, he added.

The Judge also took into consideration the aggravating factors noted by prosecution in their memorandum, which is the elements of premeditation as it took some planning to do what the defendants did.

It is also relevant that it was not done on only one occasion and according to the summary it was done on six separate occasions over a one-year period."

It is also relevant that the value of stolen properties is significant it exceeds $10,000 and perhaps one of the most significant aggravating factors is the fact that these were hospital stores and they are there for the good and benefit of the people of our country, he said before sentencing the two defendants to two and a half years.Samoa sent off its first shipment of export ready bananas to New Zealand yesterday, the first since Cyclone Gita ravaged plantations across the country.

The Banana Growers Association gathered its crops to fill two containers, or 500 boxes of bananas for the New Zealand ripe banana market.

Bananas were harvested from the plantations of Taimalie Charlie Westerlund, Ututaaloga Charlie Ulia and Tuisuga Sofara Aveau, who planted their bananas from South Africa in early 2017.

Nearly 100 other farmers received planting materials over the course of this year, signalling a promising future for commercial banana exports from Samoa, said the president of the Banana Farmers Association, Tuisuga Sofara Avea.

This shipment is a trial for commercial sale, which hasnt been done for almost fifty years, Tuisuga said.

We hope only that people are behind this and praying for us that we will be successful and then a lot of Samoans will benefit.

Last June some bananas were sent to New Zealand in a trial run, to iron out the process of exporting container loads of fruit.

This first commercial shipment arrives in New Zealand in less than a week, as the journey is meant to take five days.

Tuisuga and Taimalie, as well as some other farmers will meet the containers on arrival, to check how well they travelled and follow the rigorous quarantine pathway required by NZ Customs.

Once they satisfy quarantine, the boxes will be distributed across the ripe banana market by a local distributer, Fresh Direct.

Getting Samoas banana market export ready has been a project nearly two years in the making, according to Ah Liki Farm Manager, Johanna Coyle.

I have been excited about this all week, she said. Having the Banana Growers Association has been a major step towards success."

The people involved are serious growers, and there is no one who doesnt believe in this, Ms Coyle said.

The Banana Growers Association was established last September, and has become a hub for knowledge sharing and development among growers.

We have done the best with the association to subsidised fertilisers and expensive sprayers, said association president Tuisuga.

If the farmers went about our work individually then many of us would struggle, but coming together we can help each other.

Tuisuga and Ms Coyle agreed on one thing. The NZ banana market is big enough for all growers in Samoa to profit.

We can never make even one percent of the market, we wont even make a dent, Tuisuga said.

More successful crops of bananas means the potential to send more frequent containers to NZ, which currently dont leave frequently enough for a sustainable banana export.

Ms. Coyle said containers to NZ leave every 12-14 days, but ideally they would leave weekly to keep a steady supply going.

All the farmers, as a whole need to justify getting a weekly departure to New Zealand by putting up enough produce, she said.

Tuisuga and his colleagues will arrive in New Zealand on Saturday and will learn if the first shipment has been a success.Samoa has welcomed sixteen new citizens.

Among them is former New Zealand High Commissioner to Samoa, David Campbell Nicholson, who told the Samoa Observer he feels honoured to have become a Samoan.

It gives both my wife and I the privilege of living in here freely, he said. Obviously she is a Samoan citizen and I have attained my citizenship through my marriage.

Mr. Nicholson, who is married to Debbie, said they will spend quite a lot of time in Samoa, which he can also contribute some of their skills to Samoas development.

It was through my role as High Commissioner to Samoa that I spent two years in Samoa which has enabled me so committed to Samoas development and its future.

Another newly sworn Samoan citizen is Soraya May who is originally from America but has been living in Samoa since 2006.

I attained my citizenship through marriage, she said. I was married in 2011 but I have been so busy with my businesses that I finally got around to getting my citizenship."

I am very happy that with my new citizenship, I am able to feel like I am one of the Samoan people.

Soraya May is the Director of Operations at Le Vasa Resort.

Another new citizen is the Chinese Owner of the Coin Save chain of stores, Tuituioaiga Weijie Weng. The others are Adrian Russel Mcconell, Brent William Ross, Charlie Havea Liti, Gregorio Guillermo Recalde, Karleen Mary Rasmussen, Mahendra Kamalakant Mahimk, Mohammed Umar, Moneka Knight Tupua, Selina Lefao, Timothy Walkden-Brown, Shuangxiu Zend, Jie Xue and Dehui Lin.

Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi welcomed the new citizens yesterday.

On behalf of our government and the people of Samoa, I congratulate you all, who have taken the oaths of allegiance, as citizens of Samoa before Cabinet this afternoon. We welcome you with open arms, he said.

Our citizenship defines our identity, inheritance and authority as Samoans. It is our God given right to live freely and harmoniously in this country; and to exercise our unique talents to contribute to the social and economic wellbeing of Samoa. Today you have been given that right; the right that must be treated with respect and truthfulness."

I gathered that the majority of you have qualified for citizenship by virtue of your marriage to Samoan citizens, and by virtue of your permanent residency status. Central to the assessment of your eligibility, is solid evidence of your families stability for years, your good health and character, and your firm understanding of the responsibilities and privileges of being citizens of Samoa, Tuilaepa said.

Tuilaepa thanked the new citizens for their years faithful service to Samoa, and encouraged them to press on and continue to contribute positively, to the countrys growth and prosperity which is their country now as from today after his speech.

Central to our response is acceptance of our shared responsibility. We must respond collectively as a country to address these global challenges. We should not dwell on indifference and division. Unity is our strength, and the foundation of our culture and identity. Our collective responsibility is to ensure that our children and future generations will live comfortably, and are taught to be responsible custodians of our scarce resources."

Government has formulated key strategies to enhance our resilience against the fury of natural disasters, strengthen our national security responses, manage alarming rates non-communicable diseases, and to generate new businesses and investments to provide more employment opportunities for our people. This is being done through meticulous integration of our national priorities with regional goals and sustainable development goals. This of course can be accomplished if all citizens take ownership of our national efforts and programmers.The first day of sewing training for over 100 Samoan women started yesterday with an opening ceremony at the Moanalisa Hotel.

Government representatives were joined by officials from the Embassy of China, including Chinese Ambassador to Samoa, Wang Xuefeng, for the opening.

The Chief Executive Officer of the Ministry of Women, Community and Social Development, Afamasaga Palepua Mulitalo, highlighted why the training is important.

This is an opportunity for the women to develop themselves socially, financially, to have the skills to sew for their own families and become more economically sustainable in the long run, she said.

Afamasaga said her only concern had been the maintenance of the machines going forward, and was pleased to see the maintenance skills included in the training workshops.

Speaking on behalf of the participants, Upu Tuanai Uesile from Magiagi said she felt privileged to take part.

This programme has already made a great difference to the families and communities of the women involved last year. We recognise it costs a fortune to run a program like this, and we intend to get the full benefits of it.

The programme to teach women to sew childrens, womens and mens clothes will take place in Faleapuna, Afega, Magiagi, Tooa Salamasina and Safotu.

Eighty of the women will learn to use pedal sewing machines, while 20 will be trained on more advanced electric machines. While 20 women have been selected as the main participants in each village, Liu Peng of the Chinese Embassy said he expects more will join in the workshops and the impact will be far greater.

Chinese Ambassador Wang Xuefeng told the women China was happy to support their economic development. He also honoured the trainers and technicians who travelled from China to prepare and run the training sessions.

In the past week, they have worked together day and night to assemble all the sewing machines, sometimes late into nights or during weekends, in order that all the machines could be assembled and ready for use in time for the training program, Mr. Xuefeng said.

He said he had been touched to see how the people in the villages had prepared for, and welcomed the Chinese teams to their homes to prepare for the training, sharing their food and carrying equipment to the buildings.

The touching moments between Chinese and Samoan people were captured by a journalist team from China Central Television (CCTV), the biggest official television station in China, he said.

The special feature TV programme will be scheduled to be broadcast both in China and in the world through CCTVs international channels and billions will be able to see the kind hearts and warm hospitality of Samoan people.BRUSSELS (AP)  Leaders from the European Union and Britain shrugged off a weekend negotiating debacle and previous deadlines Wednesday, giving themselves several more weeks to clinch a friendly divorce deal ahead of their separation.

After the EU insisted for months that the Wednesday summit was a key meeting to get a deal, its Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said "we need much time, much more time and we continue to work in the next weeks" with his British counterpart.

British Prime Minister Theresa May also spoke about "working intensively over the next days and weeks" to achieve agreement that avoids a no-deal departure from the bloc on March 29 that could create chaos at the borders and in the economy. A deal must be sealed soon so parliaments have time to give their verdict on it.

Underscoring the newfound sense of non-urgency, Prime Minister Sebastian Kurz of Austria, which holds the rotating EU presidency, even spoke of the "coming weeks and months" to get a deal and sought to impose a soothing calm.

"There's no need to dramatize matters. It's always the case with negotiations, that in the end there are challenges," he said.

May was preparing to address other EU leaders one day after European Council President Donald Tusk implored her to present new ideas for resolving the tricky problem of how to keep the land border between the Republic of Ireland and the U.K.'s Northern Ireland friction-free once Britain no longer is an EU member.

Tusk advised May that "creative" thinking from Britain was required to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland, the issue that has brought divorce negotiations to a standstill. EU leaders dismissed May's most recent proposal as unworkable.

But when the prime minister was asked in the House of Commons earlier Wednesday whether her government's blueprint for an amicable divorce was dead, May replied: "The answer is no."

The summit in Brussels had long been seen as the "moment of truth" in the two-year Brexit process. But after urgent talks on the Irish border ended Sunday without producing a breakthrough, Wednesday's gathering looked more like a therapeutic bonding session than an occasion to celebrate.

The timeline for a deal has slipped into November, or even December, when another EU summit is scheduled.

"Today there will be no breakthrough," said Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite. She said 2 1/2 years after Britain's Brexit referendum, the country had still not explained clearly how it wants to leave the EU.

"Today, we do not know what they want," she said. "They do not know themselves what they really want. That is the problem."

At present the two sides are proposing that Britain remains inside the EU single market and is still bound by its rules from the time it leaves the bloc in March until December 2020, to give time for new trade relations to be set up.

Many suspect that will not be enough time, which has led the EU to demand a "backstop" to ensure there are no customs posts or other controls along the currently invisible border between Northern Ireland and Ireland.

And there is talk that a transition period for the U.K. to adapt to its new status as a third country could be extended by a year.

Britain says it has not asked for an extension, but May has not yet come up with proposals for unblocking the Irish border logjam.

She is hemmed in by pro-Brexit members of her Conservative Party, who oppose any more compromises with the bloc, and by her parliamentary allies in Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party, who insist a solution can't include customs checks between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K.One had the technology. The other had the science. Both shared a mission.

Frank Bennett and Adrian Krainer worked since 2004 to find a treatment for an incurable genetic disease called spinal muscular atrophy. In its most severe form, SMA can kill before the age of 12 months, when the babies lose their ability to breathe.

The collaboration led by Bennett, of Ionis Pharmaceuticals in Carlsbad, and Krainer, of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, yielded Spinraza, the first drug ever proven effective against the disease.

Bennett and Krainer now share something else: A 2019 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, announced Wednesday. Theyll equally split the $3 million that comes with it  a prize roughly three times that of the Nobel Prize.

Advertisement

Four of these prizes were given for life sciences. Three other $3 million awards were given; two in fundamental physics and one in mathematics.

Bennett, vice president of research at Ionis, said he was shocked by the news. He had trouble believing it.

It took a while to process, said Bennett, 61.

Spinraza may be just the beginning of a wave of treatments for currently intractable neurological diseases, according to Wednesdays announcement.

The work has also paved the way for new therapies ... for Huntingtons, ALS, spinocerebellar ataxias, Parkinsons and Alzheimers  all being developed by Ionis, the announcement stated.

Spinraza is sold by Ionis partner Biogen of Cambridge, Mass.

The Breakthrough Prize was founded in 2012 by a group of noted technology entrepreneurs. These include Mark Zuckerberg, a Facebook cofounder; Sergey Brin; a Google cofounder; Anne Wojcicki, cofounder of personal genomics company 23andMe, and tech investor Yuri Milner.

Prizes in each field are awarded by a board including some of the founders, assisted by a selection committee composed of previous winners in that field.

The joint award to Bennett and Krainer illustrates that good science alone isnt enough to yield a breakthrough drug like Spinraza.

Basic academic research must be paired with the expertise of a drug company. That company takes a potential drug through the long path of optimizing it for safety and efficacy, and confirming its safety and effectiveness in cell cultures, in animals and ultimately in people.

Bennett is a busy man: this is just one of his projects. His work includes two other drugs in clinical testing; for ALS, or Lou Gehrigs disease; and for Huntingtons disease. Both are incurable, neurological diseases that are virtually always fatal.

The Ionis drugs have shown early signs that theyre reaching their targets in ALS and Huntingtons. But its too early to tell if the drugs will join Spinraza as breakthrough drugs.

The odds are forbidding. According to a study this year from MIT, only 14 percent of drugs that enter the clinical trial process get approved. And many of these drugs compete with each other, such as the plethora of cholesterol-lowering medicines.

Spinraza isnt one of those me-too drugs. Its approval by the U.S. FDA in December 2016 forever changed the outlook for those born with spinal muscular atrophy, and their families.

Bennett recalls his excitement on hearing the first hints that Spinraza was working in infants with Type 1 spinal muscular atrophy, the severest form. He well knew the diseases grim natural history.

Once theyre diagnosed with the disease, they get worse, Bennett said. They lose muscle tone and eventually become paralyzed from the disease.

And we were getting these anecdotes that the drug was making the kids stronger. They were moving around and being able to reach for things, starting to sit, which is never heard of for Type 1 SMA patients.

Bennett tried to keep his hopes in check, because the first tests were open-label, without a placebo control. Later trials included a sham injection of the drug, which is given through a lumbar puncture.

As the trials progressed, unmistakable evidence came in: the infants were surviving significantly longer. The effect was so great that the trial was stopped ahead of schedule, and Ionis put all the infants on Spinraza.

The drugs for ALS and Huntingtons disease havent reached that point. So far, they have shown early signs that theyre affecting the disease process. But it remains to be seen if they will deliver benefits that merit approval.

Other San Diegans have won Breakthrough Prizes, either collecting the $3 million outright or sharing with a partner. They include:

-- Don Cleveland, a UC San Diego professor who collaborates with Bennett on the ALS drug. Cleveland won one of the five 2018 Breakthrough Prizes in Life Sciences for his work on that disease.

-- Joanne Chory of the Salk Institute won another of the 2018 prizes in Life Sciences for her work in plant science.

-- James McKernan of UCSD shared his award in mathematics equally with collaborator Christopher Hacon of the University of Utah.

-- UCSDs Napoleone Ferrara received one of the 2013 prizes in Life Sciences for his work at Genentech. This study of how new blood vessels form, or angiogenesis, led to drugs for cancer and eye diseases.

The partnerships begin

Bennett is one of the Ionis teams longest-serving members. He was personally recruited in the late 1980s by Stanley T. Crooke, Ionis chairman and CEO.

They had originally met at Baylor College of Medicine, where Bennett was a graduate student and Crooke an adjunct professor. Later, when Crooke took a research post at a drug company in Philadelphia, Bennett joined his lab. When Crooke was starting up Ionis, he invited Bennett to join him.

Ionis was then a tiny company, operating out of temporary lab space in Sorrento Valley. Bennett was interested in the potential of Ionis, then called Isis Pharmaceuticals, to invent a new class of drugs called antisense. These drugs alter how genes work by targeting RNA, the messenger molecules made from genes.

There was a more personal motivation: Bennetts wife, Paula, didnt like living in Philadelphia.

In San Diego, Bennett met Don Cleveland, who became his collaborator in exploring the potential of antisense therapy for ALS.

Then in 2003 Bennett read a scientific paper by Krainer that described how antisense could change the activity of a gene that codes for a protein that promotes survival of motor neurons. A deficiency in that protein progressively kills these neurons in SMA patients.

This gene became the genetic target for the drug called Spinraza. The concept was to use antisense to change how the gene works, increasing production of this protein.

I contacted Adrian to see if hed be interested in collaborating with us, Bennett said. Adrian, being an academic, didnt have an ability to see his ideas get translated to therapies  He had the expertise in the basic science, and we had the expertise in translating that basic science into potential therapeutics.

Bennett and Krainer discussed a larger-scale partnership with antisense, but eventually decided to narrowly focus on SMA. This program had a clear genetic target and a clear mechanism to affect that target.

Some of the other projects that we had talked about werent quite as well-defined, Bennett said. So we felt it was important to establish what the technology could do for a disease.

Working with patients

As part of his job, Bennett meets with patients and patient groups. He says this helps him personally understand what patients are facing, which informs the goals of drug development.

That patient involvement led Bennett to the Vatican last year, for a historic meeting between Pope Francis with Huntingtons disease patients and advocates.

Its similar to SMA as a disease that really motivates you to do what you can for the patients, Bennett said. And thats why I still come to work everyday, is that theres still a need out there.

Huntingtons disease is caused by a mutated protein that is needed in the brain during development. This mutated protein becomes toxic, causing gradual and progressive neurodegeneration.

Patients gradually lose muscle control, develop psychiatric symptoms and eventually die. They tend to get the disease in middle age, but the age of onset depends on the severity of the mutation.

Bennett had been invited to the meeting by one of its organizers, Charles Sabine, a Huntingtons disease advocate and former NBC news journalist.

As it turned out, Bennett had a business meeting scheduled in Switzerland just after the event with drug giant Roche, the partner with Ionis in developing the Huntingtons disease drug. So he was able to connect the two trips. But he didnt travel alone.

I should highlight that my wife is Catholic, and so when I mentioned that I was going to see the pope, she was coming as well, Bennett said, laughing.

Pope Francis met with the patients and advocates in the televised event, saying they deserved love and support as a matter of Christian teaching.

Charles arranged for me to sit up in the VIP session section and I was able to meet the pope as part of that event, Bennett said.

It was a life-affirming event. Im not religious myself, but the pope is clearly somebody who cares about people, and it comes through very strongly. Ill remember it for the rest of my life.

One last thing, Bennett said: Patients who took the experimental drug, and their families, deserve the most honor.

They were very brave to try a very novel therapy for the first time, he said. And for the first few patients there was a lot of risk associated with it. We had done all the work that we could to show that it was safe, but you never know when youre testing a new medicine.

And so to me, the families that take care of these kids, and the kids themselves, are really the heroes in the story.

Related reading

From basic research to saving lives  the Spinraza story

Ionis surges on Spinraza sales

Ionis reports continued success testing drug for fatal disease

FDA approves Ionis spinal muscular atrophy drug Spinraza

Designer DNA drugs approach a potential watershed moment

Ionis earns $40 million from spinal muscular atrophy drug Spinraza

Science Playlist  On Now In a first, scientists rid human embryos of a potentially fatal gene mutation by editing their DNA On Now Space station flyovers visible from San Diego this week 0:55 On Now UCSD's 'ghost drivers' begin testing people's reaction seemingly empty cars 1:29 On Now 10 interesting facts about Mars On Now Kids can add years to your life On Now LA 90: SpaceX launches recycled rocket On Now Big passions, big giving: Malin Burnham 2:30 On Now Big passions, big giving: Darlene Shiley 2:40 On Now Big passions, big giving: Joan and Irwin Jacobs 2:45 On Now Ocean temperatures warming at rapid rate, study finds

bradley.fikes@sduniontribune.com

(619) 293-1020What a difference four years makes.

Carlsbad Mayor Matt Hall ran unopposed for re-election in 2014. But this year he has a challenger, first-term Councilwoman Cori Schumacher, and the two have starkly contrasting views on a number of subjects.

Schumacher, 41, is a former professional surfer and the founder of a nonprofit, The Inspire Initiative, that works to empower women through surfing.

She rode a wave of resident unrest to office in 2016, after she and other residents fought the City Councils approval in 2015 of a luxury shopping mall to be built on the shore of a Carlsbad lagoon. The opponents collected enough signatures to place a referendum on a special election ballot that defeated the project.

Advertisement

Carlsbad Councilwoman Cori Schumacher (Union-Tribune photo)

Now Schumacher has her eyes on the citys top spot, and her campaign is a bit like the one that worked for her two years ago.

The single biggest issue facing Carlsbad is a lack of public trust in our local government leaders and the need for transparency, she said in response to questions submitted to both candidates last week. We need new leadership committed to transparency and centering our residents first in every decision.

Hall, 70, got to be mayor the old-fashioned way. Now retired, he ran a towing company and auto salvage yard in the city for years and was appointed to the Planning Commission in the early 1990s. He was first elected to the City Council in 1994, then his first term as mayor in 2010.

Carlsbad Mayor Matt Hall (Union-Tribune photo)

Like many Southern California cities, Carlsbad is nearing built out. Construction is underway in what probably will be the citys last large residential communities at Robertson Ranch along El Camino Real and Quarry Creek just south of state Route 78.

Our biggest challenge is transitioning Carlsbad from a growth-mode to a sustainability-mode, Hall said in his written response, which includes protecting our quality of life against potential state mandates regarding housing and land use, preserving the unique character of our older neighborhoods, and protecting our open spaces.

Hall is only Carlsbads second mayor in 30 years, following in the footsteps of former Carlsbad High School teacher Bud Lewis, who served 40 years on the City Council, including 24 as mayor, before retiring in 2010. He died in 2014 at age 83.

Like Lewis, Hall strives to keep City Council meetings business-like, to move things along, keep discussions civil, and give everyone a chance to speak.

Its service above self, Hall said at a recent candidates forum hosted by the League of Women Voters. I cant tell you how much I enjoy this city and love what Im doing.

Schumacher has differed with Hall and most of the other council members on a number of recent issues.

When the council decided to take a stance on Californias position as a sanctuary state for immigrants, Schumacher cast the only vote against backing the federal government.

The weighing in on this is purely political, and its divisive, Schumacher said at the time.

Hall saw it another way.

Our laws are becoming more difficult to enforce, Hall said, backing efforts to have local law enforcement officers work more closely with state and federal agents. It takes many agencies working together to keep us safe.

When the Carlsbad Police Department asked to install license plate readers at key intersections in 2017, and then to add more of the cameras this year, Schmacher cast the only nay vote both times, saying they are an invasion of privacy.

I will not play a part in chipping away at our residents Constitutionally protected rights, she said in response to the newspapers questions.

Hall said the cameras would help keep residents safe, and that the data collected would be carefully protected.

Used with appropriate restrictions they are not an invasion of privacy, he said. There is no evidence this data has been used for anything other than apprehending criminals.

Schumacher said at the candidates forum that the city needs more staff employees and police officers. Hall responded that the city is well managed, with fewer employees and higher ratings than it had 10 years ago, and that he doesnt see the need for more employees.

We are one of the financially strongest cities in the state, Hall said at the forum.

Both candidates have talked about the need to pursue sources of renewable energy for Carlsbad, provide more affordable housing for residents, and find more resources to help the homeless.

Hall emphasized the work Carlsbad has done already to build more affordable housing.

With the exception of the city of San Diego, Carlsbad has built more affordable housing than any other municipality in the county, he said, and it will continue to make 15 percent of all new housing affordable.

Schumacher said Carlsbad should go further, suggesting it stop allowing developers to pay an in-lieu fee to the city instead of building affordable homes within their project, and it should re-examine the incentives for developers to build affordable housing.

Schumacher has two years remaining on the four-year term she won in 2016, so if Hall wins on Nov. 6 she will continue to serve as an at-large council member until 2020.

However, because she lives in council District 1 and that district is up for election this year, she would be unable to run for re-election in 2020 unless she moves to one of the two districts open that year.

Should she win the mayors seat in November, that would create a new opening on the council.

Then the council could appoint someone to fill the remainder of the at-large term, or, if the four members are unable to reach a consensus within 60 days of the vacancy, there could be a special election.

Carlsbads mayor receives a base salary of $25,826 a year, a car allowance of $5,400 a year, and other benefits.

philip.diehl@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @phildiehlStudents in the Carlsbad Unified School District are gaining hands-on experience in science, engineering and other key career areas, Superintendent Ben Churchill said at a State of the District speech Tuesday.

The speech, held at the The Westin Resort & Spa in Carlsbad, highlighted the districts goals and accomplishments, as well as its challenges with budget and infrastructure.

With 11,533 students at 15 schools, the district includes state-of-the-art facilities including the new Sage Creek High School and the renovated campus at Carlsbad High School

Sage Creek, which opened in 2013 and will celebrate its second graduating class this spring, focuses on STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education, and offers specialized pathways of courses in biomedical science, computer science and engineering.

Advertisement

Carlsbad High School also received updated facilities, and a new performing arts center is under construction at the campus, which will showcase the districts award-winning visual and performing arts programs, Churchill said.

Those projects were completed through Proposition P, a $198 million bond measure approved in 2006 to build a second high school and renovate Carlsbad campuses.

Both high schools bring students into contact with experts in the areas theyre studying, he said. At Sage Creek, students complete a senior year genius project focusing on an issue theyre passionate about, and relying on advice from outside mentors in that field.

Their projects last year ranged from organizing a reading program for elementary students to inventing a new breathalyzer device. One student, Churchill said, planned a science career day for girls, with sponsorship from Thermo Fisher Scientific, a national biotechnology company that operates a Carlsbad branch.

At Carlsbad High School, Churchill said, students also coordinate with experts from the community. For instance, he said, the schools broadcasting program uses professional equipment and draws on the experience of local broadcasters to televise events such as the countys teacher of the year awards.

Elementary students learn through outside partnerships as well, with second-graders doing Lego robotics and coding projects, third-graders visiting Agua Hedionda Lagoon for lessons in ecology, and fourth-graders making trips to the historic Leo Carillo Ranch, Churchill said. Relationships with local experts not only help students gain insight into potential careers, but also enable teachers to plan curricula with those jobs in mind, he said.

We have insight into the careers of the future, because we work closely with professionals, Churchill said.

Despite its focus on future careers, however, many of the school facilities are past their prime, he said, with the earliest schools built in the 1950s. To upgrade them, the district is placing a $265 million facilities bond measure on the November ballot.

If the bond measure passes, the money would go toward modernizing school laboratories and science classrooms, and to upgrade security, Churchill said. The district has worked with local police, fire officials, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and other agencies, to identify improvements in entryways and exits, security technology and training.

Improving safety and security, this is absolutely front of mind for all of us these days, Churchill said. Were also looking at sustainability and energy efficiency.

Finances are another continual challenge. Although the district is rated very high by the state Department of Education for students performance in English and math, and for its graduation rate of 94 percent, Carlsbad Unified has the second-lowest per student funding in San Diego County under the state Local Control Funding Formula, Churchill said.

Because of that, school officials must take strategic cost-cutting measures to close a projected budget gap of $3 million this year. Although the district has reserves to cover that deficit, he said, staff is working hard to find reductions so we can end the year at zero (deficits.)

deborah.brennan@sduniontribune.com Twitter@deborahsbrennanDredging to clear a growing sand bar at the entrance to the Oceanside harbor is scheduled to start Thursday, six months after the annual spring cleaning was cancelled for the lack of a permit.

Low tides and high surf can cause problems and even capsize boats at the harbors mouth, which steadily fills with sand pushed by ocean currents and waves. The goal of dredging is to reduce the hazards by keeping the channel at least 20 feet deep, though at times it can be less than half that.

Some whale-watching and boat-rental businesses at the harbor cancelled trips and lost business over the summer because of the shallow entrance.

Oceanside beaches also have suffered from the delay.

Advertisement

As a byproduct of dredging, sand from the harbor is spread on nearby beaches. Coastal communities throughout Southern California depend on sand replenishment projects to stave off erosion.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is responsible for the Oceanside harbor dredging and is required to get the permit every five years from the state Regional Water Quality Control Board. The permit expired this year, and the federal agency was unable to get it renewed in time to begin the work in April.

They were last in line, said Steve Rodriguez, the citys harbor maintenance supervisor.

Other cities such as Carlsbad and San Diego also had applied for permits, which require time-consuming water-quality tests and paperwork.

Oceansides goal is to finish the work before the Memorial Day weekend every year, so the city will have fresh sand on the beach and the pipes and heavy equipment off the beach by the time the tourist season begins.

Members of the Oceanside Harbor and Beaches Advisory Committee said at their meeting Monday that the city and the Corps of Engineers should work together to avoid another delay.

How did we get into this situation, and is anybody doing any oversight so  its not going to happen again? asked committee member Michael Cobas.

I think we learned a lesson, said committee member Carolyn Krammer.

The contractor that does the dredging, Manson Construction Co., was scheduled to start a job in Seattle in May and had to leave before the permit was issued, Rodriguez told the committee.

The company is bringing its cargo barge, the H.R. Morris, back from Seattle, he said. Its expected to arrive at the Oceanside harbor this week after a stop in Long Beach. A crane, pipes and other equipment are already in place at the harbor.

With calm weather and favorable conditions, Manson will finish the dredging by Oct. 29 and be out of the harbor by Nov. 3, Rodriguez said.

Plans call for about 180,000 cubic yards of sand to be removed from the harbor and distributed on the beach from about Surfrider Way to the municipal pier.

Corps officials have said the dredging will resume next spring as usual, and that will bring more sand that could be spread farther south.

The cost of the fall dredging is $3.5 million, according to an announcement the Corps made in August.

Most years, the company removes about 250,000 cubic yards of material from the harbor. Some years, the city pays extra to get more sand on its beaches.

Still, theres a chance Manson might not return in the spring.

The Corps of Engineers contract with Manson expires after the October job and other companies could bid for the work next year, Rodriguez said.

Manson has done the dredging most years for at least a decade. However, a different company received the contract in 2016 and there were problems with permits and equipment, the work started late and finished late, and less material was dredged than planned.

As a result, the next year the contract was returned to Manson, a company founded in 1905 in Puget Sound.

The popular Oceanside harbor was built in the 1960s and has almost 1,000 boat slips and a waiting list for rentals.

philip.diehl@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @phildiehlWhether the Julian Cuyamaca Fire Protection District will dissolve and be taken over by the county comes down to a couple dozen signatures.

On Tuesday morning, 615 signatures of registered voters who live in the district were submitted during a rare protest hearing at a meeting of the Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO).

The residents are trying to overturn a decision last month by LAFCO to transfer control of the countys last volunteer fire department to the regional Fire Authority.

LAFCO is responsible for overseeing changes to local governmental boundaries, including the formation, consolidation, merger and dissolution of special districts.

Advertisement

If all the signatures are valid, they represent 26 percent of the registered voters in the 52,000-acre district and as such would force an election to decide the ultimate fate of the volunteer department.

But should 24 or more of the signatures be invalidated by the Registrar of Voters in the coming weeks, then the percentage will fall below the 25 percent threshold and the dissolution will become official.

Theres 26 percent protests. If that number holds, and theres a whole validation process that needs to occur, there will be an election, said LAFCO Executive Officer Keene Simonds.

Usually when signature campaigns are waged for such things as citizen referendums, the goal is always to gather far more signatures than are needed because ultimately a number of them are invalidated. Sometimes, people who sign arent actually residents of the jurisdiction, or they have changed their address without notifying the registrars office, or they sign twice.

For instance, a countywide citizens initiative being circulated now to overturn a decision allowing a large housing development in North County requires roughly 68,000 signatures to be placed on a future ballot. But the goal of the signature campaign is to get 110,000 signatures as a cushion.

The Julian situation, of course, deals with far fewer numbers, and leaders of the effort to retain the volunteer fire department say they are confident the signatures will hold up because they have been checking them along the way.

Still, it will be up to county Registrar of Voters Michael Vu to check each signature. Simonds said theyve been assured the process wont take more than 10 days, and probably less.

Ten years ago, after huge wildland fires burned into urban areas in 2003 and 2007, the County Fire Authority was formed to consolidate all the backcountry fire departments.

All of the volunteer departments in the rural areas eventually dissolved and became part of the Fire Authority, which staffs the stations full time with professional firefighters under contract with Cal Fire.

But the Julian department, despite having struggled for years financially, has held out. The volunteers and their supporters insist that the area is better served and safer with locals in the engines  locals who know the area and care deeply for its citizens.

They say the fire department is a source of great pride for the unincorporated communities it serves and that the county and Cal Fire, which the county contracts with, are power hungry and have consistently misrepresented facts and figures.

Things have gotten to this point because the board of directors of the Julian district voted earlier this year, 3-1-1, to begin the dissolution process. The matter came before LAFCO because the directors and the county asked for the change. The issue has divided the community. Friends have become enemies. Names have been dragged through the mud.

Should enough of the signatures be validated, an election of some sort will be scheduled in December, which is the next time the LAFCO commission meets. The election would likely take place during the first half of 2019. At that time, voters will either give the ultimate thumbs up or thumbs down to the dissolution question. Simonds said LAFCO will absorb the cost of the election and has set aside $40,000 for that purpose.

Meanwhile, the volunteers are no longer in control of the department. The county and Cal Fire are staffing the stations under an interim agreement until the dissolution matter has been settled.

To confuse things a bit more, voters in Julian will be asked on Nov. 6 to quadruple their parcel tax from $50 to $200 annually to fund the volunteer department should it ultimately continue to exist. Should the county take control, the vote will become moot.

There was one other way that an election could have been forced but it failed miserably Tuesday. Had 25 percent of the more than 4,000 property owners in the district protested, that too would have led to an election. However, only 1.6 percent of the property owners did so.

jharry.jones@sduniontribune.com; 760/529-4931; Twitter: @jharryjonesManuel Marruenda, the man who turned a garage startup into a multimillion-dollar Mexican tropical drink empire, died of natural causes Sept. 28 in San Diego. He was 81.

Born in Mexico City in 1936, Marruenda is survived by four children, six grandchildren, three great-grandchildren and his business, Fiesta Pacific Products.

If youve had tropical drinks such as horchata, jamaica, or tamarindo in a taco shop, odds are they came from Fiesta Pacifica.

Marruenda introduced those flavors to the San Diego market when he started the company out of his southeast San Diego home in 1980, recalls his sister-in-law and the companys office manager, Laura Escajadillo.

Advertisement

The company started out by selling soda fountains to taco shops. But instead of Pepsi or Sprite, they came with traditional Mexican flavors. Fiesta Pacifics client list is a whos who of San Diego taco shops.

Its roster includes Lolitas, Robertos, Albertos and Santanas.

As those mom-and-pop taco shops grew into regional chains, Marruendas business grew with them. When Robertos opened a store in Las Vegas, Marruenda began selling tropical drinks throughout Nevada. When another shop, Betos, opened in Utah, Marruenda went with it.

Today, Fiesta Pacific is in 17 states, including Washington, Illinois, Texas, and Iowa. And the company is growing, particularly in non-Hispanic markets.

It used to be only Hispanic people knew what horchata was, said salesman Sean McNaughton. But now its so widespread everybody uses it.

The company prepares drinks in mixable concentrates that restaurants can put into machines.

But lately clients have found interesting uses for the mix.

A chain of doughnut stores uses it to make horchata-flavored coffee and a local distillery, Cutwater, uses it to make horchata vodka, McNaughton said.

Fiesta Pacific makes about $1 million in revenue a month, McNaughton added.

Even later in life, Manuel Marruenada kept his office and asked for monthly financial statements that showed how much they sold and how much money came in. (Handout)

Since Marruendas passing, the companys Otay Mesa headquarters has received flower vases on an almost daily basis.

Employees, many of whom have worked there for decades, remember Marruenda fondly.

It was Marruenda, or El Patron, as his employees called him, who hired David Bernal Salazar 28 years ago.

Salazars first job was to clean the bathrooms. Then he moved on to cleaning offices, then production, working and operating the machines. Today, Salazar prepares the ingredients for each product.

Its a big loss but hes still in our hearts, Salazar said of Marruenda. Hes the one who gave me a chance. I started cleaning bathrooms and never thought Id be where I am now. It seems kind of incredible.

Salazar turned 52 on Oct. 13. But he wasnt celebrating. Thats the same day Marruendas family held a funeral service at the Little Chapel of Roses in Glen Abbey Mortuary in Bonita.

I was going to celebrate but I prefer to spend the day with my boss, he said.

Most employees at Fiesta Pacifica have a story about how Marruenda helped them in one way or another. El Patron had a habit of asking employees about their families and life outside of work. Hed help people fix broken down cars or even tackle bigger projects.

Domingo Hernandez, 30, remembers Marruenda offering money to help Hernandez build his house in Rosarito.

One day he asked me to stop by his house after work, Hernandez said. He gave me an envelope and told me its so I can finish my house. Thats the kind of man he was.

Hernandez, who lives in that house today, declined to say exactly how much money was in the envelope. But the money made a big difference, he said.

Hernandez said Marruenda was special in how much attention he paid his employees.

Manuel Marruenda, who made a multimillion-dollar horchata empire in San Diego, enjoyed driving around Coronado. (Handout)

I think because he started this from nothing he never lost that humility, he said. He knew what it means to fight on.

While Marruenda had a big heart, he had a reputation for being a demanding boss and overseeing every aspect of the business.

He was very strict, Escajadillo said. I remember back in the days before cellphones, he would call each client to see if the salesman went to do their daily visit. He would call the clients and ask if the salesman had stopped by.

Even later in life, after his sons Manny, Paco and Juan began running the day-to-day operations, Marruenda kept his office and asked for monthly financial statements that showed how much they sold and how much money came in.

This was everything to him, McNaughton said.

Contact Gustavo Solis via Email or TwitterOctober 17, 1995 The San Diego Union-Tribune

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, October 17, 1995

In 1995 hundreds of thousands of African-American men gathered on the mall in Washington, D.C., for the "Million Man March." Organizers, including controversial Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, called on black men to rededicate themselves to their families and communities while pledging to combat violence and social despair.

Here are the first few paragraphs of the story:

San Diegans step off bus into sea of unity

By Eric Young, Staff Writer

WASHINGTON  Walter Abrams was beaming as he stood up for black men yesterday.

Surrounding the Chula Vista man were hundreds of thousands of other African-American men who had converged on Washington to etch a positive image of black men on the American consciousness.

Abrams, 25, stood in the shadow of the Capitol and gazed at the throng that turned out for the ambitious Million Man March.

"This is what it's really about  unity," he concluded. "I knew it would be like this. I knew it would be powerful."

Abrams, wearing a light jacket against yesterday's cutting wind, was one of 16 men who boarded a bus in San Diego on Friday night. They arrived in Washington before dawn yesterday. They were tired, but anxious to join wave upon wave of black men who arrived from across the United States and from abroad.

An unknown number of African-American men from San Diego flew or drove to Washington over the weekend.

For the San Diego bus group, and for the hundreds of thousands of black men who arrived at the Capitol and adjoining Mall, the daylong event was a melding of politics, religious solemnity and social protest.

The event was conceived by Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam,who has drawn criticism for his racist and anti-Semitic remarks.

"What people need to understand," said bus rider Chris Morris of San Diego,"is this is God behind this" event.

"Only God could be behind this. This is bigger than the minister. Look around," he said, sweeping his hand at the never-ceasing ebb and flow of African-American men and boys.

Speaker after speaker exhorted black men to hold their heads high and to redouble their efforts to get involved in family life and help black women. Some exhorted listeners to hug or greet the man standing next to them.

Banners reading "We are here!" "Stop the killing" and "One love" were scattered among the multitudes and contributed to the day's energy.

"I think this is great for black men to come together," said Brian M. Starks of Detroit. "Today spells out what we have to do when we get back home."

The Million Man March was not really a march, but more a gathering that stretched from the Capitol to the Washington Monument.

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 Davis high school student allegedly baked her grandfathers ashes into a batch of sugar cookies and gave them to classmates, some of whom were aware they contained human remains before they ate them, authorities said Tuesday.

A female student at Da Vinci Charter Academy, a public charter high school, brought the cookies to school on Oct. 4 and gave them to at least nine other students, said Davis Police Lt. Paul Doroshov. Some ate the cookies without knowing the extra ingredient and were horrified, he said. Others knew.

Some students knew beforehand and still consumed the cookies, Doroshov said.

Asked if the allegation seems credible, Doroshov gave a long sigh.

Advertisement

Yeah.

A school resource officer reported that two female students were involved in bringing the cookies to school, Doroshov said. Their relationship is unclear, but the girls are not siblings and the deceased man was the grandfather of only one of them, he said.

Doroshov said police opened a case and have been trying to determine which penal code would apply to baking human remains into food. Officers considered a California penal code section regarding the disposal of human remains in an improper manner but public-nuisance charges might be more appropriate, he said.

Authorities are working with the school to determine how best to proceed, he said.

The students have been cooperating with the investigation, Doroshov said.

Andy Knox, a student at the school, told KCRA-TV that he was just about to go into his environmental science class when a girl in the same class offered him a cookie. When she told him there was a special ingredient, he assumed it was marijuana.

I didnt believe her until she pulled out the urn, he said.

Knox said that the cookie didnt taste unusual but if you ever ate sand as a kid, you know, you can kind of feel it crunching in between your teeth. So, there was a little tiny bit of that.

He said that the cookie contained tiny gray flecks and that the girl had once offered him the ashes if he switched seats with another student in the classroom.

Da Vinci Charter Academy Principal Tyler Millsap said in a letter to parents that this issue going on right now has been particularly challenging and our staff has responded appropriately and in the most respectful and dignified way possible for all the students and families involved.

Millsap said he regrets that the story has been taken up by the media and said that there is no health risk to any students.

I can say that those who were involved are remorseful and this is now a personal family matter and we want to respect the privacy of the families involved.

hailey.branson@latimes.com

Twitter: @haileybransonThe student body president of Fresno City College was arrested Tuesday and charged with two rape-related felonies and one misdemeanor, including allegations that he used a foreign object to penetrate one woman, according to police records.

Christopher Washington, president of Fresno City College Associated Student Government, was found with two female students in a womens bathroom stall on campus Monday, according to college officials. All three students were reportedly intoxicated.

The Fresno City College Police Department arrested the 25-year-old around 11:50 a.m. Tuesday. The agency has not released additional information.

Washington faces two felony counts  rape and sexual penetration with a foreign object  and a misdemeanor charge for remaining on campus without consent, according to the Fresno County Sheriffs Office.

Advertisement

The incident has shaken the college.

President Carole Goldsmith sent an email to students and faculty saying the investigation was ongoing and the college was committed to taking cases of sexual misconduct seriously.

Colleges often end up as the sole adjudicators in cases like this due to the fact that many alleged victims do not want to go through the criminal justice systems as they believe it will only result in reliving the trauma, Goldsmith said in the email.

In response to the incident, Goldsmith has formed a team to review the colleges safety protocols and procedures related to sexual misconduct.

Washington is being held in lieu of $126,000 bail.

melissa.etehad@latimes.com

Follow me on Twitter @melissaetehadSan Diego plans to crack down on Segway tour operators in the wake of a $1.7-million injury settlement in June and another lawsuit filed last spring that claims a protruding sidewalk caused the death of a Segway rider two years ago.

An ordinance proposed by city officials would require Segway tour companies to apply for special permits, follow safety procedures and obtain commercial liability insurance of at least $2 million per case and $4 million per year.

The ordinance aims to shrink the number of injury crashes and limit the citys vulnerability to large payouts when injuries occur.

In the case that led to the $1.7-million settlement, the tour company that rented out the Segway didnt contribute to the payout because it didnt have liability insurance and the companys owner had limited assets.

Advertisement

Invented in 2002, Segways are two-wheeled motorized vehicles that carry one person standing upright. Segway is the name of the leading company in the industry. In order to make sure the citys new law would also apply to competitors, it refers to the vehicles as electronic assistive personal mobility devices.

The new law would not apply to the electric scooters that are becoming increasingly popular in cities across the state. San Diego officials are exploring separate legislation for those devices.

The ordinance would require Segway tour companies to obtain a special permit requiring them to have adequate insurance and follow new safety procedures.

Those would include prohibiting Segway use by intoxicated people, requiring users younger than 18 to be accompanied by an adult, requiring tour guides to have a drivers license and conducting on-site training for all riders before tours.

Companies would have to pay a $48 annual fee for a permit.

The new legislation follows the $1.7-million payout by the city to a woman whose pelvis was shattered in a Segway crash on a La Jolla street three years ago.

The settlement includes $1.5 million for Regina Capobianco and $200,000 for her husband, Christopher Capobianco, because her injuries damaged their marriage.

Regina Copabianco was injured when she drove a Segway over a large area of broken and damaged street in July 2015. Her shattered pelvis required surgery to screw in metal plates.

Copabiancos lawsuit, filed in July 2016 after the city rejected a claim for damages, said she needs intense physical therapy and relies predominantly on a wheelchair to get around.

In addition to money for medical expenses and to cover pain and suffering, her lawsuit sought compensation for lost wages because Capobianco can no longer perform the full-time job she had before the Segway crash.

A few months before the city settled Capobiancos case, the family of Jeff Hassett filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the city blaming a protruding sidewalk in Old Town for his eventual death.

The suit, filed by Hassetts four siblings, said Hassett struck a 3-inch to 4-inch concrete stub in the sidewalk while riding a Segway in March 2016. The stub was created by the removal of a light pole on Taylor Street.

Hassett suffered broken ribs, a toe injury that required amputation and damage to an internal heart defibrillator. The heart issue and an infection eventually caused his death in May 2016.

david.garrick@sduniontribune.com

Garrick writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune.Diane Harkey made a remarkable statement last week, just one month before Election Day. National Republican leaders, she said, are giving up on her.

Keep in mind, Harkey is running in one of several California GOP-held congressional districts that may determine who controls the House of Representatives. Her comment came as she sought to rally hundreds of people at an Oct. 8 meeting of the Republican Party of San Diego County.

I want you to say that we are going to hold the 49th! she said, prepping the crowd for a cheer. I want you to say it so loud that they hear us in D.C. Are we going to hold the 49th?

Yes! the audience shouted.

Advertisement

OK, she continued, we need them to hear that in D.C. because a lot of people are giving up on us. We are not giving up on the 49th.

(To view Harkeys remark, click here and go to minute 45 on the video.)

Harkeys prospects appear so grim that neither the National Republican Campaign Committee nor the Congressional Leadership Fund, a GOP super PAC, invested in any substantial television ad time for her, according to the Daily Kos.

That could change, but it seems unlikely. Democrat Mike Levin has vastly outraised Harkey and leads her by double digits in recent polls conducted by the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times. His lead was such that the Democratic Congressional Campaign committee even pulled back on buying TV time for him, though that could ramp up down the stretch.

Thats a sign of confidence seen in some other battleground districts across the country where Democrats have throttled back television time, at least temporarily. Republicans are also similarly adjusting resources in more comfortable races. Regardless, Levins own campaign appears to be running full bore.

Harkey has company. The Congressional Leadership Fund has bypassed two other Republicans in key California districts in its early ad buys, according to the Los Angeles Times. Unlike Harkey, both Mimi Walters and Dana Rohrabacher are incumbents.

(Update: The Rohrabacher campaign disputes the Times story, noting that the CLF spent $3 million in his and Walters districts in August and spent $375,000 on a media buy last week in Rohrabachers 48th district to attack his opponent, Democrat Harvey Rouda. However, the super PAC spent millions on broadcast ad for other California candidates, but channeled money to cable ads for Walters and Rohrabacher.)

Democrats need a net gain of 23 seats to take over the House. They say they are contesting 11 of the 14 California Republican seats, but the focus is on seven districts where Hillary Clinton topped Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election. Clinton won the 49th district by more than seven percentage points.

Media buys in California are expensive. The 49th, which includes coastal areas in northern San Diego and southern Orange counties, is particularly expensive because its split into two pricey media markets.

National campaign strategists on both sides realize money not spent in California can go farther in many other states. Their calculations also take into account whether theyd be pouring valuable resources into a potential lost cause.

The nonpartisan political website FiveThirtyEight flatly says the GOP has abandoned at least a half-dozen swing districts, including the 49th. As of Tuesday, the website was giving Harkey a 6.1 percent chance of winning. The Cook Political Report still has the district leaning Democratic rather than likely Democratic.

With the necessary caveat that momentum can always shift, everything seems to be going going Levins way at the moment. His campaign raised $2.3 million from July 1 through Sept. 30, compared with $616,000 for Harkey.

The Republicans once-commanding voter registration lead in the district is now down to five points, 36 percent to 31 percent with 28 percent of voters declaring no political preference. It is a highly suburban district, the likes of which Democrats have been making a major push in around the country.

Republican incumbent Darrell Issa barely survived a challenge by an unknown Democrat in 2016 and decided not to run for re-election. He was done in largely because of his support for both candidate and President Donald Trump. The 49th district became a hot-bed of anti-Trump activism with weekly protests outside Issas Vista office from December 2016 through April of this year.

Trump endorsed Harkey in an August tweet, and his campaign operation endorsed her again earlier this month. She posed for a picture with the presidents son Eric at a San Diego County campaign stop in September. That likely will help with the Republican base, but probably not so much with potential crossover Democrats or possibly voters with no party affiliation.

Recently, some polls have shown Republicans gaining momentum nationwide in their pursuit to hold on to the House in the wake of the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court confirmation fight. But its unclear what effect, if any, that will have on the dynamics in the 49th district, or whether the burst of GOP enthusiasm will last for the next three weeks.

Second-guessing is a time-honored, post-election ritual for whichever side loses. Should the trends hold up for Levin, there will be plenty to pick over about the Harkey campaign, starting with whether she was the right candidate for the GOP.

Shes a known figure as a member of the state Board of Equalization and a former legislator. But shes a staunch conservative in a district thats trending purple. Her fundraising prowess has been suspect and she must deal with the baggage of court rulings that found her husband guilty of bilking senior citizens.

Harkey says she was not directly involved in her husbands financial business and did not benefit from it, though it remains a cloud over her campaign.

The GOP would share considerable blame for a loss, however, and not just for a lack of general-election support. She was the early Republican choice, with primary election endorsements from Issa and the Republican parties in San Diego and Orange counties.

When Assemblyman Rocky Chavez, R-Oceanside, entered the congressional primary campaign, he was the favorite in early polls. He seemed to be a good fit for his 76th Assembly District, which includes much of the southern portion of the 49th Congressional District. A Latino with a moderate political profile, Chavez is a retired Marine colonel who was running in a district that includes Camp Pendleton, which is also part of his Assembly district. His general-election victory margins over three elections have ranged from 16 points to more than 30 points.

But the GOP leadership has never cared much for Chavez, who suddenly found himself under attack from the right and the left in this years congressional primary. He wasnt conservative enough for the right and Democrats viewed him as the biggest potential threat in November. Democrats wanted to run against Harkey.

Meanwhile, Levin, a former executive director of the Democratic Party of Orange County, had the inside track with influential party officials, though he faced a handful of Democrats, some with considerable personal wealth to spend.

In the end, Democrats got the two candidates they wanted on the fall ballot  with an assist from the Republican Party.A sheriffs deputy who was shot last year while in an off-duty struggle with a gunman in the Gaslamp Quarter testified Tuesday that he thought he wouldnt survive the encounter.

But when his shooter ran down Island Avenue, Jason Philpot chased him for a short distance in hopes of catching him.

I thought I was going to die. I wanted to make my last minute count, he told jurors.

Philpot and his two brothers had left a Metallica concert at Petco Park and hit a couple of bars around 1 a.m. on Aug. 7, 2017, before the shooting.

Advertisement

The gunman, Ray Pitoau, was arrested a month later in Mexico and handed over to San Diego police.

Pitoaus second trial on charges related to the shooting got underway Tuesday.

In his first trial in July, Pitoau admitted he had a .38-caliber revolver in his fist when it went off, wounding Philpot and a bystander. The defendant testified that he didnt have his finger on the trigger as he and Philpot struggled over the gun.

The prosecutor, though, argued that Pitoau knew what he was doing when he shot Philpot, an off-duty San Diego County sheriffs deputy.

Pitoau was convicted of three firearms charges, including being a felon in possession of a gun. Jurors deadlocked on three counts of assault with a deadly weapon charging that he shot Philpot, aimed the gun at his brother, Joshua Philpot, and wounded passerby Vladimir Shevts.

The District Attorneys Office refiled the assault charges for a second trial before San Diego Superior Court Judge Melinda Lasater.

A jury of eight woman and four men was seated Monday, and attorneys gave opening statements Tuesday morning.

Deputy District Attorney Michael Reilly showed jurors close-up photos of Philpots wounds, showing one round had passed through the right edge of his chest, exited, entered his right armpit and passed through his arm. A second round passed through his right arm at a different spot.

One of the rounds bounced off the sidewalk and struck Shvets forearm, Reilly said.

Defense attorney Jessica Marshall told jurors the case isnt a who-dunnit but a why-dunnit.

She said both Philpots, their older brother, Steve West, and some friends were drunk and had been thrown out of a bar for being aggressive before they walked past Pitoau.

Joshua Philpot said something offensive to Pitoau, who was minding his own business, eating chips and waiting for a ride, Marshall said.

Theyve got that anger going, that testosterone going, then were crowding around Pitoau, who drew the gun in self defense, Marshall said.

Jason Philpot testified he didnt notice Pitoau sitting on a restaurant railing at Island and Sixth avenues.

Suddenly Joshua ran up to Jason, grabbed his arm and exclaimed, Help, hes got a gun, Jason Philpot testified.

He said he saw Pitoau aiming the gun at Joshua, so he charged down the sidewalk, knocked Pitoaus gun hand downward and grabbed him around the waist to pin his arms.

Pitoau got his right arm free, Philpot said. He then heard two gunshots, saw the muzzle flash and felt the wound in his chest.

His brothers and the friend came to his aid.

pauline.repard@sduniontribune

Twitter: @pdrepardA 17-year-old boy sat in the back of a packed courtroom Tuesday morning in downtown San Diego watching children with attorneys at their sides go before an immigration judge.

He noticed a blond, curly-haired man who sat at the front to speak for 12 of the 18 children scheduled that day on Judge Philip Laws 8 a.m. juvenile docket.

When the judge took a break, the boy approached the blond man as he prepared to leave. The boy explained that he didnt have an attorney and asked for advice.

The man, Matthew Cannon, said he didnt know if the judge would give him more time to find an attorney. Cannon handed the teen one of his cards and told the boy to call if the judge did.

Advertisement

Cannon works for Casa Cornelia Law Center, one of the few organizations in San Diego that offers pro bono attorneys in immigration cases and the only one that represents detained children.

Without attorneys, minors in immigration court proceedings have to navigate a set of laws as thick and complex as tax codes, and attorneys are not provided even for toddlers.

When Law returned, the boy begged him for another chance, explaining that his father hadnt yet been able to afford an attorney.

If you give me another date, I promise I will have an attorney, he told the judge through a Spanish interpreter.

Law was skeptical until the boy pulled out Cannons card. Law told the boy he could have one last chance.

Children in the immigration system

When children arrive at the southwest border by themselves, a migration trend that has happened for decades, the federal government puts them in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement.

Those held in San Diego are sent to a set of facilities run by Southwest Key in El Cajon and Lemon Grove with 65 beds for boys and 25 beds for girls. Children generally stay at one of these facilities until they can be placed with sponsors or foster families.

If they turn 18, they are transferred to adult detention centers.

Attorneys from Casa Cornelia screen every child who passes through Southwest Keys San Diego facilities, teaching them what rights they have in the immigration system, explaining what options they have to try to stay in the U.S. based on their individual cases and offering to represent them for free.

In general, there are two main options for arriving children.

If they can show theyve been persecuted or fear persecution based on their race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group, they can apply for asylum.

The asylum process for unaccompanied children is notably different from that for arriving adults. While adults have to argue their cases in front of immigration judges and with opposition from ICE attorneys, children submit applications to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Asylum officers from USCIS interview the children in person in a non-adversarial setting and have authority to grant asylum. If a child doesnt get approval from an asylum officer, he or she can try again in a court setting similar to the adult process.

If children can prove they have been neglected, abandoned or abused, they can apply to be recognized as special immigrant juveniles in state court. Once the state gives a child this designation, he or she can apply for special status from USCIS and then a green card.

In other cases, children might be eligible for visas for victims of certain crimes or human trafficking.

While each of these paths to staying in the U.S. require processing from an agency separate from immigration court, children generally have to keep checking in with immigration judges until that processing is finished.

Casa Cornelias childrens program

Casa Cornelia got its start 25 years ago representing asylum seekers from Central America and Africa.

Its childrens program began in 2001 when founder Sister Ann Durst learned of a child from India appearing in immigration court by himself, according to associate director Elizabeth Camarena, who first volunteered with the organization in the 1990s.

When Sister Ann found out, we committed to representing all of them, Camarena said.

Cannon, with his jovial personality and fondness for dad jokes, said he prefers representing children.

Adults who come in with claims are very serious, said Cannon, who is director of the childrens program. Kids, if youre too serious, will crumble under the weight of it all.

Cannon joined the childrens program team shortly before a surge of unaccompanied minors from Central America began arriving at the border in 2014.

Id never directly experienced that level of human suffering before, Cannon recalled. It definitely shaped not only who I am as an attorney but also who I am as a person.

In recent years, children made up about 40 percent of the organizations clients.

In 2017, the organization helped 954 children with their immigration cases, and in 2016, its attorneys represented 999.

While their cases are based in immigration law, many of the attorneys emphasized that they were drawn to the organization because they wanted to do human rights work.

You see the best and worst in humanity in this sort of job, Cannon said.

He recalled one of his first special immigrant juvenile status cases, a set of siblings who had been kidnapped and abused by their father.

Using an elaborate escape plan, the siblings fled to the U.S. border. Despite years away from school, the older sister flourished, getting straight As, Cannon said.

It blew my mind that she was able to do that, Cannon said. She has impressed me more than any person I can think of.

Family separations and a flood of volunteers

Though public outrage over the issue of families separated at the U.S.-Mexico border peaked at the beginning of the summer, Casa Cornelia attorneys saw separations happening on a smaller scale for much longer.

Cannon emphasized that circumstances have separated all of the children who arrive at the border from their parents, though for many, violence in their countries of origin or perils on the journey north are the culprit instead of U.S. government officials.

The first client he represented who had been split from his father by border officials was being held as a material witness in a smuggling case in federal criminal court, a different process from a child who is waiting for immigration proceedings.

The family needed to be held locally so they could get to the Southern District of California federal court building, and there is no detention center in San Diego that is authorized to hold children and adults together.

In other cases, Casa Cornelia attorneys met children who had been separated because of suspected abuse or trafficking.

They noticed more separations happening around Christmas of last year, and those numbers increased through the first half of 2018.

Evelyn Lopez, an attorney who helps with the childrens program, noticed a difference in what mattered to the recently separated children.

The children who arrived alone count down the days until their cases are finished, Lopez said, while the children who arrived with family count up the days they have been separated.

I wish [people] could just see them as children, Lopez said. I think too often people look at them as foreign or illegal aliens, and they dont stop and think, These are little kids, and theyre afraid.

When members of the public became aware of the separations, Casa Cornelia received an outpouring of support through both monetary donations and new volunteers.

Katherine Paculba Lacher, who runs the volunteer attorney program, said its no small task to take on a pro bono immigration case, which can take between 50 and 150 hours depending on the details.

The reward is also considerable, she said.

One volunteer told me hes practiced for 20 years, and it was the most significant moment in his professional life, Paculba Lacher said.

Changing case law and increasing uncertainty

As the drama of what will happen to separated children plays out in federal court, Casa Cornelia attorneys worry about something else  how other changes from the Trump administration have made outcomes in childrens cases much less certain.

The shifting is not only constant but at times very abrupt, Camarena said. The drastic degree in which change has happened, that is the most striking difference.

When Attorney General Jeff Sessions in June reversed a Board of Immigration Appeals decision that set precedent for asylum-seeking women fleeing domestic violence, his narrow interpretation of what counted as a particular social group in asylum applications affected cases of children fleeing domestic or gang violence, Camarena said. Attorneys scrambled to review pending applications and submit additional arguments under the new case law.

As most of the options that children have to stay in the U.S. require application approval outside of immigration court, two other recent decisions from Sessions have made at least one San Diego judge question whether he can keep giving more time for those applications to process.

One of Cannons clients on Tuesday, a teenage girl, has been waiting for Southwest Key to release her to her brother who has applied to sponsor her. The girl intends to apply for special immigrant juvenile status, Cannon told Judge Law, but she cant do that while shes still in custody at Southwest Key.

While the government attorney said she didnt oppose giving the girl more time, Law pushed back, questioning whether he had the authority given Sessions tightening of a legal test that dictates when immigration judges can issue continuances.

Whats the hold up? Law asked Cannon.

Thats the million dollar question with a lot of cases right now, Cannon responded, explaining that there is a growing backlog of sponsorship applications and that children are staying in federal custody longer.

Law pushed the government attorney to find out more about when the girl might be released and reset the case for one more month.

Casa Cornelia Law Center will celebrate its 25th anniversary on Saturday at University of San Diego at 5:30 p.m. Tickets for the event are available online.

Immigration Videos On Now New developments in family separation case 9:53 On Now A San Diego woman volunteered as a medic in Texas helping migrant families 2:35 On Now Immigration policy protests in Carlsbad nearly cancelled after permit issue 1:38 On Now When children are separated from their parents at the border, here is where they go next On Now Prospects of a deal for 'Dreamers' may hinge on separating Trump from hard-liners on his staff On Now What is DACA? On Now Border wall prototype contractors selected On Now Video: Ukrainian boxer wins asylum in U.S. On Now 30 apprehended after Border Patrol agents discover tunnel On Now Video: Kurdish diaspora prepare to vote on independence

Follow me on Facebook for live updates about immigration news

kate.morrissey@sduniontribune.com, @bgirledukate on TwitterFirst Lady Melania Trumps plane was forced to return to a Washington area military base on Wednesday because of smoke in the cabin, temporarily delaying her trip to a Philadelphia hospital.

Her spokeswoman, Stephanie Grisham, said everyone is fine and everyone is safe after the plane returned to Joint Base Andrews.

Melania Trump was using a different plane for the visit, where she planned to meet with families of children affected by exposure to opioids while in the womb.

According to TV reporters traveling with the first lady, the original flight was in the air about 10 minutes when smoke filled the cabin. A member of the crew handed out damp washcloths for passengers to put over their mouths, and Secret Service agents rushed to the front of the plane.

Advertisement

It was not immediately clear what caused the problem on the aircraft, a Boeing C-32A identified as Bright Star.

The event was planned for Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, where Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar was to join the first lady. The hospital has provided care to mothers with opioid use disorder and their newborn children for more than 45 years.

Melania Trump was to tour a neonatal intensive care nursery and speak at an HHS conference on a new system that tracks infants suffering from opiate withdrawal.

The first ladys visit was to be one of the stops as she promotes her Be Best campaign, which focuses on issues affecting children, including the importance of healthy pregnancies.A Texas judge denied a request to reduce the bond of a U.S. Border Patrol agent accused of killing four women.

Juan David Ortiz claimed he is being denied clothing in conditions that amount to cruel and unusual punishment, but Webb County District Attorney Isidro Alaniz countered after Wednesdays hearing in Laredo that Ortiz looked fine.

Judge Monica Notzons ruling keeps the accused serial killers bond at $2.5 million.

Defense lawyer Jose Tellez argued that Ortiz is being held without probable cause and that the bond is above his financial means, according to KGNS.

Advertisement

He was moved to isolation with no windows at the Webb County Jail on Sept. 25, according to court documents obtained by the Corpus Christi Caller Times. Tellez said that Ortiz is forced to eat with his bare hands because he is not given utensils, according to the newspaper.

Ortiz is also not allowed to use a toothbrush, toothpaste or shampoo. His lawyer claimed that the bond is excessive and oppressive, according to the newspaper.

A request to review Ortizs videotaped confession was also denied. Alaniz, the DA, says the video will be turned over after Ortiz is indicted.

Ortiz is accused of fatally shooting four women in September. He was arrested after a fifth woman was able to escape.

With News Wire ServicesA student gunman opened fire in the halls of a Crimea technical college Wednesday, killing at least 17 people and injuring an additional 40.

Russias top investigative body identified the shooter as 18-year-old Vladislav Roslyakov. He was armed with a rifle when he arrived at Kerch Polytechnic College in the Black Sea city of Kerch in the early afternoon.

Guns are heavily restricted in Russia, where citizens are permitted to own only hunting rifles and smoothbore shotguns. Roslyakov received permission to own a shotgun and bought 150 cartridges only a few days ago, according to local officials.

Investigators said CCTV footage from the scene shows the fourth-year student at the Kerch college gunning down his victims before killing himself. They believe he acted alone.

Advertisement

The alleged killer shot himself dead, committed suicide, Crimean leader Sergei Aksyonov was quoted as saying by the Russian News Agency TASS. His body was found in the library on the second floor.

All of those killed, most of them teenage students, died of gunshot wounds.

The investigative committee said an explosive device rigged with shrapnel also went off in the schools canteen around lunchtime. Russian National Guard Deputy Chief Sergei Melikov said the bomb was homemade.

Russian explosive experts are sweeping the building for any evidence of additional bombs.

Russian President Vladimir Putin condemned the attack as a tragic evil and offered his condolences to victims families during a news conference in Sochi.

Authorities were previously investigating the incident as a terrorist attack but are now treating it as a mass murder.

In wake of the attack, local officials declared a state of emergency on the Black Sea peninsula, annexed by Russia from Ukraine in 2014. There was also additional security on the 11.8-mile bridge connecting the city with Russia, which opened this year.

With News Wire ServicesA Florida barber arrested after he turned up at a parking lot to have sex with who he believed was a child denied any nefarious motives, instead claiming that he was only interested in seeing what a police sting entails.

James Bowen, the 34-year-old owner of Bobs Barber Shop in Gainesville, was arrested at a Racetrac station in Deltona on Wednesday. Authorities tricked him into traveling to the parking lot after he exchanged sexually charged chats with an undercover detective he believed was a 14-year-old girl, according to a statement from the Volusia County Sheriffs Office.

When detectives arrived at the designated meeting place, he told them he showed up knowing it was a sting and that he thought it would be cool to see it in action.

The barber at the time was sporting a shirt that read Id cuddle you so much harder.

Advertisement

Bowen was one of seven men arrested in the police departments latest undercover operation targeting internet predators, dubbed Operation Unlawful attraction. The sheriffs office released video of all seven arrests.

Johnathan William Hayes, 22, was also arrested in the operation. He previously worked as a camp counselor at Florida Elks Youth Camp and is currently employed as a maintenance worker.

Hayes told a chatter, who he believed was a teen girl, in detail about a previous sexual encounter with a 16-year-old girl.

Authorities also arrested Green Acres resident George Wallace, who chatted with undercover detectives during a separate predator operation nearly two years ago. He never showed up then  but this time, the 43-year-old followed through and was taken into custody at Racetrac gas station parking lot in Daytona Beach.

His statements to an undercover detective indicated hed had sex with a 15-year-old more than once in the past, according to the police statement.

Ryan Kirk, an unemployed 31-year-old from New Smyrna beach, 49-year-old Jorge Cruz, 28-year-old Daytona Beach resident Ronald Foley and 25-year-old Johnathan Harden were also caught in the operation.

As many times we do this, its like a moth to a flame, Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood told the Daytona Beach News-Journal. Youve got these scumbags who think they are going to have sex with a 14- or 15-year-old.

The men are facing charges that include using a computer to seduce, solicit or lure a child; travel to seduce, solicit or lure a child; attempted lewd and lascivious battery; and use of a two-way communication device to commit a felony.Former Erie County, Pa. priest David Poulson pleaded guilty Wednesday to sexually assaulting one boy and attempting to assault another.

Poulson, 65, pleaded guilty to corruption of minors and endangering the welfare of children  third-degree felonies  in a hearing in Jefferson County Common Pleas Court after he was arrested and charged in May.

Poulsons victims were 8 and 15 years old when he assaulted them between 2002 and 2010, according to the Pennsylvania attorney generals office.

A wayward teen, a manipulative priest and decades of turmoil 

Advertisement

Poulson repeatedly assaulted one of the victims in church rectories, after which he made the victim confess the sexual assaults to him, according to Attorney General Josh Shapiros office.

He made that victim go to confession and confess the abuse  to Poulson. He used the tools of the priesthood to further his abuse. Today, Poulson is being held accountable and facing justice for his crimes, Shapiro said.

Poulson was among the 300 priests named in a Pennsylvania grand jury report that exposed rampant sexual abuse and its coverup by the Catholic Church.

Many accused clergy members wont be prosecuted because the statutes of limitations have expired.

The Erie Diocese for years knew Poulson was a sexual predator, but didnt report him until September 2016 in response to a subpoena from the grand jury.

A secret memorandum reveals Poulson admitted to being aroused by a boy and exchanging lewd texts with multiple other boys.

Jim VanSickle  another alleged victim whose case against Poulson was barred by the criminal statute of limitations  was in the courtroom Wednesday.

He laid eyes on his predator for the first time in 37 years.

He was well dressed and looked frail. He wouldnt make eye contact with anyone, VanSickle, 55, said.

I made sure I was able to see his mouth move as he made the statements and said I understand and I plead guilty,  VanSickle said.

Tears streamed down VanSickles face as he recalled the abuse he endured as a child.

Still  the event provided a sense of closure for him.

This is what we are fighting for. The opportunity to take our predators to civil court, he said.

VanSickle said the victims who brought charges against Poulson motivated him to come forward about his abuse in the first place. They continue to motivate his efforts.

The reason I got louder and louder was because of them, he said. I couldnt stand to have those two young men who are still within the age of 30 feel like they had to do this alone or there was no support out there for them.

Shapiro echoed recommendations laid out in the grand jury report that VanSickle is also fighting for, including eliminating the criminal statute of limitations for sexually abusing children and creating a civil window so that older victims could sue for damages.

The time of protecting powerful institutions over vulnerable children is over. The [Pennsylvania] Senate has a clear choice to make: It can stand with victims and survivors of sexual abuse and vote yes on these reforms. Or, it can stand with the church and its lobbyists and fail to act.

Erie Diocese Priest David Poulson pleaded guilty Wednesday to sexual abuse charges that were brought out in grand jury testimony.A 23-month-old girl, who was found dead in a suitcase near Jersey City railroad tracks, died of cocaine intoxication.

The bombshell findings were released by the New Jersey Regional Medical Examiners Office, which also stated TeMyah Plummer had been the victim of violence.

It is unclear where or when she died, reported The Jersey Journal.

The little girls body was discovered in a pink suitcase in the proximity of the PATHs Journal Square station on April 11  a few weeks after she and her dad, Travis Plummer, were reported missing from Virginia.

Advertisement

At the time, TeMyahs mother, who has not been identified, claimed Plummer had taken the child and traveled to North Carolina.

Eight days after the gruesome toddlers discovery, Plummer, 37, was busted in Puerto Rico and later extradited to New Jersey.

He is accused of traveling with the decomposing body of TeMyah wrapped in multiple bags in a suitcase, asserted Hudson County Assistant Prosecutor Lynne Seborowski. She then states that Plummer hid his daughters remains in a pals Jersey City garage before dumping the suitcase by the train tracks.

Were still developing our narrative of what happened, said Andre Vitale, an assistant deputy public defender claiming to represent Plummer who stressed the case is still forming.

Plummer has previous convictions for abduction, possession of a deadly weapon as a prisoner and child neglect.Relatives of a North Carolina woman brutally murdered by her husband last year are imploring others to look for warning signs of domestic violence.

Matthew Phelps, who claimed he had taken too much cold medicine when he stabbed his wife Lauren 123 times, is serving life in prison for the slaying.

Lauren Phelps father told Good Morning America on Wednesday that he regrets not asking questions about what was happening between them.

He planned the whole thing from the get-go in my opinion, right from day one to the end, Dale Hugelmaier said during the interview. The last time I saw my daughter, she came over looking for a three-ring binder. She was nervous and a little edgy and it didnt look Lauren at all. ... She looked a mess.

Advertisement

Matthew Phelps appears in court in Raleigh, N.C., last year. (Ethan Hyman/AP)

Laurens family said that she had told them two months before her death that her husband had assaulted his previous wife and lied to her about the separation. She was going to end the marriage to Phelps despite being married to him for less than a year.

I think, that night when he left with another woman, she just said, Im done. I cant do it, sister Beth Anger told ABC News. That was the night he killed her.

Matthew Phelps apologized during his sentencing earlier this month, but Hugelmaier said he will never forgive him.

No. Never. I mean, Ill take him to my grave. And Ill still hate him, he told ABC News.As if overworked Florida police officers dont have enough to deal with in the aftermath of Hurricane Michael, armed looters have become a problem.

Bay County officials have averaged 10 arrests per night as scavengers target individuals and businesses in the Sunshine States weather-ravaged panhandle, Maj. Jimmy Stanford told the Panama City News Herald.

Most our officers lost their homes, have been working 16- to 18-hour shifts with no sleep, no shower; and now theyre encountering armed individuals, Stafford said.

Having already warded offer looters days earlier, Coopers Drugs near Bay Medical Sacred Heart hospital called in movers to relocate their inventory Monday. The pharmacys owner reportedly wanted not only to make sure meds were kept safe for people who needed them, but also to make sure prescription drugs didnt find their way to the streets.

Advertisement

One resident identified by the News Herald as Victoria Smith said thieves entered her townhouse through a door that was cracked open to cool the powerless home and snatched a purse she was clutching while she slept with her four children.

It was all we had, she said.

Smith told the paper she and her neighbors have been offered no help and are unable to flee their obliterated town.

She says locals have developed an every man for himself mentality in the wake of the storm. Several news outlets have posted photos of signs outside homes and shops warning that looters will be shot. More than 1,000 displaced residents remain in shelters according to state officials while the Federal Management Agency has dispatched a dozen teams to register Floridians for disaster relief benefits.

While the states Department of Corrections didnt immediately relocate prisoners when the hurricane hit, they relocated more that 4,000 inmates in the days the followed and put out a statement acknowledging that some detention centers sustained significant damage to roofs and security infrastructure.

Hurricane Michael touched down on Oct. 7 just shy of being a Category 5 hurricane before making its way through the southeast and claiming at least 32 lives.A record number of migrant families have entered the United States in the three months since President Trump ended family separations at the border, according to a report.

More than 16,000 people were arrested in September, marking an 80% increase from July, according to unpublished Homeland Security data obtained by The Washington Post.

Septembers 16,658 arrests mark the highest one-month total on record.

The Trump administration in June ended its policy of separating immigrant children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border amid public outrage. Trump is now considering several options to tighten border security as large groups of Central Americans cross the Rio Grande to turn themselves in.

Advertisement

Were getting hammered daily, a South Texas Border Patrol agent told The Washington Post.

Trump is reportedly furious over the influx of migrants to the U.S.  and is relying on policy advisers, including Stephen Miller, to help thwart immigration.

He maintains that some version of the family separation policy is the best way to crack down on illegal immigration.

A senior official said that ending the controversial policy sent a clear signal that it was safe to cross the border, The Washington Post reported.

A Honduran caravan carrying 2,000 migrants pushed past police roadblocks to cross into Guatemala on Monday, prompting Trump to threaten to cut off aid to Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador is their governments didnt contain their citizens.

Department of Homeland Security agents made 396,570 arrests along the Mexico border during the 2018 fiscal year, up 30% from the same period a year earlier, when illegal migration was at a 56-year low.A North Carolina state trooper was fatally shot during a traffic stop early Wednesday, according to authorities.

Trooper Kevin Conner, an 11-year veteran, was killed after pulling over a pickup truck for a speeding violation on a state highway in Columbus County at about 12:15 a.m. The driver of the pickup fired several shots after pulling over to the shoulder.

The Highway Patrol family is mourning the loss of a hero and will forever be changed by the tragic events that have occurred, said Colonel Glenn McNeill Jr., commander of the State Highway Patrol. We ask everyone to please keep Trooper Conners family and all who knew him in your thoughts and prayers.

The suspect fled in his vehicle, but was forced to continue on foot after the truck sustained damage while trying to cross railroad tracks. He was later apprehended and taken to the jail in Columbus County. Charges are pending.

Advertisement

Trooper Conner, who had been assigned to Troop B, died at a nearby hospital.

We mourn our loss and will continue to support his family, Public Safety Secretary Erik Hooks said. We are grateful for his service and honor the men and women who serve in harms way, each and every day.

The gunman has not been identified.A California surgeon and his girlfriend pleaded not guilty Wednesday to allegations they carried out a sick scheme of drugging women for sex in attacks they sometimes filmed.

Dr. Grant William Robicheaux, 38, and Cerissa Laura Riley, 31, were seen walking into a Newport courthouse holding hands before they were each slapped with several new charges, including felony kidnapping.

Prosecutors charged Robicheaux with sexually assaulting five additional women, for a total of seven victims.

They charged Riley with three additional assaults.

Advertisement

The judge ordered a steep increase in each defendants bail  hiking it from $100,000 to $1 million each.

Riley was near tears during much of the proceeding, KNX1070 News Radio reported.

Reality show doctor Grant Robicheaux, second from right, and his girlfriend Cerissa Riley, right, listen as Robicheauxs attorney Philip Cohen, left, speaks outside court in Newport Beach, Calif., following their hearing on new criminal charges. (Amy Taxin / AP)

The couple denied any wrongdoing in a statement released by their lawyers Wednesday afternoon.

We unequivocally deny all allegations of non-consensual sex and absolutely deny any allegations that we have ever secretly drugged anyone for the purpose of having sex with them. We have both passed polygraph tests on each of the questions and we look forward to the truth coming out, the statement obtained by The News said.

We have been aware of this investigation since the search warrant in January, and as a result of the search we were well aware that the police had taken computers, phones, and digital storage items for review. We didnt flee, we didnt move and we didnt go into hiding, the said.

Before our arrests in this case, we had great friends, great lives and great careers that allowed us to make positive contributions to our community. We look forward to getting our lives back, the couple said in the joint statement.

We have and will continue to stay here to clear our names we worked hard to establish, they said.

According to prosecutors, the handsome pair used their good looks and charm to prey on unsuspecting women they met in public.

They were first charged Sept. 11 with drugging and raping a 32-year-old Jane Doe back in April 2016 and assaulting another woman with intent to commit rape on October 2, 2016.

Dubbed a Bonnie and Clyde duo by multiple alleged victims, the couple met the second Jane Doe at a bar in Newport Beach and drank alcohol with her until she became unconscious, prosecutors said.

Grant Robicheaux & Cerissa Riley said nothing as they entered court holding hands. The couple is accused of drugging/sexually assaulting two women in Newport Beach. Since the allegations became public, more alleged victims have come forward. They face new charges today. @NBCLA pic.twitter.com/WovfP5EUGO  Jonathan Gonzalez (@JonathanNBCLA) October 17, 2018

The defendants allegedly brought the woman back to the doctors apartment where they sexually assaulted her before she woke up and screamed for help, authorities said.

A neighbor called the Newport Beach Police Department, and officers responded to the scene and investigated the case, according to the Orange County District Attorney.

DA Tony Rackauckas said investigators found terabytes of evidence, much of it video, after serving search warrants in the case.

He said some of the video appeared to show women being sexually assaulted while they were too intoxicated to respond or consent.

In the materials weve seized, there are thousands and thousands of videos and images on Robicheauxs phone. Many also including Riley, Rackauckas said at a press conference last month.

There are several videos where the women in the videos appear to be highly intoxicated, beyond the ability to consent or resist, and theyre barely responsive to the defendants sexual advances, he said.

Based on this evidence, we believe that there might be many unidentified victims out there, he said.

After announcing the case last month, prosecutors said they received leads involving at least a dozen other credible alleged victims.

Robicheaux previously appeared on the Bravo reality show Online Dating Rituals of the American Male.

Prosecutors said the defendants may have traveled together to various festivals since 2015, including Burning Man in Black Rock Desert, Nevada, the Dirtybird Campout festival in Silverado and the Splash House festival in Palm Springs.

Robicheaux and Riley were booked on the original charges last month and released on $100,000 bail each. They made their new $1 million bail amounts Wednesday and appeared outside the courthouse with their lawyers.A Ukrainian fighter jet crashed during a joint exercise with U.S. and other NATO air forces Tuesday, killing both pilots, Ukraines military said.

The General Staff of Ukraines armed forces said the two-seat Su-27UB went down in the Kmelnitskyi region. It said a rescue team found the jets two pilots dead.

The U.S. Air Forces in Europe and Africa issued a statement saying it was aware of reports claiming a U.S. casualty. The command said it can confirm a U.S. service member was involved in this incident, but stopped short of confirming the Americans death.

Personnel from nine nations are taking part in the Clear Sky 2018 exercises that started in Ukraine on Oct. 8. They include members of a California Air National Guard unit based in Fresno, Calif.President Trump threatened Tuesday to cut aid to Honduras if it doesnt stop a caravan of some 2,000 migrants, even as they resumed their northward trek through Guatemala with hopes of reaching the U.S. border.

Despite having walked all day Monday with swollen, blistered and aching feet, the group rose shortly after sunrise from sleeping on the ground in their clothes.

Dozens attended Mass at the basilica in Esquipulas, a city just across the border from Honduras and about 90 miles east of Guatemala City. The migrants then resumed their journey escorted by Guatemalan police.

The groups numbers have snowballed since about 160 migrants departed Friday from the Honduran city of San Pedro Sula, with many people joining spontaneously. A Guatemalan priest estimated more than 2,000 were fed at three shelters run by the Roman Catholic Church.

Advertisement

Three weeks before midterm elections in the United States, the caravan elicited a tough response from Trump.

The United States has strongly informed the President of Honduras that if the large Caravan of people heading to the U.S. is not stopped and brought back to Honduras, no more money or aid will be given to Honduras, effective immediately, Trump tweeted.

However, the Central American nations ability to do anything appeared limited as the migrants already crossed into Guatemala on Monday, twice pushing past outnumbered police sent to stop them  first at the border and then at a roadblock outside Esquipulas.

Trump did not follow through on a similar threat to the Central American nation in April over an earlier caravan, which eventually petered out in Mexico.

In a statement, Honduras Foreign Ministry accused unidentified political sectors of organizing the caravan with false promises of a transit visa through Mexico and the opportunity to seek asylum in the United States.

It urged the migrants not to let themselves be used by a movement that is obviously political and seeks to upset governability, stability and peace in Honduras and the United States.

Meanwhile, Mexicos immigration authority sent out a fresh warning late Monday that only those who meet entry requirements would be allowed into the country and each migrant would have to satisfy Mexican migration agents. Hondurans need visas to visit Mexico in most cases.

Still, it remains unclear if Mexico and other governments in the region  many of whose own people are migrants  have the political will to physically halt the determined border-crossers, who are fleeing widespread poverty and violence in one of the worlds most murderous countries.

In Honduras there are no jobs, and the jobs that do exist arent enough to live on, said Jose Francisco Hernandez, a 32-year-old from Copan state in western Honduras. We cant go to the city because it is full of gang members, and that is hurting us. We decided to migrate from the country to see if we can find a better life.

Carlos Reyes, 20, said he was attacked a week ago for being gay and dressing in womens clothing.

Some men were going to kill me. ... They wanted to kill me for who I am, Reyes said.

The migrants hope that traveling en masse affords them protection from robbery, assault and other dangers that plague the journey north.

Many carried only a few belongings in backpacks and bottles of water. Some pushed strollers or carried toddlers on their shoulders. As the day wore on, the crowd splintered into smaller groups as some walked faster and others fell behind.

Nery Jose Maldonado Tejada, a 29-year-old from San Pedro Sula, said he lost both feet in a June 2015 freight train accident in Mexico while trying to make it to the United States.

On Tuesday, he was being pushed in a wheelchair by a friend, his lower legs wrapped in bandages and a green duffel bag on his lap. He was intent on making it to the U.S. this time, he said.

I know that there they can put a prosthesis on my feet and I will be able to walk, Tejada said. And to work, because my hands are still good.

On Tuesday, Guatemalan officials detained a former Honduran lawmaker, Bartolo Fuentes, who was traveling with the caravan, along with two other men, according to a migration official. Some Honduran organizations had identified Fuentes as a coordinator or spokesman for the caravan, though the migrants said he was merely accompanying them and helping.

Fuentes was to be taken to a shelter in Guatemala City and then deported, said the official, who agreed to tell about the detention only on condition anonymity because she was not authorized to discuss the case.

Guatemala also closed migration facilities at the Agua Caliente border crossing to prevent the entry of any more Hondurans.

Last week, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence urged leaders in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala to persuade their citizens to stay home and avoid the long, risky journey to the United States.

On Tuesday, Pence tweeted that he had spoken with Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez.

Delivered strong message from @POTUS: no more aid if caravan is not stopped. Told him U.S. will not tolerate this blatant disregard for our border & sovereignty.

Since 2014, the United States has committed $2.6 billion in aid for Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. For 2019, Washington has earmarked $65.7 million in aid to Honduras for security, democracy building, human rights and economic and social development programs.

In Honduras, recriminations flew across the political aisle.

Salvador Nasralla, a former opposition presidential candidate, tweeted that stopping the caravan would only bring temporary relief for the United States. What we need is to fight against the corrupt government, he said.

Fernando Anduray, leader of the governing National Party, claimed opponents of Honduras president were behind the migrant exodus. It is a strategy planned and financed by the opposition, he said.

Trumps threat seemed unlikely to dissuade the migrants, some of whom expressed displeasure with Hernandez.

Gabriela Natareno, 27, who was traveling with her 16-year-old cousin, said her president is to blame for continued migration by desperate Hondurans.

He keeps the country mired in poverty and corruption, she said.The race for the 50th Congressional District is spanning multiple generations, as former Congressman Duncan L. Hunter held a news conference Tuesday attacking his sons Democratic opponent as a security risk  and also attacking the opponents father and grandfather.

The rival, Ammar Campa-Najjar, showed up at Hunters news conference by the USS Midway Museum and told reporters that its incumbent Rep. Duncan D. Hunter who would have trouble passing a security screening, given that hes under federal indictment.

Campa-Najjar, 29, of Jamul and Duncan D. Hunter, 41, of Alpine, are competing to represent a district that includes El Cajon, Escondido, much of rural San Diego County and parts of Riverside County.

Hunters high-profile indictment on 60 counts of misspending $250,000 of campaign funds featured prominently in August and September, but Hunters attacks on Campa-Najjars Palestinian lineage have taken center stage this month, facing widespread criticism that the attacks are racist.

Advertisement

The elder Hunter on Tuesday said the attacks have not to do with racism, but terrorism.

The elder Hunter, who served in Congress for 28 years before his son was elected to his seat in 2008, held up poster boards with pictures of Campa-Najjar with his father, Yasser Najjar. The candidates paternal grandfather, Muhammad Yusuf al-Najjar, was involved in the deadly Palestinian terrorist attack on the Munich Olympics in 1972. Campa-Najjar has renounced the attack, noting that his grandfather died 16 years before he was born.

I have said that my grandfather was associated with something that was heinous, that was wrong and he was brought to justice, Campa-Najjar told reporters following Hunters news conference. I fully, unequivocally disavow the murder of innocent people.

The younger Hunter, a Republican like his father, did not attend the news conference. Instead he met with supporters at the American Legion in Escondido and a kidney care center in San Marcos, according to social media. The younger Hunters events were not made known to the media in advance.

The elder Hunter was accompanied by his sister and brother-in-law. Hunter referenced postings by Campa-Najjar on Instagram, referring to his grandfather as a legend. He said that Campa-Najjars father was a longtime leader in the Palestinian Liberation Organization  something Campa-Najjar has confirmed.

We have stated Mr. Najjar is a security risk hes the grandson of the perpetrator of the Munich Massacre... and he calls the perpetrator of that a legend, the former congressman said. His father is a senior PLO leader for 23 years, he calls him a hero.

Campa-Najjar made the Instagram posting in question on June 21, 2015, which was Fathers Day. He wrote the commentary below a photo of himself with his father and his brother, at an outdoor dining establishment in San Diego.

Its back breaking work being my dad, and being his son requires broad shoulders, Campa-Najjar wrote. For me, its dealing with the pressure of being his son. In the eyes of many, Yasser Mohammad Alnajjar is the son of a legend, and a hero in his own right. For him, its coping with the anxiety of having a son whose MO is to disappoint, walk dangerously close to the edge, peer into the abyss, plunge to new depths before climbing to new heights.

As Hunter made his presentation, Campa-Najjar stood nearby with a group of veterans who support him, listening.

When Hunter was finished, the two men shook hands. Hunter left, as reporters asked questions of Campa-Najjar.

He said the Instagram post was a gesture to his estranged father, who he was seeing on U.S. soil for the first time since 1995. He also said that in the context of the post, he was saying his grandfather was a legend because of his notoriety, not that he himself viewed him as such.

Campa-Najjar also addressed questions that were raised about his fathers relationship with the PLO. He said his father was a diplomat for the organization and was forced to step down earlier this year as Campa-Najjar publicly denounced the actions of his grandfather.

The candidate emphasized that he bears no ill-will toward Israel and pointed out that he has received more than $50,000 in campaign contributions from JStreetPAC, whose stated goal is to organize and mobilize pro-Israel, pro-peace Americans who want Israel to be secure, democratic and the national home of the Jewish people.

Campa-Najjar also denied Hunters accusation that he posed a security risk, pointing to two prior FBI background checks and security clearances he received while working in former President Barack Obamas White House and at the U.S. Department of Labor.

This is an act of desperation, Campa-Najjar said. Daddys not going to bail him out this time, and I dont need my dad to stand here and fight my battles. Im my own man and the people of my district respect people who fight for themselves.

For his part, Campa-Najjar also attempted to label Hunter as a security risk, alleging that the congressmans federal indictment and alleged financial issues would leave him susceptible to foreign influence, as would extramarital affairs and excessive drinking referenced by Hunters attorneys in correspondence with federal prosecutors.

Every attack Hunter levels is more true about himself than me, Campa-Najjar said. No. 1, if Hunter tried to get a security clearance today, he would not be eligible. Ask anybody whos in this business  a criminal indictment, excessive drinking, extramarital affairs, financial instability, all those things are red flags for anybody who needs to get a security clearance.

Reporters asked the elder Hunter about his sons fitness for a security clearance during his news conference, and he answered with a reiteration of his concerns about Campa-Najjars family.A bumbling would-be robber ran away from a Logan Heights smoke shop empty-handed Monday night after dropping a round while fumbling with his powerful AR-15-style rifle, police said.

It happened just before 7:15 p.m. at the Smoke & Vape Shop near the corner of National Avenue and South 31st Street, San Diego police Sgt. Joe Ruvido said.

The subject walked in with what appears to be an AR-15 but didnt know how to handle the rifle, Ruvido said. He tried to rack a round, it popped out and he ran away.

Nobody from the smoke shop was injured and nothing was taken from the business, Officer John Buttle said.

Advertisement

No other information, including a suspect description, was immediately available.

Twitter: @Alex_Riggins

(619) 293-1710

alex.riggins@sduniontribune.com

UPDATES:

10:45 p.m.: This article was updated with additional details.

This article was originally published at 8:05 p.m.San Diego police last week arrested a 48-year-old man suspected of peeping into the windows of at least six Pacific Beach women between September and October, authorities said Tuesday.

The six known cases occurred between Sept. 11 and Oct. 12, and each time the description of the perpetrator was a bald white man of medium height and medium to heavy build, Capt. Tina Williams said.

Detectives immediately began to investigate, interviewing witnesses and canvassing the area for evidence, Williams said in a statement.

With the help of patrol officers, detectives identified a 48-year-old suspect Friday and arrested him on suspicion of six misdemeanor counts of peeping and one misdemeanor count of petty theft. On Tuesday, the man remained jailed in lieu of $60,000 bail.

Advertisement

In the midst of the suspects alleged peeping spree, a 28-year-old woman was sexually assaulted inside her Chalcedony Street home by a stranger with similar characteristics, according to police. That suspect, who entered the womans home through an open side window about 1:45 a.m. on Oct. 1, assaulted the woman and then fled when confronted.

He was described as a bald white man, about 40 years old.

San Diego police have no information at this time linking (the peeping suspect) to the sexual assault on Oct. 1, Williams said in an email.

Anyone with information about the Oct. 1 sexual assault was asked to call the San Diego Police Departments sex crimes unit at (619) 531-2210 or the San Diego County Crime Stoppers anonymous tip line at (888) 580-8477.

Crime Stoppers is offering up to a $1,000 reward to anyone with information that leads to an arrest in that case.

Twitter: @Alex_Riggins

(619) 293-1710

alex.riggins@sduniontribune.comA pedestrian died Wednesday after he was hit by a car as he was trying to cross a street in Oak Park, San Diego police said.

The collision occurred around 4:45 a.m. near the intersection of 54th Street and Haniman Drive, just north of Euclid Avenue, said police Officer Steve Bourasa.

The 57-year-old man was hit as he tried to cross 54th Street from the west to the east outside of a crosswalk. He was rushed to the hospital with serious head injuries believed to be life-threatening and died at the hospital.

A 25-year-old woman driving a 2010 Nissan Altima hit the man as he entered the street, police said.

Advertisement

The driver remained at the scene and was cooperating with police. Drugs and alcohol were not considered factors in the crash.

Twitter: @karenkucher

(619) 293-1350

karen.kucher@sduniontribune.com

UPDATES:

11:10 a.m.: This article was updated with additional details.

This article was originally published at 7:05 a.m.A pilot flying a single-seat ultralight plane was hospitalized after the aircraft made a hard landing Wednesday morning while performing low-altitude maneuvers in Ocotillo Wells, authorities said.

The plane landed at the airport around 8:40 a.m., according to sheriffs Lt. Karla Menzies and Sgt. Brian Jenkins.

The 57-year-old pilot sustained minor injuries and was airlifted to Palomar Medical Center in Escondido for treatment, Jenkins said. The pilots name was not released.

The airport, which is located off state Route 78 about 30 miles east of Julian, is basically just a landing strip in the desert without facilities or a perimeter of any kind, Jenkins said.

Advertisement

Interviewing the pilot and witnesses revealed the pilot of the ultralight was performing low-altitude maneuvers over the airport when the plane stalled and it fell to the ground from an unknown height, Jenkins said in a statement.

The airport was supposed to be closed Wednesday due to recent flooding, Jenkins said. But because it is an uncontrolled landing strip, there was nothing stopping the pilot from flying there.

Both the Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board were alerted to the crash. The FAA was expected to conduct an investigation.

Twitter: @karenkucher

(619) 293-1350

karen.kucher@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @Alex_Riggins

(619) 293-1710

alex.riggins@sduniontribune.com

UPDATES:

4:15 p.m.: This article was updated with additional details.

This article was originally published at 10:35 a.m.He could stay home in La Jolla, whiling away the hours above Blacks Beach, where the ocean seems to fan out toward infinity.

But that wont do for the man who made UC San Diegos Scripps Institution of Oceanography a touchstone in science.

Oceanographer Walter Munk is in back-to-back meetings this week at Scripps, mostly on climate change. Things dont let up until Friday, when hell pause for cake. Hes turning 101.

Even that will be brief. Munk isnt one to spin wisdom about life. Its work that drives him. In a raspy voice, youll hear him say, Theres this paper Im working on  Then hell turn and pore over it through his brownish-maroon glasses.

Advertisement

Or hell talk about where hes been, and where hes going.

Even at this advanced age, its go time.

Munk spent much of the summer touring Europe, returning to the U.S. in time for the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco. Now, he is thinking about the road ahead. Hes already planned on where hell be on June 6, 2019.

Normandy for the 75th, Munk said recently from Seiche, his sea-sprayed retreat at the mouth of Sumner Canyon.

The Einstein of the oceans  as many call him  was referring to the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings and the Battle of Normandy.

As a young oceanographer, Munk developed groundbreaking techniques for forecasting ocean waves, especially along the coast. His insights help Allied forces more safely land troops at Normandy, and other contested beaches, during World War II.

It was the opening act of a bravura scientific career.

Munk made seminal discoveries about the structure and movement of waves, the ebb and flow of tides, the size and role of oceanic currents, how nuclear bombs scatter radioactive fallout at sea, and how sound behaves in the ocean, and how it can be used for peaceful and militaristic means.

He also advanced sciences understanding of earths rotation, and helped plan or lead some of Scripps grand deep sea expeditions in the 1950s and 60s, as well as pushing exploratory drilling of the sea floor. Old photographs show that he was among the first wave of scientists to use scuba gear.

Munks work earned him the National Medal of Science in 1983. He takes pride in that. But what youll hear him talk about is his early work in wave forecasting with Harald Sverdrup, the Norwegian oceanographer-meteorologist who was director of Scripps during World War II.

Harold was the No. 1 person on that work, said Munk. I was second. He should have gotten more credit. Its horrible, what happened to him.

The American government removed Sverdrups security clearances during the war out of suspicion that he wasnt loyal to their cause. An investigation, kept secret for decades, proved that wasnt true.

Sverdrup died in 1957, and much of his contribution to the war effort went unrecognized. That hasnt been the case for Munk. Hes been feted many times, in many ways, including in July, when he was awarded the French Legion of Honour, gaining the title of Chevalier, or knight.

Munk, dressed in his signature Aegean blue sweater, smiled softly the other day when a visitor mentioned it. But he said nothing.

His wife, Mary, touched his arm and said, It means a lot to him.

Munk piped up when the subject turned to climate change.

He leaned forward, raised a finger, and said with conviction, Its a problem we must address! We must not ignore it.

Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading.New York, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 10/17/2018 -- Based on the Gels Surgical Anti-Adhesion Product industrial chain, this report mainly elaborate the definition, types, applications and major players of Gels Surgical Anti-Adhesion Product market in details. Deep analysis about market status (2018-2015), enterprise competition pattern, advantages and disadvantages of enterprise Products, industry development trends (2018-2025), regional industrial layout characteristics and macroeconomic policies, industrial policy has also be included. From raw materials to downstream buyers of this industry will be analyzed scientifically, the feature of product circulation and sales channel will be presented as well. In a word, this report will help you to establish a panorama of industrial development and characteristics of the Gels Surgical Anti-Adhesion Product market. A new market assessment report on Gels Surgical Anti-Adhesion Product market brings to light a detailed statistics on the dramatic shift in the competitive landscape and business environment of the Gels Surgical Anti-Adhesion Product market for the forecast period 2018 - 2025. The comprehensive study offers an overview of the current state of development of the business as well as predicts the course of progress across different regions. A large number of factors including the major driving forces, threats and opportunities are taken into account to present an analytical picture of the industry portrayed in the report.



Request Sample copy of this reports@ https://www.marketexpertz.com/sample-enquiry-form/20979



Major Players in Gels Surgical Anti-Adhesion Product Systems are:



Ethicon, SANOFI, Baxter International, Covidien, Pathfinder Cell Therapy, Singclean Medical, Shanghai Haohai, SJZ Yishengtang, HK Wellife, SJZ Ruinuo, Bioscompass, Anika Therapeutics, Integra Life Sciences, FzioMed

Extensive documentation of the market performance across demographics and forecast of expected returns for a stated period enables business evangelists to speculate investor decisions in the coming years. Further, organized effort to accumulate information about the market share of leading manufacturers coupled with their sales figures, production value and brand positioning reveals a lot about the industry's future potential. The study also offers data focussed on topics including result-oriented marketing strategies or tactics adopted by major manufacturers operating in the Gels Surgical Anti-Adhesion Product industry.



Make an Inquiry for purchasing this report@

https://www.marketexpertz.com/make-enquiry-form/20979



Major Regions play vital role in Gels Surgical Anti-Adhesion Product Systems are:



- North America

- Europe

- China

- Japan

- Middle East & Africa

- India

- South America

- Others



The study is a professional probe into the revenue generated and capacity estimates for the Gels Surgical Anti-Adhesion Product market for the forecast period 2018 - 2025 empower the business owners to maintain a competitive edge over their rivals. The research further examines and provides data on the market by type, application and geography interspersed with illustrations and other graphical representations. The market analysis not only determines the attractiveness of the industry but also the evolving challenges and opportunities and their association with the weaknesses and strengths of prominent market leaders. Other factors taken into consideration when studying the industry include profitability, manufacturing capability, distribution channels and industry cost structure and major success factors.



Most important types of Women High Visibility Pants products covered in this report

are:



Large Size

Small Size



The study segments the complete Gels Surgical Anti-Adhesion Product market on the basis of different application, end-use, end-user, and production capability. From a business standpoint, the industry has been thoroughly examined across various countries located in North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and others. The size of the industry for the forecast period 2018 - 2025 is evaluated on the basis of current sales figures and past financial report can be used to forecast the future sales.



Most widely used downstream fields of Charge-Coupled Devices (CCDs covered in this report are:



General/Abdominal Surgery

Pelvic/Gynecological Surgery

Other Surgery



There are 13 Chapters to thoroughly display the Gels Surgical Anti-Adhesion Product market. This report included the analysis of market overview, market characteristics, industry chain, competition landscape, historical and future data by types, applications and regions.



Chapter 1: Gels Surgical Anti-Adhesion Product Market Overview, Product Overview, Market Segmentation, Market Overview of Regions, Market Dynamics, Limitations, Opportunities and Industry News and Policies.

Chapter 2: Gels Surgical Anti-Adhesion Product Industry Chain Analysis, Upstream Raw Material Suppliers, Major Players, Production Process Analysis, Cost Analysis, Market Channels and Major Downstream Buyers.

Chapter 3: Value Analysis, Production, Growth Rate and Price Analysis by Type of Epoxy Adhesives.

Chapter 4: Downstream Characteristics, Consumption and Market Share by Application of Epoxy Adhesives.

Continue..



Table of content:



1 Gels Surgical Anti-Adhesion Product Introduction and Market Overview

1.1 Objectives of the Study

1.2 Definition of Car Headlight

1.3 Gels Surgical Anti-Adhesion Product Market Scope and Market Size Estimation

1.3.1 Market Concentration Ratio and Market Maturity Analysis

1.3.2 Global Gels Surgical Anti-Adhesion Product Value and Growth Rate from 2018-2025

1.4 Market Segmentation

1.4.1 Types of Car Headlight

1.4.2 Applications of Car Headlight

1.4.3 Research Regions

Continue...



Buy report@ https://www.marketexpertz.com/checkout-form/20979



The research provides answers to the following key questions:



- What is the estimated growth rate of the market for the forecast period 2018 - 2025? What will be the market size during the estimated period?

- What are the key driving forces responsible for shaping the fate of the Gels Surgical Anti-Adhesion Product during the forecast period?

- Who are the major market vendors and what are the winning strategies that have helped them occupy a strong foothold in the Wave Power Generation equipment market?

- What are the prominent market trends influencing the development of the Gels Surgical Anti-Adhesion Product across different regions?

- What are the major threats and challenges likely to act as a barrier in the growth of the Women High Visibility Pants market?

- What are the major opportunities the market leaders can rely on to gain success and profitability?



Read the full report@ https://www.marketexpertz.com/industry-overview/gels-surgical-anti-adhesion-product-market



About MarketExpertz

Planning to invest in market intelligence products or offerings on the web? Then marketexpertz has just the thing for you - reports from over 500 prominent publishers and updates on our collection daily to empower companies and individuals catch-up with the vital insights on industries operating across different geography, trends, share, size and growth rate. There's more to what we offer to our customers. With marketexpertz you have the choice to tap into the specialized services without any additional charges.



Contact Us:

John Watson

Head of Business Development

Market Expertz | Web: www.marketexpertz.com

Direct Line: +1-800-819-3052

E-mail: sales@marketexpertz.com

News: www.marketexpertz.com/market-news

Connect with us: Facebook | Google+ | LinkedIn | TwitterWashington, DC -- (SBWIRE) -- 10/17/2018 -- Plumber In DC will now be offering a wide range of emergency plumbing services to all its residential and commercial plumbing clients in Washington DC. The company has added water heater repairs and replacements and all water and gas leaks to its emergency services section on its website.



Plumbing emergencies will no longer be a problem to residents and business owners in Washington DC thanks to local plumber, Plumber In DC. The company introduced emergency plumbing services a few years ago and it has now added new plumbing emergencies that it will handle as part of its emergency plumbing. Not all plumbing problems qualify as plumbing emergencies. This means that not all plumbing problems require the services of an emergency plumber. Plumber In DC insists that the client should consider the nature and severity of a plumbing problem before requesting for emergency plumbing services. Some minor plumbing problems like slow leaking taps and showerheads can wait until morning. But serious plumbing emergencies like gas leaks and sewer backups necessitate an immediate call to an emergency plumber.



Plumber In DC has unveiled many new emergency plumbing services for all its residential and commercial plumbing clients in the Washington DC area. The company encourages all its clients to call its emergency plumbing number or any plumbing emergency. Severe sink drain, shower drain, bathtub, and toilet clogs, which can cause sewer backups, require the services of an emergency plumber. Plumber In DC warns its clients not to ignore any plumbing problems because they can easily deteriorate into plumbing disasters. That is why the company will be offering its emergency plumbing services for all kinds of water and gas leaks. The company's emergency plumbers will be able to diagnose and fix all kinds of leaks, from drains and pipes to fixtures and toilets. Water heater repairs and replacements are also included in the emergency services section on the company's website. Further information concerning emergency plumbing advice and issues can be found within a series of articles beginning with http://plumberindc.com/how-to-request-for-emergency-leak-services-in-washington-dc/.



About Plumber In DC

Plumber In DC is among the top rated plumbing companies in Washington DC. The family owned and operated company has already earned over 900 five star reviews from its residential and commercial clients in Washington DC. The company is also A+ rated ion trusted online customer review platforms like Angie's List and HomeAdvisor. Plumber In DC has over 25 years plumbing experience in the Washington DC area. In addition to its emergency plumbing services, the company also provides all kinds of general and gas plumbing services including plumbing installations and repairs, sewer camera inspections, trenchless plumbing services, water heater services, and even kitchen and bathroom remodeling services. The company can also be found at https://www.agreatertown.com/washington_dc/plumber_in_dc_0001393216.



Name: Plumber In DC

Michael Orehowsky

Address: 620 Park Road NW #22, Washington, DC 20010

Phone: (202) 810-0624

Email: dcplumbing@gmail.com

Website: http://plumberindc.comNew York, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 10/16/2018 -- Rose Oil Market: Introduction



Rose oil, is an essential oil extracted from the petals of roses through extraction processes such as steam distillation, solvent extraction, or supercritical carbon dioxide extraction. Steam distillation is the most ancient and most widely used technology when compared with the other two and due to the requirement of heat in the steam distillation, the final product does not have the same characteristic smell as that of fresh roses owing to the denaturing of some of the compound extracted from the rose. While in solvent extraction technology doesn't require heat during the process hence the final product have the similar scent as that of fresh roses. Majority of rose oil is used in perfumery, however, rose oil also finds its application in skin care, medicine, and aromatherapy. Apart from its fragrance, rose oil also have anti-viral and bactericidal properties, which makes its more functional than the other aromatic essential oils, which has resulted in an increase in demand of rose oil in cosmetics and personal care industry, thus driving the growth of global rose oil market over the forecast period.



Rose Oil Market: Segmentation



Global Rose Oil market can be segmented on the basic nature, source, technology, application, distribution channel, and region. On the basis of nature, the Rose Oil market can be segmented into organic and conventional. The organic segment is expected to exhibit substantial growth rate in the global Rose Oil market owing to its preference by the ever-increasing health-conscious consumer base. However, the conventional Rose Oil segment is expected to dominate the market with moderate demand owing to its lesser cost.



A sample of this report is available upon request @ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/21079



On the basis of source, the Rose Oil market can be segmented into Rosa damascene, Rosa centifolia, and others. On the basis of technology, Rose Oil market is segmented into steam distillation, solvent extraction, and supercritical carbon dioxide extraction. Steam distillation technology is anticipated to dominate the market over the forecast period, however, the supercritical carbon dioxide extraction technology segment is expected to exhibit substantial growth rate over the forecast period, owing to high efficiency and retention of the scent of roses, as no heat is required during the whole process. On the basis of application, the Rose Oil market can be segmented into personal care and cosmetics, perfumes and others.



On the basis of distribution channel, Rose Oil market is segmented into direct sale and indirect sale. Indirect sale is further segmented into modern grocery retailers, specialty stores, traditional grocery retailer, and online stores. Modern grocery retailer segment is further sub-segmented into hypermarkets/supermarket, mom and pop stores, and discount stores. Traditional grocery retailers segment is further sub-segmented into independent small groceries and others.



Rose Oil Market: Dynamics



Increasing per capita spending on perfumes and personal care products in developing and emerging economies has led to an increase in demand for aromatic essential oil with added functionality, which is anticipated to drive the market of global rose oil market over the forecast period. Furthermore, health benefits associated with rose oil such as anti-inflammatory, acne-preventing, anti-aging, moisturizing, rejuvenating, stimulating, and harmonizing properties of rose oil is expected to fuel the growth of rose oils market in the developed market over the forecast period. However, improper alignment between supply and demand, as the majority of the cultivation of oil producing species of rose such as Rosa damascene is concentrated in few countries and the high cost of rose oil, when compared to other aromatic essential oil, is anticipated to hamper the growth global rose oil market over the forecast period.



To view TOC of this report is available upon request @ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/21079



Rose Oil Market: Regional Outlook



On the basis of the regional outlook, Rose Oil market is segmented into five different regions: North America, Latin America, Europe, Middle East and Africa and Asia Pacific. On analyzing the Rose Oil market at the global level, Europe and Asia Pacific are expected to dominate the Rose Oil market followed by North America, owing to increasing traction of rose oil products. In Europe, Bulgaria is the major producer of rose oil and exports around 30% of its total exports to France, which is then followed by United States, Japan, Ireland, and others.



Rose Oil Market: Key Player:



Some of the major players operating in Rose Oil market includes Sigma-Aldrich Corporation, Ernesto Ventos, S.A, Alteya Organics, Givaudian, Firmenich, IFF, Symrise, Mane SA, Frutarom, Robertet SA, ALBERT VIEILLE SAS, BERJE INC, Bontoux S.A.S, Enio Bonchev Production Ltd, Albert Vieille SAS, Associate Allied Chemicals India Pvt. Ltd. and Lluch ESSENCE, S.L., among othersSelbyville, DE -- (SBWIRE) -- 10/16/2018 -- MarketStudyReport.com Adds New Switchgear Market 2018  2024 research report providing information and data By End User, By Region, By Country, Growth Potential, Competitive Market Share & Forecast spreading across 387 Pages with table and figures in it.



This report focuses on the top Manufacturers and players in global market are given bellow: ABB, Siemens, GE, EATON, Mitsubishi Electric Systems, Schneider Electric, Toshiba, BHEL, Hitachi, Crompton Greaves, Powell Industries, Hubbell power systems, Hyosung, Fuji Electric, Rittal, Larson & Toubro, Hyundai Ideal Electric, Iljin Electric and Ormazabal.



Request a Sample of this premium Research Report@ https://www.marketstudyreport.com/request-a-sample/512050/



Rational measures toward the electrification of rural regions in Asia Pacific and Africa sustained by growing investments from financial institutions including Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the World Bank will uphold the global switchgear market share. Refurbishment of power grids in war affected regions of Sudan, Iraq and Syria will further energize the industry outlook. The World Bank, in 2017, announced to invest USD 4 million in accordance to Rural Electrification Project II in Vanuatu for the development of power grid infrastructure in the Pacific Island.



The U.S. Federal Administration, in 2017, announced to allocate USD 100 million toward the development of rail networks in San Carlos within the Peninsula Corridor Project.



Switchgear Market will surpass USD 140 billion by 2024. Rising investments toward the infrastructure expansion across developing nations will enhance the industry growth. Increasing demand for advanced monitoring units and control distribution systems coupled with replacement and modernization of ageing power networks will further stimulate the business landscape. The Government of Serbia in collaboration with the Government of China entered into a strategic partnership to upgrade its existing electrical grid infrastructure.



China switchgear market is set to surpass USD 20 billion by 2024. Government initiatives pertaining to substitution of conventional energy sources with clean and sustainable energy resources will complement the industry landscape. The National Energy Administration, in 2017, announced to strengthen the sustainable power generation technologies across China with an expenditure worth USD 326.40 billion by 2020.



Switchgear Market Size By Voltage

LV, MV, HV



By Insulation

Air, Gas, Oil, Vacuum



By Installation

Indoor, Outdoor



By Current (AC, DC), By End Use (Residential & Commercial, Industrial, Utilities)



Industry Analysis Report, Regional Outlook (U.S., Canada, Mexico, UK, Germany, France, Russia, Italy, Austria, Spain, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, China, Australia, India, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, New Zealand, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Turkey, South Africa, Nigeria, Algeria, Egypt, Brazil, Peru, Argentina)



Request a Discount on standard prices of this premium Switchgear Market Research Report@ https://www.marketstudyreport.com/check-for-discount/512050/



Paradigm shift toward energy conservation and strict environmental regulations will boost the growth of the global switchgear market. Rapid technological advancements in smart grid and growing focus toward energy efficient environment will further boost the product penetration. In 2017, Western European nations including France, UK, Germany, Sweden and Italy together, declared a cumulative funding worth USD 133.7 billion for the expansion of smart grid network.



In 2017, vacuum insulation accounted for over half of the global switchgear market share, attributable toward the rising demand for HVDC transmission & distribution networks across industrial sector. In comparison to its counterparts, the effective di-electric strength and high insulation along with fierce installation costs will further fuel the product trade. Toshiba estimated USD 30 million of investment toward the expansion of its transformers and switchgear manufacturing units in 2017 across India.



View More Report At: https://www.marketstudyreport.com/reports/switchgear-market



Related Report



Global Paralleling Switchgear Market 2018 by Manufacturers, Regions, Type and Application, Forecast to 2023

Paralleling Switchgear Market research report is added by Market Study report by covering all major market aspects. The report also touches the key scenarios like top players, competition, types, applications, regions, recent developments and future market predictions.



https://www.marketstudyreport.com/reports/global-paralleling-switchgear-market-2018-by-manufacturers-regions-type-and-application-forecast-to-2023?utm_source=emp&utm_medium=DC



About Market Study Report

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.



Contact Us:

Market Study Report

4 North Main Street,

Selbyville, Delaware 19975

USA

Phone: 1-302-273-0910

US Toll Free: 1-866-764-2150

Email:sales@marketstudyreport.com

Website:https://www.marketstudyreport.com

Blog: https://www.marketstudyreport.com/blog/Pune, India -- (SBWIRE) -- 10/17/2018 -- Global High Throughput Screening Market  Overview:



High-throughput screening is a method used in the drug discovery and relevant to the fields of biology and chemistry. It involves the use of robotics, data processing software, and sensitive detectors which helps to enhance the speed of the process with accuracy. This process can rapidly identify active compounds, antibodies, or genes that modulate a particular bimolecular pathway.



Get Premium Sample Copy @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/1280 .



According to a recent study published by the Market Research Future analysts, the global high throughput screening market is a dynamic market growing at a decent growth rate. The growth of this market is mainly due to rise in the prevalence of the chronic diseases. Increase in prevalence has led to the increasing need for the new drug molecules and therapies. Besides that, rising expenditure on research & development, and adoption of high through put screening techniques by pharmaceutical companies is pushing the growth of the market. Moreover, rapid development in the healthcare sector, developing technology, and increasing need for drug discovery have fuelled the market growth.



On the other hand, there are some hurdles in this market such as high cost involved in the development of the required infrastructure, expensive automation techniques. These can hinder the growth of the high throughput screening market to an extent.



Global High Throughput Screening Market Top Key Players:



Agilent Technologies (U.S.), Danaher (U.S.), Merck KGaA (U.S.), Tecan Trading AG (Switzerland), Thermo Fisher Scientific (U.S.), PerkinElmer Inc. (U.S.), Hamilton Company (U.S.), Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc. (U.S.), Aurora Biomed Inc. (Canada), AXXAM S.p.A. (Italy), and others.



Global High Throughput Screening Market - Competitive Analysis:



There are number of companies involved in the development of the products, including the devices, tools, software, and other services in the high throughput screening space. The global high throughput screening market is competitive due to the presence of many local and international players. Local players are focus on cost reduction and innovation to ensure sustainability. On the other hand, the international players implemented growth strategies through collaborations and partnerships to expand their global presence and overall market share. Product launches, software update launches, and mergers & acquisitions are some key strategies of the companies in this market. Some of the developments for players are as follows.



Agilent Technologies, headquartered in the U.S., is an American public research, development and manufacturing company. RapidFire 365, RapidFire Cartridges, RapidFire Integrator Software are the high-throughput mass spectrometry system. These systems provide mass spectrometry-based high-throughput screening solutions to the targets that have proven challenging to screen using conventional approaches to the drug discovery researchers



Danaher, headquarters in the U.S., operates in five segments: test & measurement, dental, industrial technologies, environmental, and life science & diagnostics. In 2016, the company acquired Cepheid and Phenomenex.



Get Exclusive Discount @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/check-discount/1280



Global High Throughput Screening Market - Regional Analysis:



The Americas region dominate the global high throughput screening market owing to the presence of huge patient population with chronic diseases, and increasing government support for research & development. Furthermore, presence of large number of market players in this region which are involved in continuous development of the quality products which cater to the global patient population giving an extra boost for the growth of this market in Americas region.



Europe accounts for the second largest share of the global high throughput screening market as result of increasing focus of government agencies on the treatment of chronic diseases. Moreover, the growing public awareness about disease management and increasing need for the new drugs has led to the high demand for the drug development and screening tools which are likely to boost the European market. Asia Pacific region is not far behind & is growing at a commendable growth rate in the high throughput screening business space. Japan holds the major share of the regional market due to availability of advanced technology and huge healthcare spending. Moreover, rapidly developing economy, increasing healthcare expenditure, and the government's initiatives for research & development projected to drive the market in China and India over the forecast period.



The Middle East and Africa contributes least in the global market due to limited availability of medical facilities, unavailability of the required infrastructure, affordability issues, and lack of awareness among masses. However, UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait are somehow the saving grace for the high throughput screening market in this region.



Table of Content:



1 Introduction



1.1 Definition



1.2 Scope of Study



1.2.1 Research Objective



1.2.2 Assumptions & Limitations



1.2.2.1 Assumptions



1.2.2.2 Limitations



1.3 Market Structure:



2 Research Methodology



2.1 Research Process:



2.2 Primary Research



2.3 Secondary Research:



3 Market Dynamics



3.1 Drivers



3.2 Restraints



3.3 Opportunities



3.4 Macroeconomic Indicators



4 Market Factor Analysis



4.1 Porters Five Forces Model



4.2 Bargaining Power of Suppliers



4.3 Bargaining Power of Buyers



4.4 Threat of New Entrants



4.5 Threat of Substitutes



4.6 Intensity of Rivalry



 Continued!



Enquiry about Reports @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/enquiry/1280



About Market Research Future

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.A team of scientists led by University of California, Riversides Professor Gordon Love has found the oldest evidence yet of animal life, dating back 100 million years before the famous Cambrian explosion.

Rather than searching for conventional body fossils, Professor Love and colleagues have been tracking molecular signs (biomarkers) of animal life as far back as 660-635 million years ago (Neoproterozoic Era).

In ancient rocks and oils from Oman, Siberia, and India, the team found a steroid compound produced only by sponges, which are among the earliest forms of animal life.

We have been looking for distinctive and stable biomarkers that indicate the existence of sponges and other early animals, rather than single-celled organisms that dominated the earth for billions of years before the dawn of complex, multicellular life, said Alex Zumberge, a doctoral student at the University of California, Riverside.

The biomarker the researchers identified is a steroid compound named 26-methylstigmastane (26-mes).

It has a unique structure that is currently only known to be synthesized by certain species of modern sponges called demosponges.

This steroid biomarker is the first evidence that demosponges, and hence multicellular animals, were thriving in ancient seas at least as far back as 635 million years ago, Zumberge said.

In 2009, the same team reported the first compelling biomarker evidence for Neoproterozoic animals from a different steroid biomarker, called 24-isopropylcholestane (24-ipc), from rocks in South Oman.

However, the 24-ipc biomarker evidence proved controversial since 24-ipc steroids are not exclusively made by demosponges and can be found in a few modern algae.

The finding of the additional and novel 26-mes ancient biomarker, which is unique to demosponges, adds extra confidence that both compounds are fossil biomolecules produced by demosponges on an ancient seafloor.

The study also provides important new constraints on the groups of modern demosponges capable of producing unique steroid structures, which leave a distinctive biomarker record.

The scientists found that within modern demosponges, certain taxonomic groups preferentially produce 26-mes steroids while others produce 24-ipc steroids.

The combined Neoproterozoic demosponge sterane record, showing 24-ipc and 26-mes steranes co-occurring in ancient rocks, is unlikely attributed to an isolated branch or extinct stem-group of demosponges, Professor Love said.

Rather, the ability to make such unconventional steroids likely arose deep within the demosponge phylogenetic tree but now encompasses a wide coverage of modern demosponge groups.

The study was published online this week in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.

_____

J. Alex Zumberge et al. Demosponge steroid biomarker 26-methylstigmastane provides evidence for Neoproterozoic animals. Nature Ecology & Evolution, published online October 15, 2018; doi: 10.1038/s41559-018-0676-2Chinas peacekeeping helicopter detachment to Darfur in Sudan dispatched one Mi-171 transport helicopter to Taweelah on the morning of October 13for medical evacuation mission.

By Fei Xiaoxi

DARFUR, SUDAN, Oct. 16 (ChinaMil) -- Chinas peacekeeping helicopter detachment to Darfur in Sudan dispatched one Mi-171 transport helicopter to Taweelah on the morning of October 13for medical evacuation mission.

The helicopters crew members successfully transported a soldier of the Senegalese quick-reaction detachment who was accidentally shot in the foot to El-Fasher, the capital city of North Darfur in Sudan, for further treatment. The Senegalese military then expressed their sincere appreciation for Chinese peacekeepers help.

At 11 a.m. on Oct. 13, the aviation department of the African Union/United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID) notified the Chinese peacekeeping helicopter detachment to activate its medical back-up flight plan and prepare to fly to Taweelah for the mission of transferring an injured soldier to El-Fasher.

A Chinese Mi-171 transport helicopter took off at 12:05 pm and landed at the airport apron in Taweelah at 1:05 pm.

The crew members of helicopter learned from the Senegalese military doctors that the soldier suffered a serious injury from a perforating bullet wound of his foot.

Due to limited local medical resources, it was difficult to clean the injured wound thoroughly. If the soldier could not be transferred to a big hospital in time, he would be at risk of amputation.

In order to minimize the time and relieve the pain of the soldier, the Chinese crew members completed necessary paperwork such as check-in, stretcher fix and in-flight medical care in less than 5 minutes and took off at 1:10 pm.

The helicopter landed at the El-Fasher Airport around 50 minutes later, where an ambulance had been ready to transport the wounded soldier to the hospital.A strong cruise line executive line up sees participation by Stuart Allison, SVP Asia Pacific Commercial and Operations, Princess Cruises; Sarina Bratton Chairman Asia Pacific, Ponant; Torstein Hagen, chairman, Viking Cruises; Dr Zinan Liu President of China and North Asia Pacific Region, Royal Caribbean International; Pierfranscesco Vago, executive chairman, MSC Cruises; Mario Zanetti President, Costa Group Asia and Kent Fuming Zhu President, Genting Cruise Lines during the State of the Regional Cruise Industry discussion.

Made in, and for, China

Conference sessions at Seatrade Cruise Asia Pacific 2018, held in a joint commitment with Shanghai Baoshan Municipal Peoples Government; Shanghai International Cruise Business Institute and Shanghai Wusongkou International Cruise Terminal, also include Chinas next Golden Decade in Cruising: how to balance growth and sustainability; a Made in, and for, China shipbuilding and repair panel including examining the opportunities for technical suppliers in this growing market and development of source markets throughout Asia Pacific and development of source markets throughout Asia Pacific.

An interesting discussion is also planned about How can cruising leverage the growth of Chinas Outbound Travel market. China's outbound travel market has benefited from the increasing population in Chinese middle-class which has resulted in a group of people with bigger buying power and more willingness to purchase mid- to high-end travel products.

Fam trips

Seatrade Cruise Asia Pacific will begin with a familiarisation trip to Shanghai Wusongkou International Cruise Terminal followed by an evening welcome reception. Day two will begin with an Opening Ceremony on October 24.

Travel Agent Training

Travel Agent Training is also part of the programme to run alongside the busy conference programme and delivered by Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) and sponsored by MedCruise.

The workshop will be delivered by two industry stakeholders: Peter Kollar, Head of International Training & Development, Cruise Lines International Association and Carla Salvado, Honorary President, Member of the BoD and Director of Mature and New Source Markets, MedCruise.

The objective of MedCruise during the Travel Agent Training workshop is to educate attendees about the attributes about the Mediterranean region, of which are appreciated by the Chinese market, said Salvado.

A key objective of the MedCruise strategy for China is to raise the awareness of cruising across the Mediterranean region to the Chinese market. With so many destinations and cultures, the Mediterranean is the ideal sea for cruising and its attributes compliment the factors that the Chinese consider when travelling across Europe, she concluded.A Memorandum of Understand (MoU) was signed on Wednesday between PSA Corporation, the Maritime & Port Authority of Singapore (MPA), 3D MetalForge and the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Cluster (NAMIC) to establish the production facility at Pasir Panjang Terminal in Singapore.

The additive manufacturing (or 3D printing) production facility will feature printers capable of producing port equipment with an aim to reduce the number of spares that terminal operator PSA needs to hold and reducing the lead time from weeks to days for the availability of spare parts.

The facility will also use a specialised maritime digital cloud supported by Blockchain technology for more secure file transfers.

Sign up for the - Smart Ports & Smart Carriers - session at the Seatrade Maritime Middle East

Ong Kim Pong, Regional CEO Southeast Asia of PSA International, said, In close collaboration with EDB, we have learnt that the era of Additive Manufacturing is showing pervasive importance in industry transformation. Within our maritime sector, we foresee widespread adoption within the immediate horizon.

The MPA also signed a MoU with NAMIC and the Singapore Shipping Association (SSA) to establish a Joint industry Programme for the 3D printing of marine parts.

Andrew Tan, MPA Chief Executive, said, "As a leading maritime hub, Singapore firmly believes that the maritime industry should embrace new technologies such as additive manufacturing. The digitalisation of the maritime sector in all its aspects is not a matter of how but when.Alaska Seafood

Wild seafood used around the world

The Alaska seafood industry and the State of Alaska are partners in promoting wild and sustainable Alaska seafood and educating people about the seafood industry. Alaska has been focused on sustainable seafood for over 50 years: the seafood industry is Alaska's largest employer in the private sector. It is well understood that fisheries and habitats need to be protected to continue their way of life (fish and humans). Their State constitution mandates that fish are "utilized, developed and maintained on the sustained yield principle."

Industry and State partnership is handled through the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute (ASMI). Their most recent release is a Seafood for All Seasons guide (click here), listing wild Alaska seafood and their seasons. It's an effort to help people integrate seafood into their meals all year long.

We wanted to find out more about Alaska seafood and worked with Tyson Fick, Communications Director at ASMI.

SD!: What makes Alaska seafood different from seafood from other regions?

TF: Wild Alaska seafood has an incredible story. With its rugged natural beauty, the state of Alaska has earned its reputation as the "Last Frontier." Alaska's fishing families brave the wild waters of Alaska to bring their delicious, natural, and sustainable seafood to market - a story that today's food-conscious consumers appreciate. The cold water and natural environment of Alaska produces seafood with lean flesh, firm texture, and superior flavor. It is also full of high quality protein, vitamins, minerals and oils essential to good health.

Alaska seafood is some of the most sustainable seafood on the planet. When Alaska became a state in 1959, its citizens included a mandate in the State's constitution that requires its seafood resources to be managed sustainably. As a result, Alaska has become a world model for sustainable, ecologically responsible wild fisheries, and in fact by law there is no finfish farming in the state of Alaska. This has allowed wild Alaska seafood to represent the ultimate in flavor and quality. Chefs, retailers and consumers know the difference and look for Alaska salmon when they want the best.

SD! What seafood comes from Alaska?

TF: Over 17 different species of wild and natural seafood come from Alaska, including whitefish like halibut and black cod (also known as sablefish), five types of salmon (king, sockeye, coho, keta and pink), and shellfish such as crab (king, bairdi, snow and dungeness) and spot prawns. Hundreds of versatile recipes, cooking tips and technique videos for cooking all types of Alaska seafood are available at www.wildalaskaseafood.com.

SD! How much seafood comes from Alaska (used in US, sent around the world)?

TF: Boasting over one million square miles of rich fishing waters-more than all of the lower 48 states combined-Alaska yields nearly six billion pounds of wild seafood sustainably harvested per year. This accounts for nearly 60% of the nation's seafood and approximately 90-95% of the wild salmon caught in the United States. 30-40% of wild salmon in the world are caught in Alaska.

SD! When is Alaska seafood available?

TF: While some consumers may think of wild Alaska seafood as a seasonal product, the truth is that Alaska seafood quality and flavor is available year-round. The Alaska seafood industry has developed state-of-the art freezing technologies, rapidly chilling and flash freezing fish at the time of harvest to maintain the highest quality and maximize purity and taste. In addition, canned and pouched options offer a convenient and affordable way to always have sustainable seafood in the freezer. For fresh fish options, the fresh Alaska seafood season kicks off with halibut (photo) and black cod harvests in the spring - this year, on March 14, 2015 - followed quickly by the summer salmon season starting mid-May.

SD! Alaska fisheries are managed for sustainability. Does each fishery have to be certified by every group doing certification or do you choose a program you think is best? How does the constitutional mandate work?

TF: Alaska has been a global leader in sustainable fisheries management for over 50 years. Certifications are useful for some consumers and required to access some markets, but if you really want to be sure you are choosing sustainably-harvested seafood that supports American fishing families and sustains local communities, you should ask for Alaska and US fish. Alaska supports the Responsible Fisheries Management program which assesses and verifies our fisheries to the most rigorous and widely-accepted international standards for fisheries management.

The constitutional mandate to sustainably harvest our seafood guides all of our decisions about our fisheries. Without question the first consideration when making fisheries management decisions in Alaska is the health of the resource going into the future. This is different than other places in the world where those decisions are often driven by harvests rather than conservation.

SD! How is fish handled: when caught, after caught, when processed, when shipped? With different boats, processing plants, shippers, etc., how is consistency created?

TF: There are strict environmental and food handling laws that go along with a commitment to conservation. Whether the seafood is processed at sea or at one of the many shore-side facilities around Alaska, great care is taken with each fish from the boat to the plate that care and handling guidelines and food safety requirements are met so that Alaska seafood customers have a good experience every time.

SD! Are there marketing firms like ASMI for other states?

TF : ASMI is a public-private partnership established to foster economic development of a renewable natural resource. Additional groups around the county, such as the Maine Lobstermen's Association, work to support all American fisheries and we view them as allies in the marketplace. They say raising tides lift all boats and we feel success across the seafood category in the US elevates success for Alaska seafood, and results in consumers choosing local seafood options over imported seafood or other proteins.

Click for recipes:

Alaska Halibut with Broccoli-Ginger Slaw

Thyme-Crusted Alaska Black Cod

Alaska Sockeye Salmon with Shoyu Tarranon Sauce

Photos courtesy of ASMI

April 2015BEIJING, Oct. 16 (Xinhua) -- Chinese and Philippine officials will meet to discuss the South China Sea issue later this week, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang told a daily press briefing on Tuesday.

The third meeting of the China-Philippines Bilateral Consultation Mechanism (BCM) on the South China Sea, scheduled on Oct. 18, will be held in China. The two sides are to exchange views over the current situation in the region as well as each others' concerns, and deepening maritime cooperation including joint oil and gas exploration, according to the spokesperson.

"The delegations of the two sides will be headed by Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Kong Xuanyou and his Philippine counterpart Enrique Manalo, respectively," Lu said, adding that the attendees will include officials from sectors such as national defense, natural resources and environmental conservation, fishery, transportation, energy, and coast guard.

Early in 2017, China and the Philippines established the BCM, choosing to settle maritime issues through negotiation.

"Thanks to this platform, the two countries have made positive progress in properly settling divergences, forestalling and managing maritime incidents, and advancing pragmatic maritime cooperation," Lu added.

"We believe that the success of the meeting will contribute to the sound development of China-Philippines relations as well as peace and stability in the South China Sea," Lu said.Sophie and Eric Banh of Monsoon

Passionate, pragmatic and detailed

"Food is a journey, just like life." So says Eric Banh and for his sister Sophie and him, it is very true. Their lives started in Saigon, they grew up in Edmonton, Alberta, and moved as adults to Seattle. Their food journey has always been based on quality ingredients, executed well and with high flavor. How did their lives and food intertwine to bring us Monsoon, Baguette Box and, in May, Ba Bar?

Sophie Banh (r), Eric Banh (l)

Their appreciation of good food started young and not in an era of convenience. In Saigon, herbs and produce were picked fresh by the family and time was taken in creating meals. Their mother is Vietnamese and their father Chinese. He was a successful businessman in Saigon, they lived comfortably and ate out nearly every night, being introduced to wonderful food. Their parents risked their lives to leave Vietnam to find a better life for their family, ending up in Edmonton, Canada.

Sophie worked in a bank in Edmonton. She learned accounting, but it didn't interest her. Her husband, an engineer, found a job in Seattle. They moved here and Sophie decided to go to culinary school. She was one of two Asians and the only person from Vietnam. "For our parents, cooking was not something you aspired to," says Sophie. "You don't risk everything to have your child become a cook." Eric agrees. "They wanted academic success, more like becoming an engineer. But we loved food without even knowing it." Eric and a partner opened a restaurant in Edmonton.

"Edmonton's economy was so bad in the 90s, I just wanted out," recalls Eric. He left the restaurant to his partner and came to Seattle. "We have a sister in Toronto," says Sophie. "We had all been talking and I said let's just do it.' Our sister has a restaurant there and Eric and I started looking for a place in Seattle." It took them almost a year to find the right place. "I almost went back to Canada," says Eric. "We had a tiny budget, so it had to be inexpensive. I was living in Shoreline and didn't know the Capitol Hill neighborhood. We chose this location because we could afford it and there was a restaurant across the street that seemed busy. We thought we'd do alright if we had their overflow. We had no idea where to buy anything. Our wood banquettes were made by a friend in Canada. We used the stove from the former restaurant until it blew up." They opened February 21, 1999, but without funds, they couldn't afford many staff members. Sophie worked the stove, Eric the wok and even their mother came to help.

Monsoon Seattle dining room, courtesy of Geoffery Smith

"We're so happy to be where we are today," says Eric. "We have loyal customers and we don't have to explain what we do. We don't worry about people criticizing us. If they don't get what we do, it's okay. We don't take it personally." The biggest hurdle people had to jump in the early days was price. People assumed Vietnamese food was cheap. "We didn't really intend to be fancy," explains Eric. "But we know what good, quality food should taste like. Ingredients are expensive. Our food is labor intensive. The people who criticized either flavors or price have never had good Vietnamese food." Over the past 12 years, they've pondered on the best description of Monsoon. Eric has finally decided it's "a Saigon restaurant from District 1." There are eight districts and the great restaurants are in District 1. "We've learned so much. We thought we could just go out and buy meat. Mass-produced meat is inexpensive, but if you see how it's produced, you'd be a vegetarian. Life balance has to be good and we like that there are sustainable and humane options. We also believe that you should eat less and eat better. We don't need so much. We serve food we would eat. In Saigon, things weren't mass produced and it took a long time to make. If they see pho for $7 and then for $9, people there will pay $9. They know the ingredients are better. We don't want to compete on price, either. We just want to do good food." Sophie agrees. "Once people know your food tastes good, has the right amount of flavor and you make it right, they will come back." They make dishes they remember from Vietnam, using Northwest ingredients.

Monsoon Seattle

615 19th Ave E.

Seattle, WA 98112

206-325-2111

Baguette Box Capitol Hill

1203 Pine St

Seattle, WA 98101

206-332-0220

Photo courtesy of Geoffrey Smith

Monsoon East

10245 Main St

Bellevue, WA 98004

425-635-1112

Baguette Box Fremont

626 N 34th St

Seattle, WA 98103

206-632-1511 www.monsoonrestaurants.com www.baguettebox.com

Ba Bar

550 12th Ave

Seattle, WA 98122

206-328-2030

www.babarseattle.com

Click here to learn more about their food and future plans.

Connie Adams/April 2011Area residents are invited to a watch party from 7:309 p.m. Oct. 18 at Sidetrack restaurant in Ypsilanti's Depot Town as the PBS series " Under the Radar Michigan " begins its ninth season by highlighting Washtenaw County-based businesses and organizations.Featured in this episode are Ann Arbor Korean restaurant Miss Kim , Ypsilanti-based Michigan Firehouse Museum and Dom Bakeries , Saline-based Urban Ashes , and the chalk art of Ann Arbor artist David Zinn Series co-creator and host Tom Daldin called Washtenaw County "a mecca for creative and innovative people."Daldin says him and his team had been hearing rave reviews of Miss Kim, only to realize she had appeared in the first season of "Under the Radar Michigan," as the Zingerman's cheese expert in a segment focused on Zingerman's co-founder Ari Weinzweig."She's from Korea, and she's taken that cuisine and melded it with produce we have here in Michigan," Daldin says of Miss Kim's proprietor Ji Hye Kim. "What she's doing is so incredible."Urban Ashes stood out not just for the beautiful products the company makes with reclaimed wood but for its social mission to employ former prisoners "He has a heart as big as his creativity," Daldin says of the company's founder, Paul Hickman. He added that all the employees he met were "outstanding individuals."Daldin says that viewers had been emailing him with suggestions to feature the Firehouse Museum for years."We were just blown away by the history in that place, and Al (Dyer), the new director, has a wealth of knowledge and is so driven and motivated to make it into everything it can be," he says.Daldin notes that Dom's is "not the fanciest place" but says the owners are "the sweetest, kindest, most wonderful family" who came to America and realized the American dream.David Zinn's art almost doesn't qualify as "under the radar," Daldin says."He's becoming known around the world for the characters he creates," Daldin says. "He makes these little masterpieces on the sidewalk, and with the next rain, they disappear. He's a genuine talent, and Ann Arbor is lucky to have him."Both Daldin and Zinn are expected to attend the watching party at Sidetrack, and Daldin will sign autographs for fans. A short video teaser for the segment is available hereAs part of On the Ground series Sterling Heights, Metromode will be hosting a panel discussion featuring female leaders in manufacturing. Three women leaders will be talking about their experience in the manufacturing field, opportunities available for women today, and what the future holds for women in this field.

The event will take place October 25 at Velocity in Sterling Heights from 6-8 pm. Click here to RSVP.

The following leaders will be featured on the panel:

Patricia Lopez is president of Rose-A-Lee Technologies, an award-winning Michigan manufacturing company. She has gained recognition as the: Notable Woman in Manufacturing 2018, Macomb's Business to Watch 2018, Corp! Most Valuable Millennial 2018, and Manufacturing Marvel 2017. Lopez holds a Masters Degree in Engineering. She has held managerial positions at Fiat-Chrysler Automobiles where she gained experience learning the manufacturing industry first-hand.

Rose-A-Lee Technologies manufactures projectiles, ballistic grilles, seating structures and more for the Dept. of Defense. Lopez co-founded RAL with Jennifer Howard in 2013 to be a U.S. Defense manufacturing arm to sister company Elmhirst Industries, an automotive manufacturing company. RAL has since expanded its focus to provide engineering and state-of-the-art manufacturing of metal, plastic, and carbon fiber components across multiple industries, including automotive. In 2018 alone, they have experienced nearly 400 percent growth.

Kay Becker is Vice President of Marketing for Chardam Gear, a leading manufacturer of components for the aerospace and defense industries. She has a BBA in Management and Marketing from Northwood University and an MBA in Business from Wayne State University.

Linda A. Merlo is COO of Spot Imaging Solutions, an internationally recognized brand for imaging solutions in the Life science, Industrial and Medical Markets. Raised among Engineers, Doctors, Physicist, and nurses, she joined her fathers engineering business after graduating with a degree in Physical Education from the University of Michigan. Once Linda realized that SPOT Imaging was going to be her work home she pursued post bachelors studies in business at Oakland University in Rochester, MI. Linda has led many initiatives in her career at SPOT including Project Manager, Engineering Change Management, Lean Manufacturing, New Business development alongside her traditional COO roles.

Moderator:

Christine Johns, Ed.D. is superintendent of the nationally-recognized Utica Community Schools, Michigans second-largest school district. UCS is Macombs largest school district and is identified by Crains Detroit Business as the countys second largest public employer.



As superintendent, Dr. Johns has been a strong voice for Utica Community Schools and Macomb County. She has worked directly with legislators and policymakers at all levels to advocate for students, teachers and the community on issues related to funding and high academic standards.

Dr. Johns has leveraged the districts location in the heart of the automotive industry and Macomb Countys defense corridor to promote instructional programs that bridge the gap between employer needs and student skill sets. These programs include the Utica Center for Science and Industry, Michigans first public school elementary virtual reality labs, and a comprehensive industry partnership network that provides high school students with professional certifications.

Dr. Johns has received numerous educational and leadership honors, including eSchool News National Tech-Savvy Superintendent of the Year, the Macomb Hall of Fame, the Peoples Choice Award from Leadership Macomb and one of Michigans 100 Most Influential Women by Crains Detroit Business.AWF Madison Group shares fell 3.7 percent after the labour-hire firm said the collapse of three building companies dented its earnings.

The company has taken an $800,000 provision after two customers failed in Christchurch and another fell over in Auckland. That resulted in a "significant" drop in earnings for its blue-collar unit as AWF's migrant workers had to be redeployed, creating a mismatch of workers needed and those available. It cost the firm about $1 million.

AWF said first-half profit was $1 million to $1.5 million lower than the $3.4 million reported a year earlier. That implies profit was $1.9 million to $2.4 million in the six months ended Sept. 30.

The company released the statement after the close of trading yesterday, and the stock fell 7 cents to $1.82 at today's open. About 12,000 shares have changed hands, compared to the stock's 90-day average of 14,400.

AWF faced weaker construction recruiting in the March 2018 year, with consenting delays and negative headlines over Filipino migrants sapping demand for its services.

Despite the downturn in the blue-collar arm of the business, AWF Madison's white collar division registered first-half earnings growth and said total turnover was in line with the $143 million reported a year earlier. It also reported strong cash-flow and repaid $3 million of debt, leaving it with $5.7 million in the bank.

That position also let AWF Madison make an opportunistic acquisition, buying Dunedin recruitment firm Select for an undisclosed sum.

(BusinessDesk)

Comments from our readers

No comments yet

Add your comment:

Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process.

Related News:

Vital Healthcare Property Trust (NZX: VHP) Announces First Quarter Results

Geneva Finance Limited (NZX: GFL) NZX RESPONSE

Geneva Finance Limited (NZX: GFL) Public Censure of Geneva Finance Limited

Plexure Group Limited (NZX: PX1) Plexure transformation, interim results and growth

17th November 2021 Morning Report

Move Logistics Group Limited (NZ: MOV) Completion of Retail Bookbuild; Conclusion of Capital Raise

Move Logistics Group Limited (NZX: MOV) Completion of Retail Entitlement Offer

16th November 2021 Morning Report

Investore Property Limited (NZX: IPL) Interim Results HY22

Napier Port Holdings Limited (NZX: NPH) 2021 Full Year Results

The governments strategic review of upper North Island logistics chains may recognise the value of Northport in a way previous studies did not, Marsden Maritime Holdings chair John Goulter says.

He said the potential of the port, and the importance of Marsdens landholdings directly behind it, are obvious to the companys shareholders. Yet in the past that message had not resonated quite so loudly.

It is therefore gratifying to note that the new governments Upper North Island supply chain strategy provides opportunities for the development of Northport, he said in notes for Marsdens annual meeting yesterday.

With this strategy and the Northland rail study having got underway just weeks ago, we look forward to a more balanced view of these assets in the political and national consciousness, with benefits potentially arising in the form of improved roading, rail, and other infrastructure.

Shares in the company were unchanged at $5.25.

Marsden owns half of Northport in partnership with Port of Tauranga. It is also developing 185 hectares of land adjacent to the port and operates the Marsden Cove marina.

Marsden is in turn owned almost 54 percent by Northland Regional Council, with Ports of Auckland also owning just under 20 percent of the listed company.

In August the Ministry of Transport named a five-strong panel to consider a range of transport and infrastructure issues in the upper North Island.

The group was specifically tasked with looking at potential future locations for Ports of Auckland, and priorities for other transport infrastructure, across road, rail and coastal shipping.

A Northport redevelopment could include refurbishment and extension of rail freight services into Northland, and could ultimately include moving the Royal New Zealand Navy's Devonport base to Whangarei.

Northport contributes most of Marsden Maritimes revenue. It handled 3.56 million tonnes of cargo in the June year, about 2 percent less than a year earlier, largely due to lower log and other forestry exports.

Maritimes net surplus fell 6 percent to $9.4 million, reflecting lower revaluation gains on the firms property interests and lower than planned marina earnings due to the delayed start of a new boat haul-out service.

Goulter said that while log volumes are potentially trending down, it was pleasing to see the increasing diversification of cargo through the port.

The introduction of a fortnightly coastal container shipping service to Brisbane and Singapore by Mediterranean Shipping Co earlier this year is also encouraging, he said.

I would note, however, that securing this service long-term is reliant on local support.

(BusinessDesk)

Comments from our readers

No comments yet

Add your comment:

Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process.

Related News:

Vital Healthcare Property Trust (NZX: VHP) Announces First Quarter Results

Geneva Finance Limited (NZX: GFL) NZX RESPONSE

Geneva Finance Limited (NZX: GFL) Public Censure of Geneva Finance Limited

Plexure Group Limited (NZX: PX1) Plexure transformation, interim results and growth

17th November 2021 Morning Report

Move Logistics Group Limited (NZ: MOV) Completion of Retail Bookbuild; Conclusion of Capital Raise

Move Logistics Group Limited (NZX: MOV) Completion of Retail Entitlement Offer

16th November 2021 Morning Report

Investore Property Limited (NZX: IPL) Interim Results HY22

Napier Port Holdings Limited (NZX: NPH) 2021 Full Year Results

A Warkworth-based company owned by multi-billionaire IT mogul Larry Ellison and part-funded by Callaghan Innovation is at the centre of a bid to take the wind out of the sails of the next Americas Cup competition in Auckland.

New Zealand won the rights to host the March 2021 cup, after beating Ellisons Oracle Team USA seven to one in Bermuda last year. But instead of launching another challenge for the Americas Cup, Ellison and his right-hand man, former Team NZ skipper Russell Coutts, have launched a rival competition, Sail GP.

Unusually, Sail GP will use repurposed boats from the previous Americas Cup, with the yachts being rebuilt and rebranded by Warkworth-based Core Builders Composites. The firm, formerly known as Oracle Racing, is 100 percent-owned by Ellison, the 74-year-old founder of software company Oracle Corp and Forbes magazines 10th richest billionaire.

Coutts became a director of Core Builders Composites in July, and the company has successfully negotiated a two-year extension to its Callaghan Innovation research and development grant. It received $1.5 million of government funding in 2016 and almost $1 million in 2017.

So far, Coutts and Ellison have announced six teams for the 2019 SailGP race series - from Australia, China, France, Japan, the UK, and the USA. The Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron, which will host the 2021 Americas Cup, has only managed to bring three potential competing teams on board - from Italy, the UK and the US.

The estimated US$100 million-plus cost of challenging for the Americas Cup is one reason for low numbers, whereas using reconditioned boats should bring costs down for SailGP contestants.

SailGP tech team operations manager Brad Marsh says the six supercharged catamarans have been under construction for the past year and each of the SailGP teams will spend a minimum of two weeks in Northland over the next three months, testing the boats at Northport before the first race in Sydney in mid-February.

Northland offers easy access to a highly-skilled and specialised marine services sector which will allow us to perform the shake-down and validate the yachts upgraded systems and technology, Marsh says.

Core Composites spokesperson Susan Lake isnt worried about taking taxpayer money for a company owned by an American worth US$58.5 billion. She says the company employs more than 100 staff, including 60 permanent workers and seven apprentices.

The economic impact for New Zealand from Core Composites' work has been $17.65 million since July last year, and the company has spent $13 million with other New Zealand businesses over the same period.

Callaghan Innovations Melanie Tuala says the benefits for New Zealand include a growing skilled industry, student jobs, related supplier R&D industries, and tech and skilled workers now moving innovation into aviation, space, construction and the general marine industry.

Other New Zealand companies supplying the SailGP project include Warkworth-based MS Engineering, advanced composite company Pure Design, carbon fibre mast/boom company C-Tech, and Auckland-based Doyle Sails.

(BusinessDesk)

Comments from our readers

No comments yet

Add your comment:

Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process.

Related News:

Vital Healthcare Property Trust (NZX: VHP) Announces First Quarter Results

Geneva Finance Limited (NZX: GFL) NZX RESPONSE

Geneva Finance Limited (NZX: GFL) Public Censure of Geneva Finance Limited

Plexure Group Limited (NZX: PX1) Plexure transformation, interim results and growth

17th November 2021 Morning Report

Move Logistics Group Limited (NZ: MOV) Completion of Retail Bookbuild; Conclusion of Capital Raise

Move Logistics Group Limited (NZX: MOV) Completion of Retail Entitlement Offer

16th November 2021 Morning Report

Investore Property Limited (NZX: IPL) Interim Results HY22

Napier Port Holdings Limited (NZX: NPH) 2021 Full Year Results

China's Fenglei aerobatic team performs at the opening ceremony of the 4th China International Helicopter Expo in Tianjin, north China, on Sept. 14, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua]

Against the backdrop of the intensification and upgrading of competition among major countries, combining efforts to make the country prosperous with efforts to make the military strong, and making overall plans for development and security are essential to consolidate China's economic and national strength.

The flow of information, technologies, talents, capital, facilities, services and other elements between the military and local governments, gives emphasis to joint development and the sharing of military and civilian facilities to improve the efficiency of innovation in military technologies and promote the high-quality development of the economy.

Historical experience shows the greater the disparity among major powers' military strengths, the more likely confrontation, conflict and war are to occur. The United States launched a military-civilian integration strategy in 1994, with the aim of combining the foundation of its national defense technology industry with the larger foundation of civilian technologies into a united foundation for the national technology industry to support its hegemony.

Despite China's military modernization efforts so far, the disparity in military strength between China and the US is still obvious. Nevertheless, the US has defined China as a rival and formed alliances with surrounding countries to contain and pressure China, leading to high risk of military conflict in certain areas.

Real-world solution to regional security threats

Chinese military-civilian integration aims to solve real security threats and accomplish the mission of maintaining peace and stability. In recent years, the Chinese military's performance in international peacekeeping, escort services in outer ocean areas, international humanitarian assistance and other tasks has been widely recognized. However, the surrounding regions such as the South China Sea still offer potential threats of war, unprecedented external military disruption is the biggest threat to the South China Sea's peace and stability. If the Chinese navy does not have a strong deterrent capability, the maintenance of regional peace will be empty talk.

History tells us that it is dangerous to forget war. But while on the one hand, we should deploy the military facilities necessary for national defense on our islands and reefs in the South China Sea. On the other hand, there should be more civilian facilities than military ones, it should be emphasized their function is to provide public services for all countries, by providing meteorological observation and facilitating maritime and aviation safety and ocean rescues. The Chinese government has emphasized repeatedly that after being built, the islands and reefs will offer related public security products and services to the region and countries to assist the international community in anti-terrorism and anti-piracy efforts and jointly maintain the South China Sea's peace and stability.

Fairer governance of cyberspace

Likewise, Chinese military-civilian integration pursues peace and order in cyberspace. Global nontraditional security threats represented by cyberspace security are increasingly prominent, and cyberspace has become a new domain for national security and a battlefront determining the outcome of wars. However, some developed countries monopolize international cyberspace governance with overwhelming technological advantages, keep strengthening their military cyberspace capabilities and are escalating the risk of global cyberspace confrontation, while all countries with less developed cyberspace capabilities face common challenges such as online ideological infiltration, cybercrimes, network attacks, and intelligence theft. As President Xi Jinping has said: Cyberspace should be in the hands of all countries, which should work together to jointly build a community with a shared future in cyberspace. China with the largest population of internet users in the world should contribute to maintaining global cyberspace peace, and seek to break the monopoly of global cyberspace governance. In the face of the constantly growing cyber security threats, only by taking military-civilian integration as leverage to fully upgrade China's cyberspace security defense system and actively strengthen its voice in global cyberspace governance will it be able to encourage the building of a democratic and transparent global cyberspace governance order.

Support for national rejuvenation

Chinese military-civilian integration will adhere to the ultimate goal of building and maintaining a community with a shared future for mankind. China advocates building an open, inclusive, clean and beautiful community with a shared future for mankind. A community that enjoys lasting peace, universal security and common prosperity is the historical trend and the changing world situation. China will steadily realize the dual goals of making the country prosperous and making the military strong, so it can share the dividends of peace and development with the world, and shoulder its duties and responsibilities as a major power, actively and appropriately strengthen its ability to solve international conflict through peaceful and just means and unswervingly contribute to building a community with a shared future for mankind. This is not only the goal pursued in the course of national rejuvenation, but also the faith in peace cherished by the Chinese nation as a member of the community of nations forever.

The author is a researcher with China Society of Administrative Reform.Mexico's Finaccess Capital has offered $881.5 million - a 24 percent premium - to buy three-quarters of Restaurant Brands New Zealand.

The fast-food franchise operator put off paying an interim dividend when announcing today's first-half result, saying it's received a non-binding partial takeover offer from the Mexican company. The $9.45 a share offer is a premium to the $7.60 close yesterday and more than the record $8.15 the company hit in June. The bid values Restaurant Brands at $1.18 billion.

The New Zealand company's board, chaired by Ted van Arkel, who plans to step down next year, recommends shareholders wait until a formal offer is received and a target company statement issued. It said the indicative offer would be adjusted for any dividend payment, so the board hasn't declared an interim payment, but may consider one at a later date.

"There is no guarantee at this stage that agreement will be reached or that Finaccess will advance the proposal to the point where a takeover notice is issued," the company said.

Finaccess Capital's interests include AmRest Holdings, which operates KFC, Pizza Hut, Burger King and Starbucks outlets across Europe and China. Restaurant Brands holds the franchise for KFC, Pizza Hut, and Carl's Jr in New Zealand, and operates KFC franchises in Australia. It also runs Taco Bell and Pizza Hut stores in Hawaii and wants to expand to the US mainland.

Any deal would need approval from the Overseas Investment Office and Yum! Brands, which owns the KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell brands.

Auckland-based Restaurant Brands also reported a net profit of $20.4 million in the 28 weeks ended Sept. 10, up from $19.1 million a year earlier. It affirmed guidance for annual profit of $43 million to $45 million, including the looming sale of its 22 New Zealand Starbucks Coffee stores.

Restaurant Brands' 94 New Zealand KFC stores remain the earnings driver, accounting for $37 million of the group's $69.2 million of earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation. KFC margins held up at 20.6 percent from 20.7 percent, with product promotions and a new delivery service for some stores boosting sales.

Pizza Hut New Zealand ebitda dropped 30 percent to $1.5 million as the company sold stores to independent franchisees. Margins shrank due to increased wages from the hike in minimum wages. Carl's Jr stores boosted earnings 28 percent to $700,000 as the company shifted its strategy from driving sales through discounts.

The Australian unit boosted earnings 43 percent to $14 million, largely on new store acquisitions. The Hawaiian operations contributed $12.8 million of earnings from the more profitable Taco Bell stores.

(BusinessDesk)

Comments from our readers

No comments yet

Add your comment:

Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process.

Related News:

Vital Healthcare Property Trust (NZX: VHP) Announces First Quarter Results

Geneva Finance Limited (NZX: GFL) NZX RESPONSE

Geneva Finance Limited (NZX: GFL) Public Censure of Geneva Finance Limited

Plexure Group Limited (NZX: PX1) Plexure transformation, interim results and growth

17th November 2021 Morning Report

Move Logistics Group Limited (NZ: MOV) Completion of Retail Bookbuild; Conclusion of Capital Raise

Move Logistics Group Limited (NZX: MOV) Completion of Retail Entitlement Offer

16th November 2021 Morning Report

Investore Property Limited (NZX: IPL) Interim Results HY22

Napier Port Holdings Limited (NZX: NPH) 2021 Full Year Results

With the issue of women of all age groups being allowed into the Lord Ayyappa temple taking a political turn, the BJP and Congress have extended support to devotees who are protesting against the Communist Party of India-Marxist-led Left Democratic Front governments decision to implement the verdict and not file a review petition.

: As agitating devotees took to the streets in large numbers over the Sabarimala issue, the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress on Wednesday joined their stir at Pamba and Nilackal, the entry points to the hill shrine.

The base camps of Pamba and Nilackal witnessed intensified protests as the Lord Ayyappa temple opens for the five-day monthly pooja on Wednesday evening, for the first time after the landmark top court verdict.

The Left front government termed the agitation as politically motivated and said it would be met politically.

Police evicted members of tantri (head priest) family, including elderly women, and the Pandalam royals who were protesting at Pamba, reciting Ayyappa mantras.

After their eviction, a group of BJP leaders began the namajapa (prayer) meet at the same venue.

BJP state general secretaries, K Surendran, M T Ramesh and Shobha Surendran were among those who led the prayer meet.

They alleged that the police removed the members of the traditional tantri and royal families without any provocation.

BJP state president Sreedharan Pillai observed a fast at the district headquarter, Pathanamthitta, as part of the saffron partys second phase of agitation on the Sabarimala issue.

Thousands of party activists had marched to the state Secretariat in Thiruvananthapuram on October 15 against the LDF governments decision to implement the court verdict disregarding sentiments of devotees.

State Congress working president K Sudhakaran led party workers in the protest at Nilackal to express solidarity with believers.

State Devaswom Minister, Kadakampally Surendran, who held a review meeting at Sannidhanam (temple complex) on the three-month-long Mandalam-Makaravilakku-festival beginning from November 17, said the government would face the agitation politically.

The government is only implementing the court order, he told reporters at the Sannidhanam.

He also alleged that the BJP-RSS was trying to create tension in the state and destroy the peaceful atmosphere for political gains.

We know very well the agenda of RSS and BJP, he said adding the LDF government had no intention to have any confrontation with the believers.

The minister also condemned the alleged attack on media personnel.

Vijayan on Tuesday had stated that there was an attempt to destroy the secular mind of people of Kerala in the name of Sabarimala issue.

He had also criticised the Congress and said the party had joined hands with the RSS and BJP in the agitation.UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet is urging Saudi Arabia and Turkey to reveal everything they know about the disappearance and possible extrajudicial killing of a prominent Saudi journalist. Jamal Khashoggi was last seen entering, but not exiting, the Saudi consulate in Istanbul two weeks ago.

While Khashoggi disappeared Oct. 2, it was not until Monday that Turkish forensic investigators were allowed to search the Saudi consulate.

Bachelet has welcomed this move, but says more is needed. She is urging both Saudi Arabia and Turkey to conduct a prompt, thorough and transparent investigation into Khashoggis disappearance.

The UN Rights chief says she wants the diplomatic immunity that was bestowed by the 1963 Vienna Convention to be waived for all Saudi officials. The commissioner's spokesman, Rupert Colville, tells VOA that Bachelet wants to make sure a full unimpeded forensic investigation can go forward.

"We hope the lifting of immunity is absolute, so they can investigate everything they wish to and everything they feel they need to, both in the consulate, in the consul general's premises, in the vehicles that were shown on the CCTV footage, and so on," said Colville. "So, basically the investigators need to be able to investigate everything they wish to."The 193-member UN General Assembly on Tuesday allowed the Palestinians to act more like a full UN member state during meetings in 2019, when they will chair the group of 77 developing nations.

The United States, Israel and Australia voted against the move, which won 146 votes in favor. There were 15 abstentions and 29 countries didn't vote.

"We cannot support efforts by the Palestinians to enhance their status outside of direct negotiations. The United States does not recognize that there is a Palestinian state," U.S. Deputy UN Ambassador Jonathan Cohen told the General Assembly.

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.

"We strongly oppose the Palestinians' election as chair of the G77 as well as this so-called enabling resolution," he said. "Only UN member states should be entitled to speak and act on behalf of major groups of states at the United Nations."The dates of the session will be finalised by the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs which is expected to meet in the next fortnight, they said.

: The winter session of Parliament is likely to start from the second week of December, just after the Rajasthan assembly elections on December 7, highly-placed sources said on Tuesday.

The discussions are on to decide the length of the session and it may end in the second week of January, the sources said.

The winter session assumes significance as an ordinance for the much talked about Triple Talaq Bill is on the Centre's legislative agenda. The bill has already been passed by the Lok Sabha. Besides, the ordinance for disbanding the Medical Council of India is also on the list.

In 2017, the winter session was held from December 15 to January 5.

The government is keen on repeating the success of this year's monsoon session, which was one of the most productive sessions of the Lok Sabha in 18 years.

The session, which began from July 18 and ended on August 10, had witnessed a no-trust vote in the Lok Sabha and a floor test in the Rajya Sabha over the election of the deputy chairman.Almost a week after Hurricane Michael devastated the Florida Panhandle, Mexico Beach Mayor Al Cathey said two more deaths had been confirmed in the small seaside town.

Cathey said Tuesday that the victims were a man and a woman who lived in separate homes and had not evacuated. He did not give the victims' names or say how they died.

The announcement brought to 12 the number of people killed in Bay County, which includes Mexico Beach and another hard-hit town, Panama City.

The county took a direct hit from Hurricane Michael, one of the most intense hurricanes to ever hit the United States. According to the Associated Press, the storm death toll stood at 16 in Florida and 10 combined in Virginia, Georgia and North Carolina.

Life in the hard-hit areas improved drastically as widespread cellphone service returned Tuesday for the first time since the storm. Residents began to return to the devastated town in search of anything that could help them rebuild their lives.

"We really don't know our plan. We just came to take a first look of the house, analyze and maybe come up with a long-term plan, hopefully," Joseph Bran of Mexico Beach said as he searched through the debris of his home.

Another Mexico Beach resident looked on the bright side. "I love it here, the sunset is beautiful, and the Gulf of Mexico got the best fishes of the world," Scott Collins said.

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(0x7f3fdce7b1f8)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 951 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fdce309d8)', '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(0x7f3fdce7b1f8)') 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(0x7f3fdce309d8)') 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(0x7f3fdce87f40)') 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(0x7f3fdce309d8)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fdce309d8)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fdc566e08)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fdce65138)') called at (eval 487) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fdce65138)') 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(0x7f3fdce843b0)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 951 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fdce133d8)', '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(0x7f3fdce843b0)') 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(0x7f3fdce133d8)') 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(0x7f3fdce321e8)') 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(0x7f3fdce133d8)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fdce133d8)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fdc565148)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fdce65338)') called at (eval 487) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fdce65338)') called at -e line 0 eval {...} at -e line 0The bodies of five Korean climbers who were killed in a freak snowstorm on a Himalayan mountain last weekend are back in Korea.

The bodies arrived at Incheon International Airport on a flight from Nepal on early Wednesday morning.By Amandeep Singh

political commentator

Special to The Post

Kennedy Stewart early experiences have him informed him and provided him with the empathy to understand how hard it is to be a newcomer to Vancouver. After his family went bankrupt and lost everything, Stewart moved to Vancouver in 1989 with only the $100 in his pocket that his grandmother had given him. Stewart worked hard doing whatever was available to make ends meet. He delivered beer, worked at a printing press and used the money he made to pay his way through school. He finished his formal education with a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics and went on to serve as a member of parliament with the NDP under Jack Layton.

For Stewart, the challenges of his early life and his formative years in Vancouver shaped his politics. As an MP, he listened to his constituents who urged him to fight the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion. Stewart was among the first federal politicians to take action against the pipeline and worked for seven years to stop it and protect our coast and our environment from the prospect of a catastrophic oil spill.

He also fought to save hundreds of coop housing units in Burnaby, helping to secure the federal funding needed and keeping hundreds of families in secure, affordable housing.

His goal is to take the experience that he has gained as a federal politician and help make Vancouver a city that works for everyone.

Stewarts early days in Vancouver were challenging, but they were also an example of why we need more affordable housing. Today, very few people can afford to come to Vancouver, let alone people with only $100 to their name. He was able to work odd jobs, save his money, and still afford his rent. Thats not the case anymore. More and more young people and families are moving away from Vancouver because they cant afford a home in Vancouver anymore. He wants that to stop.

Stewarts plan for Vancouver includes building 25,000 new affordable rental homes run by nonprofits that would be targeted to households making $80,000 a year or less. He also wants to see 25,000 market rentals and 35,000 houses for purchase built over the next 10 years. To do this, hes promising to remove the backlog of permitting at city hall and make it faster for small and medium-sized developers to get their projects approved.

He also sees a role for homeowners who want to redevelop their own properties into duplexes or triplexes, making it easier for more families to live on one lot and making homes more affordable for first-time buyers.

Stewarts plan will help improve the vacancy rate which will put downward pressure on rents and help more families stay in the communities that they love. It will also aid businesses of all sizes to attract and retain employees and help stabilize our local economy. Stewart told me that on a recent visit to a coffee shop on Commercial Drive, he noticed that the shop was busy but had only one person working behind the counter. That person turned out to be the owner who told Stewart that two employees had quit earlier in the morning because they couldnt pay their rent and were planning to leave the city. The owner offered them both raises of $5 an hour, but it wasnt enough to keep them.

Affordable housing of the kind that Stewart is proposing is clearly essential for businesses if they are to survive. If people cant afford to live in the city, how will businesses find staff to hire?

This election has been an interesting one, and no matter what, well have a new mayor in charge. Kennedy Stewart is the only person in the race with the broad experience necessary. He will vigorously pursue his counterparts in Ottawa and in Victoria to fight for the funding that Vancouver needs. Hes already identified the Broadway SkyTrain expansion and affordable housing as two areas the city needs federal and provincial funding for.

Vancouver could be vastly different in ten years with Stewart as mayor. More affordable, more vibrant, and more connected than today.

Amandeep Singh is a Vancouver based political commentator.By Catherine Sas Q.C.,

October 16, 2018

As of October 17, 2018, cannabis will now be legal for recreational use in Canada. The new laws permit individuals to possess, use and grow cannabis - also commonly referred to as marijuana or pot. While recreational use of pot will now be permitted in Canada, there are still many restrictions that apply. What does this mean for people coming to Canada whether to visit, work, study or live permanently?

The Federal government has provided for the legal possession of marijuana as set out in the Cannabis Act. The Act provides that an individual 18 years of age or older, may possess up to 30 grams of licit or legal cannabis and no more than four plants for cultivation. An individual can not possess ANY illicit cannabis, nor any budding plant in a public place. Trafficking, importation, distribution, and production of cannabis for individuals are all prohibited except as described above. So, an adult is restricted as to how much cannabis they can lawfully possess and grow in the comfort of their own private property. The Act further provides that the Provinces and Territories will be responsible for determining how cannabis is sold in their jurisdictions and they have the added authority to set further restrictions such as:

* lowering the limits from lawful possession to less than 30 grams;

* increasing the minimum age for lawful possession to above 18 years of age;

* restricting the locations for personal use; and

* making further requirements for growing plants for personal use.

This means that individuals need to be aware of what the applicable laws are in each province or territory that they may be living in or visiting to ensure that the use of cannabis is permitted in that jurisdiction.

It is important to be aware of the difference between licit and illicit marijuana. Possession or cultivation of licit (legal) marijuana is permitted whereas possession or cultivation of illicit (illegal) marijuana will still attract criminal penalties. Transport of cannabis, even medically prescribed cannabis, across international borders remains illegal. In most countries, possession of cannabis remains illegal and subject to a criminal conviction. Bringing legal marijuana into Canada from another country is not permitted nor is bringing legal Canadian marijuana into another country. While possession of cannabis for personal use is now permitted in Canada, carrying it across an international border is not and can result in either a Canadian or foreign criminal conviction. A criminal conviction or commission of an offence has serious consequences for both temporary residents (visitors, students, foreign workers) and permanent residents. A criminal conviction or a determination that a person has committed an offence (such as illegal possession in a foreign jurisdiction) can result in a person being found to being criminally inadmissible to Canada and denied entry for five years or more. It can also result in the loss of permanent residence status!

A further complication is the current legal status of cannabis possession or use in the United States. Several US states have legalized the personal use of marijuana including border states such as Alaska, Washington, and Vermont. However, marijuana remains a prohibited drug in the US and possession of cannabis constitutes a federal criminal offence as does transporting it across the border. Whether purchasing lawful pot in British Columbia or in Washington State, bringing it across the border is illegal. Furthermore, the US government considers the possession or use of illicit drugs to be a crime of moral turpitude and border officials can impose a lifetime ban of entry into the United States. Even admitting to ever having used cannabis can result in being barred entry into the US - for life!

While the laws in Canada for the use of recreational marijuana have changed, there is still a lot to be determined. Cannabis users are advised to proceed cautiously. Here are a few guidelines:

NEVER bring ANY form of cannabis across any international border.

If you do bring cannabis into Canada, be sure to DECLARE it to CBSA.

Do NOT use or purchase cannabis in ANY foreign jurisdiction, even US states which permit cannabis use. It still is a federal offence in the United States and Canadian border officials can determine that you have committed an offence and deny you entry to Canada - for more than 5 years.

Be sure that you are familiar with the laws for using cannabis in any province or territory that you are visiting.

Never give or share cannabis with anyone under the age of 18.

Catherine Sas, Q.C. has over 25 years of legal experience. She provides a full range of immigration services and is a leading immigration practitioner (Lexpert, Whos Who Legal, Best Lawyers in Canada). Go to canadian-visa-lawyer.com or email [email protected].The International Press Institute on Tuesday protested against the exclusion of a Chosun Ilbo reporter who is a North Korean defector from covering Monday's talks with North Korean officials.

The IPI in a letter to Cheong Wa Dae denounced the last-minute exclusion of Kim Myong-song from a pool of South Korean reporters as a "gross violation," but the Unification Ministry said it would do the same thing again.

"The exclusion of Kim appears to be an act of discrimination based on his reporting and the fact that he is a defector from North Korea," IPI executive director Barbara Trionfi said in the letter.

She added the ban "runs counter to the core principles of independent journalism. We fear that the government has set a new precedent, and, in the future, it would attempt to silence any journalist who is critical of North Korea or the talks between the two countries."

The IPI is a global network of editors, media executives and journalists. Kim settled in South Korea in 2002 and joined the Chosun Ilbo in 2013, where he has been assigned to cover the Unification Ministry. But the ministry apparently felt that sending a defector would be seen as a slap in the face by the North."We expect all member states to fully implement UN sanctions, including sectoral goods banned under UN Security Council resolution, and expect all nations to take their responsibilities seriously to help end [North Korea's] illegal nuclear and missile programs."

"The improvement of relations between North and South Korea cannot advance separately from resolving North Korea's nuclear program," the State Department told Radio Free Asia.

U.S. officials expressed alarm Tuesday about an inter-Korean agreement reached a day earlier to break ground on a project reconnecting severed cross-border railways and roads in late November or early December.

Joshua Stanton, a North Korea sanctions expert, said the re-linking of railways and roads would fall foul of Paragraph 18 of UNSC Resolution 2375 that bans joint ventures with the North. "If it is not approved by the UN Security Council..., then it's a violation of sanctions," he told RFA.

The U.S. Defense Department declined to comment on individual cases, but Pentagon spokesman Christopher Logan said the U.S.-helmed UN Command which oversees the demilitarized zone between the two Koreas "will ensure compliance with the armistice agreement and its implementation under current circumstances considering the spirits of the inter-Korean and Singapore summits."

The Asahi Shimbun daily's Seoul bureau chief, Yoshihiro Makino, told RFA that Seoul is being pushed by Pyongyang, which is protesting that inter-Korean economic cooperation would be meaningless if railways and roads were not be re-linked.

Seoul has warned Pyongyang that the projects would probably violate UN sanctions. But if U.S. President Donald Trump agrees before the end of the year to declare a formal end to the Korean War, there could also be progress in denuclearization and some sanctions could be eased.

Seoul persuaded Pyongyang that in this situation it would be better to hold only a ground-breaking ceremony this year and start actual work next year, Makino added.President Moon Jae-in in an article for the official Vatican newspaper on Tuesday pledged to turn division and confrontation on the Korean Peninsula into prosperity through peace.

"I hope exchange between the Vatican and North Korea will further increase," he wrote in L'Osservatore Romano. "I hope the Vatican too will pay special attention and support our efforts."

Moon was writing on the eve of his meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican on Thursday that will also see him deliver an invitation to North Korea from leader Kim Jong-un. His visit comes on the occasion of the 55th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Seoul and the Vatican.

"I and all my people hold dearly the pope's message that 'dialogue is the only solution in every conflict.' [We] will solemnly walk toward democracy, lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula and an inclusive nation," he wrote.

"I and [Kim] adopted the historic [joint declaration] in September in Pyongyang," Moon said, adding that the North has not conducted any further nuclear or missile tests, while South Korea and the U.S. have suspended massive joint exercises.Mattis to visit toxic Agent Orange site in Vietnam



Ho Chi Minh City, Oct 16 (AFP) Oct 16, 2018



The toxic legacy of the Vietnam War will come under the spotlight again Wednesday when US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis visits a former storage site for Agent Orange, which is blamed for birth defects and cancers among a million Vietnamese.

US forces used what is now the Bien Hoa airport outside Ho Chi Minh City as one of the main staging grounds for storing and deploying the poisonous defoliant that is feared to have seeped into ground water, rivers and the local food chain.

A carcinogenic dioxin byproduct of Agent Orange has affected multiple generations in Vietnam, most visibly in children whose severe mental and physical disabilities -- from enlarged heads to deformed limbs -- have been linked to the chemical.

Under a 10-year remediation effort led by development agency USAID, work is set to start next year on cleaning up the site that Mattis will visit Wednesday on his two-day tour of Ho Chi Minh City, the former capital of the US backed southern regime.

"I just want to get eyes on it so when I go back and I talk to Congress, I can tell them my impression with actually having seen the site," Mattis told reporters as he headed to Vietnam.

The pledge to clean up the site came under the administration of Barack Obama, and will cost some $390 million, officials said.

"We had promised to help... so this is America keeping her promise to remediate some of the past," added Mattis, whose older brother served in Vietnam during the war.

US forces sprayed 80 million litres (21 million gallons) of Agent Orange over South Vietnam between 1962 and 1971 in a desperate bid to flush out Viet Cong communist guerrillas by depriving them of tree cover and food.



- Operation Pacer Ivy -



Under a 1972 operation called Pacer Ivy, the US military began pulling Agent Orange from Vietnam for storage and disposal outside the country.

The site Mattis is inspecting was used in that operation, a US defence official said, noting that it is now quarantined.

Chuck Searcy, a US veteran who served in Vietnam 1967-68 and now lives in Hanoi, said he was happy Mattis was going to Bien Hoa and hoped it would lead to more funding for the dioxin clean up.

"His visit is important because it reflects a commitment on the part of the Department of Defense to be involved with this issue in a positive way," said Searcy, who works with Project RENEW which clears unexploded ordnance in Vietnam.

"A lot of us have been waiting for that to happen for quite a long time, so this is encouraging," he told AFP.

Ties between the former foes have warmed considerably since the end of the war and Washington is one of Hanoi's most important political and military allies and trading partners.

It is Mattis's second trip to Vietnam this year after a trip in January, which was followed by a historic visit by a US aircraft carrier in March, the first to Vietnam's shores since the war in a symbolic burying of the hatchet for both sides.

In addition to Bien Hoa, the US and Vietnamese have identified two other "dioxin hotspots" -- Danang and Phu Cat airbases. A project to clean up Danang is nearly complete.

Hanoi says up to three million Vietnamese people were exposed to Agent Orange, and that one million suffer grave health repercussions today, including at least 150,000 children with birth defects.

An attempt by Vietnamese victims to obtain compensation from the United States had little success, and the US Supreme Court in 2009 declined to take up the case.

American veterans have received billions of dollars for diseases linked to Agent Orange but neither the US government nor the chemical manufacturers ever admitted liability, and some say the US has not done enough.

"It's never enough. The US has been quite slow in this matter... the victims of Agent Orange must be cared for and given support to overcome their hardships," said Pham Chuong from the Vietnamese Association of Victims of Agent Orange.Japan protests China ships near disputed isles ahead of Abe visit



Tokyo, Oct 17 (AFP) Oct 17, 2018



Tokyo lodged an official protest with Beijing Wednesday after Chinese ships cruised around disputed islands, days before a historic summit between the leaders of the Asian rivals.

Japan's top government spokesman Yoshihide Suga called the intrusion "extremely regrettable" but said Tokyo was nonetheless hoping to "take Japan-China relations to the next level".

The complaint, which is only the latest in a string of similar protests, comes before Prime Minister Shinzo Abe heads to China next week for talks with President Xi Jinping.

The trip will be the first official visit to China by a Japanese leader in seven years, as Asia's two biggest economies take gradual steps to improve their tense relations, marred by bitter memories of the World War II.

Abe has only been to China for international events in recent years, with relations between the two nations deteriorating from 2012 when Tokyo "nationalised" some of the disputed islets.

Since then, the two top Asian economies have taken gradual steps to mend fences but relations remain tense.

China routinely dispatches its coastguard ships, and sometimes military vessels, to waters around the islands, which are called Senkaku by Japan and the Diaoyu islands by China.South Korea has suspended since April both live-fire drills of K-9 self-propelled howitzers and joint South Korea-U.S. marine drills on the northwesternmost islands off North Korea's coast in the West Sea.

The Chunmoo multiple rocket launchers with a range of about 80 km and Israeli-made Spike missiles with a range of 25 km have also not seen any practice since April although they have a vital role in countering North Korean artillery.

The two Koreas agreed at their summit in Pyongyang last month to suspend artillery drills in the buffer sea zone including the islands from November. But in fact they have already been suspended on the southern side of the border for six months in an attempt to pacify the North around the time of an inter-Korean summit in April.

Military insiders worry that the Northwest Islands Defense Command, which was established in 2011 to deal effectively with local provocations by the North like the previous year's shelling of Yeonpyeong Island, has effectively been incapacitated.

When the K-9 live-fire drills on the islands were suspended, soldiers traveled all the way to the mainland to train to fill the vacuum, a government source said Tuesday.Israel pounds Gaza after first rocket fire in weeks



Gaza City, Palestinian Territories, Oct 17 (AFP) Oct 17, 2018



Israeli warplanes pounded the Gaza Strip on Wednesday after the first rocket fire from the Palestinian territory in weeks hit an Israeli city, in a blow to efforts to avert a new war.

Gaza's Islamist rulers Hamas disavowed the rocket fire saying they rejected "all irresponsible attempts" to undermine Egyptian efforts to broker a new long-term truce.

But Israel, which holds Hamas responsible for all rocket fire from the territory regardless of who launches it, struck 20 targets in Gaza, killing one Palestinian, according to the Hamas-run health ministry

Israel also closed both its border crossings with Gaza in reprisal, further isolating the blockaded enclave where deteriorating living conditions have stoked violent protests along the border.

Gaza militants fired two rockets before dawn, one of which caused major damage to a family home in the southern city of Beersheba, 40 kilometres (25 miles) away, the Israeli army said.

The family of three children narrowly escaped injury after their mother moved them into the safe room, with much of the rest of the house destroyed, the army said.

"At 4 am (0100 GMT), Israelis in the city of Beersheba were running to bomb shelters after a rocket was launched from the Gaza Strip at Israel," the army tweeted.

"We will defend Israeli civilians," it added.

The other rocket came down in the sea off Tel Aviv, 70 kilometres (45 miles) from Gaza, the army said.



- 'Full responsibility' -



The Islamists and allied militant group condemned the latest rocket fire as "irresponsible".

But Israeli military spokesman Jonathan Conricus rejected the disavowal, saying Hamas bore "full responsibility" as Gaza's de facto ruler.

He said retaliatory strikes had hit 20 targets, including a Hamas attack tunnel and an "advanced weapons manufacturing site."

One Palestinian the army said was preparing a rocket launch was killed in northern Gaza.

At least three other Palestinians were wounded in the strikes, the Gaza health ministry said.

Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman ordered the closure of both of Israel's border crossings with Gaza in reprisal, making the heavily restricted Rafah crossing with Egypt the enclave's sole gateway to the outside world.

Lieberman also ordered the reduction of the permitted fishing zone off the Gaza coast to three nautical miles, the defence ministry body responsible for Palestinian civil affairs, COGAT, said.

Lieberman already suspended deliveries of fuel that had been trucked daily into Gaza under a deal brokered by the United Nations.

It had seen thousands of litres (gallons) of fuel paid for by Qatar delivered to generate desperately needed power in the impoverished territory.



- 'Dangerous escalation' -



Hamas has fought three wars with Israel since 2008 and fears of a fourth have spurred efforts by Egypt and the United Nations for a wider deal that would see Israel ease its blockade in exchange for a long-term truce with the Islamists.

During a meeting with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin on Wednesday, UN envoy Nickolay Mladenov called the latest rocket launches a "dangerous escalation."

"Unfortunately, they fit a pattern of provocations that seek to bring Israel and Gaza into another deadly conflict and confrontation," he said, pledging to work with all sides to avert one.

Rivlin said there could be no easing of the blockade while Israelis remained under threat of rocket attack.

"So long as the missiles and the provocation continue on, there is no chance of easing the suffering of the people of Gaza," he said.

Rivlin praised the fast reaction of Israelis in Beersheba, saying the mother's actions saved her family's lives.

The United Nations says Israel's 11-year blockade has resulted in a "catastrophic" humanitarian situation in Gaza.

Its two million residents endure routine power cuts and a chronic shortage of safe drinking water, and more than two-thirds are dependent on international aid.

The latest flare-up comes after months of Palestinian protests along the Gaza border that have drawn a deadly response from Israeli troops.

The protesters have been demanding an end to Israel's blockade and the right of return to land now inside Israel, from which their families were expelled or fled during the 1948 war that accompanied its creation.

At least 207 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since the protests began on March 30.

One Israeli soldier has been killed by Palestinian sniper fire over the same period.Beijing ready to improve soured American military ties: US



Singapore, Oct 17 (AFP) Oct 17, 2018



Beijing appears ready to normalise its interactions with the American military, a US defence official said Wednesday, after relations soured during a sanctions spat and trade war.

Randall Schriver, the Pentagon's assistant secretary of defence for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs, said Defence Secretary Jim Mattis is set to meet his Chinese counterpart General Wei Fenghe in Singapore on Thursday at a regional security summit.

A meeting between the two men had initially been scheduled to take place in Beijing last weekend, but it fell through after China declined to make Wei available.

"I think the fact that (Mattis is now) meeting with Minister Wei is some evidence that the Chinese are interested in keeping things normal and stable -- as are we," Schriver told reporters travelling with Mattis.

"What we have heard in our dialogue is the Chinese are interested in having a military relationship that's a stabilising force in the overall relationship."

China reacted angrily after Washington last month imposed sanctions following Beijing's purchase of Russian fighter jets and missiles, and a close encounter between warships in the South China Sea raised the spectre of a military mishap between the two nuclear powers.

Beijing's actions, which followed the imposition of the sanctions, included scrapping a planned port visit of a US warship to Hong Kong and cancelling a meeting between the head of the Chinese navy and his American counterpart.

Defence ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are meeting in Singapore to discuss a range of regional security concerns.

Front and centre is China's military build-up in the South China Sea and its sweeping claims of sovereignty across the economically vital waters.

In an incident the Pentagon decried as "unsafe and unprofessional", a Chinese warship last month sailed within just 45 yards (41 meters) of a US destroyer as it passed by Beijing-claimed features in the South China Sea, forcing the American vessel to take evasive action.

The US periodically conducts such "freedom of navigation" operations to challenge China's claims over international waters.

Schriver said Mattis would be encouraging other countries in the region to assert a presence in the areas which Beijing claims.

"Our message will be no single country can change international law, international norms," he said.

"We will fly sail and operate where international law allows but we are also looking for partners to give voice to keeping ... international law ... upheld."

Still, he stressed the importance of maintaining clear communication with the Chinese military.

"We need to make sure that when we step on one another's toes it doesn't escalate into something that would be catastrophic," he said.US serviceman among two killed in Ukrainian fighter jet crash



Kiev, Oct 17 (AFP) Oct 17, 2018



Ukraine's military and the US Air Force said Wednesday that a US serviceman was one of the two pilots killed in a fighter jet crash during military exercises.

The two pilots were aboard a Ukrainian Sukhoi-27 plane when it came down on Tuesday afternoon in the south-west of Ukraine during exercises dubbed Clear Sky 2018.

"The bodies of the pilots have been found, the crew commander was Colonel Ivan Petrenko," the Air Force command of Ukraine's Armed Forces said on its Facebook account.

"The second crew member was a member of the United States National Guard Air Force," it added in an updated report on Wednesday.

US Air Forces in Europe and Africa said on its website that the unnamed American was a member of the 144th Fighter Wing of the California Air National Guard. He was taking part in a "single-aircraft familiarisation flight with a Ukrainian counterpart".

"This is a sad day for the United States and Ukraine," said US Major General Clay Garrison, the director of Clear Sky exercise.

Ukrainian investigators on Wednesday were busy probing the circumstances of the crash.

"The interrogation of witnesses regarding the circumstances of the departure of the board, its technical condition at the time of departure is under way," Ukraine's military prosecutor's office said in a statement.

Clear Sky 2018 began on October 8 in Khmelnytskyi and Vinnytsia regions and runs until Friday. The drills involve 950 personnel from nine nations, including the US, Ukraine, and several European countries.

They involve US fighter and transport planes training with about 30 Ukrainian aircraft.

The drills are held amid the simmering war between Ukrainian government forces and Russian-backed separatists in the east of the country which has already claimed more than 10,000 lives.

Ukraine and its Western allies have accused Russia of funnelling troops and arms across the border. Moscow has denied the claims despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

dg-ma/dcrIsrael strikes Gaza after first rocket fire in weeks



Gaza City, Palestinian Territories, Oct 17 (AFP) Oct 17, 2018



Israeli warplanes struck the Gaza Strip on Wednesday after the first rocket fire from the Palestinian territory in weeks hit an Israeli city, in a blow to efforts to avert a new war.

Gaza's Islamist rulers Hamas disavowed the rocket fire, saying they rejected "all irresponsible attempts" to undermine Egyptian efforts to broker a new long-term truce.

But Israel, which holds Hamas responsible for all rocket fire from the territory regardless of who launches it, struck 20 targets in Gaza, killing one Palestinian, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Israel also closed both its border crossings with Gaza in reprisal, further isolating the blockaded enclave where deteriorating living conditions have stoked violent protests along the border.

Gaza militants fired two rockets before dawn, one of which caused major damage to a family home in the southern city of Beersheba, 40 kilometres (25 miles) away, the Israeli army said.

The family of three children narrowly escaped injury after their mother moved them into the safe room, with much of the rest of the house destroyed, the army said.

"At 4 am (0100 GMT), Israelis in the city of Beersheba were running to bomb shelters after a rocket was launched from the Gaza Strip at Israel," the army tweeted.

The other rocket came down in the sea off Tel Aviv, 70 kilometres (45 miles) from Gaza, the army said.

Speaking after meeting with senior security officials Wednesday afternoon, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged a forceful response.

"Israel views with utmost gravity the attacks against it on the fence, on the area adjacent to the Gaza Strip, on Beersheba -- everywhere," he said, referencing months of often violent protests in Gaza.

"If the attacks don't stop, we'll stop them. I want to tell you today -- Israel will take very strong action."



- 'Full responsibility' -



Hamas and allied militant group Islamic Jihad condemned the latest rocket fire as "irresponsible".

But Israeli military spokesman Jonathan Conricus rejected the disavowal, saying Hamas bore "full responsibility" as Gaza's de facto ruler.

Retaliatory strikes had hit 20 targets, including a Hamas attack tunnel and an "advanced weapons manufacturing site", he said.

They killed one Palestinian in northern Gaza who the army said was set to launch a rocket.

The military released a video showing a man near the border preparing a rocket for launch before being hit by a missile strike.

At least three other Palestinians were wounded in the strikes, the Gaza health ministry said.

Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman ordered the closure of both of Israel's border crossings with Gaza in reprisal, making the heavily restricted Rafah crossing with Egypt the enclave's sole gateway to the outside world.

Lieberman also ordered the reduction of the permitted fishing zone off the Gaza coast to three nautical miles from six, his ministry said.

Lieberman already suspended deliveries of fuel that had been trucked daily into Gaza under a deal brokered by the United Nations.

It had seen thousands of litres (gallons) of fuel paid for by Qatar delivered to generate desperately needed power in the impoverished territory.



- 'Dangerous escalation' -



Hamas has fought three wars with Israel since 2008 and fears of a fourth have spurred efforts by Egypt and the United Nations for a wider deal that would see Israel ease its blockade in exchange for a long-term truce with the Islamists.

During a meeting with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin on Wednesday, UN envoy Nickolay Mladenov called the latest rocket launches a "dangerous escalation".

"Unfortunately, they fit a pattern of provocations that seek to bring Israel and Gaza into another deadly conflict and confrontation," he said, pledging to work with all sides to avert one.

The International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor said Wednesday she was closely following the situation and "will not hesitate to take any appropriate action".

Fatou Bensouda said in a statement from The Hague-based court that she was "alarmed by the continued violence, perpetrated by actors on both sides, at the Gaza border with Israel."

Rivlin said there could be no easing of the blockade while Israelis remained under threat of rocket attack.

"So long as the missiles and the provocation continue on, there is no chance of easing the suffering of the people of Gaza," he said.

Rivlin praised the fast reaction of Israelis in Beersheba, saying the mother had saved her family.

The UN says Israel's 11-year blockade has resulted in a "catastrophic" humanitarian situation in Gaza.

Its two million residents endure routine power cuts and a chronic shortage of safe drinking water, and more than two-thirds are dependent on international aid.

The latest flare-up comes after months of Palestinian protests along the Gaza border that have drawn a deadly response from Israeli troops.

The protesters have been demanding an end to Israel's blockade and the right of return to land now inside Israel, from which their families were expelled or fled during the 1948 war that accompanied its creation.

At least 207 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since the protests began on March 30.

One Israeli soldier has been killed by Palestinian sniper fire over the same period.Tunisian fighter jet crashes into sea, pilot unharmed



Tunis, Oct 17 (AFP) Oct 17, 2018



A Tunisian fighter jet crashed into the Mediterranean Sea during an exercise Wednesday but its pilot was unharmed, the defence ministry said.

The F-5 jet disappeared from radar screens as it flew off the coast of Bizerte in northern Tunisia during a training exercise involving 10 Mediterranean states.

The pilot, who had ejected, was unharmed and was rescued by a Tunisian helicopter, defence ministry spokesman Mohamed Zekri told AFP.

Two Italian helicopters also took part in the search, the Italian defence ministry said.

The joint exercises are aimed at testing surveillance and air defence systems in the western Mediterranean as well as improving the coordination of air operations, it added.

Tunisia's air force this month also held its first ever joint exercises with Saudi forces.President Moon Jae-in has told French President Emmanuel Macron that North Korea's denuclearization needs to be stimulated further by easing UN sanctions if the North's measures to scrap its nuclear program are believed to have reached an irreversible level.

But North Korea has not remotely reached a point where denuclearization is irreversible. It has not even started. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un flatly refused to give the U.S. even a partial inventory of its nuclear facilities and stockpiles when visiting U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pleaded with him, and instead demanded that the U.S. officially declare an end to the Korean War to "build trust."

The first step to denuclearization must be reporting all nuclear facilities and fissile materials, because how else will anyone know whether North Korea is scrapping anything? This is a no-brainer. Yet the North is vehemently protesting before taking even the first step, claiming that the demand is tantamount to "mafia-like tactics."

Yet the South Korean president labors under the delusion that North Korea's denuclearization has progressed significantly. During his summit last month with U.S. President Donald Trump, Moon even said the Norths denuclearization had almost reached an "irreversible" level already. U.S. nuclear experts, by contrast, say Pyongyang's gestures so far -- dismantling a moribund nuclear test site in Punggye-ri and a static missile launch pad it no longer needs -- do not qualify as denuclearization at all.

Moon hopes that North Korea's denuclearization can reach an irreversible level in a few months and is going around the world asking global leaders to stimulate the process by easing sanctions. Macron quite rightly brushed him off, saying sanctions must continue until "concrete denuclearization steps are taken."

The first paragraph of a joint statement released after the Moon-Macron summit duly calls for "complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization" by North Korea. Even the U.S. is reluctant to use these terms because the North bristles at any mention of the acronym "CVID," Macron seems to have insisted on including it.

Moon's government likes to make it look as if the U.S. is not showing any flexibility. But the international community stands united in the view that sanctions must remain in place until concrete steps are taken because that is the only way the North can be pressured to scrap its nuclear weapons. Moon needs to take a close look at his policies and determine whether they are helping or harming such international efforts.

Optimization

Are you frustrated with a slow pc or a hard disk not performing as it should?

Try SLOW-PCfighter to speed up boot time on a slow PC, or try a free scan of FULL-DISKfighter to recover space on a full disk. The latest offering is DRIVERfighter to update your driver updater. Get complete PC optimization and extend the life of your PC with these must-have software tools.New York, Oct 17, 2018 (SPS)  Permanent Mission of The United Federal Republic of Nigeria to the United Nation, DR. Ibrahim Modibbo Umar has expressed his country support to the efforts being made by the African Union troika in addressing the issue of Western Sahara. Nigeria also supports the process of negotiations initiated by the UN Security Council on Western Sahara at the general assembly debate of the fourth committee on general debate on decolonization (items 59-63)

The Nigerian diplomat has also commended the efforts being made by the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the Personal Envoy of the Secretary-General for Western Sahara, Horst Kiihler in conducting both formal and informal meetings and negotiations on Western Sahara.

Nigeria has been fully supportive over the years of all efforts to resolve the Western Sahara problem, and thereby strengthen the strong bonds of kinship within the continent. We look forward to a better and more assured outcome of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO). Ibrahim Modibbo Umar syas in his intervention SPS

125/090/TRAAn Independent panel will look at how funding supports the needs of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The Secretary of State announced that an independent advisory panel will look at what factors should determine the distribution of agriculture funding between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in this Parliament.

This will consider each countrys individual circumstances, including environmental, agricultural and socio-economic factors. Farm numbers and farm sizes will also be taken into account to make sure all parts of the UK are treated fairly.

The review, led by Lord Bew of Donegore, will provide recommendations for how the annual amount of convergence funding is fairly split between the four countries in the remainder of this Parliament once the UK has left the Common Agricultural Policy. It will be informed by previous allocations but will not revisit these decisions or redistribute money that has already been committed.

Lord Bew was Chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life for five years and has contributed to a number of Bills, reviews and reports since his appointment as a non-party-political peer by the independent House of Lords Appointments Commission in February 2007. He will be joined on the panel by representatives from each devolved administration to ensure that their voices are heard.

The government is also committing that it will not simply apply the Barnett formula to changes in Defra funding beyond this Parliament. This means that farmers in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland will not just be allocated funding according to the population size of each nation, which are in each case significantly smaller than England.

The Government has already confirmed that overall funding for UK farm support will be protected in cash terms to the end of the Parliament in 2022, providing more certainty than any other EU member state.

Environment Secretary Michael Gove said:

This important review, led by Lord Bew, will explore how we can deliver funding for farmers that supports the individual needs of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

We are committed to making sure that future funding is fairly allocated, and are also confirming that the Government wont simply apply the Barnett formula to Defras funding beyond this parliament.How Pudong rose from the shadows

From:ChinaDaily | 2018-10-17 09:16

Once seen as the poor relation of Puxi, the Shanghai district quickly grew into a financial powerhouse

Pudong - literally "east of Huangpu River" - is Shanghai's growth engine and a shining symbol of China's modernization. Yet 40 years ago, when the nation launched reform and opening-up, the area was mostly farmland.

Although only a short hop across the river, locals had little interest in Pudong as it was far less developed than Puxi, which was already a thriving industrial center.

That all changed in April 1990, when the State Council, China's Cabinet, announced plans to develop Pudong into a dynamic new area. Today, the district accounts for 20 percent of the city's land, 25 percent of its population and a third of its GDP, according to official data.

Pudong New Area's GDP reached 965.1 billion yuan ($139.36 billion) last year - up from 6 billion yuan in 1990 - while its per capita disposable income was 60,715 yuan, higher than Shanghai's average of 58,988 yuan.

Weng Zuliang, the district's Party secretary, said the rapid development from boondocks to boomtown can be divided into three stages.

The initial stage, he said, ran from 1990 to 2000, when Pudong witnessed many firsts: the first finance and trading zone, the first export processing zone, the first bonded area, the first foreign-funded bank, and the first foreign-invested insurance company.

Jin Liwang, a photographer who lived in Shanghai between 1996 and 2006, recalled that most of the high-rises that now fill Pudong's skyline did not exist when he first arrived at Shanghai's Shiliupu Wharf.

"When I was accepted as an undergraduate student at Fudan University, 22 years ago, I had to take an overnight boat to Shanghai from Ningbo, Zhejiang province," he said, adding that in the early 2000s, the city's busy deep-water Yangshan Port was still just a shoal for fishermen.

The former mud flat now boasts the world's largest automated container terminal, with a designed capacity of 6.3 million twenty-foot equivalent units, or TEUs, the standard container measurement. It forms part of Shanghai Port, the world's largest container port.

Weng said the second development stage was between 2000 and 2012. During that time, Pudong seized the opportunities that arose from China's ascension to the World Trade Organization in 2001 and hosted the 2010 World Expo.

The district entered a third period of opening-up and innovation-driven development in 2013 when it launched China's first free trade zone, which aimed to build Shanghai into an international center for finance, shipping, trade and technological innovation, the Party chief said.

Since the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone was expanded in April 2015, the Lujiazui financial area in Pudong has seen fruitful results in opening the nation's finance sector to the world.

Jiang Tai Reinsurance Brokers was founded there in December 2015. In addition to being China's first reinsurance company, it was also the first financial institution to obtain a business license before applying for an operating permit thanks to government efforts to cut red tape.

Lujiazui is home to Shengang Securities, founded in 2016, the first stock brokerage joint venture between the mainland and Hong Kong; COSCO Shipping Captive Insurance, the country's first shipping insurance company, launched in 2017; and China's first wholly foreign-owned nonprofit vocational training institute, established in 2016 by global professional service provider PricewaterhouseCoopers.

After central regulators announced plans to further open up the financial sector early this year, Shanghai has again made early inroads.

In late March, the city unveiled yuan-denominated crude oil futures contracts, the first open to overseas investors.

Willis Towers Watson, the risk management and insurance intermediary headquartered in London, also won approval on April 27 to expand its scope in Shanghai, meaning it can now carry out the same business as domestic insurers. It was the first company to benefit from the relaxation in policies governing foreign insurance firms.

"The goal has always been to build Luijiazui into a world-class financial hub," said Guo Zhiying, deputy director of the Shanghai FTZ's Lujiazui administrative bureau.

"The innovative results at the FTZ have become an important driver for regional economic development and helped improve the core competitiveness of Lujiazui."

The next couple of years will be key for Pudong as development of the FTZ and technological center is rolled out, said Hang Yingwei, deputy head of the district government.

He added that Shanghai aims to grow its GDP at an annual rate of 8 percent and reach per capita GDP of more than $30,000 by 2021.TO VIEW MORE NEWS STORY, PLEASE CLICK ON NEWS TAB ON MAIN MENU BARFactory pilfered high-tech trade secrets

From:Shanghai Daily | 2018-10-17 02:29

PROSECUTORS have filed charges against three men for allegedly stealing trade secrets from a local high-tech materials company.

Shanghai-based Nanosphere makes expandable microspheres, which can help to increase the stability of thermoplastic materials and reduce manufacturing costs.

In March 2013, Nanosphere signed a three-year contract with a factory in Taizhou City, Jiangsu Province, to make expandable microspheres based on its manufacturing technologies and raw materials, according to the No. 3 Branch of Shanghai Peoples Procuratorate.

Under the contract, the factory could not research expandable microspheres, sell it or any similar product.

But prosecutors alleged the factorys legal representative, surnamed Gu, and deputy general manager, surnamed Wang, conspired with a senior sales manager from Nanosphere, surnamed Chen, to set up an underground workshop.

Chen stole highly sensitive information about how to make expandable microspheres. He also stole a list of Nanospheres clients, prosecutors said.

An investigation revealed the underground workshop made 452.95 tons of expandable microspheres which was sold for 11.44 million yuan (US$1.65 million). Gus factory made 1,001.25 tons of expandable microspheres which was sold for 41.87 million yuan.

From 2010 to 2018, Shanghai prosecutors have handled 26 cases of trade secret theft, but only nine were brought to court because of the difficulty of gathering evidence, according to the No. 3 Branch of Shanghai Peoples Procuratorate.

To better handle these cases, the branch yesterday hired seven experts in fields such as patent, trademark and copyright property.EQS Group-Ad-hoc: Ceva Logistics AG / Key word(s): Miscellaneous

CEVA Logistics announces increase in CMA CGM stake



17-Oct-2018 / 07:00 CET/CEST

Release of an ad hoc announcement pursuant to Art. 53 KR

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.





Baar, Switzerland, 17 October, 2018 - CEVA Logistics AG (the "Company") announces that CMA CGM S.A. ("CMA CGM") has purchased shares of the Company during the last few days so that the group consisting of the Company and CMA CGM currently holds a participation of 33% in the Company's shares. The Company and CMA CGM are deemed to be acting in concert due to the relationship agreement between the parties entered into in the context of the IPO.

The Company has further been informed that CMA CGM entered into a derivative transaction related to the shares of the Company with cash settlement (Total Return Swap) giving CMA CGM an additional economic exposure of 4.56% in CEVA Logistics' share capital. A formal disclosure notice disclosing the combined shareholdings of the group is expected to be published simultaneously.

The duty to launch a mandatory takeover offer is triggered only if a shareholder holds a position in shares of more than one third of the voting rights of a company.

For additional information please contact:

Investors:

Pierre Benaich

SVP Investor Relations

pierre.benaich@cevalogistics.com

+41 41 547 0048



Media:

Matthias Hochuli

Group Head of Marketing and Communications

matthias.hochuli@cevalogistics.com

+41 41 547 00 52



Cathy Howe

Pilot Marketing

ch@pilotmarketing.co.uk

Tel: +44 (0)208 941 5381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.Expo boosts hotel and catering industry

By:Zheng Qian | From:english.eastday.com | 2018-10-17 09:33

With the first China International Import Expo around the corner, Shanghai's hotel market is ramping up for a bumper week.

A screenshot of Ctrip's hotel booking page shows rooms occupied.[Photo/ Eastday]



According to data provided by Ctrip, a Chinese leader in online travel and tourism, the number of foreign booking of Shanghai hotels this week for the period from November 4th to 10th (the expo week) is more than double that of the prior week. From November 4th, the hotels at the 5km around the National Convention and Exhibition Center, the host venue for the expo, have been fully booked, and those near the Xujingdong Station of Metro Line 2, the nearest station for the venue, are also in high demand, Ctrip staff said.

The data also shows that those foreign bookings are mostly coming from Australia, followed by Japan, the United States, South Korea and New Zealand. In addition, since a large proportion of the participants are political and business people whose accommodation requirements are relatively high, more than 90% of them have booked hotels with 3 stars or more, of which 65% have booked 4 or 5 star hotels.

Statistics also indicate that foreign guests have shown a great interest in Chinese high-speed trains and Shanghai cuisine. The number of foreigners who have purchased high-speed railway tickets for use between November 4th to November 11th has increased by nearly 50% from the previous week, mostly return trips to surrounding cities like Hangzhou, Suzhou, Nanjing and Wuxi.

Among the top ten Shanghai foods searched for by foreigners, steamed buns are top of the list, followed by hairy crabs and local braised pork. Famous Shanghai snacks like chopped cold chicken, braised duck with brown sauce and fried buns stuffed with pork are also on the list.#independence fighter Metaverse ceremony to virtually celebrate homecoming of late independence hero Kim Gu A metaverse event on Wednesday will conjure up late national independence hero Kim Gu in the virtual space to welcome him back home from China, 76 years after his little-celebrated...As Russell Coutts, Class co-designer and five times Americas Cup winner, says, It has developed into a high-level racing circuit and the standard of competition has grown year-on-year. Each regatta just gets more and more competitive. It is probably fair to say its exceeded my expectations and the potential is there to even improve things further.

The RC44 boats are a lightweight construction, made entirely of carbon with a powerful sail plan to make exceptional downwind and upwind performances, both in light winds and strong winds alike.

The Boka Bay in Montenegro suits this boat perfectly, and crews wont be disappointed either. We are excited to kick off our 2019 sailing season with an event of this calibre. Porto Montenegro Yacht Club has worked tirelessly on building a vibrant sailing calendar throughout the years and we are very pleased to see big names coming in and enjoying the unique Boka Bay, commented Porto Montenegro Marina Director, Tony Browne.

The crew of each RC44 is made up of a 50/50 split between professional sailors, with Americas Cup and Olympic medalist status, and amateurs, with the amateur owner always at the helm. The RC44 tour gives an opportunity for a VIP guest to sit at the back of the boats, with the perfect view of all the action. This is a winning formula and one that has seen these boats and their crew tour across the world.

It is a fantastic opportunity for the RC44 fleet to kick off the 2019 season with the RC44 Montenegro Cup. The Racing Tour will then continue on to four of the best sailing destinations in Europe for one design racing, including the picturesque town of Rovinj in Croatia, for event two and the Swedish sailing Mecca of Marstrand Island for event three. The full 2019 RC44 Racing Tour schedule will be announced in the coming months, states a spokesperson for the RC44 Class Association.A 36-year-old Moroccan man, the subject of a European arrest warrant, has been detained in Mijas for a series of drug trafficking offences.

The fugitive, born in Zerket (Morocco), was part of a criminal organisation which coordinated the large-scale trafficking of narcotics from Morocco to France, Spain and the Netherlands, according to a police press release.

The organisation specialised in cannabis resin which it transported inside cans in lorries driven by Moroccan drivers.

The man, whose warrant was issued in France, was tracked down to an urbanisation in Mijas, where he had set up home.

After being identified, he was placed under arrest.Six Tanzanian schoolchildren killed in lightning strike



Nairobi, Oct 17 (AFP) Oct 17, 2018



At least six children were killed and 25 injured Wednesday when lightning struck a primary school in northern Tanzania, a local government official said.

The lightning hit Emaco Vision primary school, in the mountainous Geita region, during the morning.

"It was about 9am, six pupils were killed and 25 were injured," said regional education coordinator Yese Kanyuma.

Images circulating on Tanzanian social media showed parents crowding in front of a hospital near the school for news of their children.

In 2015 four school children and their teacher died in eastern Tanzania's Kigoma region when their classroom was struck by lightning.Press Promotion

Croxsons meets urgent demand at HMS Spirits

Glass packaging company, Croxsons, recently came to the aid of start-up artisan gin distiller, the HMS Spirits Company, to fulfil an urgent packaging requirement. The distiller had found itself without a closure for its latest release, Mary Rose Gin, a small batch London Dry Gin produced to celebrate Henry VIIIs famous warship.

The distiller, who had been let down by a supplier, turned to Croxsons at the eleventh hour to supply them with the all important closure. Ben Maguire, HMS Spirits Company managing director says: I approached Croxsons with my closure proposals having being told by another party that it was impossible to create my design. They worked with me to quickly get my design mocked up, approved and into production.

For Croxsons, closures are a key part of their customer journey, being a marriage between closure and glass and representing an opportunity to emphasise a brand and create a lasting memory. In this case, a bartop cork closure was the natural choice to complement both the bottle design and striking double-sided back label.

Croxsons' Tim Croxson says: The cork required multiple side print as well as much top print coverage as possible. The top coverage is part of the key look of the brand, so it has to carry depth of colour and excellent registration. As a first, we used 3D printing to create a mock-up to reduce the timeline as, the customer had been let down and we knew that we had to pull out all the stops.

The extra width of the top, which had to be flush with the bottle, wasnt a challenge due to our experience in producing luxury and distinctive bartop closures. The customer opted for a micro-agglomerate cork, which was specifically cleaned and treated to meet the standard required for the premium spirit inside the bottle, he added.

Maguire concludes: The end result is fantastic, its exactly what I wanted and is frequently commented on by our customers. Croxsons arent just a supplier, they are a partner to your business and I hope to work with them for the long term.

16 October 2018 - Sam Coyne The Drinks Report, editorIn addition to denying a student's requested study-abroad reference for political reasons (as explained here), it appears that Prof. Cheney-Lippold also misused his position in class. Here is what Dean Elizabeth Cole said in the letter informing Cheney-Lippold of the school's disciplinary measures:

[Y]ou used class time in your course Amcult 3S8 on Tuesday, September 18, 2018 to discuss your political opinions. In your meeting with me on September 20, 20I8, you contended that you spent only 15 minutes of class time on these issues. But [names redacted] revealed that you dedicated all or nearly all of class time in Amcult 358 and Amadt I03 to discuss your reasons for not writing the recommendation, as well as your opinions on the boycott movement. Beyond issues of candor, you did not honor your responsibility to teach your students the material on your syllabus related to your field of expertise. . . . Although this material was discussed in only one session, an entire class period was a significant portion of your total contact hours with students over the semester.

This use of class time to discuss your personal opinions was a misuse of your role as a faculty member. The result was that at least [number redacted] students [dropped the course].

You can read the entire letter here. [Note: the bracketed phrase "dropped the course" was provided to me by a knowledgeable source; it is redacted in my copy of the letter itself.]

Cheney-Lippold's conduct, however, was actually worse than that. Here is how he described it himself in an interview with the Washington Post:If youre looking to surf, enjoy a relaxing island holiday or simply lounge by the beach, look no farther than the Philippines.

The country has recently laid claim to the first three of this years top five most beautiful havens in Asia, with their awe-inspiring landscapes and Instagram-worthy sunsets.

The 2018 Readers Choice Awards of lifestyle magazine Conde Nast Traveler, ranked surfing destination Siargao as the best island in Asia, followed by Boracay and Palawan in the second and third spot, respectively.

Located 800 kilometers southeast of the countrys capital, Manila, Siargao is among the lesser-known tourist destinations in the Philippines although it is becoming increasingly popular among surfers from around the world.

We like to say that surfers are the vanguard of travelers, scoping out some of the more remote parts of the world for surf breaks before the rest of us get there, the editors wrote.

Siargao is described as the teardrop-shaped island that is home to more than 15 separate surf breaks, including the legendary Cloud 9, which has attracted the likes of American professional surfer Kelly Slater and Red Hot Chili Pepper's frontman Anthony Kiedis, who is also a skilled surfer.

Taking the second spot, Boracay has been known for its white, super fine sandy beach not to mention its gorgeous sunsets.

The small island, according to Conde Nast, has gentle coastlines and made-for-Instagram sunsets, as well as a thriving nightlife scene.

In the third position is Palawan, just above Langkawi, Malaysia, and Bali, Indonesia.

El Nido, Palawan

A regular on Conde Nasts worlds best islands list, Palawan is noted for being the home of the Puerto Princesa Subterranean River, a Unesco World Heritage Site, as well as El Nido, which attracts hordes of both local and international tourists.

5 best islands in Asia:

1. Siargao, Philippines

2. Boracay, Philippines

3. Palawan, Philippines

4. Langkawi, Malaysia

5. Bali, IndonesiaAuthorities in the Philippines are closely monitoring the activities of some 77 private armed groups in the run-up to the May 2019 mid-term elections, a senior official has said.

According to Philippine National Police (PNP) director-general Oscar Albayalde, these private armed groups are dispersed in some 8,000 areas of the country considered as election hot spots.

Based on the assessment the PNP has conducted, a large number of these private armed groups are based in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), he said.

Albayalde said police were also closely watching gun-for-hire syndicates that are usually employed by corrupt politicians and drug kingpins to carry out assassinations before and during elections.

The Philippines will be holding its mid-term elections sometime in May 2019.

Thousands of hopefuls will be vying for positions in the Senate and Congress as well as governors, mayors, and local board members.

The filing of candidacy with the Commission on Elections started last Thursday and will continue until October 17.

Weeks before the elections, a number of politicians have already fallen to assassins bullets. On October 1, mayor Alexander Boquing of Sudipen, in northern Philippines La Union, and two of his companions were killed in an ambush. His wife, vice-mayor Wendy Boquing survived but was wounded in the attack.

A special investigating body has been formed to look into the issue, but reports said Boquing had no known connections to drug groups.

Assassinations usually take place weeks before the elections are held as rival politicians  some of whom are providing protection to underworld drugs or gambling syndicates  vie for dominance in their respective turfs.

More than a dozen politicians had been assassinated since 2016, some were identified by the government earlier to have links with drug syndicates.

The fight against drugs and so-called narco-politics can hardly be considered as a one-sided battle.

On October 5, five agents of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) were killed in an ambush staged at a secluded area along the highway in the town of Kapai in Lanao del Sur.

Agency director Aaron Aquino said they had already identified 85 narco-politicians and are monitoring their activities during the election period.

Aquino said these narco-politicians are among the 6,000 individuals being monitored for drug links.

In an interview with radio station dzMM, Aquino said among the 6,000 individuals being watched  among them civilians, media, celebrities, and even judges.

In 2009, one of the worst election-related killings in the country took place in Maguindanao when some 59 people were massacred at a secluded portion near a highway in the town of Ampatuan.Guest Commentary

By Paula Arab

When your last name is Arab, and youre not a Muslim or terrorist, you defy a few Islamophobic stereotypes yourself.

Im Arab in name, but my fathers religion is Maronite Catholic  an early branch of the Roman Catholic Church. I was brought up Roman Catholic and indoctrinated in Papal infallibility. So, the idea of the Aga Khan, a spiritual leader who represents all of the foibles and eccentricities of us mere mortals, it is itself a revelation, never mind the many other ways he smashes stereotypes about Muslims.

The Aga Khan, a direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad, has a dualistic approach to life. He lives firmly in both the material and spiritual worlds. This duality is reflected in an interview he gave Vanity Fair.

An Imam is not expected to withdraw from everyday life, he said. On the contrary, hes expected to protect his community and contribute to their quality of life.

Therefore, the notion of the divide between faith and world is foreign to Islam. The Imamat does not divide world and faith. Thats very little understood outside Islam.

Those words embody the Aga Khan, the spiritual leader of 15 million people around the world, including 120,000 in Canada, who belong to the Ismaili faith.

Theirs is a religion that is peaceful and progressive, fueled by philanthropy to overcome the challenges of everyday life.

Known as His Highness, a title conferred on him by Queen Elizabeth shortly after inheriting the Imamat at 20, the Aga Khan preaches plurality. He has dedicated his life to fighting poverty and has spent a large portion of his wealth building schools and educating millions of children in the developing world.

Much has been made about his philanthropic contributions during his 60-plus years as Imam. Indeed, he will make history again this week in Vancouver, when the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University confer joint honorary doctorate of laws degrees in a simultaneous ceremony Friday (Oct. 19th) in recognition of his lifelong service to humanity, and his contributions to both institutions.

This comes two days after he is to be awarded another honourary doctorate of laws from the University of Calgary.

The Aga Khan wields Ismaili philanthropy as his leaderships central mandate to improve the quality of life, not only of his followers but for of all the worlds most vulnerable people.

Tomes have been written about his global charity work and efforts to eradicate societys ills.

But its his approach to human frailties that I find far more interesting.

The Aga Khan has lived all of the trials and tribulations of his followers, including the emotional rollercoasters of love, marriage, divorce, and heartbreak.

Because of that, he is someone who can inspire, teach and relate to me and all my fellow Canadians, regardless of faith.

The Aga Khan builds bridges between people, religions, and cultures. He fosters collaboration rather than conflict. And he is successful in upholding the dignity of humankind because his is a spiritual leadership that is grounded in reality, and in his own experience of human joys and suffering in all of its forms.

Paula Arab is a Vancouver-based freelance columnist and media strategist. She can be reached at arabpaul[email protected].Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Editorial Board (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, October 17, 2018 08:15 1127 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b308777fd348 4 Editorial #Editorial,KPK,Tito-Karnavian,corruption-case,corruption-eradication-commission,National-Police,IndonesiaLeaks,Jokowi Free

In the United States, the symbol of democracy and free press, President Donald Trump and his supporters call the media the enemy of the people and denigrate journalists they dislike as the lying press. Some of this hostility is replicated in Indonesia, billed as the worlds third-largest democracy, as evident in the controversy over a collaborative investigative report involving a number of publications, journalist associations and civil society groups that aim to keep the countrys anticorruption campaign alive and kicking.



The report, published by the groups whistleblower platform IndonesiaLeaks, cited a witness in a bribery case involving a meat importer as telling Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) investigators that she transferred bribes from the importer, her boss, to National Police chief Gen. Tito Karnavian between March and July 2016. He was then the Jakarta Police chief and later head of the National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT).



The National Police have immediately denied the report and so has the campaign team of President Joko Jokowi Widodo and several figures known for their integrity. Human rights activist Hendardi of Setara Foundation implied the IndonesiaLeaks report was a hoax as it lacked solid evidence and was published when police were investigating cases involving politicians and religious leaders, including the spread of fake news that has put Ratna Sarumpaet, a former member of the campaign team for presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto, behind bars.



Similarly, other figures do not accept the report as valid journalistic work, although CCTV footage accompanying the report shows two police officers assigned to the KPK ripping pages out of a financial records book related to the case. The book was among the pieces of evidence confiscated in the graft case involving meat importer Basuki Hariman and former Constitutional Court justice Patrialis Akbar, who were respectively sentenced in August and September 2017. The KPK found the two officers guilty of tampering with evidence and sent them back to the National Police as a form of punishment, but instead they received promotions from the police force.



As a partner of the project, we deplore reactions, if not overreactions, to the report, which was released only to warn the nation of the high prevalence of corruption regardless of the tireless crackdown by the KPK on the scores of fraudsters across the country.



More regretful are the denial and hostility that follow the report, rather than commitment to investigation into the high-profile bribery case. The media workers and civil society groups released the report as they expected the police and the KPK to follow up on it in the first place.



While the KPK seems reluctant to once again collide head-on with the police, and as the police will unlikely launch a probe into their own boss, it is fair enough to demand that President Jokowi form an independent team to deal with the case.



Of course Jokowi is incomparable to Trump. But Jokowis integrity will be at stake if he sweeps the bribery case under the rug.Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin - (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta, Indonesia  Wed, October 17, 2018 09:00 1127 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b308777ff0b8 4 Inforial Free

State-owned lender Bank Mandiri supported the performance of the epic I La Galigo at the 2018 annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank Group.

The cultural show, which was initiated by the Creative Economic Agency, was staged at Peninsula Island in Nusa Dua, Bali, on Oct. 8 to 14 to mark the IMF-World Bank Annual Meetings.

According to Bank Mandiri corporate secretary Rohan Hafas, the performance of I La Galigo was aimed at highlighting the diversity of cultures in Indonesia during the worlds largest economic meeting.



Beside providing financial transaction services, we also support the cultural performance of I La Galigo for all delegates and participants of IMF-World Bank Annual Meetings, said Rohan.

I La Galigo tells the epic story of the legendary Sawerigading, the son of the king of the ancient Luwu kingdom in Sulawesi, and was first staged at in 2004 at the Esplanade Theatres, Singapore, then on Broadway, New York. It is based on an ancient poem consisting of 360,000 stanzas, with five sentences in each stanza.

In its commitment to helping to make the IMF-World Bank Annual Meetings a success, Bank Mandiri offered financial services needed by all delegates, such as by installing six ATMs at the Bali Nusa Dua Conference Center, the main venue of the IMF-WB Annual Meetings, and establishing two money changer outlets in the Bali Collection Nusa Dua area to facilitate delegates in making transactions.

Bank Mandiri also placed EDC machines in hotels that were official partners of the international event in Nusa Dua. Overall, all delegates could use 446 ATMs and exchange currency and make transactions at 54 Mandiri branches in Bali.



Bank Mandiri is also the main sponsor of the Bali Collection Festival, held from September to December 2018. Mandiri has also placed EDC machines with all tenants at the event.

In the Indonesia Pavilion, Bank Mandiri presents weavers under the guidance of Rumah Kreatif BUMN, and operates 10 red-and-white EDC machines that can accept debit and credit cards of state-owned banks.Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Danny Kemp (Agence France-Presse) Amsterdam, Netherlands  Wed, October 17, 2018 10:08 1127 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877803058 2 Art & Culture Rembrandt,art,painting,restoration,Netherlands,Museum Free

Like watching paint dry? Soon art lovers will be able to watch one of the world's most famous paintings being restored live and online.

Rembrandt's masterpiece "The Night Watch" will undergo a years-long, multi-million-euro overhaul at Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum under the full gaze of the public, its general director said on Tuesday.

The unique project starting in July 2019 will let art lovers see behind the normally secretive process as the Dutch master's 1642 tableau is brought back to its full glory.

"The Night Watch by Rembrandt is one of the most famous paintings in the world and we feel we have to preserve it for future generations," Rijksmuseum General Director Taco Dibbits told AFP.

"Over two million people a year come to see The Night Watch, it's a painting that everybody loves, and we feel that the world has the right to see what we will do with it."

The last major restoration work was carried out 40 years ago after a mentally ill man slashed the painting with a knife.

Since then experts have noticed a white haze appear on parts of "The Night Watch", especially in the area around the knife damage, where it is bleaching out the figure of a small dog.

Read also: The artist as an algorithm: Robot-made Rembrandt for sale

- 'Share this moment' -

The restoration, billed as the biggest in the Rijksmuseum's history, will be carried out behind a huge glass case so that visitors to the museum in the capital of the Netherlands can see experts carry out their painstaking work.

But the regeneration of the piece, which hangs in the museum's "Gallery of Honour", will also be livestreamed on the internet so people around the world can see it be restored inch by inch.

"Conservation is usually done behind closed doors, but this is such an important painting, we feel that the public who owns it has the right to see it and we want to share this very important moment," Dibbits said.

Rembrandt Van Rijn was commissioned in 1642 by the mayor and leader of the civic guard of Amsterdam, Frans Banninck Cocq, to paint the picture of the officers and other members of the militia heading out on The Night Watch.

Over the last three and a half centuries the painting has endured several moves, restoration attempts and even an escape from the Nazis.

In the 1700s the painting had large chunks cut from each side during a move to Amsterdam Town Hall, followed by the clearing of "multiple layers of boiled oil and varnishes".

A century later "The Night Watch" underwent a series of attempts to "regenerate" the varnish and remove its yellowish tint.

Then in September 1939 the painting was evacuated from the Rijksmuseum along with 30,000 other artworks as Nazi Germany closed in. When it was returned from its last hiding place in a cave in Maastricht in the southern Netherlands in 1945 it needed major restoration.

Read also: Vans to launch sneaker and clothing inspired by Vincent van Gogh

- Knife and acid attacks -

The painting's travails were not over: the 1975 attack saw a disturbed man slash the painting 12 times, with the marks of the deepest cuts still being visible today.

The museum decided to carry out a major restoration then, only to see a man spray acid on it in 1990.

Recently, however, new problems emerged.

"We noticed that over the past years there's a white glare that appeared on the bottom part of the painting. We want to be able to understand what that is," said Dibbits.

Restoring "The Night Watch" will not be cheap, or quick, however.

"That will cost several millions," said Dibbits, adding that the museum would also be looking for private funding. "I'm very confident people will want to contribute to it because we all want to restore it for future generations."

After several months of research, "The Night Watch" will be the centerpiece of an exhibition marking the 350th anniversary of Rembrandt's death starting in February 2019, before restoration work begins in full in July.

"As we say in Dutch, conserving paintings is a monk's job, it takes a lot of patience, so it might be several years," said Dibbits.Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Multan, Pakistan  Wed, October 17, 2018 05:02 1127 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b308777fa0a6 2 Lifestyle Pakistan,patriarchy,Women,gender,mechanic,automotive,cars Free

Since picking up a wrench as one of the first female car mechanics in conservative Pakistan, Uzma Nawaz has faced two common reactions: shock and surprise. And then a bit of respect.

The 24-year-old spent years overcoming entrenched gender stereotypes and financial hurdles en route to earning a mechanical engineering degree and netting a job with an auto repairs garage in the eastern city of Multan.

"I took it up as a challenge against all odds and the meagre financial resources of my family," Nawaz told AFP.

"When they see me doing this type of work they are really surprised."

Hailing from the small, impoverished town of Dunyapur in eastern Pakistan's Punjab province, Nawaz relied on scholarships and often skipped meals when she was broke while pursuing her degree.

Her achievements are rare. Women have long struggled for their rights in conservative patriarchal Pakistan, and especially in rural areas are often encouraged to marry young and devote themselves entirely to family over career.

"No hardship could break my will and motivation," she says proudly.

The sacrifices cleared the way for steady work at a Toyota dealership in Multan following graduation, she adds.

Read also: Full steam ahead: India's first women-run train station blazes a trail

Just a year into the job, and promoted to general repairs, Nawaz moves with the ease of a seasoned pro around the dealership's garage, removing tires from raised vehicles, inspecting engines and handling a variety of tools -- a sight that initially jolted some customers.

"I was shocked to see a young girl lifting heavy spare tires and then putting them back on vehicles after repairs," customer Arshad Ahmad told AFP.

But Nawaz's drive and expertise has impressed colleagues, who say she can more than hold her own.

"Whatever task we give her she does it like a man with hard work and dedication," said coworker M. Attaullah.

She has also convinced some of those who doubted her ability to make it in a male-dominated work environment, including members of her own family.

"There is no need in our society for girls to work at workshops, it doesn't seems nice, but it is her passion," said her father Muhammad Nawaz.

"She can now set up the machinery and can work properly. I too am very happy."Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Jossa Lukman (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, October 17, 2018 08:28 1127 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b308777fe0b6 1 Art & Culture Wallacea-Week,Diversity,Science,festival,biodiversity Free

Indonesia is home to many of the earths diverse flora and fauna. While this fact is considered common knowledge in modern times, it was all thanks to extensive research that spans from centuries past to ongoing exploration and conservation efforts.

Enter Alfred Russel Wallace.

Wallace was a British naturalist known for his many contributions to science, chief among them jointly discovering the theory of evolution by natural selection with Charles Darwin.

Along with natural selection, Wallace also traveled to the Malay archipelago collecting 126,000 specimens in the region.

So great was Wallaces contribution to biogeography that a region and a faunal boundary was named after him; the Wallacea and the Wallace Line respectively.

The Wallacea region consists of Sulawesi, the Maluku Islands, East Nusa Tenggara and West Nusa Tenggara.

Running along the region is the Wallace Line, located between Kalimantan and Sulawesi and continuing down to the Lombok Strait between Bali and Lombok.

Spiced up: The Wallacea region is home to a great number of flora and fauna. (-/-)

In honor of Wallaces discoveries, the British Council in cooperation with the Indonesia Science Academy (AIPI) held the Wallacea Week, a weeklong event with exhibitions, public seminars, workshops, as well as food tasting.

In its third year, the 2018 Wallacea Week was held at the National Library of Indonesia from Oct. 11 to 17.

British Council director Paul Smith said that the main reason Wallacea Week continues to be held is to celebrate the great diversity of Indonesia and the archipelago.

Indonesia is one of the most diverse countries in the world [] and Wallacea science really gets to the heart of understanding that, so its a great way of celebrating Indonesia as well as doing great science, Smith said.

British Embassy deputy head of mission Rob Fenn added that the event is also a drive to get more people into the scientific field.

One [objective] is to encourage young people in Indonesia to become scientists. They can see that their archipelago is so important to the science of the world. That can get more people into the field, Fenn said.

The second objective for the British Embassy is to encourage scientific collaborations between scientists in the UK and scientists in Indonesia. Thats good for both countries. Its very much a priority for the Indonesian government.

The Wallacea Weeks exhibition area showcases the abundance of cultural diversity in the Wallacea region, such as traditional textiles and coffee along with local artisans who provided live demonstrations as well as workshops on certain dates.

Textile of civilization: The tradition of tenun (weaving) is rooted in identity and role in society. (The Jakarta Post/Josa Lukman)

AIPI head Satryo Soemantri Brodjonegoro said science and culture could not be separated, as scientific development involves humans, who in turn develop science.

Of course, in the end culture will also be influenced by scientific evidence. Thats why in this event, its important for us to not only scientifically understand the Wallacea region, but to know how diverse we are in culture, Satryo said, adding that the diversity is exemplified in the fact that western Indonesia and eastern Indonesia are different in culture.

A series of public talks on Oct. 11 further discussed diversity in the Wallacea region.

Split into four parts, the seminars discussed topics such as food and human genetics, conservation, cultural diversity, as well as science and society.

Of particular note was indigenous environmentalist Aleta Bauns discussion on how tradition shapes gender roles. Mama Aleta, as she is popularly called, talked about how gender roles are vital to the Mollo people.

Before marriage, a mans job is to build houses. Meanwhile, a womans job is to do tenun (weaving). This tenun will portray the relationship between man and woman, so it is said natural resources cannot be separated from humans, Aleta said.

For Aleta and those hailing from the Mollo tribes, the nature around them is an extension of their own body, exemplified in the Mollo philosophy of oel fani on na, nasi fani on nafua, afu fani on nesa, fatu fani on nuif (water is blood, trees are hair, soil is flesh, stone is bone).

Another highlight was travel writer and photographer Agustinus Wibowos discussion, as he talked about indigenous religions and native faiths in Indonesia.

Handmade: Local artisans are brought in to demonstrate their craft. (Courtesy of the British Council/-)

The fear of death is a universal fear, but that fear of death always makes us think about seeking the answers to some big questions; Where do we come from? Where are we going? Why do we have to die? What is the meaning of life? Agustinus said.

Before the age of science, our ancestors tried to answer those questions with stories. During my travels in Papua, I found that each tribe and village have their own sacred stories explaining how the universe and humanity came to be.

According to Agustinus, indigenous religions have a commonality where humanity and the universe all come from a single source.

Because humanity and the universe all come from the Holy Spirit, we have to respect nature, as there is a sliver of the Holy Spirit in each element in nature. Thats why we cant randomly cut down trees or kill animals or throw garbage into the river. Life with a spiritual wholeness is a life at one with nature, he said.Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Jacques Lemieux (Agence France-Presse) Montreal, Canada  Wed, October 17, 2018 18:04 1126 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b3087781720c 2 Health Canada,cannabis,cannabis-legalization,health,#health Free

Canada on Wednesday will become the second country in the world to legalize recreational cannabis, five years after Uruguay.

The legislation leaves it to the 13 provinces and territories to organize sales and distribution, and some are taking slightly different approaches.

Who can buy, grow cannabis?

Adults may possess up to 30 grams of legally purchased cannabis. Households will also be allowed to grow up to four cannabis plants, except in Quebec and Manitoba, where this will be prohibited.

The federal government set the minimum legal age for consumption at 18, but most provinces and territories have raised it to 19, except Quebec and Alberta. In Quebec, a newly-elected government has promised to hike it to 21.

Where to buy ?

The provinces and territories will be responsible for setting rules for sales and distribution, which has led to a patchwork of regulations across the country.

Six, including Quebec, will make pot available through government-run stores. Four others will license private retailers, while British Columbia stands out for its mix of both options.

Online mail order sales will be allowed across Canada. In Ontario it will be the only option until retail stores are up and running next year, with a last-minute policy change unveiled by the new government.

According to the federal government, there could be as many as 300 storefronts across Canada selling cannabis by year's end.

What can be purchased and at what price?

Canadians will be allowed to buy dried cannabis, oils and seeds.

Sales of derivatives like edibles will be legalized next year, but in the meantime people can make their own cannabis-infused brownies or beverages at home.

Selling prices will depend on the province, ranging from Can$6 to Can$10 per gram, plus excise taxes of about Can$1. Proceeds will be split between the federal and provincial governments, as well as consumption taxes of 10 to 15 percent, depending on the jurisdiction.

Read also: As legalization looms, Canada cannabis crackdown worries tokers

Where can pot be consumed?

Where smoking will be allowed varies greatly from province to province, city to city, and in some cases even neighborhood to neighborhood.

In New Brunswick and Newfoundland, for example, consumers will only be allowed to smoke at home.

Others, like Quebec, will prohibit smoking in and near entrances to schools and workplaces -- including bars and restaurants -- as is the rule for tobacco. Some municipalities are considering going further with an outright ban in all public spaces.

Who can grow cannabis?

The federal health ministry is responsible for licensing growers, and to date 120 companies have been granted licenses.

The largest are publicly traded on the Toronto and New York stock exchanges. Some started growing licensed medicinal pot in 2001 and have transitioned to also sell in the recreational pot market.

Hundreds more license applications are currently under review by officials.Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin News Desk (The Straits Times/Asia News Network)  Wed, October 17, 2018 12:19 1127 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b308778072bb 2 Entertainment Fan-Bingbing,tax-evasion,Celebrities,China,Beijing Free

In the photo, she is seen walking swiftly to a waiting car, keeping a low profile in black attire, cap and dark glasses.

But the man behind Fan Bingbing gives the plot away to waiting paparazzi. He is holding a big umbrella  it must be to shield a celebrity from prying eyes, what else?

The photo, snapped outside Beijing airport on Oct 15, marks the first time that Chinas most famous actress has been seen in public in more than three months. Dubbed the nations highest-paid celebrity for the past four years by Forbes magazine, her tax-evasion struggles with the authorities had kept fans riveted for months.

Rumors floated that she had been arrested and that she had even tried to escape to the United States with the help of gongfu star Jackie Chan. Things were made clearer on Oct 3 when the authorities slapped a fine of 883mil yuan on the 37-year-old.

Read also: China star Fan apologizes for tax evasion after order to pay $129 million

According to the Shanghaiist portal, that announcement was followed by a Weibo post from Fan who broke her months-long silence to state that she was deeply ashamed over the under-reporting of income.

While some netizens were upset that she had been spared a jail sentence, others noted that a 2009 amendment to Chinas Criminal Law provided for a fine to be levied on a first-time offender. Some tax officials probing her case were punished for poor management.

Topics :

This article appeared on The Straits Times newspaper website, which is a member of Asia News Network and a media partner of The Jakarta PostShare this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) San Francisco, United States  Wed, October 17, 2018 13:00 1126 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877808ed0 2 Science & Tech Google,China,Sundar-Pichai Free

Google chief executive Sundar Pichai has acknowledged publicly for the first time that the tech giant is considering a search engine for China, saying it could offer "better information" to people than rival services.

Speaking at the Wired 25th anniversary conference late Monday, Pichai said Google leaders "feel obliged to think hard" about China despite criticism over the possibly of cooperating with Chinese censorship.

"We are always balancing a set of values," he said, while adding that "we also follow the rule of law in every country."

Pichai described Project Dragonfly, which has drawn criticism from Google employees, lawmakers and human rights activists, as an effort to learn about what Google could offer if it resumed its search operations in China.

"It turns out we would be able to serve well over 99 percent of the (search) queries," he said onstage in a question-and-answer session.

"And there are many, many areas where we would provide better information that what is available."

Pichai offered no details on the status of the effort but said he was taking a "long-term view" on China.

"We don't know whether we would or could do this in China but we felt it was important to explore," he said.

"I think it's important for us given how important the market is and how many users there are. We feel obliged to think hard about this."

Read also: Google employees sign protest letter over China search engine: NYT

He said one area where Google's presence could help in China would be for information on medical treatments including for cancer.

"Today people either get fake cancer treatments or they actually get useful information," he said.

Google shut down its search engine in China in 2010, refusing Beijing's requirement to censor search results.

Pichai also addressed Google's decision to withdraw from a bid for a major Pentagon cloud computing project, saying the company was not opposed to working with the military but did not want to be part of automated weapons.

"We do work with the (US) military and deeply respect what they do to protect our country," he said.

Pichai added that Google continues to work on projects with the military on cybersecurity and transportation planning, for example but that "where we are being more deliberate is where AI (artificial intelligence) is used for autonomous weaponry."Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) San Francisco, United States  Wed, October 17, 2018 20:01 1126 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b3087781ae9d 2 Science & Tech Netflix,video-streaming Free

Netflix reported Tuesday a strong jump in profits and better-than-expected growth in users in the past quarter, sparking a rally in shares of the streaming television market leader.

Netflix said it gained almost seven million new users worldwide, to bring its total membership to more than 137 million.

Profit in the quarter more than tripled from a year ago to $403 million while revenues grew 34 percent to $4 billion.

Investors pushed up Netflix shares by 12 percent in after-hours trade, following a disappointing second-quarter report that sent the stock reeling.

"Our broad slate of original programming helped drive a solid quarter of growth," Netflix said in a letter to shareholders.

The Silicon Valley company has been ramping up its investment in original programming as it faces increased competition from rivals like Hulu and Amazon, and traditional media firms begin to enter the market for streaming and limit content to outside parties.

"We've come a long way in the five years since launching original content on Netflix," the statement said.

Read also: Indonesian film The Night Comes for Us comes to Netflix

"In addition to our commercial success, we're ecstatic when the creators we work with are recognized for their inspiring work. This year, Netflix originals led with 112 Emmy nominations spanning 40 of our shows."

Netflix has said it plans to invest some $8 billion in original content.

"We recognize we are making huge cash investments in content, and we want to assure our investors that we have the same high confidence in the underlying economics as our cash investments in the past," the company said.

"These investments we see as very likely to help us to keep our revenue and operating profits growing for a very long time ahead."

Analyst Paul Verna of the research firm eMarketer said that "Netflix's strong quarter will at least temporarily put to rest questions over the long-term viability of its business and shift focus to the competition, which continues to significantly lag the streaming giant."

According to eMarketer, Netflix accounts for three- fourths of US consumers using a streaming service and is well-positioned to face competition.

"These positive results come as head-to-head competitors like Amazon and Hulu are ramping up their content investments, and as companies including Disney, AT&T and Walmart are teeing up their own direct-to-consumer subscription services," Verna said.

"However, given Netflix's longtime leadership and extensive content library, competitors will be hard-pressed to build streaming businesses that can aspire to become market leaders."Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, October 17, 2018 07:02 1127 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b308777fb33b 1 City Depok,poverty,revitalization Free

House renovation and student subsidies have been included in next years poverty eradication program in Depok, West Java, with some Rp 83 billion (US$5.4 million) allocated in the budget.

Depok Deputy Mayor Pradi Supriatna said the funds would be allocated to the renovation program for uninhabitable houses (RTLH) and financial subsidies for students from low-income households.

This is the poverty eradication budget for 2019. The figure is a continuation of previous programs by the Depok administration, Pradi said at Depok City Hall on Sunday as quoted by kompas.com.

He added that the administration had registered hundreds of uninhabitable houses that would be granted the renovation subsidy in 11 districts.

Pradi said the program would be for 51 houses in Beji district, 40 in Cimanggis, 109 in Limo, 183 in Pancoran Mas, 133 in Sawangan, 253 in Sukmajaya, 88 in Tapos, 34 in Cinere, 201 in Cipayung, 46 in Bojongsari and 64 in Cilodong. (gis)United States Ambassador to Indonesia Joseph Donovan visited Palu in Central Sulawesi to see the communities affected by recent earthquakes a tsunami, and he saw that the "resilient community is beginning to get back on its feet".

Donovan was speaking to journalists in Balikpapan, East Kalimantan, the hub for relief aid for Palu, Sigi and Donggala, after he oversaw the delivery of relief aid from the US to Indonesia on Tuesday.

"First, I would like to express heartfelt condolences to the victims and families and communities of the earthquake and tsunami. I'd also like to pay tribute to the resilience of the communities that I saw," Donovan said. The community, he said, was slowly getting back on its feet.

"I saw and heard about heroes at work in the communities in Palu and surrounding areas. These range from the volunteers from the Indonesian Red Cross to the [Indonesian Military]," he said.

Donovan also mentioned volunteers from Wahana Visi Indonesia (World Vision Indonesia), which brought Indonesian disaster relief experts to Palu from their latest task in Syria.

He said the US would assist the community to help it recover.

The US sent 2,120 rolls of heavy duty plastic sheeting, a kind of multipurpose tarpaulin, hygiene kits and water purification tools. The aid was sent using three C-130 planes that landed on Friday at Sepinggan Airport in Balikpapan. Nearly 135 metric tons of aid worth US$3.7 million were delivered to Indonesia. (evi)Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, October 17, 2018 08:08 1127 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b308777fc41d 1 Business aquaculture,world-food-day,commemoration,maritime-affairs-and-fisheries-ministry Free

The Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry has said aquaculture is expected to supply 8.76 million tons of fish to the domestic market in 2019, or 60 percent of the countrys fish consumption.

The ministrys aquaculture Director General Slamet Soebjakto said fish consumption per capita in Indonesia was projected to reach 50 kilograms annually in 2019, meaning fish consumption would reach 14.6 million tons per year.

I think in the moment of World Food Day, the aquaculture sector should be able to provide an alternative solution to fulfill food demand in a sustainable way, said Slamet when attending the commemoration of World Food Day in Palu, Central Sulawesi, on Tuesday as quoted in a press statement.

He said at the global level, aquaculture was expected to provide a significant contribution to supplying food demand because fish consumption was expected to increase significantly.

Citing Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) data, Slamet said the worlds fish consumption per capita would increase to 19.6 kg annually in 2021 and 22.5 kg annually in 2030.

The FAO also expected that aquaculture will contribute 172 million tons of fish annually in 2030, or 58 percent of fish demand, Slamet said.

Therefore, it is time for us to apply technology-based aquaculture, which is based on climate change mitigation so that we can boost our aquaculture production, while we can control its impact on climate change, he added. (bbn)Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Marguerite Afra Sapiie (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, October 17, 2018 13:49 1126 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b3087780af91 1 Politics 2019-presidential-election,2019-elections,Jokowi-Maruf,Joko-Widodo-Maruf-Amin Free

The campaign team of incumbent President Joko Jokowi Widodo and Maruf Amin is eyeing conglomerates for financial contributions.

Well sell Jokowi programs to them. They have business here and they feel that Jokowis policies have made it easier for them [in running their businesses], particularly in the realm of infrastructure development, campaign team treasurer Wahyu Sakti Trenggono said.

The team opened on Tuesday an official bank account to collect funds for the campaign.

However, Wahyu said the team did not have its eyes set on any specific conglomerates because it was currently focusing on providing aid to victims of the earthquake and tsunami in Palu, Central Sulawesi.

He also said Jokowis team would approach the Association of Young Indonesian Businesspeople (Hipmi) and the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin) for fund-raising and networking purposes.

For example, we can hold a charity night and ask [Kadin chairman] Rosan Roeslani to invite his fellow businessmen, Wahyu said.

Periodically, the team will inform the public about the accounts balance.

The campaign funds will go to campaign tools, communication sessions with the media, running social media and all needs of campaign teams in the regions.

According to a General Elections Commission (KPU) regulation, individuals can only contribute a maximum Rp 2.5 billion (US$164,687) per year, while corporations can contribute a maximum Rp 25 billion per year. (foy/wit)Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Dyaning Pangestika (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, October 17, 2018 11:41 1127 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877807088 1 National environment,coal-power-plants,Indramayu,Indramayu-West-Java Free

Human rights watchdogs demand that the government immediately release Sawin and Sukma, two environmentalists from Indramayu, West Java, who were arrested on Sept. 24 following state defamation charges.

Sawin and Sukma are farmers who live in Mekarsari village in Patrol district, Indramayu. Both of them have been persistent in voicing their rejection of the Indramayu 2 coal-fired power plant in their village.

The village residents have been refusing the construction plan, which is funded by a loan from the Japan International Cooperation Agency, and have filed a lawsuit against it.

On Aug. 2, 2017, the residents attended the first hearing of the case in the Bandung State Administrative Court. In a hearing on Dec. 6, the panel of judges ruled in favor of them and revoked the construction permit.

Sawin, Sukma and another farmer, Nanto, were arrested a week after the verdict.

The head of the Bandung Legal Aid Institute (LBH Bandung), Willy Hanafi, who assisted Sawin and Sukma in the case, said Sawin and Sukma were accused of raising an inverted national flag, which is against Indonesian law.

On Dec. 14, the villagers organized a feast and raised the Red-and-White flag as well as banners all around the village to celebrate the joyous occasion, he said on Tuesday.

The villagers were later reported to the local police two days later for putting the Indonesian flag upside down. The farmers are accused of violating Article 24 of Law No. 24/2009 on the national flag, language, national anthem and emblem.

The police took them away from their houses at 1 a.m on Dec. 17. They broke down the door forcefully, intimidating their families, Willy said.

Fortunately, Sawin, Sukma and Nanto were released the following day after the LBH Bandung and environmental watchdog Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) bailed them out.

However, on Sept. 27, the Indramayu Police named Sawin and Sukma the main suspects in the flag defamation case and arrested them, resulting in both of them being detained at the Indramayu Prosecutors Office.

Data from the Indonesian Legal Aid Institute revealed that criminalization of environmentalists is rampant, with 50 activists having fallen victim in 2017.

Walhi head campaigner for energy and urban issues Dwi Sawung lambasted the authorities for the arrest of the Mekarsari residents, saying that they did not commit the crime.

Its really ridiculous. Logically speaking, the celebration was a form of expressing gratitude to the government for winning their lawsuit. Why would they express their gratitude by defaming the nation? he said.

Dwi strongly believes that the defamation case was made up by people who disagree with the courts decision on the Mekarsari residents' lawsuit.

Thats their way to silence the activists, he said.

Amnesty International Indonesia director Usman Hamid urged the Environment and Forestry Ministry to help protect the environmentalists.

The ministry is currently formulating a Ministerial Regulation to protect the environmentalists based on Law No. 23/2009 on environment protection. (wit)Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Agnes Anya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, October 17 2018

The people of the Netherlands showed their solidarity with survivors of the multiple disasters in Central Sulawesi by raising at least US$12.7 million to help relief efforts.

The funds were raised through Giro 555, a public bank account for donations for emergency situations such as disasters, involving the media and celebrities, said Indonesian Ambassador to the Netherlands, I Gusti Agung Wesaka Puja.

Their solidarity was spontaneous. Indonesian people in the Netherlands also held various fund rising events, he told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,000/month Unlimited access to our web and app content

e-Post daily digital newspaper

No advertisements, no interruptions

Privileged access to our events and programs

Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? loginShare this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Djemi Amnifu (The Jakarta Post) Kupang  Wed, October 17, 2018 15:03 1126 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b3087780f160 1 National asylum-seekers,NTT,Riau Free

As many as 27 undocumented migrants from Afghanistan are being transferred from an immigration detention center in Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), to Tanjung Pinang, Riau.

During a ceremony on Tuesday, NTT Deputy Governor Josef Nae Soi said the Law and Human Rights Ministry had provided a location to assist them.

Every asylum seeker in Indonesia will be transferred there one at a time, Josef said on Tuesday.

According to Josef, Indonesia always supported everyone who came to the country, as long as they could interact well with local residents.

We hope that [the Afghan migrants] are able to be reunited with their family again, Josef said, adding that he hoped the refugees would only bring good memories of NTT to Tanjung Pinang.

Indonesia has been a place of transit for thousands of asylum seekers fleeing conflicts in their home countries and starting anew in Australia.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) recorded that currently there were at least 317 asylum seekers staying in NTT, all of them staying in Ina Boi Hotel, Lavender Hotel and Kupang Homestay Inn.

The NTT administration also plans to make Ndana Island in Rote Ndao regency a shelter for asylum seekers. (dpk/wit)Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Washington, United States  Wed, October 17, 2018 10:20 1127 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877803971 2 World #IMF,#SaudiArabia,IMF-Chief,postponement,Saudi-Arabia,visit,missing,journalist Free

International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde has postponed a planned trip to the Middle East with a stop in Saudi Arabia for an investment conference, after a prominent journalist's disappearance.

"The Managing Director's previously scheduled trip to the Middle East region is being deferred," an IMF spokesman said in a statement, without further explanation.

Lagarde had been set to participate in the kingdom's Future Investment Initiative conference that has been boycotted by global business and media leaders since the suspected death of Jamal Khashoggi, who was last seen at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2.

On Saturday, during the IMF's annual meetings in Bali, Lagarde had said she would travel to Riyadh for the gathering next week.

"Human rights, freedom of information are essential rights and horrifying things have been reported and I am horrified," she told reporters at the time.

"But I have to conduct the business of the IMF in all corners in the world and with many governments.

"When I visit a country, I always speak my mind... So at this point of time my intention is to not change my plans and to be very attentive to the information that is coming out in the next few days."

But there have since been growing accusations against top levels of the conservative kingdom over the Khashoggi case, triggering a diplomatic crisis.

Turkish authorities say the journalist was killed inside the Saudi consulate by a group of hitmen traveling from Riyadh, which has insisted without evidence that Khashoggi disappeared after leaving the consulate.Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Dyaning Pangestika (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, October 17, 2018 18:22 1126 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877817f21 1 Politics LGBT,sexuality,2019-elections,Lukman-Hakim-Saifuddin Free

Social media went abuzz earlier this week with #UninstallGoJek after homegrown ride-hailing company Gojek has come under fire after a screenshot of a Facebook post from one of its executives expressing support for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community went viral.

The condemnation of the LGBT community later grew to accusations that homosexuality, which is considered sinful for many Indonesians across all religions, was supported by Religious Affairs Minister Lukman Hakim Saifuddin.

Read also: #UninstallGojek trends after executive shows support for LGBT community

An edited video uploaded by Twitter user @Gemacan70 showed a clip of the minister attending an event that Gemacan described as an LGBT forum.

Does this means that the minister legalized LGBT? The government should cure LGBT through a religious and psychological approach, but they appreciate it instead. #WeirdMinister, Gemacan tweeted.

In response to the video, Lukman made a clarification video titled Religious Affairs Ministry Rejects LGBT". Lukman repeatedly said that all religions rejected LGBT communities and that it was every religious leader's duty to guide them so they will change their ways.

Although LGBT behavior is wrong, they should still be treated with empathy so that they will change their deviant ways, Lukman said in the video, adding that the public should avoid shunning, mocking or excluding LGBT individuals in the society.

Terkait beredarnya video dan potongan gambar yang dikesankan mendukung LGBT, berikut klarifikasi Menag @lukmansaifuddin. pic.twitter.com/oa9n8echmP  Kementerian Agama RI (@Kemenag_RI) 16 Oktober 2018

Public anxiety over the LGBT community grew in 2016 after a gender and sexuality study group in Depok-based University of Indonesia was accused of promoting the LGBT movement.

The outrage has triggered high-ranking officials including Research, Technology and Higher Education Minister Mohamad Nasir to ban LGBT-related activities in campus.

As the country enters the presidential campaign season, several regions have also been swept in the anti-LGBT movement.

Hundreds of school principals in Garut, West Java, gathered last week to publicly denounce the presence of the LGBT community in school after discovering a Facebook page for gay students. (wit)Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, October 17 2018

The Central Aceh Police have apprehended a 41-year-old Quran teacher at his house in Pantan Musara village, Pegasing district, for allegedly molesting a dozen underage students.

The polices criminal unit chief, Adj. Comr. Agus Riwayanto Diputra, said the man, identified only as TAM, was arrested on Saturday after parents of the students filed reports.

In April, one of the victims refused to learn the Quran from TAM, saying that she had been subjected to inappropriate behavior from the Quran teacher, Agus said as quoted by kompas.com. The victims parent then asked other parents whether their children reported similar cases, to which they said they did.

to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,000/month Unlimited access to our web and app content

e-Post daily digital newspaper

No advertisements, no interruptions

Privileged access to our events and programs

Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? loginCoordinating Maritime Affairs Minister Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan said he attended the Meikarta topping-off ceremony last year because he was unaware of any problems regarding the issuance of permits for the new city development in Bekasi, West Java.

The mega project, planned on 5,400 hectares of land in Cikarang, is in the spotlight after the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) arrested and named as suspects Bekasi Regent Neneng Hasanah Yasin and Lippo Group operational director Billy Sindoro, as well as several other top officials in the administration, for their alleged roles in bribery relating to the issuance of property permits for the project.

There are a lot of permits that I dont know about. When I asked about [the matter], [they said] there was no problem with the permits, Luhut said at the State Palace on Tuesday as quoted by tribunnews.com.

On Oct. 29 last year, Luhut said that he asked Lippo CEO James Riady about the permits and that James had told him they were all done. Immigration Director General Ronny F. Sompie and Democratic Party secretary-general Hinca Pandjaitan also attended the topping-off ceremony.

Luhut said he would let the KPK investigate the matter.

Besides Neneng and Billy, the KPK also named as suspects two consultants working for Lippo Group, Taryudi and Fitra Djaja Purnama, the companys employee Henry Jasmen, Bekasi Public Works and Housing (PUPR) Agency head Jamaludin, the agencys spatial planning head Neneng Rahmi, the administrations fire agency head Sahat MJB Nahar and Capital Investment and One-Stop Integrated Services (DPMPTSP) Agency head Dewi Tisnawati.

Billy is accused of promising a commitment fee to Neneng Hasanah worth Rp 13 billion (US$858,468). (foy)Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Lahore  Wed, October 17, 2018 13:31 1126 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b3087780a57b 2 World #Pakistan,#DeathPenalty,Pakistan,death-penalty,riot Free

Pakistani authorities Wednesday executed a man convicted of raping and murdering a six-year-old girl, in an incident that shocked the country and sparked riots earlier this year.

Chilling CCTV footage broadcast on television following the killing purportedly showed the young girl -- Zainab Fatima Ameen -- walking hand-in-hand with an unidentified man, in what may have been her last moments.

Imran Ali, 24, was handed four separate death sentences for the rape and murder, which took place in the eastern city of Kasur in January.

In all he confessed to eight attacks on children in the city, including five murders, in a spate of violence that terrorised society.

"He was hanged this morning in the presence of a prison official and the father of the victim," an official at Lahore's central prison, where the convict was executed, told AFP.

"His dead body was handed over to his family who took it away for burial," he said.

Members of Zainab's family had called for Ali to be executed in public -- a move rejected by the Lahore High Court on Tuesday.

The young girl's murder sparked outrage across Pakistan, with violence erupting in Kasur as thousands swarmed police stations and set fire to politicians' homes, while Pakistanis across the country took to social media demanding action.

At least 12 cases of rape and murder have been recorded in the Kasur area in the past two years. Ali confessed to eight of these, but four remain unsolved.

Prior to the recent flood of cases, Kasur was already infamous for sexual abuse, after authorities uncovered a huge paedophile ring in the city in 2015.Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Marguerite Afra Sapiie and Nurul Fitri Ramadhani (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, October 17, 2018 16:35 1126 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877812cd9 1 National BPJS-Kesehatan,JKN,health-insurance,health,Jokowi-administration,hospitals Free

President Joko Jokowi Widodo reprimanded Health Minister Nila F. Moeloek and Health Care and Social Security Agency (BPJS Kesehatan) president director Fahmi Idris on Wednesday for the ongoing deficit in the state health insurance (JKN).

The [deficit problem] shouldve been solved by the minister and the BPJS director. [How can] a matter related to hospitals debts reach the president? This is outrageous, Jokowi said in his speech on the opening of the Indonesian Hospital Association (PERSI) in Jakarta.

If it happens again next year, that would be outrageous, said the President.

Last month, Jokowi decided to increase the budget allocation for the BPJS to Rp 4.9 trillion (US$330 million) in the 2018 state budget.

However, that seems to be insufficient to cover the health insurance deficit, which is expected to reach Rp 10.99 trillion this year.

Therefore, Jokowi has asked the BPJS Kesehatan to swiftly fix its management system to avoid a deeper deficit.

The President has also ordered an audit on hospital bills following reports of excessive claims at hospitals causing mounting bills.

The government has devised a policy mix to be implemented over several years that will enable the agency to increase revenue from more sources, including a tobacco levy. The Finance Ministry has also issued a regulation that imposes a ceiling on BPJS Kesehatans operational costs.Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Karina M. Tehusijarana (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, October 17 2018

Among the four presidential and vice-presidential candidates in the running for the 2019 election, former Jakarta deputy governor Sandiaga Uno seems the most active on the campaign trail so far.

Even before the campaign period officially started last month, Sandiaga had made visits to quake survivors in Lombok, East Nusa Tenggara, and spoke to entrepreneurs in South Sulawesi.

Since then he has made numerous trips to various towns and cities in Central, East and West Java, as well as Yogyakarta and Lampung, mostly visiting traditional markets, pesantren (Islamic boarding schools) and events about entrepreneurship.

to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,000/month Unlimited access to our web and app content

e-Post daily digital newspaper

No advertisements, no interruptions

Privileged access to our events and programs

Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? loginShare this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, October 17, 2018 12:21 1127 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b308778076f4 1 Business Schneider-Indonesia,portable-solar-lamps,Palu,PMI Free

Global energy management company Schneider Electric has distributed 1,000 portable light-emitting diode (LED) lamps that uses solar energy to disaster-affected areas in Central Sulawesi, it has said in a statement received on Tuesday.

Schneider Electric Indonesia said the Mobiya portable lamps could store electricity and be used for up to 48 hours.

The statement said that Schneider Electric Indonesia country president Xavier Denoly handed the portable solar lamps to Indonesian Red Cross (PMI) secretary-general Ritola Tasmaya.

The portable lamps are to be distributed in cooperation with PMI, particularly to emergency shelters, medical facilities and schools that were not receiving electricity from state-owned electricity company PLN, the statement said.

Denoly hoped that the portable lamps would help optimize the PMI volunteers provide post-disaster assistance to survivors in Palu, Donggala, Sigi and surrounding areas.

Many locations in Palu and surrounding areas are still relying on generator sets (gensets) to supply electricity.

The PMI's Ritola appreciated the assistance, stressing that the logistical supplies and equipment contributed from various parties were needed to help the survivors of the Central Sulawesi earthquake and tsunami.

We express our gratitude to Schneider Electric for their support for PMI. We need the lamps in our operations that frequently take place in areas that do not have electricity, he added. (bbn)Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Washington, United States  Wed, October 17, 2018 08:38 1127 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b308777fe72d 2 World #SaudiArabia,#MurderCase,Saudi-Arabia,murder,journalist,suspects,Crown-Prince-Mohammed-bin-Salman Free

A suspect identified by Turkey in the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was a frequent companion of the kingdom's powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, The New York Times reported Tuesday.

Three other suspects are linked to Prince Mohammed's security detail and a fifth is a high-level forensic doctor, the Times said.

The account could raise doubt about US President Donald Trump's claim -- after Saudi King Salman strongly denied to him any knowledge of what happened -- that "rogue killers" might have been responsible for Khashoggi's disappearance.

Khashoggi, a Saudi national who contributed to The Washington Post and criticized policies of Salman's son Crown Prince Mohammed, has not been seen since October 2, when he went to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to obtain official documents for his upcoming marriage.

Turkish government sources have said police believe the journalist was killed by a special team of 15 Saudi officials sent to Istanbul especially for the task.

Riyadh insists that he left the consulate safely.

The Times said it confirmed that at least nine of the 15 worked for the Saudi security services, military or other government ministries.

The newspaper said it gathered more information about the suspects through facial recognition software, a database of Saudi cellphone numbers, leaked Saudi government documents, witnesses and media.

- Who are the suspects? -

One suspect, Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb, was a diplomat assigned to the Saudi embassy in London in 2007, it said, citing a British diplomatic roster.

Mutreb, perhaps a bodyguard, has been photographed emerging from planes with Prince Mohammed on recent trips to Madrid and Paris, the newspaper reported.

It added that Mutreb was also photographed standing guard during Prince Mohammed's visits in the United States to Houston, Boston and the United Nations.

The Times said three other suspects are Abdulaziz Mohammed al-Hawsawi -- a member of the security team that travels with Prince Mohammed -- Thaar Ghaleb al-Harbi, and Muhammed Saad Alzahrani.

Harbi and Alzahrani have the same names as two people who have been identified as members of the Saudi Royal Guard, the Times said.

The fifth suspect is an autopsy expert, Salah al-Tubaigy, who the Times said identified himself on his Twitter account as the head of the Saudi Scientific Council of Forensics.

He also held high positions in the Interior Ministry and the kingdom's top medical school, the report said.

On Monday, CNN cited two sources as saying the Saudis are preparing a report that Khashoggi's death resulted from a botched interrogation, while The Wall Street Journal said the kingdom was weighing whether to say that rogue operatives killed Khashoggi by mistake.Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Washington, United States  Wed, October 17, 2018 23:22 1126 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b3087781f9f6 2 World #USA,#rape,USA,police,rape,migrants Free

A police officer in a suburb of Washington has been arrested and charged with raping an undocumented migrant during a traffic stop, officials said Wednesday.

The incident occurred in the early hours of October 11 in the town of Langley Park, just north of the capital, according to a police statement.

Ryan Macklin, 29, is accused of pulling over a female driver then forcing her to perform a sexual act while they were both seated in her car in a nearby parking lot.

Local media reported the victim was an undocumented migrant, citing an advocacy group.

Macklin, a six-year-veteran of the police force, is charged with first and second degree rape and second degree assault and will appear before a court for his first hearing on November 14.

"The charges against this officer are highly troubling," said Prince George's County Police Chief Hank Stawinski.

"Officers take an oath to protect others, not to abuse their authority in order to victimize someone."Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Dian Septiari (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, October 17, 2018 17:15 1126 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877813d34 1 World #SaudiArabia,#USA,#Russia,Russia,USA,double-standard,missing,Saudi-Arabia,journalist Free

The Russian envoy to Indonesia has said the United States response to the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi reflects the double standard the country has always had toward other countries.

They are threatening Saudi Arabia to impose sanctions of course, but Saudi Arabia is a partner of the US, so of course the treatment is different, Russian Ambassador to Indonesia Lyudmila Georgievna Vorobieva told reporters on Wednesday.

Khashoggi, a Saudi national and US resident who became increasingly critical of powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has not been seen since he walked into the kingdom's Istanbul Consulate to sort out marriage paperwork on Oct. 2.

US President Donald Trump said on Monday he had spoken with Saudi Arabia's King Salman, who strongly denied the kingdom's involvement in Khashoggi's disappearance.

"It sounded to me like maybe these could have been rogue killers. Who knows?" Trump said, describing the situation as "terrible".

Russia's foreign minister previously said he welcomed the agreement between Turkey and Saudi Arabia to hold a joint investigation into the case. Russia hopes that the results of this investigation will be made public, Lavrov said as quoted by Russian news agency Interfax on Tuesday.

The US had previously imposed sanctions on Russia over Moscows alleged involvement in the poisoning of former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia.Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Agnes Anya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, October 18 2018

Sea of trouble: Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi (left) and Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti hold a poster after briefing the media on the Our Ocean Conference (OOC) 2018 in Jakarta on Wednesday. Indonesia will host the international conference in Bali from Oct. 29 to 30.(Antara/Reno Esnir)

Off the heels of a successful hosting of the 2018 Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank Group in Nusa Dua, Bali, last week, Indonesia is once again playing host to dozens of foreign delegates, this time for the Our Ocean Conference.

The fifth edition of the international event, which runs for two days starting Oct. 29, would serve as a platform for Indonesia to reiterate its ambition to become a global maritime fulcrum, senior officials have said.

to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,000/month Unlimited access to our web and app content

e-Post daily digital newspaper

No advertisements, no interruptions

Privileged access to our events and programs

Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? loginShare this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, October 17, 2018 18:37 1126 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877819710 4 News quran,Museum,Malang,destination,travel,Al-Quran-Museum Free

The Malang administration is set to build a 4D technology-based museum of the Quran, which will be integrated with the city's Islamic center.

"The museum will not [feature] the Quran from small to big sizes; we will design it just like the one in Dubai," said Malang Mayor Sutiaji in Malang, East Java, on Oct. 6 as quoted by Antara.

The museum will showcase a visualization from Quran content. Sutiaji also said that the combination of the 4D Al Quran Museum and the Malang City Islamic Center would offer a very unique and attractive concept that is expected to lure domestic as well as foreign tourists.

Read also: Jakpost explores Mount Bromo

He added that the initiative aims to popularize the destination as many Islamic Centers in other regions are not very popular among tourists. Furthermore, the city of Malang is already set to declare itself as one of the country's halal tourist destinations.

The Malang City Islamic Center is planned to be built on Jl. Mayjen Sungkono in Arjowinangun subdistrict, Kedungkandang district. Alongside Al Quran Museum, the two buildings will be set on a 5.65-hectare plot of land with development costs estimated to be around Rp 450 billion (US$29.69 million). (kes)Starting tonight, 24 Lower East Side galleries, all within walking distance of each other, will kick off the inaugural L.E.S. Art Week, featuring exhibits with a special emphasis on female artists or groups of female artists  both emerging and established. From Oct. 17  21, 2018, many of the galleries will present special events, including artists talks, tours, performance and panel discussions devoted to the featured artists.

L.E.S. Art Week was conceived by Lesley Heller of Lesley Heller Gallery (54 Orchard Street) and Bart Keijsers Koning of LMAK Gallery (298 Grand Street) as a way of emphasizing both brick and mortar galleries and the vibrant neighborhoods in which they are located.

The duo has teamed up with the savvy audio guide developers, The Two Percent, to offer a customized audio tour featuring eight of the participating galleries that is as enjoyable as any podcast experience  but promises to be more interactive. The hour-long audio tour is available for download on your smartphone this week only, Thursday  Sunday from 12pm  6pm.

Galleries included in the audio tour are: Lesley Heller, Foley Gallery, Front Room Gallery, LMAK Gallery, High Noon Gallery, Denny Dimin Gallery, Empirical Nonsense and a bonus architecture tour at Perrotin Gallery.

Gallery owner Lesley Heller says she was inspired by a similar event, Berlin Art Week, held each fall in the German capital for the past seven years. In the past, Lower East Side galleries have banded together for an annual Gallery Walk for one afternoon or evening, but this year, Heller says, they wanted to elevate the Lower East Side gallery experience to be something a bit more special.

Curated highlights include:

 A feature wall, outdoor work by artist Tamara Gayer located at 54 Orchard St, New York.

 Protest signs from the Womens March, Still They Persist presented by LMAK Gallery

 A solo by Mary Beth Edelson presented by David Lewis Gallery

 A solo by Rachel Monosov, presented by Catinca Tabacaru Gallery

 A solo by Jessee Edelman at Denny Gallery

 A window display by Cal Lane and gallery show by Sherry Parker at Foley Gallery

 A solo by Despina Stokou at Derek Eller

 Erika Keck and Carole Cole at Feature Hudson Foundation

 A solo by Amy Hill at Front Room Gallery

 A solo by Grace Weaver at James Cohan Gallery

 A solo by Drew Shiflett at Lesley Heller Gallery

 A solo by Jill Baroff at Pablos Birthday

 A solo by Coady Brown at 1969 Gallery

 A solo by Dania Mattis at High Noon Gallery

 A group show featuring Elaine Reichek at Marc Straus

 A solo by Maureen Mcquillan at Mackenzie Fine Art

 Emily Mae Smith and Genesis Belanger at Galerie Perrotin

 A solo by Umber Majeed at Rubber Factory

 Hyon Guyon and Loredana Sperini at Shin Gallery

 A solo by Heather Guertin at Brennan and Griffin

 A solo by Barb Smith at Step Sister

 A solo by Joyce J. Scott at Peter Blum GalleryCritically speaking, Practical Magic (1998) was a flop in so much that it failed to gross more than its $75 million budget, and was poorly received by critics, with many citing a muddle of genre as the cause. Is this another example of the cinema scene missing out on something great because it doesnt fit their preconceived notions of what makes a good film?

Set in a small coastal town in Massachusetts, Practical Magic gently coats itself in the soft, bluish light of the New England area. Ironically enough, however, the exterior shots were all composed on islands in Washington state. The sturdy house where our characters reside in an active retreat from the outside world was originally a mere shell put up on San Juan Island, the town they frequent and work in is actually Coupeville, a Victorian-era port, and the internal shots of the house were partially on set in California and then moved into the house shell on San Juan later in production. Kudos to the editing and set design must be given, as between the scenes there is no clear differentiation or sign of the change to set location. The general look of the film is rich and plays particularly to the moods of the main characters in mass pathetic fallacy that is expected with supernatural protagonists.

Our protagonists are totally unrelatable and yet easy to sympathise with. Whilst the Owens women are exceptionally gifted with the magic of witchcraft, which, in the films lore, seems to be mostly intuitive feeling, wishful incantations, and supernaturally powerful botany, they are also tragically cursed with the inability to fall in love without the death of said loved one. So, as much as we want to hate Sally Owens as we watch the montage of her happy life with her lovely husband and two darling daughters, and for the fact shes portrayed by the immortally beautiful and talented Sandra Bullock, the moment the deathwatch beetle comes is a moment you cant help but feel that heartbreak along with her.

In an exceptional scene that is completely underrated, Sally (Bullock) hears the deathwatch beetle whilst she is at home and immediately panics - stubbornly refusing to let an old family curse take her happy life from her. Cutting from her husband crossing a road, to Sally ripping up floorboards in a desperate search for the beetle, the early quarter of the film rips the audience down to size. The second the curses conduit form of a deathwatch beetle can be heard, you want Sally Owens to be happy. Bullocks uncanny ability to bring Sally to life elevates the film, although especially so when she is opposite Sallys sister, Gillian.

Where Sally retreated into the mundane suburban dream, Gillian is framed as the typical wildchild with booze, dancing, and greasy yet oddly attractive men. Were shown her salacious life alongside Sallys typically wholesome one: until the dream. When Gillians boyfriend Jimmy Angelov (Goran Visnjic) abuses her, giving her a black eye, Sally senses it through the power of a blood bond they share. Isnt it odd that family members can sense your struggles? In Gillians case, it is both a blessing and a curse, and their struggles end when Sally poisons the boyfriend with belladonna. Kidman and Bullock deliver nuanced emotion throughout the film for their clearly complex and layered characters, and even find the breath for excellent comedic timing amongst heart-wrenching grief. We watch Sally Owens go from a witty child, to a happy mother and wife, to a mourning, bedridden widow, to a scared but determined single mother, to a fierce protector of her sister and home, to a murderer and wooer, to contentment: total emotional whiplash.

Its tragicomedy at its finest as you watch the sisters, united in their old family home once more, belittling each other as they bury the man they have murdered. Admittedly, its hard to feel anything but cool justice for this moment, the man, after all, was a vile human. Gillian (Nicole Kidman) mellows out in this return to her family home, where Sally and her daughters have also moved after the death of Sallys husband via death beetle, living there with their two eccentric Aunts who are also witches. The film is perhaps best known today for aesthetic quality of the sets and designs around the Owens home, especially the kitchen and greenhouse lean-to, that are ultimate domestic spaces with herbs and pots, large windows and spaces, by amazing curation of then-production designer, now interior designer Robin Standefer (Goodfellas, Addicted to Love, Zoolander). In those four walls, domestic New Age witchcraft met ornately Victorian romantic architecture.

In a particularly endearing scene in the house, the Aunts (Dianne West and Stockard Channing) join Sally and Gillian in a midnight tequila-drowned margarita session, dancing around the kitchen to a loud version of Harry Nilssons Coconut. Indeed, the soundtrack of Practical Magic doesnt help clarify issues of genre. The tracks listing includes Stevie Nicks Crystal, and If You Ever Did Believe, as well as songs by Marvin Gaye, Elvis Presley, Bran Van 3000, Faith Hill, Joni Mitchell, and a grandiose music score by Alan Silvestri (The Back to the Future trilogy, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Cast Away). Clearly, the soundscape for this film is as eclectic as the witchy aunts. Yet the deeply melancholic voices of Joni Mitchell and Steve Nicks provide us with some insight in juxtaposition to the soft optimism of Gaye, Hill, or the Silvestris score: the lives of these witches are messy and contradictory and filled with moments of extreme emotion.

Gary Hallet, the detective sent to investigate Jimmy Angelovs disappearance, is the embodiment of Sallys ideal man whose existence is supposed to be impossible, pure dramatic irony. Yet, this reveal seems rather rushed, and their romance seems oddly rapid - with Hallet accusing Sally and her sister of murder with one breath, and then losing his breath the next moment as he kisses her emphatically, declaring his love. In a world of saturated romance, maybe the audience doesnt need a total unfolding of romantic plot, especially in a film that also includes ghosts, witches, and possession. And, after all, Hallet is not even present during the climatic scene of the film that sees Sally and the circle of her daughters, her aunts, and the townswomen around her, using their magic to rid Gillian of Angelovs demonic possession.

The cinematography of the film can be summarised this one scene: Sallys daughters watch in awe as Sally goes on tiptoes to light a candle upon the fireplace with a soft blow, just her own breath and her own lips. Bullock is clothed in black, her face joyous and mischievous in a way the magically self-repressive Sally is rarely seen until that moment. Candle light flickering in a dark, oaky room, filled with women preparing to save Gillian. Is this still a romantic tale? Or is this a tale of female solidarity? Or does it really matter? In a retrospective interview with Vulture in 2017, director Griffin Dunne (Movie 43, Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold) reportedly said that he realized its not really about spells and spell books and all that  its about a legacy being passed from one generation to another, a notion that translates into the film brilliantly.

Perhaps Practical Magic is a conglomerate of genres, of odd directorial and storytelling choices, of dubious moral messages about love and hate; perhaps it is a perfect example of accepting the so-called inconsistencies of the female existence and domain. Or, perhaps Practical Magic is merely enjoyable due to a great cast, an intriguing soundtrack and the lovely aesthetic of its set and costume design.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What You Need to Know About Early Voting in Moore CountyYou have permission to edit this article.

Edit CloseMontreal, CA (H4T1V6)

Today

Cloudy early with periods of light rain and snow later in the day. High 3C. Winds E at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of precip 90%..

Tonight

Cloudy with periods of rain. Low near 2C. Winds ESE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall near a quarter of an inch.

remaining of

Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading.MBABANE - Seven government parastatals have signed an agreement which will lead to accelerated business growth.



Yesterday, the seven parastatals signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) that will see them put a collaborative effort in growing businesses in the country at Sibane Hotel.



The parastatals are National Industrial Development Corporation of Swaziland (NIDCS), Eswatini Standards Authority (SWASA), Centre for Financial Inclusion (CFI), Royal Swaziland Technology Park ( RSTP), National Agricultural Marketing Board (NAMBoard) and Small Enterprises Development Company Limited (SEDCO) and the Swaziland Water and Agricultural Development Enterprise.



NIDCS Chief Executive Officer Muzi Dube, explained that it had taken the organisations a long time coming up with the MoU. He said the MoU would allow businesspeople to get all the help they need in developing their businesses, until they are ready to work outside the country.



He said the different parastatals would be at hand to offer their expertise to the different businesspeople when the need arises.

One of the participants in the event explained that if a businessperson visits one of the parastatals for any service, and they require the services of another organisation, the relevant government company would step in to assist them.CAPE TOWN - Not all that glitters is gold! This axiom best describes the situation facing businesses with dire interests in cross border trade, who may be over the moon that Eswatini was among the first six countries which have ratified the celebrated African Continental Free Trade Area (ACFTA).



Eswatini ratified the agreement on July 1, 2018.

Before the country can get to maximise on the massive economic and social benefits that will come about as a result of trading with the 55 African Union (AU) Member States which have signed the agreement establishing the AfCFTA, there still needs to be a serious discussions as to whether the countries which have signed and ratified the agreement will allow for duty free access into their markets.



Apart from the fact that there will have to be 22 countries which have ratified the agreement before it comes into force, there still needs to be a series of annexes, which include but not limited to, tariffs and rules of origin which are yet to be discussed and agreed upon before the glorified agreement sees light of day.



Taking into consideration that fact that member states of the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) are already at loggerheads about the revenue sharing formula at present. Discussions on tariffs and rules of origin which will determine trade tariffs among the AfCFTA eligible will be no walk in the park, an economist who preferred anonymity advised during the ongoing Trade Law Centre journalists training course in Cape Town at the Southern Sun Hotel.

AfCFTA is an agreement launched in March 21, 2018 at the Extraordinary Summit of the AU in Kigali, Rwanda.



Signed



According to the Trade Law Centre (TRALAC), as at end of July 2018, 49 out of the 55 AU Member States had signed the AfCFTA Agreement, and six Member States which include Eswatini had already deposited their instruments of ratification, despite outstanding Phase I negotiations on tariff schedules, rules of origin, and the regulation of services.



International Trade Law Professor Gerhard Erasmus explains that the AfCFTA Agreement promises to deepen the economic integration of the African continent and to work towards an integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa.

However, he advised that one should also be realistic regarding the speed at which all parties will be able to comply.MBABANE  You have to be really good at what you do when you get invited to perform on foreign grounds. Afro soul musician, Bholoja, is well known for killer performances on stage and because of this, he was performing at the State of Kuwait during the SADC Cultural Week last week.



The embassies of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) accredited to and based in the State of Kuwait, comprising Botswana, Comoros, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, South Africa, Tanzania and Zimbabwe, held the SADC Cultural Week in collaboration with the National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters (NCCAL) from September 30 to October 4.



Bholojas music was met with a lot of excitement and warmth from the Kuwait society, adults and youth alike, throughout the different venues he performed, this is according to the team the multi-talented musician travelled with.



The Zero to Hero hitmaker said he was invited by Kuwait musicians from the Duke studios to record with them, so they could publicise his music throughout the Gulf region, as they believed they could reach a bigger audience all over the middle east.

He also collaborated with Christopher Muvengwa Timbe from the Republic of Zimbabwe, who played an African traditional instrument called the Mbira, and they got to perform their song on Ktv2 Hala kuwait.



I would like to thank the Kuwait National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters (NCCAL), for sponsoring the event as well as giving me the platform to showcase my music and represent the Kingdom of Eswatini. I would also like to thank Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Eswatini and the State of Kuwait, as well as thank the Eswatini National Council for Arts and Culture and SWAMA, said the artist.



He further said he would like to thank the SADC embassies accredited to the State of Kuwait, especially the Embassy of Eswatini in the State of Kuwait, for organising the cultural week and facilitating travel arrangement from Eswatini to Kuwait.

The international artist also thanked Sigeja Curios for donating traditional attire to them before the trip to Kuwait. He encouraged other companies to learn from the shop situated at the Mbabane, Plaza.The incident, which saw several people being injured and property being vandalised, took place on Monday afternoon.

A group of about 30 community members was found adjacent to the illegal alcohol outlet, which is situated in Mbhuleni, Matsapha.



Shebeen



The community members, who were visibly angry, said the person who was running the shebeen should close it down as he was failing to operate it like incarcerated Sibusiso Bizzah Dlamini.



They alleged that the shebeen operates every day and was promoting illegal activities. They alleged that people who went to work early in the morning and knocked off late were usually robbed by the patrons.



The patrons are polluting our children who pass by, with their vulgar language, alleged one of the community members.

Furthermore, the community members alleged that the bulldogs which they use to provide security at the shebeen terrorise people, children, in particular.

Some of the community members, who were unarmed at the time, forced their way into the shebeen. However, they were seen sprinting back as those working inside set the bulldogs on them.



While they were running away from the bulldogs, one of the community members slipped and fell to the ground within the shebeen premises and he was heavily assaulted. They later opened the gate and released the man.



The community members regrouped and this time around they brought their weapons, which included spades and man-made knives, among others. Afterwards, they launched another attack and when those working at the shebeen set the bulldogs on them, they assaulted the animals with their weapons.

The armed community members got into the shebeen and noises of a fierce fight and vandalism of property was heard from inside.



It was gathered that some of the things which were vandalised during the attack included refrigerators, beers and jukeboxes.

Those who managed to find their way out of the shebeen premises came out half naked as they were chased by the armed community members.

Worth noting is that some of the community members used the roofing of the shebeen to gain entry.



As a result of the bloody clash and threats that they wanted to set the shebeen alight, police were called to intervene and they responded promptly to the call.

Meanwhile, some Mbhuleni community members, who were part of the attacks, are currently fighting for their lives in hospital.

Sources close to the matter alleged that after the police had mediated in the matter, the situation settled but at night, a mob, which was allegedly organised by the faction from the shebeen, attacked the individuals in their homes.



They alleged that the mob also vandalised property including cars, houses and further hacked some of the community members.

Chief Police Information and Communications Officer Superintendent Phindile Vilakati said so far there were two cases of assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm reported to the police and one of assault common. She said there were also cases of malicious damage to property.



There are also cases which are being opened by those who were affected, Vilakati said.

The police mouthpiece said currently, no one had been arrested in connection with the cases opened. She warned members of the public against taking the law into their own hands.



She urged the affected community members to approach relevant structures in the community and the police to voice their concerns.

She said they should believe in dialogue in finding lasting solutions to their grievances.



MBABANE - A local company wants to be granted a licence to operate a factory which will manufacture drugs for medicinal purposes using dagga.

Umjono (PTY) Limited yesterday filed an urgent application at the High Court where it is seeking an order directing government to grant it the licence within seven days.



Directors and shareholders of the company are Sabelo Lusolotja Ginindza, Bheki Trevor Shongwe, and Macedziphathi Dlamini.

The company is seeking an order directing the Ministry of Health to consider its application to operate the Medical Research Facility centre for purposes of extraction, derivation, production and manufacturing of drugs for medical purposes.



Respondents in the matter are the Ministry of Health and the Attorney General. According to one of the directors, Shongwe, after having been incorporated in January 2016, the company proceeded to apply for and was issued with a trading licence by the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Trade.

He alleged that the company then embarked on a study on how cannabis and/or dagga might be utilised for health or medicinal purposes.



In his founding affidavit, Shongwe submitted that it was found that dagga or cannabis could be very useful and beneficial to the people of Eswatini.

He submitted that the study by his company revealed that cannabis could be quite useful for a number of medical ailments from which the populace was suffering.



The ailments according to Shongwe include inter alia: Alzheimers which is a disease characterised by a progressive loss of memory. He told the court that patients with Alzheimers were also likely to experience depression, agitation and loss of appetite.



Cannabis contains tetrahydrocanabinol (THC). THC and its analogs may provide an improved therapeutic option for Alzheimers disease by simultaneously treating both symptoms and the progression of the diseases, submitted Shongwe

Other ailments which Shongwe claimed could be treated through drugs manufactured from cannabis include diabetes mellitus, dystonia, epilepsy, gastrointestinal disorders, cancer, hepatitis C, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), hypertension, incontinence. Multiple sclerosis, post- traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), pruritus, rheumatoid arthritis and sleep apnea.



Benefits



He averred that his company had at its disposal medical experts to elucidate to the court the benefits of administration of cannabis or its extracts. Shongwe said the applicant (company) was prepared to parade the experts if so required.

He went on to request the court to allow the applicant to bring the experts to assist it (court).



As indicated that this is a research and/or study carried out by the applicant, the need to establish a medical research centre for administration of cannabis and/or its extracts on patients arises, hence the applicant is desirous to embark on such an exercise, contended Shongwe.



He alleged that the applicant engaged the University of Eswatini (UNESWA) and sought alliance for the establishment of a cannabis medical research centre.

Shongwe averred that, following several discussions between the applicant and UNESWA, the latter being represented by the Eswatini Institute for Research in Tradition Medicine, Medicinal and Indigenous Food Plants (SIRMIP), a draft agreement to the build, operate, own and transfer of research, development and cultivation facility at Mafutseni was prepared.



Capital



Shongwe submitted that the material terms of the agreement were that his company would among other things, construct the Medical Research Centre at Mafutseni and to procure the capital to fund the establishment and the facility; assist with further research into plant material to a point of commercialisation; assist traditional healers in terms of correct dosage and cultivation and research original Swati landrace material in order to produce unique end products for the medicinal cabinet market to compete on a global stage.



He further claimed that, in conjunction with the university, it was agreed that they would establish sophisticated research, development and cultivation facilities and create unique genetics.



Shongwe told the court that on the other hand, UNESWA was to among other things provide sufficient information to enable the company to perform its obligations under the agreement and also give the applicant unfettered access to the physical area under its control, staff, relevant information and resources.



He said the draft agreement was ready for signature by both parties and it would accordingly be signed once the company had been granted the licence. The company is represented by Linda Dlamini of Mabila Attorneys and the matter is still pending in court. The State is yet to file its papers.

. . .



MBABANE  On their first task, parliamentarians have defied the courts. Sabelo Masuku, Chairman of the Commission on Human Rights and Public Administration or Integrity, said the resolution passed by the august House citing that aspirant senators who lost in the recently held elections were not eligible to stand for Senate election was in contempt of court.

Contempt of court is the offence of being disobedient to or disrespectful of a court of law and its officers.

The duo of Michael Masilela and Samuel Majojo Mamba had abandoned their quest to be senators following the resolution by the Members of Parliament (MPs) who later voted for 10 senators.



Masuku said the judgment issued by the High Court did not cite Parliament but affected the manner in which legislators were to vote. With this, he said the former MP of Lobamba (Masilela) should have served Parliament with a court order so that he (ex-MP) could not not be barred from partaking in the elections. Even if he did not present the court order, he stands an opportunity to challenge Parliament in court as this was contempt of court, Masuku opined. He said the affected aspirant legislators could use the same judgment when challenging the decision by the parliamentarians.

The judgment dubbed victory for all aspiring MPs who lost in the national elections, was issued by a full bench comprising Judge Mumcy Dlamini, sitting with Judge Maxine Langwenya and Judge Mzwandile Fakudze. The court heard former MP Masilelas application, challenging the constitutionality of Section 5(3) of the Senate (elections) Act No.7 of 2013 and found that this section of the Act that Masilela challenged was indeed unconstitutional.



The Act states that a person who is an unsuccessful candidate in the general elections shall not be considered for nomination as a senator.

When Masilela lost in the Primary Elections, his ambition to remain a parliamentarian remained alive. The only stumbling block was the Senate Act and he filed an urgent application at the High Court.



He wanted the court to strike out the section of the Act which prohibits losing MP candidates from being considered for seats in Senate.

Having heard counsel for the parties, applicants (Masilela) application succeeds with no order as to costs, reads the order. In his application, Masilela of Nkhanini argued that Section 5(3) of the Act was inconsistent with Section 97 of the Constitution.

He wanted the court to strike down this subsection of the Act due to being inconsistent with Section 97 of the Constitution. Meanwhile, means to get a comment Masilela yesterday follwoing the developments proved futile. He was first contacted at about 4pm where upon receiving the call, the former MP requested to be contacted at 5pm.



I left while the proceedings were on going and I am still to gather what really happened, Masilela said.

When means to solicit his comment were made at the stipulated time, it rang unanswered until 7pm.

LOBAMBA  Wife to National Commissioner of Police Isaac Magagula is now a senator.



Senator-elect Leckinah Magagula was the first of the five women to be elected as she quickly amassed the 12 automatic votes needed to gain a seat.

From the onset, Magagula quickly received 11 votes as she was the first preference from the MPs.



She had to wait for about 10 minutes before she was elected, much to the delight of some of the MPs and people in the public gallery who clapped hands, something that is prohibited in the house.



Female



Next on the list of the female senators was little known Lizzie Nkosi, who had initially received only five original votes when the ballot papers were first read out.



However, as the second and third preferences were read out Nkosi was quick to gain momentum and she was duly announced in second place.

Others who made the list were Winnie Nxumalo, Busi Alexis Dlamini and Khanyisile Malambe.



All eyes were on Mhlume MP Victor Malambe, who is married to Khanyisile and when her name was eventually announced as part of the top five some of his colleagues gave him a thumbs up.



The saddest moment of the day was that of none other than former Senator Lindiwe Ngwenya, who lost out with just one vote as she ended up being on sixth position. When the ballot papers were first read out, Ngwenya had been nominated as first preference, amassing seven votes out of the required 12. However, as the ballots continued to be read out, her name featured less and she eventually lost out.



Another one who bit the dust was former Senator Lungile Gama, who only received two first preference votes.

One of the other hopefuls in the Senate race for females was Dududzile Nhlengetfwa who is the Chief Executive Officer at the Federation of Eswatini Employers.



A total of 69 MPs cast their ballots, one of which was spoilt because instead of indicating the position which was being selected, the legislator used the symbol of the cross against the face of the preferred candidates.

It was, however, a pretty embarrassing moment for some of the candidates who though initially nominated were not given first preference by any of the MPS.



In total, these candidates were nine of the 29 nominees. Another was disqualified following the fact that the House of Assembly yesterday resolved that those who had lost in the Primary and Secondary Elections were not eligible to stand. She was Thabisile Mavimbela.You have reached a premium content area of TOL. To read this entire article please login if you are already a TOL subscriber.



Not a subscriber?



Subscribe today for access to:

Full access to the website, including premium articles videos, country reports and searchable archives (containing over 25,000 articles).

A conference at the Acropolis Museum on October 18 and 19 will highlight the contributions of foreign archaeological schools in Athens to the study and promotion of Greek and European culture, ANA reports.

The event, part of the EUs 2018 European Year of Cultural Heritage celebrations, is jointly held by the two main archaeological directorates oft the Ministry of Culture, of Prehistoric & Classical Antiquities and of Byzantine & Post-Byzantine Antiquities.

An accompanying photographic exhibit will be inaugurated at the Acropolis Museum on October 18 and stay on view until November 28.

(The schedule, in both Greek and English, can be accessed at https://www.culture.gr/DocLib/%20.pdf)

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Cyprus offers two types of schemes: citizenship by investment, naturalization of investors by and residence by investment

Cyprus Golden Visa program offering residency permits to rich foreign investors that let them travel through the European Union was among 21 that the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said are being used for criminal means, including tax evasion, with the country still fighting a notorious reputation for being a tax hideout haven.

Cyprus and Malta, where a journalist investigating corruption and money laundering was murdered, were the only European Union countries on the OECD black list, said the Cyprus Mail. The OECD analyzed more than 100 residence and citizenship by investment (CBI/RBI) schemes offered by jurisdictions committed to the OECD/G20 Common Reporting Standard (CRS).

Cyprus offers two types of schemes: citizenship by investment, naturalization of investors by and residence by investment.

According to the OECD the schemes offered by Cyprus and 20 other countries potentially pose a high-risk to the integrity of CRS.

Potentially high-risk CBI/RBI schemes are those that give access to a low personal tax rate on income from foreign financial assets and do not require an individual to spend a significant amount of time in the jurisdiction offering the scheme, the report said.

The other countries on the list were Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Bahrain, Barbados, Colombia, Dominica, Grenada, Malaysia, Malta, Mauritius, Monaco, Montserrat, Panama, Qatar, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Seychelles, Turks and Caicos Islands, the United Arab Emirates and Vanuatu.

A joint report by Global Witness and Transparency International said programs run by some EU countries to sell passports and residency permits to wealthy foreign citizens pose risks of money laundering as some of the schemes are not properly managed.

The programs are available in 13 EU countries: Austria, Cyprus, Luxembourg, Malta, Greece, Latvia, Portugal, Spain, Ireland, Britain, Bulgaria, the Netherlands and France. Hungary has terminated its programme.

According to the report, titled European Getaway  Inside the Murky World of Golden Visas. Cyprus CBI marketing says the island offers the quickest, most assured route to citizenship of a European country.

The statistics seem to support this, the report said. Cyprus passports-for-sale scheme is the most prolific of its kind in Europe, with 3,300 foreign nationals having secured EU passports since 2013, earning the country some 4.8 billion euros ($5.5 billion).

In July, there was a warning that wealthy foreigners who can buy so-called Golden Visas to get residency permits in Cyprus  without living there but able to reside in other European Union countries  could find themselves in a bind if the government decides to grant companies or individuals selling investments the right to operate as licensed advisers.

That came from a stakeholder, Akis Kyradjis, Vice President at Arton Capital, who told the Cyprus Mail that they risk being exposed to malpractice and fraud.

This is like allowing the producers of medicines to act as doctors as well, said Kyradjis, whose company advises the rich about residency and citizenship matters.

We find it hard to believe that the government will make Cyprus the only country in the world to declare officially that it allows conflict of interest in providing professional services to investors, he said.

Ironically, the government, which is aggressively pushing for affluent foreigners to buy the visas, has barred agencies from promoting them.

Kyradjis said that while the government had taken measures to reduce the risk of abuse in other areas, it had not taken a final decision over the licenses.

Applicants are required to present clean criminal records although Cyprus is still fighting a reputation as a haven for tax cheats and money launderers, and they must sign an agreement that they will avoid conflicts of interest between their organizations, clients, business associates and other professionals.

The scheme, introduced in 2014, has been updated with measures regulating the business of the Golden Visas, with investors required to put at least 2 million euros ($2.34 million) into real estate or a company or in shares.

They can also invest 2 million euros in securities offered by investment companies licensed by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission, or a combination of both parts.

Read more at thenationalherald.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Besix Group (Besix) said a consortium comprising its key subsidiary Six Construct and TGCC has been awarded the contract to design and build the tallest building in Africa at Rabat, the capital of Morocco.



The 250-m-high building is being developed by O Tower, a subsidiary of FinanceCom Group. China Railway Construction Corporation International (CRCCI) will continue to provide support to the winning consortium, said a statement from Besix Group.



It will boast a luxury hotel besides offices and apartments. Also a viewing terrace is being planned for the very top of the tower.



Designed by architects Rafael de la Hoz and Hakim Benjelloun, the 55-floor-building will be certified Leed (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold and HQE for compliance with the highest international environmental quality standards.



Work on the tower will begin next month and is due for delivery by mid-2022.



Architect Othman Benjelloun said: "I have every confidence in the new consortiums ability to build our tower, and in particular in Besix's skills and expertise. We are all working towards a common goal: to make our tower a source of pride, both for the Kingdom of Morocco and for the African continent as a whole."



Besix Group CEO Rik Vandenberghe said: "The Bank of Africa Tower will be an emblematic building for the country. We are proud to participate in its construction in Morocco. In the case of the Bank of Africa Tower, we can count on our solid expertise in high-rise construction."



Besix knows Morocco well, having already completed the Tangier Med II port expansion and built the Mazagan Beach seaside resort. The group's responsiveness and its ability to quickly mobilize expertise and workforces are well known, he added.



Johan Beerlandt, the chairman of the board of Besix Group, said: "The Bank of Africa tower fits perfectly into Besix's tradition of excellence and will join the list of our most attractive achievements in terms of quality, innovation and aesthetics."



Mohammed Bouzoubaa, the chief executive of TGCC, said: "Our company is delighted to be working in partnership with Besix, a world leader in high-rise buildings, and TGCC will do its utmost to make this key project a success."



Based in Brussels, Belgium, Besix Group operates in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Oceania, primarily in the construction sector.



Some of its major projects in the region include the tallest tower in the world - Burj Khalifa in Dubai; the Four Seasons Hotel in Manama, Bahrain; the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi, UAE, the Meridien Hotel and Nile City complex in Cairo, Egypt and the CBX and Carpe Diem towers in Paris.-TradeArabia News ServiceThe Fairmont Ajman welcomed a number of visitors on October 10 for its 'Brides and Beyond' wedding fair, treating them fashion shows, product demonstrations, live performances and raffle draws.



The opening ceremony of Brides and Beyond 2018 was attended by HH Dr Sheikh Abdul Aziz Bin Ali Al Nuaimi, member of the Ajman royal family and CEO of Al Ihsan Charity Association, as well as Saleh Al Geziry, director general of Ajman Tourism Development Department, amongst other distinguished guests.



Throughout the days event, visitors to the exhibition able to meet with some of the regions best suppliers and wedding organisers exhibiting at this one-stop-shop event designed to address all matrimonial needs; from elegant venues to bespoke culinary options, designer wedding gowns and various other wedding requirements.



To commemorate this exhibition, Fairmont Ajman, together with Emirates Holidays and the newly opened Fairmont Maldives, partnered with Gulf News Friday Bride magazine to give away a free honeymoon to the Maldives for one lucky couple. Furthermore, brides and grooms who booked wedding packages at Fairmont Ajman by November 10 received 20 chances for the opportunity to win this amazing prize. The grand prize winner of the 'Win A Honeymoon to the Maldives' will be announced on November 12. - TradeArabia News ServiceBancroft Capital Announces Grand Opening this Veterans Day

Pennsylvania is getting a new broker-dealer.

However, it is not your average sell-side shop. Cauldon Quinn, a service-disabled veteran and financial industry leader, has shared with Traders Magazine the Grand Opening of Bancroft Capital, LLC a certified Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB), operating an Institutional Broker-Dealer and Investment Advisor. The firm will engage in a month-long celebration that will culminate on Veterans Day, November 12 at their headquarters located at 501 Office Center Drive, Suite 130, Fort Washington, PA.

A a sign of its core mission, helping veterans, Bancroft Capital will donate 100% of their net profits on Veterans Day to the Travis Manion Foundation, a nonprofit that empowers veterans and their families.

Bancroft is committed to the restoration of veterans and disabled veterans to their rightful place of leadership within society, community, and foremost to their individual family, Quinn told Traders Magazine. We aggressively look to partner with any likeminded organizations and what better place to begin than with our neighbor. In my humble opinion there are few organizations as meaningfully conceived as the Travis Manion Foundation. We are humbled, and proud to partner with Travis Manion Foundation and look to support their leadership in any way we can.

Bancroft, founded on July 4, 2017, has been providing institutional clients with an array of financial services including: Public Finance, Cash Management, Equity Trading, Investment Banking, Capital Markets, 401(k) Consulting, and Asset Management. But now, the firm is fully up to speed and ready for its official kick-off.

In keeping with Quinns vision to restore disabled veterans through meaningful and lasting employment, the firm employs a Veteran Training Program in partnership with a leading local university. Bancrofts Veteran Training Program accepts a new class every six months and places financial industry veterans alongside military veterans working together to deliver value-added content to its clients.

Bancroft Capital is one of a handful of SDVOSB in the country and the first in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The firm has received designations as a certified Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Business from the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs (Vet Biz), New York State, Disability:IN, NaVOBA, NVDBC, VIB Network, and Elite SDVOB Network.

To learn more about Bancroft Capital, visit www.bancroft4vets.com.

To learn more about Travis Manion Foundation, visit www.travismanion.org.

For more information on related topics, visit the following channels:| By Chris Zang

Like a preschool teacher gathering his young students around him, Thomas Scalea had his own form of story time. But instead of Thomas the Tank Engine, Scaleas topic was Supporting Failing Organs at the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) Entrepreneurs of the Year Presentation on Oct. 15.

His very cool story took place not in a cozy classroom but in the auditorium of the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center, which is regarded as the worlds most advanced trauma center under physician-in-chief Scalea, MD, FACS, FCCM, and his colleagues.

Physician-in-chief at the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center, Thomas Scalea, MD, FACS, FCCM, delivers a lecture about Supporting Failing Organs at the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) Entrepreneurs of the Year Presentation.

Scalea mixed history, humor, and humility into a riveting hourlong presentation enjoyed by over 100 people.

Anyone who has heard me knows I tell stories. Its the only thing Im good at, said Scalea, the Francis X. Kelly Distinguished Professor in Trauma Surgery at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. And this is a pretty good story. Its a story not only about MARS. Its about the development of support for failing organs. Its a story about a whole bunch of entrepreneurs and their spirit that allowed us to accumulate the knowledge that has brought us to this point.

It starts with the advent of critical care: When I finished my residency back in the Middle Ages, say around 1983, there was a single fellowship program in critical care for surgeons  one. My surgical critical care certificate number is 069. There werent that many, said Scalea, who arrived at Shock Trauma in 1997. So its a story of critical care that traces its maturation, its a story of innovation and determination. Its a story that covers a long time, its not just about MARS, so indulge me.

Later called a Pied Piper by 2017 UMB Entrepreneur of the Year Bartley Griffith, MD, Scalea led the crowd on a journey of organ failure through the ages. Heart failure in World War I. Kidney failure in World War II and the Korean War because helicopters and blood banking made injured soldiers live who used to die from heart failure. Lung failure in Vietnam.

Scalea dropped many names of pioneers in the fight against organ failure up to modern days. Florence Nightingale. Peter Safar. Tom Petty without the Heartbreakers. Dave Ashbaugh. Bruce Jarrell. Rolf Barth. Art Baue. Berry Fowler. And his mentor, Louis Del Guercio. I had no right to that fellowship, but he took pity on me, so I dedicate this to his memory, Scalea said.

Among the historical tidbits was that Safar in 1958 set up the first ICU in the United States. Where? Scalea asked the assembled physicians, researchers, students, and staff. Eight miles from here, Baltimore City Hospital, now known as Bayview. The home of critical care in trauma in the United States is Baltimore.

Next Stop: MARS

Eventually Scalea got around to his greatest story of the day, the one that garnered him, Deborah Stein, MD, MPH, FACS, FCCM, chief of trauma at Shock Trauma, and Steven Hanish, MD, FACS, a former liver surgeon at Shock Trauma who is now director of liver transplants at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, the UMB Entrepreneurs of the Year award.

Their innovative application of the Molecular Adsorbent Recirculating System (MARS) led to a study that found this dialysis machine for the liver can remove toxins, improve clotting, and reduce brain swelling  allowing acute liver failure sufferers time for spontaneous recovery or transplantation.

Usually as the senior member of the team I would have assigned this talk to Deb or Steve, Scalea said early in his presentation. But he is in Dallas [at his new job] and she is in England [on vacation], so youll just have to put up with me.

How the MARS machine came to Shock Trauma combined knowledge, quick thinking, a tight-knit team, and good old-fashioned luck.

This guy comes in with a devastating liver injury from a gunshot wound, Scalea recalls. Deb calls me, we get him through the first operation, but he goes into liver failure. Deb says, What about this MARS machine? Weve heard about it, we dont own one, few did. She says, Hey, Dad, you think we could get one?  Scalea recalled to the audiences amusement.

I say Sure! I dont know where the hell we are going to get one. So I call the company. They say, Youre not going to believe this. Somebody bought it. They decided they didnt want it. Its on the truck, in Maryland, coming back to the factory. Do you want it?

I said, Absolutely, turn the truck around and bring it down,  Scalea recalled. Then I hung up and I asked myself, I wonder how much this thing costs? [more laughter] So I called Karen [Doyle, senior vice president at Shock Trauma] and said, Hey, Mom, can we have a dialysis machine? God love her, she said. I dont care what it costs, if you need it, youve got it. They deliver it and just like Petty [the pioneering lung specialist], we sit on the floor. We open the instructions. We say, How hard can it be? Its just a machine. The patient gets well.

And so did more and more patients. After 27 patients, Scalea, Stein, and Hanish reported their findings to the American Surgical Association. Now the nearly 14,000 Americans on the liver transplant waiting list have renewed hope. And as James L. Hughes, MBA, chief enterprise and economic development officer and vice president at UMB, who hosted the event, said, Through persistence and meticulous research, the MARS team is on the path to turn inspiration to save one life into a new standard of care for thousands of patients.

Scalea sees it more as being in the right place at the right time. We had modern technology next to the patients, he said. We controlled the technology ourselves. We noticed what was different, we werent bound by conventional thinking. We challenged dogma, we flew by the seat of our pants, and as physicians and surgeons we were together. This story is far from told. There are a zillion careers for those who want to take this on. But its a cool story. A very cool story.

Record-Breaking Research

After Scalea took questions from the audience, Hughes, UMB President Jay A. Perman, MD, and Phil Robilotto, DO, MBA, assistant vice president of research and development, presented plaques to some of the 99 UMB researchers who had U.S. and international patents approved in the past year.

Weve had an incredible year in extramural funding, Hughes said. We had big growth two years ago and this year we grew the biggest we have ever had and the biggest of any University System of Maryland institution with $667.4 million. There is a lot of great research being done here, and thats the foundation of much of the great entrepreneur work we are seeing.Refugees and migrants rescued by Spanish Coast Guard vessel the Maria Zambrano prepare to disembark at the port of Algeciras in southern Spain.  UNHCR/Markel Redondo

Ahead of this weeks meeting of European Union (EU) Heads of State and Government, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, and IOM, the UN Migration Agency, are together appealing to European leaders to urgently take steps to address this years record rate of drownings on the Mediterranean Sea.



The leaders of the two organizations warn that political discourse concerning refugees and migrants, particularly those arriving by boat, has become dangerously toxic in some countries, even at a time when arrivals to Europe are declining. This narrative is stoking unnecessary fears, making it harder for countries to work together and blocking progress towards solutions.



The current tenor of the political debate  painting a picture of Europe under siege  is not only unhelpful but completely out of touch with reality, said UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi. Arrival numbers are falling but the rate at which people are losing their lives is on the rise. We cannot forget that we are talking about human lives. Debate is welcome  scapegoating refugees and migrants for political gain is not.



Perilous irregular migration is in no ones interest. Together we must invest more in regular migration, enhanced mobility and integration to foster growth and development that benefits both sides of the Mediterranean, said IOM Director General Antonio Vitorino.



With more than 1,700 lives lost since the start of 2018, the rate at which people are drowning while trying to cross the Mediterranean has risen sharply this year. In September alone, one person died or went missing for every eight people who crossed to Europe on the Central Mediterranean, in large part due to reduced search and rescue capacity.



In addition to the need to enhance search and rescue capacity, UNHCR and IOM have proposed a workable regional arrangement that would make disembarkation and processing predictable and swift.



UNHCR and IOM urge European leaders to focus this weeks discussions on the practical solutions that are urgently needed and ensuring responsibilities are properly being shared among European States. At the same time we welcome strides taken to date by some EU Member States towards responsibility-sharing in search and rescue and post-disembarkation solutions for refugees and migrants.



UNHCR and IOM meanwhile also remind European leaders to remain focused on the implementation of the priorities already agreed earlier in the Valletta Political Declaration and Plan of Action, where States expressed profound solidarity in addressing the root causes of displacement and irregular migration, while supporting countries who receive large numbers of refugees and migrants.



Greater and more effective support from EU leaders is also needed for developing long-term structural solutions, which foster conditions in countries of origin and transit that provide opportunities for people to live in dignity.

For more information on this topic, please contact:

In Geneva:

Charlie Yaxley, UNHCR  [email protected] , +41 79 580 8702



In Brussels:

Melissa Julian, IOM - [email protected], +32 2 287 71 33/ +32 473 28 11 65

Maeve Patterson, UNHCR  [email protected], +32 470 99 54 35Congolese expelled from Angola push a rented bicycle to transport their children and belongings to Tshikapa, near the border with Angola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  Reuters/Giulia Paravicini

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is concerned by a fast-developing humanitarian situation in the Kasai region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo sparked by mass returns from Angola over the last two weeks.

Congolese government officials estimate that some 200,000 nationals have arrived in Kasai Province alone, with more arrivals reported in neighbouring Kasai Central Province. Their arrivals follow an expulsion order by the authorities in Angola targeting migrants. The Congolese were working in the informal mining sector, in the northeast of Angola, before being asked to leave.

UNHCR is appealing to the governments of Angola and the DRC to work together to ensure a safe and orderly population movement. Mass expulsions are contrary to obligations under the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights and we ask both sides to respect the human rights of those affected. Without such cooperation the returns could easily create a humanitarian crisis in the already fragile Kasai region.

There have been reports of violent clashes in some areas of Angola as law enforcement agents have attempted to enforce the leave order. The deadline for compliance with this order expired yesterday (Monday 15 October 2018).

With the deadline having passed, thousands of returnees are on the Congolese side of the border. More were seen walking towards the DRC border or arriving by cars, bus, minibuses or trucks on the Angola side of the border from where they walk to cross taking their belongings with them.

People have been arriving in DRC through different border points with whatever belongings they can bring. We have heard complaints of violence, including sexual violence and harassment, bodily frisking and theft of belongings, at the hands of security forces on both sides of the border.

The Congolese are returning to a desperate situation, looking for safety and aid. With more arriving every day, thousands are reported to be stuck at and near the border, with limited means to travel onwards to their home places. In addition, many are likely to face difficulties due to destruction caused by recent conflict in the area. Ethnic tensions still run high since the Kasai conflict in 2016 and 2017.

The town of Kamako in Kasai Province, on the border with Angola, is over-crowded with people staying overnight outdoors, in host families, church compounds, and on streets.

UNHCR teams are currently working with UN and other partners in the region to assess humanitarian needs, trying to ensure those most at risk  including unaccompanied children  are taken care of. New arrivals need food, water, shelter and other basic services both at the border and once they arrive in their villages of origin. A primary need raised by new arrivals is transport to their homes. Local authorities in the region have requested international assistance.

UNHCR is also concerned on the reports that the new arrivals may have included a small number of refugees, caught up in the mass movement and forced to return to the DRC. We are working to verify these reports. UNHCR is screening returnees at the border, working closely with the Government of Angola, to prevent forced refugee returns.

Angola currently hosts some 68,000 refugees and asylum-seekers, primarily from DRC.

For more information on this topic, please contact:US were going to war with North Korea, says Trump

Washington, Oct 16 (UNI) United States President Donald Trump said that America would have gone to war with North Korea if it werent for his timely actions.

In an interview to American TV journalist Lesley Stahl, Donald Trump said, We were going to war with North Korea. I sat with President Obama (to sort out the matter).

Referring to the infamous US-North Korea tension over nuclear weapons that came to an end after both the parties signed a joint statement, agreeing to security guarantees for North Korea, new peaceful relations, reaffirmation of the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, recovery of soldiers remains, and follow up negotiations between high-level officials.Former Chief Justice of GB Rana Shamim was vice prez of PML-N lawyers wing: Son 17 Nov 2021 | 10:24 AM Islamabad, Nov 17 (UNI) Ahmed Hasan Rana, the son of former chief judge of the Gilgit Baltistan Rana Shamim, has said his father was the vice president of PML-N Sindh lawyers wing. see more..

Foreign Ministers of Ukraine, Montenegro discussed situation on Ukrainian border: Kiev 17 Nov 2021 | 9:47 AM Kiev, Nov 17 (UNI/Sputnik) Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba spoke to his Montenegrin counterpart Dorde Radulovic by phone to discuss a number of issues, including the situation on the border of Ukraine, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. see more..

India, France stress on need for acting against terror networks, including LeT, JeM, Hizb 17 Nov 2021 | 9:33 AM Paris/New Delhi, Nov 17 (UNI) India and France held the 15th Meeting of their Joint Working Group on Counter Terrorism in Paris during which they emphasised the need for taking concerted action against all terrorist networks, including the al-Qaida and ISIS/Daesh, as well as the Pakistan-based terror outfits LeT, JeM, and Hizb-ul Mujahideen. see more..

Onus on Pak to create atmosphere free of terror for talks; will continue to act against cross-border terror: India at UN 17 Nov 2021 | 9:21 AM United Nations/New Delhi, Nov 17 (UNI) India on Tuesday slammed Pakistan for its false and malicious propaganda against it by using the UN platform and said any meaningful dialogue with Islamabad can take place only in an atmosphere free of terror, hostility and violence. see more..CVC analyses 100 top bank frauds,suggests improvements in system after identifying gaps

New Delhi Oct 16 (UNI) The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) has reviewed and analysed 100 top bank frauds and has suggested systematic improvement in the system after identifying the gaps.

Sharing the details, Vigilance Commissioner Dr TM Bhasin informed that steps are being taken for all encompassing actions such as investigation by the premier investigative agencies, fixing staff accountability and recovery measures for effective action.

Based on the findings, various industry specific suggestions for systemic improvement have been given in the final report, which have also been sent to Department of Financial Services (DFS) and Reserve Bank of India, in order to plug the loopholes observed by the Commission, he said.Kabul, Oct 17 (UNI) A deadly drought in Afghanistan is causing a humanitarian crisis and has displaced more people this year than the war between the government and Taliban.

It is estimated that around 260,000 people have been forced from their homes in northern and western Afghanistan because of a severe drought in the region.

The Taliban is now reported to control more territory in Afghanistan than at any time since the US led invasion which drove them from power in 2001, said a BBC report.

But the UN says that this year, the drought has displaced more Afghans than even the conflict between the Taliban and the government. The UN is allocating $34.6m to help the 2.2 million people who are estimated to have been affected by the drought.

The country is currently preparing for long-delayed parliamentary elections scheduled for 20 October. But many Afghans complain that their political leaders are too detached from the issues facing them.

The hundreds of thousands of people in Afghanistan certainly have more pressing concern at hand - the impending arrival of the cold winter months.

UNI XC JAL 0736New Delhi, Oct 16 (UNI) In what could be called as taking Defence cooperation between the two nations to a new level, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has shown keen interest in acquiring India's indigenously built fighter jet Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas.

UAE Minister of State for Defence Affairs Mohammed Ahmed Al Bowardi Al Falacy, who is on an official visit to India, met Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and discussed a range of Defence cooperation issues.

As per the sources in the government, 'The visiting minister has shown interest in purchasing LCA Tejas. In this regard, he will be visiting Bangalore-based Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) on Wednesday.

Earlier, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Qatar, Singapore and Egypt had also evinced interest in the fighter jet. Besides LCA, the UAE is also interested in other 'Make in India' products.

Singapore Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen flew Tejas in November last year and had said that his maiden sortie was "excellent and impressive".

Mr Hen was the first civilian foreigner to have flown the indigenous aircraft.

The Ministers also undertook a review of bilateral defence cooperation and deliberated upon measures to further enhance bilateral exchanges.

'They recognised that deeper bilateral defence cooperation has been emphasised by the leadership of both countries as a central element in the expanded India and UAE Strategic Partnership,' the Ministry of Defence said in a statement here.

In the meeting, they also deliberated to extend the joint military exercise of armies in desert areas, sources said. The air forces and navies of both the countries jointly conduct exercises.

After HAL, the UAE Minister will also visit the Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) and Aircraft & Systems Testing Establishment (ASTE).

The LCA programme was initiated in 1983, to replace the ageing MiG-21s planes in IAF's combat fleet, but has missed several deadlines due to various reasons.

UNI ASH RJ 1832UN criticised over new HRC members

United Nations, Oct 13 (UNI) A section of the human rights defenders are of the opinion that the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) does vital protection work around the world; however, the United Nations has been criticised over those new UNHRC members that have been widely criticised for severe human rights abuses.

'These' countries are among 18 newly elected members of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC).

Following Friday's election, US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley said "yet again" countries with poor human rights records had run uncontested. The US had quit the UNHRC in June, saying it made a mockery of human rights.As CFO, Mendez will advance UTSAs vision of enrollment growth, new capital projects.

(Oct. 17, 2018) -- Following a national search, UTSA President Taylor Eighmy today announced the selection of Veronica Mendez, vice chancellor and chief financial officer at the University of California, Merced, as UTSAs next Vice President for Business Affairs. Mendez joins UTSA with 16 years of experience in higher education, where she has provided leadership in finance, human resources, institutional research, and strategic and business intelligence initiatives.

In her current role at UC Merced, the University of California Systems youngest university, Mendez has made significant contributions to the success and momentum of the Merced 2020 Project, a four-year, $1.3 billion initiative that is adding 1.2 million gross square feet to the universitys campus footprint by leading the development of the projects comprehensive financial plan and its organizational structure.

Veronicas wealth of experience, can do attitude and significant accomplishments at UC Merced have positioned her to contribute greatly to our trajectory at UTSA, said Eighmy. We are very fortunate to have her join our team and I am particularly delighted to have her as a collaborator among our senior leadership.

As UTSA Vice President for Business Affairs, Mendez will provide oversight and stewardship of the universitys financial resources while working closely as a member of the UTSA Senior Leadership Team to advance UTSA vision to become a student success exemplar and nationally competitive research university.

Her initial priorities will include oversight of UTSAs transition to a new budget model, which will help the university create a strong foundation for fiscal health while laying the groundwork for growth and innovation. The new model began as a year-long pilot on Sept. 1, 2018 and will be fully implemented in fiscal year 2019-2020.

As the universitys chief financial and administrative officer, Mendez will provide leadership in advancing other ongoing initiative, including the Campus Master Plan and the expansion of the Downtown Campus. Additionally, she will oversee business affairs administration, budget and financial planning, business contracts, business information services, facilities, financial affairs, human resources, public safety and purchasing.

I am delighted to join UTSA and have the opportunity to help further its mission as a nationally recognized research university and Hispanic thriving institution. I am passionate about higher education and the impact it has on students, families and communities, said Mendez. I am equally excited to return to my home state and be closer to family.

Mendez began her academic career at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (then, the University of Texas at Brownsville), where she was a student before spending 12 years in senior leadership roles focused on finance, budget development, facilities, capital planning and project management. There, she managed a $3.9 million operational budget.

Mendez earned her bachelors degree in applied arts and sciences  management and her masters of business administration at UT-Brownsville.

Throughout her career, she has participated on several boards and has served as president of the Texas College and University Facilities Association. She was recognized as one of Texass Outstanding Women in Government in 2010.

UTSA launched a national search for the next Vice President for Business Affairs in July with the appointment of a broadly representative search committee chaired by Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Kimberly Andrews Espy. The committee, comprised of faculty, staff and students, made a concerted effort to obtain a diverse, well qualified candidate pool.

Mendez begins her new role at UTSA on January 6, 2019, succeeding UTSA Vice President for Business Affairs Kathy Funk-Baxter who announced her retirement earlier this year.Wyoming Gubernatorial Candidates to Debate at UW Oct. 25

All four candidates seeking the office of Wyoming governor will debate Thursday, Oct. 25, at the University of Wyoming. The event is free and open to the public.

Expected for the debate from 5:15-6:45 p.m. in the UW College of Arts and Sciences auditorium are candidates Mark Gordon, Republican; Mary Throne, Democrat; Dr. Rex Rammell, Constitutional; and Lawrence Struempf, Libertarian.

Laramie Boomerang Editor Joel Funk will moderate the panel. Wyoming Public Radio News Director Bob Beck and Alex Mulhall, Associated Students of UW vice president and political science major from Worland, will ask the questions.

After the event, candidates will be invited to attend a post-debate reception in the College of Business atrium from 6:45-8:15 p.m. A U.S. Senate candidate forum, which will be televised from Casper, will be available for attendees to watch in Room 121 of the College of Business.

Gordon is a rancher, small-business owner and currently serves as Wyomings state treasurer, a position he has held since 2012. He grew up on a family ranch in Johnson County and, together with his wife, Jennie, continues to ranch outside Buffalo. He graduated from St. Paul's School, an Episcopalian boarding school in Concord, N.H., and Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vt.

Throne was born and raised in Campbell County, growing up on a ranch on Wild Horse Creek. She has a bachelors degree in history from Princeton University and a law degree from Columbia Law School. The Cheyenne attorney is a former assistant Wyoming attorney general and spent more than 10 years representing Laramie County in the Wyoming Legislature.

Rammell, who grew up in the mountains of western Wyoming and eastern Idaho near Yellowstone National Park, is a licensed veterinarian. He and his wife, Lynda, own Sweetwater Stables in Rock Springs. He has a doctorate in veterinary medicine from Kansas State University, a masters degree in animal science from Utah State University and a bachelors degree in animal science from the University of Idaho.

Struempf, a Laramie County Community College computer information systems instructor on the Albany County campus, grew up on a cattle ranch near Pavillion. He earned a bachelors degree in computer science and a doctoral degree in instructional technology, both from UW; and a masters degree in management from Regis University. He lives in Laramie with his wife; they have four children.

The forum is co-sponsored by the League of Women Voters; UW School of Politics, Public Affairs and International Studies; UW Department of Communication and Journalism; the Laramie Boomerang; and Wyoming Public Media. Five UW student groups also are sponsors of the event: Political Science Club, College Republicans, Young Democrats, the Debate Club and Turning Point USA.

The Political Science Club and the UW debate team are hosting a Crash Course on Wyoming Politics for UW students to prepare them for the gubernatorial debate. The course will be Tuesday, Oct. 23, at 6 p.m. in Room 214 of the Classroom Building. Refreshments will be served.Blog Archive November (1) October (5) September (5) August (2) July (5) June (8) May (7) April (7) March (8) February (5) January (6) December (8) November (8) October (7) September (7) August (9) July (9) June (8) May (9) April (9) March (9) February (3) January (7) December (7) November (4) October (6) September (5) August (8) July (9) June (7) May (8) April (8) March (7) February (7) January (7) December (7) November (7) October (7) September (8) August (9) July (7) June (7) May (10) April (10) March (11) February (8) January (10) December (10) November (7) October (7) September (9) August (11) July (6) June (7) May (10) April (6) March (9) February (8) January (10) December (10) November (9) October (10) September (15) August (16) July (16) June (12) May (17) April (11) March (16) February (20) January (19) December (17) November (18) October (20) September (19) August (18) July (20) June (21) May (13) April (19) March (20) February (20) January (20) December (20) November (18) October (23) September (21) August (21) July (22) June (21) May (16) April (23) March (21) February (19) January (22) December (22) November (20) October (23) September (21) August (22) July (22) June (19) May (25) April (23) March (21) February (20) January (23) December (19) November (24) October (23) September (21) August (24) July (26) June (22) May (25) April (23) March (26) February (25) January (24) December (26) November (26) October (27) September (25) August (27) July (27) June (26) May (26) April (26) March (27) February (26) January (26) December (27) November (26) October (26) September (26) August (31) July (28) June (38) May (26) April (28) March (27) February (25) January (27) December (31) November (32) October (31) September (26)An MRI brain scan of a recovering cocaine addict is seen on a monitor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. Addiction is the focus of a NOVA special tonight at 9 on PBS.The United States has dominated the world over the past few decades largely because of its technological prowess. But China, the emerging power, seeks to destabilize American technological supremacy by buying out U.S. tech companies and stealing trade secrets.

Investing in American tech

When the Chinese government revealed its Made In China 2025 vision a couple of years ago, they also had plans to bring in foreign technologies to China. The Chinese officials understood that even though their country was leading in the manufacturing sector, it was trailing far behind the United States when it came to producing new technology.

And since Chinas prosperity ended up creating tons of millionaires in the country, Beijing started encouraging its high net worth individuals to invest in U.S. tech companies, especially those that dealt with emerging technologies like nanotechnology, robotics, AI, quantum technologies, and so on. By owning U.S.-based companies, Beijing wanted to gain ownership of the latest technological breakthroughs so that it could utilize advanced tech for market advantage over America.

A concerted push by China to reshape the market in its favor, using industrial policies backed by over one hundred billion dollars in government-directed funds, threatens the competitiveness of U.S. industry and the national and global benefits it brings, Politico quotes a report by the Presidents Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

Cyber-theft and espionage

China is not just relying on investing in U.S. companies to acquire American technologies. Instead, Beijing is also heavily involved in the theft of intellectual properties. The targets of such thefts are usually companies involved in cutting-edge sciences like alternative energies, nuclear technology, and so on.

Id say theyre [Chinese] very systematic, very long term in their approach and very well-funded They dont play by the same rules that we do. So cybertheft is on the table; industrial espionage is on the table, National Public Radio quotes Michael Brown, managing director of the Pentagons Defense Innovation Unit in Mountain View, California.

In addition to using cyber-attacks, Beijing also has a number of spies working in U.S. firms who are tasked with leaking sensitive trade secrets. Several Chinese-origin people in the U.S. have recently come under the scanner of intelligence agencies. The U.S. government also passed a new law that restricts admission of Chinese students in high-end STEM fields.

Blocking Chinese investment

To prevent China from acquiring U.S. companies, the Trump administration has introduced a new system that will review all foreign investment transactions in sensitive sectors like telecommunications and technology, blocking those deemed to be a threat to American security.

The expanded review system, which Congress passed into law this summer, will apply to a wide array of foreign transactions, but is aimed primarily at China, which the administration has accused of trying to gain an unfair edge by acquiring valuable technology through investments or partnerships with U.S. companies, says a San Francisco Chronicle article.



The new system is expected to go into effect on November 10. The review committee can block a deal involving a foreign investor if it is found that the investor will gain control over nonpublic technical information once the deal is passed. Though Chinese officials have criticized the policy, the current U.S. administration is dedicated to preventing China from usurping Americas position as the leading technology provider in the world.

Follow us on Twitter or subscribe to our weekly emailGovt - GSD Supports Abortion But Wants to Cynically Masquerade as Pro-Life

The Government have issued a statement saying it is disappointed by the unnecessarily combative press statement from the GSD in which it, in effect, supports the introduction of a law on abortion if the Government makes some changes to the Bill.

The statement continues, "The GSD has failed to state what those changes are. The GSD should clearly state what their position is on these important issues without playing politics on this delicate and important issue. Government would welcome their detailed thoughts on the draft legislation, as indeed all other groups, organisations and individuals who respond to the Command Paper and whose representations will be considered in detail by the Inter Ministerial Group.

On this sensitive subject, it is particularly regrettable that the GSD has not responded constructively to the Government's consultation on the draft Bill in the Command Paper.

Instead, they are clearly choosing to criticise the draft without exercising their responsibility in providing alternatives.

In fact, on at least two occasions, the Government is accused of 'ramming' legislation through Parliament. This is hardly a considered description of a Command Paper which is designed to elicit the public's views on this, the most sensitive of subjects. All the Government has done to date is seek views. Indeed, many members of the public have already responded to the Command Paper consultation in a more measured manner than the GSD!

In particular, the Government notes that the GSD appears to take issue only with one part of the proposed legislation, which is the part on non-fatal foetal abnormalities. Can we therefore assume that the GSD supports the Governments thinking on all other cases in which terminations might be considered?

In respect of non-fatal foetal abnormalities, the Government asks the GSD to answer two direct and important questions.

The first question for the GSD is how it reconciles its apparent opposition to this clause with its own practice (including when Mr Azopardi was Minister for Health) in Government of supporting, allowing and funding abortions in circumstances of non-fatal foetal abnormality? It is particularly and remarkably cynical that the GSD is apparently only opposing in its statement the only abortions it supported, allowed and funded whilst it was in government.

The second question is whether the GSD would support the Bill without the clause on non-fatal foetal abnormalities - which is a question on which the Government has specifically sought feedback from the public. The clause is in square brackets for that reason. Some clarity on that would be a positive contribution to the debate.

The third question for the GSD relates to the statements from Mr Phillips on GBCs The Opposition,Your Questions. In that respect, will the GSD now say clearly and unequivocally what abortions it wants to allow in Gibraltar, given that the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Elliott Phillips, specifically said that it was "inhuman and degrading treatment", in keeping with the findings of the UK Supreme Court, not to allow abortions in Gibraltar? Can the GSD now directly answer this direct question in respect of what the Leader of the Opposition said?"

The Chief Minister, Fabian Picardo, said: "I think the GSD want to confuse the Pro-Life lobby into thinking they are taking a position against abortion, when they are not. They are camouflaging their pro-abortion position to masquerade in front of the Pro-Life groups. In fact, what the GSD has said makes clear they are pro-abortion if not pro-choice but want to change details of our draft. They talk about the Bill needing changes, but they don't constructively propose what those changes should be. They highlight only one clause on which we are seeking the public's views and are open to consider making changes. So, I urge the GSD to think again. To work with us on the details of the legislation and to propose to us the changes they say they would make to the Bill. This is too sensitive and important an area of law to just have the usual political ding-dong between us. It's not fair to the community. It's particularly unfair for the GSD to try to hoodwink the Pro-Life groups by pretending to take a position that supports their position, whilst they are in fact saying they support the need to legislate for abortions but just in another way. They should publish their proposed changes to our draft Bill so that we and the whole community can consider them. Having had the Command Paper for two weeks already, it is remarkable they haven't yet been able to propose the relevant changes. I will await the answer to our questions on foetal abnormalities and Mr Phillips position as Leader of the Opposition as well as on the precise changes the pro-abortion GSD might propose to our draft law."500-Strong March in Support of Womens Reproductive Rights

Last Saturday around five hundred women and allies marched from Casemates Square to No.6 Convent Place to present the Government with their petition on proposed changes to Gibraltars abortion law.

The march comes after months of campaigning from Pro-Choice groups on social media and around the Rock, who have been contesting Gibraltars strict abortion laws. The campaign follows a referendum on abortion in Ireland earlier this year, and attention in the international press for Gibraltars draconian and harsh stance on abortion.

In September, the Government of Gibraltar released a Command Paper to begin the consultation process for a change in the law. The command paper  which is based largely on UK law, and follows a recent UK Supreme Court decision to which Gibraltar must comply  would allow abortions in select circumstances. The command paper also highlights several key areas on which the government wants further analysis.

No More Shame - the organisers behind Saturdays march  stated that while they were pleased to see publication of the command paper and progress being made, they had concerns with the current draft. Specifically, the group believes that any change in the law should be based on evidence-based medicine as the foundation for legislating and delivering these services. A press release from No More Shame also highlighted the need for a modern and comprehensive legislation so that women do not risk prosecution from any grey areas in the law. The march also served to highlight what organisers saw as a culture of shame present in Gibraltar and hoped to end the stigma around abortion. Organisers and supporters have been active on social media to create a more open culture and debunk common misconceptions about abortion. The march was received at No.6 by the Chief Minister who has been seeking consultation on the legislation.

The GSD  who have so far shunned the abortion debate - released a statement on Tuesday berating the Governments Command Paper as politically dishonest presentation of [the governments] proposals. Their press release suggested that no group in parliament had the electoral mandate to push through the change in legislation, and suggested a possible referendum on the topic. The GSD leader, who has so far avoided any discussion about abortion or the command paper, highlighted the need for proper consideration, debate or consultation before a change in law.

Independent MP, Marlene Hassan Nahon, who has been hosting drop-in sessions to get the publics view on abortion and the Government Command Paper, also commented that she was pleased to hear all Parliamentary entities are pro choice, although clear views would be much appreciated.

Asked about the future of their movement, No More Shame aims to continue supporting of sexual health and reproductive rights: NMS Gibraltar will continue its campaign beyond the legalising of abortion in Gibraltar to endorse what the Government outlines on pages 14-15 of the Command Paper (Beyond the Law) and in so doing, support the Ministries of Health & Care and Social Services to achieve these goals. The ultimate aim is that abortion rates should lower thanks to informed sexual health choices for the sexually active and support for those making difficult abortion choices. We will lobby for proper pre and post-abortion support or indeed for those who decide not to go down the abortion route.Ariana Grande. Photo: Kevin Mazur/WireImage

In the three days since Ariana Grande and Pete Davidson broke up, ending their quickie engagement, shes reportedly given back the ring, hes canceled a comedy show, and now Aris quitting social media. Grande announced in a since-deleted Instagram Story on Tuesday night that shes saying bye bye to the internet for just a lil bit to avoid seeing coverage of her breakup. Its hard not to bump [into] news n stuff that Im not trying to see rn, she wrote. Its very sad and were all tryin very hard to keep going. love u. and thank u for bein here always. During the 126 days that they were betrothed, Davidson also took a social-media hiatus to get a breather from fan scrutiny.

Grande was seen Tuesday night taping an NBC special to mark the 15th anniversary of Wicked. She posted photos of herself with Idina Menzel and other cast members, revealing a now empty ring finger. Earlier in the day, Grande posted and deleted about not letting anxiety ruin the moment for her.

Arianas Instagram Story #6

time to say bye bye to the internet for jus a lil bit. its hard not to bump news n stuff that im not tryna see rn. its very sad and were all tryin very hard to keep goin. love u. and thank u for bein here always pic.twitter.com/0n1RvOvvF3  Ariana Grande Today (@ArianaToday) October 17, 2018

Arianas Instagram Story (October 16) pic.twitter.com/Co8rLh9im8  Ariana Grande Today (@ArianaToday) October 16, 2018

I wasnt believing the news about the break up so much , but last night she was not wearing the ring , so I think its official, Ariana Grande is single..

Dont tell me , she maybe dont wear it , Ariana never get the ring of so... pic.twitter.com/3ZaUOb412y  Moonlight  (@Oumnia0bnb) October 17, 2018

Update 12:00 p.m.: TMZ has confirmed why Ariana wore a Band-Aid on her ring finger last night, in addition to not wearing her engagement ring from Davidson. She reportedly wanted to cover up the pete tattoo that she got on that same finger for the camera close-ups. Ouch.Which muted 70s rock song plays over this moment? Photo: Courtesy of Amazon Studios

Reviews for Beautiful Boy have so far been fairly mixed, but there are two things critics can agree on about Felix Van Groeningens addiction drama: (1) As Steve Carells meth-addled son, Timothee Chalamet turns in another heart-wrenching performance, and (2) the film features some of the most on-the-nose needle drops since Suicide Squad. (And yes, this is perhaps the first and only time Beautiful Boy has been mentioned in the same sentence as Suicide Squad.) To celebrate the films healthy opening in limited release this past weekend, which may have reinvigorated its Oscar hopes after a muted festival reception, weve put together this quiz. Well give you a moment from the movie, you guess which high-profile song Van Groeningen shelled out the cash to soundtrack it with. Close your eyes, have no fear, the monsters gone, this quiz is here!Bradley Coopers bronze skin and rosy cheeks  yee-haw! Photo: Warner Bros.

As Jackson Maine in A Star Is Born, Bradley Cooper doesnt look like himself. Hes weathered, and borderline bronze, with a graying beard and a sexy weariness. He looks like hes seen some things, like hes had a few too many, like hes been up all night and out of it all day. Sooooo inappropriate that it only took 20 minutes for Bradley Cooper and his long hair and beard to trap me, I jotted down in my notebook the first time I saw the movie. As he sings in Jackson Maines twang in the opening scene, Black eyes open wide / Its time to testify. But Jackson Maines eyes arent black, theyre blue  blue enough to inspire a thousand Benjamin Moore swatches, as blue as anything in Call Me by Your Name, even bluer when theyre peeking out from his tan skin. His beard is resplendent, his voice full-bodied. But from where did this special effect  the tan, the eyes, the beard  come?

I am a serious journalist, so I decided to investigate: What did Bradley Cooper do to look so fuckin hot in A Star Is Born?

Turns out we can all thank Ve Neill, the Oscar-winning makeup artist, who did all of Coopers makeup. (Lady Gagas usual team, Neill said, handled Allys makeup.) I saw the way he was looking, he had his beard and his long hair, and I said, You look terrific. It would be really nice to give you a tan, scruffy look, so you look weathered and different than you normally look, she said about her first meeting with the actor-director. So she decided to take his look from Hollywood auteur to Arizona cowboy. From darkening Coopers beard to making his eyes look (sexily) bloodshot, Neill talked Vulture through transforming the actor-director into the country rocker.

Bradley was so gracious and lovely, what a dream to work with. He was just an absolute treat, said Neill. Its funny, throughout my career Ive mostly worked with men. I like making men look as good as they can possibly look. Cooper agreed with her suggestions immediately. When I saw him with that long hair and that beard, I just went, Oh yeah, she said. He agreed, he said, Yes, I want to be tan. The color wasnt so much sun-kissed as it was sun-make-out: Neill had Cooper spray tan during the shoot, and would tan his face and body every day with BeautyBlender sponges before shooting. I would get him a spray tan, maybe once a week. It doesnt seem like I could get him to do it every week, but I did tan him everyday from his waist up, she said. We never knew how far up his shirt would be rolled up, or he would have it off, or whatever. We just wanted to keep a constant tan through the whole entire movie. I used a self-tanner on him.

The self-tanner was mixed with a moisturizer and a shiny Alba sunscreen, and topped with Tom Fords bronzer on all the high points of his face to secure that rosy Arizona glow. I told Neill I thought the tan was hot, because obviously! Giddy up! I thought it was really hot, too, Neill said.

For the scenes where Jackson Maine was drunk or hungover, Neill used products she described as like a glazing gel to darken his eye area. On days when he needed to look especially ragged, Neill used a menthol blower, which also made his eyes more blue. It gave his eyes a really glazed, bloodshot look, she said. I would go up and blow the menthol blower in his eyes, which would make his eyes really watery and hopefully really bloodshot.

Neill also darkened Coopers beard to make Jackson Maine look more intense. Bradley has a lot of gray in his beard and a lot of blonde, and I wanted to kind of tone that down a little bit, she said. I didnt take out all of the gray because I wanted him to have a little bit of it in the sides, but he wanted me to remove quite a bit of the gray and the blonde so that he just had a darker look to his face, which I thought was a perfect look for the character.

In a memorable scene modeled after one from the 1976 version, Ally (Lady Gaga) and Jackson take a bath together, and she pastes electrical tape eyebrows onto his face, plus puts eyeliner and mascara on him. Did Neill have a hand in that scene? Well, she was doing it, Neill said. And I was wiping it off!Jimmy Kimmel Live! is in New York City this week, and so, of course, its doing all the most touristy things. Visit to the Empire State Building? Check. And next on the list is, of course, staging your own fake Broadway musical starring Tony Awardwinning and much beloved New Yorker Matthew Broderick. While the bit is initially intended as a setup for one of Kimmels man-on-the-street bits, he does eventually have to show us the actual Captain Sully musical. This is a theater town, after all, and you cant just casually mention dancing geese if you dont have a chorus line of humans waiting backstage in full geese costumes ready to jazz dance. We fight people for less.

RelatedPhoto: Getty Images

Robert Forsters comeback story never seems to end. After early roles that saw him appearing alongside Marlon Brando, Elizabeth Taylor, Gregory Peck, and others, Forster had a breakout starring role in Medium Cool, Haskell Wexlers groundbreaking 1969 film set, and sometimes filmed, against the backdrop of the tumultuous 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. As he puts it, My career went upwards for about five years and then downwards for about 27 years. Those downward years werent all bad and included such beloved cult items as Alligator, but by the early 90s you were more likely to see Forster in a title like Point of Seduction: Body Chemistry III than a film playing at a theater near you.

Then Jackie Brown, an Elmore Leonard adaptation written and directed by longtime Forster fan Quentin Tarantino, changed everything. Since then, there have been years in which Forster has worked more than others but seldom a year in which he was hard to find somewhere.

The last couple of years have been good ones, too. Forster stepped in as the sheriff of Twin Peaks for David Lynch. He gets an even brighter spotlight in the new film What They Had, an affecting drama from first-time writer-director Elizabeth Chomko. Forster plays Burt, a plainspoken Chicagoan whos resisting moving his wife Ruth (Blythe Danner) into a nursing home, despite her worsening dementia thats making it increasingly difficult to care for her. Hilary Swank and Michael Shannon co-star as their children, and though the films characters spend much of the film sparring, Chomkos generous-hearted approach makes no one the villain and reveals everyones unseen depths and unspoken needs. And few convey unseen depths better than Forster, who spoke to Vulture while appearing at the Chicago International Film Festival.

In this film you play a tough a guy whos smarter and more emotional beneath the surface than he lets on. Was this written for you? It seems like its a quintessential Robert Forster role.

You know, I wish I could say yes, but I think it was written for her [Chomkos] grandfather, and it fits so easily that probably those qualities belong to her grandfather. This is the out of the mind of Elizabeth Chomko. Who as you know  well, you probably know, is a Chicago woman. And we made this picture almost two years ago in March, but the last time I was here was 50 years ago making Medium Cool. So, Ive been here, but not a lot in the interim period.

When you read a script like this, what determines whether or not you think that the role is right for you?

It felt exactly right from the first second. The fathers speeches  I listened to the guy coming in, the guy who was driving the car, who was talking to the woman that greeted me at the airport. And I said, Wow, thats Chicago, and thats like Rochester, I come from Rochester. And when people accuse me of being from Chicago, I always say, Yes I am, from the very eastern edge, Rochester, New York.

Youve been playing grandfather roles for about ten years now. When did you realize you were making that transition?

I realized I was making the transition when I was playing the older cop. First I was the younger cop. First I was the cop, and then I was the younger cop, and then I played the older cop, and eventually I played the fathers and grandfathers and now Im playing the, well, whatever age it is that they need, but grandfathers are my  grandfathers is us these days.

Michael Shannon is a Chicago native. Did working with him kind of help you get into the Chicago frame of mind for this?

Hes totally Chicago and Rochester is a Chicago frame of mind. Its hard-working people. People who dont take much for granted. And work, thats the best thing in life. Its almost the best thing in life. Best thing in life is taking care of those you love, but work is also part of that. And as an actor, God, I could not have gotten better work. I could not have picked something better to do. Its creative, and demanding, and occasionally you work.

You kind of have an affinity for playing cops and military figures. Why do you think that is?

I wish it were because I was an old cop, or an old general. I did start out as a private in my first movie [Reflections in a Golden Eye]. In Olympus Has Fallen and London Has Fallen, I became a general. I did go from being a private to a general and a couple stops in between. But the, I guess its a natural progression, when they try to hire you they say, okay, what age does the general have to be? Im no longer a private for sure.

Its been over 20 years since Jackie Brown. What was the biggest change for you after that film came out?

Well, before that, my career went upwards for about five years and then downwards for about 27 years, and then lucky enough  You start by being lucky. That first five years was lucky. Who am I? But that after 30 years, Quentin Tarantino, I ran into him in a coffee shop and I said, What are you doing? And he said, Im writing an adaptation of Rum Punch, why dont you read it? And I did.

And six months later I walked into that same coffee shop, where I start every day, and he was sitting in my seat and before I even got to the table he handed me the script and said, Read this, see if you like it. So that was a big, big buoyancy, that gave me loft for the past 20 years. And you dont catch great roles, but you get the best ones you can. And dont forget, Ive got four kids, so I always knew why I was working. And only occasionally  Jackie Brown and The Descendants and this picture, What They Had. Im not sure that this is the capper of my career or whether its the beginning of an extra inning or two, but I can promise you it is at least as good as anything, probably the best thing Ive ever done. Notwithstanding Jackie Brown and The Descendants.

If David Lynchs Mulholland Drive had gone to series, you would have had a bigger role. Did getting to do Twin Peaks feel like a second chance for that?

Well, I always figure that anybody who hires me more than once, is a tasteful filmmaker. But no, he tried to hire me the first time he did Twin Peaks, but I was busy, I was doing something. And then Mulholland Drive came along and the phone rang, I was in my kitchen. I said, Hello. He said, This is David Lynch. I said, Hey, David, hey, how you doing? Whats up? He said, I want to do this television series. I said, Oh man, I just got  This was just after Jackie Brown, and I thought, Oh, if I could only stay in movies instead of drifting back into television. And he said, No, look, well work it around your schedule, it will not be very hard to do. I said, By all means, lets go.

He is a very, very good guy. And when we did the second Twin Peaks, he was very generous to me and gave me the kind of part that I enjoy doing probably the best. A straight shooter, no nonsense, not a wild, offbeat character. Hes a straight shooter. And Ive been getting those kind of roles. And this role in What They Had is same thing. A good guy, no nonsense, straight shooter, and a guy whos standing up for the woman he loves and wishes to protect her.

Whats next? What are you working on now?

I went into an office about three weeks ago and signed nondisclosure paperwork and read a script. And my agent told me when I did this that I was going to like it, and that I was going to want to work for these producers, and she was correct. So I am doing something that I am not allowed to speak about. Its not a big job, but its a gem. And I dont get a lot of big jobs anymore. I get, here and there, gems. But this is a big job and this is a gem as well.

This interview has been edited and condensed.Theres a moment in this episode when Hill House looks almost cheerful, its hallways filled with workmen busily repairing things. Surprise! One of those workers  memorialized by Steve in his book about the house  is actually a ghost, as Hugh explains to Steve during their nighttime drive. Just like an old clock contains witness marks showing evidence of repairs that have been done to it, the house, too, bears witness to the things that happened there. You see the marks, Hugh tells Steve, but you dont know how to read them.

Theyre in pursuit of Luke, who disappeared at the end of Nells funeral with Shirleys wallet and Theos car. Steve and Shirley assume he went in search of a fix  they get the short end of the stick in this episode, but anyone whos known addicts knows that its a fair assumption. Instead, it soon becomes clear that hes heading to the house, which  finally!  we can place somewhere in western Massachusetts. (At any rate, if youre driving there from Methuen, where Shirley lives, in the far northeast corner of the state, you have to pass through Amherst in order to get to it.) His intention isnt to commit suicide  as Theo cheerfully points out, suicides cluster in families, especially among twins  but to burn it down. When Nell pulled up at the house, the lights glowed a warm, welcoming yellow. When Luke gets out of the car, the lights glow red. The house is angry.

Of course, we dont actually know that Nells intention was to commit suicide. The house may have somehow called her home. But to believe that, you have to believe that the house has supernatural powers, which is the focus of the debate between Steve and Hugh. We still havent heard Hughs version of how Olivia died, although we get Steves account from the police report, which implicates Hugh: cracked skull, bruises on her arms from being grabbed, a bruise on the back of her head from being shoved into a wall  all before she allegedly threw herself down the staircase. Steve blames Hugh for leaving her there alone when she was depressed; for not making sure she got the help she needed.

Thanks to Mrs. Dudley and her long institutional memory, we also hear a little about William Hill and his wife Poppy, who meet-cute at the mental hospital where their families have committed them, get married, and come to Hill House. This show, it should be said, draws a dire picture of mental illness. The idea that people can treat their disease and live with it peacefully does not find representation here. Even so, I was a little surprised to hear Steve give it as his reason for not wanting to have children  Its not the house. Theres something wrong with our goddamn brains. Wouldnt the trauma of his childhood be explanation enough?

Which brings me to this episodes real revelation, which is that the family psychopath is actually Steve. Not only did he exploit his familys tragedy for profit  as Shirley has repeatedly pointed out  but he strung along his wife for years of fake-trying to conceive, letting her suffer through all the charted ovulation and timed sex while knowing it wouldnt work. What kind of person could do that? Im still wondering if he had an affair, too  the guilty look over the last time he ejaculated, plus the womans face he sees in the window of the doctors office  but that seems like a smaller crime than letting your wife think youre trying to help her get pregnant when youre not.

Shirley doesnt acquit herself well in this episode either, although at least she lets Theo sob through her explanation of what happened in the basement with Kevin. That speech is rough  Theos vision of death as an ocean of nothing  just numb and nothing and alone  and it hits again at one of the first things we heard Steve say in the first episode: that we trick ourselves into seeing ghosts because its better than reconciling ourselves to the idea that well never see our loved ones again. The idea that anything is better than nothing is a staple of classic horror: Think of The Monkeys Paw, one of the scariest fables ever, or Stephen Kings Pet Sematary, another horror story involving a family that very bad things happen to (the new film is coming in April, by the way). But Theos speech is affecting because no one in real life ever talks that bluntly about death. In the show, Shirleys whole business is structured around maintaining the illusion that death is like sleep: peaceful, beautiful. In fact, we know nothing about what it really is. All we know is that it will happen to us and everyone we love.

Hugh gets all the best lines in this episode, from, She was the kite and I was the line, to, Our family is like an unfinished meal to that house (what a great image). Ive been trying to like Shirley, if only because of her name, but shes coming off nearly as badly as Steve. Still, I think theres more to her than weve yet seen  remember Steves comment way back suggesting that she too suffers from the family malady. When she and Theo hear the banging at the doors and windows  a repeat of the scene when young Nell and Shirley cowered in bed in Hill House under a similar onslaught  Theos convinced its a haunting. But note that it takes place when Shirleys in a state of great emotional distress. Could it be her own projection? Which reminds me that yesterday, looking back at the first episode, I noticed a detail that didnt register on my first viewing: In the very first sequence, when were introduced to Hill House, theres a picture on the mantel of adult Shirley with Kevin. (Theres also a child who I dont recognize.) Is she somehow at the root of it all? That would be most appropriate.

Bent-Neck Ladies

 Weve got only two episodes to go and only two of the houses ghosts (the guy in the basement and the bent-neck lady) have been explained. How will Flanagan pack all this stuff in?

 I take back what I said about Shirley having some of the characteristics of the real Shirley Jackson. Whatever her issues, Jackson definitely wasnt a control freak.

 It really didnt make any sense that Hugh would build a treehouse when the family was only planning to be at Hill House temporarily. But how could it be Steve and Lukes shared delusion?

 Is it mold that Shirley finds on the pieces of her forever house, or witness marks?

Fear Factor: (1: The Mummy5: The Ring): 5Stockard Channing (right) with Hugh Dancy (left) and Talene Monahon in Apologia, at the Laura Pels. Photo: Joan Marcus

Imagine you go to the theater with some friends and then, after the show, adjourn to a bar to talk about the play. Now, there are One-Beer Plays  fine, all right, yes, it was a play, people wore clothes and said things on a stage in a relatively inoffensive manner  and there are Hangover Plays, which can be good or bad but demand hours of talk either way, though the bad ones always mean a higher tab and a worse headache. Alexi Kaye Campbells Apologia, now at the Roundabout, is a Hangover Play, and not in a good way. Not that I went to a bar afterwards  I had another play to see that evening, and sometimes its just a metaphor, okay?  but if I had, it would have been hard to know where to start. With plays like Apologia, the temptation is to get into the weeds, enumerating every little thing about them that feels inauthentic, manipulative, half-baked, or cliched  when in fact all those things are just cracks in the plaster. The thing is foundationally unsound. Its very premise betrays a kind of smug cluelessness. Its less a drama of ideas than it is a collection of cheap, self-satisfied notions, in which several talented actors  and dozens of other working artists and however many paying audience members  are being asked to invest their time.

Apologia premiered in London in 2009 and is set at that time, so now it causes that most annoying kind of knowing laugh in its audience when an artless young character announces, Things are changing in America, Kristin. Weve just elected our first African-American president. Its exciting. The Kristin that line is addressed to is the plays protagonist, a feminist art historian and aging hippie (in politics, not in personality), here brought to troubled, acerbic life by Stockard Channing. Channing also gave the play its star power when it was revived last year in London, and to accommodate her performance, Campbell did some rewrites, changing Kristin from a Brit to an American expatriate. Who knows if he also added Kristins dry response to the enthusiastic Obama reference  That is a good thing, its true. But lets wait and see how things turn out in the long run.  but whatever the case, the laughter that follows that easy dig is complacent and hollow.

Which basically describes the play. Apologia adheres firmly to the well-worn family drama formula: Characters gather in a kitchen or a living room, secrets are revealed, old wounds are opened, and lots of emotional sparks fly before morning comes, usually a chilly dawn in which everyone can see themselves a little better. Here, its a kitchen, and the gathering is for Kristins birthday. And all the secret-revealing and wound-reopening is triggered by a MacGuffin, I mean a memoir, shes recently written. The characters tiptoe around it in conversation as if its content is nuclear, but of course we never learn much about whats in it  we only know whats not, and thats any mention of Kristins two adult sons, Peter and Simon, or of the fact that shes a mother at all.

And heres the faulty fulcrum on which the whole play tries to seesaw back and forth: Was Kristin a bad mother? Did her ardent commitments to her political and professional lives make her a fatally flawed parent, the kind whose kids are irrevocably damaged? Are such commitments even compatible with loving motherhood?

If those questions raise your hackles, I see you. Apologia thinks its a smart, even-handed play  that it allows the articulate, passionate, hard-edged Kristin to make her case and for her unhappy sons and their lovers to make theirs  but the whole trial is infuriatingly rigged. Substitute a male actor for Stockard Channing and there is no play. We wouldnt even be having the conversation. There is no conversation about whether a mans worldly pursuits might make him a shitty dad. They very well might, but we dont care. What we do care about is whether or not a woman who has children is willing and able to become a self-sacrificing saint. A professionally successful, personally liberated, and also absent father is too bad, but a mother of the same description is a monster  especially if, like Kristin, shes opinionated, caustic, and unapologetic. (Were treated to a literary definition of the plays title, also the title of Kristins memoir, so we know that it doesnt mean apology, but its pretty clear that Campbells play will eventually force Kristin toward tearful remorse.) Less-than-saintly moms have been getting the short, sharp end of the stick ever since Apollo invented the Athenian justice system by weaving myths most misogynist legal defense to get Orestes off for killing Clytemnestra. But somehow, here we still are: with Michael Billington blithely calling Kristin Miller a monstrous matriarch in the Guardian, and Kristins two traumatized little Orestes-es, coming back home to throw emotional, if not literal, daggers at her.

Watching Channing, I never even got exactly what it is that makes Kristin so monstrous. Apart, that is, from the unforgivable crime of abandoning her children, which is pretty clearly explained by the fact that her Byronic bully of an ex-husband took them away from her. In Channings hunched shoulders, quick patter, and wandering gaze (she really never seems to look straight at anyone, and Im honestly not sure whether thats a conscious choice), Kristin seems more afraid than anything. Shes still got her prodigious brain, biting wit, and unyielding principles (Still raping the Third World? she asks her son Peter, who works for a bank), but she seems to know a storm is coming, and shes hunkering down, physically and spiritually, to prepare for it. Channings performance hints that Kristin always knew what kind of outbursts her memoir might cause, and that shes both frightened and ready for her sons to come galloping in with their grievances. This self-awareness makes her far more sympathetic than her stiffness and sharpness would seem to allow  Im going to go ahead and hazard that it makes her more sympathetic than Campbell means her to be. Her barbs at her fellow characters dont feel all that cruel because theyre basically right. She thinks shes surrounded by shallow people who dont know what it means to fight for something other than [their] own material and domestic well-being  and she is.

Kristins old buddy Hugh is the exception, but hes also very much peripheral. Played with the most genuine appeal in the production by a droll, bearish John Tillinger, Hugh is a gay academic and a friend of Kristins from their youthful radical glory days. He exists to disrupt the mounting tension with innocently racy bon mots, and to head for the loo whenever more important characters need to have it out. Which leaves Peter (Hugh Dancy); his squeaky-clean American girlfriend, Trudi (Talene Monahon); and Claire (Megalyn Echikunwoke), a soap-opera actress whos dating Kristins other son, Simon, whom characters mention with the special social awkwardness reserved for the emotionally distressed. Simon  whos been having a rough time and has been hit harder than the self-reliant Peter by his mothers book  cant show up until after everyone else has gone to bed. Because hes also played by Hugh Dancy, with dead eyes and wet hair in his face. Campbells doing some easy skating across Theater 101, in that Kristins boys are a kind of Sam Shepard-ian pair of alter egos; the midnight scene she shares with Simon, as she patches up his cut hand, is cribbed from The Seagull; and the mention of Claires performance as Nora in a fringe production of A Dolls House gives Kristin a chance to sigh, Groundbreaking, about Ibsens story of a wife and mother who walks out on her family.

Except that, again, she didnt walk out. But neither Peter nor Simon blames, or even seems to remember, their father, whom Kristin describes as dashing and angry  Emotionally stunted, mentally cruel, [and] chauvinistic. Instead, what they remember is the fact that after this hypermasculine woodworking poet (oof, swoon) took them away, their mother didnt pursue them. We thought youd come for us, says the near-catatonic Simon, Fight for us  Because thats what we thought parents did  Mothers  thanks for the clarification  So we waited and waited  But you never came.

Dancy  a full-on fantastic actor who deserves much better material  knows what hes doing when it comes to haggard emotional disturbance. His simultaneously delicate and dangerous Will Graham was a thrilling foil for Mads Mikkelsens urbane brutality in the rebooted Hannibal series. But in Apologia, hes asked to be an angry square as Peter and a shell-shocked zombie as Simon, who uses his nighttime guilt session with mom to tell her a story so simultaneously lurid and hacky (and, you know, All Her Fault), that I found myself writing, REALLY?!  Seth Meyersstyle  in my notebook. Simons basically a psychological weapon in a damp, dingy button-up, and of course he shatters Kristin, then disappears back into the night.

He also participates in one of the lazier aspects of Campbells dialogue, which is to make a scene out of one person talking and another person poking them with continuous passive-aggressive two-word questions. Did you?, Are you?, Will it?, Do you?, Must you?, Is she? Hes not the only character to do it, and Simons excuse for such laconic hostility could be his mental state, but its not a good look when you want to smack the character whos supposed to have been deeply wounded. Nor when the character whos supposed to carry all the plays earnestness  all its belief that, despite our failings and traumas, we can learn from and love each other  comes off as an sentimental, underwritten twit.

Thats Trudi, the American girlfriend. Shes clearly intended to be the plays conscience  and shes one of those evangelical Christian characters that are meant to emerge as naive sages, making all of us skeptics feel bad about our prejudgments  but shes simply a mess of a character from start to finish. First, theres almost no way to deliver the guileless dialogue Campbell has written for her without sounding either dim or, again, passive-aggressive (the Im being dim on purpose choice). Its a disingenuous attempt to write an ingenuous character, and Monahon is stuck coming off sweet and flat as a sugar cookie. Shes also so girlish that she reads as Peters kid sister, or even his daughter, rather than his girlfriend (they call each other sweetie a bunch but have zero chemistry), and director Daniel Aukin has her play everything up in her head voice and up on her toes. So shes a foil for Kristin, sure, but she neednt be a girl-next-door cartoon. All the golly gee fluttering undermines any chance Monahon might have to make us really listen to Trudi, and when it turns out that the white-touristy birthday present she bought for Kristin in Liberia (its an African tribal mask) is in fact redolent with deep, mother-specific meaning, the moment is supposed to be climactically moving, but instead comes off like Aukin shot it through that Instagram superzoom filter with the cheesy keyboard music and the stars.

Here we are though, four metaphorical beers in and still not through the list of all Apologias miscalculations, when in the end  to quote Claire as she draws a comparison between Simons shaky emotional state and a crumbling building  the edifice was weak. When theres an earthquake, Claire muses, I mean, thats what does the damage, thats the thing that brings the building down  But then they find out corners were cut in the construction of it. Shoddy work, that kind of thing. Yes, exactly that kind of thing. Aukin doesnt do any earth-quaking: He and his designers try to make Apologia go down as smoothly as possible, giving us the familiar domestic battleground and all the well-known snappy rhythms and emotional swells. But its a con, and a con that thinks its high-minded when in fact its very existence is predicated on worn-out dramaturgy and essentially sexist argument. Apologia might look like a thoughtful play, sound like one, smell like one, but, as one of its characters might put it  is it?

Apologia is at the Laura Pels Theatre through December 16.Like any This Is Us episode that breaks its own format to focus on one story, Vietnam might be divisive among fans. If, perhaps, you needed a little break from the angst of The Big Three (my hand is raised), youll probably be very into this episode that lays out some of the details surrounding Jacks relationship with his younger brother Nicky (welcome, Michael Angarano, you are so well cast), and begins to tell the story of their time in the Vietnam War. If youre extremely invested in Kates IVF storyline or Toby going off his antidepressants or Randall running for city council in Philadelphia, a city in which he does not live, well, youll have to wait for the next episode. This is all Pearson Brothers, Original Flavor.

At one point in the episode, sensitive, never-does-anything-right Nicky wonders if life would make more sense if we could start at the end and go in reverse, to figure out how we got to where we are. And thats exactly the formula This Is Us deploys to tell Jack and Nickys story. We start in November 1971, with Jack getting dropped off by helicopter to a camp that is obviously not the one hes assigned to  the guy dropping him offers him luck in finding whoever hes looking for. Then Jack comes across his little brother, working in the latrines. But before we even get a look at Nickys face, we travel back 

Three Weeks Earlier

Jacks a staff sergeant and hes leading his men through some dodgy-looking jungle. There are landmines and bombs and conditions are terrible. Guess whos there? The guy we saw Kevin writing an email to as he starts his search for more information on Jacks time over there. Robinson. Apparently Jack was promoted quickly, even though Robinsons been there longer  hes 90 days away from getting to go home and all he can talk about is trying out for the MLB. Of course, weve seen Robinson as an old man, missing his foot, so we know those dreams dont come true  and then we see the attack on the group of men that leads to that loss. Jack of course takes care of Robinson through it all.

All the promos leading up to this episode were touting the fact that we were going to see Jack become Jack, which, 1) is a ridiculous sentence to type, but 2) what I think we learn is that  Jacks always been Jack? Like, literally, his brother calls him Superman. So really weve learned nothing, NBC promo department!

Actually, we do learn a very fun fact. Well, fun is relative since this all takes place during the Vietnam War BUT as Jack is waiting with Robinson, he calls Jack out for always pretending to not be scared. But of course Jack is scared. Theyre all scared out of their minds over there. And then Robinson shares a trick he and his mom used when he was younger and scared that his father was going to beat them to death: His mother would hold his face and tell him to breathe. Robinson does this to Jack as he leaves  and of course weve seen this before. Its how Jack used to calm Randall down, and how Randall quelled Williams fears as he was dying. Were watching the origin story to this piece of the Pearson mythology. Anyway, I cant wait for Kevin to meet this Robinson guy in the present day.

Because of the skirmish they just endured, Jack and his men are assigned to a cushy security detail in a small fishing village. When Jack realizes the village is close to where he thinks Nicky is stationed  its the return address on a letter he has from his brother  Jack orchestrates this whole thing to win over his commanding officer and get permission to leave for 24 hours and find Nicky. See what I mean? Thats so Jack Pearson.

14 Months Earlier

We learn a few things hopping back this far. First, Jacks not in Vietnam. In fact, he has an irregular heartbeat, so he was able to get out of the draft. We see that Jacks dad is still as awful as hes ever been  even the mailman cant help but stare at Jacks moms black eyes. And we see Jacks mom receive the letter from Nicky that Jack had with him earlier. From the sound of it, hes not doing well. Hes been Article Fifteen-ed, which means hes being disciplined, apparently for being a danger to himself and others. The rest of the letter isnt very hopeful. Nicky is sure hes going to die over there.

So, what does Jack do? He goes to see his doctor and figure out how he can cover up his irregular heartbeat and enlist. Its Jacks job to be there with Nicky  whether or not he can help him, he has to be there with him.

Oh, also we see Jack in his undies, if thats something youve been waiting for. I dont know your life.

One Year Earlier

Its December 1, 1969  the day of the draft. Nicky is understandably freaking out, but Jack reassures him as only Jack Pearson can. Everythings going to be fine and if its not, he has a plan. Of course he does. Before he was making plans for his kids, before he was making plans for him and Rebecca, he was making plans for his brother. If anyone understood that you could always rely on Jack Pearson, Nick Pearson sure did. He calls him his personal Superman  and Nick is always Lois Lane, in need of saving. But as reassuring as Jack can be, hes no match for the impending draft lottery.

Jack decides its best to watch it at a local bar, away from their father. Of course, their father has a few choice words for his sons before they leave  and you can easily see that hes harder on the younger Pearson.

Obviously, we know Nicky is over in Vietnam, so its not a huge surprise when his birthday, October 18, is called fifth. Yet still, the entire scene in that bar is pretty gutting. And because Im a glutton for pain (I mean, I watch this show), I went to see when October 19 was called. It was number 241.

Jacks big plan is to help Nicky run away to Canada, but while on their way, Nicky realizes that his dad will never speak to him again if he dodges. Jack wakes up the next morning to find an empty hotel bed next to him and a note: Its my turn to save the day, now. And just like that, Nickys gone.

14 Years Earlier

We come upon the Pearson brothers as weve seen them before, just little boys taking care of each other. Nickys already down on himself and the fact that he needs to be taken care of by Jack. Jacks already taken on the job of building his brother back up: He tells Nicky that he wears glasses just like Clark Kent  they are both heroes in disguise. And yet, its Jack who scares off their dad when they find him about to hit their mother yet again.

Afterward, Jacks mother feels how fast his heart is beating. It always beats fast, he tells her. He wasnt lying when he told Robinson that hes been pretending not to be scared his entire life.

7 Years Earlier

What a strange world this is, the day Nicky is born. As Jacks mom is in labor, he and his dad sit out in the waiting room and his dad  is actually a kind person? Whats happening? And then we meet Jacks drunk, asshole of a grandfather and America is collectively like, Oh okay, got it.

This nice version of Jacks dad (seriously, its freaking me out) is the one who teaches Jack the lesson hell carry for the rest of his life: Big brothers look out for little brothers. Its their only job.

If that moment isnt enough of a tug at the heartstrings for ya, This Is Us does something so This Is Us: We learn that Nicky was born on October 18, 1948 at 11:58 p.m. Two minutes. It was two minutes that altered the course of Pearson history.

Back where we started, we finally get a look at Nicky as he is when Jack finds him. He looks like he has been through some things. And we know it only gets worse.

You know, you guys, its as if everyones been like, This Is Us could never get sadder, and the show sat back in its chair, cracked a beer and replied, Challenge accepted.If you have an event you'd like to list on the site, submit it now!

SubmitReward offered for firearms theft at Mayfield True ValueEmail To : Multiple e-mail addresses must be separated with a comma character(maximum 200 characters) Email To is required.

Your Full Name: (optional)

Your Email Address: Your Email Address is required.By West Kentucky Star Staff Oct. 17, 2018 | 10:01 AM | MARSHALL COUNTY

A reward is being offered in a recent truck theft.

Howell Farms in Marshall County is offering a $2,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest of the person who stole their white 1997 Dodge Ram 3500 dually truck. The truck was reported stolen on Oct. 8.

The truck has some unique identifiers such as, chrome nerf bars, an external fuel tank mounted in the bed of the truck, and a large decal on the rear window of the letter "C" and says "Turbo Cummins."

Anyone with information on the theft is asked to contact the Marshall County Sheriff's Office.By West Kentucky Star Staff Oct. 16, 2018 | 07:52 PM | FORT CAMPBELL

The name of a Fort Campbell Soldier who died Sunday in an off-duty shooting incident on post has been released.

The post said in a news release that Spc. Brinney Niecol Silvers, of Jacksonville, FL, died in the shooting Sunday night. The shooting happened in on-post housing, and Silvers' spouse was reportedly taken into custody

Silvers was an automated logistical specialist in the 101st Combat Aviation Brigade, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault). She joined the Army in 2011 and completed training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina and Fort Lee, Virginia. She served for several years at Fort Hood, Texas before arriving to Fort Campbell in 2016.



Silvers was posthumously promoted to Sergeant and received the Army Commendation Medal.



The incident is under investigation by U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command and the FBI.By West Kentucky Star Staff Oct. 17, 2018 | 09:49 AM | MAYFIELD

A Graves County woman was arrested on drug and other charges Tuesday night after she allegedly fled the scene of an accident.

The Mayfield Police Department says 44-year-old Elizabeth Cartwright, of Mayfield, was involved in a motor vehicle collision near Wyatt Drive and Paris Road. Police say Cartwright fled from the scene, and while officers were looking for her, they learned of a separate collision on West James Street, near North 8th Street.

The vehicle description matched Cartwright's vehicle, and it too was reportedly trying to leave the area. Officers were able to intercept the vehicle.

According to police, when Cartwright tried to get out of her vehicle, it collided with a patrol vehicle that was conducting the traffic stop. Officers say Cartwright was reportedly driving under the influence, and had caused substantial damage to her vehicle. Cartwright was also allegedly in possession of marijuana and several different prescription/controlled medications, along with open alcohol containers.

Cartwright was arrested and transported to the Graves County Jail. She was charged with leaving the scene of an accident, operating a motor vehicle under the influence 2nd offense (aggravated), wanton endangerment (police officer), criminal mischief, possession of marijuana, possession of drug paraphernalia, illegal possession of a legend drug, prescription controlled substance not in the proper container, possession of an open alcoholic beverage container in a motor vehicle and possession of controlled substance.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.By: Paige Cline Sometimes I am asked to reprint a column from the past. Here[Read More]IsiZulu Sami Nawe deepens appreciation for language

IsiZulu language learners and educators now have an updated reference book to help them get a proper grasp of the language.

IsiZulu Sami Nawe, the first post-democracy isiZulu reference book will be launched tomorrow, Thursday 18 October 2018, at the Wits School of Education.

The last reference book of this nature was published in 1992 and its predecessor in 1980.

Wits academic and author, Fikile Khuboni is delighted that her dream and labour of five years has come to fruition.

The book was born out a realisation that many learners struggle with understanding the basics of language, particularly grammar. As a result, many think isiZulu is hard. What compounds the problem is that educators in some schools did not train as isiZulu language teachers, but take on the role to fill a vacancy, says Khuboni.

This is my contribution to the development of African languages, particularly IsiZulu, by producing a resource for both teachers and learners of IsiZulu.

Khuboni, who has co-authored several books, says that she consulted colleagues and young people when compiling the book, as she wanted to present it in a reader- friendly manner.

Consequently, the layout and design of the book is appealing and uses big fonts and colours.

This book was also informed by Khubonis years of training educators at Ntuzuma College of Education, Durban College of Education and later, the University of KwaZulu-Natal. She also served as a Subject Advisor in the Department of Education in KwaZulu-Natal. As an external moderator of isiZulu first language papers for Grade 12 ensure she has a wealth of information on curriculum development, changes, and the challenges of both teachers and learners.

A mother to a high school learner, Khuboni says that her love for African languages helps her support her son, but she often wonders how others without this knowledge cope.

Khuboni says her book will help even mother tongue speakers to renew their understanding of the language and to deal with the challenges that parents encounter when helping children with homework.

As adults, we forget what we were taught in class during our time, so this is a perfect bridge, she says.

Khubonis advice to Grade 12 learners who are writing isiZulu is to do proper revision and use past exams papers, as these are helpful. She is also advising them to get a copy of IsiZulu Sami Nawe as it will greatly assist them to be ready for all the three papers.

The book launch is open to all. Order your copy.TATA Africa sculpts future for Witsies

The future is beaming bright for 20 academically and financially deserving students who have received scholarships from TATA Africa.

The funding is part of the companys Postgraduate Scholarship Programme that aims to advance the development of higher education in South Africa. TATA Africa has sponsored Wits students pursuing honours, masters and PhD degrees in all faculties since 2007. To date, TATA has awarded over 240 postgraduate scholarships to four South African universities including Wits University.

Wits University aims to increase the cohort of postgraduate students to 45% by 2022 in an effort to be a globally leading research-intensive university.

At an awards ceremony for the scholarship recipients held at Wits University on 11 October 2018, Len Brand, Executive Director of TATA Africa Holdings said that postgraduate studies produces better-educated citizens who are equipped to deal with a wide range of challenges and advancements and are more able to compete on a level playing field with countries outside of South Africa.

Tertiary education also helps to build skills and grow a healthy economy, which in turn benefits everyone, and that is what drives our commitment to the post-graduate scholarship programme. We trust that through Tatas support and investment in these students, the company has helped pave the way in ensuring that sustainability and greatness can one day be realised, said Brand.

Like many other scholarships, the funding from TATA has lifted the financial burden that most students have to bear, enabling them to focus solely on their studies without having to work part time to supplement their studies.

For scholarship recipient, Chloe Benjamin, many sacrifices had to be made for her BA Honours studies in Industrial Psychology, including taking out loans to pay for her fees. Her mother, Daphne Benjamin, said the scholarship is God sent and would support her daughters dreams tremendously.

As a single parent, it is difficult to do the things that you really want to do, but my gift for my children was to give them at least a good education. I always said to them I will give you the education, but you do the riches. I cant give them money because we dont have money, but with a decent education, they can get the money for themselves, said the proud mother.

The scholarships have ingrained themselves as prestigious awards in postgraduate academia. In addition to the scholarships, TATA contributes to the national objective of increasing the number of women scientists in under-served research areas, through the Women in Science Awards (WISA) programme, a partnership with the Department of Science and Technology.

Professor Robert Muponde, the new Director of Postgraduate Affairs at Wits expressed gratitude to TATA Africa for investing in Africas future through the postgraduate scholarships.

We are in the business of training the mind and sculpting the future, and cultivating talent. I would like to thank TATA on behalf of Wits Management for the commitment they have shown over the years to growing postgraduate scholarship and talent, and their investment in what matters most for a society seeking innovation and renewal at every turn.

I sincerely hope that the Tata footprint will continue to be a permanent feature on the paths that we intend to travel in the near future, he added.

About TATA in Africa

The TATA group began its relationship with the African continent in 1977 with the establishment of TATA Zambia. In 1994, the Tata group inaugurated Tata Africa Holdings in Johannesburg, South Africa, which now serves as the group's headquarters in the continent. Tata is present in over 15 African countries. It operates in engineering, services, telecommunications, information technology, chemicals and materials.

Today, TATA is a brand that's synonymous with quality products and ethical business operations in Africa. It is committed to its vision of building and sustaining relationships in Africa with cooperation and trust, creating employment opportunities and making its contribution to the social development of local communities. TATA companies in Africa promote the social and economic development of local communities through education, entrepreneurship and health.Ties between African countries and China are complex. Understanding this matters

The complex relationship between Africa and China has become even more complicated this year.

Initially, 2018 was set to reaffirm the bond through the latest Forum on China-Africa Cooperation summit held in Beijing in September. The summit delivered its usual pageant of African leaders, side deals, and the announcement of a USD$60 billion financing package. The year also saw the recurrence of misgivings about the relationship.

The most explicit theme of this conversation was debt. Donald Trumps US administration added fuel to smouldering anxiety, and China found itself having to defend its lending to Africa  at home and globally. At the same time, African governments are battling rumours that they are about to hand over state assets to the Chinese.

The debt debate is flawed  not least for underestimating Western contributions to African debt. Nevertheless, it is revealing. In particular, the debate reflects an anxiety that has haunted relations between China and the continent since the beginning of this century: the massive power gap between China and individual African countries.

Power imbalances

The constant rhetoric of win-win cooperation between China and Africa has never adequately answered the simple structural question at the heart of the relationship. That is: how is an economy the size of Benins or Togos, for example, supposed to meaningfully engage with the Chinese behemoth? Its a bit like trying to speed up your bicycle by grabbing on to a passing jumbo jet. It can take you to the next level, or it can simply rip off your arms.

The fundamental economic and power imbalance between China and African countries has led to the relationship being criticised as neocolonial. The truth, however, is that African governments exercise more agency than they are given credit for. This includes frequently playing China and traditional Western development partners off against one another.

The word agency is key here: to what extent is Africa able to freely make its own decisions and drive the best deals with China?

Our new research focused on this issue. We looked at two emerging areas shaping African agency in relation to China. These are reforms to the African Union (AU) and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The initiative involves a massive infrastructure rollout aimed at linking China to Europe and beyond. The aim is to set up a zone of shared development that encompasses Central and Western Asia and Africa.

The AU and the Belt and Road initiative

The AU has proposed a set of reforms to streamline African negotiations at events like the FOCAC under the auspices of the continental body. This could be seen as a step towards the frequently repeated goal of Africa negotiating collectively with China. But, in fact, we show that it faces significant resistance from within the continent. This comes both from powerful states worried about losing control of their bilateral relationships with China, and from smaller states worried about being excluded.

Chinas BRI reveals other aspects of African agency. Its structured by numerous bilateral agreements, but is also subject to regional as well as local pressures. The way the initiatives projects have been pulled into national debates involving opposition politics shows that the range of actors constituting African agency is potentially much wider than national governments.

We argue that before African agency can be maximised, this aspect of relations between China and particular African governments needs to be taken into account. Thinking about the issue has so far fixated on the role of national governments, to the exclusion of other actors. The biggest include regional economic communities such as Nepad and the AU. The smaller ones comprise opposition parties, civil society, local businesses and communities. All contribute to and constitute African agency.

What is this agency, how does it work and how can it be strengthened?

Understanding African agency

We identified three key areas where African agency can be located.

Firstly, African agency is expressed in the frameworks and documents that govern bodies like the forum. For example, in the early days arrangements paid relatively little attention to the issue of industrialisation. That changed after the formal adoption in 2015 of the AUs Agenda 2063  its blueprint for Africas sustainable development. The forum held that year saw an uptick in how many times the issue was mentioned.

By 2016, African industrialisation had become a key initiative of Chinas presidency of the G20. Beijing directed an unprecedented level of G20 attention to the continent.

By 2018, the Beijing summit ended with fewer declarations of intent relating to industrialisation. Instead, it had become integrated into the continental and bilateral planning processes. In particular, it features regularly in discussions on development financing. Likewise the word training was mentioned over 40 times and in virtually every section of the Beijing Action Plan.

This suggests there is a shift from declarations of intent to more specific engagement towards industrialisation. This doesnt necessarily guarantee the success of Africas industrialisation. But it shows that China responds to African agenda-setting.

Secondly, African agency is diffused across various levels and among various actors. Any analysis of African agency has to consider the complex interactions between continental bodies like the AU, regional economic blocs, national governments, civil society, business, and local communities. Each plays a role in shaping African decision making in relation to China. Partnerships that cut across the state-business-civil society divide are as important as state led initiatives in articulating policy initiatives in relation to China.

Thirdly, its important to think of the changing terms of agency as African governments face growing debt burdens via such initiatives as the BRI. For instance, rumours that the Zambian government offered its national electricity supplier as collateral in exchange for a new tranche of Chinese loans have reportedly caused political division at home.

Critics have focused on debt as diminishing African agency. What theyve ignored are the significant financial and reputational risks to China.

Maximising African agency

As Africa becomes more involved in global initiatives, and as it moves towards greater continental integration via AU reforms and the Continental Free Trade Agreement, the need increases to think harder and more creatively about what African agency means. It isnt enough to simply reiterate the call for Africa to negotiate collectively with China  not least because this disregards the complex interactions between African governments.

Rather, its time for more comprehensive thinking about how African agency manifests across actors and geographic scales. Only once we have a firmer handle on this can we move towards maximising it.

Yu-Shan Wu, Foreign policy researcher and doctoral candidate, University of the Witwatersrand; Chris Alden, Professor of International Relations, London School of Economics and Political Science, and Cobus van Staden, Senior Researcher: China Africa, South African Institute of International Affairs. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.CLINTON COUNTY, Ind. (WLFI)  According to Indiana State Police, the body found in Clinton County Tuesday is missing Flora woman Kyra Boehning. Police say the investigation has been completed and no foul play is suspected.

Her body was found on County Road 500 East just north of State Road 28 in Clinton County. That's the same road where police found her car last week.

Flora Police said 25-year-old Kyra Boehning was last seen at 11:00 p.m. on Monday evening October 8.



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Chinese government is determined to speed up and deepen its reform and opening up after 40 years' practices, heading towards greater goals at full speed.

At the 19th Communist Party of China (CPC) National Congress held in October last year, Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee and chairman of Central Military Commission, outlined new moves to deepen reform in all areas.

In his report to the Party congress, Xi listed "continuing to comprehensively deepen reform" in the basic policy to uphold and develop socialism with Chinese characteristics for a new era.

The report proposed 158 reform measures and clarified important reform areas and key sections, including the supply-side structural reform which gives priority to improving the quality of the supply system.

Unshakeable Resolve

During his first inspection tour to east China's Jiangsu Province after the Party congress, Xi made important instructions on reforms of state-owned enterprises, economic restructuring in regions running out of natural resources, and rural vitalization.

In the following months, from southern Hainan Province, central Hubei Province to eastern Shandong Province, Xi has as always taken the lead in guiding deepening reform in all areas to make new advances.

At its first meeting in mid November 2017, the leading group for deepening overall reform of the 19th CPC Central Committee, headed by Xi, set the principles of carrying out reforms and underscored systematic, unified and coordinated action in pushing forward those tasks.

An action plan from 2018 to 2022 has been issued, elaborating on who, when and how to carry out the 158 reform measures.

Xi has repeatedly voiced his resolve to continue reform.

"China's reform will cover more areas, and more and stronger steps will be taken in pursuing this endeavor," Xi said at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit in Da Nang, Vietnam, in November 2017.

At the opening ceremony of the Boao Forum for Asia annual conference in April, Xi called reform and opening-up "China's second revolution" that had not only profoundly changed the country but greatly influenced the whole world.

"We should endeavor to advance structural reform, remove all institutional barriers to innovation and fully unlock innovation potential and energize the market," Xi said on July 25 when addressing the BRICS Business Forum in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Profound Change

At its annual session in March, the National People's Congress adopted an amendment to the Constitution, which laid the solid foundations for long-term, comprehensive reform.

At the same time, a large-scale reform of Party and state institutions was unfurled. In less than three months, the country established and restructured 25 Party and government institutions.

Several promising areas have been selected to be pilots for advancing reform and opening-up.

In April, Hainan Province, a special economic zone of 30 years, received the guidelines on supporting its efforts to deepen reform and opening-up from the CPC Central Committee and the State Council.

Since the announcement of its founding in April last year, Xiongan New Area, sitting at the center of the triangular area formed by Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei's provincial capital Shijiazhuang, has been gradually materializing Xi's strategic vision.

At a July meeting of the central committee for deepening overall reform, Xiongan was granted greater powers to conduct reform and take the initiative of reforms in innovative development, city governance and public service.

Opening Wider

From the Hainan pilot free trade zone in the south to Xiongan New Area in the north, China has been opening its doors wider and wider by rolling out more reform measures nationwide.

Reform measures formulated on a basis in pilot free trade zones have been copied and promoted elsewhere in the country.

China has also been gearing for the China International Import Expo, which will be held in Shanghai in November.

People now need to come to an exit-entry administration bureau just once to finish necessary paper work.

A mechanism for solving trade, business and investment disputes along the Belt and Road has also been set up.

From elderly services to medical insurance, from education to employment, from economic development to social causes, China has implemented a series of targeted reform measures to meet the people's need for a better life.

China's continued reform and opening-up is advancing with a strong momentum and being welcomed worldwide. The 2018 China Business Climate Survey Report, released by the American Chamber of Commerce in China, revealed that 74 percent of its members plan to expand investment in China, the highest percentage in recent years.

(Source: Xinhua)Local AM: Welsh Government prioritising health spending over local councils  example of difficult decisions due to austerity

This article is old - Published: Wednesday, Oct 17th, 2018

Wrexhams Assembly Member has pointed to Conservative austerity measures as a reason for a cut in local government settlements, noting there are Conservatives alongside Independents on the Executive Board locally.

Earlier today we highlighted a scathing assessment of the local government settlement from Welsh Government, that the Leader of Wrexham Council says will result in savage cuts  our earlier article is here.

We asked local Assembly Member Lesley Griffiths for her thoughts, as although she was not specifically named by Cllr Pritchard, he referred to individual AMs in the statement he issued.

Lesley Griffiths AM told us: This purely political attack is more show than substance as making thinly-veiled threats in the press achieves very little.

At no point has the Leader of Wrexham Council actually contacted me directly about local government funding. I have, however, met with Wrexham Councils new Chief Executive and have arranged to meet on a regular basis.

I question how the Leader of the Council can be shocked and surprised  its no secret that since 2010 the Tories have implemented austerity measures which, unfortunately, have very real and significant consequences on our public services. After nine long years, more and more people are suffering and there is no end in sight with further cuts in the pipeline.

If any additional funding is received, the Welsh Government has announced local government will be a key priority but, in its latest Draft Budget, its fair to say the Welsh Government prioritised health spending over local government. This is an example of the difficult decisions that have to be made due to the Tory UK Governments ongoing pursuit of austerity.

The Leader of the Council doesnt appear to understand this or maybe he prefers not to mention it as his group of so-called independents work hand in hand alongside Tory councillors to form Wrexham Councils Executive Board.

It is also worth highlighting local authorities settlement allocations are decided using a formula that is agreed to by Welsh Local Government Association representatives  not solely by the Welsh Government. At the beginning of the year, councils across Wales were told to prepare for a 3% cut so whilst I fully recognise the settlement is not ideal, it is a lot better than initially thought.

Rather than act surprised and make inappropriate comments, the Leader of Wrexham Council should already have plans in place to manage the budget responsibly and focus on providing fundamental public services for the people of Wrexham.

We are expecting the detail of the Difficult Decisions consultation to be made public by Wrexham Council shortly and will update as and when it is released.MP demands action to prevent predatory overseas business takeovers after 300 Wrexham workers lose their jobs

This article is old - Published: Wednesday, Oct 17th, 2018

Wrexhams MP has demanded action to prevent future predatory overseas business takeovers after it was announced that hundreds of local workers would be losing their jobs.

Mr Lucas wants to prevent a repeat of the situation which has meant about 300 skilled roles at financial firm Refinitiv, based on Wrexham Industrial Estate, are now being transferred to Bangalore in India.

The business has been based in the town since 2012 and was previously known as Avox and Thomson Reuters.

However workers at the site were told last week that Refinitiv intends to close its site in Wrexham as part of a company restructure.

Refinitiv became a stand-alone part of the Thomson Reuters group in July before the US-owned Blackstone Group took a majority share of the company, a move which was followed just a few days later by the shock news of the Wrexham office closure.

Mr Lucas has since spoken in Parliament twice about predatory business takeovers, calling for the UK Government to consider changing legislation to make it more difficult for overseas firms to acquire businesses in the UK. He has also written to business secretary Greg Clark about the matter, highlighting how the companys Wrexham workforce has been treated.

However, Mr Lucas says he was unimpressed with the response he received from Mr Clark when he spoke at Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) questions in the Commons on Tuesday (October 16).

Mr Lucas said: A business took over Thomson Reuters in Wrexham a few weeks ago and last Wednesday announced the redundancy of 300 skilled workers, who had spent the last 10 years building up the business. The jobs are being moved to India.

In the context of Brexit, does the secretary of state agree with me that we need to have a reconsideration of the takeover laws that apply within the UK so that this kind of predatory behaviour can end?

Mr Clark replied by saying: If we want to prosper as a country we need to engage with the world. We need to attract investment from all over the world.

Speaking outside the Chamber, Mr Lucas said it was a dreadful answer which disregarded the plight of the 300 workers in Wrexham who had been left without jobs.

It has since been confirmed that there are plans by the Welsh Government and Wrexham County Borough Council to set up a task force to assist Refinitiv workers.

A spokesperson for Refinitiv said: As Refinitiv stands up as a new, standalone organisation focused on financial markets, we want to ensure that we have the right people in the right places to drive results for our customers in a highly competitive environment.

As a result we intend to close our site in Wrexham.

We recognise the impact this would have on the Wrexham community and we are in close dialogue with our Wrexham-based colleagues and their representatives. We are committed to ensuring those affected are properly supported through this process.As the Trump administration intensifies its economic and strategic confrontation with China, the push for a more aggressive Australian stance is also escalating. Successive Australian governments have already integrated its military into the provocative US military build-up in the Indo-Pacific region that began under President Obamas pivot to Asia.

The Trump administration has upped the ante in the trade war with China. In a bellicose speech by US Vice-president Mike Pence earlier this month, he accused China of interfering in American politics in addition to the litany of charges over the South China Sea, Taiwan, and alleged stealing of hi-tech secrets. The speech was a deliberate escalation of what is being termed more and more as a new Cold War with China, which US allies such as Australia and Japan are being pressured to join.

The consequences of Australias alignment with the US were highlighted in a comment in Mondays Australian by Paul Dibb, former deputy defence secretary and Defence Intelligence Organisation director. He seized on Pences speech to argue that Australia had to respond by massively bolstering its military capacities in preparation for the prospect of a war against China.

Dibb cited the comments of American historian Walter Russell Mead who last week likened Pences comments to Ronald Reagans speech in 1981 branding the Soviet Union as the evil empire. Mead posed the questiondid the second Cold War just break out while no one was watching? Having concluded that the confrontational US strategy ultimately threatens war, Dibb, a key figure in the Australian strategic and intelligence establishment, called for the Australian government to take a series of diplomatic, economic and military steps.

Firstly, Dibb backed the Trump administration to the hilt, declaring that Canberra must acknowledge that the US is at last doing something positive to challenge Chinese hegemony in our part of the world. He then effectively branded China as an enemy, stating that Australia faces for the first time since World War II a major powerwith which we do not share fundamental valuescapable of threatening us with high-intensity conflict.

In preparation for conflict, Dibb declared that Australia must reduce its economic dependence on China, pull its military forces back from Afghanistan and the Middle East to focus on Asia, and adopt a more aggressive, confrontational approach to China in line with the Trump administration.

In an ominous threat, Dibb stated: China needs to understand if it succeeds in ending the US alliance system in Asia, that may well encourage former allies to consider acquiring nuclear weapons. Is that what Beijing wants? Earlier this month, he wrote a comment entitled Should Australia develop its own nuclear deterrent? which he concluded by declaring that my view is that Australia should at least be looking at options and lead times for building nuclear weapons.

Dibbs remarks are part of an intense discussion in Australian think tanks and military and intelligence circles over the need to accelerate preparations for what can only be a devastating regional and global war. In a keynote speech last month, Dibb warned: If a fully-blown trade war results, the world will stumble into a moment of great geo-political uncertainty. When this happened to the world in the 1930s the results were disastrous, including for Australia.

The same day as it published Dibbs comment, the Australian, the flagship newspaper of the Murdoch media empire, lambasted an editorial in the state-owned China Daily which criticised moves by Australia and Japan to strengthen military ties with each other and asserted that the US could tip the region into conflict. The Chinese editorial warned Canberra and Tokyo not to allow the resurgence of the Cold War paranoia that has already taken hold of the US, [to] shape their actions.

It declared that political leaders should realise the full significance of a return of the full-scale mistrust of the Cold War, as it will create a fragile peace that risks being shattered by the slightest mis-step. It urged them not to let the US lead them by the nose as it pursues a confrontational strategy toward China that is really not in their best interests.

The Australian editorial responded by defending the announcement by Canberra and Tokyo that they will hold joint aerial war games in northern Japan next year, as well as the right of the US, Australia and Japan to demand and ensure freedom of navigation for vital sea lanes. In reality, freedom of navigation operations to challenge Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea are simply a pretext to conduct naval exercises in close proximity to the Chinese mainland, including near its sensitive naval bases on Hainan Island.

Facing escalating US trade war and military measures, Beijing is seeking to counter Washington by pointing out that the confrontation risks economic disaster for countries such as Japan and Australia that are heavily dependent on trade with China.

Australia, however, is remaining firmly aligned with the US. To date, it has been reluctant to join the US military in its provocative freedom of navigation operations. However, the Australian noted on Monday that Trumps National Security Adviser John Bolton asserted that US allies were going to participate. The British, the Australians and others, are sailing with us through the South China Sea. Were going to do a lot more on that, Bolton declared.

A Reuters article has also revealed the expanded collaboration of the so-called Five Eyes intelligence network against China. According to unnamed sources, the grouping, which includes the US and Australia, Britain, New Zealand and Canada, is now sharing information on alleged Chinese political interference with other countries, including Germany, Japan and to a lesser extent France. The article asserted that the US and its allies were developing a broadening international front against Chinese influence operations and investments.

The rising tensions between the US and China underscore that one of the main reasons for the recent ousting of Malcolm Turnbull as prime minister was his failure to take a tougher stand against China. Even though his government rammed through draconian anti-foreign interference legislation directed against China, Turnbull called for a reset of policy towards Beijing and an improvement in what had been tense relations. There is no doubt that such a stance was unacceptable to Washington and the layers of the Australian political and military establishment that back its war drive against China.About 800 striking Yamaha Motor India workers in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu are facing the threat of termination by the company.

This was revealed when the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) submitted a petition to the Chennai High Court seeking its intervention to direct the state governments labour department to restrain the Yamaha company from taking any unfair labour practices against striking workers.

Yamaha workers are among thousands of auto employees who are on strike in the Oragadam- Sriperumbudur industrial zone, 55 kilometres from the state capital of Chennai. Other workers engaged in strikes are from the Royal Enfield and Myoung Shin Automotive (MSA) companies.

CITU is controlled by the Stalinist Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPM. The union body also requested the court to restrain the [Yamaha] company from recruiting new workers and to direct the company to come to an amicable solution to the dispute.

The strike at Yamaha began on September 21 against the sacking of two workers who were engaged in organising a union affiliated to CITUthe Yamaha Thozhilalar Sangham or Yamaha Motor Workers Association. The Enfield and MSA struggles began on September 24 and September 5, respectively, also over victimisations for organising unions and higher pay.

The Stalinist CPM and its CITU affiliate have refused to mobilise the industrial strength of workers to defend workers at Yamaha, Enfield and MSA. Instead, they are appealing to the courts and the Tamil Nadu state government, thus sowing the illusion that the companies could be pressurised via these agencies to concede the demands of workers.

High Court judge, S. Vimala, has directed the company to reply to the CITU petition in four weeks. However, this will not guarantee the employment of workers. Yamaha and other companies have declared the strikes to be illegal and demanded the police and courts break workers occupations and protests.

The government has also declared the Yamaha strike was not legal. On October 3, the joint labour commissioner of Tamil Nadu, Mr Ponnuswamy, told the unions that to go on strike without prior intimation was not correct.

Indian big business, the ruling elite and international investors are concerned about the growing struggles of auto workers in Chennai and other regions in the country. On Monday, the Economic Times published a lengthy article by Reuters entitled Labour strife in Indias manufacturing hubs may undermine Modi's jobs push.

The article referred to the strikes in two centres of Indias auto industryChennai and Gurugram in the state of Haryana near New Delhi. In addition to the Chennai strikes, hundreds of workers from companies including Maruti Suzuki in Gurugram in northern India staged a one-day protest on October 7 demanding job security and higher wages.

The articles declared that these struggles underline the problems Prime Minister Narendra Modis government faces in creating new manufacturing jobs that are sustainable and pay attractive wages.

In reality, the Modi government and past administrations, including those led by Congress, opened up India to foreign investment and local big business, not to provide sustainable jobs and attractive wages, but to create cheap labour zones to extract super profits.

When Maruti Suzuki workers rejected the companys stooge trade union and organised their own to fight for their demands, the management staged a provocation in 2012 that lead to a witch-hunt of militant workers. The company was backed by the Haryana state government, central government, police and judiciary. Thirteen activists were framed up and sentenced to life imprisonment under the Modi government to intimidate the working class.

Undoubtedly the private companies were emboldened by the right-wing Modi governments pro-business amendments to the labour laws. However, CITU and the CPM played a major role in isolating Maruti Suzuki workers when they faced the ruthless witch-hunt. They are engaged in the same practice in isolating the Yamaha, Enfield and MSA workers.

An article in Peoples Democracy, the newspaper of the Stalinist Communist Party of India (CPI), on October 14, encouraged Tamil Nadu auto workers to place their faith in the courts. The Indian constitution, it declared, guarantees to all its citizens [the right] to form associations and unions.

Lamenting that Yamaha, Enfield and MSA have not heeded the constitution, the article claimed that the CPM had provided a wave of supportive actions by all class and mass organisations throughout Tamil Nadu.

This is an outright lie. The CPM and its unions have not appealed to workers to defend the striking auto workers. The Stalinists are only appealing to the Tamil Nadu government, the courts and state institutions and thus politically disarming and isolating workers as companies intensify their attacks on jobs, pay and conditions.

Far from defending workers, labour legislation is undermining workers.

Satheesh Kumar, 24, worked as an apprentice for two years and as a trainee for a year at Royal Enfield and is now jobless. He told WSWS reporters that the company did not make him and other workers permanent, as they were demanding, but retrenched them.

We were told since the Modi government has amended the labour law to stop the further recruitment of permanent workers in the public sector companies, the private companies like Royal Enfield also stopped recruiting permanent workers. The company has terminated workers of my group, he said.

The authors also recommend:

Tamil Nadu police arrest hundreds of striking Indian autoworkers

[11 October 2018]UK Prime Minister Theresa May will address this evenings European Union (EU) summit knowing that Britains terms for the transitional period preparing the UKs exit have been rejected.

EU leaders abandoned plans to issue a draft declaration on its future trading arrangements with the UK, prior to an extraordinary EU meeting scheduled for November 17 and 18 that was meant to finalise a deal, but which is now also in doubt.

The EU is demanding an indefinite backstop arrangement that would keep Northern Ireland within the sphere of EU regulationsa situation that the hardline pro-Brexit Conservatives and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) will not countenance.

With May hamstrung in seeking a soft Brexit, maintaining tariff-free access to the Single European Market, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has shown that he will make no move that does not have the seal of approval of his partys right-wing. His agenda is shaped solely by the political and economic concerns of British imperialism.

May gave a statement to the House of Commons Monday, to placate her critics within the Tory party and its DUP allies, while still expressing a goal of a soft Brexit deal. Having given a wholly unconvincing account of the progress made in securing acceptance of her Chequers proposals outlined this July, she reassured the DUP, We have been clear that we cannot agree to anything that threatens the integrity of our United Kingdom.

Turning to the Tory Brexiteers, who see any backstop arrangement, without a time-limit as May had indicated last week, as a mechanism for maintaining British membership of the EU, she said, I am clear we are not going to be trapped permanently in a single customs territory unable to do meaningful trade deals.

May yesterday boasted she had secured cabinet unity prior to departing for Brussels, but the reaction in Parliament from several Tory MPs and the DUPs first minister, Nigel Dodds, made clear this is purely a temporary ceasefire. Shortly after Mays speech, a meeting of eight Brexiteer ministersDominic Raab, Jeremy Hunt, Michael Gove, Andrea Leadsom, Chris Grayling, Geoffrey Cox, Liz Truss and Penny Mourdantwas held to discuss their own response. The DUP is still threatening to use its crucial votes to paralyse the Tories domestic agenda if Northern Irelands constitutional position within the UK is threatened and has said it believes a no-deal scenario is now probably inevitable.

With the government in turmoil and UK-based corporations becoming increasingly nervous as the deadline for a Brexit deal draws near, Labour is advancing itself as a responsible representative of Britains ruling elite. Responding to Mays statement in the House of Commons, Corbyn criticised her for putting party before country and put forward Labours plan for a permanent customs union with the EU that allows for the UK to strike its own trade deals. Corbyn spoke of advancing proposals that would have the support of the House of Commons, abandoning his call for a general election.

This comes after ex-party leader Tony Blair spoke openly of his supporters backing May in any no-confidence vote scenario in return for her promising a second referendum, as a means of avoiding the truly damaging and challenging possibility of a general election bringing Corbyn to power.

At a Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) meeting Monday evening, Corbyn teamed up with his pro-Remain Brexit Secretary Sir Keir Starmer to secure unity with the Blairites who are divided as to how to proceed. With some such as Caroline Flint and Lisa Nandy considering supporting any deal secured by May, Corbyn responded, Part of the concern, which the government wants to talk up, is that there is only a no deal alternative. That is clearly not the case and it is clearly not what the majority of MPs want.

The whole thrust of Labours Brexit policy is now directed towards securing a close relationship with the EU through a parliamentary vote, or possibly through a second referendum. This would see the overwhelming majority of Labour MPs side with the Scottish National Party, Liberal Democrats and the most strongly pro-Remain Tories. Describing the PLP meeting on Monday, a Labour source outlined Corbyn and Starmers plan to the Guardian .

If she [May] is unable to bring anything back, or brings back the kind of package currently on offer, that wont be able to command support in the House of Commons.  In those circumstances, Labour can put forward [its offer] which could command a majority in Parliament and does command majority support in the country.

Corbyn even made a direct offer to May to come on board, saying in the parliamentary debate Monday, The prime minister faces a simple and inescapable choice: be buffeted this way and that way by the chaos of her own party, or back a deal that can win the support of parliament and the people of this country.

Some pro-Remain Tories guardedly indicated their support for this line. Former education secretary Nicky Morgan said that MPs would have to step in if the prime minister failed to secure a deal. The basis of such a deal, Corbyn has suggested, would be built around Starmers six tests that include measures that are a de facto repudiation of Brexit such as delivering the exact same benefits as membership of the single market and customs union.

The fraudulent nature of Labours reference to preventing a race to the bottom is made apparent by the emphasis on maintaining economic, security and border agreements with the EU, as demanded by businesscombined with references to fair management of migration that is a sop to the xenophobic agenda of the pro-Brexit campaigners.

As if to underscore the extent of Corbyns political cowardice, it was left to a Blairite pro-Remainer to urge him to put a vote of no-confidence in May. Gareth Snell spoke to the Guardian yesterday as the representative of a group of MPs, who claim to number 20, supportive of forcing a general election to change the direction of Brexit. There seems to be no majority in the house for what the government is proposingso why waste any more time and risk a no-deal Brexit? Snell said. The Labour frontbench needs to put down a vote of no confidence ASAP to ensure we can put a deal to parliament that has majority support.

Posed as an anti-Brexit move, a successful motion of no confidence would need May to lose due to pro-Remain Tories deserting her.

May had hoped her plight would have secured a sympathetic response from the EU, but this did not materialise. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said instead, We were actually pretty hopeful that we would manage to seal an exit agreement.  [A]t the moment, it looks a bit more difficult again. EU Council President Donald Tusk was less diplomatic, saying, We must prepare the EU for a no-deal scenario, which is more likely than ever before.

Some sources suggested that the planned EU summit could be delayed until December, but others spoke of holding the November meeting as a No Deal Brexit summit that would be a declaration that May has failed. In similar vein, the former president of the euro group, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, spoke of many more unscheduled months of negotiations that would nullify the plan to trigger Article 50 by March 31 next year. He linked this with the necessity of allowing for new elections or a second referendum if the deal gets rejected in the medium term, which still seems pretty likely.On Monday, the French daily Liberation published an article in its CheckNews section claiming that the World Socialist Web Site is exaggerating US preparations for total war. Replying to a question from a reader, journalist Pauline Moullot writes: Indeed, many web sites have re-posted this article from the World Socialist Web Site titled Pentagon report points to US preparations for total war. The article mixes up several correct reports in order to arrive at a misleading title.

Liberation admits that the WSWS correctly reports the military threats and incidents between US forces and their Russian and Chinese counterparts. It notes that Chinese warships nearly collided with US Navy vessels in the South China Sea, an event Le Monde called dangerous. It notes that US Ambassador to NATO Kay Bailey Hutchison threatened to take out Russian missiles in Europe and produced what the Washington Post called a diplomatic incident.

Nonetheless, Liberation insists that the WSWS is overestimating the war danger and, in particular, the significance of the Pentagon report upon which it based its article.

It writes, Does the Pentagon report actually foresee total war? In fact, the report cited in the article deals with the US defense industry.

Since what is occurring is trade war between America and China, Liberation concludes, the WSWS article is an exaggeration; everyone can go to sleep easy. So it is true that the United States are particularly targeting China, it writes, but the report being cited deals with the US defense industrys strategy and Chinas weight in this industry. It backs up the US case for trade war against China, but it is not a warning sign of total war.

In fact, the WSWS analysis of the war danger is correct. The primary concern of the Pentagon report is ensuring the capacity of the United States military to surge its activities under conditions in which the countries on which it is economically dependent may cut off US access. To most people (but apparently not to the Liberation editorial board) a surge in military activity is referred to as a war. To sustain such a surge, the report advocates radical changes in the American economy, the educational system, and government spending priorities.

That is, the report advocates changes to the totality of American society with the aim of fighting war. If Liberation does not see this as preparation for total war, this is only a confirmation of the old adage that you can lead a horse to water but you cant make him drink.

The Pentagon report, titled Assessing and Strengthening the Manufacturing and Defense Industrial Base and Supply Chain Resiliency of the United States, calls for the United States to retool for great power competition. It cites last years US National Security Strategy, which denounces revisionist powers like China and Russia as the central challenge to the United States.

Preparing for military confrontation and conflict with other major nuclear-armed powers, the US National Security Strategy insists, requires the seamless integration of multiple elements of national powerdiplomacy, information, economics, finance, intelligence, law enforcement and military.

That is to say, the national security strategy of the United States must be to prepare the integration of all elements of American society into plans for total war.

This, as the WSWS article explains, is what the recent Pentagon report concretely proposes. It calls not only for economic policies to build a vibrant domestic manufacturing sector, a solid defense industrial base, and resilient supply chains, but broad changes to US research and academic facilities, including measures targeting Chinese students. It warns that with one quarter of STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics] graduates in the US being Chinese nationals  American universities are major enablers of Chinas economic and military rise.

The adoption of total war plans in the United States has pushed other major powers, both allied to and targeted by Washington, to prepare similar measures. Last year, as Sweden reintroduced the draft, after Germany announced the re-militarization of its foreign policy, and as the final touches on the US National Security Strategy were being made, Moscow announced its own plans for the total mobilization of Russias economy for war.

Amid a wave of Russian military exercises aiming to counterbalance growing US and NATO troop deployments on Russias borders in Eastern Europe, President Vladimir Putin declared: The ability of our economy to increase military production and services at a given time is one of the most important aspects of military security. To this end, all strategic and simply large-scale enterprise should be ready, regardless of ownership.

What these events show is that escalating US-NATO neo-colonial wars over the last quarter century are reaching a new, dangerous stage. The conflicts between the major capitalist powerswhich underlay US imperialisms attempts to militarily dominate Eurasia starting in the 1990s via wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Syria, Ukraine and beyondare erupting to the surface. A new global capitalist breakdown is being set in motion. As in 1914 or 1939, Washington, Moscow and the other major capitals are preparing for all-out war against each other.

Liberation, it seems, would contest this analysis. Yet what was the analysis in 2015as Washington threatened to arm Ukrainian militias fighting in Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine against Russia, and Russia threatened to retaliate militarilyof the man whose election as French president Liberation hailed as a triumph?

As he jumped onto a plane taking him from Paris to Minsk, in a desperate attempt to negotiate what became the Minsk peace treaty on Ukraine, French President Francois Hollande said: We have gone in the space of a few months from having differences, to conflict, to war ... We are in a state of war, and a war that could be total.

Naturally, Hollande returned from Minsk and continued to stoke French imperialisms neo-colonial wars in Syria and Mali, receiving Liberations backing on this basis.

Liberations criticisms of the WSWS for fighting to alert workers internationally to the war danger and mobilize them in struggle against imperialist war are shot through with bad faith. Like the rest of the official media in France and beyond, it is aware that the WSWS is widely read and followed, including by its own readers. Like other pro-imperialist publications and organizations that emerged out of the post-1968 petty-bourgeois student movement, such as the Pabloite New Anticapitalist Party (NPA), it has up until now maintained a hostile silence on the WSWS.

The career of the author of Liberations fact-check of the WSWS, Pauline Moullot, faithfully reflects the rightward evolution of the petty-bourgeois layers who influence the editorial line and outlook of Liberation. The Maoist youth who founded the paper in 1973, under the protection of Jean-Paul Sartre, during the anti-Vietnam war movement, have come a long way. Moullot writes also for Slate and World Policy Journal, a publication linked to Frances imperialist foreign policy magazine Politique internationale.

This layer of what is called the foreign policy community has prospered over decades, as bloody wars have claimed millions of livesproviding commentary that justified and prettied up various acts of imperialist plunder. Their salaries, their stock portfolios and their broader social privileges became bound up with the profits derived from war and the marketing of war to the public. They have a financial interest in not telling the truth about the implications of plans for total war, despite rising concern among masses of people.

This is why Liberation contests, in the face of all evidence, the fact that total war is being prepared, and willfully chooses not to connect the dots lying in plain sight in front of its nose.Strikers on the picket lines at Marriott hotels in San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland have expressed their determination to fight poverty level wages and increased medical costs as they struggle to live in one of the most expensive metropolitan areas in America. The 2,700 workers in the Bay Area who walked out on October 4 and 5 are part of nearly 8,000 workers in Boston, Detroit and the Hawaiian islands of Oahu and Maui who are striking against the worlds largest hotel chain.

Were all overworked, Alfredo, a 38-year-old cook with Marriott Oakland, told the World Socialist Web Site. After I come out of the kitchen, I have been working so hard, Im sweating like I just spent a couple hours in the gym.

Striking hotel workers in San Francisco

Alfredo continued, Theyre raising the cost of our medical benefits from $25 to $300 a month. You have workers here who have worked with Marriott for over 35 years. They are old, and they gave their life to this company. The main reason they dont retire is because theyll lose their medical benefits if they quit, and now Marriott does this. Nobody can afford these costs and still make ends meet on our pay.

My girlfriend and I have three kids. I get paid $19.25 an hour and we have to pay $2,600 a month just for rent to get a two-bedroom apartment in Hayward. That does not include utilities. Our two older kids share one room, and the baby sleeps with us in the other. My girlfriend has a car, but I dont so I take BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) into work. With the price of housing in the Bay Area, you cannot make ends meet on the amount were getting paid.

The police have parked multiple squad cars in front of the hotels directly opposite the picket lines and multiple officers stand watch over the strikers throughout the day. Diana, a Marriott housekeeper walking the picket line, told the WSWS that the police have been there constantly since October 5, the day the strike began in Oakland.

Alfredo says, The cops claim theyre here because Marriott called them and said that our noise was an assault. A lot of workers are saying that Marriott is paying the cops. Man, this is Oakland. There is something sketchy going on just up the street but the cops stay here and guard Marriott from a peaceful picket line.

Another worker, Diana, told the WSWS that Marriott keeps increasing the workload for housekeeping. Many of the rooms get trashed, and it takes time to clean those rooms. When we go to management and tell them that a particular room is trashed, and we need to skip that room to meet our quota on time, management always tells us that the room isnt a mess and we should clean it up and still meet our quota.

Marriott is raising the amount that she is expected to contribute for her healthcare as a single person from $10 to $172 a month. I cant afford that, she says. The only reason I manage to afford rent is because I live in Section 8 housing.

Far from mobilizing the broad support hotel workers have to shut down the hotel industry, the UNITE HERE union has limited picketing to symbolic levels, allowing Marriott to continue operations with strikebreakers. At the same time, it has left workers on starvation-level strike benefits of $60 a day, even though the union has assets worth more than $150 million and pays its union president, Donald Taylor, a salary of $362,034.

The union should be giving us more for strike pay, Julio, a steward at the Oakland Marriott for 23 years, told the WSWS. We have to picket 30 hours per week to get $300, but thats not enough. We cant continue to support our families without our job.

Hotel strikers on the picket line

Referring to the company, Julio said, I gave them the best years of my life for nothing. Its not right. The company doesnt want to pay enough for us to survive. They wont pay for health insurance or retirement. Were not asking for so much, just a small raise and healthcare coverage.

The raise the union is calling for is $5 total$2 the first year, then $1/year for the next three years. Julios current wage is $16/hour, near the minimum wage in Oakland which is $13.23.

Julio has two kids, ages 15 and 18, and has to work multiple jobs to support them. Almost everyone that works here has to have two or three jobs in order to live in the Bay Area because the rent is too high. In addition to working here, I have to work part-time at a supermarket near where I live.

When asked for his thoughts on the role of the big business parties, Julio replied, The Democrats and Republicans dont give a crap about us. We suffer. We have to have multiple jobs just to survive. The politicians work for their own, theyre big fishes that eat it all and leave nothing for the little people.

While isolating the striking workers, the UNITE HERE union has given the Democratic Party a platform to posture as their saviors and hustle for workers votes in the run up to the November 6 election. Last week, the union staged a civil disobedience protest in conjunction with the Democrats in downtown San Francisco. Anand Singh, the head of UNITE HERE Local 2, and Wei-Ling Huber, president of East Bays Local 2850, were among dozens who were arrested.

The same day, San Francisco city supervisors Hillary Ronen, Ahsha Safai and Vallie Brown endorsed the strike and urged Mayor London Breed to do the same. The mayor responded by offering to meet with leaders of UNITE HERE Local 2 union this week, stating, As a longtime supporter of organized labor, I support the rights of workers to organize, collectively bargain, and advocate for better wages and benefits.

Kevin De Leon, the Democratic Partys nominee to replace the hated US Senator Dianne Feinstein, made a token visit to the Marriott picket lines, as did local San Francisco Democrats Sandra Lee Fewer and Aaron Peskin.

Far from speaking for workers, the Democrats, no less than the Republicans, have overseen more than a decade of declining worker living standards even as they handed over trillions of dollars to bailout the Wall Street banks. In Illinois, the unions are backing billionaire gubernatorial candidate JB Pritzker, one of the heirs to the Hyatt Hotel fortune. The Chicago-based Pritzkerswho played a prominent role in Obamas rise to the White Houseare notorious for their attacks on hotel workers.

In contrast to the union, workers are determined to fight. To take this battle forward, hotel workers need to form rank-and-file committees, independent of the union, to fight for the shutdown of the entire hotel industry. These committees should reach out to other sections of workersat UPS, Amazon, teachers in Los Angeles and other citiesand fight to develop a common struggle against the corporate giants and the two big business parties that defend them.On Tuesday, the New York Times published a major editorial statement warning about the breakup of the web amid the rise of internet censorship and international geopolitical conflicts. If things continue along this path, the newspaper warns, the next decade may see the internet relegated to little more than just another front on the new cold war.

The editorial begins by alluding to a warning by Eric Schmidt, the chairman of Googles parent company Alphabet, that, in the Times words, in the next 10 to 15 years, the internet would most likely be split in twoone internet led by China and one internet led by the United States.

Schmidt, according to the Times, did not seem to seriously entertain the possibility that the internet would remain global. While agreeing with this appraisal, the newspaper adds, if anything, the flaw in Mr. Schmidts thinking is that he too quickly dismisses the European internet that is coalescing around the European Unions ever-heightening regulation of technology platforms. All signs point to a future with three internets.

Censorship will become common to all of these spheres, not just that of China, the Times warns. Internet censorship and surveillance were once hallmarks of oppressive governmentswith Egypt, Iran and China being prime examples. But it has become clear that this isnt just the domain of anti-democratic forces.

The warning is ironic, given the fact that the Times has, for nearly two years, been at the forefront of justifying the efforts of US technology companies to censor the internet in alliance with leading figures in the Democratic Party, including Senator Mark Warner and Congressman Adam Schiff. For nearly two years, the Times has sought to promote and instigate censorship measures in the name of combating Russian meddling in American politics.

That campaign has resulted in a series of sweeping censorship measures, beginning with an initiative, known as Project Owl, announced by Google Engineering Vice President Ben Gomes in April 2017, that buried left-wing websites, including the World Socialist Web Site, in search results.

Facebook and Twitter have followed with similar actions, demoting oppositional pages in their users news feeds and, just last week, shutting down the accounts of left-wing news pages with millions of followers. The Times has cheered every step of this campaign, going so far as to label the political pages removed by Facebook as spam and domestic disinformation.

The Times and the American ruling class are now being hoisted with their own petard. Just as the American state and intelligence apparatus have sought to weaponize the internet, so too are other powers, as the internet becomes a battleground for economic and geopolitical conflicts.

What upsets the Times is that American companies, and Google in particular, are not tailoring all their actions according to the geopolitical interests of American imperialism.

American corporations, the Times writes, do little to counteract Balkanization and instead do whatever is necessary to expand their operations.  If the future of the internet is a tripartite cold war, Silicon Valley wants to be making money in all three of those worlds.

What instigated the Times ire at Google is the companys insistence that it will operate in China, under rules imposed by the Chinese government, in defiance of protests by leading figures within the American government.

The Times pointed to a leaked speech by Gomes that made clear that the companys plans to create a censored search engine for the Chinese market are in fact much further along than the company had publicly indicated. Mr. Gomess leaked speech from inside Google sounded almost dystopian at times. This is a world none of us have ever lived in before, Mr. Gomes told employees. All I am saying, we have built a set of hacks, and we have kept them.

Readers of the World Socialist Web Site are familiar with the dystopian plans of Mr. Gomes, who has played a leading role in Googles campaign to censor the internet in the United States and Europe. When he was working to crack down on political opposition within the US, the Times never mentioned his name and defended the censorship program over which he presided.

But now that Google is seeking to implement censorship in cooperation with the Chinese state, the Times is complaining about [t]he power of a handful of platforms and services.

In other words, the Times, speaking for the US intelligence apparatus, wants to have its cake and eat it too. It wants US technology companies to censor domestic political opposition in the name of preventing foreign interference. But it also wants those same companies to reject overtures by foreign governments to prevent interference by the Americans, including the US-backed campaign, which the Times alludes to, to promote separatist sentiments among Chinese Uighurs.

The Times, and the American ruling elite for which it speaks, wants to keep the internet global only insofar as its rules are written in the United States, insofar as the American ruling class can control the narrative. That other states and other ruling elites are moving to implement their own rules and restrictions, bound up with their own domestic and geopolitical interests, it considers intolerable.

Aside from the Times hypocrisy, the phenomenon it points to is very realand dangerous. The internet emerged as a powerful mechanism for spreading information and sharing ideas, and for undermining national divisions and the control of the professional gatekeepersthe establishment media. With the proliferation of hand-held devices and social media platforms, vast troves of information are now available to workers and youth all over the world.

This development terrifies the capitalist ruling elites. The American ruling class, in particular, is fighting a two-front war. It wants to pressure the giant US-based social media and internet companies to suppress domestic opposition, while at the same time undercutting the efforts of its competitors and adversaries, whether in China or in Europe, to establish their own mechanisms of control.

The threat to an open and internationally integrated internet is one expression of the fundamental contradictions of the capitalist systembetween a global economy and the division of the world into nation-states, and between socialized production and the subordination of economic life to the accumulation of private profit. Communication systems are global, but they are being manipulated by rival ruling classes. The spread of information is inherently liberating, but the infrastructure for its dissemination remains under the control of powerful corporations.

The social force capable of securing an open and global internet is the working class, the only genuinely international class, whose interests are bound up with opposition to the capitalist nation-state system. The struggle against censorship is the struggle to defend the social, cultural and technological achievements of mankind. It is inextricably connected to the fight against war, inequality and authoritarianism.

It is, in short, a revolutionary question. The international working class must respond to the two-front war of the capitalist ruling elites with a one-front war against the capitalist system itself. The internet must be established on secure foundations, through the establishment of a global, socialist society, based on equality and democratic control of production.After 132 years in business, the former retail giant Sears Holding Corp. filed for bankruptcy protection on Monday. Sears will use Chapter 11 filing with the Federal Bankruptcy Court in New York in an attempt to manage its debts and continue operating at least until the end of the holiday season. The company plans to close 142 Sears and Kmart stores by the end of the year, in addition to 46 store closures announced in August.

Thousands of workers will lose their jobs as stores close by the end of the holidays. Some 68,000 employees, including 32,000 full-time workers, will be at risk of losing their jobs if the company fails to stay afloat. Mass layoffs have been common in the retail industry as a whole in recent years with Sears Holding already shrinking its workforce from 178,000 in January.

Sears started out as a watch company in 1886, but rapidly expanded into a massive mail order business. By 1895, the company touted a 532-page mail order catalog advertising a variety of goods, including clothing, tools, appliances and even homes. The company was the countrys premier retailer, comparable to a much earlier version of Amazon. It shipped products to the most remote parts of the US from a three-million square foot mail order hub in Chicago. At its peak the facility handled more than 105,000 orders a day.

By 1931, Sears brick and mortar stores outsold its catalog, altering the companys dynamic and role in the US economy. The company opened its first downtown emporium in 1932, where shoppers could dine, have family photos taken, visit a dentist, have a tire changed and have access a multitude of other services. During the post-World War II boom, Sears stores followed American families as they moved to the suburbs, acting as anchors to the regional malls established to serve suburban consumers.

Sears filing for bankruptcy is the latest catastrophe in a broader crisis in the US retail industry. The last decade has seen a multitude of buyouts, mergers and acquisitions by finance corporations as part of desperate efforts by retailers to avoid bankruptcy or liquidation by corporate robber barons gaining what profit they can before selling or liquidating the retail companies.

US retailers have been forced to close brick-and-mortar stores to maintain profitability, closing thousands of stores in 2018 alone. Figures in May indicated the retail industry was responsible for more than a third of job cuts announced in 2018. An overview of a handful of corporations gives scope to the severity of the issue.

In April, Subway, the fast food chain with the most locations in the world, closed 500 US locations alone.

Bon-Ton Stores, Inc., the parent company of a number of chains included Boston Store, Younkers and Carsons, went out of business after 150 years in operation. The company began to close all 256 of its locations in April.

The parent company for Toys R Us filed for bankruptcy in September 2017, hoping to find a buyer for its operations. The company is now in the process of liquidating all of its 735 properties across the US, and some 1,700 stores worldwide.

In January, Walmart-owned Sams Club closed 63 of its locations while laying off an estimated 11,000 workers. The company closed roughly 10 percent of Sams Club locations while announcing a raise in its minimum hourly wage from $9 to $11.

The large-scale loss of jobs and crisis of retail are bound up with the process of monopolization occurring in all business sectors. Online retailers like Amazon and Walmart have spearheaded this process, as online shopping becomes more commonplace and the degradation of workers living conditions limits their ability to purchase goods and services.

Retailers have been forced to downsize and shift jobs to labor-intensive distribution centers. Even as many companies are increasingly turning to online sales to counteract poor store sales, Amazon continues to tower over other retailers, accounting for 53 percent of all online sales growth in 2016.

Stagnant wages also play a role in the retail apocalypse. Workers wages have seen little to no growth in the last four decades, and any economic growth experienced after the Great Recession has gone to the upper echelons of society. The vast majority of jobs created since 2008 have been part-time or temporary. Retailers are closing stores in predominantly poor and working-class areas, robbing the most disadvantaged of employment.

Studies show that 15 percent of retailers are at risk of shutting down and it is estimated that within five years, up to 25 percent of American malls could close, with tens of thousands of people losing their jobs. The majority of retail-related jobs are continuously fed into massive corporations like Amazon that work their employees to exhaustion, and sometimes death. The ultimate result of the retail crisis is escalation of attacks on the wages and living conditions of workers.

Sears lost over $11 billion since 2011, including $5.8 billion lost in the last five years. More than 1,000 stores have closed in the last decade. Well over 700 Kmart and Sears locations have been shut down in the last two years alone.

While Sears was bleeding out, CEO and hedge fund billionaire Edward S. Lampert lined his and his associates pockets. Lampert bought Kmart after it filed for bankruptcy in 2003 and acquired Sears a year later. As CEO, Lampert claimed his strategy was to reinvest in the company by selling off assets and closing stores.

Lampert orchestrated deals that cannibalized the companys most profitable brands, creating separate entities in which he had stakes. Lampert sold Lands End, a clothing brand in which his hedge fund now has a large stake. In 2015, he sold $2.7 billion worth of stores to the retail company Seritage. Lampert is a large investor in Seritage, as well as its chairman.

Lamperts takeover of Sears epitomizes the ever growing domination of finance capital in the US economy. ESL Investments, Lamperts hedge fund, holds about 40 percent of Sears Holdings debtsome $1.1 billion in loans. Lampert could force Sears to sell its stores to retail companies or transfer them to his own to repay the debt. Sears many other debtors will cash in on the companys assets as well.

Private equity firms have played a nefarious role in the retail apocalypse. A key cause in the large-scale closures is that many retail chains are overwhelmed with the debt which accompanies leveraged buyouts. Sears has a total of $5.6 billion in bank loan and bond debts.

Lampert and other financial parasites will make billions if Sears is eventually liquidated. Sears bankruptcy represents a huge loss for the workers employed at the closing stores, but also the working class as a whole. Giant corporations will squeeze every penny they can out of workers while continuing the erosion of their living standards.A new report by Amnesty International (AI) calculates that more than 6,000 people (including at least 3,000 children) were separated from relatives at the border within a four month period from the initial implementation of zero tolerance policy in April 2018.

The report also noted that previous statistics released by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) of family separation do not count grandparents or relatives, and those separated due to supposed insufficient documentation.

CBP officials told Amnesty that suspected fraud numbers are not counted as separations because they are unreliable. What CBP labels as fraud are cases of supposedly unrelated adults posing as parents or guardians of young children as a way to get into the United States more easily. Fraud detection has been presented as a tool used by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to battle child smuggling operations, and protect young migrant children.

However, allegations of fraud are made by CBP routinely and without factual basis at the border. As the report makes clear, this tended to happen even when the adults traveling with the children have documents, such as birth certificates, family photos, and other forms of identification proving guardianship.

What this means is that the number of family unit separations at the border is substantially under-reported. And even the over 6,000 cases of family units being separated might be far less than the actual numbers of migrants who have been subjected to this inhuman practice.

Amnesty researchers interviewed 52 asylum seekers in January, April and May, and found that fifteen of them13 parents and 2 grandparentshad been separated from the children that they had been traveling with. These were not families separated under zero tolerance. The immigrants were asylum-seekers, who had presented themselves at the port of entry with all the required asylum documentsin other words, entering the country the right way as the Trump administration puts it. Yet, they were still subjected to detention and separation primarily on the allegation of fraud.

As the report notes, CBP justifications for family separations have proven to be outright lies in many cases, where its own records note that the adults had the necessary documentation to prove guardianship. In addition, often timesas in the documented case of four men whose children were taken awaythe border officials simply carried out the separations without feeling compelled to offer any explanation for their actions.

These forced separations have resulted not just in grievous psychological trauma to the children, but also acute mental and physical anguish for the adults concerned. Amnesty found that in many cases, the extent of the suffering caused by detention and separation in fact constitutes torture under US and international law.

Maria, a 55 year old had applied for asylum in New Mexico in August 2017 after crossing the border with her 17-year-old grandson, Mattheus. However, CBP officials held up her application and forcibly separated her from her grandson, who suffers from severe disabilities.

It has been a year since Maria last saw her grandson. Maria told Amnesty researchers, I believe that because of all of this Im going throughthe fear of going back to Brazil, the fear of being separated from my grandchild, all of this together, I cant stop thinking about itthat its making me really sick. I might need to go look for a psychologist. I dont remember things, and cant sleep  I start to talk about something and forget what I was saying. I am crying a lot also because I am still separated from Mattheus.

A young mother, whose child was taken away from her at the border echoed those sentiments: They told me, you dont have any rights here, and you dont have any rights to stay with your son. For me I died at that moment. They ripped my heart out of me.  For me, it would have been better if I had dropped dead. For me, the world ended at that point.  How can a mother not have the right to be with her son?

The forced family separations are but one weapon that is being used by the Trump administration in its ongoing war against immigrants. Notwithstanding their inhumane and illegal character, family separations are part of a systematic strategy of detering all forms of immigration.

The Amnesty report includes statements from Mexican officials about attempts by the US to negotiate a safe third country agreement, while also insisting on illegal pushbacks. What the latter means is that US is leaning heavily on Mexico to carry out document checks of asylum seekers passing through on their way to the United States, and to deport them to their country of origin.

This would be a blatant violation of international law since, for most asylum seekers, a return to their country of origin is tantamount to a death sentence. In addition, the attempt to have Mexico declared a safe country for asylum-seekerswhich would allow the US to stop accepting asylum applications at the US-Mexico border, except from those under threat from the Mexican stateis also a contravention of international law, since Mexico is not a uniformly safe space for all asylum seekers.

Each of the ruling partiesDemocratic and Republicanis responsible for carrying out the attack on immigrants. Under Obama, the government deported 2.7 million people, the most of any president.

Only a socialist movement by the working class can put an end to the nightmare faced by millions of immigrants processed and detained throughout the vast DHS prison system.The United Nations has warned that the US-backed, Saudi-led war against Yemen is threatening to engulf millions more of the impoverished nations people in the worst famine the world has seen in over 100 years.

Lise Grande, the UNs humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, said Tuesday, We are literally looking at hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of people who may not survive.

The World Food Program, the UN agency coordinating relief efforts in the shattered country, reported that it has been forced to revise its estimate, given just two weeks ago, of 8.5 million Yemenis on the brink of famine, stating that another 5.6 million are being driven to starvation by the effects of the three-and-a-half-year-old war on the countrys infrastructure and economy.

Things are deteriorating very, very quickly, said Grande. The implications are enormous, and, truthfully, frightening. The reality is that time may be running out.

The UN warning came amid the growing crisis over the disappearance and state assassination of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at Saudi Arabias consulate in Istanbul.

US politicians, both Democrats and Republicans, have joined in denouncing the Saudi regime for the killing of Khashoggi. The journalist went into self-exile in the US a year ago, after serving for decades as an interlocutor between the Saudi regime and the Western media and working closely with Saudi intelligence, including in establishing close ties to Osama bin Laden during the CIA-backed war in Afghanistan.

There is growing speculation that the Saudi ruling monarchy viewed Khashoggi as a defector with possible ties to governments and intelligence agencies in the US, Turkey and Qatar, and decided to eliminate him. The ruthless killing of the journalist inside a consulate office in Istanbul is emblematic of the criminality of Washingtons principal ally in the Arab world.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a key ally of US President Donald Trump, issued a blustering statement Tuesday to Fox News, placing blame on Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabias de facto ruler, for the killing of Khashoggi, who was reportedly grabbed, tortured and killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2 by a 15-member death squad dispatched from Riyadh. According to Turkish government sources, his body was then sawed into pieces and taken out of the consulate.

Describing himself as the biggest defender of Saudi Arabia in the US Senate, Graham distanced himself from Trump, who on Monday floated the absurd alibi for the Saudi regime that Khashoggi may have been the victim of rogue killers. Graham said that the problem was a rogue crown prince.

While threatening to cut off arms sales to Saudi Arabia, Graham made no mention of the indispensable military support that the Pentagon is providing to the Saudi-led war against Yemen, including mid-air refueling for its bombers, intelligence sharing and aid in selecting targets, not to mention an inexhaustible supply of planes, bombs and missiles.

The Trump administration has shamelessly defended the Saudi regime in relation to the Khashoggi killing, illustrating its own criminality and readiness to employ similar methods against its opponents. Trump has advanced the rogue killers alibi, which media reports indicate may be publicly embraced by the Saudi monarchy, blaming the journalists death on an interrogation and rendition operation that went awry, i.e., Khashoggi died under torture. Trump has also insisted that his government will not stop arms sales, feigning concern that it would adversely affect American jobs.

The dispatch of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Riyadh on Tuesday was aimed at solidifying an alibi and exercising damage control over a potential crisis in US-Saudi relations. The New York Times reported that the main concern in Washingtonwhich was relayed by Pompeo to the Saudi regimeis that the furor over Khashoggis killing could cut across US plans to dramatically escalate economic sanctions against Iran that are tantamount to an act of war.

On November 5, sanctions are set to kick in that are designed to cut off all Iranian oil exports and freeze Iran out of the world financial markets by barring any companies doing business with Iran from conducting any business in the US and clearing any of their transactions in US dollars.

Washington, which has forged an anti-Iranian axis with Riyadh and Israel, is counting on the Saudis to boost oil production to compensate for the cut-off of Iranian exports and thereby prevent a spike in oil prices and a potential global economic crisis.

Those within the US ruling establishment clamoring for US sanctions over the Khashoggi killing are driven by their own foreign policy and geostrategic aims, which include concerns that the Trump administrations abrogation of the Iranian nuclear accord has provoked an unnecessary conflict and a distraction from more pressing confrontations with Russia and China.

Washingtons cynicism over the Khashoggi murder is matched by that of every major imperialist powerall of which are anxious to preserve their Saudi arms salesas well as the regimes within the region.

Officials of the Turkish government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have repeatedly reported that they are in possession of incontrovertible evidence of the gruesome assassination of Khashoggi, including audio recordings. Yet the evidence has not been made public, and Turkish authorities are going through the motions of a joint investigation with the Saudis. Ankara is clearly not anxious to provoke a full-scale confrontation with Riyadh and likely sees the Khashoggi affair as possible leverage in securing economic and political concessions from the Saudi monarchy.

The governments of the Gulf oil sheikdoms, along with Lebanon, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority, have all issued statements solidarizing themselves with the Saudi monarchy.

Meanwhile, the war in Yemenvirtually ignored by the US and Western mediagrinds on, threatening to claim the lives of millions. The brazen criminality of Khashoggis assassination is writ large in the US-backed Saudi war crimes in Yemen, whose innocent victims already total some 50,000, while an estimated 113,000 children have starved to death or died from preventable diseases like cholera, which have spread with the destruction of the countrys infrastructure.

Lack of fuel has shut down water systems in the capital of Sanaa, Hodeidah and other cities, leaving some 2.5 million people without access to clean drinking water.

The threat of mass starvation has escalated as a result of the ongoing Saudi-led offensive against the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah, controlled by the Houthi rebels who overthrew the US-Saudi puppet regime of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi in 2015.

Seventy percent of the food and fuel supplies upon which the Yemeni population depends for survival flow through the port of Hodeidah, which is now under continuous bombardment from air, land and sea. The UNs World Food Program has reported that as a result of the siege, it is unable to access some 51,000 tons of wheat stored at its facility in the port, an amount of grain that could feed 3.7 million starving people in northern and central Yemen for one month.

In one of the latest mass atrocities, a Saudi airstrike on Saturday targeted vehicles at a crowded checkpoint in Hodeidah, striking a bus and killing 17 civilians and wounding another 20, most of them women and children.

The airstrike recalls a pair of similar bloody massacre in August, in which Saudi jets struck a school bus in a crowded market area, killing 51 people including 40 children, as well a truck packed with refugees fleeing the siege of Hodeidah, killing four women and 22 children. In every instance, the bombs and missiles used in the mass killings were supplied by the US, and the Saudi jets that dropped them were refueled by American tanker planes.

Secretary of State Pompeo brushed aside these mass killings and certified to the US Congress that Saudi Arabia is acting to alleviate Yemens humanitarian crisis and protect civilian lives. To report otherwise, as an internal State Department memo argued, would negatively impact future foreign military sales and direct commercial sales to the region.

The same considerations are driving Washingtons attempt to fashion an alibi for the Saudi regime and Crown Prince Salman in relation to the brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi.BLOUNTSTOWN, Fla. (WTXL) - Buildings in downtown Blountstown have been partially reduced to rubble, metal scraps covered parking lots, and many homes are damaged.

We've spoken to residents in Blountstown who told us they lost almost everything from the storm and they said having a community hub truly means the world to them.

Immediately after the storm, the First Baptist Church started a distribution site for residents.

Several churches in the community are pulling together, cooking meals and helping organize the items coming in.

Organizers said donations are coming from far and wide right to Blountstown.

And to those leaving will full bellies are arms full of supplies, they said they're more than grateful.

"It's a blessing to have this resource and to me, I thank every one of them and love every one of them from the bottom of my heart for what they've done," said Bonnie Hand, Blountstown resident.

Organizers said there's been an outpouring of help from people in Tallahassee and even outside Florida.

They can't even estimate how many pounds of supplies they've given out to residents.

The church has been a revolving door for locals who are in need of basic necessities. People told us, since the storm hit, they've been relying on this church for everything from a warm meal to baby supplies to water.Among the seven was James Bowen, 34, a barber shop owner, who tried to convince deputies he knew what was happening all along and just wanted to see a sting in person. His claim didnt convince authorities, who had chat and text records of his with an undercover detective he believed was a 14-year-old girl.TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - Florida officials are helping families displaced by Hurricane Michael find affordable rental housing.

Governor Rick Scott announced Wednesday that the Florida Housing Finance Corporation (Florida Housing) is helping families displaced by Hurricane Michael find affordable rental housing through Socialserve.

Florida residents displaced by Hurricane Michael can visit the affordable rental housing locator service, www.FloridaHousingSearch.org, to find available units in Florida.

We know many families who have experienced impacts from Hurricane Michael are looking for affordable housing while they rebuild their communities," said Gov. Scott. "The service Florida Housing is providing will help many Floridians get back to a sense of normal life sooner.

Officials say they will conduct extensive and frequent surveys with rental property owners in the impacted counties to find suitable housing for households that cannot return to their homes.

The survey also helps determine which landlords will provide short-term leases to displaced households and accept FEMA rental assistance vouchers.

The property owners being surveyed include those in Florida Housings portfolio, as well as other landlords that currently have their properties and units registered with FloridaHousingSearch.org. For those Florida residents that evacuated from the storm to Georgia and Alabama can visit GeorgiaHousingSearch.org and Alabama2-1-1 for housing assistance info.

To address the housing need in the Panhandle, Florida Housing is also going to advance the 2018-19 State Housing Initiative Partnership Program (SHIP) funding allocations first to those counties ravaged by the storm. Those counties include: Bay, Calhoun, Franklin, Gadsden, Gulf, Holmes, Jackson, Leon, Liberty, Taylor, Wakulla, and Washington.

For additional disaster relief information, visit Florida Housings website that has a webpage devoted entirely to disaster relief resources and information at www.floridahousing.org.TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - Most hotels in the Tallahassee area are at full capacity while others are almost there.

And with people expected to come into town for FSU's Homecoming, that demand is only going to soar higher.

WTXL's Jada Williams was live Wednesday morning to tell how the hotels are accommodating.

"The parking lot behind me is full of utility trucks, but anyone with a reserved room gets the room, regardless of who is staying there and why," Williams said. "But the Best Western on Apalachee Parkway say they've been able to adjust to find room for everyone so far."

That is mostly due to the fact that many who reserved those rooms ahead of time are sympathetic to the evacuees, first responders and linemen staying due to Hurricane Michael and cancelled those reservations.

The manager told the reporter that he hasn't had to kick anyone out of his hotel to make more room, but he's had to turn some people away.

But during these tough toiimes, he wants to provide extra help for some evacuees.

Mike Pramer, the Best Western General Manager: "We were fortunate, so we kept aside 10 rooms everyday for people who can't afford it. So we went ahead and leased rooms to people who can't afford it."

The reporter spoke to a utility worker from Tampa who says he's pleased with his housing experience, but others aren't having it quite so easy.

"Actually, our first night here, we slept in our trucks," said a utility worker, John Pope. "Not us, but I've heard of some other utilities being kicked out of their rooms for FEMA and shelters to house people and stuff. Fortunately we haven't been kicked out yet."

Many linemen say they're hearing they may be leaving Tallahassee Wednesday or Thursday, which could open up more rooms.

However, displaced people west of Tallahassee and more emergency workers may be waiting on those open rooms, too.File Photo: A malnourished 4-year girl is weighed while she receives treatment at a malnutrition department in a hospital in Sanaa, Yemen, on Sept. 2, 2018. (Xinhua/Mohammed Mohammed)

UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 15 (Xinhua) -- Five million more Yemenis could face severe food insecurity, bringing the number of people to 13.4 million who need emergency food assistance for survival, said the United Nations on Monday.

By late 2017, 8.4 million Yemenis faced severe food insecurity. UN humanitarian partners estimate that this population could rise to 13.4 million due to economic decline, including the depreciation of the Yemeni currency, said Stephane Dujarric, the chief UN spokesman.

The United Nations and partners need 3 billion U.S. dollars for 2018 to support the people in need across Yemen. To date, only two-thirds of the resources required have been received, said the spokesman.

The UN humanitarian coordinator for Yemen Lise Grande has condemned the killing of at least 15 civilians on Sunday when the minibuses they were traveling in were struck in Hudaydah, said the UN spokesman.

Humanitarian agencies are rushing to assist the injured, he said.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 00:41:29|Editor: Yang Yi

Video Player Close

LHASA, Oct. 16 (Xinhua) -- The 11th Panchen Lama Bainqen Erdini Qoigyijabu returned to Beijing on Tuesday after three months of Buddhist activities in southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region where he visited Buddhist sites and conducted rituals.

During the three months, the Panchen Lama visited several monasteries, held Buddhist activities and met believers in Lhasa, Xigaze and Shannan.

He performed head-touching rituals to give blessings to tens of thousands of believers in Tibet.

While visiting the city of Shannan in mid-August, the Panchen Lama paid his first visit to Lhamo Lhatso, a sacred lake.

In Xigaze, he attended a donation ceremony and visited some local seedling bases, vegetable greenhouses and workshops. He extended congratulations to the farmers for good harvests and encouraged workers to work hard for a better life.

He also visited a local farm and a relocated village in Lhasa.

The Panchen Lama currently serves as vice president of the Buddhist Association of China and is a member of the Standing Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the country's top political advisory body.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 00:56:36|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

MVILNIUS, Oct. 16 (Xinhua) -- The Lithuanian government approved on Tuesday the country's state budget for 2019 amid growing spending for social security, education, defense.

According to the state budget project approved by the cabinet on Tuesday, Lithuania's state budget revenues are projected to amount to nearly 10.6 billion euros, increasing by 17 percent compared to 2018 state budget, while state spending would grow by 22 percent, up to over 11.68 billion euros, turning into a deficit of 489 million euros, or 1 percent of the country's GDP.

The government, however, argues that including the budgets of municipalities and social security system (SODRA), the country's public finances would have a total surplus of 0.4 percent of GDP. The government plans to accumulate reserves of around 1.5 billion euros by the end of 2019.

The Lithuanian government says the 2019 budget addresses social security issues and structural reforms.

Lithuanian Finance Minister Vilius Sapoka told local media that the budget has been prepared addressing structural reforms and social security issues.

"The key point of this budget is balanced investments into our future, since all spending increases are directed to the field of healthcare, education and social security," Sapoka told journalists on Tuesday.

The largest part of the country's budget expenditures, amounting to over 5.47 billion euros would be allocated to social security.

Lithuania's defense spending is projected to grow by 75 million euros reaching 948 million euros, or 2.01 percent of the country's GDP, thus meeting NATO's defense spending target of 2 percent of GDP.

The government says the budget was prepared based on assumptions that the Lithuanian economy would grow by 2.8 percent.

Following the approval at the government, Lithuania's state budget is subject to approval at the country's parliament.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 01:06:38|Editor: Yang Yi

Video Player Close

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte speaks at the China-Netherlands Business Forum 2018 in The Hague, the Netherlands, Oct. 16, 2018. (Xinhua/Zheng Huansong)

THE HAGUE, Oct. 16 (Xinhua) -- Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte on Tuesday pledged that the Netherlands will always remain an open economy and called for a fair, free and transparent world trade system against protectionism.

"Protectionism stands in the way of progress. But on a level playing field we can all be winners," Rutte said at the China-Netherlands Business Forum also attended by visiting Chinese Premier Li Keqiang.

The Netherlands has always been -- and will always remain -- an open economy, a champion of free trade and a super-connective logistics hub, said Rutte, noting that the port of Rotterdam has been serving as the gateway to Europe for many Chinese companies.

"In the long term, both our countries will benefit from a connected world that is rules-based, and environmentally, economically and socially sustainable," he said.

The Dutch prime minister hailed the recent progress in China-Netherlands cooperation in such areas as energy, healthcare, care of the elderly, food security, logistics, water management, environment and urbanization.

"Of course we want to build on that," he said, referring to the China-Netherlands cooperation.

The Netherlands is China's second-largest trade partner in the European Union, while China is the Netherlands' second-largest non-EU trade partner.

Rutte said that the Netherlands "has watched with admiration" for what has been achieved in China, such as swift economic growth and rapid poverty reduction, since the country began reform and opening up 40 years ago.

The Dutch prime minister said the Netherlands is also working with China on challenges including climate change.

"Adapting to climate change is as much a business opportunity as it is a problem we need to solve," he said.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 01:41:57|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

JUBA, Oct. 16 (Xinhua) -- South Sudan said Tuesday it will seek to adopt modern technology to transform its agriculture to beat hunger by 2030.

Onyoti Adigo Nyikuac, minister of agriculture and food security, said the government is ready to support the agriculture sector by investing in irrigation to move away from rain-fed agriculture that risks food insecurity due to climate change.

"This conflict has severely affected our agricultural sector despite our country being endowed with fertile land, adequate rainfall and water," Onyoti said in Juba on the occasion of the World Food Day. "Our policy needs to change from rain-fed agriculture to irrigation. We need to provide support for farmers to move from subsistence to commercial farming."

A recent Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report about levels of food insecurity indicates that more than half the population of South Sudan, or 6.1 million people, face severe food shortages as hunger continues to plague the country.

Nyikuac thanked World Food Program and UNICEF for helping South Sudan, but discourged "supplying a person with free food all the time."

"We accept (that) for the small children, disabled, elderly people but not people like (able-bodied) us," he said. "We have to cooperate in order to give food for work."

"We have to discourage free food because it makes our people lazy," Nyikuac said.

Oil and mining have dominated South Sudan's economy in terms of revenue, contributing to 98 percent of the budget since the country's independence in 2011.

South Sudan experienced famine conditions in early 2017 before humanitarian agencies embarked on massive efforts to help millions in need. UN agencies warn that hunger remains in some parts of the country due to intermittent fighting between government troops and rebels despite the signing of a fresh peace deal in late August.

Simon Cammelbeek, WFP deputy country director, said although food security has improved slightly with the harvest in September, continuing conflict and economic collapse have destroyed lives and livelihoods, leaving millions of people in need of humanitarian assistance to survive.

"We are distributing life-saving emergency food supplies, providing food in return for work to construct and rehabilitate community assets, school meals, and special products for the prevention and treatment of malnutrition in children and pregnant and nursing women," he said.

The WFP is also buying grains directly from small-holder farmers through a network of aggregation centers. The practise allows farmers to market their crops and get paid for it, hence promptly generating much needed income while stimulating future production, Cammelbeek said.

For South Sudan to fight hunger and malnutrition in all its forms by 2030, Cammelbeek said, it is imperative to accelerate and scale up actions to strengthen the resilience and restore people's livelihoods.

"We welcome the latest peace deal and hope... that it will result in actual changes on the ground," he said.

"After five years of civil war and decades of fighting before independence, the people of South Sudan, especially the displaced and refugees, need peace to be able to return home and rebuild their lives," Cammelbeek said.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 04:27:33|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

MINSK, Oct. 16 (Xinhua) -- The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) urged conflicting parties in Ukraine to adhere to the ceasefire regime, Martin Sajdik, the OSCE's special envoy to Trilateral Contact Group (TCG) on Ukraine, told reporters on Tuesday.

Following the TCG meeting in Minsk, the diplomat said an increased number of ceasefire violations has been registered in Ukraine, inevitably leading to new civilian casualties -- a mother and a daughter died last week.

"In this regard, I once again urge all parties to prevent such incidents and to show strict restraint," the special envoy said.

At the same time, Sajdik said that the impact of the Ukrainian law on the special status of individual areas of Donetsk and Lugansk regions was extended in early October.

"For my part, I welcome this fact as evidence of Ukraine's commitment to the Minsk agreements and the peaceful resolution of the conflict," he said.

The next meeting of the TCG on Ukraine will be held in Minsk on Nov. 6.

The TCG is a group of representatives from Ukraine, Russia and the OSCE that was formed to facilitate a diplomatic solution to the conflict in eastern Ukraine.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 04:32:36|Editor: Li Xia

Video Player Close

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan delivers a speech during the parliamentary group meeting of the ruling Justice and Development Party in Ankara, Turkey, on Oct. 16, 2018. Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday said that Turkey could take necessary operation against Kurdish militants' presence east of the Euphrates River in Syria. (Xinhua/Mustafa Kaya)

ANKARA, Oct. 16 (Xinhua) -- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday said that Turkey could take necessary operation against Kurdish militants' presence east of the Euphrates River in Syria.

Speaking to parliamentary group of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), the president said if the United States does not take action in east of the Euphrates River or the implementation is delayed, Turkey will take all necessary steps at the highest level against Kurdish militants in that area.

Erdogan referred to an agreement with the U.S. that was brokered between the two foreign ministers on June 4, which stipulates the removal of People's Protection Units (YPG) militants from Manbij in a 90-day timeline.

Erdogan said that Turkey would take measures in the area "not only for the peace of our country but also for the people living in this region."

Erdogan's words came one day before the U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's visit to Turkey, amid an ongoing investigation of the Khashoggi case in Istanbul.

Earlier this year, Turkey carried out Operation Olive Branch to seize control of Syria's Afrin region from the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, which Ankara considers a terrorist organization. The YPG also controls the Syrian region east of the Euphrates.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 05:07:42|Editor: Li Xia

Video Player Close

GAZA, Oct. 16 (Xinhua) -- A Palestinian man died late on Tuesday of his wounds he sustained during protests in northwest of the Gaza Strip, medics said.

Ashraf al-Qedra, the health ministry spokesman in Gaza, told reporters that a 27-year-old man from Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza Strip died of his wounds he sustained on Monday during clashes in northwest Gaza Strip between hundreds of demonstrators and Israeli soldiers.

Mohamed Abu Shlash was shot in the head and was in critical condition, according to al-Qedra, adding that 32 Palestinians were injured by Israeli soldiers' gunshots during Monday's protest.

Qedra said that since the outbreak of the marches of return on March 30, the Israeli army shot dead 206 Palestinians and wounded around 22,000 others, around half of whom were shot with live ammunition.

Since March 30, the Palestinians have been organizing weekly protests over the past 12 weeks in eastern Gaza Strip close to the border with Israel and in northwestern Gaza Strip.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 05:32:48|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

BAGHDAD, Oct. 16 (Xinhua) -- An Iraqi prominent leader of paramilitary Hashd Shaabi forces said Tuesday that the paramilitary troops killed the provincial leader of Islamic State (IS) militant group in Iraq's eastern province of Diyala.

"The military leader of Daesh (IS group) organization in Diyala, known as Abu Daha, was killed by our forces," Hadi al-Ameri, head of the Iranian-backed Badr organization, said in a brief statement.

"This operation is to strengthen security and stability in the province, and we will go on to achieve security," Ameri said without giving further details.

Badr organization was previously known as Badr Brigade which maintains its longtime ties with the neighboring Iran, where it was first built during the eight-year Iraqi-Iranian war in 1980s.

It turned into a political organization after 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Meanwhile, Ali al-Timimi, head of security committee of the town of Maqdadiyah in Diyala, told Xinhua that Hashd Shaabi forces acted on intelligence and surrounded a group of IS militants at Himreen rugged area in the northern part of the province and killed the IS military leader Abu Daha and his aide, while managing to arrest four militants.

The announcement of the killing of the group's leader came as Iran's Revolutionary Guards said in a statement that their forces had killed a man named Abu Zaha, also pronounced Abu Daha in Arabic, and four other militants in Diyala province in Iraq.

Iran said that the killed IS leader was the "mastermind" behind an attack on a military parade in the Iranian city of Ahvaz last month which left 25 people dead, most of whom were members of the Revolutionary Guards.

The Iraqi statements about the killing of Abu Daha did not say whether the IS leader was the same person mentioned in the Iranian statement.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 05:57:55|Editor: Li Xia

Video Player Close

China's Permanent Representative to the United Nations Ma Zhaoxu (C) addresses a debate of the UN Security Council on the Root Causes of Conflict - the Role of Natural Resources, at the UN headquarters in New York, Oct. 16, 2018. Ma Zhaoxu on Tuesday urged the international community to respect the sovereignty over natural resources in various countries. (Xinhua/Li Muzi)

UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 16 (Xinhua) -- China's Permanent Representative to the United Nations Ma Zhaoxu on Tuesday urged the international community to respect the sovereignty over natural resources in various countries.

At a Security Council debate on Root Causes of Conflict - the Role of Natural Resources, Ma said that the proper protection, exploration and management of natural resources are the sovereign rights and obligations of the countries they belong to.

The exploration, mining and utilization of natural resources should be decided independently by the government and people of individual countries, and countries in conflict regions should pay more attention to the proper use and management of resources, so as to prevent illicit exploration and misuse for fueling armed conflicts, Ma said.

The illicit exploration and trafficking of natural resources can potentially be a key role in triggering and fueling conflicts and undermining peace, the Chinese enjoy said.

It is necessary to help countries take full advantage of natural resources and facilitate their efforts in industrialization and economic diversification, so that they can follow their own path of sustainable development, Ma said.

Opening the debate, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, "The exploitation of natural resources, or competition over them, can and does lead to violent conflict. Preventing, managing and resolving such conflicts is one of the major and growing challenges of our time."

The UN chief underscored the recognition for the potential for shared management of natural resources as a means for preventing conflict and enhancing regional cooperation for peace and sustainable development.

To that end, he said, "We have taken note of member states' call for greater focus on these issues," pledging to strengthen the UN's capacity to address the growing threat of climate-related security risks and maximize opportunities to use mediation over natural resources as a tool for conflict prevention.

UN studies have shown that more than 40 percent of internal armed conflicts over the past 60 years have been linked to natural resources. Since 1990, 75 percent of civil wars in Africa have been partially funded by revenues from natural resources.In this file photo taken on Oct. 3, 2018 U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks during a press briefing at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C., the Untied States. (AFP Photo)

WASHINGTON, Oct. 16 (Xinhua) -- U.S. State Department said on Tuesday that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will travel to Turkey to discuss the cases about a missing Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the just released U.S. pastor Andrew Brunson.

A statement issued by State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said that Pompeo will travel to Ankara, Turkey on Oct. 17 to meet with Turkish Foreign Minister Cavusoglu.

Pompeo will "welcome the decision to release Pastor Andrew Brunson and to discuss other issues of bilateral importance," the statement read.

It added that he "will also discuss the Jamal Khashoggi case and reiterate the U.S. offer to assist Turkey in its investigation."

The U.S. Department of State said earlier on Tuesday that Pompeo agreed with Saudi Arabia during his stay in the country on the importance of conducting a "thorough, transparent, and timely" investigation in the disappearance of Khashoggi.

U.S. President Donald Trump later said that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had denied any knowledge of the disappearance of Khashoggi.

Trump tweeted that he "just spoke with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia who totally denied any knowledge of what took place in their Turkish Consulate."

"He was with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during the call, and told me that he has already started, and will rapidly expand, a full and complete investigation into this matter," he said. "Answers will be forthcoming shortly."

The case of Khashoggi, a journalist and columnist for The Washington Post, has become a major source of tension between the Kingdom and the West.

Khashoggi has been missing since he entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2.

Unconfirmed reports said that Khashoggi was likely killed inside the compound, a claim denied by Saudi officials as "baseless."

Turkey on Friday freed the long detained U.S. pastor Andrew Brunson. He later on the same day left Turkey for Germany and the United States. On Saturday, he arrived at the White House, where Trump met him.

His release has removed a major irritant in Ankara-Washington ties, as the United States has punished Turkey in August by imposing sanctions on two Turkish ministers and doubling tariffs on aluminum and steel imports from Turkey.

Turkey then retaliated by raising tariffs on U.S. imports and boycotting U.S.-made electronics, sparking one of the worst diplomatic rows between the NATO allies.

However, Trump on Monday denied the possibility of relaxing sanctions against Turkey over the release of U.S. Brunson, saying "that was not part of the deal."

"We had no deal with Turkey. We don't make deal -- any deals for hostages or prisoners," he said.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 07:47:36|Editor: Li Xia

Video Player Close

A man prepares mutton barbecue at a restaurant on World Food Day in Rawalpindi, Pakistan on Oct. 16, 2018. World Food Day is celebrated every year on Oct. 16 to commemorate the founding of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization in 1945. (Xinhua/Ahmad Kamal)Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 07:23:06|Editor: Li Xia

Video Player Close

UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 16 (Xinhua) -- The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution Tuesday to allow Palestine deeper participation in its work as chair of the largest developing bloc at the United Nations.

At a plenary meeting of the 193-member body, the United States, Israel and Australia voted against the text entitled Chair of the Group of 77 for 2019, 15 members abstained, and an overwhelming 146 members voted in favor.

The text granted six new roles to Palestine in presiding over the G77 at the assembly, including making statements, submitting and co-sponsoring proposals and amendments, and raising procedural motions on behalf of the G77 and China.

On Sept. 27, Palestine was formally elected chair of the G77, with its one-year chairmanship starting on Jan. 1, 2019.

The envoy of Egypt, the current chair and the penholder of the resolution, said while introducing the text that as Palestine remains a non-member observer state of the United Nations, the rights and privileges it enjoys vary from one UN organ to another.

In that context, a resolution would be necessary to avail Palestine the rights and capacity to "perform the functions and the usual practices undertaken by the chair of G77 in the General Assembly," Egyptian Permanent Representative to the UN Mohamed Fathi Ahmed Edrees said.

Before the vote on the document, the United States and Israel spoke against it.

"We strongly oppose the Palestinian election as chair of the G77 as well as this so-called enabling resolution," U.S. Deputy UN Ambassador Jonathan Cohen said. "Only UN member states should be entitled to speak and act on behalf of major groups of states at the United Nations."

Following the resolution's adoption, most Western countries that voted in favor of the text said their move should not be misconstrued as recognition of the state of Palestine or a statement on its status at the United Nations.

They also welcomed the limitation of one year, the duration of the G77 chairmanship, to the expanded roles enjoyed by Palestine in its new capacity.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 08:13:11|Editor: Li Xia

Video Player Close

PHNOM PENH, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen left here early Wednesday for a nine-day European tour that will take him to Belgium, Turkey and Switzerland.

The prime minister wrote on his Facebook that in Europe, he will attend the 12th Asia Europe Meeting (ASEM) Summit in Brussels on Oct. 18-19.

After the ASEM Summit, I will pay a visit to Turkey on Oct. 20 to 22, Hun Sen said.

He added that he will end his European tour with a visit to Geneva, where he will participate in a world investment forum.

The prime minister said besides taking part in meetings and holding separate bilateral talks with other leaders, he will meet with Cambodians who are living and studying in Europe.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 08:48:17|Editor: Xiang Bo

Video Player Close

TOKYO, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sent a ritual offering to the war-linked Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo on Wednesday.

The "masakaki" tree offering by Abe comes on the first day of the shrine's four-day autumn festival and was made in the name of the prime minister.

The Japanese leader, however, did not visit the notorious shrine in person.

He is on an overseas trip to Europe and will attend the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) summit in Belgium.

The Shinto shrine, seen by neighboring countries as a symbol of Japan's past militarism, has long-been a source of diplomatic friction between Japan and its neighbors, as it honors convicted war criminals together with the war dead.

Yasukuni Shrine honors 14 Class-A convicted war criminals among 2.5 million Japanese war dead from World War II.

Visits and ritual offerings made in person or by proxy to the infamous shrine by Japanese leaders and officials have consistently sparked strong criticism and hurts the feelings of China and South Korea and other countries brutalized by Japan during World War II.

Abe has sent a ritual offering to Yasukuni shrine during the shrine's spring and autumn festivals every year since he launched his current administration in 2012.

The Japanese prime minister last visited the controversial shrine in person in December 2013, at which time he was strongly condemned by China and South Korea, as well as the United States, who said at the time it was disappointed with Abe's decision.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 09:48:23|Editor: ZD

Video Player Close

UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 16 (Xinhua) -- A United States sponsored campaign aimed to criticize the human rights situation in Cuba on Tuesday encountered strong and fierce protest at the United Nations (UN).

"Cuba yes! blockade no!" chanted the participants in Spanish at the "Jailed for What?" campaign in a rhythmic voice with hands pounding the desks and feet stamping on the floor while U.S. envoy to the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) Kelley Currie, Secretary-General of the Organization of American States Luis Almagro and others were speaking.

The United States launched the campaign in a bid to hold Cuba's authorities accountable for human rights violations in the ECOSOC chamber -- UN's central platform for reflection, debate, and innovative thinking on sustainable development.

The in-door protest, launched mostly by Cuban and some other Spanish-speaking diplomats, lasted for more than half an hour.

The moderator finally gave up the Q&A sessions due to the unexpected roaring protest rarely seen in the UN history.

In a statement issued after the event, Cuban UN ambassador Anayansi Rodriguez Camejo told reporters that "the United States lacks the morals to give lessons, much less in this matter."

"The event, as we had foreseen, was a political comedy staged on false arguments," she added.

"It is part of the actions aimed at subverting the legitimately established constitutional order and of the interventionist agenda that has gained renewed momentum under the current administration, whose fascist, racist and xenophobic ideas are a matter of grave concern in the international community," she added.

"This is an attack not only on a sovereign state, but also on the principles of multilateralism and the foundational bases of the United Nations," said the ambassador.

Sacha Sergio Llorenti Soliz, Bolivian ambassador to the UN, also criticized the United States, saying whenever this country does not need the UN, it could withdraw from its deals or agreements, but uses UN's premises whenever it thinks it is useful.

The United States has said in a statement that it estimates there are 130 political prisoners held by the Cuban government. That might be the major reason behind the campaign.

Earlier, the Cuban UN ambassador has demanded that UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres cancel the event.

She said the United States had itself violated human rights, especially in the use of torture, detention and "arbitrary deprivation of liberty" at its Guantanamo military base, where terrorism suspects have been held for years. She also pointed to the U.S. immigrant policies that have separated parents and children.

The Cuban ambassador on Monday told the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, that the United States "lacks any moral authority to judge Cuba, when its current administration drives an agenda of supremacist, racist and xenophobic ideas."

The UN General Assembly has, since 1992, passed a resolution every year condemning the ongoing impact of the embargo against Cuba and declaring it in violation of the UN Charter and of international law.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 10:03:25|Editor: Xiang Bo

Video Player Close

SYDNEY, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- Geologists in Western Australia have discovered one of world's rarest minerals hidden away inside a 300 million-year-old meteorite crater.

Known as reidite, it's the first time the material has been found in Australia and only the 6th time in history it's ever been detected.

But Curtin University research supervisor Aaron Cavosie told Xinhua on Wednesday that there was a lot of serendipity involved in the team's amazing find.

"Reidite is so rare that you can't set out to find it," he said. "It's so small that you need a high powered microscopic to see."

"But because it's rare, people think it must be very valuable. Gold and diamonds are very valuable, but with reidite, all of the world's known reidite could probably fit under your fingernail."

"If someone proposed to you with a reidite ring, you'd probably want to find another person to marry because it wouldn't be a very impressive stone," Cavosie joked.

Only found previously in meteorite craters in China, Germany, Canada, Britain and the United States, researchers located the reidite in Australia about 750 km north of Perth at the Woodleigh Crater near Shark Bay while examining the ancient site.

"Not a lot is known about Woodleigh because it's buried," Cavosie explained.

"When the impact event formed, younger sediments and rocks covered it up and today there is nothing exposed on the surface."

"There's an argument about how large it is, some think it is around 50 km in diameter and others say it might be greater than 120 km."

According to Cavosie, because extremely large meteorites like the site at Woodleigh have the ability to change earth's history, it's vital that scientists learn as much as they can in order to unlock the secrets of what's below.

Pivotal to the creation of reidite, the pressure caused by meteorites is the determining factor in how the mineral is formed.

"Reidite doesn't just materialize out of the air, it starts off as a common mineral called zircon," Cavosie said.

"From a small-scale point of view, zircon is made up of a bunch of atoms which are comfortably arranged but when an asteroid impact occurs, some of the effects are very, very high pressures."

"They get squished and all the spaces between them get removed and when you change the physical structure of atoms, you actually create new materials and that is the process in which reidite is created."Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 10:18:30|Editor: Xiang Bo

Video Player Close

NAY PYI TAW, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- Participants in Myanmar's special trilateral peace talks agreed to set a timetable and priority work process for basic principles related to democracy and federal in future 21st Century Panglong Peace Conferences.

The consensus was reached between the government and 10 nationwide ceasefire accord (NCA)-signatory ethnic armed organizations (EAO) at the end of the second day of their meeting late Tuesday, according to a joint statement.

The trilateral talks kicked off in Nay Pyi Taw on Monday, involving the Myanmar government, the army and the 10 NCA-signatory EAO.

The forthcoming 4th session of the 21st Century Panglong Peace Conference is set to be held later this year and the next two similar sessions to be held next year.

Participants pledged to resolve matters required to reach agreements, agreeing to start coordination and discussion of security and reintegration matters and work process depicted in NCA for establishing political roadmap.

They vowed to strive toward participation of all NCA non-signatory EAO and work towards achieving sustainable peace based on duty, responsibility and transparency.

In the second day of the special peace talks, attended by State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi, issues including self-determination, non-secession from the union and establishing a unified army were discussed.

At the opening of the trilateral peace talks, Aung San Suu Kyi, who is also chairperson of the National Reconciliation and Peace Center, called for joint efforts to overcome difficulties and challenges in implementing the NCA between the government and the NCA-signatory EAOs through discussion and negotiation.

Commander-in-Chief of the Defense Services Sen-Gen Min Aung Hlaing and Chairman of the Kayin National Union (KNU) Saw Mutu Sae Poe also attended the event.

The special peace talks, marking the third anniversary of the signing of NCA, is aimed at overcoming bottlenecks at various levels of political discussions.

The third session of the 21st Century Panglong Peace Conference was held in July.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 11:03:38|Editor: Xiang Bo

Video Player Close

NAY PYI TAW, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar's ongoing special peace talks focused on the issue of non-secession from the union, Vice Chairman of the ethnic Kayin National Union (KNU) Pado Saw Kwe Htoo Win told a press conference at the end of the second day of the talks late Tuesday.

The talks were held between the Myanmar government, the amry and the 10 nationwide ceasefire accord (NCA)- signatory ethnic armed organizations (EAO).

"Both sides adopted a policy to amend the wording for political dialogue and to overcome the bottleneck of that issue," he said.

With regard to the issue for establishing a unified army, he said both sides agreed to negotiate and to prepare for the wording "security reintegration" including the seven-point roadmap in the NCA, while accepting the point that a democratic federal union must have only one army and agreeing to seek ways on forming the unified army with different ethnic races.

Director-General of the State Counselor's Office U Zaw Htay told the press conference that NCA signatories proposed to the government to hold a summit between them and non-signatories in the second week of November as part of the efforts for inclusiveness in peace making process.

The trilateral peace talks kicked off in Nay Pyi Taw on Monday, agreeing on the second day to set up a timetable and priority work process needed for important basic principles related to democracy and federal in future 21st Century Panglong Peace Conferences.

Participants vowed to strive toward participation of all NCA non-signatory EAO and work toward achieving sustainable peace.

The special peace talks, marking the third anniversary of the signing of NCA, is aimed at overcoming bottlenecks at various levels of political discussions.

The third session of the 21st Century Panglong Peace Conference was held in July.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 11:13:39|Editor: Xiang Bo

Video Player Close

WASHINGTON, Oct. 16 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Tuesday that Saudi Arabia has strongly denied any knowledge of the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, as President Donald Trump refused to condemn the country before the fact is found out.

In a statement issued by the State Department, Pompeo said he had met with the Saudi king, the crown prince and the foreign minister during his stay in Saudi Arabia Tuesday "to determine what happened to Khashoggi."

"We had direct and candid conversations," he said, adding that the Saudi leadership "strongly denied any knowledge of what took place in their consulate in Istanbul."

"My assessment from these meetings is that there is serious commitment to determine all the facts and ensure accountability," he said.

Pompeo said Trump had called Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who "conveyed that a serious and credible investigation is already underway."

The crown prince "pledged that the work of the Saudi public prosecutor will produce a full and complete conclusion with full transparency for the world to see," Pompeo said.

Trump had asked Pompeo to also travel to Turkey to meet with senior leaders, the U.S. secretary of state added.

"We will remain in close contact with Saudi and Turkish authorities as they complete this process and ultimately announce their findings," said Pompeo.

The case of Khashoggi, a journalist and columnist for The Washington Post, has become a major source of tension between Saudi Arabia and the West.

Khashoggi has been missing since he entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2. Unconfirmed reports said that Khashoggi was likely killed inside the compound, a claim denied by Saudi officials as "baseless."

Turkey on Friday freed the long detained U.S. pastor Andrew Brunson. He later in the day left Turkey for Germany and the United States. On Saturday, he arrived at the White House, where Trump met him.

His release has removed a major irritant in Ankara-Washington ties, as the United States has punished Turkey in August by imposing sanctions on two Turkish ministers and doubling tariffs on aluminum and steel imports from Turkey.

Turkey then retaliated by raising tariffs on U.S. imports and boycotting U.S.-made electronics, sparking one of the worst diplomatic rows between the NATO allies.

However, Trump on Monday denied the possibility of relaxing sanctions against Turkey over the release of Brunson, saying "that was not part of the deal."

"We had no deal with Turkey. We don't make deal -- any deals for hostages or prisoners," he said.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 11:18:39|Editor: Xiang Bo

Video Player Close

RIO DE JANEIRO, Oct. 16 (Xinhua) -- Brazilian President Michel Temer has been indicted for corruption, money laundering and conspiracy to commit crimes, Brazil's Federal Police said on Tuesday.

In their report, the Federal Police said that there was enough evidence of the crimes and thus requested the blockage of the president's assets.

In addition to Temer, other 10 people, including his daughter Maristela and a close friend, Colonel Joao Baptista Lima Filho, were indicted as well; the police also requested the blockade of their assets.

The case was forwarded to the Chief Prosecution Office, which will have 15 days to decide whether to pursue the case against the president.

If the prosecution office decides to denounce Temer to the Supreme Court, the Federal Assembly will be required to allow the case to move forward.

Temer has already escaped denouncements twice since he took over the presidency in August 2016. His term will last until December 2019.

According to the Federal Police, the president issued decrees to change regulations in the port sector in exchange for illicit advantages. He postponed the maximum deadline for the concessions of ports to the private sector from 25 to 35 years, renewable for the same amount of time.

The president's defense said that they have yet to be informed of the contents of the police report.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 11:28:41|Editor: ZX

Video Player Close

CANBERRA, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- The Australian Outback is facing "the greatest rate of mammal extinction in the world," experts warned.

Alex Read, policy director of Australia's peak environmental organization advocating for wildlife in Central Australia - the Arid Lands Environment Center (ALEC), said on Wednesday that the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (ECBC) Act has "mostly failed in its fundamental purpose."

He said Australia was facing "arguably the greatest rate of mammal extinction in the world."

According to the ECBC list of threatened fauna, Australia has lost 34 mammal species in the last 200 years, more than any other country.

In the Northern Territory (NT) alone between 17 and 20 mammal species have gone extinct in that period.

There are approximately 500 threatened species of fauna across Australia, 101 of which are in the NT.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) 2018 Red List of Threatened Species revealed that 26,000 of species are threatened with extinction and rated Australia as the fourth-worst country in the world for fauna extinctions.

Graeme Gillespie, executive director of the NT Department of Environment and Natural Resources, said in the last decade small to medium-sized mammals in Central Australia faced the sharpest population declines.

"The arid lands of central Australia have the worst record of mammal extinctions since European settlement," he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on Wednesday.

"It is generally perceived that such declines happened 100 years ago and are no longer an issue. This is not the case."

"Unlike some of the more historic declines... it has been a little bit less clear as to what's actually driving those (declines) and it appears to me the complex interaction of a combination of factors."Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 12:03:49|Editor: ZX

Video Player Close

CANBERRA, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- Asylum seekers being detained by Australia would be settled by New Zealand under a proposal being considered by Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

Morrison has reportedly softened his hardline stance on the refugees who attempted to come to Australia by boat and is considering New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's long-standing offer to re-settle 150 asylum seekers currently held in indefinite detention on the island nation of Nauru.

It marks a significant departure from Morrison's previous position on asylum seekers after the he served as the key architect of Operation Sovereign Borders (OSB), the government's plan to stop the maritime arrivals of asylum seekers to Australia, during his time as minister for and border protection.

However, New Zealand's offer would only be accepted by the government if a "lifetime visa ban" was implemented that would prevent the asylum seekers from ever receiving an Australian visa, even if they wanted to visit as a tourist.

Peter Dutton, Australia's minister for home affairs, warned in June that a "single act of compassion" could jeopardize the achievements of OSB.

The Opposition Australian Labor Party (ALP) and Greens have opposed the visa ban, leaving the government with an uphill battle to pass it through the parliament.

Shayne Neumann, the ALP's immigration spokesperson, described the lifetime visa ban as a "ridiculous overreach."

"The legislation is a ridiculous overreach and is irrelevant to securing third country resettlement arrangements and Labor does not agree to the legislation in its current form," he told reporters on Tuesday evening.

"Scott Morrison has not explained why these laws are required for a resettlement deal with New Zealand and the (governing Liberal Party) have not reached out to Labor to give an assurance of any such deal."Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 12:33:52|Editor: Chengcheng

Video Player Close

Kashmiri protesters clash with Indian paramilitary troopers and police near the site of a gunfight in Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir, Oct. 17, 2018. Three militants and a policeman were killed Wednesday in a fierce gunfight in restive Indian-controlled Kashmir, police said. (Xinhua/Javed Dar)

SRINAGAR, Indian-controlled Kashmir, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- Three militants and a policeman were killed Wednesday in a fierce gunfight in restive Indian-controlled Kashmir, police said.

The gunfight erupted at Fateh Kadal locality of Srinagar city, the summer capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir.

"In a gunfight that broke out today here three militants were killed," a senior police official said. "While fighting these militants a policeman also lost life."

The identity of the slain militants was being ascertained.

Police said the locality in the old city was cordoned off early Wednesday following specific intelligence information suggesting presence of militants.

The house from where militants were firing on police and army positions has been damaged.

Reports said a fire broke out inside the house during the exchange of fire.

Authorities have suspended internet service in the city and closed roads leading to the gunfight site.

Meanwhile, schools, colleges and universities have been closed in the city as a precautionary measure.

Last week a militant was killed and another injured in a gunfight in southern Pulwama district.

A guerilla war is going on between militants and Indian troopers stationed in the region since 1989. However, of late Indian policemen too have been trained to fight them.

Kashmir, the Himalayan region divided between India and Pakistan, is claimed by both in full. Since their independence from Britain, the two countries have fought three wars, two exclusively over Kashmir.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 13:18:56|Editor: Yang Yi

Video Player Close

NEW DELHI, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- At least three people have been killed and four others injured in a road accident in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, police said Wednesday.

The accident occurred near Sayalgudi in the state's Ramanathapuram district.

"A car and a state-run bus collided head-on, claiming the lives of three persons on the spot. The four injured have been admitted to a nearby hospital," a police official said.

All the victims were occupants of the car, he said.

A probe has been ordered into the incident, the official said. "The bus driver has been booked for rash and negligent driving and efforts are on to nab him," he added.

India has the highest number of road fatalities in the world. Road accidents occur mostly due to poor driving or badly maintained roads and vehicles.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 13:18:57|Editor: Yang Yi

Video Player Close

SEOUL, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's export of information and telecommunications technology (ICT) product hit a record monthly high last month due to solid demand for locally-made semiconductors, a government report showed Wednesday.

The ICT export increased 5.3 percent over the year to 20.27 billion U.S. dollars in September, topping the previous high of 20.19 billion U.S. dollars tallied in the previous month, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy.

The record export was mainly attributed to strong demand for chips, of which shipment jumped 26.9 percent to a new monthly high of 12.54 billion U.S. dollars.

Export for computer and peripherals gained 4.1 percent from a year earlier to 990 million U.S. dollars in September.

Mobile phone shipment tumbled 36.6 percent to 1.16 billion U.S. dollars amid stiffer competition in the global market.

The ICT export to China, South Korea's biggest trading partner, expanded 16.6 percent over the year to 11.62 billion U.S. dollars in September, marking the highest figure. The figure to the European Union advanced 13.1 percent to 1 billion U.S. dollars.

The ICT import reduced 11.7 percent to 7.98 billion U.S. dollars, sending the ICT trade surplus to a fresh high of 12.29 billion U.S. dollars in September.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 13:23:57|Editor: ZD

Video Player Close

SANTIAGO, Oct. 16 (Xinhua) -- Sustainable urban mobility is essential to combating climate change and achieving inclusive urban development, a United Nations (UN) regional commission said here on Tuesday.

Sustainable mobility "must become a matter of public policy," said Mario Cimoli, deputy executive secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).

Cimoli made the remarks during the inauguration of the Second Cities Conference held by the ECLAC, saying that sustainable mobility "is not only about mobility, the city and individuals, but also technology, productive activity and everything required for a sustainable growth in the long term."

In a predominantly urban world, the future of the planet "depends on how we develop our cities, and urban mobility systems play a decisive, fundamental role in this process," he said.

The world urban population will reach an estimated 60 percent of the world's population by 2030, while the number of vehicles will double, the UN commission's senior official added.

He underlined that Latin America and the Caribbean is one of the world's most urbanized regions, where nearly 80 percent of the population lives in cities and 56 percent of daily commutes are on public transport.

"Improving urban mobility in the region and ensuring accessible and safe transportation services is a fundamental task to reduce inequalities and improve the quality of life for all citizens," he said.

Chilean Minister of Housing and Urban Planning Cristian Monckeberg also suggested that sustainable urban mobility "is key to a better quality of life in cities."

The minister added that the development of the city "not only depends on good mobility and housing, but also depends on good services in terms of health, education and more."

The Second Cities Conference, which lasts three days, seeks to integrate urban planning, management, financing with mobility and transit systems in Latin America and the Caribbean with the aim of achieving sustainable urban development.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 13:44:01|Editor: ZD

Video Player Close

LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- A powerful blast rocked the campaign office of a leading candidate for parliamentary elections, Abdul Jabbar Qahraman in Afghanistan's southern Helmand's provincial capital Lashkar Gah on Wednesday, injuring eight people, spokesman for provincial government Omar Zawak said.

Afghan parliamentary elections are slated for Saturday and more than 2,500 candidates are contesting the 249 seats of the Wolesi Jirga or Lower House of Afghan parliament.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 14:04:03|Editor: ZD

Video Player Close

LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- A bomb ripped through the campaign office of leading parliamentary candidate Abdul Jabar Qahraman in Afghanistan's southern Helmand provincial capital Lashkar Gah, killing him and injuring eight others on Wednesday, a police official said.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 14:09:05|Editor: ZD

Video Player Close

HANOI, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- The Standing Committee of the National Assembly of Vietnam, the country's top legislature, has decided to extend the pilot e-visa program for foreign visitors to Vietnam by another two years, local media reported on Wednesday.

According to the top legislature's resolution adopted in late 2016, the pilot program will last for two years ending on Feb. 1, 2019, daily newspaper Vietnam News reported.

To help attract more foreigners to Vietnam for tourism and investment, forming a driving force behind the tourism sector, the program will be extended by another two years since Feb. 1, 2019.

Between February 2017 and August 2018, Vietnam approved 298,113 e-visas for foreigners, of which 298,507 were self-submitted and 8,606 done by sponsoring organizations. As of Aug. 31, there had been 241,875 e-visa holders entering Vietnam.

In the first nine months of this year, Vietnam hosted more than 11.6 million international arrivals, up 22.9 percent on-year, with the highest growth of 49.6 percent in the number of visitors from South Korea, followed by Finland, up 33.8 percent, and China, up 29.7 percent, according to the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism.

Vietnam plans to receive 16-17 million foreign visitors and 78 million domestic ones, and gain tourism revenues of 27.5 billion U.S. dollars this year, said the administration.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 14:14:07|Editor: ZD

Video Player Close

KABUL, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations has allocated 34.6 million U.S. dollars to support drought-affected Afghans, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said Wednesday.

"The United Nations' Afghanistan Humanitarian Fund (AHF) and Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) have allocated 34.6 million U.S. dollars in emergency aid to support 2.2 million people affected by a severe drought," OCHA Afghanistan said in a statement.

The fund will help seven national non-governmental organizations (NGOs), 15 international NGOs and four UN agencies "for distributing food and seeds, maintain primary health services, provide emergency shelter, safe drinking water, improve hygiene and sanitation, treat severe malnutrition, and help farmers protect their livestock,"

"The impact of the ongoing drought spans the north and west of the country leaving communities in deep distress. Village elders in rural areas tell me that this is the worst drought in their lifetime, and that food, fodder and seeds are needed urgently," Toby Lanzer, humanitarian coordinator in Afghanistan was quoted in the statement as saying.

"The drought has forced a quarter of a million people from their land, and for the displaced, the need for shelter is critical as winter approaches," he said.

"The drought comes on top of years of conflict and poverty, and therefore humanitarian assistance goes hand in hand with development programmes to address underlying factors such as poverty and climate change. Our work is closely coordinated with the authorities, yet still more needs to be done so the people of Afghanistan can withstand severe shocks such as this drought," Lanzer noted.

Up to 20 of the country's 34 provinces were affected by the drought and Afghans officials predicted that around 3 million people will be in need of aid until the end of this year.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 14:14:08|Editor: ZD

Video Player Close

MOSCOW, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Russia will leave the Council of Europe(CoE) voluntarily if its opponents insist on its expulsion, according to the foreign ministry's website.

"If they want to expel Russia from the Council of Europe, we will not give them such a pleasure. We will quit it voluntarily," the top diplomat said in an interview with the EuroNews television channel on Tuesday.

Russia joined the CoE with confidence that the council is geared to ensure a European universal legal and humanitarian space. However, this space is undermined through illegitimate actions that violate the Charter, Lavrov said.

"I don't think that participation in the Council of Europe is more important for Russia than it is for European countries," the foreign minister added.

On Oct. 10, CoE Secretary-General Thorbjorn Jagland said that the organization might expel Russia if Moscow would not resume payments to its budget.

In April 2014, Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) approved resolutions depriving the Russian delegation of the right to vote due to the Crimea issue.

Russia decided to leave PACE in late 2015, repeatedly stressing that it will only return to the organization after the full restoration of its right to vote.

Moscow suspended the payment of its dues to the CoE in 2017, although it continues to fulfill all other obligations under the CoE conventions.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 14:24:10|Editor: ZD

Video Player Close

SEOUL, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- South Korea on Wednesday granted temporary stay permits to 339 Yemeni refugees who have stayed in the country's southern resort island of Jeju from the first half of this year, local media said citing the justice ministry.

A total of 481 Yemenis sought asylum in the country after arriving in the island this year. Among them, 23 refugees were already given the humanitarian stay permits last month.

The immigration office of the Jeju island granted 339 Yemenis the humanitarian stay permits, which require the re-deliberation every year for an extended stay, rather than an official refugee status.

The permits were given as the asylum seekers could be at risk if deported. With the permits, the 339 Yemenis are allowed to leave the island for other parts of the country.

Refugee applications from 34 Yemenis were rejected as they either faced criminal charges or sought asylum for an economic purpose though they can stably live in other countries.

The remaining 85 applications were deferred as the cases require further deliberations.

The arrival of the Yemeni refugees in the island sparked controversy in the country as some locals worried that it may increase social problems such as less job openings for local residents.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 15:04:16|Editor: xuxin

Video Player Close

People carry an injured man after a blast in Lashkar Gah, Helmand province, Afghanistan, Oct. 17, 2018. A bomb ripped through the campaign office of leading parliamentary candidate Abdul Jabar Qahraman in the provincial capital Lashkar Gah of Helmand, killing him and injuring eight others, a police official said on Wednesday. (Xinhua/Abdul Aziz Safdari)

LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- A bomb ripped through the campaign office of leading parliamentary candidate Abdul Jabar Qahraman in the provincial capital Lashkar Gah of Helmand, killing him and injuring eight others, a police official said on Wednesday.

"The blast happened at around 10:00 a.m. local time today when Jabar Qahraman and some of his supporters were inside his office, killing him and injuring eight others," the official who declined to be identified told Xinhua.

However, spokesman for Helmand provincial government Omar Zawak said that Qahraman succumbed to his wounds after receiving critical injuries. He also noted that three suspects had been arrested and an investigation was underway.

The murder of Qahraman brings the number of killed parliamentary candidates to 10 in militants attacks since the beginning of election campaigns on Sept. 28 in the insurgency-plagued country.

More than 2,500 candidates are contesting for the 249-seat Wolesi Jirga or the lower house of Afghan parliament slated for Oct. 20 amid tight security.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 15:24:20|Editor: xuxin

Video Player Close

KABUL, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- At least 20 Taliban militants were killed following airstrikes in eastern province of Paktika, the Afghan Ministry of Defense said Wednesday.

The ministry said in a statement that the strikes were launched by Afghan Air Force in Omna district, southern of provincial capital Sharan city on Tuesday.

The strikes also destroyed three Taliban's hideouts in the mountainous province.

Afghan security forces, backed by the U.S.-led NATO coalition troops, have increased ground and air offensives against militants in the past few months as the country is preparing for parliamentary elections scheduled to be held on Oct. 20.

At the upcoming elections on Saturday, more than 54,000 Afghan army soldiers and police personnel would be deployed to provide security for 5,100 polling centers across the country.

The militant group has yet to respond to the report.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 15:59:32|Editor: xuxin

Video Player Close

JERUSALEM, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Wednesday ordered to shut down the crossings between Gaza and Israel after Gaza militants fired rockets at Israel.

Lieberman instructed the military to shut down the Erez Crossing, the only pedestrian passage between the besieged Palestinian enclave and Israel, and the Kerem Shalom Crossing, a passage for goods, said a statement released by the Defense Ministry.

Lieberman also imposed further restrictions on the allowed fishing zone in Gaza.

The moves were a retribution to rockets fired from Gaza at southern Israel earlier on Wednesday.

One rocket hit a residential home in the southern city of Beersheba, causing damage. Two people were injured as they ran to seek cover. Another rocket fell in the sea across central Israel shores.

In response, Israel launched a wide-scale air attack, targeting Hamas sites, according to the military. At least one Palestinian was killed by the strikes and three others were injured, local media reported.

The escalation came after weeks of tensions. Gazans have been holding demonstrations near the fence separating Gaza from Israel since March 30, to protest blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt. The protest includes occasional launchings of helium-filled balloons to set fires in southern Israel's arid farmlands.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 16:04:33|Editor: xuxin

Video Player Close

Ding Xuexiang (4th R), member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, member of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee and director of the General Office of the CPC Central Committee, meets with Anton Vaino (3rd L), head of the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation, in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 17, 2018. (Xinhua/Pang Xinglei)

BEIJING, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- Ding Xuexiang, director of the General Office of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, met with Anton Vaino, head of the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation, on Wednesday in Beijing.

Ding, also a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee, said that the China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination has become more mature and solid under the guidance of the two heads of state, and bilateral cooperation has gained important outcomes in various fields.

"The General Office of the CPC Central Committee is willing to continue the good tradition of cooperation with the Russian presidential administration to ensure high-quality implementation of the consensus reached by the two leaders and to make greater contributions to the development of bilateral relations," Ding said.

Vaino said that the Russian side is committed to deepening the exchanges and cooperation between the two administrations, implementing the consensus reached by the two leaders and pushing Russia-China relations to a higher level.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 16:04:33|Editor: xuxin

Video Player Close

NEW DELHI, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- A court in the northern Indian state of Haryana Wednesday sentenced a self-styled godman and his devotees to life in jail for murdering a woman in 2014.

This is the second life term given to Rampal and his 13 followers in the past 24 hours. They were sentenced to life imprisonment Tuesday also for killing four women and a baby that year.

"Additional district and sessions judge of Hisar, Desraj Chalia, handed down the punishment to the godman and his followers in the second murder case this morning," a lawyer said.

Rampal and his 13 followers were convicted in both the cases last week.

Local TV channels showed footage of massive security arrangements in the district to avoid any untoward incident in the aftermath of the judgment.

The two cases dated back to November 2014, when the five women and the baby suffocated after being locked in a room while Rampal's supporters clashed with police at his ashram.

Cops had then barged into the godman's ashram on the orders of the high court of Punjab and Haryana states after he repeatedly failed to appear in a court in another murder case.

Rampal was arrested by police and charged with murder, conspiracy, possessing illegal weapons, abetting suicide and waging war against the state. He is currently in jail.

Born in 1951 to a poor farmer family in Haryana, Rampal began his career as a government employee. But some 18 years ago, he resigned from his job and became a godman.

He has tens of thousands of devotees in several northern Indian states.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 16:09:33|Editor: xuxin

Video Player Close

A Palestinian inspects the rubbles following an Israeli airstrike in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah, on Oct. 17, 2018. One Palestinian killed and three injured Wednesday morning in Israeli airstrikes on military facilities in the Gaza Strip in response to a rocket attack from Gaza into Israel, security sources and medics said. (Xinhua/Khaled Omar)

GAZA, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- One Palestinian killed and three injured Wednesday morning in Israeli airstrikes on military facilities in the Gaza Strip in response to a rocket attack from Gaza into Israel, security sources and medics said.

Health Ministry Spokesman in Gaza, Ashraf al-Qedra, told reporters that Naji Za'aneen, 26 years old from northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun, was killed and three wounded in the Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip.

Eyewitnesses and security sources in Gaza said that Israeli war jets targeted six different military facilities all over the Gaza Strip with missiles, adding that six huge bombs were heard all over the coastal enclave.

An Israeli army spokesman said in a press statement that war jets of Israeli Air Forces carried out a series of airstrikes on the Gaza Strip in response to firing a rocket and arson balloons into Israel.

A rocket was fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel overnight and landed at a yard of a house in the town of Beer Sheba in southern Israel, which had lightly injured three Israelis.

Israeli Radio reported that Israel announced that the two crossing points between the Gaza Strip and Israel for goods and individuals movement are closed and the allowed area for fishing has been reduced.

The fresh escalation of violence in Gaza happened as a senior Egyptian security intelligence delegation arrived in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday to mediate a calm agreement between Israel and Hamas-led Gaza militant groups.

Sources close to Hamas said the Egyptian delegation has been holding talks with senior Hamas leaders over the current developments in the Gaza Strip as well as a truce with Israel and reconciliation with Fatah Party of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 16:19:35|Editor: xuxin

Video Player Close

TEHRAN, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) announced that the mastermind of a recent deadly terrorist attack in Iran's southwestern city of Ahvaz was killed in Iraq, Tasnim news agency reported on Wednesday.

In an operation in Iraqi's Diyala province on Tuesday morning, the chief plotter of the terrorist attack, known as Abu Dhoha, and four of his companions were killed, the IRGC announcement said.

On Sept. 22, four armed men clad in the uniform of the IRGC attacked the military parade in Ahvaz, capital of Khuzestan province, which was marking the anniversary of the Iran-Iraq war in 1980-1988.

In the attack, 25 people were killed and over 60 others were injured.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 16:49:42|Editor: xuxin

Video Player Close

JERUSALEM, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- Israeli warplanes carried out airstrikes in Gaza on Wednesday morning after rockets were launched from the besieged Palestinian enclave, with one hitting a home in southern Israel.

"At this time IDF (Israel Defense Forces) fighter jets started attacking terror targets in the Gaza Strip," a military spokesperson said in a statement just before 7 a.m. local time (0400 a.m. GMT).

At least three people were injured in the strikes on Gaza, according to local media.

Earlier, a rocket fired by militants from Gaza struck a residential home in the city of Beer Sheva in southern Israel, a police spokesman told Xinhua.

A spokesman for Magen David Adom medical emergency service said a mother and her three children whose home was struck were being treated for shock and two other people were injured during a panic to seek cover when the projectile triggered sirens across the city.

Later, another rocket fell short in the sea across the shore of central Israel, causing no damage or injuries, according to the police.

The municipality of Beer Sheva said that in the wake of the strike, all of the city's schools and kindergartens would remain closed Wednesday.

The rocket attack was one of the first in months and came amidst renewed tensions between Israel and Hamas.

The fire came less than a day after Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said his country should deliver a "serious blow" to Gaza Strip's Hamas.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 17:04:47|Editor: xuxin

Video Player Close

JAKARTA, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- Indonesians displaced by quakes and an ensuing tsunami in Central Sulawesi province needed thousands of tents for shelter as the construction of temporary settlements was underway, a senior official said on Wednesday.

Over 18,000 tents were needed since the strong quakes of 6.0, 7.4 and 6.1 magnitude that triggered a tsunami devastated Palu, the provincial capital, and adjacent districts of Donggala and Sigi on Sept. 28, forcing more than 87,000 people to flee homes, Bernadus Wisnu Widjaja from the national disaster management agency said in Palu.

By far, a total of 5,000 tents have been transported to the disaster areas by humanitarian organizations and as many as 1,300 others by the Red Cross, he added.

A total of 800 big tents were also needed to accommodate students in the affected areas, he was quoted by Antara news agency as saying.

The UN children's agency Unicef has donated 200 tents to damaged local schools, according to the official.

The massive tsunami triggered by the quakes destroyed a total of 67,310 houses and a huge amount infrastructure facility in the central province.

Indonesia is prone to quake as it lies on a vulnerable quake-affected area of so called "the Pacific Ring of Fire."Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 17:09:50|Editor: xuxin

Video Player Close

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 16 (Xinhua) -- Ride-sharing companies that offer on-demand transport services are blamed for increasing congestion in San Francisco, the city's County Transportation Authority (SFCTA) said Tuesday.

In a new report on traffic congestion in San Francisco, the SFCTA said the vehicles of transportation network companies (TNCs) such as Uber and Lyft, the two major ride-hailing firms in the city, are to blame for about half of additional congestion because they increased 51 percent of daily vehicle hours of delay between 2010 and 2016.

The SFCTA said about 55 percent of the average speed decline can be attributed to ride-hailing vehicles during that period.

It estimated about 62 million TNC trips were made in San Francisco in late 2016, comprising about 15 percent of all intra-San Francisco vehicle trips and 9 percent of all intra-San Francisco person trips that fall.

TNC vehicles accounted for about 25 percent of the total delay on San Francisco roadways and about 36 percent of total delay in the downtown core areas such as District 6, which includes the tech firm-heavy South of Market Street neighborhood, in 2016, the SFCTA said.

It added that daily vehicle miles traveled (VMT) on study roadways increased by over 630,000 miles (1.01 million kilometers), and TNCs accounted for 7 percent of this increase in VMT, and for about 5 percent of total VMT on study roadways in 2016.

A lot of TNC trips were often happening in the most congested parts of the city and at the most congested times of day, said Joe Castiglione, the SFCTA's deputy director for technology, data and analysis.

The SFCTA's report was a result of study on traffic congestion between 2010 and 2016 in partnership with the University of Kentucky using a combination of data from on-road monitoring system, real-time GPS data, SFCTA history traffic data, existing statistics from Uber and Lyft, as well as traffic data from INRIX, a global transportation analytics firm.

However, both Uber and Lyft questioned the SFCTA report.

Uber said the report fails to consider critical factors like the spike in tourism or the growth of freight deliveries, "both of which have exploded since the study's baseline date of 2010."

Lyft called the report "flawed and an incomplete picture of the transit challenges San Francisco faces."

"Congestion is a complex issue, and Lyft is committed to being a part of the solution," the company said in a statement.

It pledged to remain committed to creating more efficient, affordable transportation options that take cars off the road, increase the occupancy of cars and reduce transportation barriers.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 17:24:52|Editor: xuxin

Video Player Close

SHANGHAI, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- Kostas Chatzigiannis, a 35-year-old architect who co-designed the Greek Pavilion for the Shanghai World Expo, has just received invitation to join a series of events at the China International Import Expo (CIIE) to be held in the city in November.

Through these events, he aims to gain a more in-depth understanding of the Chinese market and share more information on how to attract Chinese customers back home in Greece.

"Shanghai is a very dynamic place. As soon as you arrive, you can immediately sense the dynamic and potential that good and interesting things can happen here," Chatzigiannis said.

In 2007, Chatzigiannis bravely made his way to Shanghai although his decision was doubted by his friends in Greece.

Around two years later, Chatzigiannis got the chance to be involved in designing the Greek Pavilion for the Shanghai World Expo, which he thought not only sped up the opening-up and internationalization of the city, but also broadened his career.

"When I first arrived in China, there were not many cafes, bakeries or western restaurants. I had to drive far to buy western food ingredients and to cook by ourselves," said Chatzigiannis who owns an architectural design studio in Shanghai.

As China opens wider to the world, life here is becoming easier for foreigners.

"Greek yoghurt, olive oil, honey and wine are getting more common in the Chinese market," Chatzigiannis said, adding that these Greek goods help to cure his homesickness.

At least 20 Greek enterprises will participate in related activities in the CIIE next month. The exhibits from Greece will be mainly food and beverage like olive oil and honey, and Greek tourism will also be a major part of the exhibition, according to the Consulate General of Greece in Shanghai.

In Chatzigiannis' eyes, Shanghai is now developing to a clean, polished and international metropolis that opens to people from different places and fields.

"My father has been shocked to find the big changes and fast development of the city and its infrastructure every time he visits me," he said.

As an architect, Chatzigiannis has also noticed the aesthetic preferences of Chinese people have changed as more people travel abroad, and foreigners as well as overseas Chinese returnees bring fresh ideas to the country.

Hellas House, a Greek cultural hub in Shanghai, is one of Chatzigiannis' master works. The pure white Greek marble, clean lines and simple design is something that Chatzigiannis thinks would have appeared strange in China a few years ago. But this type of subtle elegance is now mostly desired.

With an open mind to more diverse culture and references, Chinese people now prefer things of high standards and quality instead of loud luxury, according to Chatzigiannis. "As the taste changes, the market will follow."

Currently, he has just finished designing a yoga studio and is working on a hospital project in Yinchuan, the capital of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.

"Living in Shanghai gives me a different perspective of the world. I feel there are closer ties between different countries, and the world seems to be much smaller," he said.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 17:39:57|Editor: xuxin

Video Player Close

PHNOM PENH, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- A group of five senior Chinese experts has been providing a training course to some 210 Cambodian agriculture officials on the management and technology of agriculture machinery, product processing, horticulture and food safety.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of the four-day workshop in Phnom Penh on Wednesday, Chan Phaloeun, under-secretary of state of Cambodia's Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, expressed her profound thanks to China for actively supporting the development of agriculture in Cambodia.

"The workshop is essential to increase capacity and expertise for Cambodian agriculture technicians," she said. "It's very useful for our officials in developing projects and preparing strategic plans for the management of agriculture machinery, product processing, horticulture, and food safety."

"Through the workshop, I'm confident that our experts will have better knowledge and skills for carrying out plans and projects at their respective departments," she said.

Agriculture is one of the four sectors supporting Cambodia's economy. The sector generated gross revenue of about 5.5 billion U.S. dollars in 2017, accounting for 25 percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP).

Meanwhile, Phaloeun asked China to continue to help train Cambodian experts, especially in the field of agricultural laboratory.

Li An, economic and commercial councilor of the Chinese Embassy, said it was the second consecutive year that the Chinese government had sent Chinese agriculture experts to help train Cambodian officials.

"This is an important opportunity for Chinese and Cambodian experts to discuss and exchange their expertise and experience," he said. "I believe that everyone will benefit from this workshop."

Over the course of four days, China's experience in the management and technology of agriculture machinery, product processing, horticulture, and food safety will be shared with all participants.

Professor Dang Xuanmin, deputy director of the Tropical Vegetable Research Center under the Chinese Academy of Tropical Agriculture Sciences, said the workshop was crucial for experts of the two counties to exchange views and seek new ideas for the development of agriculture in Cambodia.

"After the workshop, participants will have better knowledge of agriculture machinery, product processing, horticulture, food safety, and pesticide residue analysis," he told Xinhua.

Srun Sokhom, deputy director general of Cambodia's General Directorate of Agriculture, encouraged all trainees to pay high attention to the course, saying that it was vital for them to improve their skills and expertise.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 17:39:58|Editor: xuxin

Video Player Close

Israeli Police examine a house that suffered a direct hit from a rocket reportedly fired by militant groups from the Gaza Strip, in southern Israeli city of Beer Sheva, on Oct. 17, 2018. Israel's military spokesperson said Wednesday that the army sees the firing of two rockets at Israel earlier in the morning "a severe incident." (Xinhua/JINI)

JERUSALEM, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- Israel's military spokesperson said Wednesday that the army sees the firing of two rockets at Israel earlier in the morning "a severe incident."

Gaza militants fired one rocket to Beersheba and another to Gush Dan, in central Israel, which landed at sea, said Jonathan Conricus, head of international media branch at the military's spokesperson's unit.

The mid-range rockets are in possession by only two organizations in Gaza who have the specific parts of the rockets -- Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, he said, adding that it "very much narrows it down to who is behind it."

Hamas, the Palestinian group that runs Gaza, and the Islamic Jihad condemned the fire, saying it harms the Egyptian efforts to achieve a cease-fire agreement that will lift the Israeli and Egyptian blockade imposed on Gaza, according to local media reports.

The armed groups in Gaza also informed an Egyptian delegation of intelligence officers that they are not interested in escalation but are ready to respond if Israel continues its attacks.

Conricus said Israel holds Hamas accountable for the fire even if the group did not launch the rockets.

"Hamas bares full responsibility for this attack," he said, adding that Hamas is "creating and enabling an environment of terror and violence along the security fence as we have seen over the last months."

He referred to weekly protests, mostly on Mondays and on Fridays, during which explosive devices are hurled toward Israeli soldiers and Palestinians attempted to cross into Israel through the fence.

Live Israeli fire have killed at least 205 Palestinians during the rallies, which started on March 30.

He said that the Israeli Air Force responded with air strikes against approximately 20 military targets in Gaza.

Israeli military aircraft also attacked a group of Palestinians who attempted to launch a rocket near the fence from in the northern Gaza Strip, Conricus said.

At least one person was killed in the Israeli attacks and several were injured.

"We are ready and prepared for different scenarios wherever the situation will take us," he said.

The recent flare up came as Egypt and the United Nations are trying to broker a long-term agreement between Israel and Hamas.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 17:50:01|Editor: xuxin

Video Player Close

TEHRAN, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- Iranian President Hassan Rouhani criticized foreign interference in the internal affairs of Qatar, Tasnim news agency reported on Wednesday.

In a meeting with Qatar's new ambassador to Tehran on Tuesday, Rouhani said Iran and Qatar have developed warm and cordial relations in recent years.

The stances of the two countries on regional issues have grown much closer, he was quoted as saying.

The Iranian president slammed as "unacceptable" what he called foreign interference in the internal affairs of Qatar.

He added that "we believe the Qatari nation is great and the Qatari authorities are also running their country with prudence."

Rouhani expressed the hope for expansion of Tehran-Doha ties during the new ambassador's term, pointing to the grounds for cooperation in the economic and political arenas, investment, banking industry and tourism.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 18:05:04|Editor: xuxin

Video Player Close

GUANGZHOU, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- The annual output value of China's civil nuclear technology application has exceeded 300 billion yuan (around 43 billion U.S. dollars).

Nuclear technology has been used in such areas as industry, agriculture, medical treatment and environmental protection, according to an ongoing international conference on the application of nuclear technology.

More than 400 organizations are directly involved in the research and development of civil nuclear technology.

"The annual output value of the application of nuclear technology accounts for about 0.4 percent of China's GDP, and there is still huge potential for development," said Yu Jianfeng with the China Nuclear Energy Association.

In less than 20 years, the value of nuclear technology application could expand to 1 trillion yuan, said Wang Naiyan with the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

"Most of the companies involved in the sector are medium- and small-sized ones," Wang said. "More private companies should be encouraged to enter the sector, and more favorable policies should be issued."Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 18:45:10|Editor: xuxin

Video Player Close

KIEV, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- The Air Force Command of the Ukrainian Armed Forces confirmed on Wednesday that a U.S. soldier was killed in a Su-27 crash in central Ukraine on Tuesday.

"The bodies of the pilots were found. The commander of the crew was Ivan Petrenko ... Another crew member was a serviceman of the U.S. Air National Guard," the Ukrainian Air Force Command said in a statement on Facebook.

The Su-27 fighter jet crashed near the village of Ulaniv in Vinnytsya region during international exercises "Clear Sky - 2018."

"Clear Sky-2018" kicked off in Ukraine on Oct. 8 with the participation of nine countries. The drills run until Oct. 19.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 19:15:15|Editor: Chengcheng

Video Player Close

Afghan Independent Election Commission (IEC) workers load plastic boxes of election materials from a warehouse to a truck in Mazar-i-Sharif, capital of Balkh province, northern Afghanistan, Oct. 17, 2018. More than 2,500 candidates will contest the 249 seats in the Wolesi Jirga or the lower house of parliament, however there is much to be done ahead of the poll expected to be attended by millions of voters on Oct. 20. (Xinhua/Yaqoub Azorda)

by Farid Behbud

KABUL, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- With claims of widespread fraud and growing insecurity and violence, campaigning for Afghanistan's long-delayed parliamentary election kicked off late last month.

More than 2,500 candidates will contest the 249 seats in the Wolesi Jirga or the lower house of parliament, however there is much to be done ahead of the poll expected to be attended by millions of voters on Oct. 20.

Most of the current Afghan lawmakers who are being widely blamed for corruption or their ineffectiveness are also among the hopefuls seeking re-election.

In addition, a number of political faces, hundreds of former warlords' descendants, entrepreneurs, as well as journalists, have emerged to contest the election.

Female candidates running in the election race and campaigning for women's rights, believe that former female-lawmakers have done nothing to push forward female empowerment. The candidates have vowed to fight hard for the rights of women in Afghanistan.

"Parliament, instead of being the house of the people, has turned into a network of bandits, hub of corruption and a place for those forwarding their own interests," TV presenter Maryam Sama, who vowed to establish a special rights committee for women if elected, told Xinhua.

The 26-year-old journalist who is running in Kabul province said she had very limited funds to support her campaign, but didn't believe that money can determine one's fate.

She said insecurity remains a major challenge for young campaigners across the country, adding that launching a house-to-house and street by street electoral campaign to draw voters' attention was an easy way to win the hearts and minds of voters.

On Saturday, a bomb blast rocked an election campaign of female candidate Nazifa Big Yusufi in the Rustaq district of the northern Takhar province, killing 22 people and injuring 36 others.

Yusufi, however, escaped the explosion. A total of 10 parliamentary contenders have lost their lives mainly in terrorist attacks since the candidates nomination period in May.

"Female lawmakers' beliefs about women's rights have paid into a patriarchal ideology here. They even failed to pass the law on the prevention of violence against women amid decades of misogyny that has seen many women confirmed to their homes," said Sama, who is committed to revising, amending and passing the law if she becomes a member of the legislative force.

According to Afghan laws, 68 out of 249 seats are allocated to women.

Another independent candidate, Zuhra Naurozi, who is also running in Kabul, said she had no financial backer and used her own savings from 12 years working as a media activist.

"I want to run in this election as the ground is now constitutionally paved for everyone to vote or be elected," said Naurozi, promising to establish a reform committee to counter laws being passed that are not in the Afghan citizens' best interest.

The failure of former representatives to meet the people's requirements has intensely disappointed ordinary Afghan citizens who are now openly raising their voices and even using abusive language against them.

"I will vote for a young determined Afghan. A youthful representative who will work for peace and security and serve the country and the nation. The older politicians have done nothing for the country," said Khalifa Pir Mohammad, a Kabul resident and citizen of Mazar-i-Sharif, a northern city of Afghanistan.

"I hope the votes of the people of Afghanistan will not be stolen again like in past elections," he said.

The hope for credible election results is seriously threatened by strong allegations there will be widespread rigging during the voting process and the availability of only 4,400 biometric devices.

It is far less than the 22,000 German-made machines used for voters' verification and the sudden lack of available machines is feared to derail the process, sources close to the matter said.

Earlier, district council elections, a process also scheduled to be held on Oct. 20, have been postponed, while the parliamentary vote was canceled in Ghazni province, after the provincial capital was raided by Taliban militants recently.

During the upcoming polls, nearly 9 million registered voters, including 3 million women out of some 12 million eligible Afghans, will cast their ballots to elect members of the lower house for a five-year term.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 19:25:16|Editor: Shi Yinglun

Video Player Close

BEIJING, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- China will continue to advance the construction of a China-Canada free trade area (FTA) and deepen trade cooperation with Canada, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Wednesday.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang made the remarks at a daily news briefing in response to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's latest comment on Canada-China trade ties.

On Monday, Trudeau told the 2018 Fortune Global Forum held in Toronto that Canada will continue to increase the trading relationship with China in thoughtful ways.

"The Chinese side appreciates what the Canadian leader has said," said Lu, adding that China and Canada, both as major economies in the Asia-Pacific region, are highly complementary economically, and share tremendous potential and prospect for cooperation.

"The Chinese side stands ready to work with the Canadian side, continue to advance the FTA construction in a pragmatic and open manner, and deepen the practical economic and trade cooperation to step up the China-Canadian strategic partnership," Lu said.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 19:32:30|Editor: Yamei

Video Player Close

Tourists visit the ancient walled city of Pingyao in Jinzhong, north China's Shanxi Province, on Oct. 17, 2018. The ancient walled city of Pingyao was built in the 14th century, and was named a UNESCO world heritage in 1997, as "an exceptionally well-preserved example of a traditional Han Chinese city." The city boomed in the 19th century as China's financial center, as Shanxi merchants expanded their businesses across the country. Now, the well-preserved compounds of these affluent merchants and some emerging modern elements like souvenir shops, bars, photography festival and theatrical performances have again brought the ancient city to life and made it a popular tourist attraction. (Xinhua/Cao Yang)Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 19:40:18|Editor: Chengcheng

Video Player Close

Policemen stand guard after cordoning off a building where suspected militants were holed up in Narsingdi, Bangladesh on Oct. 17, 2018. Two suspected female militants surrendered Wednesday after Bangladeshi security forces raided the hideout of a banned Islamist group under siege in the country's Narsingdi district since Monday night. (Xinhua)

DHAKA, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- Two suspected female militants surrendered Wednesday after Bangladeshi security forces raided the hideout of a banned Islamist group under siege in the country's Narsingdi district since Monday night.

Bangladesh's Counter-Terrorism Police Unit Chief Monirul Islam declared the operation to flash out the second militant hideout in the district, east of the capital Dhaka's northeastern region, was over.

He said the female militants, who are students of a private university in Dhaka, surrendered at about 3:00 p.m. local time.

Security forces surrounded two buildings in separate places in the district Monday night that they suspected to be militant hideouts.

After operation at the first hideout on Tuesday, bodies of two militants including that of a woman have been found.

"We're primarily sure all the four militants of both the hideouts are members of Neo-JMB," Islam said.

The Neo-JMB, an offshoot of the banned militant outfit JMB (Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh), was blamed for the deadly July 1, 2016 attack on a Spanish cafe in Dhaka, which killed 22 people, mostly foreigners.

Since the cafe attack, Bangladeshi police have conducted series of large-scale operations against militants.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 19:40:18|Editor: xuxin

Video Player Close

KABUL, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- In a latest attack on Afghan election process, a bomb ripped through the campaign office of a leading parliamentary candidate in Lashkar Gah, the capital of the troubled Helmand province on Wednesday, killing Abdul Jabar Qahraman and inuring eight others.

Hours after the bloody blast, Taliban outfit claimed responsibility, and the armed outfit said their fighters "have killed Jabar Qahraman a renown communist" who, according to the Taliban militants' claim, had served the government.

Had served as an army general in the 1990s and a legislator after the fall of Taliban regime in late 2001, Qahraman was a leading candidate for Wolesi Jirga or the lower house of Afghan parliament slated for Oct. 20.

The late Qahraman had also served as special envoy of President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani for peace, political and military affairs of Helmand province, a stronghold of Taliban outfit notorious for growing poppy and militancy.

President Ghani, in a statement released by his office, blamed the "terrorists" for killing Qahraman and condemned the deadly attack in its strongest term.

Similar attack on an election rally of a female candidate in the northern Takhar province on Saturday left over a dozen dead and nearly two dozen injured.

The Taliban group that has vowed to sabotage the parliamentary elections has asked the people to stay away from polling stations on the voting day. More than 50,000 troops, according to the Interior Ministry, have been deployed to ensure security for elections.

More than 2,500 candidates are contesting the 249 seats of Wolesi Jirga, or the lower house of Afghan parliament, elections to be held on Saturday amid tight security.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 19:45:20|Editor: xuxin

Video Player Close

SOFIA, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- Bulgaria would join the recently launched NATO Mission Iraq (NMI), according to a decision taken by the government here on Wednesday.

According to the government's decision, Bulgaria would participate with up to four servicemen of the Armed Forces with their personal weapons and equipment, a cabinet statement said.

"The inclusion of Bulgaria in the NMI is a practical expression of our contribution to the NATO's efforts in the fight against terrorism and in the preparation and capacity building of Iraqi security forces and institutions," the statement said.

The NMI was launched at the NATO summit in Brussels this July as a non-combat mission aimed at training and capacity building in Iraq, it said.

It would be tasked to advise officials in the Ministry of Defense and the Office of the National Security Advisor, and train instructors in military schools and academies to help Iraq develop its capacity to build more effective national security structures and professional military education institutions, the statement added.

Bulgaria has been a NATO member since 2004. In Iraq, the Balkan country participated in the U.S.-led Operation Iraqi Freedom, and NATO Training Mission-Iraq (NTM-I).Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 19:50:21|Editor: xuxin

Video Player Close

MALE, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- Maldivian President Abdulla Yameen on Wednesday called on all fellowmen to maintain peace and prosperity within the nation and urged the new leadership to put the interests of the country above their own.

Days after filing a legal challenge in the island's Supreme Court against the results of the Sept. 23 presidential elections in which he was defeated to opposition candidate Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, Yameen said he took these last days in office to thank all his citizens, especially his voters.

"As I conclude my presidential term, I want to talk about my policies," Yameen said in a farewell speech to the nation.

"All of the government's policies have been based on ensuring the safety and security of the country. It hasn't been an easy task five years in office," he added.

Yameen emphasized that his administration had always worked on constructing and maintaining a strong foreign relation with other nations, particularly countries in the region and the interference of external forces in the Maldives' internal affairs will not be tolerated.

He said he would remain "a loyal citizen who wishes well for the nation" and "move forward with political work together with thousands of people."

Yameen's party, the Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM), filed a legal challenge in the Supreme Court against the presidential polls last week, alleging that there had been rigging.

The case was heard in the Supreme Court on Monday and Tuesday and a verdict is expected to be announced soon.

The Elections Commission has dismissed the allegations raised by the PPM and stressed there were no irregularities or complaints that could affect the outcome of the election.

According to official and final results released by the Elections Commission last month, Ibrahim Mohamed Solih had secured 134,705 votes in the poll while incumbent President Yameen had secured 96,052 votes.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 20:00:22|Editor: xuxin

Video Player Close

JERUSALEM, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- Israeli President Reuven Rivlin met with UN Special Envoy Nickolay Mladenov in Jerusalem on Wednesday and discussed the recent escalation between Israel and Hamas.

"Israel will not stand by while our people are under attack, and the world must know that," Rivlin told the envoy, according to a statement released by the President's Residence.

"We will respond, using all necessary force, until there is calm," he warned.

Rivlin blamed Hamas, the Palestinian group that runs Gaza, for a rocket attack on Wednesday morning, in which a rocket hit a house in Israeli southern city of Beersheba, causing damage and panic.

"As long as Gaza is controlled by Hamas, it is responsible for every attack on Israel," Rivlin said.

Mladenov said that the rocket attack was a "dangerous escalation of the situation," adding that he hoped a farther escalation will be avoided.

"It is our duty and responsibility to do everything possible to avoid such a conflict," he said.

Israel launched a wide-scale air attack, targeting Hamas sites, according to the military. At least one Palestinian was killed by the strikes and three others were injured, local media reported.

The Hamas and the Islamic Jihad denies launching the rocket and condemned the attack as hampering Egypt's efforts to achieve a ceasefire agreement that would include the cancelation of Israeli blockade that has been imposed on Gaza since 2007.

The escalation came after weeks of tensions. Gazans have been holding demonstrations near the fence separating Gaza from Israel since March 30, to protest blockade.

The protest includes occasional launchings of helium-filled balloons to set fires in southern Israel's farmlands.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 20:05:23|Editor: xuxin

Video Player Close

NEW DELHI, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- India's Junior External Affairs Minister M.J. Akbar resigned on Wednesday amid allegations of sexual assaults against him by a few women journalists.

He said in a statement that he would challenge the "false accusations" levied against him.

Following allegations of sexual assault by women journalists who worked with him when he was an editor, Akbar has filed a defamation case in a Delhi court against one of those women journalists.

"Since I have decided to seek justice in a court of law in my personal capacity, I deem it appropriate to step down from office and challenge false accusations levied against me, also in a personal capacity," he said.

"I have therefore tendered my resignation from the office of minister of state (junior minister) for external affairs," he added.

Meanwhile, after Akbar had moved court with a defamation case against one of the women journalist who accused him sexual assault many years ago, as many as 20 women journalists who worked under him at different points of time told media that they would also ask the court to consider "testimony of sexual harassment of some of us at the hands of Akbar" and others who "bore witness to his harassment," reported the Indian Express daily.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 20:10:24|Editor: xuxin

Video Player Close

GAZA, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- Calm in the Gaza Strip has been restored on Wednesday following an Egyptian security intelligence mediation between Israel and Hamas-led militant groups, sources in Gaza told Xinhua.

The sources said that a senior Egyptian security intelligence delegation, which arrived in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, succeeded within the last few hours after intensifying its contacts to end a military escalation in the Gaza Strip.

The Egyptian delegation, headed by Ayman Badea and other officials, had exerted intensive efforts to restore calm in the Gaza Strip after firing rocket from Gaza into Israel, according to the sources.

Large and intensive contacts had been held with representatives of Palestinian factions and political powers, including Hamas movement and their armed wings to prevent more military escalation in the coastal enclave.

Overnight, unknown militants fired a rocket from the Gaza Strip into Israel. No one claimed responsibility for the rocket attack, where the rocket landed at a yard of a house in the Israeli town of Beersheba.

According to Israeli media reports, the rocket that was fired from the Gaza Strip wounded three Israelis and caused severe damages to several houses in the area.

In response, Israeli war jets carried out intensive airstrikes on military facilities that belong to Hamas and other militant groups. An Israeli army spokesman said that 20 targets were hit all over the Gaza Strip.

Health Ministry Spokesman in Gaza Ashraf al-Qedra told reporters that one Palestinian was killed and three wounded in the Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip.

He added that Naji Za'aneen, 26 years old from northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun, was killed and three wounded in the Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip.

Following the early escalation in the Gaza Strip, Israel announced that the two major crossing points for goods and individuals were closed and the area allowed for fishing in the sea was reduced to three miles.

Palestinian Hamas-led armed wings denied in a joint statement on Wednesday morning that their militants were responsible for firing a rocket from the Gaza Strip into Israel.

A written statement signed by the joint committee of all the armed wings in the Gaza Strip, including Hamas movement, said that the armed wing of Hamas and other armed wing factions deny responsibility of firing rockets into Israel.

The Hamas-led armed groups held an emergency meeting on Wednesday morning after Israeli war jets carried out six airstrikes on the Gaza Strip in response to firing a rocket from the Gaza Strip into Israel.

The joint statement of the factions' armed wings said that firing a rocket from the Gaza Strip into Israel "came to sabotage the Egyptian efforts to reach a truce agreement with Israel in the Gaza Strip."

It said that the armed wings of all the Palestinian factions are standing to the side of their people in carrying on with the rallies that started from March 30 to end Israeli blockade imposed on Gaza since 2007.

The fresh escalation of violence in Gaza happened as a senior Egyptian security intelligence delegation arrived in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday to mediate a calm agreement between Israel and Hamas-led Gaza militant groups.

Sources close to Hamas said the Egyptians held talks with senior Hamas leaders over the current developments in Gaza as well as reaching a truce with Israel and achieving reconciliation with Fatah Party of President Mahmoud Abbas.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 20:10:24|Editor: ZD

Video Player Close

BEIJING, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- President Xi Jinping has urged redoubled efforts to win the tough battle against poverty on schedule.

China should stick to its poverty relief target and work harder for a victory in the battle, Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, stressed when giving instructions on poverty reduction work, as the country observes the fifth National Poverty Relief Day, which falls on Oct. 17 every year.

China has gradually been eradicating poverty since the country's reform and opening-up policy was launched in 1978. Continued hard work for 40 years has helped more than 700 million of the population shake off poverty and created miracles in human poverty reduction history, said Xi.

The extreme poverty that has existed for thousands of years for the Chinese nation is now close to being historically solved, and China's tough battle against poverty has entered the most crucial stage, said Xi.

"What the most critical moment needs is the firm belief in success and determination to summon up courage. As long as all regions and departments take on responsibilities and conduct solid work, cadres and masses in poverty-stricken areas forge ahead and work hard, the whole party and the people of all ethnic groups unite as one and stick to the poverty relief target and work harder for a victory, we will certainly win the tough battle against poverty on schedule," stressed Xi.

Premier Li Keqiang, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, said that all regions and departments should intensify targeted poverty alleviation through integration with the rural vitalization strategy, offering more support to deeply impoverished regions.

Premier Li also called for stronger measures to help special groups in poverty-stricken areas, stricter supervision of poverty relief funds and improvement of poverty relief work evaluation and inspection.

China will reduce the poor population by 10 million in 2018, in order to deliver the country's target of eradicating poverty in rural areas and eliminating regional poverty by 2020.

China held a commendation meeting on poverty alleviation Wednesday in Beijing, where 99 people and 40 institutions were honored for their efforts in reducing poverty.

Hu Chunhua, a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and chief of the State Council Leading Group of Poverty Alleviation and Development, underlined that to win the battle against poverty, Chinese people should be self-reliant and hardworking, unite and create a good atmosphere by remaining true to the country's original aspirations and taking responsibilities to overcome difficulties.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 20:15:27|Editor: xuxin

Video Player Close

LONDON, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- Owners of aggressive pets in Britain will face mandatory dog awareness courses under measures put forward Wednesday by a committee of House of Commons politicians.

A report by the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee on the control of dangerous dogs calls for a full-scale review of current rules to better protect the public from attacks by family pets.

The inquiry by the MPs was launched to investigate current laws which ban specific breeds, as well as examining wider dog controls. It follows concerns that the current approach to dog controls was not protecting the public adequately.

The committee said an alternative dog control model should be developed to focus on prevention through education, early intervention, and consistently robust sanctions for offenders.

Among its recommendations to the government is a call for mandatory dog awareness courses for owners involved in low to mid-level offences. A compulsory training course would be similar to speed awareness courses for car drivers.

There should also be awareness campaigns to encourage responsible ownership and improve childhood education on staying safe around dogs.

The MPs also want an independent review into the factors behind dog aggression and attacks, and whether banned breeds pose an inherently greater threat.

The committee members raised serious concerns about the robustness current banned breed legislation, highlighting evidence showing that some legal breeds can pose just as great a risk to public safety as illegal breeds.

It is estimated that more than a quarter of all households in Britain own a pet dog.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 20:35:32|Editor: xuxin

Video Player Close

KIEV, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- The blast that killed at least 10 people in a college in the city of Kerch in Crimea was caused by an unknown explosive device, local media said Wednesday, citing a report of the Russian anti-terrorist committee.

According to the report, at least 50 people were injured in the explosion that rocked Kerch Polytechnic College earlier in the day.

Meanwhile, social media users said that shooting also occurred at the college.

Crimea was incorporated into Russia in March 2014 following a local referendum. Ukraine says the peninsula was annexed.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 20:50:34|Editor: Shi Yinglun

Video Player Close

BEIJING, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- China on Wednesday firmly opposed recent actions by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, urging Japan to squarely face up to and earnestly reflect upon its history of aggression.

The remarks were made by Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang at a daily press briefing when asked to comment on Abe sending ritual offerings to the Yasukuni Shrine earlier that day.

The Yasukuni Shrine honors Class-A Japanese war criminals from World War II who were directly responsible for its past aggression, Lu said, adding that China always firmly opposes Japan's war-related wrongdoings.

"We urge Japan to squarely face up to and reflect upon its invasion history, and win trust from its Asian neighbors and the international community through concrete actions," Lu added.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 20:50:35|Editor: Shi Yinglun

Video Player Close

SHANGHAI, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- U.S. carmaker Tesla Inc. has just purchased a tract of land measuring 864,885 square meters from Shanghai municipal government, to set up its first overseas plant in the city, said a source of Shanghai Lingang Area Development Administration Wednesday.

The price tag of the deal is kept unknown.

The website of Shanghai Land Market, however, shows the original starting price of the land for sale was 973 million yuan (about 141 million U.S. dollars).

Tesla's super factory in Shanghai was officially launched in the Lingang Area after Tesla signed a land grant contract with Shanghai municipal administration for planning and land resources.

Tesla signed an agreement with Shanghai municipal government in July to build a factory with a planned annual capacity of 500,000 electric cars. The company is the first to benefit from a new policy allowing foreign carmakers to set up wholly-owned subsidiaries in China.

According to the Shanghai municipal government, it will be the largest foreign-invested manufacturing project in the city's history. Lingang Area has already enhanced infrastructure in the surrounding area to support the project.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 20:50:36|Editor: xuxin

Video Player Close

NAIROBI, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- Kenya is developing health and safety protocols to boost livestock exports, an official said on Wednesday.

Harry Kimutai, principal secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation, told an agricultural forum in Nairobi that currently Kenya's livestock cannot access the lucrative overseas markets due to high prevalence of animal diseases such as foot-and-mouth disease.

"The protocols will ensure that livestock meet stringent standards imposed by importing countries," Kimutai said during the Commercial Bank of Africa Economic Forum.

Kimutai said that Middle East countries such Saudi Arabia and Oman have already expressed interest in purchasing live animals from Kenya.

He said that the livestock will be quarantined at the Bachuma Livestock Export Processing Zone before they are exported.

The government has already set aside 1 million U.S. dollars to develop the livestock exporting processing zone, which will be operational by June 2019, Kimutai said.

Kenya will use the public-private-partnership model to expand production of the livestock sector, he said.

The ministry also plans to amend the Branding of Stock Act to allow for the introduction of the Livestock Identification and Traceability System (LITS), Kimutai said, noting that the system will help enhance food security.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 21:00:40|Editor: Shi Yinglun

Video Player Close

SHENYANG, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- French carmaker Renault, Brilliance China Automotive Holdings and the municipal government of northeast China's Shenyang have signed an agreement to accelerate the growth of light commercial vehicles (LCVs) in the Chinese market.

The agreement came after Renault and Brilliance Auto formed a joint venture to manufacture and sell LCVs earlier this year.

According to the agreement, Renault and Brilliance Auto will be committed to making the joint venture a leader in China's LCV market.

Renault will provide seven LCV models, including three electric ones, for the joint venture within the next three years, said the agreement.

The two sides have also agreed to establish a research and development center for LCVs in Shenyang, capital of Liaoning Province.

Earlier this month, German carmaker BMW announced that it would extend the contract term of the joint venture BMW Brilliance Automotive (BBA) in the city.

BMW will also invest more than 3 billion euros (about 3.5 billion U.S. dollars) in new and existing plant structures in Shenyang over the coming years.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 21:10:42|Editor: xuxin

Video Player Close

DOHA, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- Qatar Petroleum (QP) has signed an agreement with China's Oriental Energy to supply the Chinese company with 600,000 metric tons of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) annually in five years.

The long-term deal will come into effect in January 2019, said a QP statement on Tuesday.

"The agreement reflects our marketing strategy for promoting direct engagement with end-users, especially in China,'' said Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, QP president and CEO.

"We hope this deal will further enhance our energy relationship with China, as we attach great importance to meeting the needs of the world's largest growing LPG market," he added.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 21:10:42|Editor: Shi Yinglun

Video Player Close

BEIJING, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- China's new yuan-denominated loans stood at 1.38 trillion yuan (about 200 billion U.S. dollars) in September, up from 1.28 trillion yuan in August, the central bank data showed Wednesday.

The amount was 111.9 billion yuan more than in August 2017, according to data from the People's Bank of China (PBOC), the central bank.

New yuan loans in the first nine months of the year totaled 13.14 trillion yuan, compared with 13.53 trillion yuan for the whole of 2017.

For the Jan-Sept. period, new medium- and long-term loans to households, mainly used for home purchases, amounted to 3.83 trillion yuan. Meanwhile, new loans to non-financial enterprises, government departments and organizations, which mainly represent lending to the real economy, hit 7.11 trillion yuan.

The M2, a broad measure of money supply that covers cash in circulation and all deposits, rose 8.3 percent year on year to 180.17 trillion yuan at the end of September. The pace of growth accelerated from a rise of 8.2 percent registered in August.

The narrow measure of money supply, or the M1, which covers cash in circulation plus demand deposits, rose 4 percent year on year to 53.86 trillion yuan at the end of September.

Newly-added social financing, a measurement of funds that individuals and non-financial firms get from the financial system, was 15.37 trillion yuan for Jan-Sept. period, down 2.32 trillion yuan year on year.

In September alone, newly-added social financing reached 2.21 trillion yuan, up from 276.8 billion yuan in August.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 21:10:42|Editor: Shi Yinglun

Video Player Close

by Naim-Ul-Karim

DHAKA, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- After 40 years of reform and opening-up, China has become an economic powerhouse providing a lot of new opportunities through its development initiatives like the Belt and Road Initiative which will be of global benefit, a Bangladeshi expert told Xinhua in a recent interview.

Professor of economics at Dhaka University Selim Raihan, also the executive director of the South Asian Network on Economic Modeling (SANEM), a leading think-tank, made the remarks on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of China's reform and opening-up.

"China's economic development, poverty reduction and other areas of achievement over the past few decades have been impressive," said Raihan, also an honorary senior research fellow at the University of Manchester in Britain.

From a very low level of per capita gross domestic product (GDP) and high rate of poverty, he said China, over the past few decades, has succeeded in substantially raising its per capita GDP as well as radically reducing the rate of poverty.

These achievements in China have lifted tens of millions of people out of poverty, which has also contributed to the global reduction of poverty over the past few decades, he added.

"China has invested quite a lot in developing its physical and social infrastructure. As part of its physical infrastructural development, China has made significant progress and has witnessed rapid urbanization."

In the case of social infrastructure, especially health and education, China has also made great strides, he said.

"Countries, like Bangladesh, have a lot of things to learn from China such as how China has achieved such rapid economic growth and made significant structural changes to its economy that have seen the contribution of manufacturing to GDP and employment increased substantially," said Raihan.

"Whenever I visit China, I am always impressed at the progress being made and the way the country has developed its infrastructure, achieved greater urbanization, as well as how the quality of human capital, especially in terms of education and health, has improved," he said, adding that the improvements witnessed in China are an inspiration for the ways in which Bangladesh can elevate itself.

Talking about the current protectionist trend, the scholar said it is not beneficial to economic growth and trade expansion at a global level.

"Therefore, it is very important that the countries in Asia, especially the developing countries go for more South-South cooperation and increase trade ... to counter the negative effects," Raihan maintained.

Regarding the Belt and Road Initiative, the expert said it not only talks about trade and investment, but also about connectivity.

"Many of the prospective participating countries can increase their trade and achieve economic growth if connectivity among these countries can be improved. Studies have shown that larger connectivity can benefit trade and investment markedly, especially when it comes to linking with global and regional value chains," Raihan said.

Therefore, the initiative is very important for participating countries in Asia as well as Europe, he added.

With regard to the BCIM (Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar) Economic Corridor, he said it will create a great opportunity to connect India and China, two economic giants in Asia, with Bangladesh and Myanmar standing to benefit manifestly.

"This economic corridor has the potential to lead to a large expansion in trade and investment for Bangladesh. Bangladesh can benefit by developing its physical infrastructure, port facilities, as well as different economic zones along the economic corridor, and invite foreign investment to maximize the benefit out of this economic corridor."

Once materialized, according to the economist, poverty reduction in Bangladesh will be significantly achieved and other social developments can be better supported.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 21:10:42|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

Wang Yang, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), visits Jinxing Village of Hutiaoxia Town in Shangri-la, southwest China's Yunnan Province, Oct. 15, 2018. Wang made an inspection tour in Yunnan and examined work related to ethnic and religious affairs and poverty alleviation in the Tibetan-inhabited areas. (Xinhua/Ding Lin)

KUNMING, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- China's top political advisor Wang Yang has called for continuous efforts to consolidate and develop ethnic unity, religious harmony and social stability, win the battle against poverty and improve people's livelihood.

Wang, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, made the remarks while examining work related to ethnic and religious affairs and poverty alleviation in the Tibetan-inhabited areas in southwest China's Yunnan Province.

Wang, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, said it was especially important for Yunnan to make effective efforts in ethnic and religious work as the province is a multi-ethnic and multi-religious region in China.

"We must fully implement the Party's basic policy on religious affairs, adhere to the direction of sinicization of religions in China, strengthen rule of law in religious work and provide active guidance to religions so they can adapt themselves to socialist society," said Wang.

The religious circle must oppose all separatist and sabotage activities, Wang stressed.

He also pointed out that poverty alleviation remained an arduous task in the Tibetan-inhabited areas in Yunnan and urged the province to make due efforts to accomplish the historic task of shaking off absolute poverty on time.

Wang underlined the importance of education to help people in poor areas enhance their capacity for self-development.

During the tour, Wang visited poor families in rural areas, villager's committees, community service centers and religious venues, to learn about local economic and social development, poverty alleviation work, ethnic unity and management of religious venues. He also listened to reports on poverty alleviation in the province.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 21:20:44|Editor: xuxin

Video Player Close

KAMPALA, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- Two Ugandan peacekeepers were killed and an unknown number injured in a Tuesday ambush in Marka town in Lower Shabelle region, southern Somalia, a military spokesperson said here on Wednesday.

Lt. Col. Deo Akiiki, Uganda's deputy military spokesperson, told Xinhua by telephone that the two soldiers serving under the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) were ambushed and killed by militant group al-Shabaab, ahead of Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi "Farmajo" Mohamed's visit to the region.

"I can confirm there was an ambush on our troops who were on patrol in Marka and we lost two soldiers. We also have some injuries," Akiiki said.

"We are waiting for the details, names of deceased soldiers and injured from AMISOM so that we inform their next of kin and family," he added.

Uganda contributes some 6,500 soldiers to the 22,000 African Union peacekeeping force deployed to pacify the war-torn Horn of African country.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 21:25:45|Editor: xuxin

Video Player Close

by Nathan Morley

VIENNA, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- In Europe, Austria remains one of the last bastions of free, unhindered smoking, despite a plethora of legislation regarding tobacco in neighbouring countries.

In the eyes of many tourists, seeing customers incessantly puffing, creating a bluish-gray haze of smoke in the thriving cafes on the famous Herrengasse in Vienna, can be astonishing.

Austrians' passion for lighting-up has earned their country the moniker "ashtray of Europe". But it is now tiring of the bad reputation and has started to seek some changes.

A recent petition from the "Don't Smoke" campaign calling for a referendum on a ban on smoking in the catering and hospitality industry gained nearly 900,000 votes. Although more people are becoming aware of the health hazards, it seems unlikely that the government will take action.

"Austria was in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) survey as the only country, except for Slovakia and Indonesia, where smoking prevalence did not decrease," Dr. Manfred Neuberger, professor emeritus at the Medical University of Vienna, told Xinhua.

Neuberger is one of the leading campaigners pushing for a change in Austria's liberal smoking laws. He laments the high numbers of teenage and young smokers as being a "shame for the whole country" and charges that efforts to create a smoke-free environment is impeded by a lack of strong leadership at the highest levels.

In fact, the OECD report revealed that Austria, a country of just 8.8 million people, had the highest smoking prevalence of children aged 15, a position it has held since 1994 in a 2013 survey.

"Most 13 to 15 years-old purchase their cigarettes from tobacco shops, so there is no control. Many also buy them from vending machines," Neuberger said.

Everywhere you go in Vienna, the smell of wafting cigarette smoke is never far away. Neither are the ubiquitous coin-vending machines, which dispense cigarettes on street corners. At cafes, ashtrays are placed at every table.

In most cities -- from Salzburg to Vienna -- it remains culturally and socially acceptable to smoke in public places -- and even many shop and office workers have no qualms lighting-up indoors.

In March, lawmakers scrapped a plan to ban smoking in coffee houses and restaurants, despite public support. The legislation was shelved by the far-right Freedom party (FPO) during coalition talks with the People's Party earlier this year.

"This law was passed, but it was annulled again this year by the new government. So, this is the situation at the moment, but when 900,000 people sign a petition for a change, that is a lot for a small country. The government is standing by their reactionary policy to help to the tobacco industry," Neuberger says.

For their part, the FPO insists that a smoking ban would be an intrusion on individual liberty and would hurt trade at bistros, bars and cafes. In contrast, anti-smoking campaigners charge that such claims are ludicrous and point to Ireland a country with a strong pub culture that introduced legislation and enjoyed almost complete compliance.

"The reason is of course that the politicians listen to the lobbyists of the tobacco and hospitality industry -- and the tobacconists are a very powerful lobby. So, they don't listen to scientists, especially their own scientists from Austria," Neuberger added.

Many older Austrians cling to the idea that drinking, eating, and smoking is part of an age-out culture, especially in Vienna's famous coffee houses, even though most other European countries have long passed smoking legislation.

Authorities in Italy, France, and England say bans on lighting-up have significantly reduced consumption in recent years by forcing smokers outdoors.

Despite that, Neuberger feels Austria is stuck in a strange limbo on the issue.

"We asked some scientists from abroad and made a public hearing, with scientists from California, Australia and so on. They told the government what would be necessary and what has to be done, but they were ignored," he said.

Smoking is responsible for 16 percent of deaths in Austria, including 230 deaths a year from passive smoking. Men who smoke have a life expectancy cut by an average of 7.5 years, and women by 6.3 years.

"This is a situation that has to change, sooner or later," Neuberger said.

It is estimated that every year cigarettes kill 7 million people globally, more than tuberculosis, malaria, and AIDS combined.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 21:25:45|Editor: Shi Yinglun

Video Player Close

FUZHOU, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Vice Premier Sun Chunlan has called for more efforts to better implement the decisions and arrangements of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and the State Council to deepen the country's medical reform in all areas, and to keep improving the people's health and wellbeing.

Sun, also a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, made the remarks during a three-day inspection tour in southeast China's Fujian Province that ended Wednesday.

Sun, who visited several local healthcare institutions in Fujian, underscored the importance of promoting public hospital reform, stressing that it is "the top priority for deepening the medical reform."

Salary system reform should be deepened to ensure practitioners enjoy equal pay for equal work, Sun said.

She also urged to add cancer drugs with lowered prices to the medical insurance as soon as possible and asked for efforts to reduce the burden on patients and bring them more convenience.

During the inspection, Sun visited some elderly people living in Fuzhou, capital of Fujian, and extended congratulations to all the seniors around the country during the Chongyang Festival, a traditional Chinese festival to pay respects to elders that falls on Oct. 17 this year.

She stressed to combine the solutions tackling the aging population and the deepening of the medical reform, and to promote the integrated development of healthcare institutions and the elderly care service system.A Cuban diplomat chants slogans during the "Jailed for What?" campaign, at the United Nations headquarters in New York, Oct. 16, 2018. A United States-sponsored campaign aimed at criticizing the human rights situation in Cuba on Tuesday encountered strong and fierce protest at the UN. (Xinhua/Li Muzi)

UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 16 (Xinhua) -- A United States sponsored campaign aimed to criticize the human rights situation in Cuba on Tuesday encountered strong and fierce protest at the United Nations (UN).

"Cuba yes! blockade no!" chanted the participants in Spanish at the "Jailed for What?" campaign in a rhythmic voice with hands pounding the desks and feet stamping on the floor while U.S. envoy to the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) Kelley Currie, Secretary-General of the Organization of American States Luis Almagro and others were speaking.

The United States launched the campaign in a bid to hold Cuba's authorities accountable for human rights violations in the ECOSOC chamber -- UN's central platform for reflection, debate, and innovative thinking on sustainable development.

The in-door protest, launched mostly by Cuban and some other Spanish-speaking diplomats, lasted for more than half an hour.

The moderator finally gave up the Q&A sessions due to the unexpected roaring protest rarely seen in the UN history.

In a statement issued after the event, Cuban UN ambassador Anayansi Rodriguez Camejo told reporters that "the United States lacks the morals to give lessons, much less in this matter."

"The event, as we had foreseen, was a political comedy staged on false arguments," she added.

"It is part of the actions aimed at subverting the legitimately established constitutional order and of the interventionist agenda that has gained renewed momentum under the current administration, whose fascist, racist and xenophobic ideas are a matter of grave concern in the international community," she added.

"This is an attack not only on a sovereign state, but also on the principles of multilateralism and the foundational bases of the United Nations," said the ambassador.

Sacha Sergio Llorenti Soliz, Bolivian ambassador to the UN, also criticized the United States, saying whenever this country does not need the UN, it could withdraw from its deals or agreements, but uses UN's premises whenever it thinks it is useful.

The United States has said in a statement that it estimates there are 130 political prisoners held by the Cuban government. That might be the major reason behind the campaign.

Earlier, the Cuban UN ambassador has demanded that UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres cancel the event.

She said the United States had itself violated human rights, especially in the use of torture, detention and "arbitrary deprivation of liberty" at its Guantanamo military base, where terrorism suspects have been held for years. She also pointed to the U.S. immigrant policies that have separated parents and children.

The Cuban ambassador on Monday told the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, that the United States "lacks any moral authority to judge Cuba, when its current administration drives an agenda of supremacist, racist and xenophobic ideas."

The UN General Assembly has, since 1992, passed a resolution every year condemning the ongoing impact of the embargo against Cuba and declaring it in violation of the UN Charter and of international law.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 21:35:47|Editor: xuxin

Video Player Close

JUBA, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- South Sudan's main rebel group, the Sudan People's Liberation Army in Opposition (SPLA-IO), on Wednesday denied holding prisoners of war (POWs) and political detainees in its ranks, amid reports that the rebels are still holding some prisoners.

The government and several rebel groups on Sept. 12 signed a new power-sharing deal aimed at ending the conflict that has devastated the world's youngest nation.

The pact demanded the parties to free all prisoners detained in relation to the conflict. South Sudan's national security service early this month said it had freed at least 20 detainees following the signing of the peace agreement.

Lam Paul Gabriel, SPLA-IO deputy military spokesperson, said his group has no prisoners to free since all persons detained by the SPLA-IO were released early this year.

"We don't have prisoners of war and political detainees. We were the first to release prisoners of war and political detainees when the cessation of hostilities agreement was signed last year, and we released all prisoners in January," Gabriel told Xinhua by phone.

South Sudan descended into civil war in late 2013, and the conflict has created one of the fastest growing refugee crises in the world.

The UN estimates that about 4 million South Sudanese have been displaced internally and externally. A peace deal signed in August 2015 collapsed in July 2016, following renewed violence in the capital, Juba.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 21:55:50|Editor: xuxin

Video Player Close

by Maria Spiliopoulou

ATHENS, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras accepted on Wednesday the resignation of Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias, according to an e-mailed press statement issued from the Premier's office.

Tsipras takes over the Foreign Ministry portfolio to help in the successful implementation of the agreement on the name issue with FYROM (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia), the statement read.

According to the statement, the Greek leader thanked Kotzias for his contribution so far.

According to government sources, Kotzias stepped down due to disagreements within the government coalition in Athens regarding the implementation of the agreement reached in June this summer.

According to the same sources during the latest cabinet meeting this week Kotzias had a strong disagreement with Defense Minister Panos Kammenos who is also the leader of the junior Right-wing party in the Left- led coalition.

Kammenos has repeatedly voiced in recent months his party's strong objection to the deal reached with Skopje which foresees the renaming of the neighboring state to Republic of North Macedonia.

Despite the two governments' strong commitment to the agreement which puts an end to a long-standing row, there are still strong reactions in both countries by opposition parties and citizens.

The dispute started in 1991 when FYROM declared independence from Yugoslavia choosing the name Macedonia which is also the name of a Greek province.

Athens expressed concern from the beginning that the use of the same name by the neighboring state could lead to territorial claims.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 21:55:51|Editor: xuxin

Video Player Close

ZAGREB, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- Civic initiatives that were launched to change the national election law and repeal the Istanbul Convention failed to collect enough signatures to call referendums about the issues, Croatian Administration Minister Lovro Kuscevic announced on Wednesday at the government's session.

Although both of them gathered more than 375,000 signatures, or 10 percent of the registered electorate, which is needed to run a referendum, it turned out that over 40,000 signatures were invalid.

Leaders of the initiatives were disappointed with the government decision. They insist to see all the figures and signatures that were deemed invalid. "We want to see every invalid signature," Kristina Pavlovic from the initiative that wants to repeal the Istanbul Convention told local news portal Dnevnik.hr.

Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said on Wednesday at the government's session that both initiatives would have a chance to look into all signatures and figures.

The Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, better known as the Istanbul Convention, was ratified in the Croatian parliament on April 13. Conservatives in Croatia believe that the Convention introduces the concept of "a third gender" in the national legislation and therefore don't support it.

The other initiative "The People Decides" wants to change the election law by reducing the number of MPs from 150 to 120 and redrawing constituencies. It also wishes to reduce the number of MPs who are representing ethnic minorities in Croatia.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 22:20:57|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang delivers a keynote speech at the China-Netherlands Business Forum in The Hague, the Netherlands, Oct. 16, 2018. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte also attended the forum. (Xinhua/Li Tao)

THE HAGUE, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- Instead of walking up the stairs step by step from the wing, Premier Li Keqiang made one single stride to get to the rostrum to address the China-Netherlands Business Forum here on Tuesday.

A short while earlier, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte made the same move.

"This can be a demonstration of the renewed China-Netherlands ties, which have taken a stride, especially for our practical cooperation," Li opened his speech with a metaphor.

Li was on a three-day official visit to the Netherlands, the first by a Chinese premier to the European country in 14 years.

"I have come to the Netherlands to renew and enhance a long-running friendship. A bright future dawns only when we maintain," Li said in an article published on newspaper Nouvelles D'Europe as he arrived in the country.

The visit, which was wrapped up on Tuesday, did "renew and enhance" the China-Dutch friendship, and took bilateral relations a wide stride forward.

DEEPENING PRACTICAL COOPERATION

Speaking highly of the Sino-Dutch practical cooperation at the business forum, the Chinese premier said the two governments will create an open and fair environment for business cooperation between the two countries.

Ahead of the forum, enterprises of the two countries signed a series of agreements worth nearly 10 billion U.S. dollars.

When meeting with Rutte on Monday, Li said China is willing to learn from the Netherlands in managing an ageing society and establishing cooperation mechanisms between the two sides in areas of urbanization, elder care and clean energy technologies.

The premier said China will deepen reforms and opening-up, and the country is willing to expand cooperation with the Netherlands on all fronts in the spirit of openness and inclusiveness, as well as mutual learning and mutual benefit.

Dutch companies are welcome to increase investment in China and share the dividend of China's new round of opening up and high-quality development, Li said.

The advancing of the Belt and Road Initiative, the boom of China's new growth drivers and upgrading of the industrial structure, and its innovation-driven development strategy, would also offer more opportunities to Dutch companies, Li said in the Nouvelles D'Europe article.

In his speech at the China-Netherlands Business Forum, Rutte highlighted the vigorous development of Dutch-China relations, saying that the two countries' practical cooperation in such fields as trade and investment enjoys continuous growth.

More than 900 Dutch companies are doing businesses and making investments in China and the number is increasing, Rutte said.

When holding talks with Li on Monday, Rutte said the Netherlands looks forward to tapping potentials for cooperation with China in areas including circular economy, urbanization and smart city, and expanding cooperation in third-party markets.

SAFEGUARDING MULTILATERALISM, FREE TRADE

During the visit, the two countries' leaders vowed to jointly safeguard multilateralism and free trade against the backdrop of a complicated international situation with increasing uncertainties.

By doing so, positive signals will be sent to the world that China, the Netherlands as well as Europe are maintaining a rules-based international order and are committed to the facilitation and liberalization of trade and investment, Li said when holding talks with Rutte.

Noting that the world is now facing the headwinds of unilateralism and protectionism, Li said in the Nouvelles D'Europe article that the solution to the challenges lies in "making a stronger commitment to uphold multilateralism, free trade, economic globalization and an open world economy, and striving to sustain the hard-won global recovery with concrete and concerted efforts."

For his part, Rutte said that the Netherlands would strengthen communication and coordination with China in multilateral mechanisms such as the United Nations and the G20, adding that the two countries are jointly committed to preserving rules-based multilateralism and free trade.

On the reform of the World Trade Organization, Li said during the meeting that China is willing to strengthen communication and coordination with the Netherlands on the issue.

The reform should be conducted in accordance with principles of free trade and openness, Li said, adding that it should also preserve the legitimate rights of developing countries and help mitigate the North-South divide.

The reform should be non-exclusive and based upon consultations and consensus, rather than being decided by a few countries, he said, noting that it should proceed in an orderly way based on mutual understanding and mutual accommodation.

When meeting with Dutch King Willem-Alexander on Monday, Li called on the two countries, both being open economies and major global traders, to support the rules-based international political and economic order, abide by commonly accepted norms, work together to defend multilateralism and free trade, and inject more certainties into the world.

In face of the challenges besetting today's world, the Netherlands and China have even more reasons to enhance unity and cooperation, so as to jointly address risks caused by uncertainties and safeguard the international trade system and the world's stability and development, said the king.

OPENING WIDER TO OUTSIDE WORLD

During the visit, Premier Li also reaffirmed China's commitment to further opening up.

China will open its door wider to the outside world and take more steps to expand market access, Li said when addressing the business forum, noting that China will treat all enterprises registered in China equally.

When meeting the press on Monday with Rutte, Li said "free trade is not a rejection of fair trade," and "without free trade, there is no fair trade; while without fair trade, free trade will not gain sustainable development."

As for multilateralism, Li told reporters that it does not mean disrespect for country-to-country relations, but a promotion to the democratization of international politics.c

Li reiterated China's determination to be more open to the world, saying that the country will continue to expand its markets for Dutch investments in such areas as agriculture and service.

For his part, Rutte urged all big countries to work collectively on an open, fair and multilateral trading system, saying that the Netherlands and China will make joint efforts to cope with global challenges.

"Free and fair trade is about not only how we can share the cake, it is also about how we can make the cake bigger," Rutte said.

Meanwhile, Li vowed at the business forum to further strengthen intellectual property rights (IPR) protection, saying that China by no means allows any forced transfer of the IPR.

"Any transfer of the IPR must be based on the will of the enterprises," Premier Li said, adding that any IPR violation in China will be severely punished in accordance with the law.

Without IPR protection, innovation cooperation is impossible and expansion of investment in the Chinese market lacks foundation, Li told over 400 business leaders and representatives from the two countries at the forum.File Photo: Participants of the Group of Seven (G7) summit European Union Council President Donald Tusk, British Prime Minister Theresa May, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, U.S. President Donald Trump, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, French President Emmanuel Macron, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker (from L to R) pose for a group photo on the first day of the G7 summit in La Malbaie, Quebec, Canada, June 8, 2018. (Xinhua/POOL)

WASHINGTON, Oct. 16 (Xinhua) -- The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday formally notified Congress of its intent to negotiate trade agreements with the European Union (EU), Japan and the United Kingdom.

In notification letters sent to congressional leaders, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said the U.S. aim is to "address both tariff and non-tariff barriers" with the three economies.

The Trump administration intends to start negotiations with the EU and Japan "as soon as practicable", but no earlier than 90 days from Tuesday, according to the letters.

The administration also intends to start trade talks with the UK "as soon as it is ready after it exits from the European Union on March 29, 2019."

The administration is required to notify Congress 90 days before it enters into free trade agreement negotiations with a trading partner, according to domestic trade laws.

The notification came after many U.S. industry associations warned that the administration's new tariffs against imports had hurt American businesses and consumers.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 22:36:01|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

KITALE, Kenya, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- Authorities on Wednesday arrested three suspected poachers and recovered six pieces of elephant tusk weighing 64 kg in northwestern Kenya.

Adan Alio, assistant director for Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) Western Conservation Area, said a KWS team trailed the suspects after receiving information from a member of the public.

"KWS team arrested three suspects and recovered six pieces of elephant tusk weighing 64 kilos in Makutano trading center on Wednesday," Alio told Xinhua. "The incident took place as a result of information our team were following up for the last three weeks."

The official said the ivories recovered have a street value of 0.6 million U.S. dollars. The suspects are from west Pokot and Bungoma counties.

The ivories could be from West Pokot County, where two elephants were killed late last year, Alio said.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 22:56:03|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

ISTANBUL, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- A Turkish team on Wednesday entered the residence of the Saudi consul general in Istanbul to seek further evidence over the disappearance of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

The team, including police officers and crime scene investigators, arrived at the residence of Saudi Consul General Mohammad al-Otaibi, who left Turkey for Riyadh the previous day, by about 15 vehicles including five mini-vans.

The search is part of the ongoing investigation into the whereabouts of Khashoggi, who has never been seen since entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2 for documents of his marriage with his Turkish fiancee.

The team is expected to search vehicles belonging to the consulate together with a group of Saudi officials, as Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told reporters earlier.

A Turkish team conducted a nine-hour search inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Monday evening, which lasted until early Tuesday.

Local media said investigators had found "certain evidence" that the journalist was murdered in the consulate building.

Turkey and Saudi Arabia agreed last week to work together on the missing-person case, which has sparked an international outcry.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 23:11:06|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

BERLIN, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- Germany's Federal Prosecution Office has launched investigations into a recent hostage-taking incident at the Cologne railway station, a spokesperson for the Karlsruhe-based judicial organization announced on Wednesday.

The spokesperson said that further details about the involvement of the federal prosecutors, which represent the government at the Federal Court of Justice, would be provided in the course of the day. The Federal Prosecution Office only conducts investigatory procedures in cases which potentially concern German interior security, including politically-motivated crimes or terrorist offenses.

Two days after the incident, the exact motive behind an arson attack and subsequent two-hour hostage taking at the Cologne Central Railway Station remains unclear.

Surveillance footage shows a man pouring large amounts of petrol on the floor of a fast food restaurant, followed by a dramatic blaze of fire. The suspect then left luggage filled with gas cartridges and fire accelerant in the burning restaurant before entering a nearby pharmacy where he took a member of the staff as hostage. The stand-off lasted for a further two hours before police opened fire on the man and successfully freed the hostage when he began to pour gasoline on his victim.

Klaus-Stephan Becker, the head of the Cologne criminal police, told the press on Tuesday that it was a matter of "great luck" that only a few people were injured in the incident. A 14-year-old girl suffered severe burns from the fast food restaurant fire while the hostage, another teenage girl, only experienced light injuries.

The perpetrator himself remains in a coma but is no longer in a critical condition according to local security authorities. Becker said that he was convinced that the hostage was a "victim by chance" and that the actual plan was "obviously an arson attack in the McDonald's."

The suspect is a Syrian asylum seeker who has been granted humanitarian residence in Germany until 2021. Police also revealed on Tuesday that the 55-year-old was known to them for several fraud- and theft related offenses and that he was unable to work due to poor mental health.

Security authorities found more gasoline during a search of the Cologne refugee accommodation where the suspect lives on Monday night but no immediate indication of any links to the "Islamic State" group as suggested by some media reports. Several data storage devices, including two cell phones, were confiscated.

The asylum seeker had lived in Germany continuously since 2015 with his son and brother, while his wife remained in Syria. An arrest warrant has been delivered to the currently hospitalized suspect for attempted murder in two instances and hostage taking.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 23:11:06|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

TOKYO, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- A pair of crested ibises from China arrived in Japan on Wednesday as a symbol of friendship between the two countries.

The pair of rare birds arrived in Japan's Narita Airport Wednesday afternoon, and were transferred to the Sado Japanese Crested Ibis Conservation Center in Niigata prefecture around evening.

The donation was made by China for the first time since 2007, and a signing ceremony of the handover document was held Wednesday.

Li Chunliang, deputy director of China's National Forestry and Grassland Administration, said at the ceremony that the arrival of the pair of crested ibises is an important action for protection of the rare birds as well as an embodiment of cooperation between China and Japan in wild animal protection.

The pair of crested ibises, named Lou Lou and Guan Guan, respectively, will bring not only rich genetic diversity but also Chinese people's friendship to Japan, he said.

Takaaki Katsumata, Parliamentary Vice-Minister of the Environment in Japan, said that the crested ibises are a symbol of the friendship between China and Japan, and their arrival will help the protection of Japanese crested ibises and promote communication and cooperation between China and Japan in this area.

A crested ibis is an iconic bird deeply rooted in Japanese history and culture. However, the number of crested ibises in Japan plunged in the 20th century and the Japanese-born ibises became extinct in 2003.

Cooperation between China and Japan on protection of crested ibises started in the 1980s, and since then, China had donated five crested ibises to help rebuild the species in Japan, while Japan had been supporting the protection of the crested ibises habitat in China through governmental and non-governmental projects.

The crested ibises in Japan nowadays are all descendants of those from China. Japan now has some 370 wild crested ibises, most of which are living on the Sado Island.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 23:21:07|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (L) holds talks with Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel in Brussels, Belgium, Oct. 17, 2018. (Xinhua/Wang Ye)

BRUSSELS, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- China is ready to work with Belgium to strength cooperation and exchanges at all levels, said Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Wednesday.

Li made the remarks in Brussels when holding talks with Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel during a working visit to the country.

Noting that China-Belgium ties have maintained the momentum of sound development, Li said Belgian companies are welcomed to invest in China, which will give equal treatment to all foreign enterprises as domestic enterprises.

Li said China is willing to import more high-quality Belgian agricultural products that suit the demands of Chinese market and hopes that Belgium can further facilitate bilateral trade and economic cooperation.

Li said the two countries can boost cooperation in technology and innovation and expand nuclear cooperation on the basis of abiding by international laws and meeting international obligations.

The two countries can deepen practical cooperation in infrastructure development and the digital economy while actively exploring the third-party market cooperation, he added.

The Chinese premier said China and Europe, both as major economies, should work together and take steps to push for progress in the negotiations of a China-EU investment treaty so as to send a positive message of upholding free trade, economic globalization, and the multilateral trading regime.

Michel said Belgium is willing to align the connectivity program of the European Union with China's Belt and Road Initiative and support Belgian enterprises in investing in China.

Furthermore, Belgium is ready to strengthen bilateral cooperation in trade, agriculture, technology, nuclear, aviation and other fields while enhancing the third-party market cooperation in Africa and Asia, Michel said.

Belgium supports effective multilateralism and free trade and stands ready to work with China to strengthen coordination and communication in the United Nations and other multilateral institutions, Michel said.

The two leaders witnessed the signing of bilateral cooperation documents on nuclear, the third-party market, culture, logistics, aviation, among others.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 23:36:09|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

MOSCOW, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Egyptian counterpart, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, signed an agreement Wednesday on comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation between the two countries, the Kremlin said.

Following talks on a whole range of issues of bilateral cooperation as well as key international and regional issues, the two sides signed the agreement that "sets serious and responsible tasks to further deepen Russian -Egyptian ties in various areas," Putin said, according to a Kremlin transcript.

In particular, the two presidents had thorough discussions about cooperation in the energy sector, industries, tourism, the military-technical field as well as the people-to-people sphere.

Russia will participate in the creation of a modern industrial and logistic zone in the Suez Canal area, which is expected to attract an investment of 7 billion U.S. dollars and create over 35,000 jobs, Putin said.

He also said Russia supports the idea of Egypt reaching an agreement on a free trade zone with the Eurasian Economic Union.

Putin and Sisi also agreed to continue coordination in order to accelerate the Syrian political process.

In addition, in the presence of the presidents, a memorandum of understanding on strategic political consultations was signed between the foreign ministers of the two countries, the Kremlin said in a separate statement.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 23:36:09|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday expressed concern over reports of heightened tensions on the island of Anjouan in the Comoros.

Guterres called on all concerned to exercise calm and utmost restraint in the interests of peace and stability in the country, said his spokesperson in a statement.

The UN chief urged all Comorian political actors to return to an African Union-brokered inter-Comorian dialogue and urged the government, political parties and civil society organizations to implement the confidence-building measures agreed to, in support of an inclusive dialogue process, said the statement.

Government troops clashed with protesters against President Azali Assoumani on the island of Anjouan on Tuesday.

Comoros, an island country in the western Indian Ocean, held elections on April 10 to choose its president and governors of three major highly autonomous islands, namely Grande Comore, Anjouan and Moheli.

Assoumani, from Grand Comore island, claimed victory in the referendum. The results of a June referendum on constitutional changes denied Anjouan's turn to hold the rotating presidency starting 2021.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 23:36:09|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

MADRID, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- The number of confirmed victims from the flash floods which affected the island of Mallorca late on the evening of Oct. 9 rose to 13 on Wednesday after the discovery of the body of a six-year-old boy named Artur, emergency services confirmed.

Rescue services had been searching for Artur for eight days after the car, in which he had been travelling with his mother and older sister, was swept away by torrential waters in eastern parts of the island

Artur's mother, 40-year-old Joana Literas was able to save his sister with the help of a German tourist, before their car was swept away.

The mother's boday was later found inside of the vehicle, while Artur remained missing, which led to a widespread search operation involving up to 400 people.

His backpack was uncovered by searches on Saturday, but it was not until this Wednesday that his body was finally discovered close to the town of Saint Llorenc, several kilometers from where his mother was found.

On Sunday members of the family released a statement, in which they had thanked the efforts of the rescue services, saying that "Despite all of the difficult moments that we are going through we must thank all of those who are continuing to tirelessly search for Artur."

They also said that although they didn't have hope Artur would be found alive, they wanted to find his body in order to have closure on the incident.

Before Artur, six Spaniards, three Germans, two Britons and a Dutch had been confirmed killed in one of the worst floods that hit Spain in recent decades.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 23:41:11|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

BELGRADE, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- Austrian support for Kosovo's membership in international institutions could reflect negatively on the possibility of reaching compromise between Serbia and authorities in its southern province that unilaterally seceded in 2008, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic told his visiting Austrian counterpart Alexander Van der Bellen on Wednesday, asking for a restrained approach.

Van der Bellen was in Serbia for a two-day visit where he and Vucic discussed economic and bilateral ties and Serbia's progress in European integration. There was a strong focus on the normalization of relations between Serbia and its province Kosovo and Metohija, which Austria recognizes as a separate country.

According to Serbia's public broadcaster RTS, Vucic said Serbia was prepared to talk with Austria about their differing opinions over Kosovo, and asked authorities in Vienna to withhold their support for Kosovo, especially the province's aspirations to join Interpol, until a compromise solution could be found between Belgrade and Pristina.

According to Van der Bellen, the condition for Serbia's European Union (EU) membership is to solve problems with Pristina, as EU does not wish to import new conflicts. However, Vucic expressed worry that open support for Kosovo's membership in international institutions would have a negative impact on the possibility to reach a compromise.

"We (Serbia and Austria) have had different attitudes over this for almost 10 years, and nothing has changed in those differences. We have to understand this. We will have to reach some agreements about this at some point if a possibility of a compromise solution ever comes across," Vucic said.

Van der Bellen said "Austria wholeheartedly supports Serbia's EU path", and that the EU, together with the United States, was ready to look at whether there was any possibility of compromise between Belgrade and Pristina.

The Austrian president asked Serbia to understand the request to resolve all bilateral disputes before EU accession.

"EU had two bad experiences that it does not wish to repeat: firstly, Cyprus, and secondly, the Slovenia-Croatia dispute," he explained.

Van der Bellen also met Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic. He will on Thursday take part in a panel discussion on the Western Balkans and the EU at the Belgrade Security Forum together with Vucic.

On the occasion of the centennial of the World War One, the two presidents will lay wreaths on Thursday at the Serbian Ossuary Monument, as well as the Austria-Hungary military cemetery from the same period.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 23:46:12|Editor: Chengcheng

Video Player Close

NEW DELHI, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- The number of Zika virus cases has reached 100 in India, with as many as 28 people being diagnosed with the infection in the past 36 hours, health officials said Wednesday.

"All the cases are from the western Indian state of Rajasthan and most are from its capital Jaipur," a health official said.

Alarmed at the situation, Indian Health Ministry Wednesday sent a special team to the state, the official added.

The ministry has already set up a control room at the National Centre for Disease Control to undertake regular monitoring of the situation in Rajasthan.

The Health Ministry has also directed states to adhere to the norms of National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme for controlling Zika. "However, there is no need to panic as it's not fatal," the official added.

Zika virus disease is spread by daytime-active Aedes mosquitoes. Its symptoms include fever, skin rashes, conjunctivitis, muscle and joint pain, and headache.

This is the third Zika virus outbreak in India since January 2017.

The first outbreak of Zika was reported in India in January 2017 in the western state of Gujarat, while the second outbreak was reported in the southern state of Tamil Nadu in July 2017. Both these outbreaks were contained.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-17 23:56:17|Editor: Chengcheng

Video Player Close

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu walks with visiting U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Ankara, Turkey, on Oct. 17, 2018. Turkish and U.S. top diplomats met over the issues of the missing Saudi journalist and Syria's Manbij, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Wednesday. (Xinhua/Mustafa Kaya)

WASHINGTON, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday said that the United States is willing to help Turkey investigate the case of a missing Saudi journalist.

According to a statement issued by State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert, Pompeo earlier on Wednesday met with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu in Ankara, and discussed "a range of issues of bilateral importance including Syria, Iran, and counterterrorism."

Pompeo welcomed the Turkish decision to release U.S. pastor Andrew Brunson and "reiterated the United States' willingness to assist Turkey in its investigation of the Jamal Khashoggi case," read the statement.

It added that Pompeo also discussed with Cavusoglu "the continued wrongful detention of Dr. Serkan Golge and other U.S. citizens as well as locally employed staff from U.S. Mission Turkey."

In a separate statement also issued by Nauert, Pompeo on the same day met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, as the top U.S. diplomat "expressed the United States' concern over Jamal Khashoggi's disappearance and reiterated the United States' willingness to assist Turkey in its investigation."

Before heading to Turkey on the same day, Pompeo told the media in Riyadh that in his earlier meeting with the Saudi king, the crown prince and the Saudi foreign minister on Tuesday, he "stressed the importance of them conducting a complete investigation into the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi, and they made a commitment."

"They said they would do that and they said it would be a thorough, complete, and transparent investigation. We'll all see the results of that," Pompeo added.

According to Pompeo, the Saudi side made a commitment of showing "the entire world the results of their investigation" and would "get this done quickly."

Pompeo said the Saudi side had "promised accountability for each of those persons whom they determine as a result of their investigation has -- deserves accountability."

The U.S. diplomat also admitted that the United States and Saudi Arabia "have many overlapping interests" and "are trying to achieve important things around the world."

However, when asked whether the Saudi side had said that Khashoggi is alive or dead, Pompeo said, "I don't want to talk about any of the facts," adding that "I'm waiting for the investigation to be completed."

Pompeo said earlier on Tuesday that Saudi Arabia has strongly denied any knowledge of the disappearance of Khashoggi as U.S. President Donald Trump refused to condemn the country before any facts emerge.

The case of Khashoggi, a journalist and columnist for The Washington Post, has become a major source of tension between Saudi Arabia and the West.

Khashoggi has been missing since he entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2. Unconfirmed reports said that Khashoggi was likely killed inside the compound, a claim denied by Saudi officials as "baseless."Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-18 00:11:19|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

LUSAKA, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- The World Bank on Wednesday called for increased investment in climate resilience technologies especially in African countries.

World Bank Vice President for Africa Hafez Ghanem, who is in Zambia on a three-day state visit, said it was imperative to increase investment in climate resilience technologies as Africa was bearing the brunt of the effects of climate change.

Speaking when he met Finance Minister Margaret Mwanakatwe, the visiting World Bank official said investment in climate resilience was vital because climate change was a threat to the agricultural sector and food security in Africa.

The bank, he said, was supporting Zambia in implementation of various projects through a 1.2 billion U.S. dollars concessional loan under the International Development Assistance (IDA) portfolio.

He said the IDA 18 portfolio, which has been running for the past one-and-half years now has mainly focused on women and girl empowerment, improvement of the health sector as well as supporting increased access to electricity.

Meanwhile, the official said the IDA mid-term review meeting to be held in Zambia's southern city of Livingstone next month is meant to review the progress made under the IDA 18 portfolio during the period it has been running.

On her part, the Zambian minister thanked the World Bank for its continued support to the country's development.

She said the projects being supported by the Word Bank trough concessional funding were key to Zambia's development aspirations.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-18 00:16:22|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

ADDIS ABABA, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on Wednesday called for increased funding to meet the needs of 905,831 refugees in Ethiopia.

In a press statement, UNHCR said as of September 11, it has only been able to receive 69.5 million U.S. dollars of the total 327.8 million U.S. dollars it needs to meet the basic needs of refugees in Ethiopia until the end of 2018.

UNHCR further said it's receiving an increasing number of Eritreans who are crossing into Ethiopia following the re-opening of the two countries' borders, making its humanitarian financial assistance appeal even more urgent.

"Following the Joint Declaration of Peace and Friendship, signed on July 9, 2018, between former bitter rivals Ethiopia and Eritrea, two border crossing points were re-opened on September 11, 2018. The reopening has resulted in a significant increase in the number of new arrivals from Eritrea, with the average daily rate of arrivals increasing from 53 to 390 individuals," said the UNHCR statement.

Eritrean refugees allege indefinite military conscription, lack of meaningful economic activity and political repression as reasons why they fled their home country to Ethiopia. Ethiopia is also home to large group of refugees from South Sudan and Somalia fleeing internal strife and drought conditions.

Smaller groups of refugees fleeing war in Sudan and from Yemen are also part of the group the UNHCR has registered as refugees in Ethiopia.

UNHCR also said Ethiopia's own humanitarian crisis with 2.8 million people internally displaced, as a result of climate change and communal clashes, are also straining financial resources which would otherwise have been allocated to meeting the needs of refugees in Ethiopia.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-18 00:26:27|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

HELSINKI, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- The standoff between the center-right Finnish government and the country's trade unions showed no sign of easing on Wednesday as the cabinet won a parliamentary vote of confidence over its labor policy reform. As a reaction, the unions announced new, wider labor actions.

The acute issue is the legislative plan to make dismissals easier in small enterprises. The cabinet says the change would improve employment as the risk of being stuck with "a wrong recruit" would be reduced.

The unions say the change would create a two-tier labor force, with people in small companies having a worse job security. Its constitutionality has been questioned as well, in terms of the equality of citizens.

The voting results on Wednesday were 101 votes for and 73 against. Prime Minister Juha Sipila interpreted the result as a backing to moving forward with the plan.

The prime minister had actively sought the vote of confidence, which was seen by commentators as an attempt by Sipila to create through parliament "a shield against the unions". Commenting on the tactics, Teija Sutinen, political analyst of the newspaper Helsingin Sanomat, believed that it would not work.

The governmental plan to to ease the dismissals in small companies with less than 10 employees will hardly affect big companies, but major industrial unions have been willing to take action, fearing that the proposed system could begin spreading to bigger firms and public service later.

Antti Rinne, the chairman of the opposition Social Democratic Party, said again on Wednesday the government must return to the tripartite system where unions, the employers and the government used to prepare labor laws before parliamentary processes.

Sipila said the tripartite was tried, but it did not bring any results as unanimity was not reached.

IDEOLOGICAL BLOCKS RETURN

During the current job security quarrel, both the public opinion and the political scene have shown a division on ideological lines, which has not been seen so clearly for a long time in Finland.

Analysts believe Finland is moving to a "two blocks" system that is prevailing in Sweden. In votes from the opposition parties, the political left was joined by the greens and the right wing Finns Party members, while MPs of the often business-oriented Swedish Party and the small Christian League were split in either endorsing, opposing or voting blank.

Even though the Finns Party currently highlights anti-immigration and nationalist themes, its origins are in defending the small.

In opinion polls, the country is equally split. In a survey carried by Helsingin Sanomat, 47 percent of respondents opposed the government plan and 43 percent backed. The results of a poll by national broadcaster Yle were almost identical.

Before the parliamentary vote on Wednesday morning, a public sector union announced a two-day strike for next week. The action by ten thousand workers would hamper school meals, for example. Two unions representing nurses also announced shift change bans.

Various protests have continued for weeks organized by labor unions ranging from public services and major industries to the unions of teachers and highly skilled engineers. Local media expected that further measures would be taken by industrial unions later this week.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-18 00:31:29|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (L) and Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel meet the press in Brussels, Belgium, Oct. 17, 2018. (Xinhua/Ding Haitao)

BRUSSELS, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- China and Belgium on Wednesday agreed to keep unleashing complementary advantages, tapping more cooperation potentials, and yielding greater development achievements in pragmatic cooperation.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang made the remarks at a joint press conference after holding talks with his Belgian counterpart, Charles Michel.

The two heads of government briefed results of their talks at the press conference.

"The two sides agreed to maintain high-level exchanges, timely communicate on various issues and keep consolidating political mutual trust," Li said.

He suggested the two sides further expand two-way opening-up, upgrade the level of bilateral trade and investment, deepen cooperation in nuclear energy, aviation and aerospace, and enhance innovation cooperation.

On relations with Europe, the Chinese premier stressed that China and Belgium will work together toward a healthy and stable development of China-Europe relations.

He added that the two countries will jointly forge ahead connectivity between Asia and Europe and facilitate the process of a China-Europe bilateral investment treaty (BIT) negotiation.

In order to contribute to world peace, stability and development, China and Belgium will enhance communication and coordination under multilateral frameworks such as the United Nations, safeguard multilateralism and rules-based international order, maintain free trading system and open world economy, Li said.

For his part, Michel suggested the two countries tap potentials in economy and trade, investment, agriculture, energy, aviation, infrastructure and connectivity cooperation.

He called on Belgium and China to make joint efforts to facilitate development of Europe-China relations, reach an agreement on the BIT at an early date and take steps to promote mutual benefit between enterprises from the two countries.

Noting the consensus on safeguarding multilateralism and the rules-based global governance, the Belgian prime minister encouraged the two countries to jointly maintain world security, stability, and development. EnditemSource: Xinhua| 2018-10-18 00:41:31|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

KAMPALA, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- The Ugandan military on Wednesday clarified that one of its soldiers and a Somali civilian were killed in an ambush in Marka town in Lower Shabelle region, southern Somalia.

Lt. Col. Deo Akiiki, Uganda's deputy military spokesperson, told Xinhua by telephone on Wednesday that during the Sunday night ambush, staged by militant group al-Shabaab, 11 militants were also killed in the cross fire exchange.

The soldiers serving under the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) were on patrol, ahead of Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo's visit to the region.

"I can confirm there was an ambush on our troops who were on night patrol in Marka. One soldier died and a civilian also lost life in the cross fire exchange," Akiiki said.

"We are waiting for the details and name of the deceased soldier from AMISOM so that we inform the next of kin and family," he added.

Akiiki had earlier said that two soldiers were killed in the ambush.

Uganda contributes some 6,500 soldiers to the 22,000 African Union peacekeeping force deployed to pacify the war-torn Horn of Africa country.Chinese peacekeepers stand together with pupils of an Orthodox school in Lebanon's southern town of Marjeyoun on Oct. 17, 2018. (Xinhua photo)

MARJEYOUN, Lebanon, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese medical team working with the Chinese peace-keeping troops at the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) on Wednesday conducted medical examinations for students of an Orthodox school in southern Lebanon.

The Chinese medical team also donated school bags and stationery to students in Lebanon's southern town of Marjeyoun.

"The medical and educational help comes within the framework of the Chinese battalion's program in helping civilians in southern Lebanon," Luo Maohua, an official responsible for the field hospital for the Chinese battalion in Marjeyoun District, told Xinhua.

A Chinese peacekeeper hands a donated school bag to a boy student at an Orthodox school in Lebanon's southern town of Marjeyoun on Oct. 17, 2018. (Xinhua photo)

Around 130 students, aged between five and 12, and 28 teachers will receive medical examinations, Luo said.

Ziad Abla, the school director, expressed gratitude to the Chinese battalion for providing assistance for his school.

Similar activities in other areas in southern Lebanon are expected in coming weeks following the two-day medical examinations at the Orthodox school.

A Chinese medical peacekeeper examines the teeth of a girl student at an Orthodox school in Lebanon's southern town of Marjeyoun on Oct. 17, 2018. (Xinhua photo)

The UN Security Council established the UNIFIL on March 19, 1978 to monitor the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon. Its mandate was expanded following the 2006 Lebanon War.

Since 2006, China has maintained a peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon as a part of the UNIFIL, tasked with missions such as mine-sweeping, project construction, medical rescue and humanitarian assistance.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-18 00:56:35|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

ADDIS ABABA, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- Chairperson of African Union (AU) Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, on Wednesday condemned the suspension of the Inter-Comorian Dialogue among political actors in Comoros.

Faki made the call as the Inter-Comorian Dialogue in Comoros, which began on September 14 under the facilitation of the AU High Representative Ramtane Lamamra, was suspended as of October 2, the pan African bloc AU said in a statement on Wednesday.

The United Nations on Tuesday also expressed its concern over reports of heightened tensions on the island of Anjouan, an autonomous island in the Indian Ocean that forms part of the Union of the Comoros, and called on all concerned parties to exercise calm and utmost restraint in the interest of peace and stability in the Comoros.

According to the AU, the deterioration of the political environment in the archipelago is a result of certain measures, particularly the lifting of the parliamentary immunity of three opposition members on October 3, 2018.

Some of the three opposition members, whose parliamentary immunity was lifted on Oct. 3, were part of the opposition delegation to the inter-Comorian dialogue, it was indicated.

Faki stressed also the need for the rapid resumption of the Inter-Comorian dialogue and its conduct in a spirit of inclusivity, sincerity and good faith.

The Chairperson further called upon all Comorian political stakeholders to put the interest of their country above all other considerations, and reiterated the commitment of the African Union to accompany the Comoros to overcome the current challenges.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-18 00:56:37|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

MOGADISHU, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- Three East African countries on Wednesday reaffirmed their commitments to bolstering diplomatic relations for security and stability in the region.

Foreign ministers from Ethiopia, Somalia and Eritrea who held talks in Mogadishu noted that the stability of the region hinged on commitment of its leaders.

"In the course of engagements, the leaders discussed progress on the trilateral agreement of joint cooperation in the economic, political and security fields and reaffirmed their continued commitment to contributing jointly to peace, stability and progress in the Horn of Africa," the ministers said in a joint statement issued after the meeting.

The ministers said the meeting was part of the heightened diplomatic cooperation between the three nations and the continuing dialogue process following the trilateral agreement in Asmara, Eritrea in September.

The thawing of relations among the three countries has seen restoration of diplomatic relations between Ethiopia and Eritrea earlier this year, with the two countries re-opening embassies in each other's capitals.

Ethiopia also announced Tuesday its national carrier would be resuming flights to Mogadishu in November, the first time in 40 years.

The officials also confirmed support for Somalia and applauding it for progress in economic and security sectors as well as political processes.

"The ministers of Eritrea and Ethiopia will continue to stand firmly by the people of Somalia and its leadership as they present the best hope for the nation's recovery," the statement added.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-18 01:36:45|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

WASHINGTON, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Department of the Treasury on Wednesday imposed sanctions on Afaq Dubai, an Iraq-based money services business (MSB), accusing it of moving money for the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria.

In a statement, the Treasury said that the MSB is a part of IS's financial network that includes an array of other MSBs, hawalas, and financial facilitators funding terrorism across the Middle East.

It also said it had named Afaq Dubai as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist for "assisting in, sponsoring, or providing financial, material, or technological support for, or financial or other services to or in support of IS."

The MSB is located in Iraq and does not have any branches in the United Arab Emirates, the department said, adding that in May 2018, a Jordan-based IS financial facilitator deposited 3 million U.S. dollars from Iraqi dinar into three exchanges, including Afaq Dubai.

"We are targeting this network in concert with the Department of Defense as part of this Administration's ongoing campaign to cut off ISIS's ability to launder money and move illicit funds," said Sigal Mandelker, Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence.

"Even as ISIS's hold on territory is eliminated, we will continue to search for and shut down the illicit financial networks ISIS utilizes to fund terror attacks and sustain operations," Mandelker said.

As a result of the sanction, all property and interests in property of Afaq Dubai subject to U.S. jurisdiction are blocked and U.S. persons are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with them.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-18 01:41:47|Editor: ZD

Video Player Close

Wang Chen (R), a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and vice chairperson of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), meets with Vice Prime Minister of Kyrgyzstan Altynai Omurbekova in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 17, 2018. Altynai Omurbekova is in China to attend the Fifth Annual Conference of Taihu World Cultural Forum. (Xinhua/Shen Hong)

BEIJING, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- Wang Chen, vice chairperson of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), met on Wednesday with Vice Prime Minister of Kyrgyzstan Altynai Omurbekova, former Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, former Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski and Egypt's former Prime Minister Essam Sharaf, respectively, in Beijing.

These guests are in Beijing to attend the Fifth Annual Conference of Taihu World Cultural Forum from Oct. 17 to 19.

During his meeting with Omurbekova, Wang said traditional friendship between China and Kyrgyzstan boasts a long history. China and Kyrgyzstan in June agreed to establish a comprehensive strategic partnership, openning up a new chapter for friendly cooperation between the two countries.

China stands ready to work with Kyrgyzstan to actively promote the construction of the Belt and Road, intensify exchanges on experience in governance, and promote the mutually benefitial cooperation in culture and legislation, Wang said.

Omurbekova said that Kyrgyzstan will further strengthen pragmatic cooperation with China and enhance friendship among the people.

While meeting with Prodi and other guests, Wang said that China is committed to the path of peaceful development, calls for respecting the diversity of civilization, and advocates building a beautiful world featuring universal security, common prosperity, openness and inclusiveness.

China is willing to strengthen cultural exchanges and mutual understanding with all parties and jointly promote the building of a community with a shared future for humanity, Wang said.

The foreign guests expressed their willingness to actively participate in and promote exchanges between different civilizations and enhance mutual understanding and cooperation.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-18 02:11:55|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

NAIROBI, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- Kenya and Namibia on Wednesday developed joint frameworks that are aimed to boost bilateral ties particularly in the areas of diplomatic consultations, tourism and youth affairs, officials said.

Monica Juma, Kenya's cabinet secretary of foreign affairs, told a media briefing in Nairobi that the frameworks were developed during the ministerial segment of the inaugural Session of the Kenya-Namibia Joint Commission for Cooperation (JCC).

"The session has provided us with an excellent platform to conclude a number of bilateral frameworks that will revitalize our engagements in various areas of mutual interest," Juma said.

She noted that the envisaged signing of these key frameworks during the visit to Kenya on Friday by Namibia's President Hage Geingob will provide commendable momentum towards reinvigoration and consolidation of bilateral relations.

She added that the joint commission was able to review the existing frameworks of cooperation, verified the next step to address those that have lapsed and made recommendations on the way forward.

"It is equally important to note that the meeting was able to identify key sectors of our economies with potential for collaboration in line with our comparative advantages to foster shared prosperity for two nations and peoples," she observed.

Juma said that both nations have a timely opportunity to harness the momentous political goodwill and resolute mutual desire at the highest level to elevate the bilateral relations to a more strategic partnership.

Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, Namibia's deputy Prime Minister and Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, said that bilateral relations between Kenya and Namibia emanate from historic ties during the time of Namibia's liberation struggle.

She said that trade between the two countries is low and needs to be improved in line with relevant African Union decisions.

She noted that Namibia and Kenya are coastal states and cooperation in processing marine resources and developing the marine sector will bring mutual benefit to the two countries.

"Our two port authorities need to engage to take advantage of the emerging opportunities." she said.Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi during their meeting in Sochi, Russia on October 17, 2018. (KREMLIN PHOTO)

MOSCOW, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Egyptian counterpart, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, signed an agreement Wednesday on comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation between the two countries, the Kremlin said.

Following talks on a whole range of issues of bilateral cooperation as well as key international and regional issues, the two sides signed the agreement that "sets serious and responsible tasks to further deepen Russian -Egyptian ties in various areas," Putin said, according to a Kremlin transcript.

In particular, the two presidents had thorough discussions about cooperation in the energy sector, industries, tourism, the military-technical field as well as the people-to-people sphere.

Russia will participate in the creation of a modern industrial and logistic zone in the Suez Canal area, which is expected to attract an investment of 7 billion U.S. dollars and create over 35,000 jobs, Putin said.

He also said Russia supports the idea of Egypt reaching an agreement on a free trade zone with the Eurasian Economic Union.

Putin and Sisi also agreed to continue coordination in order to accelerate the Syrian political process.

In addition, in the presence of the presidents, a memorandum of understanding on strategic political consultations was signed between the foreign ministers of the two countries, the Kremlin said in a separate statement.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-18 02:52:02|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

BISHKEK, Oct. 17 ( Xinhua ) -- President of Kyrgyzstan Sooronbai Jeenbekov appointed Chyngyz Aidarbekov the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kyrgyzstan by signing the corresponding decree, his press service reported on Wednesday.

Earlier, members of the Kyrgyz Parliament approved the candidacy of Aidarbekov for the post.

the 41-year old Aidarbekov was nominated by Prime Minister of Kyrgyzstan Mukhammedkaliy Abylgaziyev.

Till now Aidarbekov had served as ambassador of Kyrgyzstan to Japan.

Former Minister of Foreign Affairs Erlan Abdyldaev tendered his resignation on Oct. 12 at his own request. The same day, the president of Kyrgyzstan accepted his resignation.

Abdyldayev resigned after the statement of Kyrgyz Ambassador to South Korea Kylychbek Sultan in local media about violations and corruption in the Foreign Ministry. In response, the leadership of the Foreign Ministry stated about diplomatic service violations by the ambassador himself during his diplomatic missions.

After the country's Security Council examined the statements of the parties. As a result, the Security Council revealed a number of violations in the activities of both the Foreign Ministry and the ambassador.

As a result Ambassador Sultan was also dismissed.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-18 02:57:03|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

TUNIS, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- French Development Agency (AFD) signed on Wednesday a financing line of 27 million euros (31 million U.S. dollars) for the benefit of Tunisian government in order to realize projects in the field of electronic health (e-health).

"This funding will be injected into projects in the field of health, including electronic health and medicine management in hospitals across the country," said Gilles Chausse, director of AFD in Tunis, during the 2nd edition of France-Tunisia Health Forum held in Tunis.

According to the Minister-Counselor of French Embassy in Tunisia Laurent Viguie, this project will help improve the functioning of hospital structures and ensure their evolution by relying on digital technologies.

Tunisian Minister of Health Imed Hammami revealed that two hospitals in the provinces of Tozeur in southwest Tunisia and Sidi Bouzid in central Tunisia, financed by France, are already underway.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-18 03:02:04|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

ALGIERS, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- Members of the Bureau of Algerian National People's Assembly (lower house of parliament) on Wednesday declared "the vacancy of the post of speaker."

The announcement was made by El Hadj Laib, the oldest member of parliament among the members of the assembly's Bureau.

This announcement was preceded by a two-day sit-in held by MPs of five parliamentary groups and signatories of the "withdrawal of confidence" of the assembly's speaker Said Bouhadja to ban him from joining office in a bid to force him to resign.

Bohadja told reporters that he is still the official speaker of the lower house of parliament, noting that the protest movement of his antagonists is illegal. Bohadja announced that he will sue them in justice.

The request for Bouhadja to step down was signed by 351 lawmakers in the 460-seat parliament, mainly from five groups including the National Liberation Front and the National Democratic Rally, in addition to some pro-regime parties and independent parliament members.

They denounced what they called "overruns and violations" observed in the legislative institution, namely "intentional postponement of the adoption of the assembly's statutes, marginalization of the members of the Judicial Committee, mismanagement of the assembly's affairs, exaggerated expenses disbursed illegally, and dubious recruitment."

The statutes of the National People's Assembly specify in Article 10 of the vacancy of the post of the assembly's speaker, which include resignation, disability, contradiction or death. Article 10 does not mention "withdrawal of confidence."

The speaker of the lower house of parliament is elected by secret ballot.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-18 03:32:15|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- European Union members on the UN Security Council on Wednesday asked the political actors in Syria, particularly the government, to work for an early convening of a constitutional committee.

"We call on all parties, but specifically Damascus, to constructively engage with the (UN) special envoy with the aim of, as quickly as possible and without any further delays, convening a credible and inclusive constitutional committee," read a statement of the EU members on the council.

The statement was endorsed by Britain, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Poland -- the current EU members of the Security Council -- and Belgium, Germany and Italy.

Belgium and Germany will become council members next year. Italy split a two-year council term with the Netherlands.

The EU countries called on Russia, Iran and Turkey -- the so-called Astana guarantors -- to ensure that the current cease-fire in Idlib province is upheld. They asked for a comprehensive nationwide cease-fire and for safe, sustained and unhindered humanitarian access throughout the country.

"We fully believe that the Idlib cease-fire agreement should be an opportunity for the urgent resumption of the UN-led political process in Geneva," said the statement, read to reporters by Swedish ambassador Olof Skoog.

The EU countries expressed their full support for the efforts of UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura to establish urgently a credible and legitimate constitutional committee to advance the United Nations' efforts to achieve a sustainable political solution to the conflict in Syria.

"We underscore the special envoy's authority to establish an inclusive constitutional committee, including the participation of a minimum of 30 percent women, that will begin the work of drafting a new Syrian constitution and laying the ground work for free and fair UN-supervised elections consistent with Security Council Resolution 2254."

De Mistura briefed the Security Council on the situation in Syria on Wednesday morning.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-18 03:42:16|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

By Maria Spiliopoulou

ATHENS, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- The National Bank of Greece (NBG) announced on Wednesday that it has terminated talks with China's Gongbao Group for the sale of its subsidiary, Ethniki Hellenic General Insurance SA, Greek national news agency AMNA reported.

The Shanghai-based Gongbao Group, the only bidder of Ethniki, responded by saying in a statement that "this is no doubt a day of darkness".

The Greek lender, in its statement, said that NBG has decided not to proceed with further negotiations with the prospective investor, following the examination and assessment of the various aspects of the binding offer received from Gongbao Group for Ethniki Insurance.

NBG also said it remains committed to explore alternative options for compliance with its commitments under the restructuring plan as agreed with the European Commission's Directorate General for Competition and will inform investors accordingly in due course.

Last March, NBG had announced the termination of the sale of 75-percent stake in the insurance company to EXIN Financial Services Holding B.V. over the latter's "failure to fulfill certain conditions".

In June 2017 the two sides had reached an agreement for the sale of Greece's oldest and largest insurance company for 718 million euros (826.5 million U.S. dollars).

Gongbao was the sole bidder for the purchase of the majority stake in the Greek insurance company in recent months, offering a total of 800 million euros.

"The process of making such a decision, made apparently through merely an impromptu meeting, to abruptly and brutally terminate the discussion with Gongbao is irresponsible, but with ulterior motives," Gongbao said in the statement in response to NBG's announcement.

"Over the past two years, despite EXIN's failure and Fosun's withdrawal in the last minute, we invariably supported NBG and Ethniki Insurance and participated in the sale process as the sole and only bidder until the end, as we considered this project as one of the main cornerstones of the growing relationship between Greece and China," Gongbao said.

"In this connection, we obtained the continuous support from ICBC. This is the first time ever a commercial banking group of China supported a Greece project," Gongbao said in the statement, adding that it reserved the rights to pursue legal action.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-18 03:47:18|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

TEHRAN, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- Iranian foreign minister on Wednesday urged Pakistan to follow up the fate of kidnapped Iranian border guards and transferred them to Pakistani soil.

In a telephone conversation with his Pakistani counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif stressed the need for strengthening security at common borders based on the mutual agreements, Iranian Foreign Ministry's website reported.

Zarif urged Islamabad to take immediate and serious action to ensure safety and health of the abductees.

He also called for the measures to identify and arrest those behind the incident.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi condemned the abduction of the Iranian guards and expressed deep regret over the incident.

"Pakistan will use all in its capacity to take necessary measures to identify and arrest the perpetrators and release the Iranian guards," he said.

"These terrorist groups are common enemies of the two governments and nations who seek to disrupt close and friendly relations between the two neighbors," he added.

On Tuesday, 14 Iranian border guards were kidnapped by an armed group in Mirjaveh border point in Iran's southeastern Sistan and Baluchestan Province.

Sistan and Baluchestan Province, bordering Pakistan, is the locus for frequent armed clashes between the Iranian security forces and armed rebels or smugglers.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-18 04:02:22|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

WASHINGTON, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump said here on Wednesday that his nation has requested audio and video materials from Turkey that are related to the alleged death of a missing Saudi journalist, Jamal Khashoggi.

Trump told reporters at the White House that "we've asked for it, if it exists."

However, he did not confirm whether there was any such recording as reported by Turkish media, saying that "I'm not sure yet that it exists."

The Turkish daily Yeni Safak earlier reported that Turkey has audio recordings that could reveal the details of what happened to Khashoggi after he entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2, noting that he had been tortured during an interrogation, with his fingers cut off.

Trump suggested that "rogue killers" may have been responsible for the disappearance.

In an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday, the president compared the Khashoggi case to the sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, saying "here we go again with, you know, you're guilty until proven innocent."

When asked about his ambiguity towards Saudi Arabia's link with the journalist's disappearance, Trump denied that he has ever been "giving cover" to the Saudi side at all.

"No, not at all, I just want to find out what's happening," Trump said. "I'm not giving cover at all."

On Tuesday, The Washington Post, for which Khashoggi had been writing, accused the Trump administration of performing a "diplomatic cleanup operation" for Riyadh.

In an editorial, the paper called for an independent international investigation into the disappearance of the journalist, saying that the travel to Saudi Arabia by State Secretary Mike Pompeo has seemed to fail to find the truth.

Pompeo, "who smiled broadly as he greeted Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, appeared less intent on determining the truth than in helping the de facto Saudi ruler escape from the crisis he triggered," the article said, noting Trump had signaled that he is more than ready to assist in that dodge.

It urged an investigation by the UN's Security Council or Human Rights Council, noting that "until the full truth about Mr. Khashoggi is disclosed, U.S. businesses should shun the Saudi regime and Congress should block all military sales."

U.S. media outlets have reported that Turkish police investigators searching the Saudi Consulate had found evidence that Khashoggi was killed there, citing toxic material inside the building.

However, Trump said "we will probably know that by the end of the week" after he got a "full report" from Secretary of State Pompeo upon his return from Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

Earlier on Wednesday, he told Fox Business Network that the United States relies on Saudi Arabia to fight against terrorism and Iran, and would thus be unwilling to walk away from the kingdom, a "tremendous purchaser" of U.S. military equipment.

"It is 500,000 jobs, it will be ultimately $110 billion, it's the biggest order in the history of our country from an outside military, and I said we are gonna turn that down?" he asked.

"So hopefully it is working out. We'll find out, we'll get down to the bottom of it. I hope that the king and the crown prince didn't know about it," he said. "That is a big factor in my eyes, and I hope they haven't," he said.

Several U.S. media outlets reported on Monday that the Saudi side was preparing a report that Khashoggi's death was a result of a botched interrogation.File Photo: A Turkish military tank is seen at a security checkpoint in Afrin city, Syria, on March 20, 2018. (Xinhua)

UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- European Union members on the UN Security Council on Wednesday asked the political actors in Syria, particularly the government, to work for an early convening of a constitutional committee.

"We call on all parties, but specifically Damascus, to constructively engage with the (UN) special envoy with the aim of, as quickly as possible and without any further delays, convening a credible and inclusive constitutional committee," read a statement of the EU members on the council.

The statement was endorsed by Britain, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Poland -- the current EU members of the Security Council -- and Belgium, Germany and Italy.

Belgium and Germany will become council members next year. Italy split a two-year council term with the Netherlands.

The EU countries called on Russia, Iran and Turkey -- the so-called Astana guarantors -- to ensure that the current cease-fire in Idlib province is upheld. They asked for a comprehensive nationwide cease-fire and for safe, sustained and unhindered humanitarian access throughout the country.

"We fully believe that the Idlib cease-fire agreement should be an opportunity for the urgent resumption of the UN-led political process in Geneva," said the statement, read to reporters by Swedish ambassador Olof Skoog.

The EU countries expressed their full support for the efforts of UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura to establish urgently a credible and legitimate constitutional committee to advance the United Nations' efforts to achieve a sustainable political solution to the conflict in Syria.

"We underscore the special envoy's authority to establish an inclusive constitutional committee, including the participation of a minimum of 30 percent women, that will begin the work of drafting a new Syrian constitution and laying the ground work for free and fair UN-supervised elections consistent with Security Council Resolution 2254."

De Mistura briefed the Security Council on the situation in Syria on Wednesday morning.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-18 04:12:24|Editor: Chengcheng

Video Player Close

LONDON, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- The arrival on the River Mersey Wednesday of a container ship from China's COSCO, could evolve into a permanent call at the owners of the Port of Liverpool.

COSCO's container vessel, MV Jork, docked in Liverpool Wednesday. Within minutes of arriving at its berth in the famous seaport, unloading commenced of mainly high value Asian goods for fast delivery into the supply chain across Britain, said port owners, Peel Ports. It will leave Liverpool with a load of exports for overseas markets.

Peel Ports recently welcomed China Merchant Marine to Liverpool and will shortly receive another state-sponsored visit scheduled for Oct. 23 when 20 delegates from China's Department of Commerce and Jiangsu province, set to explore the port.

COSCO is Asia's largest shipping line, and the third biggest globally.

Peel Ports said Wednesday's call by a container ship vessel from COSCO marks an important milestone for Peel, who will hope the visit will evolve into a permanent Liverpool call, said a spokesman for the port.

Mark Whitworth, CEO of Peel Ports Group, said: "The arrival of the MV Jork at Liverpool is positive news for the Port and is down to the strategic, dedicated approach we've taken to the Asian market in recent years.

"Our relationship with China has been incredibly strong for a number of years now, and the faith shown by COSCO in the capabilities and infrastructure of Liverpool shows how global perceptions of the UK's shipping ecosystem are starting to shift.

"With multimodal access by rail, sea and road to the majority of UK consumers, Liverpool2 is the logical port of call for global lines looking to move their customers stock in the most efficient way."

The Port of Liverpool boasts a consistent truck turnaround time of less than 40 minutes, meaning cargo is expected to be at its final destination hours after discharge on the Mersey.

Peel Ports already has a strong relationship with Shanghai-based crane manufacturer ZPMC, the firm which supplied five ship-to-shore cranes and CRMGs for Liverpool's new 526 million U.S. dollar container terminal, known as Liverpool2.

A delegation from Peel Ports is currently in China to discuss phase two of the Liverpool2's development as it continues to try to attract the world's biggest shipping lines, whilst a senior commercial executive visit to Shanghai will commence on Nov. 5, 2018, added the port spokesman.

In the past 12 months the Port of Liverpool's growth in the container sector has continued growing by 8.7 percent.Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during an address to the nation concerning a pension reforms proposed by the government, in Moscow, on August 29, 2018. (KREMLIN PHOTO)

MOSCOW, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- The Russian unemployment rate was 4.5 percent in September, marking a decrease of 10.1 percent over the same period in 2017, the Russian Federal State Statistics Service Rosstat said in a report on Wednesday.

According to the report, the number of economically active population aged 15 and older amounted to 76.6 million people or 52 percent of the total population last month, with 3.4 million classified as unemployed, in accordance with the rules of the International Labor Organization.

Of this number, 0.6 million people were officially registered as unemployed, with 0.5 million receiving unemployment benefits, according to the Federal Labor and Employment Service, the report said.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-18 04:27:31|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

ADEN, Yemen, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- Unknown assailants launched an armed attack against a branch of a government-owned bank in Yemen's southern province of al-Dhalea on Wednesday, a security official told Xinhua.

The security source spoke on anonymity that a group of unidentified gunmen fired a barrage of bullets and hurled two grenades on the Cooperative and Agricultural Credit (CAC) Bank's building, causing no casualties among the guards.

Reasons and motives behind the armed attack are still unknown, according to the source.

The CAC bank is the only state bank operating and delivering salaries for employees in the city.

Earlier this month, Doctors Without Borders (MSF), an international medical charity, announced suspending its activities in al-Dhalea province following terror attacks on its headquarters.

The MSF headquarters based in the government-controlled province was targeted for the second time in less than a week by explosives, but fortunately, nobody was harmed, the MSF said in a statement.

The impoverished Arab country has been locked into a civil war since the Shiite Houthi rebels overran much of the country militarily and seized all northern provinces, including capital Sanaa, in 2014.

Saudi Arabia leads an Arab military coalition that intervened in Yemen in 2015 to support the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi after Iran-backed Houthi rebels forced him into exile.

The United Nations has listed Yemen as the world's number one humanitarian crisis, with seven million Yemenis on the brink of famine.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-18 04:32:35|Editor: Li Xia

Video Player Close

Chinese Permanent Representative to the United Nations Ma Zhaoxu addresses the UN Security Council meeting on Syria at the UN headquarters in New York Oct. 17, 2018. Ma Zhaoxu called Wednesday on the international community to join efforts in cutting off the supply chain of funds and weapons to terrorists in Syria. (Xinhua/Li Muzi)

UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- Chinese envoy to the United Nations Ma Zhaoxu on Wednesday called on the international community to join efforts in cutting off the supply chain of funds and weapons to terrorists in Syria.

At a UN Security Council meeting on Syria, the Chinese permanent representative to the UN said that the political process in Syria has maintained positive momentum, and the Memorandum on Stabilization of the Situation in the Idlib De-escalation Area, which was signed by Turkey and Russia, has been implemented smoothly.

He also noted that the political process in Syria is still facing challenges. Terrorism is threatening the security and stability of Syria, and hindering reconstruction and the return of refugees.

Given the situation, the Chinese envoy urged the international community to coordinate with each other to cut off the supply chain of funds and weapons to terrorists and prevent them from coming back, in order to consolidate counter-terrorism achievements.

Political negotiation is the only reasonable solution to the Syrian issue, Ma said, adding that it is time to steadily establish a constitutional committee which is representative and acceptable to all parties in Syria.

Ma also called for the relaunch of Geneva peace talks as soon as possible to facilitate full dialogue and consultation among all parties in Syria.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-18 05:07:45|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

TRIPOLI, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- Libya's UN-backed Prime Minister Fayez Serraj announced on Wednesday establishment of a body for reconstruction and development of the city of Sirte.

Serraj made the announcement during a visit to Sirte which aimed to oversee the urgent needs of the city, according to a statement issued by the prime minister's information office.

"Serraj pointed out that the government has a strategic vision for reconstruction, which it has not yet been able to translate to reality, considering the financial and economic aspects of the Libyan crisis," the statement said.

"Today, we desperately need national unity to fight together a battle as important as the battle against terrorism: the battle of reconstruction of cities and areas affected by war and armed confrontations," Serraj said.

In December 2015, forces allied with the UN-backed Libyan government defeated the Islamic State (IS) affiliates and expelled them from Sirte, some 450 km east to the capital Tripoli. The remnant IS fighters fled to the southern valleys and mountainous areas.

Following the 2011 uprising that toppled former leader Muammar Gaddafi's regime, Libya has been suffering escalating violence and chaos, as well as political division.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-18 05:12:46|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

VIENNA, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- Austria and Singapore Wednesday signed an agreement to boost the exchange of ideas and know-how in the fields of digitalization and information and communications technology, local media reported.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed as part of a visit to Vienna by Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, where he was received by his Austrian counterpart Sebastian Kurz and welcomed with a guard of honor.

The MOU was signed by Austrian Minister of Digital and Economic Affairs Margarete Schrambock and Singaporean Communications and Information Minister S. Iswaran.

"The agreement brings about the possibility to exchange know-how and experience and with a country that in many ways is a step ahead of Austria," Schrambock said.

Through the agreement Austria wishes to examine how administrative bodies in Singapore are run in an almost "paperless" manner, while both countries also wish to provide solutions for small and medium-sized enterprises as they face new hurdles.

In addition it will include the exchange of information in emerging technologies, as well as digital commerce and electronic trade.

A committee has also been established to see about the implementation of the MOU, that is to convene on a regular basis.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-18 05:17:47|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

WASHINGTON, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday said it is important to give time and space for the investigation of the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Speaking to the media at Brussels International Airport after wrapping up his travel to Saudi Arabia and Turkey, Pompeo said that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had "made clear that the Saudis had cooperated with the investigation that the Turks are engaged in, and that they're going to share information that they learned with the Saudis as well."

"There's been a couple of delays, but they seemed pretty confident that the Saudis were going to permit them to do the things that they needed to do to complete their thorough and complete investigation as well," Pompeo noted.

"They want to complete their investigation, and they will have a process. I'm sure they will have their own prosecutors looking at this as well since it took place in their country, albeit on consulate property," he said.

However, Pompeo refused to say whether he has asked to hear the alleged audio on the disappearance of Khashoggi.

"I'm not going to get ahead of -- we have two countries conducting investigations," he said. "We're going to give them the space to complete their investigations of this incident, and when they issue their reports, we'll form our judgment about thoroughness, depth, and the decisions they make about accountability connected to that."

"As for responses that the United States will take, we need to know the facts before we can begin to formulate what the appropriate response for this would be," he noted. "It's reasonable to give them a handful of days more to complete it so they get it right."

He added that it would be "sooner is better than later" for Saudi Arabia and Turkey to publish their investigation result.

"I had a chance to speak to Jamal's fiance. Sooner is better than later for everyone," he said.

Although Pompeo said the alleged death of the journalist is "unlawful" and "unacceptable," he said "I do think it's important that everyone keep in their mind that we have lots of important relationships" between the United States and Saudi Arabia.

Citing "financial relationships between the United States and Saudi companies, governmental relationships, things we work on together all across the world -- efforts to reduce the risk to the United States of America from ... Iran," Pompeo said that "the Saudis have been great partners in working alongside us on those issues."

"Those are important elements of the U.S. national policy that are for -- are in Americans' best interests," he noted. "We just need to make sure that we are mindful of that as we approach decisions that the United States Government will take when we learn all of the facts associated with whatever may have taken place."

Speaking of his visit to Turkey, Pompeo said that he had "a good, constructive" conversation with President Erdogan on the release of U.S. pastor Andrew Brunson, Turkey's purchase of Iranian oil and Syria as well, without giving more details about whether there is an agreement reached.

"We have Iran sanctions taking place November 4th. We are working with the Turks to make sure that we get to the right place," he said. "They buy Iranian crude oil; we'd like them to buy less."

"President Erdogan is fully engaged in ensuring that Idlib Province remain inside the agreement that he struck, and we are hopeful that that will remain the case as well," he added.

U.S. President Donald Trump said also on Wednesday that his nation has requested Turkey to give the audio and video materials that are related to the alleged death of the Saudi journalist.

Denying that he has ever been "giving cover" to the Saudi side at all, Trump said "we will probably know that by the end of the week" after he got a "full report" from Pompeo upon his return.

The case of Khashoggi, a journalist and columnist for The Washington Post, has become a major source of tension between Saudi Arabia and the West.

Khashoggi has been missing since he entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2. Unconfirmed reports said that Khashoggi was likely killed inside the compound, a claim denied by Saudi officials as "baseless."Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-18 05:17:48|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

BERLIN, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- The first creditors' meeting concerning the insolvency of the German shipping container lessor P&R took place in Munich on Wednesday.

P&R had gone bankrupt in March, whereupon one of the biggest economic scandals in German post-war history became public.

According to the responsible insolvency trustee, Michael Jaffe, P&R had allegedly sold about 1.6 million shipping containers of which only 618,000 have been located so far. P&R is accused of having sold approximately one million non-existent containers to their investors.

Investors bought shipping containers from P&R, which then leased the containers back from the investors to charter them to large shipping companies. In return, the investors received a quarterly rental payment and P&R guaranteed to repurchase the used container after five years.

Investigations by the insolvency administrator showed that P&R allegedly used newly raised funds to pay out old investors from 2007 onwards instead of investing the money in new containers, resulting in a so-called snowball system.

P&R collected a total of 3.5 billion euros (4.04 billion U.S. dollars) from 54,000 investors. According to the German Press Agency (dpa), the fraud could cause damages of up to 2 billion euros.

Heinz Roth, founder of P&R, has been in pre-trial confinement since mid-September. "We are assuming intentional action," said a press representative of the Munich public prosecution office.

Following the bankruptcy of P&R, investors have filed more than 80,000 claims. Up to 9,000 people were expected to attend the meeting of P&R creditors, making it one of the largest scandals in Germany since 1945. The public and the press are not allowed to attend the meetings.

In 2003, Manfred Schmider, head of the German construction machinery company FlowTex, was sentenced to 11.5 years of imprisonment for causing the largest economic scandal in Germany so far with more than 2 billion euros of losses.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-18 05:22:49|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

DAMASCUS, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- People in the Rukban refugee camp in southeastern Syria face tough conditions with lack of food and medical materials, a war monitor reported on Wednesday.

The camp, which is located near the Iraqi-Jordanian border, is also facing tough weather as a sandstorm has recently hit that desert area, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The area where the camp is located is controlled by rebel group Liwa Shuhada al-Qaryatayn, which was supposed to evacuate to northern Syria in accordance with a Russian-backed deal but it didn't.

The UK-based watchdog group said that the tough situation is coupled with a closed border by Jordan.

The camp has been attacked previously by the Islamic State (IS) more than once.

Meanwhile, the UN office in Damascus said in a statement that "preparations are actively ongoing for a joint UN and Syrian Red Arab Crescent (SARC) convoy next week to provide humanitarian assistance to an estimated 50,000 women, children and men who are stranded at the Rukban camp."

"The overall humanitarian situation inside the Rukban camp is at a critical stage. The UN in Syria together with SARC, will reach the camp to provide life-saving humanitarian assistance in the coming few days," the statement quoted the UN Resident Humanitarian Coordinator Ali Al-Za'tari as saying.

The UN is in close coordination with all parties concerned to ensure a safe and quick delivery of aid, the statement added, noting that the last delivery of UN aid to Rukban took place in January 2018 through Jordan.Weapons are displayed in a military base in the countryside of Damascus, Syria, on Oct. 3, 2018. The Syrian army uncovered large amounts of weapons that had been left behind by Islamic State militants in the countryside of Deir al-Zour, Hama and Sweida, according to state news agency SANA. (Xinhua/Ammar Safarjalani)

UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- Chinese envoy to the United Nations Ma Zhaoxu on Wednesday called on the international community to join efforts in cutting off the supply chain of funds and weapons to terrorists in Syria.

At a UN Security Council meeting on Syria, the Chinese permanent representative to the UN said that the political process in Syria has maintained positive momentum, and the Memorandum on Stabilization of the Situation in the Idlib De-escalation Area, which was signed by Turkey and Russia, has been implemented smoothly.

He also noted that the political process in Syria is still facing challenges. Terrorism is threatening the security and stability of Syria, and hindering reconstruction and the return of refugees.

Given the situation, the Chinese envoy urged the international community to coordinate with each other to cut off the supply chain of funds and weapons to terrorists and prevent them from coming back, in order to consolidate counter-terrorism achievements.

Political negotiation is the only reasonable solution to the Syrian issue, Ma said, adding that it is time to steadily establish a constitutional committee which is representative and acceptable to all parties in Syria.

Ma also called for the relaunch of Geneva peace talks as soon as possible to facilitate full dialogue and consultation among all parties in Syria.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-18 05:52:55|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

by Mahmoud Fouly, Abdel-Maguid Kamal

CAIRO, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- The recent Agreement on Comprehensive Partnership and Strategic Cooperation signed by Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin is likely to take the Egyptian-Russian growing ties to a higher level.

The signing ceremony took place on Wednesday in Russia's Sochi after talks between the two leaders.

They discussed regional and international issues of mutual concern including the situations in war-torn Syria and Libya as well as the resumption of Russian direct flights to some Egyptian Red Sea resort cities such as Sharm El-Sheikh and Hurghada.

In a joint press conference after signing the deal, Putin highlighted the growing economic cooperation between the two countries, citing several Russian ongoing and future investments and projects in Egypt.

Russia's establishment of Egypt's first nuclear power plant which is currently in the preparation stage is on the top list.

He added that Moscow has already resumed direct flights to Cairo in April and the resumption of flights to other Egyptian cities will be "soon."

Russia's flight suspension to Egypt started after a Russian plane crashed in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula in October 2015, which killed all 224 people on board, mostly Russians.

The crash was later claimed by the Islamic State.

"The signing of a comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation agreement is a very important step, as it will lead to a breakthrough in some issues like the return of Russian tourism to Egypt," said Atef Saadawi, an expert at Cairo-based Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies (ACPSS).

"The deal represents an important development in relations between Cairo and Moscow and I believe there will be more military cooperation between the two sides as well," the expert told Xinhua.

Sisi described the comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation deal as "a new chapter" of the Egyptian-Russian cooperation.

The Egyptian president noted that he acquainted Putin with Egypt's vision on a political settlement in Libya and Cairo's efforts to unite Libya's military to perform its duties efficiently.

He pointed out that Libya's stability is a matter of national security to Egypt, as most militants used to infiltrate in both directions through Libya's eastern borders with Egypt's Western Desert.

"As for the Syrian issue, where Russia plays a big role, Egypt tries to play a role that guarantees the integrity and unity of Syrian territories," said the ACPSS expert.

It is Sisi's fourth visit to Russia, as he made his first as defense minister in 2014 before he was elected president in the same year. It is also the ninth meeting between Sisi and Putin in this period, according to Egypt's State Information Service.

Putin visited Cairo in December 2017 when he and Sisi witnessed the signing of the agreement to build Egypt's nuclear power station.

The Russian president said on Wednesday that trade exchange between the two countries increased to 6.7 billion U.S. dollars last year, with a 20 percent rise in the first eight months of the current year.

He added that Russia signed a deal worth of 1.3 billion euros (about 1.5 billion U.S. dollars) with Egypt in September to provide 1,300 passenger cars for the Egyptian railway authority.

Russia is also planning to build a vast industrial zone in Egypt's Suez Canal region particularly in the east of Port Said province, which is expected to bring about seven billion U.S. dollars in investment and provide 35,000 job opportunities.

"Egyptian-Russian comprehensive partnership agreement comes amid key development of the course of their bilateral relations that haven't been seen since late Egyptian President Gamal Abdel-Nasser," said Tarek Fahmy, political science professor at Cairo University.

Fahmy stressed that Russia's keenness "to take ties with Egypt to another level" due to Egypt's major regional influence.

The agreement is expected to positively reflect on Egyptian economy, according to Fahmy, who believes that it will lead to the establishment of new institutions to implement its mechanisms, as well as the development of economic and investment structures to serve the deal.

"The comprehensive deal includes all economic and political issues and it represents an important stage of the development of bilateral relations between Egypt and Russia," the professor told Xinhua.Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-18 06:53:05|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- The UN special envoy for Syria announced on Wednesday that he will step down at the end of November but hopes to put together a constitutional committee for the war-torn country by then.

After serving for four years and four months on the demanding job, Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Syria Staffan de Mistura said he decided to quit for "personal reasons."

He told UN Security Council that the Syrian government has invited him to Damascus next week, where he plans to engage them on the composition of the constitutional committee.

That plan to draft a new Syrian constitution has been under discussion since January when it was announced at a conference organized by Russia, a key Syrian ally, in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. But it has since been hampered by disagreement over the formation of the committee to draft the charter.

The Syrian government's and the opposition's lists for the committee, each comprising 50 names, "are not in question," said de Mistura, adding however, objection remains, mainly from the government, over a third list that the UN is tasked to form to include civil society representatives, religious and tribal leaders, experts and women.

The UN envoy expressed his hope to "be in a position" to issue invitations to convene the constitutional committee, hopefully during the month of November.

"The UN has done all it can to find a way to convene a credible and balanced constitutional committee," he said, pledging to do more and in an accelerated way in the forthcoming month, taking advantage of the "Idlib window of opportunity."

In September, Russia and Turkey, key stakeholders in Syria, agreed to set up a demilitarized zone between rebel and government fighters in the northwestern province of Idlib, staving off a major government offensive on the area, which the UN had warned could cause a humanitarian catastrophe.

De Mistura is the third UN envoy for Syria since the outbreak of the conflict in 2011, after former UN chief Kofi Annan and Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi stepped down.

At a press encounter Wednesday, asked if he still believes in a political solution to the crisis, de Mistura said it is still the key as "the alternative will be territorial gains and no sustainable peace."

"Our assessment is that if there is a political will, there is no reason -- no reason whatsoever -- for the constitutional committee not to be able to be convened during the month of November," said de Mistura at the encounter.

The main reason for the delay, he said, is the Syrian government's difficulties to accept the final list of committee members prepared by the UN.

He said he will try to get the Syrian government on board when he travels to Damascus next week.

De Mistura said he will report back in November to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the Security Council for them to draw conclusions on this issue. He expressed the hope that the conclusions will help his successor start from a clear and clean ground.Fidesz parliamentary leader Mate Kocsis branded the Sargentini report as a grave attack on national self determination, after the approval of a parliamentary resolution on that document.

Hungary cannot let Brussels curtail its rights in any strategically important field, he said. Socialist group leader Bertalan Toth said before the vote that the governments counter-Sargentini report contains all components of its propaganda but no element of truth.



He interpreted the parliamentary resolution as a document describing the Sargentini report as a pro-migration document reflecting the wish of the European Parliaments pro-migration majority aimed at making the continent a migrant destination.



Gergely Karacsony, co-leader of opposition Parbeszed, said that the European criticism over the Hungarian government was justified and argued that Hungary would not meet the EUs entry criteria if it applied for membership now.



MTI Photo: Bruzak Noemi



Related articles:

Gov't Spox Hits Back At Clinton Criticism Of British PM Over Sargentini Vote

Hungary Gov't To Challenge Sargentini Vote In EU CourtA government decree signed by Prime Minister Viktor Orban has banned gender studies master degrees in Hungary, according to the Monday issue of official gazette Magyar Kozlony.

The subject will not only be banned at state universities but also private institutions.



The state-run Eotvos Lorand University (ELTE) launched a gender studies masters course last autumn.



CEU issued a statement decrying the decree. This is a major infringement on academic freedom and university autonomy, it said.



Gender studies is an internationally recognized academic field, which produces socially relevant knowledge, and which has been taught at CEU for well over two decades.



Eliminating this program will be a significant loss to the Hungarian scholarly community and for democratically-minded public policy makers.



CEU will continue teaching and research in this field via its US accredited MA and PhD programs, the statement added.



Students who have commenced their studies will be allowed to complete the courses.



A gender equality index published in September ranked Hungary 27th out of the 28 EU member states, 444 observes.



Related article:

Local Opinion: Gender Studies Ban Seen As A Misunderstanding



Parliament voted to phase out the state subsidy on deposits with home savings banks. The motion was passed in an expedited procedure with a vote of 125 in favour, 49 against and no abstentions.

The bill was submitted by Erik Banki, an MP of ruling Fidesz who heads parliaments economy committee.



Presenting the bill on Monday, Banki said the subsidy on the home savings bank deposits, 30% up to 72,000 (EUR 222) forints a year, had not effectively served its purpose of supporting home construction recently, while home savings banks had pocketed extra profit.



The proposal does not affect existing contracts: subsidies on these will be paid until the deposits mature, he added. Banki said in the justification of the bill that the subsidised home savings bank deposits had become inefficient and dear to the state and the taxpayer.



Deposits in home savings banks account for just onethird of all state-subsidised savings, but they eat up three-quarters of total state subsidies on savings, he noted.



Because of the typically small amount [saved] in the construction, few homes are built from the savings. In a number of cases, the savings dont even go to home purchases, because they can also be used for the construction of a swimming pool or a sauna when the contract matures, Banki said.



Without the subsidies, expected to exceed 70 billion forints this year, the yield on deposits in home savings banks would be negative, he said. At the same time, home savings banks are padding their pockets, booking almost 60 billion in extra profits since 2010, he added.



Banki noted that more than 90,000 Hungarian families have made use of 250 billion forints in grants in the framework of the Home Purchase Subsidy Scheme for Families with children, known by its Hungarian acronym CSOK, since the groundwork was laid for the programme late in 2015.



Jobbiks Daniel Z Karpat told a press conference that the conservative party would stage tough, outspoken demonstrations against the decision and turn to the president to address their concerns on the measures constitutionality.



By phasing out home savings subsidies, Fidesz continues to devour Hungarian future, Karpat, the partys deputy leader, said. It hits citizens of all ages hard with no good reason, he said, adding that losing the opportunity to buy newly built homes or renovate old ones will speed up emigration and impede demographic growth.



The ruling parties cynical attitude is all the more revolting, Karpat said, as 1,300 families have been evicted this year only.



Green opposition LMPs deputy group leader Antal Csardi said the decision would exacerbate the housing crisis and make the renovation of apartment blocs and housing cooperative property much more difficult.



Had the banks pocketed unduly high profits, the government could have regulated that without scrapping subsidies altogether, he said. The governing parties have again turned against the Hungarian society, demonstrating that they only represent the richest 10%.



Ildiko Borbely Bango of the Socialists said that Fidesz is cleaning the market for itself. Citizens rushed to the banks to open further savings accounts at the news of the speedy procedure, she noted.



Parbeszeds Tamas Mellar said at the same event that fine-tuning the savings subsidy system by cutting subsidies or contingency fees would have eliminated any irregularities.



Fidesz, however, was unwilling to even discuss professional issues, which raises the suspicion that an oligarch is eyeing the nearly 60 billion forints extra profit, he said. Fidesz said in response that the left always protects foreign business interests. Now that the interests of German Fundamenta, the largest home savings bank in Hungary, are at risk, they immediately man the barricades, it said.



Home savings accounts were about home building only in name, it said. Hardly any homes were built on those accounts, while the government spent three quarters of home subsidies on them.



The governments aim is to use all subsidies to create homes through the home subsidy scheme (CSOK) and the National Communities for Home Creation (NOK), also known as home lottery, as long as they produce housing, Fidesz said."The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was a spontaneous nationwide revolt against the Stalinist government of the People's Republic of Hungary and its Soviet-imposed policies, lasting from 23 October until 10 November 1956.



The revolt began as a student demonstration which attracted thousands as it marched through central Budapest to the Parliament building.



A student delegation entering the radio building in an attempt to broadcast its demands was detained. When the delegation's release was demanded by the demonstrators outside, they were fired upon by the State Security Police (AVH) from within the building. The news spread quickly and disorder and violence erupted throughout the capital.

It quickly spread across Hungary, and the government fell. Thousands organized into militias, battling the State Security Police (AVH) and Soviet troops.



Pro-Soviet communists and AVH members were often executed or imprisoned, as former prisoners were released and armed. Impromptu councils wrested municipal control from the ruling Hungarian Working People's Party and demanded political changes.



The new government formally disbanded the AVH, declared its intention to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact and pledged to re-establish free elections. By the end of October, fighting had almost stopped and a sense of normality began to return."



Read more about the history of '56 here.



MTI Photo: Munk Tamas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...Cu apa, iarasi sint probleme, la Roman

 in perioada 16-23 noiembrie, noaptea este posibil ca apa sa nu aiba presiune si chiar e posibil sa fie intrerupta  cauza e legata tot de seceta  Romanul s-a mai confruntat cu o criza majora a apei si in 2020  atunci toata lumea a promis investitii, dar nu mai spune nimeni daca [] Articolul Cu apa, iarasi sint probleme, [citeste mai departe].       ,                     ...Qurate Retail Inc., a West Chester company that owns the QVC home-shopping service, plans to shut its QVC warehouse in Lancaster and other facilities around the U.S., eliminating more than 2,000 of the company's 27,000 jobs over the next two years as it moves to consolidate its recent purchases of Florida-based TV-shopping rival HSN and Seattle-based online-shopping service Zulily.

As employees at QVC Studio Park waited Wednesday for word on who's leaving, investors cheered the cuts, sending shares up 1.5 percent for the day to $22.26. But the stock is still down from its peak of over $28 in February after a couple of disappointing quarterly sales reports.

The company planned to cut 350 jobs on Wednesday. Most of those are at HSN offices in St. Petersburg, Fla., and on Long Island, N.Y., where Qurate is closing HSN's Ingenious Designs facility. "A smaller number" of Qurate and QVC employees at its headquarters and video studios in West Chester also will lose their jobs, the company said.

And 1,725 more will be cut as the company closes warehouses in Lancaster; Roanoke, Va.; and Greenville, Tenn., after the 2019 Christmas shopping season. Qurate, which now employs about 27,000 in the United States, western Europe, and east Asia, also plans to hire at least 1,200 starting in 2019 at a new fulfillment center in Bethlehem, where Zulily already has a separate warehouse, spokesperson Maureen Siman said. Zulily began work on its fulfillment center there before Qurate bought the company in 2015.

The changes include management consolidation. Steve Hofmann, QVC's U.S. president, is leaving the company Friday and won't be replaced. Mary Campbell, chief merchandising officer, will head merchandising and marketing for the company's combined operations. HSN president Mike Fitzharris will take on responsibilities for combined video platform expansion and distribution, as well as HSN content operations in St. Petersburg.

Qurate said its revenues total $14 billion in North America, Europe, and Japan. The company shipped more than 170 million items through its TV and online channels last year. Qurate plans to cut back on warehouse operations and instead use outside operators to store and ship some items. The company said it "will evolve to a leased [instead of] owned model for many of its fulfillment facilities, to increase flexibility and reduce longer-term capital requirements."

The company expects its "streamlining" will speed delivery and help add programming and products, chief executive Mike George said in a statement. The big focus is on "digital transformation," helping customers buy with minimum hassle.

The company will combine QVC and HSN, the two largest home-shopping TV channels, into a single business unit, QXH, though there will still be separate brands and a reduced HSN presence at its old Fort Lauderdale headquarters.

Qurate hopes to save $40 million from the immediate job cuts, offset by at least $40 million in severance and restructuring expenses. The company expects total savings will rise to $120 million to $125 million a year with the warehouse consolidations by 2022, along with more than $200 million in HSN cuts and savings previously announced.

The company also will spend $230 million on new facilities and warehouse automation (robots, logistics) and other shipping upgrades, plus an eventual $20 million a year extra for leasing warehouses instead of operating its own.Members of the media attend a preview for one of Quebec's new cannabis stores in Montreal, Tuesday, Oct.1 6, 2018. Canada will become the second and largest country with a legal national marijuana marketplace when sales begin on midnight Wednesday. (Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press via AP) Read more

OTTAWA  Canada becomes the first major industrialized country to fully decriminalize cannabis for recreational use on Wednesday, fulfilling a 2015 election pledge from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in a process that has proven massively complex and remains fraught with uncertainty.

Concerns abound. Already there are worries about a shortage of legal cannabis for sale in the early months of legalization and a lack of retail outlets, leading to a possible boom in the illicit marijuana trade the new law is designed to thwart.

Canada's 12 provinces and territories are tasked with regulating the distribution and sale of cannabis, and they are adopting a range of differing approaches. And Canadians crossing into the United States may be barred entry if they admit to using cannabis.

Under legislation passed by Canada's Parliament in June, it will no longer be illegal for adults to purchase, possess or grow recreational cannabis, starting Wednesday.

It is a far broader legalization process than what's taken place so far in the United States, where nine states and the District of Columbia have legalized recreational pot. Federal law in the U.S. still treats it as an illegal Schedule 1 substance, considering as dangerous as heroin and LSD.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy campaigned on legalizing marijuana for adult recreational use, but his plan  which he had hoped to have in place during his first 100 days  appears stalled in the state legislature. Bills are pending in Pennsylvania and Delaware to allow recreational use but are unlikely to be adopted this year.

While Canada's federal government has changed Canada's criminal law and is now responsible for licensing commercial cannabis growers and authorizing their products, the provinces are in charge of regulating distribution and retail sale of marijuana.

In Ontario and the Western provinces, sale of cannabis will be left largely to licensed privately operated retail outlets. In Quebec and most eastern Canadian provinces, marijuana will be sold only in state-run stores, in the same way alcohol is sold. In most of the country, the legal age will be 18 or 19, the same as for alcohol, but Quebec has promised to boost the cannabis consumption age to 21.

In Ontario, the most populous province, the only way to buy legal pot as of Wednesday will be by mail-order. That's because permits for private outlets are not expected to be issued before next spring after recently elected premier Doug Ford decided to reverse earlier plans to sell cannabis through government-owned stores.

In neighboring Quebec, there will be a dozen outlets open while in British Columbia, there will be just a single provincial store although it is expected that cannabis will still be available in privately owned storefronts where sales have long been tolerated.

Federal law also will allow adults to grow four plants apiece for personal consumption, but Quebec and Manitoba intend to ban personal growing outright. And foods containing cannabis oils, like cookies and candies, will remain illegal for the next year until the Canadian government completes its regulatory regime for edibles. In the meantime, they are apparently easily available through illicit sources.

Several provinces have already complained that cannabis producers have shipped less product than anticipated, which could lead to product shortages.

Vic Neufeld, chief executive of Aphria Inc., one of the top producers, told investors last week he expects shortages of product to occur for two or three months until production increases and there is better understanding of consumer demand.

"It's like trying to merge a five-lane highway into a one-lane country road," he said. "It's tough to get everything through the bottleneck on a timely basis."

The anticipated shortage of cannabis through formal retail outlets could be a major boost for black market providers, according to Anindya Sen, an economics professor at University of Waterloo. He notes that many of these suppliers already use websites, apps and even home delivery for their offerings.

"My fear is that in provinces like British Columbia or Ontario where we have no retail access, it will be easy to" find illicit suppliers online, he said in an interview. "You put in your postal code and up pops a legal supplier or a guy in a truck."

Despite the hiccups, Sen said he believes Canada has an opportunity to take a leading role in an emerging industry. "A lot of European countries will be looking at what is happening here," he said. "If Canada gets it right, it could be a world leader" in creating systems to produce and process commercial amounts of cannabis.

Already, there is a surge of stock market interest for Canadian cannabis producers who have floated their shares. Despite the fledgling nature of the industry, the value of the shares has surged with market capitalization of the top five producers reaching $40 billion, a situation seen by some as a bubble. Many legal U.S. growers are undergoing reverse takeovers with Canadian shell companies to go public and take advantage of the red hot market.

Cannabis legalization is one of Trudeau's signature issues, although implementation has proved more complicated than anticipated. In the past, he has admitted to smoking "five or six times" but claims he never enjoyed it much. A spokesman said any consumption by the prime minister took place "many years ago" and Trudeau has no plans to purchase or consume cannabis once it is legalized.

For Canadians crossing the border into the United States, the situation remains risky for anybody who uses cannabis, even after the law changes. "Anybody who admits to having violated the law relating to a controlled substance is inadmissible to the U.S.," according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Len Saunders, an immigration lawyer in Blaine, Washington, who specializes in cross-border issues, said Canadians crossing the border are placed in a difficult position. If they are asked by a U.S. border official whether they have used cannabis and admit they have, they may be barred entry. If they deny having smoked marijuana and are found out to have lied, they are in even more serious trouble.

What Saunders suggests to his clients who have smoked is not to answer a cannabis question from a border officer, which is the individual's right. But the Canadian should not to attempt to cross the border that day.

U.S. citizens have no such risks because U.S. officials cannot legally bar a citizen from entering the country, Saunders said. But Customs and Border Protection last week agreed to relax its position related to Canadians working in the cannabis production business. Previously, they were to be barred entry. Now, they can enter the United States.if they are traveling for reasons "unrelated to the marijuana industry."

For more news about medical and recreational marijuana, visit Philly.com/cannabis

Inquirer staff writer Sam Wood contributed to this story.AmeriHealth Caritas, an Independence Blue Cross affiliate that manages Medicaid plans and other public insurance programs, is moving its corporate operations from an office building near Philadelphia International Airport to a planned new headquarters in Newtown Square.

The move will relocate AmeriHealth Caritas executives and administrators from the Airport Business Center office complex in the largely industrial zone east of the airport to a new, custom-built 378,000-square-foot home in the sprawling Ellis Preserve commercial park, where companies including Sunoco LP and SAP SE have offices.

The relocation is part of an office upgrade that also involves renovations at the existing Airport Business Center space, where customer-service teams and other support workers will remain after corporate-level staff decamp for the northern Delaware County site.

The company's goal was to provide more rejuvenative environments for its employees, whose work with financially and physically distressed coverage recipients can be emotionally taxing, company spokeswoman Cora Klena said in an interview.

"We wanted to create a space where they felt they could replenish their reserves and face every day with a renewed optimism and vigor," she said.

Klena referred questions on the projects' costs to their developers  Equus Capital Partners Ltd. for Ellis Preserve and Keystone Property Group for the Airport Business Center  which did not respond to questions on the topic.

AmeriHealth Caritas said in a statement that the sites were chosen after independent studies included an analysis of employee home zip codes to minimize commutes. Among those employees is chief executive Paul Tufano, whose Devon home is four miles away from the new Ellis Preserve site, according to Chester County records.

The company said in the statement that "no individual's residence played a role in the organization's decision to select these sites."

John Boyd, a Princeton-based corporate-location adviser, said he sees the move to Newtown Square  nestled among some of the most prosperous communities in Philadelphia's western suburbs  as a counterpoint to the widely accepted premise that companies' top priority these days is to locate where they can find the highest concentration of young, educated workers, which is often in city centers.

"The dominance of the urban setting has to some degree been overplayed," Boyd said. "Just as it's critical to be proximate to your [hourly-wage based] labor pool and your administrative support staff, it's just as important to have access to your top people."

AmeriHealth Caritas, which is owned by Independence Health Group in partnership with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, operates by contracting with states to manage benefits for recipients of Medicaid and other public-health programs.

Its current headquarters is a 350,000-square-foot space accommodating about 1,500 workers at the Airport Business Center, a complex of office buildings just outside Philadelphia in Tinicum Township, Delaware County, that's owned by Conshohocken-based Keystone. The company also leases 214,000 square feet occupied by 1,100 to 1,200 more employees at the nearby International Plaza building, the former offices of Scott Paper Co., which was acquired by the city of Philadelphia in 2015.

Under the office-upgrade plan, a new 378,000-square-foot home will be built for the company at Ellis Preserve  a 218-acre tract at Newtown Road and West Chester Pike that was once a girls' charity school campus  by AmeriHealth Caritas' owner Equus, which recently moved its own headquarters there from Center City.

The new AmeriHealth Caritas headquarters will have a fitness center, a cafeteria and access to day-care, the company said. After the project is built in 2021, a 373,000-square-foot portion of the Airport Business Center will be renovated with similar amenities for occupancy by the company's customer-service and tech-support employees, as well as by its entire Keystone First unit, which manages Medicaid coverage in the Philadelphia area.

Through the move, the company will vacate its International Plaza space, Klena said. The new and refurbished buildings will each be able to accommodate 2,000 workers, though the company has no immediate plans to reach that capacity, she said.

The company "will continue to contribute to the state's growth and development with jobs, partnerships and investments," according to Tufano, who was appointed the company's chief executive in 2014 after he spent five years as an Independence Blue Cross executive in Philadelphia. "Our office expansion also aligns with our aim to be the employer of choice by creating work environments for our associates where they're inspired to collaborate, innovate and achieve their fullest potential."Gabriela Guaracao poses for a portrait in her 16th floor office at 1635 Market Street on Thursday, Aug. 23, 2018. Guaracao has a new fashion line, Americae, and sources all of her fabric and makes all of the pieces in Latin American countries. HEATHER KHALIFA / Staff Photographer Read more

Everything about Gabriela Guaracao's fledgling women's wear brand, Americae, is a nod to her South American heritage: the tropical print on fitted, tailored pantsuits; the way the crochet sheaths hug women's curvy silhouettes; and the raw emerald, gold-plated, and cow horn statement rings, natural resources of Guaracao's native land, Colombia.

Yet the 31-year-old entrepreneur stresses Americae is for any woman who likes pretty things. The current collection also boasts striking floral jumpsuits, gleaming envelope clutches, silk scarves, and several straw fedoras.

Guaracao says it's for fashionistas who appreciate a bit of South American culture infused in their everyday lives. Think Theory with a dash of spicy salsa, and prices that range from $100 for a ring to $900 for a sheath.

"We are creating a handcrafted, luxury product that is feminine and strong," Guaracao told me one afternoon as the sun caressed the delicate pieces in her Center City office. Guaracao leads a staff of seven women, some of whom have worked at contemporary fashion's highest-profile companies, like Urban Outfitters and lululemon. "In this way, we are including Latin America in what we do, but we aren't leading with Latin America."

Guaracao is the daughter of Hernan Guaracao, founder and CEO of Al Dia, the city's news platform that speaks to the Latino community. She was born in Colombia and moved to Philadelphia when she was young.

Her sense of style is spectacular. Her wavy hair is streaked white-blond with dark roots that are more chic than in need of color. She's wearing a tuxedo  complete with silk lapels and daring black stripe crawling up the leg  splashed with turquoise flowers and green vines. She totally looks the part of high-powered fashion executive, yet she doesn't have a fashion background.

Fifteen, 10, even five years ago, that would have been a rarity. But today, many of fashion's most interesting emerging brands, like Philadelphia's custom-suit label ModaMatters and the company that might rival Diane Von Furstenberg when it comes to the perfect wrap dress, Truth BE Worn, have former corporate 9-to-5ers at the helm. Like Guaracao, they have turned the city's always popping-up coworking spaces into their businesses/showrooms, where they are confidently carving out niches for themselves.

It's an exciting time because not only do these new entrepreneurs understand the spreadsheets, their take on fashion matters is more practical than it is fabulous  Guaracao is designing for the business woman she is. Through social media, these savvy business people are speaking directly to their markets. And they are not beholden to the whims of department store buyers or fashion editors who have traditionally given their blessings to brands rooted in Eurocentric ideas of beauty.

Guaracao launched Americae in July. Since then, she's hosted several Instagram-friendly events, including a kickoff that featured a 10-foot-high wall of imported Amazon River flowers arranged by local florist Liz Barrella, and an exclusive shopping event at the Ritz Carlton featuring live models, wine, and music with Latin flair. Next week, Guaracao will host a private dinner to introduce dozens of industry influencers, like well-connected consultant and man about town Alexander Hankin, to the brand.

All of this groundwork has converted to quite the buzz in the fashion industry, a database with more than 5,000 potential customers, and hundreds of sales on Americae's glossy website, which features a cluster of fair-skinned, racially ambiguous women living their best lives against a tropical backdrop. "The Americae woman is globally aware," Guaracao said. "She loves to travel. She loves to express herself through clothing, regardless of her profession. And she loves color."

Guaracao earned a bachelor's degree in business administration from Villanova University. After graduation, she started working at Al Dia. She became the company's director of media operations before leaving in 2014 for George Washington University, where she earned a master's in security policy as part of the school's international affairs program.

For her course work, Guaracao's studied abroad in 2016, visiting several Latin American countries, among them Colombia, Brazil, and Argentina. She found herself taken with the handcrafted work of local artisans. She thought it should be in the same high-fashion lane as pieces by Italian and French makers: the delicate embroidery, the expert weave in hats, the use of polished oak in clutches, and the supple leather jackets aren't just luxe, they speak to the souls of the many people around the world with indigenous heritage.

"There is this idea that we look at Latin American countries as if they are poor," Guaracao said. "But our culture is rich. I come from a rich continent with a lot of different cultures that influences and inspires the entire world. This is about empowerment."

Back from her trip abroad, Guaracao immediately started to research ways to work with Latin American artisans to create a brand infused with color and kick. Now was the time, she reasoned. Other major brands were focusing on India and China for manufacturing, but Latin American countries not only had skilled laborers, they also were part of the culture. "Our decision was to make Latin American products in a Latin American country because we want to honor the inspiration of the people," Guaracao said.

Financially, the timing was wise, too. President Trump's tariffs threaten the ability of Americans to manufacture goods in China. Many fashion brands are looking at other places to make their goods. At the moment, products made in Colombia, Brazil, and Argentina, where Guaracao is doing the bulk of her manufacturing, are protected from tariffs, thanks to free-trade agreements.

Guaracao settled on the name "Americae"  Latin for "North and South America"  because it represented the brand's inclusive style. She wrote a business plan, or several. She raised $300,000 through angel investors, and she's in the midst of a second round of fund-raising.

Right now, there are 11 artisans from abroad making and manufacturing Americae products. But Guaracao says she plans to whittle that number down so her collection is more cohesive. She already knows the emerald rings and tropical prints on the pantsuits  that I believe have the potential to become part of the signature of the brand  will likely stay.

"The Americae woman doesn't get swallowed by her femininity," Guaracao said. "She stands completely and totally firm in it."Necol Millsip is a domestic abuse survivor and is having an event for other domestic abuse survivors at the African American Museum of Philadelphia. Read more

Back in 1987, when Necol Millsip was a 16-year-old student at Edward W. Bok Technical High School, she had a violent argument with a boyfriend.

To call it terrifying would be an understatement: He pushed her out of a third-story window and held her by her ankles as she dangled. When he finally pulled her back in, he said it had all been because "you don't listen."

I wish I could tell you that she dumped him after that. In a pattern that's sadly common among domestic-abuse survivors, she stayed with her abuser, hoping that things would get better. She stayed even after he pointed a gun at her head during a game of Russian roulette. She stayed despite his incessant demands for sex. When she finally got out of the relationship, she found herself in similar situations with other men.

"The cycle of domestic violence just kept on following me," Millsip told me this week. "I kept questioning myself: 'Is it something that I'm doing wrong?' "

Her situation isn't unusual. The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence estimates that one in three women and one in four men have been physically abused by an intimate partner.

It's a problem that doesn't get much attention. Which is ironic, given all the talk about sexual harassment in the #MeToo Movement, which spread a year ago after widespread sex-abuse allegations against Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein.

About 20 people every minute are physically abused by a partner. In August, a well-known and well-liked City Hall staffer, Linda Rios-Neuby, was fatally shot in a murder-suicide by her husband, from whom she recently had separated.

But unlike #MeToo, no stampede of well-heeled celebrities is coming forward and admitting to having been victimized.

Partly it's because so much shame still surrounds domestic violence. I once had a reporter buddy whose boyfriend beat her with a leather belt. When she called me all upset about it, I offered to photograph her injuries and to notify the police. But to my astonishment, she refused. That was the beginning of the end of our friendship. I didn't understand her refusal to stand up for herself.

In hindsight, I understand that the reason she was loath to leave her attacker was that she had a new baby with him and was desperate to make the relationship work. He eventually left her.

Other abused women fear retaliation, or else they hang in there for economic reasons. Many who stay just hope against hope that the attacks will stop.

In Millsip's case, she didn't change until she was in her mid-30s and hiding out in a North Carolina domestic-abuse shelter. Listening to other victims tell their stories, she noticed the women trying to justify their batterers' behavior and realized that she was doing the same thing. It was what Oprah Winfrey would call an "Aha!" moment.

"They were saying that 'He didn't hit me that hard,' 'He didn't put too many bruises on me.' They were trying to justify and find reasons to go back," Millsip recalled. "They wanted to make it work."

Now 46, she's finally in a good place in her life. Her six children, ages 17 to 25, are thriving and she works as a youth advocate for the Philadelphia Anti-Drug/Anti-Violence Network. Millsip also founded a nonprofit called the Soldier of Love Foundation.

From 6 to 10 p.m. on Oct. 26, she'll host her Fourth Annual Domestic Violence Empowerment Event at the African American Museum in Philadelphia. A jazz reception will be followed by a presentation that will include domestic-abuse survivors sharing their stories. One year, State Rep. Vanessa Lowery Brown (D., Phila.) shared her own story of abuse.

"It provides a safe space for people to speak to their own suffering," said Chad Dion Lassiter, president of Black Men at Penn, an event sponsor.

If the #MeToo Movement has taught us anything, it's that there's power in survivors telling their stories.Kashmiri journalist and editor was murdered for trying to advance peace between India and Pakistan Read more

The fate of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi reminds me of other courageous journalists, murdered with little attention paid by the outside world.

Forty-four journalists were killed in 2018, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, most of them foreign but including five slain at the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Md. Some were killed in conflict zones, while others were murdered while investigating official corruption, from Mexico to Slovakia to Afghanistan to Brazil.

>> READ MORE: After Maryland shooting, Trump must quit embracing autocrats who squash the press | Trudy Rubin

With rare exceptions, such murders go unpunished.

I intend to write periodically about some of these cases, to celebrate the bravery of journalists who put their lives on the line with little or no protection. Their stories remind us of how precious American press freedom is, which we used to take for granted. No more.

I'll begin with the story of Shujaat Bukhari, whose murder I learned about while on a recent vacation in Kashmir.

Bukhari was the respected editor of Rising Kashmir, an online newspaper in the Kashmiri capital of Srinagar. He was mowed down in his car in the city center in June by three men on motorcycles. The assassins were pros; they fired 72 bullets, killing him, his driver, and a security guard.

No one knows who killed Bukhari or whether the orders came from Pakistan or India, but his family and friends believe he was slain because of his behind-the-scenes work for peace in Kashmir. Indian officials, who control most of Kashmir, have yet to bring any charges in the murder.

>> READ MORE: Will Trump let Saudis get away with alleged murder of Jamal Khashoggi? | Trudy Rubin

"Shujaat had a huge capacity for bringing people together," says his brother-in-law Ayaz Hafiz. "He wanted this Kashmir problem to be solved with his inner core. He wanted all this suffering to end."

Driving around Srinagar provides quick exposure to the tensions that haunt this beautiful city, where houseboats sit idyllically among acres of lily pads in Dal Lake, drawing tourists when political tensions are in abeyance.

These days, Indian army and police contingents are visible at many crossroads, some wielding metal screens to ward off stones thrown by angry youth. India and Pakistan have fought three wars over Kashmir, which is predominantly Muslim but contains communities of Hindus and Buddhists.

Hard-line Islamist militants have often infiltrated from the Pakistan-controlled slice of Kashmir, while many Muslim Kashmiris on the Indian side wish they could be independent of both countries. Meantime, the heavy Indian military presence agitates local Muslim youth, who view the Indians as occupiers.

As a prominent newspaper editor, Bukhari hoped he could use his broad contacts on both sides to ameliorate the conflict. "He had wide acceptability in India," said journalist Iftikhar Gilani, a Bukhari friend. "But he had good friends in Pakistan as well. He was a kind of connecting link between the two parts of Kashmir and between Pakistan and India."

>> READ MORE: Jamal Khashoggi's disappearance: 12 cartoonists on Trump's response, the Saudi prince and more

Bukhari had cooperated with a British nongovernmental organization that was organizing dialogue between the two parts of Kashmir. In August 2017, he participated in a conference in Dubai that included politicians and retired military officers from both Pakistan and India.

Hard-line Islamist militants in Pakistan began a vicious social-media campaign, alleging he had betrayed his Muslim brethren in Dubai (even though this meeting was only a talk fest). The editor grew worried about his safety but was unwilling to leave Srinagar because his presence was needed at his newspaper.

"When I asked him to get more protection," says his brother-in-law, "he would say: 'I have not done anything wrong. I am doing my duty as a journalist.' "

So who killed Shujaat Bukhari? The vicious social-media criticism of the Dubai conference would seem to point at Pakistan. Local police initially (and conveniently) blamed the killing on militants linked to the Pakistani terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba, including an alleged ringleader who had just escaped from Indian police custody in suspicious circumstances. But four months later, no one has been charged.

On the other hand, mysterious elements of his death could hint at an Indian hand in the murder. Bukhari was shot outside his office in the busy Press Enclave. A police car is normally posted a few doors down from the office, say his colleagues, but it was mysteriously missing at the time of the murder, and police security cameras had been shifted. Nor did police show up from a nearby police station for more than 20 minutes, allowing the killers to escape.

Moreover, Bukhari was killed on the very same day that the United Nations released an extensive report on Indian and Pakistani repression in Kashmir. He had helped provide open-source documents for the report, which had infuriated the Indian government.

There's unlikely to be any interest in this case from a White House that appears ready to facilitate a Saudi cover-up of the Khashoggi murder. But the unsolved murder of Bukhari is a blot on an Indian democracy that has long prided itself on a vibrant free press.

>> READ MORE: Jamal Khashoggi affair highlights what happens when America abdicates role as free press defender | Trudy Rubin

Who benefits from Bukhari's death? "Those who don't want any peace effort between the two countries," says journalist Gilani.

And those who want to intimidate local journalists from writing about the situation in Kashmir.What SAT or ACT score does Harvard require for an applicant to be a serious contender?

In education and admissions circles, that's been a long-sought but closely guarded secret.

But a closely watched trial at U.S. District Court in Boston this week has cracked open the vault, according to the Washington Post. As a judge began hearing testimony from the first witness, longtime dean of admissions William R. Fitzsimmons, an answer emerged.

Mid-to-high 700s, out of 800, on each part of the SAT. Or 33 out of 36 on the ACT, an internal Harvard document introduced in federal court showed, according to the Post.

As the Inquirer and Daily News reported this week, more local schools are scrapping the requirement that applicants submit SAT scores, but at many of the nation's most competitive schools, like Harvard, they remain an important indicator.

Of course, not even a perfect SAT score guarantees admission to an Ivy League school. Princeton University told the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights when it was facing an inquiry that more than 50 percent of applicants with perfect SAT scores get rejected.

The Harvard trial was expected to pull back the curtain on the highly secretive admissions process at one of the nation's most prestigious Ivy League universities. Only about 5 percent of applicants are admitted to Harvard.

The case stems from complaints that Harvard discriminates against Asian Americans by holding them to a higher standard, an assertion Harvard has denied. The case could have broad implication for college admissions if it ends up in the U.S. Supreme Court, where a conservative majority has been cemented with the addition of Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Other Ivy League institutions including Princeton in New Jersey and the University of Pennsylvania have filed a joint amicus brief in support of Harvard and the practice of using race as one factor in admissions.

Many colleges for years have been considering race as a factor, in an attempt to admit increasingly diverse freshman classes.Four-year-old Zac Oliver has been getting chemotherapy to treat a rare, aggressive subtype of leukemia since his diagnosis in May Read more

After receiving more than $130,000 from an anonymous donor, a 4-year-old boy is set to travel from England to Children's Hospital of Philadelphia for treatment of a rare form of leukemia, the Daily Mail reports.

Zac Oliver was diagnosed in May with a subtype of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), a type of cancer in which the bone marrow makes too many immature lymphocytes, a type of white blood cell. His parents are hoping to get him the T-cell therapy Kymriah, which was pioneered at CHOP in collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania.

The costly therapy is priced at $475,000 in the U.S., though hospital costs can raise that number to more than $1 million. Zac's mother, Hannah Oliver-Willets, said CHOP has agreed to cover the T-cell therapy and all medical care for $604,000.

The family had been raising money through a crowdfunding website since August. With the new donation, they've reached their goal.

"They have given us a massive gift  the gift of life for Zac, hopefully," Oliver-Willets told the Daily Mail. "But so did everybody else who helped us  the children who emptied their money boxes or sold their flapjacks at school cake sales."

Zac will undergo chemotherapy at the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford and spend a week recuperating at home in Broseley, a small town northwest of Manchester, before traveling to Philadelphia.

About 6,000 youngsters are diagnosed with ALL each year in the U.S. and Europe, and standard treatments  chemo, radiation and stem-cell transplants  cure 85 percent of them. T-cell therapy is typically only offered to children who have exhausted standard treatment options and have relapsed, English authorities said. That's the same as the approved U.S. protocol.

But Zac's parents believe relapse would be a death sentence for him, since he has an ultra-rare, ultra-aggressive subtype of ALL with chromosome alterations called near haploid or hypodiploid. He's expected to relapse by November, Zac's parents said, and they don't want to wait. Due to his specific form of leukemia, treatment itself is often deadly for Zac, because it goes on for so long and does so much damage.

For ALL in general, T-cell therapy has shown stunning effectiveness. In the global clinical trial of 95 youngsters that led to Kymriah's FDA approval in the U.S., 80 percent went into remission, and more than 40 percent were alive a year later. The first child ever treated, Emily Whitehead, 13, of Philipsburg, Pa., remains cancer-free six years after her dramatic rescue.

Still, almost all children who receive the new therapy suffer serious or even life-threatening complications, a result of immune system overstimulation.

In all, Zac's treatment and recovery in Philadelphia would take about four months. Oliver-Willets said the logistics and implications of uprooting the family, including Zac's stepfather and little brother, are still being worked out.

"But we are going to try to get Zac into that tiny percentage that survive and are cured," she told the Inquirer in early October.The nation's top health official proposed on Monday that pharmaceutical companies be required to include the list price of medicines in television advertisements to consumers  the boldest in a series of efforts by the Trump administration to curb rampant drug spending.

Under a major change laid out by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and drafted as a new federal rule, drug manufacturers would need to disclose in ads the list price of a 30-day supply of any drug that is covered through Medicare and Medicaid and costs more than $35 a month.

"Sometimes it takes government to make the first move, to disrupt a broken system, and to lay down new rules of the road," Azar, typically an advocate of market-based approaches, said in a speech Monday before the National Academy of Medicine.

The proposal intensifies a tug of war between the pharmaceutical industry and an HHS secretary who emerged from its ranks and has striven to dispel any perception of alignment with his former drugmaker colleagues. The draft rule will now be debated through the fall, and its likelihood of becoming an actual requirement will hinge, in large part, on the intensity of the industry's resistance.

While some health policy researchers are skeptical that disclosing drug prices in television ads would change consumer behavior and doctors' prescribing habits, the proposal drew immediate praise from unlikely bedfellows.

Health insurers' main trade group commended the administration "for taking such bold action" to combat "out-of-control" drug prices. The American Medical Association lamented the existence of direct consumer advertising of medicine but said in a statement that "as long as the practice is allowed, the ads should come with at least a small dose of transparency."

Praise came from both Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who had jointly sponsored a similar bipartisan measure that passed that chamber this year but died in the House.

The proposed regulation is the latest effort by the Trump administration and some members of Congress to rein in drug spending. Proponents say that compelling drug companies to disclose the list prices of medicines in television ads would prompt consumers to become more price sensitive, in turn slowing the rise in pharmaceutical charges that have been a main driver in recent years of the United States's uncommonly high health-care spending.

Hours before the HHS secretary's speech before the National Academy of Medicine, the major pharmaceutical lobbying group announced a new voluntary action that would, instead, direct consumers to company websites with pricing information. The move by the industry, to begin by April 15, would give patients a variety of pricing information, including the list price of a drug, the expected out-of-pocket costs of the drug and the patient assistance programs available.

The announcement by PhRMA, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, was seen by experts as an attempt to fend off more aggressive federal regulation. In his speech, Azar denounced the industry's effort to blunt federal intervention.

The secretary made an analogy between disclosing drug prices in ads to a 1950s-era rule that requires automobile companies to post their cars' sticker prices. "Despite the ample precedent for this common-sense measure, the pharmaceutical industry has resisted it fiercely," the secretary said. Calling the timing of PhRMA's announcement "no coincidence," he said, "placing information on a website is not the same as putting it right in an ad."

Steve Ubl, president of PhRMA, argued that disclosing the list price of a medication in a television ad would be "very confusing, misleading, lacks appropriate context and isn't what patients want or need." He predicted that the list price might deter patients from seeking medical care.

Ubl said that the administration's proposed rule raised First Amendment concerns  signaling that, if the proposal becomes final, a protracted legal fight might ensue between the government and one of the nation's most powerful lobbies.

In a briefing for reporters after Azar's speech, senior federal health officials disputed the idea that the rule could be found unconstitutional, saying that the Supreme Court has upheld the government's authority to ensure that consumers receive accurate information.

Pharmaceutical companies are now required in ads to specify side effects to drugs but not to describe what the medicine costs.

The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that, during a 60-day comment period, they would welcome suggestions about whether to expand the price-disclosure requirement to drug ads beyond those on television. For now, the proposal calls for the price to be written in a type size that is legible to television-watchers and would not require the price to be said aloud.

The requirements would apply to all prescription drugs that are covered by Medicare or Medicaid, regardless of whether they are manufactured within the United States, the officials said. They said that, between the two government insurance programs, virtually all pharmaceuticals are covered.

Drugmakers that violated the price-listing rule would be penalized by being named on a list issued by HHS  and possibly by legal action, the officials said.

Rachel Sachs, an associate professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis School of Law, said that it is unclear how or why disclosures would reduce drug prices. "The administration has not yet advanced a theory for how that's likely to happen, and we've seen many times that shaming companies for their high prices publicly doesn't cause them to lower their prices."

The senior health officials said that they had not tried to estimate "any numerical percent impact" on drug spending but predicted that disclosing prices would have a beneficial effect.First lady Melania Trump visited Thomas Jefferson University on Wednesday to learn more about babies who are exposed to addictive drugs in their mothers' wombs, and to kick off a conference on the issue.

The problem has exploded across the country with the opioid crisis. As a result, many newborns spend days or weeks being treated in a hospital for withdrawal symptoms, called neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS).

The first lady's visit was part of her "Be Best" initiative, which focuses on issues affecting children, including the opioid crisis.

"Over the past year, I have learned a lot about NAS," the first lady said during brief remarks before pediatric and addiction specialists gathered in an auditorium on Jefferson's Center City campus. "Later on, I will meet with families affected by NAS.  I'm anxious to do all I can to shine a light" on the problem.

>>READ MORE: Smoke forces first lady Melania Trump's plane to turn around en route to Philadelphia

Jefferson has long been a leader in caring for women in addiction and their infants. Last year, the medical center opened a residential treatment facility as part of its 45-year-old MATER (maternal addiction treatment education and research) program.

The president's wife was accompanied by Alex M. Azar, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. He noted that the National Institutes of Health is funding a new study to evaluate treatment options for NAS, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is stepping up efforts to gather data on the prevalence of the syndrome.

In addition, Azar said, experts at the Jefferson conference planned to discuss how to use new information-technology tools to support long-term care and tracking of babies who experience withdrawal.

The problem of drug-exposed newborns is hitting Pennsylvania hard. Nearly 3,300 such infants  2 percent of all births  were delivered in the Keystone State last year, up from 788 in 2000, according to a Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council analysis.

While the severity of newborn withdrawal varies, the symptoms may include inconsolable crying, tremors, muscle rigidity, and diarrhea. The babies are typically treated with decreasing doses of oral morphine or methadone, both opioid medications.

Although some studies have linked newborn withdrawal to later developmental problems, most research is inconclusive, and the effects of poverty  itself a risk factor for health issues  often make findings hard to interpret.

Cyndi Swafford of Dayton, Ohio, who with her husband, Jesse, adopted three children affected by NAS, spoke to the conference attendees to urge more services for mothers struggling with addiction.

"If you can't care for the moms, the babies can't get what they need, either," she said.Penn physicists Charles Kane, left, and Eugene Mele won a $3 million Breakthrough Prize for their work on materials called topological insulators. Read more

Almost from the moment Charles Kane and Eugene Mele predicted the existence of an odd new type of electronic material  a wafer-thin hybrid of an insulator and a conductor  it was expected to play a role in future generations of ultra-fast computers.

The practical applications of that 2005 discovery still lie in the future, but Kane and Mele were named the winners of a mammoth personal reward Wednesday. The two University of Pennsylvania physics professors are to receive the $3 million Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics.

The award, sponsored by an elite group of tech entrepreneurs, will be given at a Nov. 4 ceremony in Silicon Valley, along with six other $3 million prizes in life sciences, mathematics, and physics.

Kane and Mele said they had no idea they were being considered for the honor. They learned of their good fortune in June via phone calls from past winner Edward Witten, a prominent physicist at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, but were sworn to secrecy.

"I was speechless," said Kane, 55.

It is the seventh year for the high-profile prizes, sponsored this year by Google cofounder Sergey Brin; Facebook cofounder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, physician-philanthropist Priscilla Chan; Tencent founder Ma Huateng; tech investor Yuri Milner and his wife, Julia; and 23andMe founder Anne Wojcicki.

The type of material Kane and Mele envisioned is called a two-dimensional topological insulator. Using advanced mathematical tools from the realm of theoretical physics, they showed in their 2005 paper that such materials should exist. Not until 2007 did a team of German scientists actually create the materials, laboriously building them atom by atom from mercury, cadmium, and tellurium.

Topological insulators sparked immediate interest in the world of physics and electronics because they act sort of like a divided highway, with an insulator on one side and a conductor on the other, forcing electrons to travel in an orderly fashion instead of with the usual chaos.

"I tell my freshmen: 'Think of a crowded train station where people are bumping into each other. What these things do is like providing a conveyor belt on the edge,' " said Mele, 68.

Kane, who sees Mele as his mentor, said this property could be harnessed to improve energy efficiency.

"The hope is that we can take advantage of that for controlling how energy is dissipated in an electronic device," he said.

After their initial paper, the pair went on to show in 2006 that in theory, a three-dimensional topological insulator also was possible. Sure enough, other scientists have since been able to create those materials, too  with an insulator on the inside and an electrical conductor on the surface.

"It's like a Hershey's kiss," Kane said. "The wrapper is the surface conductor. The chocolate is the insulator."

Mele said his interest in physics was kindled by one of his teachers at Cardinal O'Hara High School in Springfield, Delaware County. Another O'Hara teacher inspired him to pursue English, but when Mele went on to St. Joseph's University, he discovered his true aptitude lay in the sciences. He later earned a Ph.D. at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and has been at Penn since 1981.

Kane grew up in Iowa City, Iowa, fascinated by math from an early age  often lying awake in bed as he pondered equations.

"I still do," Kane said.

He earned an undergraduate degree in physics at the University of Chicago and, like Mele, received a Ph.D. from MIT.

Neither has much of an idea how to deal with the financial windfall from the Breakthrough award, which they will split.

"I'm not used to having this kind of problem," said Kane, who is married to Haverford College physics professor Suzanne Amador Kane.

Mele said in the past, when he felt guilty about not tackling projects around the home, he promised his wife, retired human resources executive Hedy Cerwinka, that if he ever won a big prize, he would devote some of those resources to home improvement.

"I was never expecting to have to make good on the promise," Mele said. "All those things are back on the table."

The two physics professors first met in 1990, when Mele became aware of work that Kane was doing with high-temperature superconductivity at an IBM research lab. Mele invited Kane to speak at Penn, then was instrumental in bringing him back the next year for a permanent job.

Other research advances recognized with the new crop of Breakthrough awards include: a treatment for a rare genetic disease called spinal muscular atrophy; research on the impact of having an abnormal number of chromosomes; the development of an advanced type of microscope called super-resolution imaging; the discovery of an enzyme that triggers autoimmune responses; advances in a branch of mathematics called the Langlands program; and research on stars called pulsars.

This article has been corrected to reflect that Edward Witten is at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J.Joey Merlino leaves the Thurgood Marshall Federal Courthouse in Manhattan after being sentenced on Oct. 17, 2018. Read more

NEW YORK  Joey Merlino is headed back to prison.

"Skinny Joey," the onetime boss of the Philadelphia mob, was sentenced Wednesday to two years in federal prison for a gambling-related count to which he pleaded guilty in April.

The sentence, imposed by a federal judge in Manhattan, marks just the latest stint of incarceration for a mouthy celebrity gangster who has survived assassination attempts, beaten murder charges in court, and spent at least a decade locked up for prior convictions on counts of racketeering, conspiracy, assault, or related offenses.

It was the stiffest possible penalty for Merlino, who had opted to plead guilty to a single count instead of facing a retrial on a litany of other charges. And even as U.S. District Judge Richard Sullivan said he did not believe that Merlino was still the boss of La Cosa Nostra in Philadelphia, he insisted that Merlino needed to move on from his apparent penchant for criminal conduct.

"Mr. Merlino, enough," Sullivan said. "Let's move on."

Merlino, for his part, said afterward that he planned to use the time behind bars to get into shape. And, in an apparent reference to witnesses who cooperated with the government against him, he quipped: "President Trump is right  they've got to outlaw the flippers."

Sullivan allowed Merlino 45 days to self-surrender to a federal prison that would be determined at a later date.

Merlino, 56, has long insisted that he has left his criminal past behind  relocating to Boca Raton, Fla., in 2011 and serving as maitre d' at an eponymous restaurant he opened there. But his most recent brush with the law resulted from his indictment in 2016 in a sweeping East Coast mob crackdown.

Manhattan-based prosecutors accused Merlino and 45 other alleged mobsters of operating illegal gambling rings and bribing doctors to write unnecessary prescriptions for topical skin creams, among other alleged schemes.

Nearly every defendant pleaded guilty before trial, but Merlino opted to take his case before a jury  even though he faced a lengthy potential prison term if convicted. Earlier this year, Sullivan declared a mistrial after jurors reported being hopelessly deadlocked.

Just two months later, in a surprising twist, Merlino decided to plead guilty to a single gambling count instead of facing a retrial. It was the first time the brash mobster had admitted to criminal conduct in court.

Edwin J. Jacobs Jr., Merlino's lawyer, said in April that the plea was prudent because Merlino  a longtime gambling addict  would be exposed to a much longer prison sentence if convicted at a retrial.

Still, after court Wednesday, Jacobs said he felt the sentence was too harsh. Guidelines suggested a penalty of 10 to 16 months behind bars, and Jacobs had argued in court documents for a sentence that included at least a component of house arrest.

He also requested that any prison sentence be reduced by four months to account for the time Merlino spent behind bars in 2014, when a federal judge in Philadelphia ordered Merlino jailed for violating his probation by socializing with a purported mob associate at a Boca Raton cigar bar. An appellate court eventually overturned that ruling, freeing Merlino just 10 days before his jail term was to have ended.

Prosecutors, meanwhile, had asked Sullivan to impose the full two-year prison term against Merlino, citing his extensive criminal history and what they viewed as a continuing indifference to obeying the law. In sentencing memos, they wrote that "the experience of standing trial twice for murder did not sufficiently discourage him from engaging in illegal activity."

Sullivan ultimately said he felt two years of incarceration was a good deal for Merlino, given the evidence presented at trial and the likelihood that his criminal conduct extended well beyond the single count to which he agreed to plead guilty.

The judge implored Merlino to learn from this case and to turn a corner in his life upon his release.

"You can't go back to this," he said. "You can't go back to this life, or even a shadow of this life."Authorities continued their investigation Wednesday into what caused the fire that left an elderly couple dead and another family member critically injured as flames raged through their single-story house in Browns Mills, Burlington County.

Authorities were called to the 500 block of Willow Boulevard about 8:45 p.m. Tuesday and quickly pulled three people from the single-story residence, and then battled the flames for an hour.

One of the victims was identified as 92-year-old Lore Smith. A family acquaintance said Smith's 94-year-old longtime companion, who lived in the house, also died. Smith was pronounced dead at Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center at Deborah Hospital on Tuesday night, authorities said. The identity of her companion, who was pronounced dead at the scene, has not been released because his relatives had not been identified.

Smith's son was airlifted to Temple University Hospital, where he was placed on a respirator, said Joel Bewley, a spokesperson for the Burlington County Prosecutor's Office. He was in stable condition Wednesday, Bewley said.

A woman identified by 6ABC as Tina Muccie told reporters she was a caregiver who lived in the home and tried to get the couple out of the house, but was overwhelmed by heavy smoke before she escaped. A next-door neighbor, whose home was damaged from the heat, told the station he also tried to save the couple after seeing the flames, but could not get through the smoke.

Mrs. Smith, who was born in Germany, married an American stationed in the U.S. Army in Europe and the couple came to nearby Fort Dix as young newlyweds, said her longtime friend Alberta Johnson. The couple later divorced and he relocated to Baltimore, where he died several years ago, she said.

Johnson said she worked with Mrs. Smith for many years as supervisors at the New Lisbon Developmental Center in the Pinelands, a state facility for men and women with developmental disabilities. They would often bicker about minor issues, but would quickly patch things up.

"What I liked about her is that she never got really mad at you," said Johnson. "She was something else."

Although both women retired years ago, they remained close friends and kept in touch, said Johnson, 91, of Willingboro. Because both were former military wives, they called each other by their last names, she said.

Johnson said she last saw Mrs. Smith, who was suffering from poor health, several months ago when she visited her friend in a hospital. The two were hoping to travel to Germany so that Mrs. Smith could visit her family.

"She was one of the best friends I ever had," said Johnson, choking back tears. "I don't believe she's gone. I really don't."

Claudia Storicks, who lives in Pemberton Township, said she knew the elderly man and described him as a "nice guy" who had at least two living children.

Pemberton Fire Chief Craig Augustoni said that when police arrived at the home they attempted to rescue those inside after a neighbor reported hearing screams, but could not help them because of the flames. Firefighters brought the couple and the injured victim outside.

"Once we [firefighters] got here, it was rather rapid in getting them out," Augustoni said.

On Tuesday night, firefighters battled the blaze in the first cold snap of the season. When authorities arrived at the scene, the home was engulfed in flames, with heavy smoke throughout the structure. On Wednesday, the house and brick chimney were still standing, but much of the interior was destroyed. Charred studs could be seen from the street as investigators picked through the debris and took photos.

Staff writer Melanie Burney contributed to this report.First lady Melania Trump speaks at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital Wednesday after her original flight to the city was forced to return Andrews Air Force base due to smoke in the cabin from a mechanical malfunction. Read more

Smoke due to a "minor mechanical issue" forced first lady Melania Trump's airplane to return to Andrews Air Force Base Wednesday morning while en route to an event in Philadelphia.

No injuries were reported and the plane landed safely at Andrews. The first lady then took another plane, arriving later in Philadelphia to meet at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital with families of children who were affected by exposure to opioids while in the womb.

"Minor mechanical issue, " Stephanie Grisham, the first lady's communications director, said in a statement about the first plane. "Everything is fine and everyone is safe."

The press pool on the flight reported that a "thin haze of smoke" appeared in the plane along with the smell of something burning.

Passengers were given wet towels to breathe through, the pool reported.

The first lady is expected to be accompanied by U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar during the visit to the hospital, which has provided care to mothers with opioid use disorder and their newborn children for more than 45 years.

She also plans to tour a neonatal intensive care nursery and speak at a U.S. health department conference on a new system that tracks infants suffering from opiate withdrawal.

The first lady's visit is one of the stops she's making to promote her "Be Best" campaign, which focuses on major issues affecting children, including the importance of healthy pregnancies.

This story contains information from the Associated Press.Mike Pompeo, U.S. secretary of state, speaks during a news conference in Singapore, on June 11, 2018. Read more

ANKARA, Turkey  Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Turkey on Wednesday touting a Saudi promise to punish those responsible for the disappearance and suspected killing of a journalist at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, even as Turkish officials complained that Saudi Arabia was stalling their search of the buildings where he was last seen.

With his brief visit to Ankara to meet with the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, Pompeo has touched down in the two countries most involved in the disappearance  and suspected killing  of Jamal Khashoggi, who wrote critically of the Saudi government he once served.

Pompeo pronounced his trip "incredibly successful" because of the Saudi commitment to a transparent investigation, even though he acknowledged that his discussions did not address the elemental issue of whether Khashoggi is alive or dead.

However, Cavusoglu appeared more wary of the Saudi pledges to find out what happened to Khashoggi. After his meeting with Pompeo, he took aim at the Saudi "approach" to the investigation in general, pointing to a "mocking" attitude when the consul general opened cupboards in front of a team from Reuters news agency "as if to say, 'See, he isn't here.'"

"Acting disrespectfully is not the correct approach," Cavusoglu said.

He told reporters that a search of the Saudi consul general's house had to be called off on Tuesday night because "the Saudis claimed that the family was inside."

Saudi officials have vehemently denied involvement in Khashoggi's disappearance two weeks ago, while Turkish officials have forged ahead with their own investigation. The Turks have said they suspect Saudis dispatched from Riyadh killed the self-exiled Khashoggi and dismembered his body within hours after he arrived at the consulate to get a legal document he needed to remarry.

Turkish investigators were finally allowed into the Saudi Consulate building to carry out a search nearly two weeks after Khashoggi disappeared.

They are also interested in searching the residence, around 500 yards away, as several diplomatic cars were seen leaving the consulate for the house about an hour after Khashoggi stepped through the consulate's doors. Security cameras on the surrounding streets did not see him leave by foot, Turkish officials say.

"I don't want to talk about any of the facts," Pompeo told reporters on the tarmac of a military airport in Riyadh just before departing, when asked whether Khashoggi had died or not. "They didn't want to, either, in that they want to have the opportunity to complete this investigation in a thorough way. And I think that's a reasonable thing to do, to give them that opportunity, and then we'll all get to judge. We'll all get to evaluate the work that they do."

Turkey is still waiting for "consensus" from the Saudis to go in to the residence, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu told Anadolu news agency.

He said that after the investigation is completed, the prosecutor's office and law enforcement will "meticulously present the results of the investigation," and "the whole world will be presented with what was what."

Pompeo has focused on the need to investigate and has generally avoided trying to determine what actually happened to Khashoggi on Oct. 2.

Before leaving Riyadh, Pompeo told reporters that Saudi officials pledged they would hold any wrongdoers accountable, no matter how high their positions.

"They promised accountability for each of those persons whom they determine as a result of their investigation deserves accountability," he said. Asked whether that includes members of the royal family, Pompeo added, "They made no exceptions to who they would hold accountable."

In the middle of a Tuesday night dinner with Pompeo, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman spoke by phone with President Donald Trump, who promptly tweeted that the heir to the throne had denied any culpability.

The Saudis have maintained that Khashoggi got the document he sought and left the consulate, though the only video available shows him entering but not leaving the building. Last week, the Saudis requested a joint investigation with the Turks, whose own investigation has been proceeding swiftly.

However, Turkish officials have repeatedly accused Saudi Arabia of dragging its feet and only offering a facade of cooperation. Cleaners were seen entering the consulate building before Turkish investigators went in, and officials complained that the smell of "chemicals" was present, pointing to an attempted cleanup.

Pompeo said the investigation gives the Saudis the opportunity to prove they are telling the truth.

"They promised that they would achieve that," he said. "And I'm counting on it. They gave me their word. And we'll all get to see whether they deliver on that commitment."

The Trump administration has been pulled into the outcry over Khashoggi, in part because The Washington Post columnist lived in Virginia.

Trump, who has had business ties with Saudis, has alternated between vows to punish any Saudis proven to be involved, and reticence over imposing sanctions, as some members of Congress have demanded.

Pompeo said that in his talks Tuesday with Saudi leaders, he stressed the importance of an investigation whose results can be publicly aired. Asked whether he discussed potential ramifications if top Saudi officials are implicated, he said, "We talked about the importance of completing the investigation."

Though the Khashoggi case has dominated his talks so far, Pompeo has raised other issues on his last-minute trip. Those issues underscore the administration's reluctance to let the journalist's fate interfere too much with bilateral cooperation on other matters.

"We also had the chance to talk about lots of other elements of the relationship between our two countries," he told reporters. "We have many overlapping interests, places we work together, places where Saudi Arabia and the United States are trying to achieve important things around the world. And we spent time discussing those as well."Kaitlyn Condon, right, a Penn State Abington staffer, helps a student's family load up the blue carts so they can be wheeled into the new residence hall behind them on Wednesday. Penn State Abington will open its first dorm this fall, part of a new effort to boost retention and accommodate students who want to live on campus, as University Park becomes increasingly crowded. Nearby Penn State Brandywine also is opening its first dorm. 08/16/2017 MICHAEL BRYANT / Staff Photographer Read more

Pennsylvania State University's Abington branch has received a $17.3 million gift from licorice magnate Steve Taub  the largest gift in the campus' history, the school said Wednesday.

Taub, a Penn State Abington and University Park alumnus who graduated in 1973, designated the gift for the creation of the Taub Endowments. While 40 percent of the money will go toward financial-aid scholarships, another 40 percent will fund study-abroad and other global programs. The rest will be used to expand classroom spaces and technology.

The gift is "unique among all the campuses," said Eric J. Barron, Penn State's president, because it will create more international opportunities for students who aren't from affluent families.

"If you are financially need based, are you going to be studying abroad? It's unlikely," he said. "We know how transformative these experiences are.  This is a gift that's totally focused on student success."

This gift is the second-largest to one of the 24 Penn State University Commonwealth Campuses, and the largest ever to a Philadelphia-area branch, according to a university spokesperson.

In the past Taub has donated more than $4.5 million in gifts and scholarships to intercultural leadership programs at Penn State Abington.

Taub was CEO of Mafco Worldwide Corp, of Camden, the world's largest natural-licorice products manufacturer. For 38 years, he managed international operations of the company that produced flavors and ingredients for food, confectionery, pharmaceutical, among other products, according to the Penn State release.

The portion of the gift dedicated to updating classroom spaces and technology is intended to create "seminar-style and technology-enhanced learning," said Damian Fernandez, the chancellor of Penn State Abington, which last year opened a $50 million residence hall.

Fernandez said that Taub wanted to structure the gift in this way because his degree allowed him, a first-generation student, to visit more than 90 countries during his career.

Penn State Abington has nearly 4,000 students enrolled, half of whom are students of color, Fernandez said. Nearly 15 percent of students are international, he added.

Fernandez said he has been discussing this gift with Taub for more than two years, which Fernandez believes will "open Abington to the world."

"Understanding diversity among people and societies nationally and globally based upon these learned skills and acquired knowledge are essential for long-term harmony and prosperity for the country and the world," Taub said in the release.

Students can qualify for a Taub Endowment scholarship when filing their financial-aid paperwork.

"Generation after generation of students will get to benefit from this gift," Barron said.Former Trump staffers Jason Miller and A.J. Delgado had a love child following an extramarital affair during the 2016 presidential campaign. Now Delgado claims Miller impregnated a different woman during an affair, and secretly drugged her with an "abortion pill." Read more

Jason Miller, who worked for President Trump during and after the 2016 campaign, is suing Univision's Gizmodo Media Group for $100 million over a story that featured explosive allegations that Miller impregnated a woman and drugged her with an "abortion pill," costing him his job as a CNN contributor.

The claims were made in court documents filed in Miami-Dade Circuit Court in September by A.J. Delgado, another former Trump staffer, whom Miller impregnated during an extramarital affair that took place during the 2016 presidential campaign. Miller and Delgado have been locked in a custody battle over their infant son.

In those documents, Delgado alleged that, prior to their affair, Miller also impregnated a different woman after meeting her at an Orlando, Fla., strip club in 2012. According to Delgado, when the woman found out she was pregnant, Miller gave her a smoothie dosed with an abortion pill without her knowledge, leading to the termination of the pregnancy.

In a lawsuit filed in federal court in Florida on Monday, Miller said none of Delgado's allegations were true, and claimed to have a sworn declaration from the women in question (which is redacted in the lawsuit) that the events described by Delgado never happened.

Miller also claimed in the lawsuit that Gizmodo and reporter Katherine Krueger, who are both named in the lawsuit, were "waging 'all-out war' " against the former CNN commentator due to his political opinions and his association with Trump. Miller said he asked the Gizmodo website that published the story, Splinter ,to retract the story, but it refused to do so.

Miller's attorneys on the case are Ken Turkel and Shane Vogt, the lawyers former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan (real name Terry Bollea) turned to when he successfully sued Gawker for $140 million for publishing a sex tape. The verdict in Hogan's lawsuit bankrupted Gawker, which was later spun off into the Gizmodo Media Group and purchased by Univision in 2016 (Hogan later settled for $31 million).

"The sad reality is that the Defendants could not care less about the truth of the accusations they published to millions of readers," Miller's attorneys wrote in the lawsuit. "Miller was labeled a 'murderer,' he lost his job on CNN, he is being harassed and threatened online, he and his family are being shunned in their community, and his personal, professional and family life have been permanently scarred  all without a shred of proof or corroborating evidence."

Delgado responded to Miller's lawsuit Tuesday morning with a series of tweets denying she colluded with Splinter or Krueger over the publication of the story.

Univision did not respond to a request for comment. In a statement, a spokesperson for Gizmodo Media Group said the company would respond more fully when it had a chance to review the complaint, but added, "GMG stands by its reporting and its reporter."

Miller also claimed that the women in question told Yashar Ali, a freelance media reporter for New York magazine and HuffPost, that the allegations made by Delgado were untrue. But Ali denied that on Twitter in September.New Jersey 2nd congressional district candidate Democrat Jeff Van Drew (right) talks with Cape May County Freeholder candidate Democrat Jeremiah Schenerman during a young professionals fund raiser at Mud Hen Brewing Company in Wildwood, NJ on October 14, 2018. Read more

WILDWOOD, N.J.  Jeff Van Drew has told the wedding story from the night before and wants it told again. It pretty much sums up the weird but true, dizzying, and unexpectedly personal campaign in which this smooth South Jersey pol is reaching for the Second District Congressional ring against  of all people!  Seth Grossman, his longtime friend.

The same Seth Grossman who never missed a Van Drew family end-of-summer pig roast in Dennis Township  until this year when, it goes without saying, he was not invited. Now Grossman is all that stands in the way of Van Drew, a moderate Democrat, flipping the House seat long held by retiring U.S. Rep. Frank LoBiondo, a moderate Republican.

Grossman, of course, got himself into a national kerfuffle the minute he unexpectedly won the Republican primary in June, when an opposition research group released a video the next day of Grossman saying "diversity is a bunch of crap and un-American," which led to similar stories until the national Republicans dumped him.

Around the country, the reaction was Who is this guy? But in South Jersey, people, especially Van Drew, already knew.

Seth Grossman: the guy who holds court Saturdays at the Shore Diner on behalf of liberty and prosperity, and, more recently, Trump and MAGA, files more government challenging lawsuits than anyone else in Atlantic County, and has probably run for more offices, up to and including governor of New Jersey. Who is now running hard to the right of Van Drew, whose biggest obstacle in the Democratic primary was that Democrats thought he was too conservative.

Van Drew is a longtime state senator from Cape May County (born in Paterson) who prides himself on appealing to Republicans and Democrats, and insists that approach can work in this polarized age in a district that twice voted for Obama then narrowly for Trump: an amiable dentist whose office sits on a residential street in Pleasantville, inoffensive to anyone.

Durwood, this is Italian music

On this campaign Sunday, Van Drew, who favors a folded multipoint pocket square in his suit jacket, and requests Scotch, served in a coupe cocktail glass, from the bar at the Mud Hen brewery in Wildwood, has a story.

The story is this: the night before at the Buena Vista Country Club, Van Drew was headed for a Hispanic Association event, a key demographic in a district that includes all of Atlantic, Cape May, Salem, and Cumberland and parts of Gloucester, Camden, Ocean, and Burlington Counties. He and aide Durwood Pinkett had been crisscrossing the district and are on about their sixth event. They enter the room, start the campaign schmooze, head for the bar to get a drink, continue on until Van Drew stops.

>> READ MORE: Voters guide to Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware

"Durwood, this is Italian music," Van Drew says.

They look around and realize: They're at a wedding! Being Van Drew, he won't slip out without apologizing to the bride, who, it turns out, is a union official and voting Democratic and, by the way, has some issues to discuss. And so they do. They are then led by the staff through a service door to the correct room with the Hispanic group and pop out, as if from a wedding cake, on stage, drinks still in hand from the wedding.

It's been that kind of campaign, with the two former friends awkwardly thrust into larger-than-South-Jersey roles in a plot set by the national climate. At least that's how Grossman sees the campaign, as he pegs Van Drew with the ill-fitting "Pelosi liberal" label to rally his red-hatted troops.

It has worn on a friendship that began when Grossman's father, a dentist and researcher (and FDR Democrat, Van Drew notes), served as a mentor to Van Drew.

"It's very awkward," says Grossman,"I'll admit. In normal times, I would not be running against Jeff Van Drew. I like him. We've cooperated on many things."

"Yes it is," Van Drew says a few days later. "It is awkward a little bit."

Van Drew points to one moment at their Oct. 10 debate at Stockton University (during which Grossman took shots at Stockton faculty, leadership, and curriculum, causing students to boo) when the topic turned to health care and people seeking basic care at emergency rooms.

>> SIGN UP: Get daily text messages on key issues leading up to the election

Grossman said: "That gives me an idea on how to find all those illegal aliens: Send them down to the emergency room. I think we'll find a whole bunch."

"That's not conservative," Van Drew said a few days later. "That's just mean. And it's not even true. I know it sounds very naive but one of the things I really, really want to do is bring people together. This is a very, very unhealthy climate we have right now."

"The Seth Grossman that I really know was intellectually conservative, much more conservative than me always, a great lover of history, particularly American history, but not that mean stuff," Van Drew continues. "And he was a pretty straightforward honest guy. I know in politics everyone supposedly fibs but he really is doing a little bit of fibbing, on what you voted for and what you didn't vote for."

This is about as negative as Van Drew goes, backing in apologetically. At the debate, he said, "I always try to be nice  " then sharply called Grossman out for his diversity comment and other postings.

For Grossman, the fallout from those comments is a bit of deja vu from his college years, when he lost friends as one of the few conservative voices on the Duke campus of the late 1960s.

Go ask Noah

It is the day after the debate, and Grossman is at the Soup Fellowship at Christ Episcopal Church in Somers Point, down the road from his solo law office that also serves as campaign headquarters. With all the signs, you can't miss it as you come off the Longport bridge.

It's a small group, but Grossman is feeling good, in his element, like at the Shore Diner, speaking expansively over vegetable soup, including about climate change, which he dismissed at the debate by saying "Go ask Noah."

Grossman thinks Van Drew's middle-of-the-road approach may not work this year, though Van Drew has wide support from business groups like Realtors (and the dental lobby) and unions, and holds commanding leads in polling and fund-raising.

"The country is so polarized nobody is even trying to persuade any independents," Grossman said. "Because there's hardly any independents left."

Pollster Patrick Murray of Monmouth University believes the race so noncompetitive he refuses to do any polling. "It's locked in the vault," for Van Drew, Murray said.

Van Drew wants to be a problem solver, a reach-across-the-aisle congressman whose focus is South Jersey, not unlike the last 24 years under LoBiondo, who took great care to protect local institutions like the FAA Tech Center and guard against threats to the coastal economy like off-shore drilling. Van Drew has long won elections as a Democrat in deeply Republican Cape May County. He believes voters will turn to him to continue that role.

And while some progressives have not made their peace with Van Drew, who they say blocked them on Facebook pages; others, including Emily McGrath, the then-Egg Harbor Township High School senior who confronted Van Drew about past NRA contributions (he returned them and does not now accept any), are now Team Van Drew.

"I think Grossman made it very easy," said Jeremiah Schenerman, a formerly anti-Van Drew progressive. Schenerman is running for the Cape May County Board of Chosen Freeholders and would be just the third Democrat elected to the board since the Civil War. The last one was Van Drew.

>> VOTERS GUIDE: Look up the races on your ballot, or browse all the action in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and DelawarePennsylvania State Sen. President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati answers reporters' questions in his Capitol office late Wednesday night after efforts to pass a child sexual abuse bill collapsed on his watch in the GOP-controlled chamber. Wednesday, October 17, 2018. STEVEN M. FALK / Staff Photographer Read more

HARRISBURG  After a marathon day of negotiations Wednesday, Republican leaders in the Senate failed to push through a compromise on an emotionally charged bill aimed at helping older victims of clergy abuse gain the right to sue, leaving its fate in limbo as they wrapped up the last voting day of the legislative season.

Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati (R., Jefferson) said at a press conference inside his office shortly after 11 p.m. that he had tried to gather support for a plan that he believed would help victims seek justice, but that no one would meet him half way.

His plan would have allowed for a temporary reprieve in the statute of limitations so that older victims could sue their attackers  but not the institutions, such as the Catholic Church, that may have covered up the abuse.

"We are at a standstill," he said.

State Attorney General Josh Shapiro, whose office ran a sweeping grand jury investigation into clergy abuse in nearly every Roman Catholic diocese in the state, countered that Republican leaders in the Senate "just decided to quit to go home."

"We made real progress in this battle," Shapiro said, adding: "And this is far from over."

But the legislature does not have any more scheduled voting days in its two-year session, which ends next month. Though both chambers could add more days, it is unlikely, as many legislators are now returning to their districts to run reelection campaigns.

As the day progressed Wednesday, many privately said that Scarnati appeared to be losing votes for his proposal, which was sharply condemned by victims, their advocates, Shapiro, Senate Democrats, and one of the House's top Republican leaders.

Scarnati, at his press conference, downplayed any division in his chamber, saying his proposal would have been approved in the Senate. But he said he decided not run the bill because a top leader in the House said many in his chamber opposed it.

Indeed, House Majority Leader Dave Reed (R., Indiana) had stood on the balcony overlooking the Capitol rotunda earlier in the day, and flanked by clergy abuse victims declared: "We will not accept that proposal."

Reed said the House would not agree to a proposal that provides a window for victims to only sue their attackers but not the institutions that supervised them. Scarnati's plan also would have created a state-run compensation fund through which victims who are too old under the current law to file civil claims could access compensation. It is not clear who would have financed that fund, although the state's eight Catholic bishops have broadly supported the concept.

Democrats in the Senate also did not mince words in expressing opposition to Scarnati's plan.

Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa (D., Allegheny) said it was very similar to one that was pitched by lobbyists for the Catholic Church in recent days and weeks.

"This is their solution, in my view. This is what they are looking to put into place," Costa said.

Scarnati has been the most vocal and the most powerful opponent to a so-called window in the civil statute of limitations. Lobbyists for the Catholic Church and the insurance industry have also fiercely lobbied against any retroactive changes. Both have said such a retroactive change would deal a devastating financial blow.

Victims and their supporters have said they believe the only just solution is to fully adopt a state grand jury's recommendations to offer a temporary reprieve in the civil statute of limitations to allow lawsuits against both abusers and institutions for two years. Currently, the law bars legal claims for sexual abuse from those older than 30, which would prohibit recovery of damages for decades-old acts like many of those described by a state grand jury report on clergy abuse in Catholic dioceses.

Scarnati, at his press conference, said he had moved his position "significantly" over the last few weeks, but that "none of the other sides wanted to compromise."

In a rare display of emotion, he said he had been "villainized in the press," called "undesirable" names and painted as someone who stands with pedophiles.

"I'm the father of three children. I lost a child. And to say that I stand with pedophiles is insulting and it's disgusting," Scarnati said.

Shapiro earlier in the day had called Scarnati's compromise plan "disgraceful."

"A priest earns about $25,000 a year and will have no ability to pay for the mental-health counseling and the drug and alcohol counseling, the services that these victims need," said Shapiro, who came to the Capitol on Wednesday to meet with top senators. "The only entity that can help support these victims ironically is the institution that enabled the abuse, and they are exempt."

Asked about the idea behind a victims compensation fund, Shapiro said: "The idea that you are going to let the Catholic Church define whether or not it participates and how much they are willing to put into a fund is a slap in the face to the victims  and it allows them to continue the cover-up, to continue to silence victims."

Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman (R., Centre) said he would not comment when asked whether he supported the measure. He was noticeably absent from the press conference Scarnati held late Wednesday.

Scarnati's proposal would have walked back his stated opposition to any reprieve in the statute of limitations. For years, he and others have said they believe any retroactive change in the law violates the remedies clause of the state Constitution, which has been interpreted by some lawyers and legal scholars as blocking any temporary exceptions to time limits.

The debate over the civil window picked up intensity after the release in August of a grand jury report on Catholic clergy sexual abuse in Pennsylvania involving more than 1,000 victims over seven decades.

The grand jurors who spent two years listening to evidence in the case made four policy recommendations. Key among them was eliminating the statute of limitations in future criminal cases involving child sexual abuse, and opening a two-year window so that victims who are too old under current law to file civil claims can have a chance to sue their attackers and the institutions that covered up the abuse.

The GOP-controlled House of Representatives late last month passed legislation, championed by Rep. Mark Rozzi (D., Berks), a clergy-abuse victim himself, that included a provision for a two-year window. Victims and their advocates have crowded Capitol hallways and visited senators' offices in recent weeks to persuade them to follow the House's lead.Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., walks through the basement of the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Nov. 28, 2017. Read more

"It's right here in this shocking FBI affidavit. President Obama's Justice Department had evidence that 'for several years, Menendez had been traveling to the Dominican Republic to engage in sexual activity with prostitutes  some of whom were minors,' even as young as 16."

 Ad from Bob Hugin, a Republican running for the U.S. Senate in New Jersey about his opponent, incumbent Sen. Robert Menendez, a Democrat, Oct. 15, 2018

An 11th-hour attack ad from a Republican candidate in New Jersey rehashes old, unproven accusations that Sen. Robert Menendez slept with underage sex workers during trips to the Dominican Republic.

These claims emerged days before Menendez was reelected to the Senate in 2012. The FBI and a platoon of reporters from national and New Jersey news organizations spent months investigating whether the senator was committing sexual crimes with minors outside the country. The accusations were never substantiated.

Six years later, weeks before Menendez goes on the ballot again, the accusations are back. They're on TV and YouTube, on Facebook and Twitter, and on a website set up by Hugin's campaign.

The Hugin camp says he is not accusing Menendez of sleeping with underage sex workers, only that people should take a fresh look at these accusations in the changed climate of the #MeToo era. That's a neat trick: Throw a bomb onto the battlefield and ask the crowd to defuse or detonate.

"The public has a right to know all the facts about the FBI investigation of @SenatorMenendez and decide for themselves," Hugin tweeted Oct. 15.

We accepted Hugin's invitation, reviewed the entire episode anew, analyzed the Hugin campaign's supporting materials for the ad and dug into the two legal filings at the center of these claims  a 2013 affidavit from an FBI agent who investigated the accusations and a 2015 court filing that the Department of Justice submitted in Menendez's bribery case.

The Facts

The Justice Department indicted Menendez on corruption charges in 2015 and argued that he acted as the "personal United States senator" for his friend and top donor, Florida eye doctor Salomon Melgen. Menendez was accused of pressuring top officials in President Barack Obama's administration to take actions that would benefit Melgen's financial interests in the United States and the Dominican Republic, in exchange for lavish gifts, ritzy travel accommodations and hundreds of thousands of dollars in political contributions toward Menendez's reelection bid that allowed the senator to live well beyond his means on Melgen's dime. Among other charges, Menendez was accused of securing U.S. visas for Melgen's foreign girlfriends and failing to include several flights on Melgen's jet in his financial disclosure forms.

The jury in Newark deadlocked in 2017, the judge declared a mistrial and later acquitted Menendez of various charges, and the Justice Department dropped the rest of the case. But the Senate Ethics Committee "severely admonished" the Democratic senator in a four-page letter. In a separate case that did not involve Menendez, Melgen was sentenced to 17 years in prison for defrauding Medicare of $73 million.

Long before it crumbled, the case against Menendez also involved sex. Ultimately, however, the allegations that Menendez slept with sex workers, underage or otherwise, did not make the cut and were not part of the indictment or trial.

(Note: The underage-prostitution allegations are not the same as the prostitution allegations from adult women who claimed Menendez did not pay them in full in a report published in 2012 by the conservative Daily Caller. Those women later recanted.)

The underage-prostitution accusations were sent first to a nonprofit watchdog group, Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington (CREW), via email by a pseudonymous tipster calling himself "Peter Williams." This appears to be a reference to Harrison "Pete" Williams, the last New Jersey senator to wind up in the slammer. Williams was convicted of bribery in 1981 as part of the Abscam scandal.

Unable to verify the accusations linking Menendez to underage sex workers, CREW referred Williams's communications to the FBI.

"Menendez has many problematic issues in his past, so I am not a big defender of Bob Menendez. That said, this ad is outrageous," said Melanie Sloan, a former federal prosecutor who was the executive director of CREW at the time. "I can tell you definitively that there was no evidence ever to support the underage-prostitution allegations." Sloan is a former Democratic congressional aide.

Williams emailed the FBI with accusations about four purported underage sex workers in the Dominican Republic who he claimed had sex with Menendez, according to an affidavit filed on Feb. 14, 2013, by an FBI special agent on the case, Gregory J. Sheehy. None of these four purported sex workers was named in the affidavit. Williams was the lone source for their claims.

CREW received three other emails purportedly sent by an adult woman, identified only as "M.C.," who was described by Williams as a prostitute for Melgen. Williams forwarded the first of those emails from M.C. to CREW.

M.C. wrote that she saw Menendez participating in "sexual activities with prostitutes" as young as 16 years old, according to the FBI affidavit. Sheehy noted in the affidavit that IP address records showed M.C.'s and Williams's emails came from different locations at different times. "It would appear, therefore, that 'M.C.' and Peter Williams are in fact different people," Sheehy wrote, without settling the question. M.C.'s emails did not mention specific underage sex workers.

The most explosive claim in Hugin's ad is a quote from Sheehy's affidavit: "For several years, Menendez had been traveling to the Dominican Republic to engage in sexual activity with prostitutes  some of whom were minors."

But the ad leaves out an important attribution immediately before that. The full sentence reads, "In that email and in the emails that followed, Mr. Williams alleged that, for several years, Menendez had been traveling to the Dominican Republic to engage in sexual activity with prostitutes  some of whom were minors."

Sheehy was not saying  as Hugin's ad suggests  that the FBI had proof of the underage-prostitution accusations against Menendez. He was describing Williams's allegations. The Hugin ad doesn't mention Williams.

The Sheehy affidavit also includes this paragraph: "As of the writing of this Amended Affidavit, Mr. Williams has refused to meet with the FBI, either by phone or in person. Mr. Williams has not disclosed enough information for the FBI to identify any minors."

Missing from Hugin's ad is the key fact that Sheehy in his affidavit specifically asked a judge to find probable cause that Melgen knowingly engaged with sex workers, including minors. But Sheehy did not seek that same probable cause determination for Menendez.

This is important because probable cause is a relatively low bar in the legal system. It is not enough to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt (which is the standard for convictions). Probable cause is enough to authorize an arrest or search warrant for an individual suspected of wrongdoing. The FBI affidavit did not seek a probable cause determination that Menendez engaged sex workers, underage or otherwise, although it did lay out probable cause for the bribery and corruption allegations against the senator.

It's not difficult to see why the FBI investigated the underage-prostitution allegations. Some of the bread crumbs Williams was giving the FBI led to real people. The affidavit says FBI agents interviewed "Y.F." and Svitlana Buchyk, two adult women whom Williams had described as sex workers working for Melgen. In their FBI interviews, both denied that they were sex workers, both said they had been girlfriends of Melgen, and both told the FBI that they never saw Menendez in the company of "prostitutes or underage females."

Some of the bread crumbs were dates that turned out to match Menendez's visits to the Dominican Republic. The Sheehy affidavit says Menendez was in that country at the same times pointed out in Williams's emails: February 2009, May 2009, May 2010 and December 2011. Williams in one email passed on information from the fourth purported underage sex worker, who he said had sexual encounters with Menendez during those same months and in June 2009. The FBI noted that Menendez was not on the island in June 2009, although he was visiting near the end of May 2009.

Hugin's ad essentially raises the alarm about those old bread crumbs and ignores all the other relevant but inconvenient information in the FBI affidavit and in news reports published over the next several years.

Weeks after Sheehy filed the affidavit, The Washington Post's Carol D. Leonnig and Ernesto Londono reported on March 4, 2013:

"The tipster [Peter Williams], who last spring began e-mailing allegations to a government watchdog group and the FBI, said he had evidence that Menendez had relations with underage prostitutes and participated in sex parties arranged by Melgen, his friend and political backer.

FBI agents conducting interviews in the Dominican Republic have found no evidence to back up the tipster's allegations, according to two people briefed on their work."

More than a year later, Leonnig and The Post's Manuel Roig-Franzia reported on July 7, 2014:

"According to a former U.S. official with firsthand knowledge of government intelligence, the CIA had obtained credible evidence, including Internet protocol addresses, linking Cuban agents to the prostitution claims and to efforts to plant the story in U.S. and Latin American media. "The alleged Cuba connection was laid out in an intelligence report provided last year to U.S. government officials and sent by secure cable to the FBI's counterintelligence division, according to the former official and a second person with close ties to Menendez who had been briefed on the matter. "The intelligence information indicated that operatives from Cuba's Directorate of Intelligence helped create a fake tipster using the name "Pete Williams," according to the former official. The tipster told FBI agents and others he had information about Menendez participating in poolside sex parties with underage prostitutes while vacationing at the Dominican Republic home of Salomon Melgen, a wealthy eye doctor, donor and friend of the senator. "A spokesman for the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, which functions as the island's U.S. diplomatic outpost, did not respond to requests for comment."

Menendez has long been a tough critic of the Cuban government and the Castro brothers. He was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 2013 to 2015 and is now the ranking Democrat on the panel.

According to The Post's reporting, FBI agents in the Dominican Republic did not find evidence to support the tipster's claims that Menendez slept with underage sex workers  and an intelligence report sent to U.S. government officials said the tipster, Peter Williams, was fabricated by Cuban agents trying to plant the prostitution story in U.S. and Latin American media.

"The Washington Post was wrong," Hugin's campaign says on a website. "In 2015, the Obama Justice Department said it had specific, corroborated allegations of Menendez engaging [in] sex acts with minors and that they 'were not so easily disprovable.' In fact, the FBI detailed additional allegations that showed Melgen's ties to women; even his own pilot described 'young girls' who 'looked like escorts.' The FBI was able to verify young women with financial ties to Melgen as being in Casa de Campo at the same time as Menendez."

The Post's unchallenged reporting poses an inconvenience for Hugin and his ad. But he does not provide evidence that it's wrong.

The Hugin campaign is referring to an August 2015 filing from the Justice Department in the Menendez corruption case. That document was not charging or substantiating allegations that Menendez engaged underage sex workers. It argued that the FBI had sound reasons to investigate these allegations. (Remember the bread crumbs?)

Before his trial began, Menendez had filed a motion to dismiss the corruption case. As one basis for his motion, Menendez alleged prosecutorial misconduct, reasoning that because the FBI's investigation began with the underage-prostitution allegations, everything that followed on corruption was tainted. (The judge rejected this argument.)

The Justice Department in its 2015 filing was contesting this allegation of prosecutorial misconduct by explaining that it found enough links to investigate (but not charge) the underage-prostitution allegations. Let's take a look.

The filing says: "Presented with specific, corroborated allegations that defendants Menendez and Melgen had sex with underage prostitutes in the Dominican Republic, the Government responsibly and dutifully investigated those serious allegations. The indictment here, of course, charges only corruption and does not include any allegations of soliciting underage prostitution."

Here's the money paragraph:

"As would be done in the normal course, the Government took responsible steps to investigate these serious criminal allegations, which were not so "easily disprovable," as the defendants suggest. Some eyewitnesses described a party attended by defendant Melgen in Casa de Campo  where defendant Melgen has a home and where defendant Menendez often visited  involving prostitutes. Furthermore, defendant Melgen has flown numerous young women from the United States and from other countries on his private jet to the Dominican Republic. Many of these young women receive substantial financial support from defendant Melgen. For example, defendant Melgen flew two young women  whom he met while they were performing at a South Florida "Gentlemen's" Club  on his private jet to his villa in Casa de Campo the day after paying one young woman $1,000 and the other young woman $2,000. Indeed, one of defendant Melgen's pilots described "young girls" who "look[ed] like escorts" traveling at various times on defendant Melgen's private jet. Some young women who received substantial sums of money from defendant Melgen were in the same place as defendant Menendez at the same time. Moreover, when the allegations were first reported, defendant Menendez defended himself with public statements that are easily disprovable. Specifically, he repeated several times that he had only flown on defendant Melgen's private jet on three occasions. That representation is demonstrably false. Confronted with corroborating evidence of such serious crimes, it would have been an inexcusable abdication of responsibility not to investigate these allegations."

Prosecutors mentioned "specific, corroborated allegations" and "corroborating evidence," but a close look at the filing does not show claims that Menendez had sex with prostitutes of any age or was in the same place as prostitutes.

What the filing does say is:

Witnesses described a party in Melgen's villa "involving prostitutes."

Menendez "often visited" the same villa.

Melgen had a bunch of entanglements with young women.

"Some young women" (not specified as prostitutes or underage prostitutes) "who received substantial sums of money from defendant Melgen were in the same place as defendant Menendez at the same time."

Menendez at first defended himself from these prostitution allegations by stating falsely several times "that he had only flown on Melgen's private jet on three occasions." In fact, Menendez flew on the jet at least eight times, according to the Justice Department.

Prosecutors speak about their evidence through criminal charges. This 2015 filing specifically says that the indictment does not include charges of soliciting underage sex workers and that doing so outside the United States would be a crime. The filing does not rebut The Post's reporting specifically or broadly. It's possible for two things to be true at once: The FBI saw enough smoke to start an investigation into the underage-prostitution accusations, and the FBI later found no evidence to support these accusations. That's what a full review of the facts indicates.

Incidentally, this reporter speaks Spanish fluently and traveled to the Dominican Republic in 2013, partly to investigate the underage-prostitution allegations. At that time, this reporter worked for the Newark Star-Ledger. Another reporter at the newspaper who was communicating with Peter Williams via email passed along a telephone number for one of the sex workers who purportedly had been involved with Menendez. This reporter dialed the number; no one picked up.

Why is this ad coming out now, weeks before the election?

"Bob Menendez is a hypocrite," the Hugin website says. "Last week in a speech on the floor of the Senate, Bob Menendez called for all women to be believed. Yet, Menendez claims that no one should believe the underage women who accused him."

Hugin's website compares the accusations that Menendez solicited underage sex workers with the allegations of sexual assault from Christine Blasey Ford, who accused Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh of groping her over her clothes and covering her mouth in an encounter from 1982 that he denied.

The Hugin website also refers to a New Jersey state government official named Katie Brennan, who has alleged that a former campaign aide and administration official for Gov. Phil Murphy, D-N.J., named Albert J. Alvarez raped her and went unpunished. He denied the accusation through his attorney.

There are obvious differences here: Ford came forward in an interview with The Post and gave sworn testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee. (Hugin in the end said he would have voted for Kavanaugh. Menendez voted no.) Brennan detailed her assault for New Jersey prosecutors and came forward in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.

The purported underage sex workers in the Dominican Republic never came forward, their identities aren't known, and The Post's reporting indicates that these accusations were part of a Cuban plot to tar Menendez.

Women in the Dominican Republic may not feel as empowered as those in the United States to come forward with accusations about sex, especially in the case of a powerful elected official such as Menendez. Yet these accusations were investigated by the FBI, CREW, and journalists from multiple news organizations in New Jersey and nationally. The FBI, as noted, did not seek a probable cause determination for Menendez over the prostitution allegations, although it did seek one for Melgen.

Responding to detailed questions, Hugin campaign spokesman Nick Iacovella wrote in an email that "statements by Mr. Williams to an FBI agent are evidence," that "statements by M.C. and the fourth purported victim are likewise evidence" and that "the DOJ regularly has evidence of crimes that it does not prosecute."

He wrote: "We believe the allegations to be credible. In large part, because the FBI believed them to be credible and corroborated key facts. The fact that The Post has a former official saying U.S. intelligence 'suggested' Peter Williams was a persona created by the Cuban government is not dispositive of anything. In fact, it is little more than hearsay based on innuendo. It certainly wouldn't be admissible in any court. Nor does it carry the weight of sworn statements by an FBI agent or a DOJ pleading suggesting the allegations were credible and had been corroborated. Moreover, this is just one of the various conspiracy theories that has been peddled by Menendez and his supporters. Remember, Melgen initially denied the claims as those of business associates. Menendez said they were part of a right-wing conspiracy, then Cuba, then the Obama Justice Department punishing him for his position on Iran."

He added: "There are differences in the fact that Ford and Brennan were brave enough to come forward and step into the unforgiving spotlight to make their accusations. However, anonymity is not evidence of falsity. The fact is that most victims of sexual assault do not come forward and we suspect that the percentage of victims of sex trafficking and underage prostitution who come forward is even lower especially when they do not enjoy the same protections as Ford and Brennan and are making allegations regarding men who exercise enormous influence in a country without the same protections as the United States."

The Pinocchio Test

To accuse a rival candidate of maybe sleeping with underage prostitutes, solid evidence is an absolute must. The evidence for Hugin's ad fails the test. There's nothing new in the ad except for a dark descent into corrosive haze.

Hugin's attack ad says the FBI had "evidence" that Menendez slept with underage sex workers but neglects to mention that the FBI attributed this to Peter Williams. Also absent from the ad: The FBI said in the same affidavit that it could not identify any minors based on the information Williams provided. Also absent: The fact that the FBI did not lay out a basis for probable cause that Menendez engaged underage sex workers.

Also absent: The Justice Department did not charge these allegations. Also absent: The Washington Post reported that the FBI investigated in the Dominican Republic and found no evidence. Also absent: The Post reported on intelligence received by U.S. officials that the Cubans made up Peter Williams as part of a cloak-and-dagger operation to tar Menendez, a political foe.

All of this is crucial, mitigating information; none of it is new this year. Hugin is right: "The public has a right to know all the facts about the FBI investigation of @SenatorMenendez and decide for themselves."

Our decision: Four Pinocchios.

  

About the ratings:

One Pinocchio  Some shading of the facts. Selective telling of the truth. Some omissions and exaggerations, but no outright falsehoods. (You could view this as "mostly true.")

Two Pinocchios  Significant omissions and/or exaggerations. Some factual error may be involved but not necessarily. A politician can create a false, misleading impression by playing with words and using legalistic language that means little to ordinary people. (Similar to "half true.")

Three Pinocchios  Significant factual error and/or obvious contradictions. This gets into the realm of "mostly false." But it could include statements which are technically correct (such as based on official government data) but are so taken out of context as to be very misleading. The line between Two and Three can be bit fuzzy and we do not award half-Pinocchios. So we strive to explain the factors that tipped us toward a Three.

Four Pinocchios  Whoppers.

Geppetto Checkmark  Statements and claims that contain "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth" will be recognized with our prized Geppetto checkmark. We tend to reserve this for claims that are unexpectedly true, so it is not awarded very often.

An Upside-Down Pinocchio  A statement that represents a clear but unacknowledged "flip-flop" from a previously-held position.

Verdict Pending  There are occasions when it is impossible to render a snap judgment because the issue is very complex or there are good arguments on both sides. In this case, we will withhold our judgment until we can gather more facts. We will use this website to shed as much light as possible on factual controversies that are not easily resolved.A month after announcing a slate of security measures that have no precedent in a state prison system, Pennsylvania Corrections Secretary John Wetzel walked to the front of a South Philadelphia church and faced down a hostile audience. His message to the hundreds of seething community members, mostly friends and families of Pennsylvania's 47,000 prisoners: The initiatives, which collectively cost more than $15 million, were working.

"It's short-term pain for long-term gain," he said at the meeting, organized by the Pennsylvania Black Legislative Caucus. "We had a drug problem. We had a significant increase in drugs, and we had to get drugs out of the facilities."

The measures were necessary, he said, to protect staff from sicknesses related to exposure to synthetic cannabinoids, or K2. And, indeed, the DOC reports the number of such incidents has declined drastically, from more than 50 in August to eight in September. Along the way, the department says, the number of inmate overdoses related to K2 also fell, from 19 to five.

But the policies  including barring book donations and providing inmates photocopies of their mail rather than the originals  are unpopular with families and, lawyers argue, may even be unconstitutional.

Now, some state lawmakers plan to challenge them. "It is not OK. I want to communicate that to the governor and the secretary," Sen. Sharif Street said. "Some of this has to change."

They also expressed lingering questions over the mysterious staff sicknesses that started it all. "We are very concerned with what happened, the processes," said state Rep. Jordan Harris, a Philadelphia Democrat and chairman of the Black Caucus. "We're looking to see which agency would be the best to do an actual third-party investigation."

Here's what we already know  and what we don't.

1. Could guards illness be nocebo effect?

The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (DOC) says it was a novel type of drug called synthetic cannabinoids that sickened guards, either through skin absorption or inhalation. In support of that theory, Wetzel pointed to a Centers for Disease Control study of nine federal agents who described side effects from K2; in that case, they had raided a drug lab and then spent a week cataloging K2 samples with bare hands, often while eating and drinking.

But experts in medical toxicology offered a different diagnosis: "mass psychogenic illness."

They noted the presence of narcotics had not been confirmed at all in 23 out of 29 incidents between May 31 and Sept. 1. And even in cases where it was present, the DOC could not provide any blood or urine tests that showed the drugs were in the sick officers' systems.

"In a word, it's implausible," Dr. Lewis Nelson, chair of emergency medicine at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, told the Inquirer in September. "One thing we know about [synthetic cannabinoids] is that they don't cause the effects these folks are having.  The symptoms are much more consistent with anxiety."

The DOC disputes the psychogenic-illness theory. Jason Bloom, president of the Pennsylvania State Correctional Officers Association, called it "asinine."

So for more information, we went to the source  the medical directors of the emergency departments where prison staff were taken. We contacted all the hospitals that treated staff after mass incidents involving four or more victims, according to the DOC's published incident logs. (One, Washington Health System Greene, did not respond.)

Dr. Matthew Glenn, Grove City Medical Center: Eleven staff were transported to GCMC from Mercer state prison in August, with symptoms ranging from nausea to dizziness to lethargy. One was kept overnight for observation. The rest were decontaminated, evaluated and released. Urine screens were completed, but no drugs were detected. "It is inconclusive, but I suspect there is a strong nocebo effect," Glenn said. "That is, if you believe exposure is something that is going to cause you harm, you'll get some negative symptoms. Being that the tox screens were negative, it's hard to prove a drug did this  however, you can't disprove it either."

Dr. Ferdinando Mirarchi, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center  Hamot: In August, six staff were rushed from Albion prison to Hamot, where a hazmat team was called in. "They presented with vague complaints. None of them required any significant interventions." Blood work did not test positive for any specific drug  and the mystery substance that precipitated the incident was later found to be a cosmetic powder. "The cause for each of the six patients?" Mirarchi said. "It's likely unknown."

Dr. Surabhi Guar, Uniontown Hospital: About 10 people all told, including six in one mass incident, were rushed to the emergency department from Fayette state prison, but by the time they arrived, they were "pretty asymptomatic." Urine screens were negative, though Guar considers them to be fairly unreliable anyway. But she was doubtful that the illnesses were related to incidental exposure to drugs. "Medically, it doesn't make any sense," Guar said. "I'm not saying people are crazy or making it up: We had people coming with symptoms. But I think psychogenic is a perfect word. I do wonder if some of this is hysteria or anxiety."

2. The ACLU is preparing a federal lawsuit.

Though advocates dislike many of the new policies, they are particularly riled by the new legal mail procedure. They say the system  in which a prison staffer opens legal mail in front of the inmate and photocopies it, setting aside the originals to be destroyed after 45 days  is a clear violation of attorney-client privilege.

The ACLU and others said they've stopped sending mail through the system, which is unlike any other in the nation.

"My greatest fear is that my legal mail will become the reading material of the superintendent or, worse, my opponent," said Leticia Chavez-Freed, a Harrisburg civil-rights lawyer who, before the new policy was enacted, sent out 60 or 70 letters to inmates in any given month. "I currently have cases where guards and superintendents are named defendants."

However, a threatened lawsuit has not yet been filed.

3. Access to books has become a hot-button issue.

To many, access to books seems like a basic human right. To the DOC, books by mail are just another route for inmates to send in paper soaked in K2. So, the department has stopped allowing donations from programs like Books Through Bars, or direct orders from stores like Amazon.

To underscore the danger, the DOC tweeted a photo of a letter it said represented an inmate "describing how to smuggle drugs." Twitter users pointed out it appeared the writer was, in fact, describing how to smuggle a dictionary.

The DOC said that its libraries are more than adequate, and that a system for inmates to request staff order books for them is now up and running.

Department spokespeople also touted a new library of e-books. But the list of 8,800 e-books, accessible only on a prison-purchased $149 tablet, is padded with public-domain titles that are available for free on Project Gutenberg, but cost up to $14.99 in prison. Plus, many of the most-requested books in prison, like The Autobiography of Malcolm X, aren't on the list. (The DOC said it's also beefing up libraries, but inmates say there are surprising reasons they tend to avoid them.)

4. Families say false-positives on ion scanners are keeping them apart.

The security overhaul includes a $2 million investment on new ion scanners  controversial devices that are meant to detect trace amounts of narcotics. But families say they're susceptible to false positives and that DOC penalties are unfair: Currently, two different women married to men in Phoenix state prison are facing six-month bans on visiting their husbands. Others do whatever they think it might take to avoid triggering the scanner, from going off their medications to wearing latex gloves so they don't come into contact with any contaminated surfaces. The DOC said the scanners are accurate and are calibrated to account for environmental contamination.

5. Mails being diverted to Florida to be scanned  and stored for surveillance.

The state is paying close to $16 million over three years for a mail processing service that scans incoming mail and forwards it to the prisons. One former DOC staffer who declined to be named described a crisis in prison mailrooms, where staff uncovered suboxone strips underneath the flaps of envelopes, crayon drawings purportedly laced with meth and photos with drugs hidden underneath the backings.

"It got to be such a monumental task of sorting mail and trying to test the drugs that are coming in," the former employee said. "Then you get guys in there with drugs, which now gives them power, and you have fights, killings, stabbings over drugs."

But the new system has led some inmates to complain about poor-quality printouts, while others have told their families not to send mail at all, knowing that it will be stored and made searchable for surveillance purposes.

"I'm not comfortable with that anymore," one woman said, explaining why she no longer sends her child's drawings to her husband. "I don't want my 7-year-old autistic child's stuff to be able to be searched in some database in Florida."In June, immigrant children walked in a line outside the Homestead Temporary Shelter for Unaccompanied Children, a former Job Corps site that now houses them in Homestead, Fla. Read more

An Arizona-based youth-services agency is planning to house 60 immigrant children, all of whom arrived alone at the U.S. border with Mexico, in a property it's now preparing in North Philadelphia.

For two days, talk that the city would be the site of a shelter for children caught up in the nation's immigration crisis ricocheted through local migrant and youth agencies  upsetting some who questioned why a sanctuary city like Philadelphia should accept the confinement of immigrant children within its boundaries.

In a phone interview Wednesday, VisionQuest CEO Peter Ranalli confirmed that his agency has signed a contract with the federal government to house the children, all boys, ages 12 to 17, in a facility in the Logan neighborhood, just south of Einstein Medical Center. The children would come here from other shelters, located in places around the United States, he said.

City officials weren't pleased.

"This is highly disturbing news and we are still investigating the facts," said Mike Dunn, a spokesperson for Mayor Kenney. "But assuming the currently known facts are true, the city is confident that the proposed use would be illegal under the existing use permits and the city plans to vigorously apply the law."

Ranalli said none of the children who would be housed here are among those separated from their parents at the southern border  circumstances that provoked a national outcry and a reversal in Trump administration policy. All are among those youths described as "unaccompanied minors," part of a tide of thousands who have arrived at the border on their own, fleeing violence in their homelands.

Most come from El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico.

Beginning under President Barack Obama, the federal government placed those migrant children in closed housing, pending their transfer to relatives such as aunts or uncles who were already living in the United States.

Some youths have no family here. They may be sent to live with unrelated sponsors as they await courtroom immigration proceedings.

The 60 children will arrive in Philadelphia in stages, the first not for at least two months, Ranalli said. All are native Spanish-speakers. None are recent arrivals to the United States.

Immigration agents apprehended about 6,400 unaccompanied children on the nation's Southwest border in May, according to the Pew Research Center. That number was higher than each previous month in 2018, and a big increase over the 1,473 who were apprehended in May 2017, Pew said. But in June the number of unaccompanied children dropped to about 5,100.

Ranalli said the leased property, located in the Logan Plaza complex on Old York Road, was "not a shelter," and was being transformed into a dormitory-like setting, one that will be comfortable and even homey for the youths.

The minors will receive legal services, developmental aid, counseling, and other therapies as needed, he said, as officials seek to find adult sponsors who might serve as foster parents. He said VisionQuest planned to hire about 80 people to work at the site.

None of the children would be allowed to leave the facility without supervision, he said.

"They're really good kids," Ranalli said. "Nobody's going to have a problem with them."

Peter Gottemoller, who directs Bethany Christian Services refugee programs and who has long worked with unaccompanied minors, said the VisionQuest site concerns him.

Minors living in shelters must be able to go outside, to get exercise, and breathe fresh air. That's why similar facilities often are deliberately located in former school buildings or other places with substantial, surrounding grounds.

"Them being cooped up in a building doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me," Gottemoller said. "You've got teenagers who need the outlet of being able to get out and run around."

Ranalli said the children will have plenty of room. The same space previously housed more than double the number of kids, 125 in all, when VisionQuest ran a juvenile-justice facility there.

The agency operates in six states, including Delaware, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, focused on helping youths who have become involved in the court and correctional systems or who are otherwise at risk.

The agency began its work in late 1960s and early 1970s, when founder Bob Burton worked in juvenile corrections facilities. He imagined an alternative after serving as a VISTA volunteer working with the Crow peoples in Montana, according to the agency website.

In 1973 he met an Arizona judge, John Collins of the Pima County Juvenile Court in Tucson, who placed the first six youthful offenders into VisionQuest care. What began as a residential program soon added an outdoor wilderness component. Within three years, about 130 children were in group home and home-based programs in Arizona.

VisionQuest said it ensures that the children in its care are safe, that families are respected and communities protected. The agency remains rooted in American Indian culture, where a traditional "vision quest" marks the transition from child to adult, according to its website.

Pathways to Housing PA, which helps chronically homeless people find decent places to live, has offices in the same Logan Plaza complex as VisionQuest.

President and CEO Christine Simiriglia said that in the last couple of days, word had spread that VisionQuest planned to house immigrant minors there. That was confirmed, she said, when the Pathways staffer who runs the furniture bank told her he had been approached by VisionQuest, which wanted furniture for its new setting.

"I said, 'Tell them I'm sorry we can't help with that,' " Simiriglia said. "We're opposed to this. We don't think the City of Philadelphia, a sanctuary city, should be allowing agencies to warehouse detained children."WASHINGTON  Just a few weeks ago, analysts thought that control of the U.S. Senate was in play this November and that momentum was shifting to the Democrats. Thanks to their brutal campaign of character assassination against now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh, those chances appear to be slipping away.

Case in point is Tennessee, where Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn was struggling in her Senate race against popular former Democratic governor Phil Bredesen. In mid-September  after the first Kavanaugh confirmation hearing  a CNN poll showed Blackburn trailing by five points (in a state Donald Trump won by 26 points). But as the ferocity of the attacks on Kavanaugh grew, so did Blackburn's poll numbers. By early October  after Christine Blasey Ford testified and Kavanaugh was accused of exposing himself to a college classmate and participating in high school gang rapes  a CBS News poll showed that Blackburn had pulled ahead by eight points. And last week, after Kavanaugh was finally confirmed amid scenes of angry protesters banging on the doors of the Supreme Court, a New York Times poll showed Blackburn leading by 14 points. That is a shift of 19 points in one month.

>> READ MORE: Trump could be the most honest president in modern history | Marc Thiessen

In other words, the Democrats' smear campaign of uncorroborated sexual misconduct allegations against Kavanaugh has united Tennessee Republicans behind Blackburn and poured cold water on Democrats' chances in the Volunteer State. And rightly so. It probably didn't help with Tennessee voters that Democrats excoriated Kavanaugh for his high school drinking and for inside jokes in his school yearbook  as if being a beer-drinking jock was some sort of crime. Worse, Kavanaugh was publicly branded a sex offender for accusations decades old and uncorroborated by any witnesses or evidence. A man's good name was being destroyed. The treatment of Kavanaugh wasn't fair, just, or right. And it backfired. Politico reports that retiring Sen. Bob Corker (R., Tenn.) told Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, (D, N.Y.) that Democrats' attacks on Kavanaugh hurt Bredesen badly. Bredesen clearly saw the impact the Kavanaugh fiasco was having on his support among Republican voters he needed to win, because he tried to cauterize the bleeding by coming out at the last moment in support of Kavanaugh's confirmation.

But while his endorsement did not mollify angry Republicans, it enraged many of his Democratic supporters. The super PAC Priorities USA said it would not support Bredesen, while MoveOn announced, "We're cancelling a planned six-figure digital video ad expenditure for Phil Bredesen in Tennessee due to his Kavanaugh position." Campaign volunteers have reportedly been bolting from his campaign.

>> READ MORE: Kavanaugh fight shows we have not yet plumbed the depths of Democratic ruthlessness | Marc Thiessen

The Kavanaugh fiasco crystallized the stakes for Tennessee Republicans, reminding them while they may like Bredesen, a vote for the Democrat is a vote to make Schumer majority leader. A Democratic takeover would be a game-changer, giving Schumer the power to block any more Trump Supreme Court nominees and put a halt to the president's transformation of the federal appeals courts. In the wake of the Kavanaugh fiasco, 58 percent of Tennessee voters say they want Republicans running the Senate. So, Democrats may have blown a chance to pick up a seat in a deep-red state thanks to the blowback over their efforts to destroy Kavanaugh. As Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) so poignantly told Senate Democrats at the Kavanaugh hearing, "Boy, y'all want power. God, I hope you never get it. I hope the American people can see through this sham." It appears that the American people have.

With Tennessee slipping out of their grasp, the Democrats' chances of a Senate takeover are slipping as well. Among vulnerable Democrats, it looks as if Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D., N.D.) is a goner. After the Kavanaugh hearings, her Republican opponent's lead expanded from four to 12 points. If she goes down, Democrats will need to pick up three GOP-held seats to win the majority. That does not appear to be happening, as races have shifted toward Republicans in Texas, Nevada, and Arizona  the other states where Democrats have pinned their hopes for flipping GOP-held seats.

>> READ MORE: Rachel Mitchell expertly eviscerates the case against Brett Kavanaugh | Marc Thiessen

There are three weeks before Election Day, so a lot could still happen. But if Democrats fail to take the Senate, they can thank their horrific treatment of Kavanaugh for what would amount to a double defeat  securing a conservative majority not only on the Supreme Court but in the Senate as well. If so, they richly deserve it. And hopefully they learn the right lesson: When you drag your party and your country down into the depths of political depravity, Americans will not reward you at the polls.

Marc Thiessen writes a twice-weekly column for the Washington Post on foreign and domestic policy and contributes to the PostPartisan blog. He is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and the former chief speechwriter for President George W. Bush. @marcthiessenEnvelopes recently addressed to the president and sent to the Pentagon, thought to contain ricin, remind us of the deadly potential of biological threats. I received a similar letter, containing anthrax, 17 years ago. Despite some progress, significant gaps obviously still remain in our nation's ability to defend against biological attacks and such naturally occurring diseases as Ebola.

America was still recovering from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks when white-powder letters arrived at the U.S. Capitol and media companies in Florida and New York, killing five and infecting 17 others. It was a frightening and uncertain time.

The bipartisan Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense (of which I am a member) recently convened leaders in Washington to revisit the 2001 anthrax attacks and other biological incidents. The panel asked how far our country has come since those events and what else the nation needs to do. Unfortunately, the list is long.

For me, this is very personal. For the nation, it is absolutely critical.

Some nation-states and terrorist organizations are actively seeking to develop or obtain biological weapons to attack the United States and its interests overseas. Others are conducting dual-use research that could be used to help or harm, such as recent research synthesizing horsepox that indicated the same could be done for any poxvirus, including smallpox. And the outbreaks and spread of diseases such as Zika and Ebola also show how unprepared we remain for naturally occurring outbreaks and pandemics. Our ability to respond is not keeping pace with the increasing biological threat.

One recent positive development is the White House's release of a National Biodefense Strategy several weeks ago. The production and implementation of a comprehensive national biodefense strategy were among the top recommendations of the panel's 2015 National Blueprint for Biodefense.

The new strategy addresses the full spectrum of activities that make up biodefense  prevention, deterrence, preparedness, detection and surveillance, response, attribution, recovery, and mitigation. With it, we have taken an important step forward as a nation to address natural, accidental, and intentional biological events.

But a strategy is just the beginning. Now the hard work of implementing the strategy starts. Work and timelines must be assigned to specific federal departments and agencies in a public and transparent way. Just as important, Congress must also adequately fund these departments and agencies, which for too long have had too few resources to sufficiently prepare for and respond to biological threats.

I will never forget my first interview with the FBI in the days immediately after the anthrax letters arrived. I asked investigators what their confidence level was that they would find those responsible. They answered, "100 percent." In 2010, nine years after the attack, the FBI, Department of Justice, and U.S. Postal Inspection Service concluded that scientist Bruce Ivins, alone, was responsible for those anthrax letters. However, further review by independent scientists concluded that Ivins could have been the perpetrator, but the science on its own could not prove it. I hope that our response to similar events in 2018 and beyond will lead to more definitive answers.

When our nation faced enormous challenges 17 years ago, Republicans and Democrats took action, together. They tried to better prepare our country with Project BioShield and other programs. Unfortunately, many of those efforts were not sustained. If we do not act swiftly now to shore up our biodefense, the price we pay will be measured in American lives.

Former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle serves on the bipartisan Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense. He is the founder and CEO of the Daschle Group, a strategic advisory firm.What does Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the newly confirmed originalist on the Supreme Court, have in common with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the iconic feminist? Each has a troubling inconsistency between his or her words and deeds when it comes to race.

He's the conservative who survived a bruising confirmation process despite sexual-assault allegations against him to cement the court's turn to the right; she's the judicial face of resistance. But there's at least one area in which they both starkly depart from their jurisprudence: how they hire law clerks. Kavanaugh's legal views on affirmative action don't reflect his diverse hiring practices, and Ginsburg's progressive jurisprudence on racial justice doesn't show up in her own chambers.

Supreme Court clerks have substantial duties, including researching legal precedent, preparing for oral argument, and even writing first drafts of opinions. After their one-year terms, the clerks are pursued for law-school professorships and wooed by law firms who offer signing bonuses as high as $350,000. So, in making their hiring decisions, Kavanaugh and Ginsburg signal how they mold the most elite cadre of young lawyers in the United States.

Kavanaugh has engaged in one of the most diverse hiring practices of any federal appellate judge. Of his 48 law clerks, a little more than 25 percent have been nonwhite. And as a justice, he has already hired one African American clerk. She is one of only three black clerks on the Supreme Court this year  two of whom previously clerked for Kavanaugh on the Court of Appeals.

Explaining his selection of law clerks whom other judges overlook, Kavanaugh said: "What it takes is not accepting the same old answer, oh, there's a disparity. Well, why and then do something about it." As part of that effort, Kavanaugh frequently speaks to black law student organizations to encourage clerkship applications.

Ginsburg, on the other hand, has hired only one African American law clerk in her 25 years on the Supreme Court. This is an improvement from her 13-year tenure on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, when Ginsburg never had any black clerks. When this issue was raised during her Supreme Court confirmation hearings in 1993, Ginsburg said: "If you confirm me for this job, my attractiveness to black candidates is going to improve." This remains a promise unfulfilled.

Accounting the hiring of all racial minorities since 2005  including Asian Americans, Native Americans, and Latinos  only 12 percent of Ginsburg's clerks were nonwhite. That ranks her much closer to the conservative justices than the progressives with whom she frequently sides in cases.

Thus, Kavanaugh's clerkship listing should state: "This employer practices diversity affirmative action. People of color strongly encouraged." Ginsburg's might as well say: "I support racial diversity everywhere except in my chambers."

This stands in stark contrast to the records for both Ginsburg and Kavanaugh. Ginsburg has been a certain vote to uphold affirmative-action programs and other efforts to remedy the effects of racial discrimination. When Ginsburg was sworn in to the Supreme Court, she said: "A system of justice will be the richer for diversity of background and experience. It will be poorer, in terms of appreciating what is at stake and the impact of its judgments, if all of its members are cast from the same mold."

Kavanaugh, however, has opposed "special legislation" to remedy racial disparities and stated in 1999 that he expects the Supreme Court to someday say that "we are all one race in the eyes of government." As a staffer at the George W. Bush White House, he helped craft the administration's opposition to the University of Michigan affirmative-action plan.

Let me caution against any false equivalence. Ginsburg has done and will continue to do more to bring about equal justice under the law than Kavanaugh. If Kavanaugh votes the way most legal observers expect, affirmative action will effectively end, and the Voting Rights Act, widely recognized as the most successful civil rights bill ever, will be further gutted.

Ginsburg will forcefully push back against this retrenchment on racial justice, so in terms of who is the better judge for African Americans, there is no contest; the high five goes to the notorious RBG.

But Ginsburg represents a familiar person to people of color: someone who espouses a progressive politics committed to racial justice but whose old-boy-and-girl networks are as segregated as a senior staff meeting of the Trump administration.

So which white allies can African Americans really count on? I'm not sure it's either Ginsburg or Kavanaugh. For both, on some level, African Americans are expendable. This is one of the tragic themes of U.S. history, and, as Justice Kavanaugh takes the bench, this theme will be reflected in two places: in the civil rights decisions of the new conservative majority and in Ginsburg's law clerk offices.

If there is limited cause for hope, it's that lifetime tenure provides federal judges with an opportunity to evolve. I hope Kavanaugh learns, from all those minority clerks he hired, the value of affirmative action. And I hope Ginsburg serves for 10 more years, and that each of those years, she hires clerks of color to remedy a substantial blemish on an otherwise remarkable career.

Paul Butler is the Albert Brick professor in law at Georgetown University Law Center.In May, three state troopers frantically shot at a fleeing car in London Grove Township. The driver was unarmed and pulling away from the troopers, who were not in danger. Fortunately, the bullets missed the driver, and the shooting has brought a well-deserved hail of criticism from Chester County District Attorney Thomas Hogan.

In a July 26 letter staff writer Vinny Vella recently found in a court file, Hogan wrote to state police brass that if a bullet had struck the driver, "any decent defense lawyer would significantly damage the strength of the case and the reputation of [state police] by flaunting these errors to the jury."

He outlined the troopers' sloppy behavior. They waited four hours before reporting the shooting to the district attorney, who is ultimately responsible for criminal investigations in the county. Instead of separating the three troopers so they couldn't coordinate a story, state police let a union representative drive them back to their barracks together. And, troopers literally let a truck drive through the crime scene.

This is an age where police accountability has become more important  and more expected from civilians. The focus and the need for scrutiny and oversight are usually on local police, and Philadelphia is not alone in big cities that have a long way to go. It's time that the state police were part of that larger conversation.

At the very least, there should be independent investigations every time a trooper shoots at a civilian. But Pennsylvania's policy is not clear. State police themselves don't even know who's supposed to lead an investigation of an officer-involved shooting, according to a December Northampton County grand jury report. Current practice is that state police conduct an internal investigation; whether district attorneys conduct their own investigations varies from county to county.

The state needs to do a better job training officers and ensuring that investigations into officer-involved shootings are fair and credible enough to withstand scrutiny.

Gov. Wolf's office says he's comfortable with state police investigating themselves. But he should know that in any shooting, especially one where it's just not clear whether a trooper had cause, there should be no question about the integrity of the investigation. The best way to make that clear is to have a firm policy stating that an independent authority investigate and take a hard look at the facts. This would not supersede an internal state police investigation. It's essential the state act soon because towns, unable to afford their own police, are increasingly relying on state police for coverage.

There are at least two good options. In 2016, the Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association recommended that counties serve as independent investigators. That makes sense since district attorneys are responsible for charging crimes. Pennsylvania can also learn from New York, where the attorney general oversees state police shootings, under a 2015 executive order from Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Wolf and the legislature should ensure that police-involved shootings are fully and fairly investigated by an outside agency. The lives of civilians and police are on the line.Mogadishu: The US military on Tuesday said its special forces conducted an airstrike in the vicinity of Harardhere town in Mudug region of central Somalia on October 12, killing 60 Al Shabab militants.

The US Africa Command (Africom) which oversees American troops on the African continent said this airstrike was the largest airstrike against the militants since November 21, 2017, when American forces killed about 100 terrorists in an airstrike against the insurgents' camp, Xinhua reported.

"We currently assess this airstrike killed approximately 60 terrorists. We are also currently assessing this airstrike did not injure or kill any civilians," Africom said in a statement.

Africom has vowed to work with its partners to transfer the responsibility for lasting security from the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) to the Somali government and its member states.

"Alongside our Somali and international partners, we are committed to preventing al-Shabab from taking advantage of safe havens from which they can build capacity and attack the people of Somalia," the statement said.

"In particular, the group uses portions of southern and central Somalia to plot and direct terror attacks, steal humanitarian aid, extort the local populace to fund its operations, and shelter radical terrorists." it said.Amaravati: Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday took potshots at Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, saying the latter was trying to keep the Congress party alive by "placing it on a ventilator."

Singh advised the Telugu Desam Party supremo to look into Congress history before "falling into its trap." "The Congress is not going to survive, Chandrababu. The UPA has now become a non-performing asset," Singh said.

The Union Home Minister was addressing a public meeting after laying the foundation stone for BJPs Andhra Pradesh headquarters at Reddipalem near Guntur here. "The Congress is taking its last breath. Chandrababu Naidu thinks he can keep it alive for a while by placing it on a ventilator. But the Congress is not going to survive," Singh asserted, indirectly referring to the TDPs efforts to tie-up with the Congress. "Whoever fell into its (Congress) trap have gone," he remarked.

The veteran BJP leader said the opposition parties in the country now had only one agenda of stopping Narendra Modi from retaining power (in 2019). The opposition was unable to digest Modi's popularity.

"The Prime Minister has been relentlessly working for the uplift of the villages, the poor, the farmers and the marginalized sections of the society.

It is because of Narendra Modi that India's status in the world has reached a new high. Hence, the opposition is seeking to stop him (from becoming PM again)," Singh said.

Singh also flayed Congress president Rahul Gandhi for his "personal attacks" on the prime minister.

"The prime minister does not belong to any party. He is an institution. We have to respect the prime minister. We may criticise his policies but one should not indulge in personal attack," he noted.

Such personal attacks do not give any credit to the opposition party, nor were it good for democracy, Singh added.

He said coalition dharma was not a "compulsion" but a political "commitment" for the BJP.

It was the first time in the countrys history that a non-Congress party secured power at the Centre with absolute majority in 2014, he said.

And, it was only the BJP that ran coalition governments successfully, Singh pointed out, referring to the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led NDA government from 1999-2004.

It was a Telugu 'bidda' (Telugu son), P V Narasimha Rao who successfully ran a coalition government (1991-96) for full five years, Singh said.

Congress might have forgotten former prime ministers like P V Narasimha Rao and Lal Bahadur Shastri but the BJP and the nation would not forget them, he said.

"For us national interests are always above political interests. So we remember those former prime ministers who served the country well. The Congress remembers only those former PMs who had suffixes like Nehru and Gandhi. If any party placed political interests above national interests, it is the Congress," Singh said.New Delhi: Junglee Pictures and Hollywood director Chuck Russell are collaborating for an upcoming family-adventue film titled 'Junglee'. The makers on Wednesday released a one-minute long trailer of the Vidyut-starrer film which narrates the bond shared between a human and his wild friends.

The trailer begins with the voiceover which narrates the special bond Vidyut shares with his tuck friends in the film. Speculations are there that he plays the role of a vet in the film. In the end, he is seen getting fighting with some people, perhaps poachers for his wild animals.

The camaradie, wildness and the mesmerising backdrop in the trailer will definitely leave you awestruck.

Watch the trailer here:

Vidyut Jammwal has a body to die for and is known for her action stunts on-screen. Not many know that he has been ranked by an international website amongst the top martial artists in the world.

The film reportedly revolves around a character named Ashwath, born in the jungles of Kerala. Much to his animal-activist father's disappointment, Ashwath goes on to become a big-shot veterinarian in the big city of Mumbai.

When Ashwath returns to Kerala after years he decides to expose and fight against the elephant poaching racket in the country.Vidyut's elephant friend is called 'Bhola' in the film. Director Russell has previously helmed Hollywood biggies such as 'The Mask' and 'Scorpion King'.

'Junglee' is scheduled for release on April 5, 2019. It was earlier scheduled to release on Dussehra, October 19, 2018.MEERUT: An Army jawan has been arrested for spying and allegedly leaking vital military secrets from Meerut Cantonment on Wednesday.

The jawan, whose identity has not been revealed, is associated with the Army's Signal Regiment.

A soldier of Indian Army's Signal Regiment has been arrested in Meerut cantonment on the charges of espionage, interrogation is underway. pic.twitter.com/pZGsbcgzsw  ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) October 17, 2018

He is currently being interrogated for more information.

The authorities are also trying to ascertain if more people are involved in this espionage racket.

The jawan was on the radar of the Military Intelligence for some time. He has been arrested as part of the ongoing probe into the BrahMos missile leak case which was unearthed recently.

The arrest of the jawan in Meerut comes days after Nishant Agarwal, a BrahMos Aerospace engineer, was arrested on charges of spying.

Agarwal was arrested earlier this month in a joint operation by the anti-terrorist squad (ATS) units of Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, following which the UP ATS was granted his transit remand.

Nishant Agarwal was taken from Nagpur to Lucknow, where he was interrogated.

He was in touch with suspected Pakistani intelligence operatives through two Facebook accounts with names  Neha Sharma and Pooja Ranjan.

Agrawal was arrested from BrahMos' Wardha Road facility for allegedly leaking "technical information" to Pakistan.

BrahMos Aerospace is a joint venture between India's Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and the 'Military Industrial Consortium' (NPO Mashinostroyenia) of Russia.

Agrawal, despite being engaged in "highly sensitive work", was "casual" on the internet and made himself an "easy target", the UP-ATS officer said.

He said Agrawal was active on LinkedIn also.

The engineer has been charged under sections 3,4, 5 and 9 of the Official Secrets Act, sections 419,420, 467, 468, 120 (B) and 121 (A) of the Indian Penal Code as well as 66 (B) of the Information Technology Act.The farmers in Ludhiana's Jaspal Bangar on Wednesday expressed their situation as to why burning stubble is important for the farm.

Farmers said that it is difficult if you prepare compost with the help of machines as it takes almost 20 days for the whole process.

While on the other hand, if the farmers burn with stubble, it will only take three days for the whole process to take place.

Adding to it, the farmers said that they often don't have enough money to afford machines and diesel.

Earlier, farmers in Ludhiana had stated that the government had not provided them with machinery and they have no other alternative other than burning stubble.

Stubble burning has been considered a contributing cause for pollution in Delhi-NCR.

Meanwhile, Delhi's air quality on Wednesday deteriorated to very poor category for the first time in this season.

Stating that a number of factors were responsible for the deteriorating air quality, including vehicular pollution, construction activities and meteorological factors, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) predicted further deterioration of the air quality in Delhi-NCR in the coming days.

Meanwhile, Delhi's Environment Minister Imran Hussain said latest satellite images showed crop residue burning at "dangerous" levels and asserted that it should be stopped immediately or the entire north India, including Delhi, would suffer serious health hazards.

The Supreme Court-empowered Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority (EPCA) has already imposed since Monday the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP), which prescribes a set of measures to curb air pollution, after Delhi's air quality deteriorated to "poor" a few days back.

"We are going to give directives to the authorities to apply stringent measures in the hotspots in Delhi. We have also got evidence of garbage burning in Wazirpur and Dwarka, and that is another issue that would be taken up with the authorities," EPCA member Sunita Narain said.

Another senior EPCA official said they were mulling implementing stringent measures like banning of generator sets in the National Capital Region (NCR), increasing the parking fees and strengthening the public transport system in the coming days.

"We have already enforced measures for very poor air quality, but further stringent measures will be decided shortly," he said.

In case of further deterioration of air quality to "severe" level, measures like stopping entrance of trucks and halting of construction activities would be implemented, the official said.

The overall Air Quality Index (AQI) of Delhi was recorded at 315 Wednesday, according to the Centre-run System of Air Quality Forecasting and Research.

An AQI between 0 and 50 is considered "good", 51 and 100 "satisfactory", 101 and 200 "moderate", 201 and 300 "poor", 301 and 400 "very poor" and 401 and 500 "severe".

On Wednesday, Anand Vihar recorded an AQI of 358, Dwarka Sector 8 376, ITO 295, Jahangirpuri 333 and Rohini 330, according to the CPCB.

The PM10 level (presence in the air of particles with a diameter of less than 10 micrometres) in Delhi stood at 296 and the PM2.5 level was recorded at

139, according to the CPCB data.

This is the first time this season that the air quality has deteriorated to the "very poor" category.

Further deterioration of air quality has been forecast for the coming days with the PM10 level reaching 341 and the PM2.5 level 159.

A CPCB official said among the meteorological factors behind the falling air quality, the main reason was the drop and change of wind speed, which was now flowing from the stubble-burning areas.

He said on-ground implementation of the GRAP directions was being enforced, but the activities causing pollution were still continuing.

The GRAP is generally implemented if "very poor" or "severe" air pollution levels are recorded for 48 hours, but given the extent of winter pollution witnessed by the national capital, the plan was implemented as the air quality slipped to the "poor" category, the official said.

In addition, the CPCB has also deployed 41 teams to monitor the implementation of the measures taken to combat air pollution.

In Delhi, Hussain released the latest NASA image of north India and asked the people of Delhi to minimise local pollution, while noting that there will be "zero tolerance" for garbage and crop residue burning.

He also asked people to keep all construction material covered to stop dust re-suspension.

"It is high time crop residue burning in fields must immediately be halted, failing which a serious health hazard awaits entire northern India.

"It is beyond any reasonable understanding as to why this menace is being ignored, despite a well-known fact that the consequences will be disastrous in the coming days," the minister said in a statement.

Dust from unpaved roads, construction activities and traffic congestion are some of the main local factors causing the air quality of Delhi-NCR to deteriorate, as reported by 41 inspection teams deployed to monitor the implementation of norms enforced to combat pollution.

According to the reports of the 96 CPCB inspections conducted till October 7, 554 violations were recorded.

The reports also listed the steps taken by the CPCB to deal with the violations, including informing the authorities like the Delhi Pollution Control Committee, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi and the New Delhi Municipal Council to impose suitable penalties.

(With Agency Inputs)Journalist-turned-politician MJ Akbar has resigned as the Minister of State for External Affairs over allegations of sexual harassment levelled by several women as part of the MeToo movement.

Akbar, however, reiterated that allegations levelled against him are false. He released a statement in this regard, which was shared on Twitter by news agency ANI.

The statement read, "Since I have decided to seek justice in a court of law in my personal capacity, I deem it appropriate to step down from office and challenge false accusations levied against me, also in a personal capacity. I have, therefore, tendered my resignation from the office of Minister of State for External Affairs. I am deeply grateful to the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi and to the External Affairs Minister Smt. Sushma Swaraj for the opportunity they gave me to serve my country."

The development comes even as Akbar has challenged the allegations against him in the Patiala House Court in the national capital. He filed a criminal defamation suit against journalist Priya Ramani, who was among those who accused him of sexual harassment.

The court is slated to hear the case filed by Akbar on October 18, Thursday.

MJ Akbar has been accused of sexual harassment by at least 20 women journalists in the ongoing MeToo movement on social media. He denied all charges, referring to them as "false, wild and baseless".

The Congress party had been demanding Akbar's resignation since the allegations came to the fore. The opposition party had also questioned the silence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the issue. Questions pertaining to the journalist-turned-politician were repeatedly skirted by members of the central government and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Akbar had alleged political reasons behind the allegations against him, pointing that they came ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

"Why has this storm risen a few months before a general election? Is there an agenda? You be the judge. These false, baseless and wild allegations have caused irreparable damage to my reputation and goodwill," he had said.NEW DELHI: The resignation of MJ Akbar as Union Minister of State for External Affairs over charges of sexual harassment on Wednesday was noticed around the world. The move was widely welcomed and celebrated on social media platforms, which have been the battlegrounds of the #MeToo movement in India. Even as most prominent voices celebrated it as a victory for women who had chosen to speak up, it also sparked off a debate over who should be given credit for Akbar's resignation.

India's MeToo movement, which went from spark to firestorm in a short span of time has widely covered sexual harassment on women at the workplace, and has especially consumed the film industry and news media.

MJ Akbar, a journalist-turned-politician, was often perceived to have been a 'rockstar editor' in the 1990s and early 2000s. He had been accused of being a serial predator by about 20 women, mostly journalists who had worked with him.

Among the early reactions was one from Priya Ramani, the journalist who has become the focus of Akbar's fightback, in the form of a criminal defamation case. Much had been made of the routine listing of the attorneys of the legal firm representing Akbar in the case.

"As women we feel vindicated by MJ Akbar's resignation. I look forward to the day when I will also get justice in court #metoo," read a tweet from the journalist.

As women we feel vindicated by MJ Akbar's resignation.

I look forward to the day when I will also get justice in court #metoo  Priya Ramani (@priyaramani) October 17, 2018

There were a number of others who took to the MeToo battleground - Twitter - to celebrate Akbar's resignation.

Huge breaking news. MJ Akbar finally resigns from his post as MoS, something he should have done the moment the allegations started to surface. The only thing to do when a person in power is being investigated for accusations of serious nature. pic.twitter.com/03Ukud0QZ6  #MeTooIndia (@IndiaMeToo) October 17, 2018

To all the women who stood testimony to the gross violations of human rights by MJ Akbar, to all the women Ministers who stood their ground and demanded his resignation, in the face of opposition from their Cabinet colleagues, I salute you.  indira jaising (@IJaising) October 17, 2018

So glad that Minister MJ Akbar has resigned his post. His continuation was untenable and indefensible. A big shoutout to all the brave women journalists who called him out for his alleged, sickening and exploitative behaviour towards them. #Metoo #LetTheWomenBeHeard  Nirupama Menon Rao (@NMenonRao) October 17, 2018

However, Twitter also became the platform for those who sort to counter the narrative that Akbar's resignation had come, 10 days after the allegations surfaced, after intervention from the highest levels of the present government.

While some of these political voices focused on blaming the government for not seeking Akbar's resignation sooner, others were focused on ensuring that the credit went to the women who chose to speak out about their alleged harassment, some incidents having happened over a decade ago.

Finally MJ Akbar has resigned. Shame on him for having delayed it for so long. The credit for the resignation goes not to the Centre or MJ Akbar but directly to the #MeToo campaign. Esp to those brave women who reported the assault & those women and men who stood by them.  Swati Maliwal (@SwatiJaiHind) October 17, 2018

If the PM had to intervene, he would have recalled MJ Akbar from his foreign trip or sacked him on his return. The moral force of the victims' stories became a tsunami that told Modi & Akbar #TimesUp. https://t.co/pXqsOALTEv  Salman Anees Soz (@SalmanSoz) October 17, 2018

The resignation of MoS External Affairs MJ Akbar after serious charges were levelled against him by senior women journalists who worked with him is a vindication of the power of truth even if it began with one brave person speaking up.  Priyanka Chaturvedi (@priyankac19) October 17, 2018

I salute these women who stood their ground despite the brazen stance of the GoI, silence of the PM who speaks about women empowerment, the arrogant misuse of power by deploying a battery of lawyers against one woman&allowing the accused to continue in his role  Priyanka Chaturvedi (@priyankac19) October 17, 2018

Using threat&intimidation as a tool to silence voices has become the norm of the Modi government but this brazenness is returning to haunt them. The women of the country are saying the time for this is up&threat to silence voices can no longer be the norm or acceptable.  Priyanka Chaturvedi (@priyankac19) October 17, 2018

Akbar's resignation was reported on Wednesday evening, following which it was accepted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Ram Nath Kovind.

In a statement, Akbar maintained that the allegations against him were without basis in fact, and said that he would take his legal fight forward against those he claimed had slandered him.MUMBAI: Navy's submarine rescue capabilities have got a boost with the successful maiden trials of its newly inducted deep submergence rescue vehicle (DSRV), the Navy has said.

The Western Naval Command here conducted the trials of the DSRV, which also set a record for "deepest submergence by a manned vessel" in the Indian waters, the Navy said in an official release issued Tuesday late night.

The DSRV, operated by a crew of three, can rescue 14 personnel from a disabled submarine at one time, it said.

"On October 15, the DSRV carried out underwater mating with a bottomed submarine at a depth of over 300 feet and transferred personnel from the submarine to the rescue vehicle," the release said.

Western Naval Command successfully concluded maiden trials of Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicle(DSRV) on 15 Oct.DSRV operated by a crew of 3,can rescue 14 personnel from a disabled submarine at a time.DSRV carried out underwater mating with a bottomed submarine,at over 300 ft depth pic.twitter.com/WAQOkOSSqs  ANI (@ANI) October 17, 2018

These trials have proven the DSRV's ability to undertake rescue operations from disabled submarines at sea and have provided the Indian Navy with a "critical capability", it said.

"During the trials, the DSRV also dived successfully up to 666 metres. This is a record for deepest submergence by a 'manned vessel' in the Indian waters," the release said.

The DSRV crew also carried out ROV (remotely operated vehicle) operations at a depth of over 750 metres and side scan sonar operations at over 650 metres, which are all "firsts" for the Indian Navy, it said.

Once the trials are completed, it will put the Indian Navy into a small league of world navies that have an integral submarine rescue capability, the release added.Patna: Disgruntled BJP leader Shatrughan Sinha on Tuesday visited a Durga Puja 'pandal' in Patna along with RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav and placed a 'tilak' on his forehead, calling it "rajyabhishek" (coronation).

The Patna Sahib MP, who has often been critical of his own party and the Narendra Modi-led central government on many issues, was seen along with the RJD heir apparent at the Puja pandal in Dak Bungalow Road.

Before departing, Sinha told reporters, "Tejashwi is young and endowed with leadership qualities. My best wishes and blessings are with him and thus, I performed his 'rajyabishek' hoping that he carries Bihar forward".

The actor-turned-politician also sang the opening lines of an old Hindi song "ab tumhare hawale watan sathiyon" (the nation is now in your hands). Tejashwi (29), son of RJD supremo Lalu Prasad, is the Leader of the Opposition in the state assembly.

"Shatrughan Sinha is like my guardian. He is an old friend of my father. I am humbled by his blessings and the high expectations he has from me," he said.

Sinha, who has served as Union minister in the NDA government-led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, has displayed his proximity to the Lalu family on a number of occasions recently.

He had gone to Ranchi to meet the RJD supremo where he is serving sentences in a number of fodder scam cases. He also met Lalu and Tejashwi here on the sidelines of the marriage of the RJD chief's elder son Tej Pratap Yadav.

Sinha popularly called 'Bihari Babu' also attended the Iftaar party hosted by Tejashwi during the month of Ramzan, while giving similar events organized by his own party leaders a slip.

Besides, he has also been frequently sharing stage with many former BJP leaders, who have now turned fierce critics of the party like Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie.

He has also, in his tweets, been showering praises on leaders like Mamata Banerjee and Arvind Kejriwal, both of whom are engaged in a fierce political battle with the BJP in their respective states.

No BJP leader has come out with a statement on the latest episode, though in the past some of them have expressed their displeasure over Sinha's defiant ways.

Soon after the former actor shared stage with Yashwant Sinha at a function where the latter announced severing of his ties with the BJP, Bihar Deputy CM Sushil Modi had stated that the Patna Sahib MP should "follow the example of his mentor".

Moreover, recently Rajya Sabha member R K Sinha had come out with a scathing criticism of the actor-turned-politician over his tweets questioning the prime minister on the Rafale deal and asked whether he (Sinha) stood with Modi or his opponents.

Sinha has, however, stuck to his guns and responded to murmurs about him not getting a ticket from Patna Sahib in 2019 with the cryptic remark, "Situation may be different, location will be the same - Patna Sahib".SRINAGAR: Talking tough on terrorism, Jammu and Kashmir Governor Satya Pal Malik has said militants don't have "much of a shelf life" with more than 40 being killed since August and should not expect bouquets if they fire bullets.

Stone pelting has come down as has the number of local recruits in militancy, Malik said while describing the situation in the state as "not grave".

"It is simple. Goli chalaogay to goli chalegi, koi guldasta toh milega nahi (If you resort to firing, you will get a bullet in return. You are not going to get a bouquet in return)," Malik said.

He took over as governor of Jammu and Kashmir on August 23 this year.

"Militants do not have much of a shelf life. The situation is not grave. Since I have joined, about 40 militants have been killed, stone pelting has come down and the number of local youths joining militancy has also come down. I am satisfied that on this front there is no worrying situation," he said.

His opinion is based not just on official briefings but also on narratives provided to him by common people, Malik said.

The governor added that he had met several youth groups, opening himself to them and hearing them out.

"After talking to them, I came to the conclusion that the need of the hour is to address the youth between the 13-20 age group. The concerns of this age group need to be addressed first as they are frustrated," he said.

According to Malik, the youth are unhappy not just with New Delhi but also with Pakistan, local political groups as well as the Hurriyat and are unable to see any ray of hope.

"Therefore, there is need to establish contact with them and work according to their aspirations so they understand that the Centre is not against them," he said.

Discussing instances of educated youth like Mannan Wani -- the scholar-militant killed in an encounter recently -- taking to arms in the Valley, Malik said a narrative had been built on misinformation.

"Many literate people do other bad things. Having said that, in this (case) it was a case of pure misinformation on which he had built a narrative. I am helpless...Many of the narratives of misguided youths are based on half-knowledge about this great country. How many militants would there be? An exaggerated figure can put it around 400," he said.

For a country like India, getting rid of these 400 people is nothing, he asserted. But the effort is to end terrorism and not terrorists, the governor added.

"Here we are making attempts to kill the ideology of terrorism. Terrorism is not in the gun but in the mind... I will be making every attempt to set these minds free of the poison of terrorism," he added.

Citing Sri Lanka's Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam as an example, Malik asked what it gained from terrorism.

"It had the support of many countries and its own navy and dedicated cadres. What did it achieve out of it except death and destruction. In today's world order, forget India, no one can break even a smaller country," he said.CHANDIGARH: Top police brass of eight northern states and some paramilitary forces proposed a slew of measures on Wednesday to enhance coordination among them to tackle crime in the region.

The proposed measures included shifting of hardcore criminals to jails of other states and deploying paramilitary forces for prison security besides sharing real-time inputs about criminals and their activities.

The novel proposals were made and discussed during a brainstorming session of the police brass of Punjab, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Delhi and Chandigarh here.

Organised by the Punjab police as the "fifth meeting of northern region police coordination committee", the police officials discussed a broad range of issues pertaining to internal security, terror threats, cross-border terrorism, drug abuse and radicalization of youth, said an official release.

Delivering his keynote address, Punjab Director General Police Suresh Arora said such meetings have become "all the more relevant" in the face of multiple security challenges.

He said fighting terrorism and other organised crimes in the northern region through joint mechanisms was the need of the hour.

Arora appreciated the "effective coordination" among the police of the members states, which also resolved Wednesday to share "realtime inputs" about criminals and drug peddlers.

He also suggested evolving an inter-state mechanism to deploy paramilitary forces for prison security in member states to help contain the activities of smugglers and gangsters lodged in their jails.

Emphasizing on the need for effective cooperation among states, CRPF ADG VSK Kaumudi proposed lodging hardcore criminals to the jails of other states and ensuring their court appearances through video conferencing.

Punjab DGP (Law & Order) Hardeep Singh Dhillon expressed satisfaction over "better coordination" between the state police with the BSF.

He said in consultation with the BSF, Punjab has deployed 50 companies equipped with armoured vehicles along the border as line of second defence.

He also emphasized to put strict vigil along Ujh and Ravi rivers on the J&K border to check infiltration from across the international border.

J&K ADGP (Headquarters) Abdul Gani Mir cited activities of drug trafficking across the international border and POK, and briefed the participants on the efforts being taken by his state police and government towards de-addiction.

Gani Mir spoke about the J&K experience of using the Public Safety Act to detain drug smugglers and suppliers in J&K.

Punjab DGP (Intelligence) Dinkar Gupta briefed the participants about the emerging security scenario in the border state of Punjab and inter-state, inter-regional activities of anti-national and terrorist elements.

He also suggested that thrust be put on the joint efforts on de-radicalization of misguided youths.In a bizarre move by the Uttar Pradesh police, the policeman who shouted thain thain to scare criminals away during a recent encounter in Sambhal has been recommended for an award. Sub inspector Manoj Kumar is believed to have boosted the morale of fellow policemen during the encounter.

Superintendent of Police Yamuna Prasad has written a letter in this regard to the Director General of Police. According to the SP, the move by Manoj Kumar to shout out thain thain after a pistol got jammed acted as a booster for the morale of other policemen who were part of the encounter.

Police team involved in the encounter last week faced a serious situation when the revolver of one of the cops got jammed while they were chasing some notorious criminals in Sambhal.

#WATCH: Police personnel shouts 'thain thain' to scare criminals during an encounter in Sambhal after his revolver got jammed. ASP says, 'words like 'maaro & ghero' are said to create mental pressure on criminals. Cartridges being stuck in revolver is a technical fault'. (12.10) pic.twitter.com/NKyEnPZukh  ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) October 13, 2018

After realising that the revolver of one of his men had got stuck, the ASP started shouting words like "maaro, ghero" to create a mental pressure on the criminals who vanished in the tall bushes taking advantage of the situation.

Soon, other policemen too joined their superior and started shouting "thain, thain" to scare criminals hiding there.

The entire incident was caught on camera and later shared on social media platforms.JAMMU: At least three terrorists and a police personnel were killed shortly after a fierce encounter broke out in Jammu and Kashmir's Fateh Kadal locality of Srinagar in the wee hours of Wednesday.

News agency ANI reported that three terrorists and 1 policeman were killed in the Srinagar encounter.

According to reports, the joint operation by the Army, J&K Police and the CRPF has now concluded but a search has been launched to ascertain if some more terrorists are holed up in the area.

#UPDATE 3 terrorists and 1 police personnel killed during encounter between security forces & terrorists in Fateh Kadal area of Srinagar. #JammuAndKashmir https://t.co/cFdkryThIp  ANI (@ANI) October 17, 2018

Imitiyaz Ismail Parray, SSP, Srinagar, also informed reporters that three top terrorists have been eliminated in the encounter and one policeman also lost his life.

The police are trying to ascertain the identity of the three slain terrorists, he added.

The encounter began after the security forces received specific intelligence inputs regarding the presence of some hardcore terrorists in the area.

#JammuAndKashmir: Encounter underway between security forces & terrorists in Fateh Kadal area of Srinagar. More details awaited. pic.twitter.com/T8tfL5Wu55  ANI (@ANI) October 17, 2018

The security forces then cordoned off the entire area and launched a massive combing and search operation to flush out the terrorists holed up in the area.

It was reported that a top Lashkar-e-Toiba commander was among the terrorists holed up in the area, said reports.

As a precautionary measure, mobile internet services have been suspended and the entire area has been cordoned off.

The security forces had last week eliminated a top Hizbul Mujahideen commander Mannan Wani, whose killing had triggered tension in the Aligarh Muslim University in Uttar Pradesh where some Kashmiri students were slapped with sedition for holding a prayer meeting for the slain terrorist.Thiruvananthapuram: Despite protests from several quarters, Kerala's popular and most revered Sabarimala Temple is set to open its doors for devotees on Wednesday for the monthly pooja - the first time since the Supreme Court allowed women of all age groups to enter the shrine.

However, facilitating the entry of women of all age groups into the temple would be a challenging task for the state government in view of threats and protests from Hindu outfits, temple priests and the Pandalam Royal Family members.

Right-wing Hindu outfits and various political parties have threatened to disrupt the monthly puja, with some of them even warning of mass suicides against the Communist-led governments move to implement the top court verdict.

While most of the organisations will hold peaceful protests, the Shiv Sena and the Ayyappa Dharma Sena said they will prevent women of the menstruating age group from entering the hill shrine. The Sena has threatened to send a seven-member suicide squad to Sabarimala to resist those daring to enter the temple defying its customs and traditions.

Hundreds of women devotees of Lord Ayyappa on Tuesday checked vehicles for girls and women of menstrual age at Nilackal, the main gateway to Sabarimala in Kerala, and stopped them from proceeding to the hill shrine, as tension mounted in the area ahead of the opening of the temple gates on Wednesday.

There were also reports that members of the local tribal community were keeping a tight vigil to ensure that women between the ages of 10 to 50 (the typical duration of time when a woman menstruates) were not allowed to enter the Lord Ayyappa temple which is specifically dedicated to the celibate form of the deity.

A last ditch effort by the Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB), which manages the temple, to defuse the tense situation failed to yield a solution with the Pandalam royal family and other stakeholders walking out of a meeting called by it over its reluctance to discuss the issue of filing a review petition against the apex court order.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, facing a tough time tackling the highly emotive religious issue which has also acquired political overtones, issued a stern warning to those who dared block devotees from entering the temple.

Lustily chanting "Swamiya Saranam Ayyappa" hailing the Lord, women devotees picketed the road at Nilackal and checked buses and private vehicles for girls and women of the "banned" age group and forced them to abandon their pilgrimage to the shrine which also involved a 6-km arduous hill trek.

A woman journalist Ritu was one of those who was stopped by the protesting women devotees. Ritu claimed she was heading for the temple on assignment and had no intention of entering the shrine, something that could have offended the religious sensibilities of Ayyappa devotees.

"No woman belonging to the banned age group of 10-50 will be allowed to travel further from Nilackal and offer prayers at the shrine when it opens for the monthly pooja tomorrow evening," asserted a woman protester as tempers ran high at Nilackal.

A small police contingent looked the other way.

Television channels showed some college students, including young girls wearing black dresses, being ordered to get down a bus.

"We will ensure security to all. Nobody will be allowed to take law into their hands. My government will not allow any violence in the name of Sabarimala," Vijayan told reporters in Thiruvananthapuram as Ayyappa devotees virtually besieged Nilackal.

"Stern action will be taken against anyone who prevents devotees from going to Sabarimala," he warned, and ruled out any rethink of his government's decision against seeking a review of the Supreme Court order.

"We will go by what the Supreme Court says," he asserted.

The TDB went into a huddle with stakeholders, including the Pandalam royal family representatives and priests, to soothe frayed tempers amid escalating protests by the Hindu right and common Ayyappa devotees.

The meeting also attended by Ayyappa Seva Samajam and Yoga Kshema Sabha ended in a deadlock as the TDB stuck to its stand of not filing a review petition.

"It is very painful and we cannot agree. We wanted a decision on filing the review petition to be taken today itself, but the board said it can be discussed only at the next meeting of TDB on October 19," Shashikumar Varma, a member of the Pandalam royal family said.

"We all wish that Sabarimala should not be made a war zone," Varma, the president of Pandalam Royal Palace Trust, told journalists after walking out of the meeting in a huff.

TDB president A Padmakumar, however, dismissed suggestions that the meeting was a "failure".

"What they (stakeholders) wanted was to file the review petition now itself. But the Supreme Court is closed till October 22. They also wanted to maintain the status quo on the customs and traditions.

As the Supreme Court has passed a verdict, what can the board do? But the board will continue to talk with them to resolve the issue," Padmakumar said.

He said the October 19 meeting will take up the issue of the review petition.

Kerala has witnessed a series of protests and prayer marches over the last few days over the government's decision to enforce the Supreme Court order.

The Shiv Sena recently warned of "mass suicides" if women of menstrual age were allowed into the temple. Some other organisations have said women and girls aged between 10 and 50 years will have to tread on them before entering the temple.

The TDB, meanwhile, covered a signboard at the base camp in Pamba, which said the entry of women of menstrual age into the temple was prohibited.

Pamba is the base from where the trek to the shrine begins.

The multi-lingual board reading "Women between 10-50 are not allowed to visit Sannidhanam (Sabarimala temple)" was covered in the evening with a plastic banner that said, "Use of plastic is prohibited here".

(With PTI inputs)NEW DELHI: BJP Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy on Wednesday attacked the right-wing Hindu outfits for opposing the entry of women into the revered Sabarimala temple in Kerala despite the Supreme Court order allowing women of all ages to enter the famous hill shrine.

Speaking to ANI, Swamy said, ''Supreme Court has made a decision, but now you are saying that it's our tradition. Triple Talaq is also a tradition in that way, everybody was applauding when it was abolished. The same Hindus have come on the streets now.''

Supreme Court has made a decision, but now you are saying that it's our tradition. Triple Talaq is also a tradition in that way, everybody was applauding when it was abolished. The same Hindus have come on the streets now: Subramanian Swamy. #SabarimalaTemple pic.twitter.com/8GZvM4kDTN  ANI (@ANI) October 17, 2018

Commenting on the threats issued by the Hindu outfits over the Sabarimala temple issue, the BJP leader said, ''It's a fight between Hindu Renaissance and Obscurantism. Renaissance says all Hindus are equal and caste system should be abolished. Because no Brahmin today is only intellectual, they're in the cinema, business as well. Where is it written that caste is from birth? Shastras can be amended.''

The remarks from the firebrand BJP veteran came amid reports that entry of women pilgrims coming under the menstruating age was being still opposed by several Hindu right-wing outfits.

The Kerala government has deployed tight security in and around Nilakkal, the main gateway to Sabarimala temple, as protesters continue to oppose women's entry into the revered hill shrine, which is set to open its doors for all devotees this evening.

Protests are being held near Pampa base camp against the entry of women in the age group of 10-50 into the Sabarimala Temple, reported ANI.

According to reports, a total of 1,000 security personnel, 800 men and 200 women, have been deployed at Nilakkal and Pampa base camp. At least 500 security personnel have been deployed at Sannidhanam.

The state government is also closely monitoring the situation as just a few hours are left for the portal of the Sabarimala Temple to be opened for devotees, including women of all ages as ruled by the top court recently.

The police, deployed in large numbers in Nilakkal which is some 20 kms away from the Sabarimala hilltop, have removed a makeshift shelter erected by a protesting group Sabarimala Achara Samrakshana Samiti.

The protesting group of devotees had been staging a sit-in chanting Ayyappa mantra in the shelter in protest against the Supreme Court order permitting women of all age groups to enter the shrine.

There were reports that the police had to resort to mild lathi-charge to disperse protesters on Wednesday when they tried to block the buses from the key entry point to the temple.

Meanwhile, pilgrims have begun to arrive at Nilakkal base camp of Sabarimala Temple as the portals of the temple are set to open today.

Hours ahead of the opening of the hill shrine for the monthly prayer, the police said they would not let anyone block the movement of the people.

Taking the full control of Nilakkal, Police also warned against those who create hurdles in the ways of pilgrims to the hill shrine.

The police took strong action against the protesters after some of them checked the vehicles heading to Pamba and prevented the women in the age group of 10 and 50 from entering the hill shrine.

A couple from Tamil Nadu, aged 45 and 40, on their way to Pamba, were forced to get down from the KSRTC bus Monday night allegedly by some activists of the Sabarimala Achara Samrakshana Samiti.

Although the couple had said that they would go only up to Pamba and not climb Sabarimala, the activists prevented them.

The police later took them to safety.

Some activists of the Sabarimala Achara Samrakshana Samiti, who had stayed back at Nilakkal, also allegedly prevented the media persons from carrying out their professional duty.

The crew of various TV news channels was asked to leave the place. They could return the spot after more policemen were deployed in the area.

Around 500 police personnel, including women, have been deployed in Nilackal to ensure a safe passage to the pilgrims to the Lord Ayyappa temple.

Meanwhile, another group of devotees said they would stage a Gandhian style peaceful protest in Pamba.

Among political parties, Shiv Sena has threatened of mass suicides if women are allowed entry into the temple.

The shrine located on the mountain ranges of the ecologically fragile Western Ghats will be opened later in the evening for the first time after the recent Supreme Court.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has said no one would be allowed to block devotees from proceeding to Sabarimala.

The temple would be closed on October 22 after the five-day monthly prayer during the Malayalam month of Thulam.

(With Agency inputs)Nilakkal: Protesters opposing the entry of women in the 10-50 age group to the Sabarimala temple on Wednesday attacked journalists covering the stand-off. At least two female reporters were injured when the protesters turned to the media vans to attack them. The National Commission for Women (NCW) has taken cognizance of the attack. A meeting is underway at the NCW office to deliberate on the next step of action.

Police had to use lathis on the protestors after they resorted to violence. The police action further enraged the protesters, who smashed the window panes of a police vehicle which was carrying away the injured female journalists. The protesters chased out another female journalist, working for a news portal, from a bus headed to the temple town.

#WATCH: Police lathi-charge and pelt stones at the protesters gathered at Nilakkal base camp, in Kerala. #SabarimalaTemple pic.twitter.com/DMC1ePz0l2  ANI (@ANI) October 17, 2018

Activists belonging to political parties as well as Hindu groups have been protesting against the Supreme Court verdict allowing entry of all women at the Sabarimala temple, reversing a long-standing tradition.

The demonstrators used force against women who were trying to enter the shrine despite police assurances that no one will be prevented from taking part in the pilgrimage.

#WATCH: India Today journalist Mausami Singh and its crew in a police vehicle. They were attacked by the protesters at Nilakkal base camp. #SabarimalaTemple #Kerala pic.twitter.com/R7rsSBK8fx  ANI (@ANI) October 17, 2018

Kerala minister KK Shailaja hit out at the demonstrators calling it dirty politics. "I can predict what is going on there. I think it is intentional, it's dirty politics they (protesters) are playing," she said.Pune: A woman activist, protesting against the ritual of 'virginity test' in Kanjarbhat community, was barred from taking part in Navratri dandiya festivities in Maharashtra's Pimpri Chinchwad.

Twenty-three-year-old Aishwarya Bhat-Tamaichikar and her husband has been spearheading 'Stop the V-Ritual' campaign against the virginity test a Kanjarbhat bride has to undergo on the first night of marriage.

Filed a police complaint in Pimpri Chinchwad after members of my community didn't allow me to participate in Navratri dandiya.I was told that I had brought a bad name to Kanjarbhat community for opposing the virginity test which is common in our community, said Aishwarya.

Recalling the incidents, she said, "The dandiya event was organised by some members of my community. While dandiya was being played, suddenly the music stopped and while everyone was looking clueless, my mother came to me and asked me to come home with her. However, when I resisted, she told me that the community members were not happy that I took part in the event."

"I left the place. However, the moment I turned my back, the organisers resumed dandiya, which confirmed that they wanted to prevent me from participating," she added.

Protesting against the incident, the activist's husband, Vivek Tamaichikar, said, We protested against ritual of virginity test which is still prevalent in Kanjarbhat community. Due to this, my wife was boycotted from taking part in cultural programs in by the community. This is unconstitutional.

The police had registered a case against eight members of the Kanjarbhat community under sections of the Social Boycott (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2016.

She had complained that because she had opposed virginity test prevalent in Kanjarbhat community she was not allowed to take part in Dandiya celebrations. An FIR has been registere. An investigation will be conducted into the incident, said DCP Pimpri-Chinchwad.

With agency inputsNEW DELHI: Odisha-based journalist Abhijit Iyer Mitra, who was arrested for allegedly making derogatory remarks on Konark temple has 'unreservedly' apologised. The journalist said that it is better to be more reflective and mature about what is said on a public platform.

"I have realised that it's probably best that when on a public platform, you keep quiet and be more reflective and mature about what you say. I'll be standing in front of Odisha assembly on 23rd October," he said.

Apologising for making a few remarks against the Chief Minister and the state Assembly, he said: "Some of the nastier things I said about CM, the office, the Assembly, I was under immense stress and I would like to apologise for that unreservedly."

Defending himself, he said that he loves Odisha and has often heaped praises on the state. "If you read my research writing, a lot of it is always praising Odisha. I have always held Odisha in high regard. One of the reasons I visited was to look at history and contribution to Indian culture. I love Odisha. My Twitter account is more for fun, not professional," he said.



Earlier in the month, the Supreme Court had refused to grant him bail in connection with the case filed against him. A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi dismissed the plea of Mitra and had observed that he "incited religious sentiments".

The top court also refused to entertain the submission of Mitra's lawyer that his client was facing threat to his life. "If your life is in danger then what better place to stay than jail? Your life will be secure," said the bench, also comprising justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and KM Joseph.

Mitra was arrested on September 20 by the Odisha police in the national capital but was granted bail by a Delhi court directing him to join the probe. The trial court had granted relief to Mitra on a personal bond of Rs 1 lakh and one surety of the like amount on a plea moved by him, while directing him to join the investigation in his native state.

Odisha Assembly had adopted a privilege motion on September 20 against Mitra for his alleged derogatory remarks.

Mitra has been made accused in the case along with former BJD-leader Baijayant Panda. A case was filed under various sections of Indian Penal Code, including 153-A (promoting enmity between different groups on the ground of religion, grace, place of birth, residence, language etc) and 295-A (deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs). If convicted, the accused may get a maximum of three-year jail term.New Delhi: Actors Ranveer Singh and Sara Ali Khan, who were shooting for Rohit Shetty's 'Simmba' in Switzerland, have returned from the Swiss Alps to Mumbai. The duo was clicked by the shutterbags as they arrived at the Mumbai airport on Tuesday. They were accompanied by Rohit Shetty.

Both the actors were casually dressed up at the airport. While Sara aced the comfy look in a suede jacket and denim, Bollywood's live wire Ranveer left us impressed again with his quirky fashion sense in an all-black ensemble.

Take a look at their photos here:

(Photo courtesy: Yogen Shah)

As per a report, Ranveer and Sara shot for a song for the film in the Alps.

Sara, who has been chosen to play the female lead opposite Ranveer in the film, will be making her debut in the showbiz industry with the rom-com entertainer. She has also finished shooting for Abhishek Kapoor's 'Kedarnath' which will be released next year.

Over the past few months, Sara has been quite active on social media and she often shares pictures and videos of all the onset fun that takes place. After enjoying her time in the Swiss Alps with Singh and director, Rohit Shetty, the actress posted a stunning picture of her bidding adieu to Switzerland.

Produced by Karan Johar, 'Simmba' also features actor Sonu Sood and will hit the big screens on December 28, 2018.JAIPUR: Veteran BJP leader Jaswant Singh's son and MLA Manvendra Singh is all set to join the Congress party on Wednesday, ahead of the assembly polls in Rajasthan in December.

Singh (54), who won Barmer's Sheo constituency as the BJP candidate in 2013 assembly elections, had announced at a rally last month that he is leaving the Bharatiya Janata Party.

''Kamal ka Phool, Badi Bhool'', he had said then, claiming that going with the BJP's election symbol, the lotus, was a big mistake.

Congress leaders claimed that his move will help bring Rajput votes to the party-fold while the BJP said the MLA's 'politically wrong decision' will have no impact on the ruling party.

Manvendra Singh will join the Congress in the national capital in the presence of party president Rahul Gandhi, according to Rajasthan Pradesh Congress Committee president Sachin Pilot said.

There is a long list of leaders quitting the BJP and the party should introspect why this is happening, he said.

''We are welcoming Manvendra Singh and this will strengthen the party,'' he added.

He added the party will ensure his active participation in the upcoming assembly elections in the state.

Rajasthan's Parliamentary Affairs Minister Rajendra Rathore claimed Singh's decision is a political misstep and he should have thought before switching sides.

''The Congress is helpless. Therefore it is adopting sidelined BJP leaders. It is his personal decision but this is a politically wrong decision. He is not going to get anything with this,'' Rathore told reporters at Ranakpur in Pali.

As for the Rajput votes, Rathore said the community has traditionally voted for the BJP.

''There will be no impact of this as the Rajput votes will remain with the BJP only,'' he said.

Fateh Khan, the president of the Barmer unit of the Congress, said the Rajputs are not happy with the Vasundhara Raje government in Rajasthan.

''The Congress party is going to gain when Manvendra joins Congress,'' he said.

In western Rajasthan, the Rajput vote is often considered a deciding factor on many seats.

The Congress is also hoping to get the support of communities like the Rajpurohits, Charans and Prajapats with Singh joining the party.

Manvendra Singh won Barmer's Sheo assembly constituency in 2013 with a margin of 31,425 votes.

His father Jaswant Singh, who is in a coma for the last four years, was denied ticket by the BJP from the Barmer-Jaisalmer constituency in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

He then contested elections as an independent and lost the seat to BJP's Sonaram, who had joined the party after switching from the Congress.

There was resentment among Jaswant Singh's supporters over the denial of the BJP ticket for the veteran, and they blamed Vasundhara Raje for this.

These supporters had then rallied around his son Manvendra Singh, calling it an issue of 'swabhiman' or self-respect.

(With PTI inputs)Kolkata: Congress president Rahul Gandhi's proposed visit to the city during Durga Puja has been cancelled due to his campaign schedule ahead of the elections in the five states, said a senior state party leader on Tuesday.

Rahul was supposed to visit the city on Ashtami (the eight Lunar day) on Wednesday.

The Congress party published a letter on Twitter from its president informing that his visit to Kolkata has been cancelled.

Greetings on the occasion of Durga Puja from Congress President @RahulGandhi pic.twitter.com/iot4fxvRzC  Congress (@INCIndia) October 16, 2018

"His visit has been cancelled. The central election committee has convened a meeting for selection of candidates for the upcoming elections in five states," party's West Bengal unit President Somen Mitra said.

Mitra was last month made West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee's President replacing Adhir Ranajan Chowdhury who was bitterly anti-Trinamool Congress and pro-Left.

The Congress Chief, in a message, said, "I had wanted to be present in Kolkata to offer prayers to Maa Durga and to participate in the puja celebrations, in the great city of joy, with all of you.''

Unfortunately, the upcoming state elections and crucial preparatory meetings for them, prevent me from travelling out of Delhi at this time."

Gandhi regretted for not being able to visit the city but hoped to travel Kolkata soon.Imran Ali, who was accused of raping and murdering a six-year-old minor in Pakistan's Kasur district, was hanged in wee hours on Wednesday in Lahore's Kot Lakhpat Central Jail.

During Imran's execution, Magistrate Adil Sarwar and the minor girl's father was present, Dawn reported.

The death sentence was ordered by Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) judge Sheikh Sajjad Ahmed.

Imran was taken to the gallows just before dawn and he has been hanged with a rope in the presence of magistrate and a doctor, Dawn quoted police officer Mohammad Afzal.

A medical official and the jail's superintendent was also present at the jail during the execution.

Anti-riot forces and police were deployed at the Central jail during Imran's execution.

Imran's relatives and friends were allowed to meet him on Tuesday evening.

In January this year, 24-year-old Imran had raped and murdered a minor in Pakistan's Kasur district.

Imran was accused in nine such cases involving murdering/raping minors.

This was the 12th such incident to have occurred in the district over the period of a year.

The minor's rape and murder had sparked outrage after the body was found in a trash heap on January 9 this year.

On January 23, the police had declared Imran to be the prime suspect of the case following which the ATC handed the accused a death sentence.

Imran had also filed a plea in the court against his conviction which was later rejected by the court. On June 12, the Supreme Court rejected Imran's plea, stating that the accused had admitted of committing a crime with eight other minors and he did not "deserve any sympathy in the matter of his sentences."

The deceased father had asked the court to publicly hang the convict but the court took out the death sentence inside the jail premise on October 17.Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena on Wednesday rubbished rumours over the issue of reports about an alleged assassination plot against him. The Sri Lankan President talked to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and clarified that media reports about the former accusing RAW for an assassination plot were false.

Some media reports in Sri Lanka carried a story saying President Sirisena had accused India of plotting to assassinate him, allegedly during a weekly meeting with his Cabinet.

Sirisena on Wednesday said that he spoke to Prime Minister Narendra Modi regarding the issue and asked him to categorically reject such media reports, news agency ANI reported.

The Sri Lankan President apprised Modi of the urgent steps taken by him personally and the government of Sri Lanka to publicly reject these reports, referring to the Prime Minister as a "close friend".

Sirisena also recalled his meeting with the High Commissioner of India to Sri Lanka earlier in the morning on Wednesday.

The president also stated that he regards PM Modi as a true friend of Sri Lanka and a close personal friend of himself. Sirisena focussed that he greatly valued the mutually beneficial ties between India and Sri Lanka and remained steadfast to work with the PM Modi for further strengthening them.

PM Modi also appreciated the prompt steps taken by President Sirisena and his government to firmly refute malicious reports by publicly clarifying matters.

PM Modi reiterated Indias emphasis on neighbourhood first policy and priority.

Earlier on Wednesday, Advisor and Coordinating Secretary Shiral Lakthilaka had responded on the matter.

"The President had spoken in general terms about secret services of countries attempting to assassinate leaders. This happens even in America, the President said, and added that the Prime Minister of India might not be aware of it. There was no mention of RAW at all," Lakthilaka was quoted as saying in Lankan newspaper Sunday Times Sri Lanka on Wednesday.

The media reports have surfaced days before the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka Ranil Wickremesinghe is scheduled to visit New Delhi.

(With Agency Inputs)Washington/Riyadh: US President Donald Trump gave Saudi Arabia the benefit of the doubt in the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi even as US lawmakers pointed the finger at the Saudi leadership and Western pressure mounted on Riyadh to provide answers.

"I think we have to find out what happened first," Trump told the Associated Press in an interview on Tuesday. "Here we go again with, you know, youre guilty until proven innocent. I dont like that."

Trump then referred directly to his nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the US Supreme Court, which ran into trouble in the Senate after several women came forward to accuse Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct, before Kavanaugh was ultimately confirmed.

Earlier, in a Twitter post, Trump said that Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman denied knowing what happened in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul where Khashoggi vanished two weeks ago after going there to collect documents he needed for his planned marriage.

Turkish officials have said they believe the Saudi journalist was murdered and his body removed, which the Saudis have strongly denied. Khashoggi was a US resident who wrote columns for the Washington Post and he was critical of the Saudi government, calling for reforms.

"Just spoke with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia who totally denied any knowledge of what took place in their Turkish Consulate," Trump wrote on Twitter. Trump also wrote that the crown prince "told me that he has already started, and will rapidly expand, a full and complete investigation into this matter. Answers will be forthcoming shortly."

How the crown prince, often referred to as MbS, emerges when the dust settles over Khashoggi`s disappearance is a test of how the West will deal with Saudi Arabia in the future. At issue will be to what extent the West believes responsibility lies with MbS for Khashoggi.

MbS, who has enjoyed a close relationship with the Trump administration, painted himself as the face of a new, vibrant Saudi Arabia, diversifying its economy away from reliance on oil and making some social changes.

HUMAN RIGHTS ISSUES

But there has been mounting criticism of some of the prince`s moves.

These include Riyadh`s involvement in the war in Yemen, the arrest of women activists and a diplomatic dispute with Canada. The kingdom also denied an assertion by France that it held Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri captive in November 2017.

Despite Western concerns about Saudi Arabia`s human rights record, Trump still says he is unwilling to pull out of weapons sales agreements with Riyadh.

Also, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin plans to attend a high-profile investment conference in Riyadh starting on Oct. 23. Those are all indications Trump is sticking by Saudi Arabia, the first country he visited as president in 2017. Trump told the AP that Mnuchins trip could be canceled by Friday depending on what the investigation finds.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who met with Saudi King Salman, the crown prince and the foreign minister, said his assessment from the meetings was that there was "a serious commitment to determine all the facts and ensure accountability, including accountability for Saudi Arabia`s senior leaders or senior officials.

Pompeo is due to travel to Turkey on Wednesday.

Pompeo and Trump`s remarks reflect a dilemma for the United States, Britain and other Western nations in how to respond to an authoritarian monarchy that does not typically bow to foreign pressures. Saudi Arabia is the world`s top oil exporter, spends lavishly on Western arms and is a major Sunni Muslim ally.

US Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican close to Trump on some issues, called the crown prince a "toxic" figure, adding, "He can never be a world leader on the world stage."

"I`ve been their biggest defender on the floor of the United States Senate," Graham said. "This guy is a wrecking ball. He had this guy murdered in a consulate in Turkey and to expect me to ignore it, I feel used and abused," Graham said.

The Group of Seven foreign ministers, including the United States, said in a statement that they remained "very troubled" by Khashoggi`s disappearance, and looked forward to Riyadh conducting a "thorough, credible, transparent and prompt investigation, as announced."

The statement was unusual for a group that normally weighs in on global foreign policy issues and speaks generally about human rights abuses in other countries.

US media outlets reported on Monday that Saudi Arabia will acknowledge that Khashoggi was killed in a botched interrogation.

Trump speculated on Monday that "rogue killers" could be behind the disappearance, but gave no evidence to back up that theory.

CONGRESSIONAL PRESSURE

Members of the US Congress, including some of Trump`s fellow Republicans, are among the loudest voices in the United States demanding answers and action on Khashoggi, who moved to Washington last year fearing retribution for his criticism of the crown prince.

Republican Representative Jeb Hensarling, outgoing chairman of the House of Representatives Financial Services Committee, said Washington might have to seriously review relations with Saudi Arabia if Riyadh was involved in killing Khashoggi.

"If this was a state-sanctioned assassination, which it may prove to be, then there will have to be a fundamental rethinking of our relationship vis-a-vis the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Absolutely," Hensarling told Reuters.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan indicated that parts of the Saudi consulate in Istanbul had been repainted since Khashoggi`s disappearance.

"The investigation is looking into many things such as toxic materials and those materials being removed by painting them over," Erdogan told reporters.

A Turkish security source said the search of the consulate provided "strong evidence" but no conclusive proof that Khashoggi was killed there.

The source confirmed that Saudi Consul General Mohammad al-Otaibi left Istanbul on Tuesday, returning to Riyadh. The source said Turkish authorities had not asked him to leave.

A search of the Saudi consul`s Istanbul residence was called off for the day because Saudi officials were not able to join, Turkish police said. Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu had said earlier on Tuesday that Turkish officials would extend their investigation into Khashoggi`s disappearance to include the residence of the Saudi consul and some vehicles.

Indicating unease over the Khashoggi case, international media and business executives have been pulling out of next week`s investment conference, known as "Davos of the desert."

International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde and London Stock Exchange Chief Executive David Schwimmer joined the list on Tuesday, as did the CEOs of HSBC, Standard Chartered, Credit Suisse, and BNP Paribas, and David Bonderman, the billionaire chairman and founding partner of private equity firm TPG.

Saudi Arabia has said it would retaliate against any pressure or economic sanctions.

CNN reported on Monday that after denying for two weeks any role in Khashoggi`s disappearance, Saudi Arabia was preparing to say he died in a botched interrogation. The New York Times reported that Prince Mohammed had approved an interrogation or abduction of Khashoggi and the government would shield him by blaming an intelligence official.

Saudi authorities could not be reached for comment.

Turkish authorities have an audio recording indicating that Khashoggi was killed in the consulate, Turkish sources have told Reuters.

The Saudi riyal rebounded after falling to its lowest level in two years over fears that foreign investment could shrink. The Saudi stock index initially dropped 3 percent but finished up after state-linked funds came in to buy toward the close.This political triad is used by the incumbent president before the forthcoming presidential election in March 2019, however, not everything is that fine with its practical implementation

Army, language, and faith is a political triad, used by president of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, before the forthcoming presidential election in March 2019. And although the triad was firmly prescribed in the information space (advertising on TV, billboards), not everything is that fine with its practical implementation. The fire at the Ichina ammo depot, difficulties with language law, delay in the provision of Tomos are all image-related blows, which, however, could be fixed before the elections

The language question  that is the way it is

After the abolition of the Kivalov-Kolesnichenko language law (adopted back in 2012, it granted Russian the status of a regional language, it was abolished in 2014 after then-president Yanukovychs flee  Ed.), the Ukrainian authorities repeatedly expressed their intention to restore order in this field in accordance with their vision. In 2016, the law on language quotas on radio and television entered into force. At the end of the first plenary week of October, parliament finally took up the development of a new document on the state language. In the pro-presidential faction, this issue was called the key one.

As it is known, four bills were submitted to the consideration of the deputies, which split the parliament. For example, the Bloc of Petro Poroshenko (BPP) faction supported the adoption of the draft law of its colleague Yaroslav Lesyuk. In many respects, it has maintained the rules on the use of languages of national minorities, spelled out in the Kivalov-Kolesnichenko language law, which is abolished by the Constitutional Court.

Their coalition colleagues, the National Front faction, were in favor of the 5670-d bill. This document suggested that official (working) communication should be in Ukrainian, as well as paperwork and document circulation. It also prescribed criminal liability for abuse of the state language and introduction of the institute of language inspectors, who would receive the right to penalize for violating the law.

Such discrepancies led to the fact that cherished 226 votes have not been achieved in support of one or another bill. As the representative of the head of state in parliament Iryna Lutsenko explained in a comment to journalists, the BPP faction initially supported the initiative of her colleague and opposed the 5670-d bill, since the National Front project involves repressive methods of learning Ukrainian and does not comply with the recommendations of the Venice Commission.

However, sources of 112.ua in coalition factions state that because of the upcoming presidential elections, the presidents political consultants want to expand the electoral core, flirting with national minorities, so this is the reason for supporting Lesyuks language bill.

In turn, the National Front faction criticized the bill of Lesyuk. "In the light of the upcoming elections, there is a struggle for who will be the king of the hill in the language issue, whose language bill will be supported. Serhiy Berezenko and Iryna Lutsenko strongly persuaded Ukrainian MPs to support Lesyuks bill, which is actually an updated version of the Kivalov  Kolesnichenko law. Our colleagues have conferred and said that they would not vote for anything like that. Ultimately, BPP was forced to support our bill, because otherwise, it would be a complete failure," our sources in the National Front faction said. A complete failure probably means a situation where the president would be in an uncomfortable position due to the unresolved language issue put forward by political consultants on billboards.

In order to reach a consensus, National Front removed the rule about language inspectors from the document. Although after the first reading the document turned out to be tougher than the one proposed by the presidents faction. Now, officials will again have to reassure representatives of the national minorities, that the law on language does not encroach on their rights.

Warehouses are burning, but the issue with salary might be solved

In accordance with the Constitution, the President is the Supreme Commander. At the same time, the army is the most trusted institution in Ukraine. Petro Poroshenko paid special attention to the army during his presidency. He repeatedly wore military uniforms, traveled to the location of units, transferred armaments, rewarded the military, and visited the front area in Donbas. He often stresses that "we have created a new army" after its predecessors destroyed it, "the army protects us," "so we are able to stop the aggressor."

It is quite logical that the army became an ideological pillar of his election campaign.

However, despite regular reports on record spending on the military budget, the army is still not totally fine. There are problems with military personnel housing, Ukraine still does not have contract troops, a large percentage of suicides in the Armed Forces of Ukraine are committed. Corruption scandals - the purchase of fuel, weapons and equipment repair at inflated prices - did not pass by the army either.

In addition, there are two serious problems, and something should be done with them. The officers are leaving the army. The reason is low wages. This summer, Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak recognized it. Poroshenko has repeatedly pointed out that the salaries of the military should be increased. When approving the military budget for the 2019th year, National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine supported my proposal to increase the cash support of Ukrainian soldiers by 35-37%. I am sure that this line should be continued in the future, the president noted.

He admits that "the insufficient attractiveness of the level of cash support, the traditionally low rates of housing provision (although we raised them several times) poor infrastructure, long-term domestic inconvenience in places of permanent deployment - all this slows down the process of professionalization of the Ukrainian army and contributes to the loss of already well-trained personnel."

Solving another problem also requires money. In recent years, fourth major arsenals have caught fire. This time, it happened in Ichnia, Chernihiv region. And again, the military and security services could not prevent the tragedy. The partners and the opponents from the National Front faction took advantage of the situation, they again voiced the need to dismiss Viktor Muzhenko from the post of Chief of the General Staff. Poroshenko surprisingly did not rule out the possibility of personnel casualties but made it clear that personnel would not solve all the problems.

And if the fight against saboteurs is really an intractable problem, then the authorities can still make people happy by raising the salaries of the military.

Faith will protect the soul and help in the fight against the aggressor

The greatest success of the presidents team is connected with the faith issues. At least, judging by the public reaction. No, Ukraine has not yet received Tomos, but the Ecumenical Patriarchate lifted the anathema from Patriarch Filaret and the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Kyiv Patriarchate Macarius and took the Metropolitan of Kyiv under its hand. Kyiv has received a signal  unite and youll get your own independent church, recognized by Constantinople. Judging by the reaction of the state and churches officials, this issue is completely solvable. Patriarch Filaret even declared that only thanks to the wisdom of the president, Ukraine will receive church freedom.

The topic of autocephaly was raised in the spring during a meeting of Petro Poroshenko with the leaders of parliamentary factions. However, the adoption of the necessary decisions for this was postponed several times. Now the provision of autocephaly becomes a matter of time. However, Poroshenko has already stated this as a fait accompli. Ukraine has received autocephaly. Congratulations to all believers on a historic event ... The decision of the Synod finally dispelled fantasies and imperial illusions of Moscow, Poroshenko wrote on his Facebook page.

Poroshenkos team states it expects to achieve a rating increase of up to 8% from Tomoss provision in the spring.

"In addition, the church is a fairly effective tool for mobilizing the voters," interlocutors in the coalition factions assure. It is unlikely that the church issue will disappear from the information space. The unifying council should elect the primate of a new church, which should receive Tomos on autocephaly. Our sources name the Metropolitan of Vinnytsia and Barsky Simeon, who is considered a person close to President Poroshenko, among the contenders for the position of primate. However, the Yevstratiy Zorya, the Spokesperson of Ukraines Orthodox Church of Kyiv Patriarchate said that the UOC (KP) will nominate Filaret to this position.

Read the original text at 112.ua.He was serving in the first separate tank brigade in Donetsk region

Open source

Andriy Boyko, a 20-year-old soldier of the first separate tank brigade was shot by a sniper on the Joint Forces Operation zone in Donetsk region, as Ltava TV and Radio Channel reported on Facebook.

On October 16, at around 10 pm, Andriy Boyko, a soldier from Lubny died. Eduard Boroday, the deputy of the Regional Military Commissioner, confirmed this information, the message says.

The soldier was fatally shot by a sniper. The fighter was 20 years old, he was serving in the first separate tank brigade in Donetsk region.

Andriy Boyko joined the ranks of Ukraines Armed Forces in February, 2018.

Reportedly, on October 16, two Ukrainian soldiers died in Donbas combat zone, Pavlo Bilyk from Vinnytsia region and Anton Mospan from Cherkasy. Both were fatally shot by a sniper.

Related video:70 border guards died during combat actions in eastern Ukraine. Five went missing, 431 got combat injuries, as Petro Tsyhykal, the Head of Ukraines State Border Guard Service, said visiting Donetsk-Luhansk regional administration today, on October 17, the press office of the body reports.

Almost 20,000 border guards took part in the activities to ensure national security and defence, counterwork and deterrence of Russias armed aggression in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, 431 got combat wounds. Unfortunately, no everyone returned home alive. 70 border guards gave their lives for Ukraine, five soldiers are missing, he stated.

In addition, Tsyhykal noted that 856 officers of Border Guard Service, who participated in combat actions, were rewarded. In particular, two of them received Hero of Ukraine Order.Horlivka-Toretsk water pipeline, located in the combat area was damaged on October 15; people suffer the lack of water in Toretsk, Zalizne, Pivnichne, and Pivdenne

South Donbas water pipeline mil.gov.ua

The 900 millimeter-wide pipeline from Toretsk to Horlivka in the occupied section of Donetsk region is still not operative, as the State Emergency Service workers cannot approach the object due to the combat activity.

People suffer the lack of drinking and technical water in Toretsk, Zalizne, Pivnichne, and Pivdenne. The crews of the local water utility company will be able to repair the pipeline if they have the necessary safety guarantees.

As of 8 a.m. Wednesday, almost 43,000 residents of the said towns are cut off from the centralized water supply mechanism. The mobile water tanks carry the water wherever necessary.

Horlivka-Toretsk water pipeline, located in the combat area was damaged on October 15.Moscow does not recognize there are Russian citizens in Ukrainian prisons, Iryna Gerashchenko, First Deputy Chairman of Parliament, says

The Minsk negotiation process stalls in terms of discussions about the hostages' release in Donbas. This is largely due to the position of the Russian side and representatives of pro-Kremlin mercenaries in Donbas. Iryna Gerashchenko, the deputy speaker of the Ukrainian parliament posted this on Facebook.

'The POW (Prisoners of War) release was the key topic of the humanitarian group where the members of State Security Service and the Ministry of Temporarily Occupied Territories worked today (October 16, - 112 International). Moscow does not recognize there are Russian citizens in Ukrainian prisons; representatives of pro-Kremlin mercenaries in Donbas takes a destructive position,' Gerashchenko wrote.

According to her, the Ukrainian side has once again raised the issue of teenagers illegally detained by the militants in occupied Donetsk in early 2016. 'They promised the OSCE to release the children...until December 2016, and then, they sentenced them to imprisonment - for 'espionage.' We expect the OSCE to take a togher stance regarding the issue of children and teenagers,' the official posted.Anton Mospan served in 3029 military unit (9th Operational Regiment of the National Guard of Ukraine)

A soldier from Cherkasy Anton Mospan was shot by a sniper in the area of Joint Forces Operation in Donbas. This was reported by the local InfoMOST agency with the reference to regional military commissariat.

According to the Chief Military Commissar of the region Yevhen Kurbeta, the Ukrainian serviceman was born in 1991.

Anton Mospan was a senior sergeant and served in 3029 military unit (9th Operational Regiment of the National Guard of Ukraine).

On the evening of October 16, while on duty in Luhansk sector, he shot dead by a sniper.

The information about the death of a fighter was also confirmed by the volunteer Oksana Tsyhanok on her Facebook page.

As it was reported earlier, Colonel Ivan Petrenko, the Chief of Aviation of Ukraine's 'East' Air Force Command is one of the two pilots who lost his life in the crash of Sukhoi Su-27UB fighter in Vinnytsia region.

The authorities added that all aviation involved in the Clear Sky drills, the multinational air force exercise in central Ukraine, meets all technical requirements, and the aircraft was duly examined before the flights.Open source

Over the past 24 hours, Russian militants opened fire on Ukrainian emplacements in Donbas 19 times. This was mentioned in the message of Joint Forces Operation HQ on Facebook. That resulted in combat wounds for one fighter, while another two were killed in action.

The enemy opened fire from 82 and 120 mm mortars; the pro-Kremlin mercenaries also fired RPGs, heavy machine guns, and small arms. Hostile snipers intensified their attacks, too.

The militants attacked Stanytsia Luhanska, Novozvanivka, Pisky, Mariinka, Berezove, Chermalyk, Pavlopil, Hnutove, Vodyane, Lebedynske, and Shyrokyne.

In one case, the enemy used Minsk-banned large-caliber mortar, as 120 mm mines hit the Ukrainian positions near Vodyane.

Since Wednesday morning, the enemy has not used heavy weapons; the goverenment troops have taken no casualties over the period.The HQ of Ukraine's Air Force officially confirmed that a U.S. military man deceased in the recent crash of Sukhoi Su-27 fighter. As is known, the aircraft hit the ground during Clear Sky drills in Vinnytsia region, central Ukraine on Tuesday.

The press center of Ukraine's Air Force reported that one of the pilots was Colonel Ivan Petrenko; the other pilot served with the U.S. National Guard.

On October 16, the Military Prosecutor's Office of Ukraine stated that the American serviceman was killed in the accident; however, the Defense Ministry could not confirm it.

As of Wednesday noon, there has been no official information from the U.S. military on the death of the serviceman.

Currently, the National Police experts are seizing the fragments of the aircraft's hull and searching for the black box. 'The examination of the crash site may take several days because the territory is quite large. We shut it off, and the police workers maintain public security', said Yuriy Pedos, the head of the regional department of the National Police in Vinnytsia region.

As we reported, Sukhoi Su-27 fighter of Ukraine's Air Force crashed in Vinnytsia region, central Ukraine on Tuesday as the press service of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported. Both pilots deceased. According to Ukrainian military portal, the fighter participated in the international drills Clear Sky 2018. The Air Force HQ also reported that the actual plane belonged to the 831st Tactical Aviation Brigade based in Myrhorod, Poltava region, central Ukraine.Yesterday, one more Ukrainian soldier Anton Mospan was shot by a sniper

Ukrainian soldier Pavlo Bilyk from Tomashpil, Vinnytsia region, died in Joint Forces Operation from a sniper bullet, as Tomashpil united territorial community reports.

Sorrowfully, we inform that on October 16, 2018, our compatriot, the resident of Tomashpol Pavlo Bilyk (July, 29, 1980  October, 16, 2018) died. The soldier was fatally shot by a sniper, the message says.

Reportedly, the militants opened fire at our positions 19 times, as the headquarters of the Joint Forces Operation informs. Two Ukrainian soldiers died as a result, one more was wounded.

Earlier, a soldier from Cherkasy Anton Mospan was shot by a sniper in the area of Joint Forces Operation in Donbas.

According to the Chief Military Commissar of the region Yevhen Kurbeta, the Ukrainian serviceman was born in 1991.

Anton Mospan was a senior sergeant and served in 3029 military unit (9th Operational Regiment of the National Guard of Ukraine).

Related video:There are about 30,000 Orthodox Christians in Tajikistan that makes 0,4% of the country's population

Dushanbe Orthodox Church as a part of the Russian Orthodox Church completely severs ties with Constantinople as Hieromonk Vladimir reported to Radio Liberty.

"We also cannot participate in the Eucharistic communication with Constantinople Church as it violated the canons and intruded on the canonical territory of the Russian Orthodox Church of Ukraine," he said.

According to a rough estimate, there are about 30,000 Orthodox Christians in Tajikistan that makes 0,4% of the country's population.

The Orthodox parishes of Tajikistan are administratively subordinated to Dushanbe Eparchy of the Russian Orthodox Church with the diocesan administration in Dushanbe and comprise six churches and houses of worship with 5 priests.

On October 11, the Synod lifted the anathema from Filaret, the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyivan Patriarchate, and Makariy, the Primate of Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church. Filaret stated that a united Jubilee Bishops' Council would take place soon to create a unified Ukrainian local church.

In addition, the Ecumenical Patriarchate recognized Russias Orthodox Church annexation of Kyiv metropole in 1686.

Later the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) decided to completely cease the Eucharistic relations with the Patriarchate of Constantinople.

As is known, the Ecumenical Patriarchate decided to grant the autocephaly for Ukraine's Orthodox Church. The respective document appeared on the official website of the Patriarchate. This outraged the Russian Orthodox Church, which already promised 'a tough and decisive response.'

Related video:They could earn hundreds of millions of Czech crowns

In the Czech Republic, a group of Russians was detained as it is accused of the cyber attack on the computer system of Czech Foreign Ministry and interference in the permanent residency issuance system as BBC reported.

"On September 8, eight people were detained, including the citizens of Russia and Vietnam. The number of the detained Russians is not specified," the message said.

The detainees were accused of unauthorized access to the computer networks and participation in the organized criminal group. Four of them were also accused of money laundering.

The accused could earn hundreds of millions of Czech crowns.

Earlier, the Netherlands accused Russia of trying to carry out a cyber attack at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to access data of the international investigation of MH17 tragedy.

Also, Germany has joined the British and the Dutch authorities in accusing Russia of instigating massive international cyber-attacks.

Moreover, Latvian special services accused Russia of committing cyber attacks at the Latvian Defence and Foreign Ministries and other institutions.

Related video:Natalya Kaplan specified that the information is two weeks old, just because there have been no updates since then

Natalya Kaplan, sister of Ukrainian filmmaker and political prisoner Oleg Sentsov, claimed that she did not say on Tuesday briefing that her brother was in the intensive care unit of Labytnangi penal colony. She posted this on Facebook.

'I passed the two weeks-old information about Oleg's health conditions, because this actually is the latest news. If some journalists chose not to speak about the film but to re-print the rumour of his close death, posing it as news - well, then they are the ones to be asked questions,' shge wrote.

She confirmed that Sentsov is having a bad time, and she asked the reporters to avoid the manipulations.

'Quitting a hunger strike is a very complicated process; yes, his health was undermined, but what's new about it?', she wondered.

As we reported, Kaplan told the press Sentsov was in the intensive care unit in the penal colony in norterhn Russia amid the emergence from the long-term hunger strike. According to her, the hunger strike led to the irreversible consequences of his health, including the ischemia and cardiac arrhythmia, problems with liver, stomach, and other organs.The decision of Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople to provide the tomos to Ukraine means the impossibility of Moscow to pretend to Moldova and Belarus

Russian President Vladimir Putin can raise a new wave of aggression against Ukraine due to the decision of Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople to grant the autocephaly to Ukrainian Orthodox Church as The Jamestown Foundation reported.

According to the message, the independent church of Ukraine endangers the plans of Putin to build the Russian World that includes western post-Soviet countries, such as Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova.

Such state of affairs can force Putin to block Moldova's way to the EU as well as to absorb Belarus to prevent these countries creation of their own independent churches.

One of the possible scenarios of Putin's actions is the escalation with the situation in Ukraine, using the hybrid means of aggression against the country. It can cause two main consequences: the new sanctions against Russia and request of the world community to terminate the provision of the autocephaly to Ukraine as it causes the great resonance in the world order.

On October 11, the Synod lifted the anathema from Filaret, the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyivan Patriarchate, and Makariy, the Primate of Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church. Filaret stated that a united Jubilee Bishops' Council would take place soon to create a unified Ukrainian local church.

In addition, the Ecumenical Patriarchate recognized Russias Orthodox Church annexation of Kyiv metropole in 1686.

Later the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) decided to completely cease the Eucharistic relations with the Patriarchate of Constantinople.

As is known, the Ecumenical Patriarchate decided to grant the autocephaly for Ukraine's Orthodox Church. The respective document appeared on the official website of the Patriarchate. This outraged the Russian Orthodox Church, which already promised 'a tough and decisive response.'

Related video:The Ukrainian side could not convince Russia to cancel the elections it wants to hold on the occupied territories on November 11

Open source

The talks within TCG are close to a deadlock, and Russian is trying to frozen the conflict, Oleksandr Motsyk, Ukraines representative to the sub-working group on political affairs of the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG) on settlement of the situation in east Ukraine, said during the discussion What peacekeeping mission Ukraine needs? in Kyiv on Wednesday, Interfax-Ukraine reports.

The 97th round of negotiations was held. Honestly, the situation is close to a deadlock, and its all because of Russias positionwhich doesnt want to follow a normal settlement process in a diplomatic way, and wants to froze the situation existing, he said.

Motsyk also said that Russian side in TCG did not agree to cancel the illegal elections in separate districts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

We could not convince Russia to cancel the elections it wants to hold on the occupied territories on November 11 We also failed to schedule a summit till the end of the year at the meeting of the representatives of the diplomatic advisors from four state leaders, he told.

Besides, as he said, the Russian side does not want to create a separate group in TCG on border issues.

The TCG includes the representatives of Ukraine, Russia, and OSCE who hold meetings in Minsk and discuss matters related to the resolution of the conflict in Donbas, including the exchange of hostages. Representatives of the occupied areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions also take part in the work of the subgroup of the TCG. Leonid Kuchma, the second president of Ukraine (1994-2005), represented this country in the TCG until October 2018. The Minsk format talks were initiated after Donbas armed conflict began in 2014.In particular, according to the Head of the General Staff, the Deputy Head of the General was fired

Open source

65 people were brought to justice, because of the explosions at the artillery depots in Ukraine, in particular, the Deputy Head of the General Staff. Stepan Poltorak, Minister of Defense claimed this after the closed session of the Ukrainian Parliament Committee for National Security and Defense devoted to the protection of the armories, bases and the depots of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The session was broadcasted by 112 Ukraine.

I brought 65 people to justice for the happened events. One of them is the Deputy Head of the General Staff who was dismissed from the service for incompatibility with the position he takes. Five generals received penalties of various types, starting from the incompatibility of the taken position to other things. The other officers have also been fined, Poltorak said.

He stressed, according to the results of the investigation, it was possible to investigate only the premises that could have contributed to the explosions on the bases and arsenals but it was unreal to precisely determine the method used for the detonation one or another arsenal.

Unfortunately, the investigation is no completed, and a decision of the court is not provided, the Minister of Defense added.

Reportedly, an explosion at the sixth armory occurred in Ichnia. The air-space within 30 km is shut down, traffic and railway movement are stopped due to the emergency situation. The Military Prosecutors Office of the Central Region opened a criminal proceeding on the case of explosions at the ammunition depot in Ichnia.

Since October 10, ten demining groups have been working on the territory of the armory. 70% of the administrative territory was cleared. On October 11, the fire was completely eliminated.

Over the past four years, it's been the fifth accident with the ammunition stocks in Ukraine exploding; the incidents took place in Balakliya (Kharkiv region), Svatove (Luhansk region), and Kalynivka (Vinnytsia region).Ukraine's Interior Ministry speaker claimed that he will be surprised if there is no connection with "Ukrainian nationalists" or "ISIS Tatars" in the case

The blast in Kerch as a result of which 18 people died and 50 sustained injuries, can be connected by the law enforcers of occupied Crimea with the "Ukrainian trail." In future it can be used by Russia as a reason for the war in the Sea of Azov or even the invasion as Ukraine's Interior Ministry speaker Artem Shevchenko reported on Facebook.

"I will be surprised if the Russian enforcers-occupants in Crimea do not find the connections of the suspects in the terrorist action in Kerch college with the supposed "nationalists from Azov" or "ISIS Tatars" or just some contacts with mainland Ukraine. It is hard to imagine the better casus belli  the reason for the war in the Sea of Azov or the storm of Mariupol and Berdiansk from the sea. I would be glad to be wrong in my senses," he claimed.

As we reported an explosion thundered at a college in Kerch, the town in the Russian-occupied Crimea. It claimed lives of at least ten people; another fifty sustained injuries. According to the initial version, the explosion took place due to the gas leak; however, it became known that the building of the college was not connected to the gas supply.

Later it was reported that the number of casualties increased up to 18 people.

Russia's Investigative Committee opened a criminal proceeding due to Crimean blast upon the article on the terrorist action; however, later it reclassified it to the mass murder.

A crime was committed by an 18-year-old student of the college, later he shot himself.The reason for the catastrophe is still unknown; the plane was repaired in July 2018

Open source

The flight recorder of the aircraft fighter Su-27 that crashed on October 16, in Vinnytsia region, was found. Stepan Poltorak, the Defense Minister of Ukraine claimed this as 112 Ukraine reported.

"Now the work takes place, the flight recorder was found, the investigation continues," Poltorak said.

He added that the reason for the catastrophe is still unknown; however, the plane was repaired in July 2018.

"The reason is unknown yet but concerning the place, this year, in July it was repaired and we got it from the plant," he specified.

As we reported, October 16, the fighter aircraft Su-27 crashed in Vinnytsia region. Later it was reported that both of the pilots of Sukhoi Su-27 fighter deceased. The search and rescue group found bodies of two servicemen. One of them was Colonel Ivan Petrenko, the Chief of Aviation of Ukraine's 'East' Air Force Command, the other one was U.S. military man.

Also, the events planned for October 18-19 at Starostyantyniv and Havryshevka airfields with the participation of the representatives of the mass media within "Clear Sky-2018" drills will not be held due the crash.

Clear Sky 2018 is a joint and multinational exercise, where 950 officers from nine countries will take part, including Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Ukraine, the UK, and the U.S.Yuriy Lutsenko said it is due to the need to conduct long expert reports

The indictments on five cases on explosions on ammo depot were not served due to the need to conduct long expert reports, as Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko said at the morning plenary meeting of the Verkhovna Rada, broadcasted by 112 Ukraine.

Konstantyn Pavlon, the representative of the Opposition Block, asked whether someone was prosecuted for five cases of explosions at ammo depot.

Respective proceedings on all the emergencies on the warehouse were opened All these cases require very detailed expert reviews, which, unfortunately, take more than a year for each case. Moreover, there are plenty of them  as a rule, around ten for each case. So, for now the indictments has not been served, Lutsenko said.

According to him, the main link in each investigation is diversion.

Reportedly, on October 9, a fire occurred on ammo depot in Ichnia, Chernihiv region. 12,000 residents of the settlements nearby were evacuated then.

Related video:Ukrainian ombudsman yet appealed to the Head of the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism and the Secretary General of the Council of Europe with a claim to foster the investigation of the tragedy

Open source

Ukrainian Ombudswoman Lyudmyla Denisova claimed that the situation in Kerch, where 18 people died and about 50 got injured, as a result of the explosion at the polytechnic college, needs an urgent interference of the international community. She claimed this on Facebook.

The situation needs an immediate interference of the international community. This is why I have addressed Vladimir Voronkov, Head of the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism and Thorbjrn Jagland Secretary General of the Council of Europe. I ask them to facilitate the investigation of the terrible tragedy and to take necessary measures for the security of people, the Ukrainian Ombudswoman reported.

Denisova has also appealed Russian Ombudswoman Tatyana Moskalkova with a claim to promptly arrive in Kerch and provide the victims with all necessary.

The Ukrainian Ombudswoman noted that she was shocked by the news of the mass shooting at the Kerch Polytechnic College, which caused the death of at least 18 people.

I express my deepest condolences to the family and relatives of the deceased. Innocent children died, there can never be any excuse for that, Denisova said.

As we reported an explosion thundered at a college in Kerch, the town in Russian-occupied Crimea. It claimed lives of at least ten people; another fifty sustained injuries. According to the initial version, the explosion took place due to the gas leak; however, it became known that the building of the college was not connected to the gas supply.Protesters, organized by the Federation of Trade Unions of Ukraine, took to the streets demanding to pay debts on salaries, stop state rading against trade unions, and ensure decent wages

Trade unions hold a protest in Kyiv downtown today, on October 17 demanding higher wages and welfare benefits. The mass rally is organized by Federation of Trade Unions of Ukraine (FPU). The protest is dedicated to the International Day for Decent Work, as Kyiv media report.

The demonstration began at around 9:40 am. According to FPU press-service, 30 thousands of protesters marched along Khreshchatyk and adjacent streets, traffic is limited.

The protesters demand to:

ensure sustainable development of domestic production to generate job opportunities in Ukraine;

in Ukraine; stop the outflow of labor from the country and establish a minimum wage of at least 275 USD from January 1, 2019, and the minimum pension at the level of 100 USD ;

from January 1, 2019, and the ; not to raise prices for consumer goods, natural gas, fuel, electricity tariffs , utilities, transportation services;

, utilities, transportation services; envisage expenditures on education at the level of 7% of GDP, healthcare - 5% of GDP in the state budget-2019;

at the level of 7% of GDP, - 5% of GDP in the state budget-2019; stop state rading against trade unions' property rights;

rading against trade unions' property rights; pay debts on salaries, which, according to the Federation of Trade Unions of Ukraine, have reached 96 million USD.

The demands of the Trade Union would be passed to the Verkhovna Rada and Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.

Initially, the rally participants were trade unionists of educational and healthcare spheres, but numerous concerned people and organizations, such as Social Movement, have joined the protest, so it has grown into a large-scale event.

Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Ukraine was established after Ukraine became independent on 6 October 1990. At the international level, the FPU is affiliated with the International Trade Union Confederation and General Confederation of Trade Unions. FPU is participating in the United Nations Global Compact, it has a consultative status with UN ECOSOC.Ukraine is ready to provide any assistance to the families of the dead and injured during the explosion at the Kerch Polytechnic College. Borys Babin, Representative of the Ukrainian President in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, claimed this in the commentary to 112 Ukraine.

We are ready to render assistance to the families of the dead and the injured. I want to stress that the full responsibility for the happenings in Crimea rests with the aggressor country. The attempts of Russia in every way to use those facts of incitement of inter-ethnic enmity have to be thoroughly assessed by the international community.

As we reported an explosion thundered at a college in Kerch, the town in the Russian-occupied Crimea. As of now, it is known about the death of 18 people and the injury of 40, most of them are teenagers. The official version is the explosion of an unknown explosive device.

According to the preliminary information, an 18-year-old student of the fourth year of college Vladyslav Roslyakov conducted the mass murder. The investigation reported that Roslyakov shot up people in the college and then committed suicide.Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church in Germany have ceased work within the Orthodox Bishops Conference in Germany

Three bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church in Germany have "temporarily" ceased work within the Orthodox Bishops Conference in Germany (OBKD), as the Spokesperson of the bishops told Catholic KNA news agency on Tuesday, Deutshce Welle reports.

The OBKD is located in Bonn and led by Greek Metropolitan Augoustinos. It was founded in 2010. It unites bishops of seven Orthodox churches, comprising around 2 million Orthodox Christians in Germany.

KNA quoted Archbishop Mark, who leads the Russian bishops, as saying the conference cessation was "very painful, but we could not even indirectly endorse what is being done against Orthodoxy in the Ukraine and Russia," the news agency reports.

Reportedly, the Russian Orthodox Church decided to completely cease the Eucharistic relations with the Patriarchate of Constantinople.

On October 11, the Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate supported that the autocephaly provision for Ukraine is prolonged. Also, it has officially approved Constantinople as Ukraines mother-church. Besides, the Synod lifted the anathema from Filaret, the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyivan Patriarchate, and Makariy, the Primate of Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church. Filaret stated that a united Jubilee Bishops' Council would take place soon to create a unified Ukrainian local church.

In addition, the Ecumenical Patriarchate recognized Russias Orthodox Church annexation of Kyiv metropole in 1686.

Related video:Open source

The Metropolite of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC) Makariy has agreed to transfer St. Anrdrews Church in Kyiv to Constantinople is case UAOC is accepted in the local Orthodox Church. The Metropolite said it to ZIK TV channel.

I have been addressed concerning this issue and I agree to offer the St. Anrdrews Church. I said that if enters the local Orthodox Church, than we agree, because I have to be consistent. When and I meet the needs, I offer the cathedral and we take this risk, he said.

As it was reported earlier, Ukraines President Petro Poroshenko will propose to the Verkhovna Rada to give the St. Andrew's Church in Kyiv for the permanent use to the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

the Ecumenical Patriarchate decided to grant the autocephaly for Ukraine's Orthodox Church. The respective document appeared on the official website of the Patriarchate. This outraged the Russian Orthodox Church, which already promised 'a tough and decisive response.'

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Kyiv Patriarchate struggled for the autocephaly since the country gained independence in 1991. For his firm stance in this regard, Patriarch Filaret, the current leader of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Kyiv Patriarchate was stripped of his orders in 1992, as the Russian Orthodox Church imposed the anathema on him. Most recently, the Ecumenical Patriarchate lifted it from him. This decision, and the subsequent decision to grant Ukraine Tomos outraged the Russian Orthodox Church, which already promised 'a tough and decisive response.'The Ukrainian border guards have enhanced the security of the administrative border with Crimea due to the explosion in Kerch as the press service of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine reported.

"Due to the situation connected with the blast at the temporarily occupied territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea in Kerch, the officers of the State Border Guard Service assumed the number of measures to enhance the security at the administrative border. First of all, the measures concern the prevention of any provocations at the border with the occupied peninsula, provision of the security to the citizens crossing the border and personnel," the message said.

It is stated that the border guards will focus attention to the detection and prevention of the movement of the banned items. Thus, the highly-trained canine units were attracted to this.

"Moreover, the significant strengthening of the units and the military monitoring takes placer, as well as the interaction with the law enforcement bodies, is organized. The Border Guard Service of Ukraine continues to monitor the situation," the message said.

As we reported an explosion thundered at a college in Kerch, the town in the Russian-occupied Crimea. It claimed lives of at least ten people; another fifty sustained injuries. According to the initial version, the explosion took place due to the gas leak; however, it became known that the building of the college was not connected to the gas supply.

Later it was reported that the number of casualties increased up to 18 people.

Russia's Investigative Committee opened a criminal proceeding due to Crimean blast upon the article on the terrorist action; however, later it reclassified it to the mass murder.

A crime was committed by a 18-year-old student of the college, later he shot himself.The suspect, involved in "large-scale corruption" in Ukraine, was detained along with three accomplices

European police agency Europol informed that a Ukrainian fugitive was detained in France earlier this month, as Deutsche Welle reports.

The man, who was wanted for tax fraud and money laundering, was living a lavish lifestyle that included living in and owning a castle near the city of Dijon in eastern France, the news agency reads.

Police officers seized $5.3 million in cash and luxury goods. In particular, a Rolls-Royce Phantom and three paintings by Salvador Dali.

The man had managed to evade justice in his native country by forging death certificates. French authorities were tipped off to suspicious activity after the castle was purchased for 3 million by a firm in Luxembourg, the message says.

Moreover, the suspect, involved in "large-scale corruption" in Ukraine, was detained along with three accomplices.Courtesy of Amy Irvine

Where all think alike, there is little danger of innovation, Edward Abbey wrote in his classic, Desert Solitaire, which this year marks its 50th anniversary. The iconoclastic work written from Abbeys trailer in Arches National Park during his tenure as a ranger there has become sacred word for generations of Monkey Wrenchers, explorers and rebels. Yet contemporary admirers and critics are perhaps often too kind to the specter of Edward Abbey, forgiving too much racism, sexism and narrowness. Its doubtful that Abbey would admire or appreciate such timidity. Lucky for us Amy Irvine is nothing of the sort.

Asked to write a 3,000 word introduction to a new print edition of Abbeys original manuscript, Irvine sat down and wrote 18,000, taking Abbey to task for his obvious blind spots, while still honoring his undeniable influence; the sharp, romantic quality of his writing. Irvines book is a revision of the desert classic that feels relevant to everyone who Abbey seemed to write outwomen and people of color. Whats more, the book, Desert Cabal, is rooted not in isolation, but in the mutuality of life everywhere on the planet, all around us.

One of the things I looked at was, why solitude?, she said over the phone from her home in Colorado, near the Utah border where she has spent most of her life, and so has five generations of her family before her. Why was solitude a thing he capitalized on here, when in the original manuscript, he had written about having a wife and children? He crossed it out with a line, his own edits, she said and then, like in much of the book, she addressed Abbey himself: Why did you write about scorpions and tarantulas and ravens and not the people you loved? Its a choice that has influenced the whole canon of nature writing.

Courtesy of Amy Irvine

With humor, wisdom and a sense of urgency, Irvine uses Desert Solitaire as a jumping off point to assess the current state of the world, to expose the very human error of the literary heroes on dusty pedestals, and to reinsert many of us back into the narrativeit was always ours, but as ever, the dominant paradigms tend to suppress other voices, other perspectives. Irvine powerfully complicates the tropes.

While Abbey glories in solitude, Irvine says poignantly, In the United States, a woman is raped every 2 minutes and 81 percent of us have been sexually harassedmeaning the vast majority of us have feared for our jobs or our lives.  Solitude, for women, is a different animal entirely. The book is born in this spirit, she continued over the line, Mr. Abbey, you gave us this amazing lens on landscape and it served us well, but at the same time, there are a lot of ways in which now it is extremely outdated and even dangerous in its racism, sexism and the sort of misanthropic impulse to go it alone in a time when we need to band togetherlike how many #MeToo voices did it take to convince the public that even one person is a sexual predator?

Just the night before our conversation, Desert Cabal had launched at the legendary Back of Beyond Books in Moab. While largely embraced, even by those who could recite lines from Abbeys catalog all night, theres been some push back. Its from people who I like to say are in the ivory cabin, she laughed. Theres this exclusive wilderness community, and its hard to get that door open and sit at the table with these great leaders and writers, but there are so many voices out here howling in the wilderness that have something to say that should be included in the conversation.

As dismal as the landscape isthe erosion of public lands and the total destruction of any sense of justiceIrvine has observed that in this time, she has found her voice, and observes others finding theirs, too. I couldnt write that introductory essay because I felt like Vanna White to Desert Solitaire, and that didnt seem right, she explained, It felt like another way of being in service to this paradigm that doesnt actually support who I am or give me voice. Instead, she was able to write what she knows, feels and had been carrying with her for years, though the bulk of the book was completed in a 10-day fever dream.

No matter your feelings about Edward Abbey or your relationship with Desert Solitaire, Irvines Desert Cabal adds necessary depth to the dialogue. Many of us have been waiting years for that. These storieswhen you include others in them, it complicates the narrative, doesnt it?, she writes. Im beginning to get why you wrote about solitude. Why the characters in your books were casual acquaintances, not intimates. And still, I dont know that I can tell the storyabout my time in Arches, or anywhere elsethat simply.

According to Irvine, ecological and social justice cant be parsed out and put into different categories. Like everything in nature, they are connected. Just so, as a species we rely on one another to survive and to grow. We cant afford to be solitary anymore, she said. It requires a multitude of narratives and voices to come together now to halt the runaway train we are on. Being the rugged individual alone in the wilderness doesnt serve us.

Catch Irvine in conversation with fellow writer and thinker Mark Sundeen at Bookworks (4022 Rio Grande Blvd. NW) on Friday, Oct. 19 at 6pm, where they will discuss Desert Cabal, Desert Solitaire and all the many ideas that underpin both.Before Batman

Danny Cannon and Bruno Heller (the duo behind FOXs nutty- but- entertaining teenage Bruce Wayne series Gotham) are about to flash even further back into pre-Batman history with their new series Pennyworth. Yup, Wayne family butler Alfred Pennyworth will take front and center in this period action series about a boyish, handsome, cheerful, charming, clever young man from London who finds himself working as a cold, calculated SAS killer. The 10-episode, 1-hour drama follows Pennyworth as he forms a private security company that goes to work for a young billionaire named Thomas Wayne (Ben Aldridge, Reign) in swingin 60s London. Jack Bannon (The Imitation Game, Endeavor) is signed on to play the title role. The show starts production in late October and is expected to air on the EPIX cable channel sometime next year.

Suck On It

Co-creators, writers and executive producers Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss (who gave up the smash BBC drama Sherlock) are reviving another literary giant. Dracula will reintroduce audiences to the world of Bram Stokers bloodsucker as he sets his sights on Victorian London. This television event will consist of three 90-minute episodes, which are expected to expand on the original 1897 novel. It will premiere on BBC One in the UK and on Netflix in the United States. No word yet on when it might air. The BBC and Netflix have also joined forces to adapt Philip Pullmans epic His Dark Materials series of fantasy/sci-fi novels.

Breed All About It

Busy British boy Martin Freeman (Sherlock, The Hobbit, Fargo, StartUp, Black Panther) adds another credit to his crowded resume with FXs new sitcom Breeders. Freeman and Daisy Haggard (Episodes) star in this look at modern-day parenting that promises to explore the parental paradox of simultaneously loving your children and wanting to kill them. Breeders is the work of Simon Blackwell, writer/producer for Veep, The Thick of It Peepshow and In the Loop. The 10-episode first season, produced in partnership with Englands Sky TV, will air sometime in 2019.

Mars Rising

After three seasons of cult fandom, a crowd-funded feature film and two novels, the UPN/CW series Veronica Mars is returning for an eight-episode revival on streaming service Hulu. Kristen Bell is back as the titular character, a high-school-aged private detective (who is, obviously, no longer high-school-aged). Series creator Rob Thomas (iZombie) will also be back. Original actors Jason Dohring, Percy Daggs III, Francis Capra, Enrico Colantoni and David Starzyk are all signed on to appear in the series. Production on the long-delayed fourth season begins this month. The story reportedly revolves around a serial killer stalking the streets of small-town Nepture, Calif. Hulu is scheduled to start streaming the first three seasons of Veronica Mars in summer of 2019, so its reasonable to expect that the new season will also make its appearance around then.Corey Yazzie

The big news with the Democratic Party: They are going to be more than a bulwark against the sloshy waves of tyrannical abuse flowing straight outta the White House and Capitol building for nigh on two years now.

The election of a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives will ensure that the checks and balances part of this Republica process you might have heard about in civics classcomes into effect.

The result of that process could well be the legitimate re-making of American government; a small bit of progressive progress if you willaway from the sharp nationalism, retreat from the world stage and notably, the retrenchment in the failures and prejudices of the past so familiar to those whove bewilderedly watched Trumps ascent in America.

But today it seems that to note this electionon Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2018is of historic proportions is to tread into the territory of cliche. What is at stake is what has always been at stake. Our culture is at odds with itself as it lurches forward under the weight of a dangerously out of touch presidential administration.

The fact is, very real and practical legislative priorities await lawmakers who also face the prospect of trying to undo the damage done by a GOP-backed president out of control. For those up to the challenge, the next episode in the governance of America may well comprise the rebuilding and revisioning of a more transparent, more responsive, more inclusive and ultimately more democratic union of people and cultures.

Weekly Alibi believes that Deb Haaland is up to the challenge. After resolutely sustaining her campaign through a brutal primary season against seasoned and well-equipped challengers, Ms. Haaland has demonstrated leadership qualities that will add to the formidable book of changes she takes with her to Washington in 2019.

The Democratic candidate for the open seat in New Mexicos District 1 of the US House of Representatives stopped by the newspapers headquarters for a chat last week. Heres a transcript of that meeting:

Weekly Alibi: As the the election approaches, whats important to you as a candidate and as a citizen?

Haaland: Were not taking one single thing for granted. We are working as if we were 20 points behind. During the primary election, I worked really hard to run an inclusive campaign. We managed to unite many divergent groups of people, from which we forged a progressive coalition. Were taking a similar approach with the general election. My platform and the policies Im proposing are what is important. Theyre meant to include everyone in the district. Well continue to reach out to different individuals and groups with the goal of bringing them into the campaign.

What issues are at the forefront? What are you personally focused on as a candidate for Congress?

Climate change is definitely on the top of my list; its on the mind of many voters here in District 1. Renewable energy is another issue thats very important right now, moving toward a renewable energy economy is a priority [for the N.M. economy]; we have over three hundred days of sun per year, after all. It makes sense that we should move forward with a renewable energy economy. I foresee a green new deal that would create jobs, get folks back to work here [in New Mexico]. Additionally, healthcare is an issue that must be addressed. Not enough people have adequate healthcare, while at the same time, Republicans have been working overtime to repeal the Affordable Healthcare Act. I want to protect the healthcare Americans have and expand it. Id like to see universal healthcare in New Mexico. Of course, our public schools are always at the top of the list. We need to support our public schools; Ive been a proponent of early childhood education for some time.

What about some of the national issues that have crept up on lawmakers due to Trumps ascent? In particular, the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court seems to have become a flash-point of sorts. Whats your take on that?

Man, I am disturbed. I watched the testimony of Professor Ford in tears, like thousands of women across the country. The nation was watching. Any woman who has been assaulted, has been sexually assaulted, has experienced domestic violence, knows this story. It brought out a lot of raw emotions; it was heartbreaking. And disgusting, quite frankly, too, to watch the President of the United States mock Professor Ford in the aftermath, just to get his base going. I think that what disturbed me most about Judge Kavanaughs testimony was that it was inconsistent about what weve learned about him in the meanwhile. Looking through his yearbook, listening to him deny what he was doing. To me, it was clear that he has an issue about alcohol that he is in denial about. It was lie after lie. That is not how a judge in this nation should conduct themselves.

After the election, how do you plan to reach out to Republicans who have been obstinate and obstructive on the presidents behalf? More generally, post-election, how does our government move back toward a spirit of bipartisan progress?

I feel like Im in a unique position. Ill be the first Native American woman to go to Congress. Weve never had a voice like mine in that legislative body before. I feel confident about my knowledge of tribal issues; I know that there are at least two male Native American Congressmen, Tom Cole and Markwayne Mullin that I can work with. Perhaps thats a place to start, there are things we agree on. I think that Cole believes we should give tribal leaders a voice in Congress. We should be able to start a bipartisan dialogue with things that we agree upon. At the same time, Ive spent the past 20 years here in New Mexico building relationships with many people from many parties. I think thats an important skill I possess. I will always try to find common ground. I will work with anyone that wants to move New Mexico forward.

Are you currently working on any specific legislation as part of that effort to build bridges and move our state into the future?

I havent worked on any legislation yet, but there are a number of bills I would be honored to co-sponsor. As I mentioned earlier, renewable energy is a big thing with me. Id like to see the Democrats work to create an infrastructure plan that includes renewable energy as an essential ingredient. Id be happy to be on such a taskforce. I also want to make sure that I am on the same page as the current District 1 representative, Michelle Lujan Grisham. As a team, I am sure we can move the issues particular to New Mexico forward.

Immigration continues to be an issue. A brief statement by your Republican opponent says she favors immigration reform with a path to citizenship, but offers no real details. Meanwhile, immigrant children are still being separated from their parents, despite the efforts of progressive politicians all over the nation. How do we really get back on track with regards to immigration?

Its quite clear that without a Democratic majority in the House, the Republicans are not doing anything to change the status quo. If the Democrats were in the majority, we would be holding the GOPs feet to the fire, having hearings and demanding to hear their solution to this problem; asking for actual progress on the issue. We should be doing everything in our power to help reunite these families. Its disheartening what has happened since this president took office and Republicans seem to have moved on from this issue. We [Democrats] need to win back the House; thats a priority. We need a humane immigration policy, we need a comprehensive immigration policy. Quite frankly there should be several paths to citizenship, we shouldnt be rounding people up, but helping them navigate the system. It should be more accessible and more affordable.

How do you feel about gun control?

I wholeheartedly stand by the students [whove experienced deadly gun violence]. There is no reason that we should have high-capacity magazines available to the public. Any sort of mechanism that turns regular rifles and guns into automatic-type weapons should be banned. Citizens should not have access to military-grade weapons. The ban on automatic weapons was successful! We need to put our kids needs ahead of those of the gun manufacturers and lobbyists.

Do you feel like theres a growing cultural divide between left and right? If so, how do we heal from that, how do we become a United States of America?

The President we have in office works hard on dividing people. As long as he is in office, I dont see the country uniting around anything, quite frankly. I mean, hes stoking the fires of white supremacy. Its terrible because a lot of folks that think reasonably about any number of issues are being swayed by his hateful rhetoric. And Republicans will tolerate a lot to have a Supreme Court that will overturn Roe v. Wade. Thats the mentality we have to face. I think its going to take the whole country working tirelessly to get Democrats elected in 2018 and again in 2020. Theres a war on the environment. Theres a war on women and immigrants now. We have to stand our ground; we have to move forward, we have to be fierce.VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Oct. 16, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Glance Technologies Inc. (CSE:GET / OTCQB:GLNNF / FKT:GJT) (Glance or the Company) today announced financial results for the third quarter ended August 31, 2018.



Overview

Our 3rd quarter saw a continued focus on developing some of the significant innovations we have announced such as an integration capability allowing us to connect to an estimated 500,000 different POS installations in North America (which is now complete), as well as our highly anticipated Glance PayMe application which is currently in beta. Glance PayMe will offer merchants an unparalleled suite of payment options including payments by photo, QR Code, Bluetooth, and digital invoices for remote payments, as well as Glances full suite of features, including powerful anti-fraud technology and a robust loyalty rewards program. We believe there is broad application for our unique Glance PayMe product in a variety of vertical markets and are excited about its potential.

We have continued to focus on improved spend efficiency which has resulted in our costs incurred from operating activities dropping from $4.9m in Q1 to $2.6m in Q3. We have continued to focus on spending efficiency and we expect some of the recent changes we have adopted to be reflected in future quarters. We note our working capital at the end of our third quarter was $8,314,000 (November 30, 2017: $10,355,000).

Q3 2018 compared to Q3 2017 - Financial Highlights:

(all figures are rounded to the nearest thousand)

Revenue of $216,000 in Q3 2018, compared to $240,000 in Q3 2017. The current period includes licensing revenue of ($157,000) and marketing revenue ($30,000), in addition to application and service fees ($29,000). As anticipated, licensing revenues have fluctuated significantly in the last 3 quarters due to certain license agreements specifying larger initial payments, Fluctuations may continue in future quarters depending on the nature of any new agreements signed.

Operating expenses were $3,074,000 compared to $1,804,000 in Q3 2017, reflecting the ramping up of the business over the past year.

Software development costs were $910,000 compared to $125,000 in Q3 2017, reflecting the significant expansion of the development team and the Companys move into the blockchain space.

General and administrative costs were $604,000 compared to $108,000 in Q3 2017, reflecting the overall expansion of the Company and its office requirements.

A notable expense change was corporate communication and investor media expenses, which were $239,000 compared to $917,000 in Q3 2017. This was a significant decrease from the $2,655,000 which was the cumulative amount spent in Q1 and Q2 2018, and was consistent with the Companys previous indications that it intended to reduce expenditures in that category as it works to spread awareness more efficiently and effectively.

Another notable expense item was proxy contest costs, which the Company does not expect to be a recurring expense as this expense was not in the normal course of business. Glance has gathered publicly available information and reported costs from other Canadian public companies that had proxy contests and completed an analysis of the proxy fees. The results show that, on average, the proxy contest cost in 2017 and 2016 for a Canadian public company was approximately $2 million. Glances total cost of its proxy contest was $1.45 million.

Overall, the Company continues to work to improve expense efficiency in many categories and has made significant changes to better utilize its cash resources going forward. Costs incurred on operating activities were approximately $2.6 million in Q3 2018, compared to $3 million in Q2 2018 and $4.9 million in Q1 2018. This trend demonstrates that the Company continues to follow its policy of optimizing expenditures to maximize overall efficiency and effectiveness.

Net loss was $3,055,000 or $(0.02) per share, compared to $1,725,000 or $(0.02) per share in Q3 2017.

As at August 31, 2018, the Company had working capital of $8,314,000 compared to $10,355,000 at November 30, 2017) and no long-term debt ($nil at November 30, 2017).

Q3 2018 Highlights:

Glance released its Glance Coin whitepaper which outlines its plans for a blockchain-based rewards platform utilizing smart contracts intended to enable merchants to reward, incentivize, and provide deals to their customers using a cryptocurrency token. These reward tokens are intended to allow users to accumulate rewards o spend where the user chooses within a larger decentralized platform.

Glance Pay launched at the Rogue locations, who are part of the Steamworks Group of Companies.

Glance entered into a cross-licensing and co-branding agreement with Brewhound Inc. to integrate Brewhound  The Happy Hour App, Vancouvers premier Happy Hour platform, and the Glance Pay mobile payments solution.

Glance and BIG Blockchain Intelligence Group Inc. (BIG), entered into a Strategic Alliance Agreement to establish a mutual referral and strategic marketing relationship.

Alexander (Sascha) Williams was appointed as Chief Operating Officer of Glance.

Jonathan Hoyles was appointed Chief Commercial Officer and General Counsel of Glance.

Lewisa Anciano was appointed Chief People and Culture Officer of Glance.

Subsequent to the Quarter, the Company introduced new features built into its upcoming downloadable Glance PayMe application. The new features will allow merchants to accept payments from Glance Pay users via Quick Response (QR) Code, Bluetooth and Digital Invoice. These payment options will be offered in addition to Glances revolutionary payment by photo capability, which give merchants an unparalleled suite of payment options, as well as Glances full suite of features, including powerful anti-fraud technology and a robust loyalty rewards program.

In addition, Glance announced an upcoming new feature that will empower Glance Pay users to pay with Bitcoin. This new feature, Pay With Bitcoin, will enable Glance Pay users to pair their cryptocurrency wallet with their Glance Pay account, and then purchase Glance Dollars with Bitcoin. Glance Dollars represent a credit that can be spent instantly at participating merchants within the Glance Pay ecosystem.

The Companys complete financial results for the third quarter of 2018 are available in its Condensed Consolidated Interim Financial Statements and Managements Discussion and Analysis, each of which have been filed with Canadian securities regulators at www.sedar.com .

Outlook

Management intends to pursue a number of technology, product and marketing initiatives to continue to drive growth in 2018. The Companys strategic priorities include:

Grow monthly recurring revenue through a tiered Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) subscription model by adding new merchants and consumers, and generate new revenue from advertising, promotions and consumer fees for premium features;

Launch a new downloadable merchant app Glance PayMe that enables merchants to quickly set up Glance Pay on their own devices and facilitates our migration towards a higher-volume digital sales model;

Establish Glance as a leader in the blockchain space by developing innovative applications including Glance Coin:

Leverage the Companys superior anti-fraud technology to expand into online purchases, e-commerce and other markets;

Expand into new vertical markets through both direct sales and joint efforts with our licensing partners;

Continue Glance Pays expansion through the launch of our apps in several new markets.

IFRS

The operational and financial information in this release is based on the consolidated figures in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS).

About Glance Technologies Inc.

Glance owns and operates Glance Pay, a streamlined payment system that revolutionizes how smartphone users choose where to shop, order goods and services, make payments, access digital receipts, redeem digital deals, earn great rewards & interact with merchants. Glance offers targeted in-app marketing, geo targeted digital coupons, customer feedback, in-merchant messaging and custom rewards programs. The Glance Pay mobile payment system consists of proprietary technology, which includes user apps available for free downloads in iOS (Apple) and Android formats, merchant manager apps, a large-scale technology hosting environment with sophisticated anti-fraud technology and lightning-fast payment processing. Glance is working on a rewards-based cryptocurrency, the whitepaper for which can be found on the companys website.

For more information about Glance, please go to www.glance.tech .

For more information, contact:

Paola Ashton Laura Burke VP Business Development Chief Financial Officer 833-338-0299 604-694-6502 investors@glancepay.com laura@glancepay.com

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.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking information or forward-looking statements (collectively "forward-looking information") within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-looking information is typically identified by words such as: may, "believe", thinks, "expect", exploring, expand, could, "anticipate", "intend", "estimate", plan, pursue, "potentially", projected, should, will and similar expressions, or are those, which, by their nature, refer to future events. These forward-looking statements, which involve risks and uncertainties, relate to, among other things, the discussion of Glances business strategies and its expectations concerning future operations (including advancing its technological roadmap), the expectation that Glance will grow its Glance Pay network, reduce its expenses in future quarters, growing monthly recurring revenue, launching a new downloadable merchant app, establishing Glance as a leader in blockchain space, furthering the development of the Glance Coin rewards token, building a rewards-based cryptocurrency platform using blockchain technology, leveraging Glances anti-fraud technology to expand into online purchases, e-commerce and other markets, continuing international expansion, improve its capacity for monetization, maintain a strong balance sheet, develop a software-as-a-service model, monetize its blockchain platform, expanding into new vertical markets, and broadening geographic footprint across more North American cities. Although Glance considers these forward-looking statements to be reasonable based on information currently available to it, they may prove to be incorrect, and the forward-looking statements in this release are subject to numerous risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause future results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such forward-looking statements. Such risk factors include, among other things, the risk that Glance is unable to continuously add new merchants as planned, the risks related to the development of Glance Coin and integration into the Glance Pay app, risks related to expansion, both internationally and in North America, risks related to unforeseeable expenses, and risks related to, the business of Glances licensing partners. The forward-looking information in this press release is also based on certain estimates, forecasts and projections, as well as expectations, beliefs and assumptions, including, among other things, that Glance will be able to achieve its business objectives, that Glance will be able to develop proprietary software to implement its plans, Glance will be successful in obtaining and retaining clients and licensees for its software, that the new downloadable merchant app will enable merchants to quickly set up Glance Pay on their own devices, the blockchain platform will continue to develop and grow in utilization and adoption in the world, and that Glance will be able to expand its operations successfully in new geographic markets and new industries. For additional information with respect to these and other factors and assumptions underlying the forward-looking statements in this press release, see the section entitled Risk Factors in the most recent Annual Information Form and Prospectus of Glance, which may be accessed through Glance's profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Glance cautions investors that any forward-looking information provided by Glance is not a guarantee of future results or performance, and that actual results may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements. Undue reliance should not be placed on such forward-looking information, as there can be no assurance that the plans, intentions or expectations upon which they are based will occur.New York, Oct. 16, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- On Friday night, with the skyline of Manhattan serving as backdrop, MC and Oceana Board Member Ted Danson led Oceanas New York City Gala in honoring two actors who have been longtime advocates for the oceans.

Sam Waterston, honored with a tribute video and introduced by former President Bill Clinton, spoke about Oceanas effectiveness at winning policy victories for the oceans. Organizations like Oceana are making wonderful and real changes, which are literally saving the future, he said in his remarks. There is a lot of terrific stuff getting done, and the oceans response to that kind of good treatment can be breathtaking: the ocean's natural state is abundance.

Morgan Freeman was also recognized for his lifelong commitment to the oceans. A blue water sailor and a long-time supporter of Oceana, Freeman thanked Oceana and the supporters in attendance for protecting the oceans, which he called his second home.

Oceana CEO Andy Sharpless rallied attendees to take action in support of the Shark Fin Trade Elimination Act. We have to end the sale and trade of shark fins in the U.S., he told the crowd. Only then can we be an example to the rest of the world. Sharpless also previewed Oceanas campaign against plastic pollution, set to launch early next year. Every time a company chooses to make a plastic package, they are producing persistent toxic waste, he said. Ocean plastic is not a litter problem, its a pollution problem.

Plastic pollution is one of the greatest challenges we face as ocean conservationists, said Oceana Board Member Susan Rockefeller, who hosted the event along with her husband and fellow Oceana board member, David Rockefeller, Jr. The campaign to address this urgent problem is vitally important. I thank everyone who attended our 2018 Gala and cannot wait to get them further involved as we fight to save the oceans

The event was held at The Rainbow Room, an iconic venue 65 stories above Rockefeller Center. The evening concluded with a live musical performance by Nile Rodgers and CHIC, whose hour-long set included hits like Le Freak, Everybody Dance and Get Lucky.

Additional photos from the event available here:

https://tinyurl.com/oceananygala





AttachmentsTORONTO, Oct. 16, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Axiom Real-Time Metrics, premier provider of unified eClinical solutions and services, is exhibiting at the Outsourcing in Clinical Trials event in Vancouver, Canada October 16-17, 2018.

We are excited to participate in this Canadian event and meet with local companies. The line-up of speakers and topics covered at this meeting is great  with a real focus on supporting small to mid-sized life sciences organizations. Being a Canadian headquartered company ourselves, we are passionate about partnering within our ecosystem, shared Sarah Glofcheskie, Chief Strategy Officer.

Axiom is an excellent alternative to the traditional model of using a CRO plus various technology vendors. Axiom can deliver our unified eClinical suite, Fusion, in 4-6 weeks with professional services to manage all tasks from feasibility phase to database lock. We have managed hundreds of studies to date, most of them being global, stated Aliya Ishak, Business Development Associate.

We strongly believe that all organizations, regardless of size, should be working with best-in-class, enterprise level tools. A fully unified platform is essential so that your data resides in one spot; you need to own your data relationship. Fusion enables single sign-on to all modules and associated data in your studies. The ability to tailor a suite based on your needs is key - you choose exactly what you need from our 15 modules and complementary services. Our service experience, attention to detail, and close working relationships with our clients are what set us apart. Our approach is different, and wed like to show you how, concluded Sarah Glofcheskie, Chief Strategy Officer.

About Axiom Real-Time Metrics

Headquartered in Toronto, Canada, Axiom delivers intuitive, powerful and cost-effective eClinical solutions and services focused around your entire study. Services include: DM, Biostatistics and Pharmacovigilance. Axioms eClinical suite, Fusion, delivers a powerful range of innovative end-user focused, unified functionality and 15 modules. Axiom serves as the Connected Hub for your entire clinical study data and operational needs. Fusion Delivers: EDC, DM, IWRS, CTMS, Inventory Management, IVR, Patient Portal, AE/SAE Tracking, Safety Database, Central Lab, Imaging, eTMF, and 24/7 Project and Clinical Data Reporting. For more information, please visit http://www.axiommetrics.com/ .

Contact

solutions@axiom.cc

+1.877.321.9191



PR Contact

Sarah Glofcheskie

sarahg@axiom.cc

+1.647.588.9073



YEREVAN, OCTOBER 17, ARMENPRESS. The border patrol service of the Russian Federal Security Service stationed in Armenia has released new details from the October 15 border crosser who was arrested on the territory of Armenia after illegally crossing the border from Turkey.

The border patrol department of the Russian Federal Security Service said that according to preliminary information the man is an ethnic Kurd. He crossed the border into Armenia in order to hide from Turkish law enforcement agencies for serious crimes he committed in Turkey, the border patrol service said in a statement.

The man is currently under arrest.

Edited and translated by Stepan KocharyanYEREVAN, OCTOBER 17, ARMENPRESS. The U.S. Treasury on Tuesday announced fresh sanctions on Iran, targeting Bank Mellat and Mehr Eqtesad Bank, among other companies.

The United States is also imposing sanctions on Iran Tractor Manufacturing Company, Esfehans Mobarakeh Steel Company, and other companies linked to investment, commodities and engineering, according to a press release on the Treasurys website.

Edited and translated by Stepan KocharyanYEREVAN, OCTOBER 17, ARMENPRESS. Acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan visited on October 17 the Breath of Syrian-Armenian Culture in Yerevan charity exhibition-fair at Northern Avenue, reports Armenpress. He was accompanied by acting minister of Diaspora Mkhitar Hayrapetyan. Pashinyan toured the pavilions, got acquainted with the works and was interested in the activities of Syrian-Armenians.

The Syrian-Armenians were presenting their hand-made works. They applied to the acting PM with the request to mitigate the tax burden, especially for the new business.

At the moment we are preparing changes in the Tax Code. We plan to totally exempt micro-business from taxes. The trade turnover threshold is not determined yet, its at the discussion stage, but we are considering either 20 million or 24 million AMD version. In other words, if your business is within these boundaries, you are totally exempt from taxes. Which sectors must be included in that privilege is being discussed, Nikol Pashinyan said, adding that the business also needs to be honest, work within the law.

The Breath of Syrian-Armenian Culture in Yerevan charity exhibition-fair has been organized by the support of the Diaspora ministry, the Armenian Caritas NGO, the UNHCR Armenia Office, the Center for Coordination of Syrian-Armenians Issues NGO and the Yerevan City Hall. This time the exhibition-fair is dedicated to Yerevans 2800th anniversary.

Photos by Tatev Duryan

Edited and translated by Aneta HarutyunyanYEREVAN, OCTOBER 17, ARMENPRESS. Armenias acting minister of education and science Arayik Harutyunyan is in Paris on an official visit within the frames of which he participated in the opening ceremony of the TUMO Center for Creative Technologies branch, the ministry told Armenpress.

Welcoming the event participants, the acting minister noted: In fact I am very happy for the opening of the TUMO branch in the heart of Europe, in Paris. TUMOs export from Armenia is one of our best indictors and one of our best results in the field of education. There is a common expression among Armenians that we dont have natural resources, and that main resource are the human brains. For a long time we were looking for ways to export that resource, and it was possible to ensure that gap in the field of education thanks to TUMO. It has been repeatedly stated that Paris is the capital of Europes fashion. It is also one of the bearers and centers of fashion in the sphere of innovation and technology, and its very important for us that one of the first centers of TUMO is being opened in Paris. After when the Paris Mayor in 2016 talked about opening TUMO branch, the remaining European centers and capitals also were infected with that thought and expressed a wish to have their own TUMOs. At the moment there are plans to open TUMO branches in Moscow, Berlin and other European capitals. Recently German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited TUMO in Yerevan, and following her visit Germans as well are interested in this project. You know that a revolution took place in Armenia this year, and from the very start only 10-12 people believed in it. This revolution and its implementation are the best proofs of the fact that if small group of people believe in an idea, it happens. I mentioned this example because a similar revolution in the education sector has been carried out by Papazian family and their partners, Simonian, small group of people who believed in that idea and implemented it. And its not a coincidence that currently the TUMO network is spread all over the world.

Edited and translated by Aneta HarutyunyanYEREVAN, OCTOBER 17, ARMENPRESS. Russian border guards stationed in Armenia have arrested a group of border-crossers who attempted to illegally cross the border from Turkey overnight October 15-16.

The Russian Federal Security Services Border Patrol Department said that the trespassers attempted to secretly enter the Araks River at nighttime and cross the border shortly. Border guards of Artashat, however, spotted and apprehended the group.

According to preliminary information the trespassers are originally from Southern Asia.

Law enforcement bodies are investigating the case to reveal the goal of the trespassers.

The arrested border crossers were handed over to Armenian law enforcement agencies as required by law.

On October 15, border guards of Gyumri noticed an unidentified person crossing the Armenian-Turkish border. The man examined the terrain and attempted to move further unnoticed. He was apprehended. The man is said to be an ethnic Kurdish citizen of Turkey. According to preliminary reports he is a felon hiding from law enforcement agencies. Another illegal border crossing attempt was prevented on October 14.

Edited and translated by Stepan KocharyanYEREVAN, OCTOBER 17, ARMENPRESS. China donated 200 ambulance vehicles to Armenia: the donation ceremony was held in Yerevan which was attended by acting Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan, Chinese Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Tian Erlong, acting healthcare minister Arsen Torosyan and others, reports Armenpress.

I extend my warmest congratulations on this occasion. The cooperation in the healthcare sector is an important part of the Armenian-Chinese partnership, and the Chinese side attaches importance to the development of healthcare in Armenia. 88 ambulance vehicles, donated to Armenia since 2011, played key role for healthcare development and improvement of ambulance service. Now we are donating 200 new ambulance vehicles by this program. Its one of the largest programs among Chinas similar international projects, the Ambassador said.

He thanked the China International Cooperation Development fund, Armenias healthcare ministry, as well as all responsible persons from the Chinese side for the program implementation.

The Chinese Ambassador informed that the production company has sent specialists, and as a result, nearly 350 doctors, nurses and drivers passed a professional training. The Ambassador expressed confidence that Armenian specialists will make maximum efforts for the organization of emergency medical care and etc.

Despite the distance between our two countries, the friendship of our peoples has a centuries-old history. Chinas support to Armenia is being carried out without any interest. I am confident that China and Armenia will continue the cooperation in various areas, and the Armenian-Chinese ties will be continuous and firm, he said.

Photos by Mkhitar Khachatryan

Edited and translated by Aneta HarutyunyanYEREVAN, OCTOBER 17, ARMENPRESS. Armenias acting minister of education and science Arayik Harutyunyan met with EU Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation Carlos Moedas during his official visit to Paris, the ministry told Armenpress.

During the meeting the officials discussed Armenias science management effectiveness issues, Horizon-2020 Framework Programme for Research and Innovation and etc.

The EU Commissioner expressed readiness to provide support to the proposed programs of education reforms in Armenia within a short period of time, as well as the development of scientific-research institutions activity assessment model. The Commissioner also attached importance to the opening of the TUMO Center for Creative Technologies branch in Paris.

Edited and translated by Aneta HarutyunyanYEREVAN, OCTOBER 17, ARMENPRESS. Prosperous Armenia party is committed to the political agreement reached with acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, according to which the party will not nominate a candidate for prime minister, Tsarukyan faction MP Naira Zohrabyan told reporters at a briefing, reports Armenpress.

We are committed to our agreement. The parliament will be dissolved in two weeks in accordance with the law. With what scenario that self-dissolution will take place, I think it will be as supposed by our agreement. Prosperous Armenia party will not nominate a candidate for prime minister, she said.

She stated that one thing is clear, there will be a new political situation in Armenia in two weeks.

Asked whether the party will participate in the upcoming early parliamentary elections with or without an alliance, Zohrabyan said they havent discussed it yet, but assured that there will be a discussion in coming days and they will inform everyone about their participation format.

Nikol Pashinyan resigned as Prime Minister of Armenia on October 16. Before his resignation Pashinyan signed a memorandum with Prosperous Armenia party leader Gagik Tsarukyan according to which the party should support holding early parliamentary elections in December, as well as should not nominate candidate for PM in case of Pashinyans resignation.

Edited and translated by Aneta HarutyunyanSAN SALVADOR, El Salvador, Oct. 16, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Maryse Guilbeault, Canadian Ambassador to El Salvador, held a networking cocktail reception on October 10, 2018 at the Ambassadors official residence in honour of Almas Jiwani, a global voice for gender equality and womens economic empowerment. The reception was one of the many high-profile events held to promote informal discussion on human rights between women parliamentarians, diplomats, business leaders, civil society and humanitarians present.



Almas Jiwani, CEO of the Almas Jiwani Foundation, was invited by the Government of Canada to take part in a 4-day advocacy tour, which included meetings and keynote addresses at the Salvadoran Chamber of Commerce, Scotiabank, Plan International El Salvador, TELUS International and University Dr. Jose Matias Delgado. Almas Jiwani expressed her heartfelt thanks to Ambassador Guilbeault and the Government of Canada for hosting an inspiring and impactful trip.

I'd like to thank both the Ambassador and the Government of Canada for giving me the opportunity to be here, and to witness and participate in the growing support of women, and womens rights, here in El Salvador. It truly is an honour to discuss these admirable and attainable aspirations, and inspire people to act. Our Prime Ministers commitment to pluralism, and feminism, helps to reinforce Canada as a beacon of inclusivity. These values are deeply rooted in Canadians. It will be exciting to see our beautiful Canadian diaspora provide a leading influence in El Salvador and across the world for years to come, said Almas Jiwani.

While addressing the crowd at the reception, Ambassador Guilbeault mentioned that, In El Salvador and around the world, many girls are denied equality. This is why this International Day of the Girl, the Embassy of Canada in El Salvador has decided to invite Almas Jiwani to amplify girls voices, advocate for their rights, and elevate their position in society.

Now, more than ever, Canada is recognized as a leader in promoting gender equality and taking a strong stance on women's issues. Canada, with its Feminist International Assistance Policy, applies a human rights approach in promoting the empowerment of women and girls. Partnering up with Almas Jiwani, a womens rights champion, endeavours to put Canada on the forefront of gender equality, concluded Ambassador Guilbeault.

Gender equality is a core Canadian value, not just a catchy phrase, but a way of life. Our future potential is directly linked to the potential of girls and young women. Through access to education and markets, a new generation of women will change the world. The world looks toward Canada for its progressive ways and its leadership. Canada is, and will continue to be, a leader in this change, added Jiwani.

About Almas Jiwani Foundation

The vision of The Almas Jiwani Foundation is to empower women, girls and marginalized communities through focused projects that directly address disparities in equality, education, entrepreneurship and energy rights. The Foundation aims to bridge inequalities through the fostering of relationships among the various actors and stakeholders in global issues, and provide a platform for discourse and action.

About Canada in El Salvador

2018 marks the 57th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Canada and El Salvador. The Salvadoran diaspora in Canada is one of the largest from Latin America. Canada is represented in El Salvador by an embassy in San Salvador.

Contact information

Almas Jiwani Foundation

Jason Dupuis

Vice President, Communications

Tel: +1 (519) 890-1328

Jason@JasonDupuis.ca

info@almasjiwanifoundation.org

www.almasjiwanifoundation.org

Embassy of Canada to El Salvador

Valerie Bouchard

Foreign Policy and Public Affairs Officer

valerie.bouchard@international.gc.ca

+503 2133-1129YEREVAN, OCTOBER 17, ARMENPRESS. Acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and his spouse Anna Hakobyan attended the inauguration of 200 ambulance vehicles that were donated by China.

Acting minister of healthcare Arsen Torosyan, acting minister of transportation, communication and information technologies Hakob Arshakyan, and Chinas Ambassador to Armenia Tian Erlong, among others, participated in the event, the PMs office said.

The Chinese ambassador said that the donation of the new generation ambulance vehicles is one of the largest projects among similar charitable international programs of China. He said that experts from China have arrived in Armenia to train Armenian first responders regarding the equipment of the vehicles.

Despite the fact that our countries are located far from each other, the friendship of our peoples has history of centuries, the Ambassador said. I am sure that China and Armenia will continue cooperation in various areas and that the Armenian-Chinese ties will be continuous and strong, he added.

Edited and translated by Stepan KocharyanYEREVAN, OCTOBER 17, ARMENPRESS. Vice Speaker of the Armenian Parliament Arpine Hovhannisyan on October 17 received Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Netherlands to Armenia Johannes Douma (residence in Tbilisi, Georgia), the Parliament told Armenpress.

During the meeting the sides discussed issues relating to the development of inter-state relations, bilateral cooperation prospects in different sectors, as well as the recent domestic developments in Armenia.

Edited and translated by Aneta HarutyunyanYEREVAN, OCTOBER 17, ARMENPRESS. Acting first deputy prime minister Ararat Mirzoyan hopes that all forces will demonstrate necessary wisdom, will make efforts so that the two weeks following the PMs resignation will pass without any shocks, reports Armenpress.

In any case the executive is ready for different developments. And judging from the overall public moods, it seems people as well are ready for various developments, the acting deputy PM told reporters in the Parliament.

He commented on the views according to which Nikol Pashinyans candidacy will be nominated at least at the first stage of the election of the PM in the Parliament with an option not to be elected.

There are two interpretations concerning these issues. If a prime minister is not elected as a result of voting, the second stage begins 7 days after the voting. Some of the lawyers state that it is necessary to be guided by the logic of the Constitution, and here the logic hints that election is not taking place in any way. The others insist that it is necessary to be guided by literal interpretation which means that there should be a candidate for PM who will not be elected. If this is the right option, I think Nikol Pashinyan will be the candidate for PM, and MPs will vote against him, he said.

Edited and translated by Aneta HarutyunyanYEREVAN, OCTOBER 17, ARMENPRESS. President of Armenia Armen Sarkissian on October 17 hosted famous doctor, Professor at the Columbia University John Bilezikian, the Presidential Office told Armenpress.

For already 12 years a symposium on osteoporosis issues is being organized in Armenia by the initiative of Professor Bilezikian, and next week an international forum will be held in Yerevan for the second time which will be attended by delegates from more than 20 countries.

The Professor attached great importance to the implementation of education, research programs and stated that he transfers his experience to Armenian doctors with a great pleasure.

The meeting also touched upon issues relating to the public health.

Edited and translated by Aneta HarutyunyanYEREVAN, OCTOBER 17, ARMENPRESS. Yerevan Mayor Hayk Marutyan, who is in France on a working visit, has met with Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo.

As ARMENPRESS was informed from the press service of Yerevan Municipality, thanking Yerevan Mayor for accepting the invitation and congratulating Hayk Marutyan on being elected Yerevan Mayor, Anne Hidalgo wished her colleague fruitful activity in his responsible position. Paris Mayor once again expressed willingness to expand the cooperation existing between the two capitals.

Thanking for the invitation, congratulations and warm welcome Yerevan mayor attached particular importance to strengthening the friendly and partner ties between the two capitals outlining that there is a wide field for working out new bilateral projects and cooperation expansion in various spheres. The parties referred to the creation of TUMO center in Paris considering it to be one of the best examples of the cooperation established between the two capital cities.

Edited and translated by Tigran SirekanyanYEREVAN, OCTOBER 17, ARMENPRESS. Acting Prime Minister of Armenia, Board Member of My Step Blocks Civil Contract Party Nikol Pashinyan participated in the election campaign rally of Davit Khudatyan, My Step blocks candidate of Armavir city mayor.

I am glad to see you happy with victorious eyes and free and proud citizen's gaze, ARMENPRESS reports Pashinyan as saying. He added that hereafter the winner of any election will be the people. You will win always and in all elections because thereafter none of your votes will be falsified, no one will dare to steal your vote, no one will dare to steal your power and no one will doubt who the highest representatives of the power are in the Republic of Armenia, he said.

According to Nikol Pashinyan, huge political changes have taken place and a Government has been established with an acting PM at the head which acts without a sense of obligation towards any separate group. Our sole obligation is before the people and this is the key point of our revolution. This is the reason why our revolution has no way to be a failure, Pashinyan said, noting that up till now hundreds of thousands of citizens of Armenia had the right to vote but had no voice.

Addressing the residents of Armavir, the acting PM introduced their candidate. He is one of you who grew with you. Go to the polling stations and vote for Davit Khudatyan because these elections are not just city mayor elections, but the continuation of the revolution and the revolution we carried out in the squares now enters into polling stations, he said.

Edited and translated by Tigran SirekanyanChinese new home prices rose by 1.4% in August, and 7% over the past year, according to official data from China's government.

However, there are increasing reports of steep price declines for new homes in some Chinese cities.

Some homeowners are so aggrieved that they're protesting against price reductions from developers.

If you believe the official data from the Chinese government, thinks are going swimmingly in China's property market.

Based on latest figures from China's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), new home prices across 70 major cities surged by 1.4% in August, accelerating from a 1.1% increase in July.

The result left prices up 7% from a year earlier, the fastest increase in a year.

As seen in the chart below, the official data suggests policymakers have successfully engineered another soft landing for the property market, utilising restrictions on home purchases and sales of varying degrees across the country to help cool market conditions without leading to an outright decline in prices.

However, while the official government data suggests all is well, anecdotal evidence in some parts of the country suggests something's not right.

Prices are falling quickly in some areas, and homeowners aren't happy about it.

They're actually protesting against price falls.

According to the Financial Times, homeowners in Shanghai and other large cities such as Xiamen and Guiyang took to the streets earlier month to demand refunds on their homes after property developers cut prices on new properties to stimulate sales.

"Dozens of angry homeowners descended on the sales office of a complex [in Shanghai] that offered 25% discounts to demand refunds, causing clashes that damaged the sales office," the FT said, citing social media posts that have since been removed by Chinese censors.

In one post from Pingdingshan, a city in China's north, one protester carried a banner that read: "property owners tearfully cry out on their knees for the government to serve the people.

Story continues

The protest was believed to have been sparked by a property developer who cut prices by 20%.

According to the NBS, new home prices in Shanghai new home prices rose by 0.1% in August, leaving the decline on a year earlier at 0.2%, the same pace reported in July. Those in Pingdingshan increased by 0.7% during the month, and 6.8% over the year.

Data for September won't be released by the NBS until October 20.

However, even before it arrives, the unrest over falling property prices has some experts convinced that a new downturn has begun.

Judging from our conversations with developers, September showed a price decline, Cindy Huang, director of corporate ratings at S&P Global Ratings, told the FT.

Liu Lu, a property market researcher at the Southwestern University of Finance and Economics agrees with Huang's assessment, warning the downturn in the property market has just begun".

"People bought at the peak of prices in 2017, and now they feel aggrieved, Liu said.

He told the FT that there were similar protests seen in 2014 -- a period when prices fell across the country -- although, given the higher base effect following recent price gains, he said investment losses on this occasion could be much larger.

Adding to signs of a renewed slowdown, data from property researcher CRIC revealed property sales by floor area, often used as a leading indicator of demand, fell by 27% in Chinas Golden Week holiday earlier this month.

In response to weakening demand, Reuters reports many Chinese property developers are going to increasingly extreme lengths to entice buyers, offering free cars, downpayments of as little as 10% of the purchase price and well as price cuts by as much as 30%.

"Looking forward, as developers are facing quite big capital pressure and a hot property market in the past two years have overdrawn part of the future demand, so the market is facing relatively large pressure, Xin Shen, an analyst at CRIC, told Reuters.

There's more at the FT and Reuters here and here.Prince Harry and Meghan Markle visited Australia's Taronga Zoo as part of their first official royal tour.

They met a koala called Rubi, who seemed pretty unimpressed.

Rubi is the mother of two joeys, Harry and Meghan, who are named after the Duke and Duchess.

The couple also officially opened the Taronga Institute of Science and Learning.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle met a koala at Australia's Taronga Zoo as part of their royal tour, and it seemed hilariously unimpressed with its royal visitors.

The koala, called Rubi, is the mother of two joeys, Harry and Meghan, who were named after the Duke and Duchess.

While Sydney's streets were crowded with royal fans eager to get a glimpse of the couple, the koala didn't seem to share their enthusiasm.

Meghan Markle Prince Harry Australia Koala

The Daily Mail's royal correspondent Rebecca English shared a video that showed the koala eating leaves with its back to the royal couple.

https://twitter.com/RE_DailyMail/status/1051983132835102720?ref_src=twsrc^tfw

It was an echo of this moment in 2003, when Harry managed to get a bit closer to the animals during a four-month trip to the country after finishing school.

Prince Harry Sydney Zoo Koala

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex were at the zoo on Tuesday to open the Taronga Institute of Science and Learning.

https://twitter.com/tarongazoo/status/1052037382042578945?ref_src=twsrc^tfw

The couple were also introduced to a short-legged echidna, a spiky mammal from the region, called Lynx.

Harry appeared a bit worried about the animal, which was drooling, and asked "is that stress?"

Zoo staff reassured him that it was a sign he was "excited" to meet the couple.

https://twitter.com/RE_DailyMail/status/1051985212157173760?ref_src=twsrc^tfw

The couple also met female conservation scientists working on efforts to reduce illegal wildlife trafficking.

The trip is part of their royal tour, where they will also visit Fiji, the Kingdom of Tonga, and New Zealand.A bomb placed under a sofa killed four Afghans including an election candidate on Wednesday, officials said, as deadly violence escalates ahead of the October 20 parliamentary ballot. The Taliban quickly claimed responsibility for the attack, which takes the number of candidates killed so far during the campaign season to at least 10. Abdul Jabar Qahraman had been meeting with supporters in his campaign office in the southern province of Helmand -- a Taliban stronghold -- when a bomb hidden under a sofa exploded, provincial governor spokesman Omar Zhwak told AFP. Qahraman was among four people killed by the blast in the provincial capital Lashkar Gah, interior minister Wais Ahmad Barmak told reporters. Another seven were wounded and three suspects have been arrested, he added. President Ashraf Ghani condemned the attack on Qahraman, who he had sent to Helmand in 2016 as an envoy to help defeat the Taliban. Qahraman later resigned. In other poll-related violence, gunmen ambushed a candidate's convoy in Logar province, near Kabul, on Wednesday, provincial governor spokesman Shamshad Laraway said. And later an improvised explosive device blew up near the campaign rally of another candidate in the Logar provincial capital Pule Alam, Laraway said. There were no casualties in either attack. Official campaigning for the ballot ends at midnight Wednesday. Most of the 10 candidates who have died in the lead-up to the election were murdered in targeted killings. Qahraman was the second candidate killed in Lashkar Gah this month, after Saleh Mohammad Asikzai was among eight people killed in a suicide attack last week. That incident came a day after the Taliban warned candidates to withdraw from the parliamentary election, which the group has vowed to attack. The Taliban issued a fresh warning Wednesday calling on "educational workers" to stop schools being turned into polling centres and prevent teachers and students from participating as election workers. Violence has increased ahead of the long-delayed vote, with hundreds of people killed or wounded in poll-related attacks across the country. Preparations for the ballot have been in shambles and with days to go, organisers are still struggling to distribute voting materials to more than 5,000 polling centres. The election for parliament's lower house is seen as a dry run for the presidential vote scheduled for April and organisers have said it would not be delayed any further. It also is seen as a key milestone ahead of a UN meeting in Geneva in November, where Afghanistan will be under pressure to show progress on "democratic processes". Almost nine million people have registered to vote, but observers expect far fewer to turn out due to the threat of militant attacks and expectations of widespread fraud. More than 50,000 members of Afghanistan's already overstretched security forces are being deployed to protect polling centres on election day. strs-emh-us-amj/ds/jta A total of 10 candidates have now been killed during the campaign for Afghanistan's long-delayed parliamentary election Map of Afghanistan showing severity of conflict in 2017, according to UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.The favored candidate to be Brazil's next president, far-right politician Jair Bolsonaro, on Wednesday signed a commitment to keep abortion illegal if he wins power, backing a stance by the influential Catholic Church. The 63-year-old ex-paratrooper, a Catholic whose ultraconservative and law-and-order rhetoric has lifted him in the polls, signed the promise during a visit to see Brazilian Cardinal Orani Tempesta at Rio's archdiocese. The document also reaffirmed Bolsonaro's opposition to sex education material promoting acceptance of homosexuality in schools, and to decriminalizing drug use. Bolsonaro is the frontrunner for an October 28 run-off against leftist rival Fernando Haddad. "We are signing a commitment defending the family, defending the innocence of children in the schools, defending the freedom of religion, against abortion and the legalization of drugs," Bolsonaro said in a video produced and released by his campaign. He did not respond to questions from journalists who covered his visit. Abortion in Brazil is illegal except in cases of rape, risk to the mother's health, or serious deformation of a baby's brain. In the first round ballot two weeks ago, Bolsonaro won 46 percent of the vote to Haddad's 29 percent. Polls suggest Bolsonaro has 58-59 percent voter support going into the run-off. He has won backing through his prolific use of Twitter, Facebook and other social media, spurning media conferences and debates. Part of his absence was explained by a month-long convalescence he was forced into after being stabbed by a lone assailant while campaigning in September, but he has continued to address his followers mostly online. Bolsonaro also enjoys strong support from Brazil's burgeoning evangelical movement, which is attracted to his family-first, Christian-laced rhetoric. Brazil's last census, in 2010, registered 65 percent of the population as Catholic and 22 percent as evangelical, though the latter is believed to have strongly grown since. Haddad on Wednesday tried to gain traction among evangelicals, meeting pastors in Sao Paulo and defending his secular position. "A secular state recognizes all religions. It doesn't prioritize just one religion -- it has to welcome all of them," he said. Haddad also railed against "libelous" posts on social media claiming he tried to have sex education "gay kits" distributed in schools while he was education minister between 2005 and 2012. Brazil's right-wing presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro (L) shakes hands with Rio de Janeiro's Archbishop Orani Tempesta (R), during a visit at which the election frontrunner signed a document "defending the family"English French Dutch

Press release Regulated information

17 October 2018, 7.00 p.m. CET

HERSTAL, BELGIUM and IRVINE, CA - October 17, 2018 - MDxHealth SA (Euronext Brussels: MDXH) ("MDxHealth" or the "Company"), announced that it received on October 12, 2018 the following notification of significant shareholdings in accordance with the Belgian Act of May 2, 2007 on the disclosure of important participations in issuers of which shares are admitted to trading on a regulated market and regarding miscellaneous provisions (the "Belgian Transparency Act").

BNP Paribas Asset Management NV (acting as a parent undertaking or a controlling person) notified MDxHealth of the acquisition or disposal of voting securities or voting rights in MDxHealth, as a result of which, as at October 5, 2018, its participation in MDxHealth decreased below the threshold of 3% of the outstanding shares and voting rights of MDxHealth.

It follows from the notification that BNP Paribas Asset Management UK Ltd and BNP Paribas Asset Management France SAS as at October 5, 2018 owns 1,791,038 shares of MDxHealth, representing 2.99% of the 59,939,289 currently outstanding shares and voting rights of MDxHealth. Previously, BNP Paribas Asset Management SA had notified that it owned 1,974,076 shares of MDxHealth.

The notification specifies that BNP Paribas Asset Management UK Ltd and BNP Paribas Asset Management France SAS are subsidiaries controlled by BNP Paribas Asset Management SA as parent undertaking, that BNP Paribas Asset Management SA is controlled by BNP Paribas SA as parent undertaking, and that BNP Paribas SA benefits from the exemption to aggregate its participations with those of its investment company subsidiaries in accordance with Article 21, 2 of the Belgian Royal Decree of February 14, 2008 regarding the disclosure of important participations. The notification states further that the subsidiaries are investment companies that exercise the voting rights in a discretionary manner.

For further information, reference is made to the information published on MDxHealth's website (http://www.mdxhealth.com/investors/shareholder-information).

About MDxHealth

MDxHealth is a multinational healthcare company that provides actionable molecular diagnostic information to personalize the diagnosis and treatment of urological cancer. The Company's tests are based on proprietary genetic, epigenetic (methylation) and other molecular technologies and assist physicians with the diagnosis of urologic cancers, prognosis of recurrence risk, and prediction of response to a specific therapy. The Company's European headquarters are in Herstal, Belgium, with laboratory operations in Nijmegen, The Netherlands, and US headquarters and laboratory operations based in Irvine, California. For more information, visit mdxhealth.com and follow us on social media at: twitter.com/mdxhealth, facebook.com/mdxhealth

and linkedin.com/company/mdxhealth.

For more information:

Jean-Marc Roelandt CFO Amber Fennell, Chris Welsh, Nicholas Brown

MDxHealth Consilium Strategic Communications

US: +1 949 812 6979 UK: +44 20 3709 5700

BE: +32 4 257 70 21

info@mdxhealth.com mdxhealth@consilium-comms.com

LifeSpring Life Sciences Communication

Leon Melens

NL: +31 6 538 16 427

lmelens@lifespring.nlBrazil's two candidates vying for the presidency, far-right Jair Bolsonaro and leftist Fernando Haddad, have taken to Twitter to trade campaign blows in the absence so far of any televised debate ahead of an October 28 run-off election. In the exchange late Tuesday, Haddad tried to taunt Bolsonaro into engaging in TV debates, hoping to close a big lead enjoyed by the far-right candidate. "Tweeting and online lives are easy, Mr Congressman. Let's debate face-to-face, politely, in the sick bay if necessary," Haddad said on his Twitter account. The tweet was in response to one by Bolsonaro calling Haddad a "corrupt man's puppet," referring to his having replaced former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who was barred from running while serving a prison sentence for corruption. Six televised debates were scheduled between the October 7 first round -- which Bolsonaro won handily, with 46 percent of the vote to Haddad's 29 percent -- and the run-off October 28. But Bolsonaro skipped the earlier debates on the advice of doctors who said he had not sufficiently recovered from a stabbing while campaigning on September 6. Bolsonaro has said avoiding further debates might be a "strategic" choice for him. He already enjoys a big lead in the polls over Haddad and has millions of followers on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. - 'Waiting for you' - Haddad, a 55-year-old former mayor of Sao Paulo and education minister under Lula, believes he would have the upper hand in a debate with Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro, 63, is a veteran lawmaker who went to military school and was a captain during Brazil's military dictatorship that ended in 1985. Light on the issues, his campaign has been buoyed by pithy phrases and online attacks on Haddad, Lula and their leftist Workers Party. On Tuesday, Bolsonaro observed that Haddad had frequently visited Lula in prison. "Each week you go and see someone who is in prison for corruption and to get your orders. Watch out, given where new revelations are going you could be next," he tweeted. Haddad replied by posting an image of a television studio organized for debates with the message:" I'm waiting for you here, congressman." The last major voter survey, by the Ibope institute, showed Bolsonaro the big favorite with 59 percent support, against 41 percent for Haddad. Brazilian far-right presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro (C) speaks to the press during a visit to the Federal Police station in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Brazil's presidential candidate for the Workers' Party (PT), Fernando HaddadAs world leaders descend on the Belgian capital Brussels, hundreds of police officers called in sick on Wednesday to protest working conditions. A police spokesman said about 20 percent of Brussels city's 2,600 police officers -- more than 500 officers -- declared themselves "absent due to illness". The neighbouring Montgomery sector, where 585 police officers are assigned, also deplored "a big impact" linked to the protest, called on Monday by three unions. The action comes as the European quarter of Brussels hosts a two-day European Union summit -- starting Wednesday evening -- followed by a Europe-Asia meeting on Thursday and Friday. "The summit is going to take place and the police will be there. We are at the negotiation table to find solutions," said Ilse Van De Keere, spokeswoman for the Brussels-Capital-Ixelles police zone, which operates around the European institutions. "The different police zones will help each other and service to the population will be provided," said Wout Monteyne of the nearby Montgomery zone. EU summits are held several times a year with police reinforcements called from all over the country -- and even the Netherlands -- to allow city police stations to operate as normally as possible. Staffing was expected to be tight later in the week. The "sick-in" was advised by unions in order to get around rules that can force striking workers back to work. Officers are angry over a pension reform, paid sick leave and recurrent staff shortages. Brussels police officers are angry over a pension reform, paid sick leave and recurrent staff shortagesA peep into a Thimphu toy shop shows stacks of Pokemons, all made in China, a testimony to the quiet overtures Beijing is making in Bhutan at rival India's expense. China's annexation of Tibet in 1951 and an unresolved border dispute have long been irritants in ties with Bhutan, and India would prefer they remain estranged. India jumped to Bhutan's defence last year when Chinese troops started building a road on Doklam, a territory claimed by both China and Bhutan. The eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation lasted 72 days before the Indian and Chinese armies pulled back. But now Beijing is seeking to mend relations and extend a hand of friendship to the tiny Himalayan kingdom, despite the two having no diplomatic relations. Chinese shipments have shot up in the past decade, with goods from machinery and cement to electricals and toys making Beijing the third largest source of foreign products to heavily import-dependent Bhutan. And stuck between the competing regional powers, Bhutan has been gasping to assert its sovereignty and shrug off decades of heavy dependence on India. Many among Bhutan's 800,000 population feel India's embrace is becoming a stranglehold and getting in the way of Thimpu's ties with other countries. "Within Bhutan, there is a growing demand to diversify and loosen its dependence on India," University of British Columbia historian Tsering Shakya said. "However, given the geography and history it is not easy for Bhutan to ignore India's interest." Nestled in the highest, snow-capped mountain range in the world, Bhutan is one of the world's few countries to have never been colonised, and has retained much of its unique culture and charm. The country's fourth king famously introduced the concept of gross national happiness in the 1970s, shunning the usual gross domestic product used by most modern countries to measure economic growth. - 'Jealous big brother' - Bhutan was almost as isolated as the mythical Shangri-La until the early 1960s when its first highway was built. But it has become increasingly dependent on neighbours, as shown in 2013 when India was accused of triggering a fuel crisis by cutting subsidies on cooking gas and kerosene -- which some say was a punishment to Bhutan for warming up to the Chinese. "If we (India and Bhutan) are good friends, our friendship shouldn't be affected by our relations with other countries," said Vimla Pradhan, a 21-year-old college student. "It appears as if everything Bhutan does, it should have tacit approval from India. India will always come before others but please don't behave like a jealous big brother," she told AFP in Thimpu. Pradhan, who studies political science and philosophy, is not isolated in her views. Many aspiring Bhutanese are restless for new opportunities at a time when youth unemployment is 10.6 percent against the national average of 2.4 percent. India has been generous with loans and grants but Bhutan could do with more investment, and China has deep pockets. "Where are the jobs? Look at any nook and corner and you will find young men hanging around aimlessly," said Karma Choden, a mother of two, as she waited for customers at a roadside stall selling dry cheese and red chillies. Bhutan, a growing economy which has been trying to shed its tag as one of the world's least developed countries, is struggling to reduce unemployment as it gears up for only its third ever election on Thursday. The ruling party was knocked out in the first round of polling in mid-September, signalling the electorate's desperation for change. - Rich dividends - China's policy of mixing soft diplomacy and economic aid has reaped rich dividends in South Asian countries where India has long held sway like Sri Lanka and the Maldives. China has been reaching out to Bhutan through sports, religious and cultural visits as well as scholarships to Bhutanese students. Its vice foreign minister Kong Xuanyou made a rare trip to Bhutan in July. Bhutan has also been receiving a growing number of Chinese tourists, who have to pay a sizeable visa fee, unlike their Indian counterparts. The number of Chinese tourists visiting Bhutan surged from fewer than 20 a decade ago to 6,421 in 2017, according to official figures. Taxi driver Kinzang Dorji is unable to make much sense of Bhutan's diplomacy and history. But he understands the value of foreign investment. "Bhutan should make friends with other countries," Dorji said. "Many Chinese tourists have started coming and they are bringing in a lot of money. We don't mind them at all," he said before zooming past a Chinese restaurant in the heart of Thimphu. A young tourist in Thimphu. The number of Chinese tourists visiting Bhutan surged from fewer than 20 a decade ago to 6,421 in 2017, according to official figures Nestled in the highest, snow-capped mountain range in the world, Bhutan is one of the world's few countries to have never been colonised, and has retained much of its unique culture and charmThe Ivory Coast's main party came out on top in regional and local polls held over the weekend, the election commission has announced, as the country's main political players have the 2020 presidential vote in their sights. The RHDP coalition won 92 municipalities, the independents took 56, while the opposition Ivory Coast Democratic Party (PDCI), a former RHDP ally, won 50, according to official figures released late Tuesday, which showed a low turnout for the polls. The delay in issuing the results had sparked a protest near Abidjan the previous night, and police fired tear gas to break up crowds. The RHDP also took the lion's share of the regional seats, with 18 against six for the PDCI. RHDP spokesman Mamadou Toure hailed the results as confirming the strength of the coalition's support across the country. The weekend polls nonetheless offered the PDCI some hope too that they could play a key role in 2020, after giving up its "kingmaker" position within the ruling coalition seek power on its own. Saturday's elections were overshadowed by the rupture in the RHDP coalition, which has ruled Ivory Coast since 2010 and previously included both President Alassane Ouattara RDR party as well as the historically dominant PDCI. The alliance broke down in the run-up to the polls over who should be its candidate in the presidential election in 2020. While the RDR and other smaller parties remained in the RHDP coalition, the PDCI fielded its own candidates in many areas. The official turnout figures were 36.2 percent for the municipal elections and 46.3 percent for the regionals, almost identical to the figures given for the corresponding elections in 2013. The delay in issuing the results sparked a protest near Abidjan the previous night, with police firing teargas to break up crowdsThe Democratic Republic of Congo on Wednesday threatened to take international action over Angola's recent, and allegedly violent, expulsion of some 200,000 illegal migrants from its west African neighbour. DR Congo invites the Angolan government "to carry out a thorough investigation in order to establish who was responsible for these reprehensible acts," Foreign Minister Leonard She Okitundu told a press conference in the capital Kinshasa. Unless this is done, the DR Congo government "would be obliged to take the matter to the relevant authorities," he warned, adding that his country will not stoop to "brutally expelling" Angolans in any tit-for-tat response. Since the start of the month Angola has expelled around 200,000 Congolese living clandestinely in its northern province of Lunda Norte, which borders DR Congo. Angolan police said last week that they had targeted foreign nationals suspected of diamond smuggling. Some 30,000 of these were "brutally" kicked out of the country, and some were killed, according to a report by the DR Congo cabinet chaired by President Joseph Kabila. According to Angola, the 200,000 Congolese returned home voluntarily. Kinshasa also accused the Angolan navy of violating the sovereignty of its territorial waters. Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo share a 2,500-kilometre (1,550-mile) land border, the longest in Africa. Staff members (L) of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) assist Congolese migrants, who were living in Angola but were forced to return to their country after Angola's allegedly violent migrant expulsionThe father of a young midwife executed by Boko Haram has blasted the jihadists for killing his daughter, hailing on Wednesday the "immense help" she gave to her community and expressing hope for the safe release of other hostages. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) confirmed on Tuesday that Hauwa Liman had been killed, a month after the murder of one of her colleagues, Saifura Khorsa. Both were kidnapped with a third aid worker, Alice Loksha, from the UN children's agency UNICEF, during a Boko Haram attack on the remote town of Rann, in northeast Nigeria, on March 1. Hauwa Liman's father, Mohammed, told AFP that he was "deeply shocked" at his daughter's death, which came less than a week after indications from the government that they would be released. "We are deeply disturbed, the whole family is disturbed," he said in Hausa, in an interview in the Borno state capital, Maiduguri. "Rann is my home town where I grew up and still have relations there. "It is now home to more that 50,000 IDPs (internally displaced people), including children, women, and the aged who are in dire need of help. "Hauwa was a trained midwife and we decided that she went there to help people who badly needed her service. Rann was also her home: her uncle and aunt still live there. "She proved to be of immense help to the community in the 10 days she served in Rann. "Despite what happened I have no regret that she went to Rann and offered humanitarian service. She really helped the community within these days." - Heightened fears - Amnesty International said the women's deaths amounted to a war crime. The killings are thought to be due to the overthrow of a more moderate leadership of the Islamic State-allied Boko Haram faction that seized them. Hardliners in the self-styled Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) reportedly killed their de facto leader, Mamman Nur, who had previously pledged only to hit "hard" military and government targets rather than civilians. The killings have raised fears for the safe release of Alice Loksha and a Christian schoolgirl, Leah Sharibu, who was seized in February from the town of Dapchi, in Yobe state. Mohammed Liman said: "I don't know what Islam the killers of Hauwa and Saifura practise. "I don't know where they get this notion that working for the ICRC and UNICEF is punishable with death. The Islam we know encourages humanitarian and selfless service to those in need." He also accused Boko Haram of "sheer deception", saying they had "made up their mind to kill Hauwa and Saifura no matter what effort would have been made to save them". More than 27,000 people have been killed and some two million others made homeless in northeast Nigeria since the conflict began in 2009. A sustained counter-offensive by the Nigerian military, with assistance from neighbouring states, has pushed the Islamist rebels out of captured territory, although attacks persist. But it has also laid bare a humanitarian crisis in the region that has left millions in dire need of emergency food, healthcare and shelter. Mohammed Liman said his daughter, who was just 24, "will always be remembered for the humanitarian service she rendered to the community in Rann". "I pray to Allah for Alice and Leah's release. They are in my thoughts and prayers," he added. "Alice's uncle and brother came and offered their condolences. Our families are bound by a common tragedy. We have been in close contact since the abduction." The three aid workers were kidnapped during a Boko Haram attack on the remote town of Rann, in northeast Nigeria, on March 1 More than 27,000 people have been killed and some two million others made homeless in northeast Nigeria since the conflict began in 2009 The killings have raised fears for the safe release of Alice Loksha Nggadah and a Christian schoolgirl, Leah Sharibu, who was seized in February from the town of Dapchi, in Yobe statePolice have released decade-old footage of one of Australias most wanted men so members of the public can observe his mannerisms and hear his voice.

Victoria Police believe Jonathan Dick hiding in plain sight, 18 months after his brother was murdered with a sword in a shopping centre carpark.

A $100,000 reward is being offered for any information.

In 2007, Dick gave a heartfelt speech at a friends wedding, but these happy memories are now being used by detectives to catch the fugitive.

Police have released footage of Jonathan Dick giving a speech at his friends wedding in 2007. Source: 7 News

Its just an amazing thing, theyve been together since they were 14 or 15 years old, Dick can be heard saying in the video.

I cant imagine another two people who match as much as you two do, so congratulations.

Victoria Police inspector Tim Day said: We believe he is currently in the community.

People will be seeing him and hearing him and possibly working with him.

Police believe this is what Jonathan Dick might look like now. Source: 7 News

Police are specifically appealing to members of the construction industry to keep an eye out.

We know that Jonathan is a skilled labourer and he may be doing some cash-in-hand work, Insp Day said.

Dick has been on the run for 18 months.

He is wanted for the February 2017 murder of his brother David, who was killed with a sword in a lift at Westfield Doncaster.

Dick is wanted for the February 2017 murder of his brother David, who was killed with a sword in a lift at Westfield Doncaster. Source: 7 News

This August, he randomly attacked a childhood friend with a hammer at Keilor.

There have been no confirmed sightings of him since.

In vision from the Keilor attack, Dick appears clean -shaven, has not lost any weight and is wearing clean clothes.

Based on that, police believe he has access to laundry facilities and regular accommodation.

We believe Jonathan is seeking shelter somewhere; it may be a hostel or a boarding house, as opposed to sleeping rough, Insp Day said.

Wanted man Jonathan Dick has two distinctive tattoos. Source: 7 News

People might also recognise him by his tattoos  the Wolverine on his thigh and Incredible Hulk on his calf.

Police hope photos of what he may look like now  along with the $100,000 reward  will encourage more people to look out for him.The head of a French gay rights NGO on Wednesday said he was punched in the face on a Paris street and told he "should be burned" in what he called a homophobic attack. Guillaume Melanie, head of the Urgence Homophobie association which helps people seeking refuge from LGBT violence around the world, said he was attacked as he was leaving a restaurant with a group of activists. "Tonight it's my turn," Melanie tweeted, alongside a picture of his bruised, blood-streaked face. Melanie told AFP that the group was out celebrating after a foreign victim of anti-LGBT violence who sought his association's help obtained a French residence permit. "We were somewhat obstructing the way in the street and a man pushed us rather violently. "I said 'Go easy' and then another man who was with him said 'You're just a dirty faggot' and 'You should all be burned' and punched me hard." Melanie, who received messages of support from across the political spectrum, said he suffered a broken nose and that he would file a police complaint. The French capital has been the scene of several homophobic attacks in recent months that have made it into the headlines. Tweeting her support for Melanie the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo called for a "collective jolt" in the face of homophobic violence and invited Melanie to work with the city and other NGOs on an action plan. "There can be no question of resigning ourselves to this violence," she said. Earlier this month, a gay couple were insulted and attacked for kissing on the street in the northeast of the city. One of their two attackers was apprehended and sentenced to a year's imprisonment. And last month, a young actor, Arnaud Gagnoud, was insulted and beaten with a helmet after hugging his partner outside a theatre in eastern Paris. A teenager has been charged over the attack, which left Gagnoud needing seven stitches Paris has a thriving gay community but several homophobic attacks in recent months have made it into the headlines Mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo denounced the attack on gay rights activist Guillaume Melanie and invited him to help with the city's action plan against homophobic violenceGreek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on Wednesday urged Macedonian lawmakers to ratify the two countries' landmark name deal after a cabinet spat in Athens prompted the shock resignation of his foreign minister. "I want to encourage them to move forward with determination and bravery, because there will not be another opportunity," Tsipras told reporters outside his office, less than an hour after accepting Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias' resignation. "I am determined to do whatever I can (to) safeguard the successful conclusion of the historic Prespes agreement," said the 44-year-old leftist premier, adding that he had decided to personally assume the duties of foreign minister. Macedonia Prime Minister Zoran Zaev faces an uphill battle to secure the necessary two-thirds majority to rename his country North Macedonia, a move aimed at opening a path to NATO and EU membership after a 27-year dispute. Greece also has a northern province named Macedonia, the heart of Alexander the Great's ancient kingdom. Many Greeks fear the deal on the table will officially enable Skopje to lay claim to their cultural heritage. Tsipras said he was "heartbroken" to lose Kotzias, who had helped him broker the hard-fought deal announced in June, signed in the border Prespes region, after months of talks with Skopje. But he warned that Greece would "never" allow Macedonia to join the EU or NATO unless it changed its constitutional name. - Clashed in cabinet - A day earlier, Kotzias had clashed in a cabinet meeting with Defence Minister Panos Kammenos, who strongly opposes the Macedonia deal but is a crucial coalition partner for the Tsipras government. Head of the nationalist Independent Greeks party, Kammenos has repeatedly threatened to defect from the government if the deal is put to a vote in Greece's parliament. That is expected early next year if Macedonia enshrines the name change through constitutional revision. "The prime minister and several ministers made their decisions in yesterday's cabinet meeting, and I made mine," Kotzias, who reportedly felt slighted by a lack of support from the PM, said in a tweet after his resignation. Both Tsipras and Zaev have staked major political capital on the name deal, which is strongly promoted by the European Union and the United States, despite strong objections and protests in both of the countries involved. But Tsipras is also trying to hold his coalition government together ahead of elections scheduled in a year's time. His Syriza party badly trails the opposition New Democracy conservatives in opinion polls. New Democracy leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Wednesday called Tsipras 'weak'. "It's perfectly clear today that Mr Tsipras is not just a weak prime minister. He is a prime minister under blackmail," Mitsotakis said. There is speculation that there could be a ballot as early as May, to coincide with European and local elections, if not sooner. A 67-year-old career diplomat and university professor, Kotzias had held the foreign ministry post since Tsipras' leftist government came to power in 2015 and was one of his most experienced and valued ministers. In a referendum last month, the name deal was ignored by most of the Macedonian electorate, with two thirds of them choosing not to vote -- that has weakened Zaev's hand in the current parliamentary debate. Those opposed to the name change have argued that the referendum should have required a minimum 50-percent turnout for it to be considered valid, but Zaev has said the vote was only consultative. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has urged deputies in Macedonia to ratify the name change As Greek foreign minister Nikos Kotsias was one of the architects of the deal with Macedonia to change its nameExclusive deal gives hoteliers who want to increase revenues access to leading revenue management platform  at absolutely no cost for six months!

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Frontdesk Anywhere (FDA), the award-winning, cloud-based hotel Property Management System (PMS), and its newest integration partner, LodgIQ, are celebrating their collaboration by offering ITB Asia hospitality attendees a free, six month trial of LodgIQs revenue management product, LodgIQ ONE, when signing up with FDA. The deal is exclusive to ITB attendees who visit Frontdesk Anywhere at Booth No. A42 .

A leading innovative hotel revenue management optimization platform, LodgIQ ONE is a simple yet powerful cloud-based platform that summarizes all market intelligence and price suggestions in a single view. Designed specifically for smaller, independent hotels, the LodgIQ ONE product alerts hotel owners and operators to potential revenue opportunities with an instant ability to act on them, in just a few clicks.

LodgIQ has set the benchmark for revenue management platforms and has significantly changed how the product space is defined, said Joe Kiernan, CEO of Frontdesk Anywhere. LodgIQ ONEs use of advanced machine learning helps hoteliers uncover revenue potentials and informational insights within big data. Our integration provides an interface that shares all of a hotels data between Frontdesk Anywhere and LodgIQ ONE, giving hoteliers the most precise forecasts and accurate prices available.

Through our collaboration with Frontdesk Anywhere, one of the leading-edge PMS platforms on the market, FDA customers can access the most sophisticated machine learning and predictive analytics technology available, while optimizing and simplifying the revenue management function, said Fabian Bartnick, LodgIQs VP Asia Pacific and International Business. This integration underscores our focus on working with innovative, like-minded companies in delivering industry-leading returns for our customers.

Representatives will be on-site to demo both platforms and provide more information on this one-time offer at Frontdesk Anywhere, Booth No. A42, ITB Asia at the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore. This one-time offer expires at the close of ITB on Friday, October 19, 2018.

ABOUT FRONTDESK ANYWHERE

Frontdesk Anywhere is an award-winning cloud-based property management system for independent hotels and management groups. It provides hoteliers with a platform that streamlines operations, increases revenue and enhances the guest experience. Based in San Francisco with offices worldwide, Frontdesk Anywhere currently serves customers in more than 45 countries. www.frontdeskanywhere.com.

ABOUT LODGIQ

LodgIQ provides advanced travel industry revenue optimization technologies. Its breakthrough next-generation revenue optimization platforms, LodgIQ RM and LodgIQ ONE, were developed by seasoned revenue management executives and Silicon Valley technologists. LodgIQs products combine sophisticated machine learning with an intuitive and powerful user interface delivering advanced recommendations and actionable analytics. LodgIQ RM is for full service hotels while LodgIQ ONE is geared to limited service hotels and alternative accommodations. LodgIQ is headquartered in New York City, and maintains offices in Silicon Valley, Singapore and Bangalore.

Media Contacts:

Katie Meyer

katie@frontdeskanywhere.com

+1 312 286 0033

Paramedics have made a terminal patients final wish come true in a heart-warming gesture.

Brewster Ambulance Service, based in Massachusetts, tweeted a picture of their patient on Tuesday.

Today we did not transport a Kindred Hospice patient to a hospital but to the #Scituate #Lighthouse and @McDonalds, her final wishes, Brewster Ambulance tweeted.

We are proud of our two emergency medical technicians [paramedics] that helped #Hospice to make it happen. We were honoured they made a terminally ill patients final wishes come true.

The Brewster Ambulance paramedics wheel the patient out to the Scituate Lighthouse in Massachusetts. Source: Brewster Ambulance Service

Laura Mullins, 55, had asked her hospice nurse Beverly Bellegarde for the trip out to the lighthouse, WDHD reported.

Ms Mullins also has no family and had never seen a lighthouse.

She was accompanied by her nurse, the chaplain, two paramedics named as Brian Costa and Era Koroveshi and Brewster Ambulances Johnathon Bobbit-Miller.

The trip took more than an hour and the chaplain also gave a blessing before Ms Mullins had McDonalds.

The patient had never seen a lighthouse. She was taken for McDonalds afterwards. Source: Brewster Ambulance Service

Mr Bobbit-Miller told CBS bystanders were moved by how happy Ms Mullins was to be near the water.

She asked if she could see both the lighthouse and the harbour, she said that she could hear the waves, Mr Bobbit-Miller said.

Her face was glowing. She sat up and said, My dream has come true.'

Twitter users were full of praise for the paramedics and nurse too.

Great job, guys, one man tweeted.

Thanks for treating a terminally ill patient with compassion and making her final wishes come true.

The 55-year-olds face was said to be glowing as she listened to the waves crash against the shore. Source: Brewster Ambulance Service

Another tweeted it was proof there is humanity all round.

God bless you for helping this lady fulfil her final wishes! one man tweeted.

Really, bless you all

In November last year, a Queensland Ambulance crew were praised for taking a palliative care patient to the beach at Hervey Bay.

The two paramedics, Graeme Cooper and Danielle Kellam, have also been recognised by Kensington Palace with Prince Harry and Meghan to meet them for lunch during their Australian tour.Iran called new US sanctions against its paramilitary Basij group an act of "blind vindictiveness" on Wednesday. "America's new sanctions are a clear insult to international and legal mechanisms and a result of the American government's blind vindictiveness against the Iranian nation," said foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi. He called Washington's "lack of adherence to international legal mechanisms" a threat not only "to the Iranian people's interests but also the world's stability and security." On Tuesday, the US Treasury Department slapped sanctions on a network of more than 20 businesses it said had financial links to the Basij paramilitary group, which enforces internal security in Iran. The US pulled out of a landmark 2015 nuclear accord between Iran and six world powers in May and is reimposing punishing sanctions on the Middle Eastern country, hoping to pressure Tehran into what President Donald Trump calls a "better deal". Iran's Bank Parsian, among the companies sanctioned on Tuesday, said in a statement that the measures would change little. "This bank's international activities using dollars and America had ceased for years," it said. Iran's biggest steel company, also on the sanctions list, similarly dismissing the measures as "nothing new". In a statement to investors, Mobarakeh Steel Company said: "International sanctions are nothing new and Mobarakeh has faced them throughout the years just like other sectors of the Iranian economy. "This will not disrupt the company's production, financial activities and exports," it added. - 'Can't stop exports' - Mobarakeh, the largest steelmaker in the Middle East and North Africa region according to the US Treasury, was accused of supporting the Mehr Eqtesad Iranian Investment Company, which is linked to Iran's Revolutionary Guards, according to the US Treasury. A steel industry expert in Tehran said the sanctions would hurt Mobarakeh, but without entirely stopping its exports. "The company will now have problems doing anything, be it attracting financing from abroad or having any overseas accounts," Mojtaba Fereydouni told AFP. "But sanctions cannot just stop Iran's exports. You just ship it to a third country, unload the shipments there and leave it for a few days. Then you reship them from there with no mention of Iran and a new certificate of origin. "All this will incur a cost of $20-$30 on each tonne, but it's not impossible," he added. Iran's steel industry was targeted under the first wave of US sanctions reimposed in August. But Mobarakeh said it had indigenised its production line. Fereydouni added that it had set up a factory to produce the key raw material of electrode graphite, which is normally imported, primarily from India. Iran is the 10th biggest crude steel producer, according to the World Steel Association. The government said it exported $2.53 billion of steel products between March and September, up 53 percent on the previous year -- an increase which is thought to be driven by a rush by buyers to make purchases before sanctions hit. Iranian members of the Basij militia march during a parade marking the country's Army Day, on April 18, 2017, in TehranItalian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte warned Wednesday that Rome would not change a government budget for 2019 that defies EU rules, putting Rome on a collision course with Brussels. "Room (for changes), I would say there is none," Conte told reporters as he arrived for a two-day European Union summit in the Belgian capital dominated by Brexit, but where the state of Italy's finances is also a concern. EU leaders are set to discuss the eurozone on Thursday, with harder line leaders -- most notably from the Netherlands -- expected to denounce Italy's decision to go on a public spending spree. On the sidelines of the summit, Conte met Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, where criticism of Rome's populist government also runs high. "I will send the message that we have a well-articulated budget, a budget to reverse the trend in the Italian economy," Conte said, before meeting Merkel. "We want growth, and we want to do it in the interest of the country," he added. Italy's coalition government submitted its draft 2019 budget to the European Commission on Monday and the EU executive is widely expected to raise its concerns later this week. The spending boost is essentially due to what the government calls its "people's budget", a series of pension and tax changes that will cost 37 billion euros ($43 billion), of which 22 billion will be paid for by expanding the deficit. Brussels believes Rome needs to cut the deficit in order to begin reducing its massive debt, which exceeds 130 percent of annual economic output -- way above the EU's 60 percent ceiling. The brash attitude of Italy's anti-establishment government towards public spending has spooked the markets, with many fearing a re-run of the debt crisis that nearly saw Greece kicked out of the eurozone. "Room (for changes), I would say there is none," Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte told journalists about Italy's 2019 government budget as he arrived in Brussesl for a two-day European Union summitItaly's deputy prime minister accused an unknown adversary Wednesday of having tampered with the country's budget by secretly introducing tax measures to favour the mafia. "A very serious thing has happened! The decree on 'fiscal peace'... has been manipulated," Luigi Di Maio, who is also head of the anti-establishment Five Star Movement, wrote on Facebook in reference to the government's tax amnesty plans. The amnesty has been a serious bone of contention between the movement and its far-right League coalition partner. The idea is to resolve disputes with the taxman and recover some of the money lost to evasion, but critics of the government have said it is simply another amnesty for tax dodgers. Dubbed the "fiscal peace" measure, it was one of the policy pledges in a government game plan drawn up by the parties, but the devil has proved to be in the detail. While the League has previously said it wanted anyone with a dispute over up to one million euros to be able to benefit, the Five Star Movement insisted the ceiling to be set at 100,000 euros, to thwart large-scale evaders. Di Maio said Wednesday that the decree had been tampered with after it had been given cabinet approval, to add "protection from punishment for evaders" -- though he did not provide any further details. "I have never said we want to help mafia capital. We in the Five Star Movement will not vote for this measure if it comes to parliament like this," he said, adding that he did not know who was behind the changes. "We are serious people who know nothing about manipulated decrees", the League shot back. Italy?s Labor and Industry Minister and deputy PM Luigi Di Maio, pictured July 2018, wrote on Facebook that "The decree on 'fiscal peace'...has been manipulated"Italy's far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini denounced the "madness" of western sanctions against Russia, during a trip to Moscow Wednesday, and launched a fierce attack on the European Union. "I come here because I am convinced that sanctions are economic, social and cultural madness," said Salvini, who leads the far-right League party and also serves as deputy prime minister. His comments got a warm reception from his audience, a gathering of the Russo-Italian business community, and several Russian and Italian businessmen took the microphone to press the minister to get the sanctions lifted. Ideally, Salvini told them, they would be busy running their businesses and he would be discussing anti-terrorism, cybersecurity and other issues with his Russian counterpart. Instead, the European Union was financing and courting Turkey, "...a country that has had a European country under military occupation for 44 years" while imposing sanctions against Russia for its 2014 annexation of Crimea, he said. Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when Turkish troops occupied its northern third in response to an Athens-sponsored military coup seeking to unite the Mediterranean island with Greece. Salvini also defended Italy against EU criticism of its high-spending budget. Brussels is concerned that Italy's budget will increase the country's deficit. At 130 percent of annual economic output, Italy's debt is well above the EU's 60 percent ceiling. Already in July during a visit to Moscow, Salvini said he wanted to end sanctions against Russia. During Wednesday's visit Salvini was received by Russia deputy foreign minister Alexander Grushko. Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte is due in Moscow next Wednesday for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev. Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini launched a tirage against the EU during his visit to Moscow

A jilted wife on trial for allegedly abducting her husbands lover devised a rather extreme punishment for his infidelity.

South Carolina woman Tammy Moorer is accused of conspiring to kidnap Heather Elvis after the 20-year-old started a sexual relationship with her husband, Sidney.

Prosecutors contended that Ms Moorer became vindictive after learning of the affair and rumours that the young hostess may be pregnant.

Ms Elvis mysteriously vanished in December 2013. She is now presumed dead.

Heather Elvis vanished in 2013. Images: Facebook/Find Heather Elvis

During the second week of testimony, the jury heard from Jacob Melton, who is friends with one of the Moorers sons.

He explained how Mr Moorer had been forced to get a tattoo of his wifes name above his crotch as punishment, the New York Post reports.

If you didnt have that thing with that girl, this wouldnt be happening, she allegedly told her husband, according to Meltons testimony.

Tammy Moorer (right) allegedly forced her husband to get her name tattooed above his crotch as punishment for his infidelity. Image: AP

The court also heard from Ms Elvis former employer, Dennis Clark, who explained how Ms Moorer had complained to him about Ms Elvis causing problems for their family.

Both Tammy and Sidney Moorer were charged in relation to Ms Elvis disappearance. They initially faced kidnapping allegations as well, but the charges were later dropped.

Sidney Moorer was sentenced to 10 years in prison for obstruction of justice.

Hi wifes court matter is still ongoing.Migrants rescued at sea by a merchant vessel are being taken to Malta after two days in limbo following Italy's refusal to accept them, the Maltese armed forces said Wednesday. The Just Fitz III plucked 44 migrants from a rickety wooden boat late Monday after they ran into difficulty during the perilous crossing from North Africa. The Marshall Islands-flagged vessel, which had been headed to Tunisia, was diverted to help the migrants as they floundered some 60 nautical miles south of the Italian island of Lampedusa, in Malta's search and rescue zone. Valletta said those rescued at sea should be taken to the nearest safe port, on Lampedusa. But Italy's new and hardline interior minister Matteo Salvini, the head of the far-right League, has vowed to stop migrant arrivals. "Following the refusal of Italy to provide for the nearest place of safety, shelter and logistical support to the ship and in view of deteriorating weather conditions affecting the area," Malta agreed to take the migrants, the army said. An offshore patrol vessel picked up the migrants from the Just Fitz III and was expected to disembark them on Malta late Wednesday. - 'Dangerously toxic' - It is not the first time rescued migrants in the Mediterranean have found themselves in limbo due to a row over who should take them in. In June, Italy's new populist government turned away a rescue boat carrying 630 people, which was also rejected by Malta, forcing the vessel to remain at sea until Spain offered them safe haven. Shortly afterwards, Italy and Malta refused a second vessel carrying nearly 250 migrants. Later that month a Danish cargo ship owned by Maersk, the world's leading container shipping company, waited offshore for three days for instructions on what to do with the 108 migrants it had rescued, before Rome relented and allowed it to dock. The UN Refugee Agency and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) warned Wednesday that the "political discourse concerning refugees and migrants, particularly those arriving by boat, has become dangerously toxic". "Arrival numbers are falling but the rate at which people are losing their lives is on the rise," UN refugee chief Filippo Grandi said. "We cannot forget that we are talking about human lives. Debate is welcome -- scapegoating refugees and migrants for political gain is not". - 'White-gloved Nazis' - Salvini supports a deal between Italy and Libya, forged under the previous, centre-left government, under which the Libyan coast guard intercepts migrants and returns them to the conflict-torn country. Pope Francis compared those who send migrants back to hellish prisons in Libya to Nazis and Fascists. "I am thinking of a film that witnesses to the situations of some prisons in North Africa built by human traffickers," he said in reference to Libya in an interview published Wednesday. "When governments send back those who have survived, the traffickers put them in these prisons where the most horrible torture takes place. "Today we beat our breasts for what the Communists, Nazis and Fascists did... but today? Does this not happen today? Certainly! And it is done with white silk gloves!" he said. Migrants picked up from small boats in the Mediterranean arriving in Malta earlier this year. ON Wednesday, the island, which has tried to halt the inflow, agreed to take in another 44 rescued at seaA man was seriously injured after an e-cigarette exploded in his pants pocket, burning a hole through the fabric.

The 28-year-old Belgian man was hospitalised after his electronic cigarette exploded in his pocket and released a 25cm high flame up his right side.

The man, named Gilles, told local media he is still in shock after the incident which occurred in the town of Charleroi in southwest Belgium.

He was on the street, walking to vote in local elections with his father, when the explosion occurred.

It really happened at once. I heard some kind of tack sound in my pocket, Gilles said.

The damage after Gilles pants (pictured) caught on fire. Source: CEN/Australscope

I have always been careful to buy my devices in shops and not on the internet, because I know that on the web you can sometimes come across bad equipment.

The battery that exploded came from a shop in France.

His father witnessed the incident.

I saw a big flame come out of his trousers, Gilles father said.

The burns from the explosion were so bad that Gilles had a skin graft to cover up his badly-burned thigh.

Gilles was hospitalised with burns (pictured). Source: CEN/Australscope

With his right leg and hand bandaged, Gilles is recovering in the burns unit of local Charleroi Grand Hospital.

It is not known if the man has filed a complaint against the store or company that manufactures the e-cigarette.

Its not the first time trousers have exploded. A man was badly injured after a truck tyre he was working on exploded with such force it disintegrated another mans pants in Sydneys northwest in 2017.

With AustralscopeNorway's government on Wednesday officially apologised to Norwegian women targeted for reprisals by authorities for having intimate relations with German soldiers during the country's war-time occupation. Between 30,000 to 50,000 Norwegians, labelled "German girls", had intimate relations with occupying troops during World War II, according to conservative estimates from Norway's Centre for Holocaust and Minorities Studies. Many of these woman were subject to reprisals by officials after the 1945 liberation from Nazi occupation, including illegal arrests and detentions, job dismissals and even being stripped of their nationality. "Young Norwegian girls and woman who had relations with German soldiers or were suspected of having them, were victims of undignified treatment," Norway's Prime Minister Erna Solberg said. "Today, in the name of the government, I want to offer my apologies," the premier said at an event to mark the 70th anniversary of the UN's universal declaration of human rights. More than 70 years after the end of WWII, very few of the women remain alive and the official apology is unlikely to open the way for financial reparations for their families. During the war, more than 300,000 German soldiers occupied Norway, a neutral country the Nazis invaded on April 9, 1940. "We cannot say women who had personal relations with German soldiers were helping the German war effort," said historian Guri Hjeltnes, the director of the Holocaust and Minorities Studies centre. "Their crime was breaking unwritten rules and moral standards," Hjeltnes said. "They were punished even more harshly than the war profiteers." None of the estimated 28 Norwegian men married to German women during the war were expelled or had their nationality taken away from them, the historian said. In 2000, Olso formally apologised to the 10,000 to 12,000 children born to Norwegian mothers and German soldiers, who also suffered reprisals. Norway's Prime Minister Erna Solberg has apologised to women who suffered reprisals after having relations with German soldiers during the country's war-time occupationAs disclosed in its presentation of the 2018 half-year results, Beter Bed Holding kicked off a strategic journey to recover profitable sales growth. A full update on the short-term restructuring and mid-term sales growth plans will be presented at the Capital Markets Day on October 26th.

The first steps of this strategic journey are successfully implemented. This included, amongst others:

launching new customer driven assortment and innovation;

accelerating the omnichannel proposition in all our markets;

discontinuing the Spanish operation;

exchanging the leadership teams (CFO, Benelux, Germany, Austria, Switzerland);

launching a new partnership with EuroParcs through the wholesale business DBC.

These measures are the beginning of the strategic journey for the next 24 months, and the team of Beter Bed Holding is confident that these measures will re-create value for all our stakeholders.

The next step in the strategic journey is to reset the footprint and organization of Matratzen Concord in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. For over 30 years Matratzen Concord has been one of the leading suppliers of mattresses and box springs in their markets. To enhance the market leadership positions and to better respond to the current customer and market dynamics, Beter Bed Holding decided to restructure its Matratzen Concord business.

Matratzen Concord will reduce their HQ and support team by 64 employees, and will close 176 of around 1,000 stores by the end of 2018. At the same time, Matratzen Concord will invest in accelerating the omnichannel presence in its markets.

This restructuring ensures that Matratzen Concord will regain its strength as a smart omnichannel discount chain in a future proof way.

The restructuring will have a one-off cost impact of circa  8 million on Matratzen Concord in Q4 2018, and is expected to have a structural EBIT benefit of circa  6 million as of 2019.

In this context, Beter Bed Holding has entered into a constructive dialogue with its banks on the net debt / EBITDA covenant as per year end 2018.

Q3 trading update

The Q3 sales of Beter Bed Holding showed a mixed picture. The Q3 sales of  97.9 million declined by 7.1% compared to Q3 2017. The decline was specifically caused by the high temperatures resulting in lower retail traffic. Order intakes at the days with normal temperatures are slowly improving, but not sufficient to compensate the sales drop in especially July 2018.

The market shares improved in both key markets. In the Netherlands the market share improved by 0.2%pts. In the German market the Fachverband Matratzen reported an industry decline of 10  15%, being worse than the Matratzen Concord performance.

The table below shows the sales performance for Q3 and year-to-date.

2018

(in millions of )

Q3 vs 2017 2018 YTD vs 2017 Total Sales 97.9 -7.1 % 299.5 -5.0 %

2018

(Like-for-like growth vs 2017)

2018 Q3 2018 YTD Netherlands -4.9 % 0.4 % Belgium 10.8 % 21.9 % Germany -9.2 % -7.8 % Austria -11.2 % -2.9 % Switzerland -17.1 % -14.6 % Spain 14.8 % 1.6 % Sweden -9.6 % -1.6 %

All events mentioned above are included in the roadmap to ensure a successful implementation of the strategic journey of Beter Bed Holding and its main brands Matratzen Concord and Beter Bed. Further details on both the strategic journey and the implementation will be presented at the Capital Markets Day on October 26th.

Profile

Beter Bed Holding is a European retail organisation that strives to offer its customers a comfortable and healthy nights rest every night at an affordable price. The retail formats ensure products of good quality, offer customers the best advice and always the best possible deal. Beter Bed Holding is also active as a wholesaler of branded products in the bedroom furnishing sector via its subsidiary DBC International (M line). In 2017, the company achieved revenue of  416 million with a total of 1,188 stores. 64.2% of this figure was realised outside the Netherlands.

For more information:

John Kruijssen Hugo van den Ochtend

CEO CFO

+31 (0)413 338819 +31 (0)413 338819

+31 (0)6 13211011 +31 (0)6 25746309

john.kruijssen@beterbed.nl hugo.vandenochtend@beterbed.nl

For the Pdf version of the press release please click on the link below.

AttachmentNorway on Wednesday officially apologised for the "shameful treatment" of Norwegian women targeted for reprisals for their intimate relations with German soldiers during the country's war-time occupation. Between 30,000 to 50,000 Norwegians, commonly labelled the "German girls", were involved with occupying troops during World War II, according to estimates from Norway's Centre for Holocaust and Minorities Studies. As well as public humiliation, many of the woman were subject to reprisals by officials after the 1945 liberation from Nazi occupation, including illegal arrests and detentions, job dismissals and even being expelled and stripped of their nationality. "Young Norwegian girls and woman who had relations with German soldiers or were suspected of having them, were victims of shameful treatment," Norway's Prime Minister Erna Solberg said. "Today, in the name of the government, I want to offer my apologies," the premier said at an event to mark the 70th anniversary of the UN's universal declaration of human rights. "For many, this was just a teenage love, for some, the love of their lives with an enemy soldier or an innocent flirt that left its mark for the rest of their lives." During the war, more than 300,000 German soldiers occupied Norway, a neutral country the Nazis invaded on April 9, 1940. Heinrich Himmler, the Nazi SS chief, considered Norwegians "goddesses" and encouraged his troops to have relations with local women. The first "Lebensborn" reproduction centre outside Germany was set up in Norway in 1941 as part of the Nazi Aryan race ideology. In 2000, Olso formally apologised to the estimated 10,000 to 12,000 children born to Norwegian mothers and German soldiers, who also suffered reprisals. - People in the street - More than 70 years after the end of WWII, very few of the women remain alive and the official apology is unlikely to open the way for financial reparations for their families. "The people directly affected are no longer with us... but this also touches their families and the children," said Reidar Gabler, son of a Norwegian woman who was expelled in 1945 along with her German husband. "Even if it comes late, the apology is important for history," he told Norway's Aftenposten newspaper Historian Kare Olsen said he was unaware of any similar apology in other European countries where women suffered after their involvement with soldiers during German occupation. Thousands of French women were publicly shorn after the liberation; some were detained or executed in what were mostly extrajudicial reprisals. "In France, for example, these women were mistreated after the liberation, but it was more by people in the street than by the authorities," Olsen said. In Denmark, historians estimate the number of woman involved with members of the German occupying forces was around 50,000 but there were no accusations or forced expulsions. "There is less reason for an official apology than in Norway," said Anette Waring, a professor at the Danish University of Roskilde. None of the estimated 28 Norwegian men married to German women during the war were expelled or had their nationality taken away from them, according to historian Guri Hjeltnes, the director of the Holocaust and Minorities Studies centre. "We cannot say women who had personal relations with German soldiers were helping the German war effort," Hjeltnes said. "Their only crime was breaking the unwritten rules." Many women involved with German soldiers in occupied Norway were expelled or punished by the state after liberation in 1945 Norway's Prime Minister Erna Solberg has apologised to women who suffered reprisals after having relations with German soldiers during the country's war-time occupationAuthor Anna Burns on Tuesday became the first Northern Irish writer, and the first woman since 2013, to win Britain's renowned Man Booker Prize for her novel "Milkman". Judges of the annual award praised the work, an exploration of Northern Ireland's three decades of sectarian violence known as The Troubles told through the voice of a young woman, as "utterly distinctive". "None of us has ever read anything like this before," said Kwame Anthony Appiah, chair of the 2018 judges, in announcing the winner. "Anna Burns' utterly distinctive voice challenges conventional thinking and form in surprising and immersive prose." The 56-year-old told reporters after the ceremony in London that she was "completely stunned" at receiving the most prestigious English-language literary prize. "I just wait for characters to come and tell me their stories and I can?t write until they do," she said. Burns trumped English debut novelist and British bookmakers' late favourite Daisy Johnson -- at 27, the youngest author ever to be shortlisted for the Man Booker -- for her novel "Everything Under". She also triumphed over longtime frontrunner Richard Powers, who had been tipped to make it three successive wins for US writers with his tree-themed novel "The Overstory". - 'Amazing voice' - Burns, who was born in the Northern Irish capital Belfast in 1962 and now lives in southern England, had previously authored two novels -- "No Bones" and "Little Constructions" -- and was shortlisted for the 2002 Orange Prize for Fiction. Though set in an unnamed city, "Milkman" undoubtedly drew on her experiences growing up in the British province during the so-called Troubles. The novel chronicles the struggles of a middle sister in a family as she confronts rumour, social pressures and politics amid violent sectarian divisions in her community. "There are many marvellous things about this book... the texture of the language, it's written in this amazing voice," said Appiah. "It's a very powerful novel." Appiah said the five-person judging panel reached a unanimous decision by consensus after a "good discussion". He added that although the novel confronts, among many other issues, gender issues raised by the #MeToo movement, gender played no part in their choice. "This novel will help people to think about #MeToo... but we think it will last and that means it's not just about something that's going on in this moment." Launched in 1969, the Man Booker Prize was only open to novelists from Commonwealth states until it began permitting authors of any nationality, writing in English and published in the UK and Ireland, in 2014. Burns is the first Briton to win the prize since the change. This year's shortlist -- whittled down from 13 -- pitted four female writers against two men. It featured three Britons, two Americans, and Canadian writer Esi Edugyan for "Washington Black", about an 11-year-old slave on a Barbados sugar plantation. Scottish poet Robin Robertson's "The Long Take" became the first book written in verse with photographs to be shortlisted. US author Rachel Kushner was also a finalist for "The Mars Room", a gritty tale written from the perspective of a former lap-dancer serving two life sentences in a US women's jail. The recipient of the Man Booker Prize gets 52,500 ($69,400, 59,900 euros), although the bigger reward is seen as the spike in sales which invariably follows. Purchases of last year's winner, "Lincoln in the Bardo", jumped 1,227 percent in the week after author George Saunders claimed the award, with nearly three-quarters of its sales following the win, according to prize organisers. Author Anna Burns on Tuesday became the first Northern Irish writer, and the first woman since 2013, to win Britain's renowned Man Booker Prize for her novel "Milkman"Clashes erupted on Wednesday as Hindu hardliners prevented women visiting one of India's most sacred temples, with baton-waving police charging stone-throwing protesters. Ugly scenes erupted as mobs surrounded and attacked the cars of female journalists. Other reporters including a female AFP journalist were intimidated. The situation remained tense after nightfall, with police reinforcing the 500 officers already present ahead of likely another dramatic day on Thursday on the road to the Lord Ayyappa temple at Sabarimala. Last month India's Supreme Court overturned a ban on females of menstruating age -- judged between 10 and 50 years -- entering and praying at the hilltop temple in the southern state of Kerala. This enraged traditionalists, including supporters of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), with thousands protesting in the days before the scheduled opening on Wednesday afternoon. Kerala's state government insisted it would enforce the court ruling and ensure free access to the remote complex, reached by an uphill trek that takes several hours. At Nilackal, a base camp below the temple, police cleared protesters early Wednesday morning and arrested seven people who were stopping vehicles. "Stern action will be taken against anyone who prevents devotees from going to Sabarimala," Kerala's Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said on Tuesday. - Turned back - But later police struggled to control the situation, fighting running battles that left five devotees and 15 policemen injured, according to EP Jayarajan, a minister in the Kerala government. News channels CNN News 18 and Republic TV both showed footage of their reporters' cars being vandalised. Online publication The News Minute said its reporter was kicked in the spine. One 45-year old woman identified as Madhavi who wanted to enter the temple abandoned her attempt after activists prevented her climbing the hill, the Press Trust of India reported. Even though police gave the woman and her family protection and allowed them to move further, they gave up as irate activists surrounded them, PTI reported. Biju S. Pillai, a local man in his 30s, was one of those opposed to the court ruling, telling AFP that he returned from working in Dubai to "protect the sanctity of the temple". "No one should be able to change the way this temple has functioned for centuries," he said. "If any change is made they will have to kill us and go over our bodies." "I am here to protest the Supreme Court decision," said engineer Anisha S., 23, one of a group chanting religious slogans. "We want to save our traditions. Ayyappa needs to be respected." Jayarajan blamed the violence on "goons" from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a hardline Hindu group seen as close to Modi's BJP, which is an opposition party in Kerala. P.S. Sreedharan Pillai, head of the Kerala BJP, pointed the finger at the state government and a bungled police operation. "The overwhelming majority of women oppose the Supreme Court ruling," he told AFP. - 'Impure' - Women are permitted to enter most Hindu temples but female devotees are still barred from entry by some. Two years ago, activists successfully campaigned to end a ban on women entering the Shani Shingnapur temple in Maharashtra state. Women were also permitted to enter Mumbai's Haji Ali Dargah mausoleum, a Muslim place of worship, after the Supreme Court scrapped a ban in 2016. The entry of women at Sabarimala was long taboo but was formalised by the Kerala High Court in 1991, a ruling overturned by India's Supreme Court last month. The restriction reflected an old but still prevalent belief among many that menstruating women are impure, and the fact that the deity Ayyappa was reputed to have been celibate. The Sabarimala chief priest, Kandararu Maheshwararu Tantri, 25, warned this week that "anger could easily escalate into violence if a few egotistical women try to enter" the temple. burs-bb/stu/amu Police tried to clear protesters who are against allowing women into the site Hindu devotees, many of them female, have protested in recent days against allowing women to pray in the Sabarimala temple Traditionalists have tried to stop female pilgirms entering the temple in Kerala Kerala has drafted in police to ensure the court ruling is respectedPresident Donald Trump on Wednesday denied covering up for ally Saudi Arabia in the suspected murder of a critical journalist and said that he expects to learn the truth about Jamal Khashoggi's fate within days. Trump's comments followed the publication in pro-government Turkish media of allegations purporting to confirm that Khashoggi was not only murdered by Saudi agents in their consulate in Istanbul, but tortured and dismembered. "No, not at all, I just want to find out what's happening," Trump told reporters in the White House when asked if his consistently cautious approach to the scandal amounts to a cover-up. "I'm not giving cover at all." The president said he would get a "full report" from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo -- whom he is to meet at 10:00 am (1400 GMT) on Thursday -- after the diplomat's return from meetings with Saudi and Turkish leaders, allowing him to assess what really happened. "We will probably know that by the end of the week," Trump said. The US president has been on the defensive ever since Khashoggi -- a US resident and Washington Post contributor who had been critical of powerful Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman -- vanished on October 2 after visiting the Istanbul consulate. The Post published a column from Khashoggi on Wednesday in which he wrote of the important role a free press could play in the Arab world -- a piece the newspaper admitted appears to be his last. According to the latest reports, the Saudi journalist was assassinated by a squad that included agents tied to Prince Mohammed, a son of King Salman and a lynchpin in the trend toward ever-tightening relations with Trump's White House. The controversy has blown a hole in Prince Mohammed's bid to promote himself as the modern face of Saudi Arabia and led to a spate of cancelations by titans of global finance and business at a major Riyadh investment conference scheduled next week. But Trump has downplayed the possibility of action against Saudi Arabia, which he has repeatedly praised as a major customer for the US weapons industry. At one point he suggested "rogue killers" could be to blame for Khashoggi's disappearance. Earlier Wednesday, he told Fox Business that the US relies on the kingdom to fight terrorism. Pompeo was also tight-lipped after meeting the Saudi leadership in Riyadh, telling journalists he did not want "to talk about any of the facts. They (Saudis) didn't want to either." Adding to the picture of Saudi influence potentially weighing on American decision-making about Khashoggi, US media reported that $100 million for Washington's stabilization efforts in Syria was deposited by the kingdom as Pompeo arrived in Riyadh. - Fresh paint in consulate? - Turkish police and forensic experts on Wednesday searched the residence of the Saudi consul in Istanbul and also searched the country's consulate for a second time. The consul, Mohammed al-Otaibi, left Istanbul for Riyadh on a scheduled flight Tuesday afternoon, with Ankara insisting he had not been expelled but left of his own choice. Turkish police had on Monday night carried out an eight-hour search at the consulate, taking away soil and DNA samples. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who also met with Pompeo, said there was evidence that some materials had been freshly painted. Several US media outlets said Monday that the Saudis are preparing a report that Khashoggi's death resulted from a botched interrogation, but there has yet to be any sign of this being published. Pro-government Turkish daily Yeni Safak reported it had heard audio recordings of Khashoggi being tortured during an interrogation, having his fingers cut off and then being decapitated. It said Otaibi can be heard on one tape saying during Khashoggi's torture: "Do this outside. You are going to get me in trouble." The daily reported that in another tape, an unknown individual tells Otaibi: "If you want to live when you return to Saudi Arabia, be quiet!" - Senators question Trump-Saudi ties - The New York Times reported Tuesday that a suspect identified by Turkey was a frequent companion of the prince's. Three other suspects are linked to his security detail and a fifth is a high-level forensic doctor, The Times said. Adding to embarrassment for the petro-state's royals, International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde became the latest to pull out of Prince Mohammed's much-trumpeted investment conference next week. An IMF spokesman said she had postponed her planned trip to the Middle East with a stop in Saudi Arabia. US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he will decide Thursday whether or not he will attend the conference. There was also new political pressure on Trump with nine senators from the opposition Democrats writing to express "significant concerns about conflicts of interest" between Trump and Saudi Arabia concerning deals done through his real estate empire. The letter cited decades of business deals and asked Trump to provide information regarding recent and future financial ties to Saudi Arabia. Trump defended himself on Monday, tweeting that "I have no financial interests in Saudi Arabia (or Russia, for that matter). Any suggestion that I have is just more FAKE NEWS (of which there is plenty)!" US President Donald Trump said he was expecting a "full report" from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi Turkish police fly a drone over the residence of Saudi Arabia's consul in Istanbul US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara with all sides wary of giving public details about the fate of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi Turkish forensic police officers arrive to search Saudi Arabia's consulate in Istanbul for a second time

Drivers who are fatigued may soon be targeted by a new type of roadside testing.

The high-tech technology, which will reportedly detect how sleepy a person is, will work much like alcohol and drug testing.

Police who pull over drivers will be able to use the technology to scan pupils to detect the level of tiredness, News Corp reports.

The cameras will be trialled for a year as part of a research project by Monash University and VicRoads.

Once the trial is over, the technology could soon be implemented depending on the results.

Fatigued drivers will be targeted by the high-tech cameras being trialled by VicRoads and Monash University. Source: Getty Images

According to the Victorian Transport Accident Commission, if a driver falls asleep for just four seconds while travelling at 100km/h, the car will have gone more than 100 metres without the driver being in control.

It claims fatigue is the major cause of crashes in Victoria, with 50 deaths and about 300 injuries each year.

Shift workers, drivers with sleep disorders and young drivers are believed to be most at risk.

News Corp reports those taking part in the camera trial will be forced to stay awake for 32 hours before having their eyes scanned before, during and after a two-hour drive.

The new tests will work must like roadside drug and alcohol tests. Source: Getty Images

A driving instructor will sit alongside the fatigued participant in a dual control vehicle during next months trial.

VicRoads road user and vehicle access director Roger Chao said the cameras could provide promising results and save lives, much like alcohol and drug tests.

Monash University Associate Professor Clare Anderson told News Corp peoples pupils changed depending on their fatigue level and technology could detect it.

The next step is to determine how well this technology correlates with poor driving by drivers who we know are tired, she said.High school students have allegedly baked cookies containing human ashes and served them to classmates.

The cookies were served to students at a US school and are said to contain the ashes of one of the students relatives.

Students at the Da Vinci Charter Academy High School in California have alleged that the cookies were distributed on campus and contained the cremated remains of a fellow students grandfather.

The students filed reports with the school resources officer, claiming that two female students had brought in homemade sugar cookies that were later revealed to have contained the ashes of one of their grandfathers, according to the Davis Police Department.

Up to nine students may have consumed the cookies and none were ill as a result, Davis Police Lieutenant Paul Doroshov told Yahoo Lifestyle.

While they cant necessarily confirm the presence of human remains in the baked goods, the statements made by students appear to be credible.

Students allegedly put human ashes in sugar cookies in California. Source: Getty (file pic)

Were getting this based on the statements, Lt Doroshov said.

The school resource officer believes that the statements are credible.

Other factors need investigation.

Were gonna let the school lead on the disposition of this case.

However, the school district admitted this incident is a challenge to deal with, in a statement to Yahoo Lifestyle.

While we cannot comment on confidential student matters, the physical and social-emotional safety of our students is always our first priority, a spokesperson from the Davis Joint Unified School District said.

Students are safe, and there is no health risk at the Da Vinci Charter campus or to anyone involved,.

This recent case has been particularly challenging, and we have responded appropriately and in the most respectful and dignified way possible.

The homemade sugar cookies were handed to classmates. Source: Getty (file pic)

The high schools principal, Tyler Millsap, released a statement on the schools website on Tuesday.

The story circulating in the media is something on which I cannot comment, but let me be clear that there is no health risk  to our campus or to any one of our students, he said.

Story continues

I can say that those who were involved are remorseful and this is now a personal family matter and we want to respect the privacy of the families involved.

Lt Doroshov maintains that the criminality of the case is difficult to determine as well, since the case is so unconventional.

We took it as a public nuisance report, which probably fits in that criteria the most, Lt Doroshov said.

As far as their criminal violations, we dont know what they did.

The ghastly cookies come after a woman in Melbourne claimed that she found a fingernail inside a Coles chocolate chip cookie in July.Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir on Wednesday appointed a peace envoy to South Sudan, mired in conflict since it won independence from its northern neighbour in 2011. Former ambassador to Juba, Jamal al-Sheikh, was put in charge of "following the implementation" of the peace deal signed last month by warring South Sudanese parties, Bashir told a gathering of Sudanese diplomats. "Peace in Sudan cannot be separated from peace in the region, and achieving peace in South Sudan is a big step towards a comprehensive peace," he said. Civil war in the world's youngest country erupted in December 2013, killing tens of thousands, displacing millions and triggering a regional refugee crisis. South Sudanese arch-foes President Salva Kiir and rebel chief Riek Machar signed their latest peace deal on September 12 in Ethiopia after talks hosted by Khartoum. South Sudan gained independence under a peace deal ending a 22-year civil war pitting rebel groups against Khartoum. But the Darfur region and the states of Blue Nile and South Kordofan, close to oil-rich South Sudan, have continued to see deadly conflict pitting rebel groups against the Sudanese government. Khartoum accuses Juba of supporting insurgents against it. A US-funded survey released recently estimated that nearly 400,000 people have been killed in the conflict in South Sudan. Jamal al-Sheikh, Sudan's peace envoy to South Sudan, is seen at the foreign ministry headquarters in Khartoum on October 17, 2018A man suspected of the rape and murder of Bulgarian television journalist Viktoria Marinova was extradited from Germany to Bulgaria on Wednesday, officials said. "He was transferred (and is) on Bulgarian territory," a Bulgarian justice ministry spokeswoman told AFP. The plane reportedly carrying the 20-year-old suspect, who has been named as Severin Krasimirov, arrived at Sofia airport shortly before 7:00 pm (1600 GMT). Live media broadcasts showed judicial police vehicles leaving the tarmac shortly after. The body of 30-year-old television presenter Viktoria Marinova was found near a jogging path next to the Danube in the northern town of Ruse on October 6. Authorities said that she had died from blows to the head and suffocation and that she had also been raped. The case has shocked Bulgaria and drawn strong international condemnation. Although many commentators have suggested a connection between the crime and Marinova's work, investigators say they have seen no evidence to support this theory. Krasimirov was arrested in the German town of Stade, near the northern city of Hamburg, on October 9. Krasimirov told German investigators he had had an argument with the victim and punched her in the face, but denied raping her, according to a statement issued by the German regional court that handled his extradition. However Bulgaria's chief prosecutor Sotir Tsatsarov told the Nova TV channel on Tuesday that the evidence pointing at Krasimirov was "more than solid". From Sofia, Krasimirov will be transferred to police detention in Ruse, over 300 kilometres (186 miles) northeast of the capital. From there, he will be fingerprinted and will undergo DNA and psychiatric tests before being officially indicted. Tsatsarov has said that Krasimirov will be charged for rape and intentional murder perpetrated in an extremely vicious manner. If convicted, he risks a maximum sentence of life without parole. Bulgarian journalist Viktoria Marinova presented a current affairs talk programme called "Detector" for the small TVN television channelThe United Nations envoy for Syria announced on Wednesday he will step down at the end of November after more than four years in the key post as UN efforts to end the seven-year war show no sign of a breakthrough. "I will myself be moving on as of the last week of November," Staffan de Mistura told the UN Security Council during a meeting on the crisis in Syria. The Italian-Swedish diplomat, who is the UN's third Syria envoy in six years, said he was leaving for "purely personal reasons," citing the need to give his family "a little bit of attention" after a long stint in the demanding post. De Mistura will be traveling to Damascus next week to push for the creation of a committee to agree on a post-war constitution for Syria that would pave the way to elections. That plan has been under discussion since January when it was announced at a conference organized by Russia, a key Syrian ally, but it has since been bogged down in bickering over the committee's composition. The Syria government is objecting to the UN-led effort to include civil society representatives, religious and tribal leaders, experts and women on the panel, the envoy said. De Mistura said he hoped the committee will be up and running in November, before he leaves. "I am not laying down the charge until the last hour of the last day of my mandate," he said. More than 360,000 people have died in Syria's war, which began in March 2011 as an uprising against President Bashar al-Assad but has morphed into a complex conflict with myriad armed groups, some of whom are foreign-backed. - Envoy number three - De Mistura was appointed UN envoy for Syria in July 2014 after veteran Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi resigned following the failure of peace talks in Geneva. Brahimi spent two years in the position, stepping in after former UN chief Kofi Annan quit just six months into the role. Annan had described the Syria envoy's job as "mission impossible." De Mistura's departure will complicate UN peace efforts at a time when Syrian forces have made significant territorial gains, prompting discussion about the terms of a political settlement to end the war. Western powers maintain that there will be no reconstruction aid to Syria before a final settlement is reached. During his tenure, De Mistura worked to keep UN-sponsored peace talks alive even as fighting on the ground, which has seen deadly chemical weapons attacks, killed off chances of a deal. Last year, Russia, Iran and Turkey set up the Astana process to advance diplomatic efforts in Syria, a move that effectively sidelined the UN-led process that De Mistura was shepherding in Geneva. Still, the 71-year-old diplomat, who is said to speak seven languages and favors pince-nez spectacles over conventional glasses, showed tenacity in the job. While there were no breakthroughs in talks in Geneva, he insisted that incremental progress was being made. Following his mission to Damascus, De Mistura will return to the Security Council in November for his final briefing. Among the names being floated as a possible successor are the UN's Middle East peace coordinator Nickolay Mladenov and the UN envoy for Iraq Jan Kubic, according to UN diplomats. UN special envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura will step down next month after more than four years in the top post A man drives his motorcycle past a damaged building in Idlib province, Syria's last main rebel stronghold Global design and technology firm leverages virtual reality to

inform innovative design process 

LONDON, Oct. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- IBI Group (TSX: IBG) is the Lead Architect for the multi-million-pound National Satellite Test Facility (NSTF) at the Science and Technology Facilities Councils (STFC) RAL Space, located south of Oxford. Working in collaboration with RAL Space, IBI is leading the multi-disciplinary design team in the delivery of these facilities that will serve the international space community. Expected to be operational in 2021, the facility aligns with the UK governments commitment to boost the national space sector, which underpins industries worth more than 250 billion.

The National Satellite Test Facility is designed to accommodate a range of test equipment, all within a cleanroom environment, to replicate the range of conditions the satellite has to endure, from the vibrations during launch through to the temperature extremes in outer space. There are five processes involved in fully testing a satellite within the facility, beginning with determining the precise centre of gravity so that it is loaded correctly within the launch craft. During testing, the NSTF will be home to visiting satellite test teams and an array of specialist technical equipment.

The NSTF is a first-of-its-kind facility for the UK and therefore presents some unique technical challenges for the integrated design and construction team. The fast track programme means IBI Group is harnessing technology-led tools such as BIM and extensive virtual reality (VR) modelling to fully immerse the stakeholders in the design process and support complex decision making, said Andrew Fursdon, IBI Group London Higher Education and Science Lead.

In addition to the NSTF, IBI Group will also be designing the Phase 2 extension to the existing RAL space facility, which carries out pioneering space research and technology development and has been involved in over 210 successful space missions. These facilities form part of a wider investment to further establish the Science and Technology Facilities Council at the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus as the focal point for large science, world-class research and innovation. It will enable the UK space sector to build bigger, more technologically-advanced satellites and test these in a single location, making a significant contribution to the commercial space age.

IBI Group has a rich history designing research facilities and technical laboratories for higher education institutions across the globe. Notable projects include: CUBRIC, a state of the art brain imaging facility for Cardiff University on its Innovation Campus; several research facilities for leading Institutes at Oxford University; Al Jalila Medical Research Centre, an independent academic research hub in Dubai, UAE; and Sensor City and Liverpool Life Science Accelerator, which form part of Liverpools Knowledge Quarter.

Leveraging emerging technologies, including virtual and augmented reality, to inform the design process is an integral part of the firms new Strategic Plan , A Smarter Urban Future, released in May 2018. The Plan maps out the firms transformation to a technology-driven design firm, future-proofing IBI Group through four, bold, strategic streams.

For more information or to speak with an IBI Group professional, please contact Hemantha Perera Trevelyan at hemantha.pereratrevelyan@ibigroup.com or +44 7966022123.

About IBI Group

IBI Group Inc. (TSX:IBG) is a globally integrated architecture, planning, engineering, and technology firm with over 2,700 professionals around the world. For more than 40 years, its dedicated professionals have helped clients create livable, sustainable, and advanced urban environments. IBI Group believes that cities must be designed with intelligent systems, sustainable buildings, efficient infrastructure, and a human touch. Follow us on Twitter @ibigroup and Instagram @ibi_group .

Media Contact:

Hemantha Perera Trevelyan, IBI Group

hemantha.pereratrevelyan@ibigroup.com

+44 20 7079 9900

or +44 7966022123Staffan de Mistura announced Wednesday he will resign as UN envoy to Syria, becoming the third person to quit the post after years of fruitless efforts to end the country's war. De Mistura, who said he was leaving for "purely personal reasons", organised nine rounds of indirect negotiations in Geneva and Vienna between the warring parties, without results. The war, which broke out in March 2011, has left 360,000 dead and displaced more than half of the population, millions of whom have fled the country. - Kofi Annan: did his 'best' - On February 23, 2012, the UN names its former secretary-general Kofi Annan to represent both it and the Arab League in efforts towards ending "violence and human rights violations, and promoting a peaceful solution to the Syrian crisis". Annan visits Damascus several times to meet President Bashar al-Assad. In April he puts forward a six-point peace plan backed by the Security Council, providing for a reciprocal ceasefire from April 12. It never takes hold. Annan resigns on August 2 after months of fruitless efforts, saying he has done his "best" and complaining the plan did not receive the support it deserved from major powers. "The increasing militarisation on the ground and the lack of unanimity in the Security Council fundamentally changed my role," he says. "I did not receive all the support that the cause deserved," he adds, implicitly referring to Russian and Chinese vetoes of three Security Council resolutions on Syria since the start of the crisis. Since 2011 Russia has used its veto 12 times to protect its Syrian ally from Western pressure. - Brahimi: 'sad' to leave - On August 17, 2012, former Algerian foreign minister Lakhdar Brahimi takes over from Annan as UN-Arab league envoy to Syria. In September he urges "all parties to stop the violence," adding that "the government assumes greater responsibility" for the cessation of hostilities. In January and February 2014, he organises the first face-to-face negotiations between the Syrian government and opposition in Geneva, under the leadership of the United States and Russia. However he comes up against the regime's refusal to discuss the fate of Assad. On May 13, after less than two years of fruitless efforts, Brahimi also resigns. He says he is "very sad ... (to) leave Syria behind in such a bad state" and that the situation in Syria is "very difficult, but not desperate". Syria welcomes the resignation, having accused Brahimi of bias and interference in its internal affairs after he criticised its planned June 2014 presidential election as a blow to peace efforts.Staffan de Mistura announced Wednesday he will resign as UN envoy to Syria, becoming the third person to quit the post after years of fruitless efforts to end the country's war. De Mistura, who said he was leaving for "purely personal reasons", organised nine rounds of indirect negotiations in Geneva and Vienna between the warring parties, without results. The war, which broke out in March 2011, has left 360,000 dead and displaced more than half of the population, millions of whom have fled the country. - Kofi Annan: did his 'best' - On February 23, 2012, the UN names its former secretary-general Kofi Annan to represent both it and the Arab League in efforts towards ending "violence and human rights violations, and promoting a peaceful solution to the Syrian crisis". Annan visits Damascus several times to meet President Bashar al-Assad. In April he puts forward a six-point peace plan backed by the Security Council, providing for a reciprocal ceasefire from April 12. It never takes hold. Annan resigns on August 2 after months of fruitless efforts, saying he has done his "best" and complaining the plan did not receive the support it deserved from major powers. "The increasing militarisation on the ground and the lack of unanimity in the Security Council fundamentally changed my role," he says. "I did not receive all the support that the cause deserved," he adds, implicitly referring to Russian and Chinese vetoes of three Security Council resolutions on Syria since the start of the crisis. Since 2011 Russia has used its veto 12 times to protect its Syrian ally from Western pressure. - Brahimi: 'sad' to leave - On August 17, 2012, former Algerian foreign minister Lakhdar Brahimi takes over from Annan as UN-Arab league envoy to Syria. In September he urges "all parties to stop the violence," adding that "the government assumes greater responsibility" for the cessation of hostilities. In January and February 2014, he organises the first face-to-face negotiations between the Syrian government and opposition in Geneva, under the leadership of the United States and Russia. However he comes up against the regime's refusal to discuss the fate of Assad. On May 13, after less than two years of fruitless efforts, Brahimi also resigns. He says he is "very sad ... (to) leave Syria behind in such a bad state" and that the situation in Syria is "very difficult, but not desperate". Syria welcomes the resignation, having accused Brahimi of bias and interference in its internal affairs after he criticised its planned June 2014 presidential election as a blow to peace efforts. Staffan de Mistura (pictured December 2017), who announced he is leaving his position as UN envoy to Syria for "purely personal reasons", organised nine rounds of indirect negotations between the warring parties, without results UN former secretary-general Kofi Annan (pictured June 2014)put forward a six-point peace plan for Syria in 2012, but resigned after months of fruitless efforts, saying the plan did not receive the support it deserved from major powers Former Algerian foreign minister Lakhdar Brahimi (pictured January 2014) took over from Annan, but resigned after less than two years after coming up against the Syrian regime's refusal to discuss the fate of AssadA Russian-Turkish deal for a buffer zone around Syria's last rebel stronghold was a "major step" that has "frozen" the country's devastating seven-year war, a US envoy said Wednesday. James Jeffrey, Washington's special representative on Syria, spoke a day after regime ally Russia and rebel backer Turkey said their agreement creating a demilitarised zone skirting Idlib province was on course despite jihadists missing a Monday deadline to withdraw. The deal "is a major step because what it's done is it has frozen the conflict not only there, but the conflict is also frozen essentially everywhere else," Jeffrey told journalists in the Turkish capital Ankara. The agreement, reached last month, was seen as forestalling a devastating regime assault on the area, which hosts around three million people. It gave opposition and jihadist fighters until October 10 to clear the buffer zone of any heavy weapons. But Monday's second deadline for the withdrawal of "radical" fighters -- taken to mean jihadist heavyweight Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and other hardliners -- was seen as the accord's real test. On Tuesday, more than 24 hours after the deadline, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said there were "no signs" HTS fighters were evacuating. But Jeffrey said Wednesday that "by and large the Russians seem to be willing to continue this". Jeffrey said US officials and their Turkish counterparts were now discussing "revitalising the political process now that you have essentially a de facto, or at least temporary ceasefire throughout the country" apart from minor battles and a US-led campaign against Islamic State group holdouts. US special representative on Syria James Jeffrey, shown in this file photo, has called the Russian-Turkish deal for a buffer zone around Syria's Idlib a "major step" that has "frozen" the country's devastating warSeveral people have monuments in the sanctuary of the United Ministry of Aurora, but perhaps the most impressive is that of William W. Howard, D.D., who was pastor for just eight years, 1863-1871. No other minister has this distinction. Who was this man, and what did he do in such a brief time to be remembered in this way?

The monument is a large marble slab with a gable top inserted into the south wall of the church, near the pulpit. In deeply engraved letters it reads: "William W. Howard DD / Born in London / Sept 19 1817 / educated at Oxford University / installed pastor of this church / Aug 25, 1863 / Died July 1, 1871 / cultured, faithful, beloved." The monument was given by philanthropist E.B. Morgan in 1874.

Howards parents were Thomas and Anna Howard. His middle name, Washington, was his mothers surname. After Oxford, Howard started a long career as a secondary school educator. Did his middle name affect his destiny? In 1849, after teaching several years in London, Howard, accompanied by his wife, Katherine, age 34, and son Erskine, 11, arrived in the United States on May 5 on the Hendistan. Katherine was born in Calcutta, India.

The Howards changed residence often, seeming to seek adventure rather than riches. Howard first taught in Mount Vernon in Posey County, Indiana. Next, he worked in Kentucky (a slave state), at Western Military Institute/College in Drennon Springs, where his son enrolled as a student. Some years later, he worked at a school in Ossining in the Hudson Valley. Still later, he was principal of a high school in Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania, where he became a Freemason, a member of La Belle Vallee Lodge No. 232. In 1854, he published a book, "An Aid to French Composition." In 1851, Katherine gave birth to a daughter, also named Katherine.

Did Howard, who was a Londoner, always have his eyes set on the big city? In any case, in 1860 he was named principal of Erasmus Hall Academy in Flatbush, Brooklyn, a school founded in 1786, 4 1/2 miles (by stage) from Fulton Ferry, departures every half hour. In October 1863, the school trustees reported that the entire discipline of the Hall has been greatly improved.

His son Erskine, a graduate of Western Military College, also took a job at the school, in the male department, teaching military science. But tragedy struck: Katherine died in 1862 at age 43, leaving Howard alone with his son and daughter.

Sometime during these years Howard became licensed as a preacher, and he was in Brooklyn when he received a call to be pastor of the Aurora Presbyterian Church at a salary of $700 per annum. The call is described as a very urgent call to the pastorate. However urgent the call, this was not much money, to say the least, but Henry Morgan, his brother E.B. Morgan and Henry Wells each kicked in $100 to make it a thousand. Howard accepted the call and left for Aurora with his daughter, then 12. Son Erskine remained in Flatbush.

The circumstances of his call are unclear. The New York metropolitan area was smaller then. Probably E.B. Morgan, or his brother Henry, or Henry Wells, or all three, had heard of this transplanted Englishman, an Oxford grad no less, during their frequent visits to New York. Howard knew Greek, and could read the New Testament in the original! At Erasmus Hall, he was described as a gentleman of the highest classical attainments.

Howard arrived in Aurora in 1863 and seemed to sweep all before him. In 1864 he married Maria Avery, daughter of Daniel and Freelove Avery, one of the first families of Aurora. Daniel, a veteran of the Revolution, also served in the House of Representatives. In 1865, Howard joined Scipio Lodge No. 110. A second daughter, Margaret Avery Howard, was born in 1868.

In the late 1860s, Henry Wells was busy establishing Wells College. In 1868, he asked Howard, who had administrative experience, to be its first president. Howard probably hesitated; he was reluctant to leave his parish after only five years. In the end, he accepted the offer but kept his pastorate. His job as president paid $1,000, minus a charge for his daughters tuition. He was making almost twice as much money as before, but working two jobs!

In her "Wells College, a History," Jane Marsh Dieckmann describes Howard as something of a figurehead who made appropriate speeches at special occasions, but recognizes that he had the responsibilities of his church, and that at the college  which was then more a prep school than a college  he also taught Greek and Latin, and served as treasurer.

Toward the end of his first year as president, Howard was probably torn. He was taking too much time from his job at the church. Perhaps his heart was starting to bother him. Matters were not helped when news arrived of his sons death in Flatbush on April 21 at age 31. Howard stepped down from his post at Wells and went back to his church full-time. Hamilton College awarded him an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree in 1870.

Howard died of heart failure a year later on July 1, 1871, at age 52. He is buried in Oak Glen Cemetery in Aurora on a knoll facing Cayuga Lake. Readers can probably decide for themselves why he has his monument in the United Ministry.

Howards grave in Oak Glen Cemetery in Aurora is also the resting place of his two wives, and of his daughter with his second wife, who was born in 1833 and died in 1893, age 59. This second daughter, Margaret Avery Howard, was born in 1868 and died in 1924, apparently without issue. Howards first daughter, Katherine, became later in life Kitty Howard Caldwell, mother of Louise Caldwell.

Perhaps Chaucers line on the clerk, or scholar, in "The Canterbury Tales" might also apply to Howard, and provide a fitting end to this essay: And gladly would he learn, and gladly teach.

Ed Rossmann lives in Aurora and has been an educator most of his life, including 17 years in high school. Information for this article was gathered from newspapers, census records, school histories, ship passenger lists, legal notices, gravestones, Find A Grave and more. Most of these documents were assembled by archivist Dori Gottschalk-Fielding of Seymour Library in Auburn.

Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0October is LGBT History Month. LGBT stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender. Activism and public and legal acceptance of the members of this community have a relatively short history, and many advocates have literally paid with their lives or their careers. The modern LGBT movement is considered to have begun in June 1968, when protests turned to riots after police raided the Stonewall Inn, a New York City gay bar. In May 2016, the site was recognized as a national historic monument.

When I learned that True Colors, a sexuality and gender awareness club, had just started meeting at Auburn High School, I wanted to know more about it. I contacted Erin Shurant, the club advisor, and she told me one of the first projects the club worked on was making posters for Ally Week, which was celebrated Sept. 24-28.

Ally Week was founded by GLSEN (the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, pronounced glisten) to provide educational resources, advocate for safe-school policies, empower students and encourage the general public to become supporters, or allies, of the LGBT community. The posters made by the Auburn students have been on display in the main lobby of the high school.

For the purpose of this article, I have been asked to use only first names of the club members I spoke with. I believe their stories need to be heard.

Janet said, There are a lot of LGBT kids in the high school. Now were being more open about it, and we hope others will be encouraged to find support.

Lexi, now in 11th grade, said, I wanted to join the club as a freshman, but I was hesitant. Im bi. I just want to figure myself out and be happy.

Alexander, a trans male, said, It was hard in the beginning, especially with my mom and some others, but were working through it together.

Sly said, Im really glad there is a club like this here in school. Im gender-fluid, so I experience gender on a range of identities.

After this comment, Ms. Shurant added, Gender identity is on a spectrum. We try to fight against the box mentality. There are students here who are comfortable with who they are, but some others may be afraid to be known as part of LGBT. And gender identity and sexual orientation are not the same thing.

In simple terms, gender identity means whether individuals see themselves as male, female, both or neither, while being lesbian, gay, bisexual or "straight" describes who we are attracted to physically and emotionally.

The first openly trans person I ever met was my friend Jack. Obviously, there were things I did not understand. We had developed a good relationship, so he knew I was being respectful and was just trying to understand when I asked, So you identify as a man, but you have a womans body?

And he answered, very comfortably, No, I have my body.

That simple, confident response to my question really helped me to see Jacks perspective. Its amazing what we can learn about each other when we just sit and talk.

Ms. Shurant said, All kids need straight allies. A few weeks ago, I did not know what an LGBT ally was, but now I do, and I am proud to be one. I hope others will join me.

The True Colors LGBT club meets from 2:30 to 3:15 p.m. Mondays in Room C208, and all interested students are invited to attend.

Joe Sarnicola is retired from the Auburn Enlarged City School District. He can be reached at joesarnicola@yahoo.com.

Love 2 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 1 Angry 0AUBURN  A Cayuga County Legislature committee Tuesday approved a resolution to create a unified Department of Public Works to manage all the county's facilities.

The Legislature's Ways and Means committee approved the resolution to combine the county's Highway Department, Buildings and Grounds Department, Parks and Trails, and the county sealer of the Weights and Measures into one department. The resolution will now advance to the full Legislature.

A public hearing on a proposed local law to create the department is scheduled for Oct. 23 prior to the full Legislature meeting at 10 a.m. In April, the Legislature voted to direct County Administrator J. Justin Woods and county staff to draft such a law.

Woods on Tuesday explained that much of the reasoning came from the CGR consultant's report, which pointed to both operational advantages and long term fiscal planning benefits of creating a unified department.

To form part of the base of its recommendation, the report compared Cayuga County to 10 peer counties with higher or lower populations. All but two counties had at least some form of integration between departments.

The proposed law would create a Department of Public Works divided into three divisions: an Administration Division, a Highway Division, and a Buildings and Grounds division.

At the head of the entire department would be a Director of Public Works, who would have all the responsibilities of a highway department superintendent as well as additional responsibilities.

A general supervisor would manage the Highway Division underneath the director. Currently, the Highway Department is run by acting Superintendent Dan Bowen with the help of Bill Dashnaw, formerly the superintendent of St. Lawrence county's highway department, acting as a consultant.

The Buildings and Grounds Department, including the Parks and Trails department under it, would maintain its own superintendent but answer to the director of public works.

As an example of how the combined structure could benefit the county, Woods pointed to the busy summer season for the Parks and Trails department. If parks staff was overwhelmed with summer events, highway staff, who would also be cross-trained and share a set of skills with the staff of other divisions, could jump in to help and vice versa.

The changes would also allow for more effective mid- and long-term capital planning, something Legislators Joe DeForest, D-Venice and Aileen McNabb Coleman, D-Sennett, said they were grateful for.

"That's supposedly something we've been asking for as long as I've been here," DeForest said.

Based on Woods' proposal, the director position is the only new hire required for the department, as the general supervisor position would effectively replace Dashnaw, at a similar pay rate, once his consultancy is finished.

The director position would likely come with a salary of $90,000 to $110,000. While that represents an increase of approximately $20,000 to $30,000 from the currently budgeted salary for a highway superintendent, Woods said that would still be in line with what superintendents in peer counties are paid, without the additional duties.

Legislator Ryan Foley, D-Auburn asked at the meeting about two additional positions outlined in Woods' presentation, wondering if they were part of the currently proposed law.

Woods, also responding to Legislator Elane Daly's, D-Auburn, question as to whether the positions would go through resolutions for hiring, said there were currently no plans to add them, and they were being included for transparency and planning's sake.

"I didn't want to come back to you in two years and have you go 'Well, when was this?'" Woods said.

The committee voted to send the resolution to the full Legislature.

The full Legislature meeting will be held at 10 a.m. Oct. 23, instead of the usual evening time, as a part of Student Government Day. The Legislature is expected, but not required, to vote on the proposal following the public hearing for the law.

Staff writer Ryan Franklin can be reached at (315) 282-2252 or ryan.franklin@lee.net. Follow him on Twitter @RyanNYFranklin

Love 1 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0The growing season is expected to come to an end in much of the Cayuga County area overnight, with temperatures dipping into the 20s, the National Weather Service said Wednesday.

A freeze warning has been issued for an area of upstate New York that includes the southern half of Cayuga County and all of Seneca and Onondaga counties from midnight through 10 a.m. Thursday.

Temperatures are expected to drop into the upper 20s. "A freeze warning means sub-freezing temperatures are imminent or highly likely. These conditions will kill crops and other sensitive vegetation."

For more weather information, visit auburnpub.com/weather.

Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0AUBURN  The Owasco Watershed Lake Association released the results of its 2017 Tributary Sampling Results survey, a program designed to identify potential sources of harmful algal bloom-promoting nutrients for mitigation projects.

OWLA Board of Directors member Dana Hall, speaking at a meeting of the Owasco Lake Watershed Management Council Tuesday, explained how OWLA took samples from 17 of Owasco Lake's tributaries in an effort to determine levels of phosphorous and nitrogen coming into the lake.

At tributaries including Sucker Brook, Dutch Hollow, Veness Brook, Dresserville Creek and more, OWLA volunteers took direct water samples that were sent to a lab in Syracuse to analyze levels of nitrates, ammonia and bioavailable phosphorous  the amount of the chemical easily used by organisms as opposed to the total amount in the water.

Samples were taken primarily after large rain events, Hall said, when nutrients on land would be flushed into water.

The Benson Road tributary, for example, showed a bioavailable phosphorous level of 250 micrograms per liter on Oct. 30 2017, while the Martin Point tributary showed just over 50 micrograms per liter. For comparison, the base level of total phosphorous in the lake itself averages 15 micrograms per liter, according to the report.

Another notable measurement came on Nov. 15, when a sample taken near Firelane 26 at Wycoff Road showed a nitrate level of nearly 6,000 micrograms per liter, compared to the lake average of 500 per liter.

Hall noted that, because of the volunteer nature of the program, not all of the tributaries were regularly sampled. Additionally, some samples that appeared to be outliers could be the result of bad readings, Hall said.

While the volunteers followed standard Department of Environmental Conservation procedures, Hall said there was always the chance for anomalies.

For example, a Nov. 15 sample at the Rockefeller Road tributary near Adams Point, which should have had just over 600 micrograms per liter of ammonia, could simply have caught a "chunk" of nutrients or the load from one event which would later dissipate. Of course, the result could also be accurate.

With the data from 2017 in hand, OWLA volunteers focused on five tributaries  Sucker Brook, Martin Point, Dutch Hollow Brook, Benson Road and Veness Brook  with the most consistent high results to more specifically narrow down "hot spots" where nutrients are entering the tributaries.

At Dutch Hollow Brook, which showed a phosphorous level of more than 200 micrograms per liter on Oct. 30, OWLA volunteers met with a farmer whose property bordered the tributary.

Contrary to the perception that farmers are unwilling to mitigate the amount of nutrients coming off their land, often considered one of the leading nutrient sources in the watershed, Hall said the owner was cooperative and concerned with locating and mitigating the source.

"They have every reason to be concerned," Hall said, noting that nutrient loss means soil loss, which ultimately poses a risk to the farmer's bottom line.

That kind of cooperation for watershed projects is "how it's supposed to work," Management Council Chair Ed Wagner said.

Wagner mentioned another instance where a dairy farmer's cows were in a tributary. Despite some initial resistance, the farmer eventually said it was the best thing that ever happened to him, Wagner said, after OWLA connected him to the Cayuga County Soil and Water District to help him find grant funding for a mitigation project.

"I think OWLA's work is an example of how getting the data and science is followed by implementation," Wagner said.

Staff writer Ryan Franklin can be reached at (315) 282-2252 or ryan.franklin@lee.net. Follow him on Twitter @RyanNYFranklin

Love 2 Funny 1 Wow 1 Sad 0 Angry 0When the Auburn Enlarged City School District Board of Education decided three years ago to ask for the public's blessing on two special propositions, its choice to hold the vote in January drew some scorn.

The complaints included the unpredictability of the weather (what happens if there's a major snow storm?) as well as restrictions a winter vote would place on residents who retreat to warmer climates that time of year. Some skeptics also believed that the district might be purposely trying to shut out the demographic that tends to be out of town in January  senior citizens  because those residents tend to vote against such measures.

The district said its only reason for the January vote was project timelines. The measures it was putting forth in January 2016  installing synthetic turf at Holland Stadium and selling the West Middle School building to an affordable housing developer  would be in jeopardy of being finished severely late or of falling through altogether if votes were pushed back to the spring.

Now we're seeing a similar situation develop in 2018. The district is considering putting a multi-phase $43.7 million project before voters in a January 2019 vote. Again, we're hearing from readers who believe this is an attempt to rig the system. Again, the district says it's a timing issue.

Given the volume of capital projects being pushed through by school districts across the state and the backlog it's created in the approval process, we can understand the district's desire to get this process started as quickly as possible.

But there is one thing the district can do to help maximize participation in a vote on this project, no matter when it's held. It can engage in a concerted outreach effort to make sure eligible voters know how they can vote via an absentee ballot.

To that end, people wanting to vote on a school district project proposal but who know they can't get to the polls on the scheduled voting day, have an option besides complaining. They can take the few steps required to get an absentee ballot. (This also goes for voting in any type of election, any time of the year.)

Ultimately, the goal for any vote should be to maximize the turnout, and all of us should play our role in trying to make that happen.

Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0LAWRENCE, Kan.As every politically aware adult industry member and fan must know, there are dozens of websites on the World Wide Web that are only too happy to print any article or screed whose subject matter is, essentially, "Why Porn Is So Bad for You." Such sites include, most prominently, FightTheNewDrug.org, an offshoot of the equally scurrilous National Center On Sexual Exploitation, or NCOSE, the successor to Morality In Media. But plenty of other religio-conservative groups have taken up that calling as well, including Family Research Council, Parents Television Council, Concerned Women For America, Focus on the Family, and of course anti-porn activist Gail Dines' own website, but there are plenty more.

Countering those anti-fappers are a number of researchers such as Dr. Neil Malamuth, Dr. Chauntelle Tibbals, Dr. Marty Klein and several others, many of whom can be found in the peer-reviewed academic journal Porn Studies. But considering the vast religio-conservative armies amassed against the adult industry, and the general lack of will within the industry to support research to counter the poor scholarship and outright lies that make up the "anti-porn research" industry, kudos must be given to Pornhub, whose roughly two-year-old "official philanthropic division" Pornhub Cares has just awarded a trio of researchers at the University of Kansas $25,000 to fund research into just how porn viewers (including the 28.5 billion who spent 4.6 billion hours looking at it on Pornhub last year) use porn in their everyday lives and how such viewing affects those livesif it does at all to any significant degree.

According to an article on the website Inverse.com, University of Kansas psychology professor Omri Gillath, Ph.D., together with collaborators Dr. Ateret Gewirtz-Meydan and doctoral candidate Katie Adams will be carrying out a total of three studies over the next year and a half, all dedicated to "investigating the concern that porn is a part of day-to-day life ... but we know nearly nothing about its short- and long-term effects."

"For many years there was a trend," said Gillath. "Researchers with a negative bias coming into the area and almost forcing their negative bias on the research of porn."

However, Gillath hasn't made any promises to Pornhub that it will necessarily like the conclusions he and his team may reach after completing their research, especially in light of Gillath's statement that, "This is where people are getting some of the sex ed, for better or worse," referring to the plethora of online porn, and noting that "it takes some sort of education and explanation" to make sure people still forming their ideas about sex and sexuality understand that porn is not real lifesuch as the widespread notion among some younger porn viewers that all women like anal sex.

"Unfortunately for some people, porn is replacing what used to be a level-headed education about these things, and it adds a lot of anxiety and a lot of stress and all kinds of maladjustments," Gillath said.

It's the sort of misinformation that could easily be corrected if public (and private) schools simply had comprehensive sex education courses for teens, but a combination of a lack of federal funding for such teachings together with religio-conservative groups targeting school districts that do offer it, claiming that such education is better handled in the home by parents (who often are even more ignorant of the subject that are their children), makes Gillath's and his associates' work all the more necessary.Danish English





Press release























Holmens Kanal 2  12

DK-1092 Kbenhavn K

Tel +45 45 14 14 00







17 October 2018

Update regarding appointment of new chief executive

As previously announced, Danske Banks Board of Directors is currently recruiting a new chief executive officer to replace Thomas F. Borgen, who resigned his position in September and was relieved of his duties as of 1 October.

In this connection, Danske Banks Board of Directors has asked the Danish Financial Supervisory Authority (the FSA) for approval of Jacob Aarup-Andersen, Member of the Executive Board and Head of Wealth Management, as new CEO. The FSAs preliminary assessment is that it considers the candidate well-qualified in many areas, but also finds that longer experience, including within certain of Danske Banks business areas, is needed. Danske Banks Board of Directors has noted the reply and has withdrawn the application. The Board will thus continue the search for a new CEO, and Jesper Nielsen will continue as Interim CEO until a permanent solution has been found.

The Board of Directors unanimously backed Jacob Aarup-Andersen as new CEO, knowing full well that longer experience in certain areas would have been desirable, says Ole Andersen, Chairman of the Board of Directors. The Board has noted the FSAs reply. The Board is in dialogue with other potential candidates and will now continue the recruitment process in order to find the best possible person for the position.

Jacob Aarup-Andersen will continue in his current position as head of the Wealth Management unit and member of Danske Banks Executive Board.

I am proud and happy that Danske Banks Board of Directors recommended me for the position as CEO, as it is a strong sign of recognition, says Jacob Aarup-Andersen. I have of course noted the FSAs reply and their reasoning.

Danske Bank does not at present wish to comment further on the appointment of a new CEO.

Danske Bank

Contact:

Kenni Leth, Group Press Officer, tel. +45 45 14 14 00

AttachmentEnglish French

Businesses now have flexibility to host applications on private as well as public Cloud

Paris, Munich, October 17, 2018 - Atos, a global leader in digital transformation and Siemens, a global technology powerhouse, today announce that they now deliver Private Cloud options for the MindSphere Cloud-based IoT Operating System, with the ambition to further accelerate their joint business cooperation in Digital Services and Digital technologies. Selected customers are now able to experience the solution on Microsoft Azure Stack.

The two companies agreed on a preferred partnership for the provision of the solution which fully leverages Microsoft Azure Stack technology as the Private Cloud platform. Microsoft Azure Stack is a solution which allows enterprises to benefit from a private instance of the Microsoft Azure cloud. Atos provides Microsoft Azure Stack as part of Atos' wide set of hybrid Cloud solutions to transform infrastructures and applications.

The private Cloud instance of MindSphere will provide the following benefits:

Data compliance , paramount to sensitive and regulated industries. Atos will run MindSphere in the Atos and Atos customer's datacenters, located in Europe and fully managed according to industry standard Service Level Agreements - making sure enterprise data and connectivity are well managed in accordance to local regulations

, paramount to sensitive and regulated industries. Atos will run MindSphere in the Atos and Atos customer's datacenters, located in Europe and fully managed according to industry standard Service Level Agreements - making sure enterprise data and connectivity are well managed in accordance to local regulations Enhanced application performance and landscape integration - with reduced latencies between the MindSphere environment and associated enterprise applications

More generally, MindSphere offers:

Support for a wide range of devices, industry-specific applications and protocols - and advanced analytics

- and advanced analytics Innovative development environment based on Siemens' open Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) capabilities

Dr. Jan Mrosik, Siemens AG, CEO Digital Factory Division explains: "With this solution, enterprise customers get the best of the three worlds to drive their digital transformation with us: it links the global portfolio of the leading solutions of Siemens Digital Factory with Atos IoT-driven integration, infrastructure, consulting and security services for MindSphere and Microsoft Azure Stack technology. Thanks to the preferred service agreement with Atos, once again we intensify our collaboration and will be able to further support our customers in developing robust industrial IoT solutions on a shorter timeline across various industries."



Gilles Grapinet, Atos Senior Executive Vice President adds: "Together with Siemens, we are taking MindSphere to the next level - thanks to Microsoft Azure Stack technology - by allowing customers to deploy digital-driven business applications in a secure, managed private Cloud infrastructure - thus making sure they get the best Siemens MindSphere experience."

By offering on-premise services, Atos will manage all aspects of cloud infrastructure and delivery, scaling up as business needs change and ensuring performance, security and clarity of reporting at all times.

To find out more about MindSphere, visit our website here.

Siemens MindSphere is a key platform component within Atos Codex, Atos' suite of IoT, analytics and AI solutions and services. As a strategic partner to Siemens, Atos has been one of the first partners to enter the MindSphere ecosystem by developing an approach to Manufacturing IoT exploitation which balances innovation and compliance in equal measure - and most importantly which delivers quantifiable benefit rapidly and reliably. In particular, Atos offers MindSphere customers a structured approach; from quick-start services with first real results to production readiness of MindSphere applications, in order to accelerate the prototyping, validation and deployment of MindSphere applications through automated and predefined use cases.

***

About Atos

Atos is a global leader in digital transformation with 120,000 employees in 73 countries and annual revenue of  13 billion. European number one in Cloud, Cybersecurity and High-Performance Computing, the Group provides end-to-end Orchestrated Hybrid Cloud, Big Data, Business Applications and Digital Workplace solutions through its Digital Transformation Factory, as well as transactional services through Worldline, the European leader in the payment industry. With its cutting-edge technologies and industry knowledge, Atos supports the digital transformation of its clients across all business sectors. The Group is the Worldwide Information Technology Partner for the Olympic & Paralympic Games and operates under the brands Atos, Atos Syntel, Unify and Worldline. Atos is listed on the CAC40 Paris stock index.

About Siemens

Siemens AG (Berlin and Munich) is a global technology powerhouse that has stood for engineering excellence, innovation, quality, reliability and internationality for 170 years. The company is active around the globe, focusing on the areas of electrification, automation and digitalization. One of the world's largest producers of energy-efficient, resource-saving technologies, Siemens is a leading supplier of efficient power generation and power transmission solutions and a pioneer in infrastructure solutions as well as automation, drive and software solutions for industry. With its publicly listed subsidiary Siemens Healthineers AG, the company is also a leading provider of medical imaging equipment - such as computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging systems - and a leader in laboratory diagnostics as well as clinical IT. In fiscal 2017, which ended on September 30, 2017, Siemens generated revenue of 83.0 billion and net income of 6.2 billion. At the end of September 2017, the company had around 377,000 employees worldwide.

Read more About Siemens

Press contacts:

Atos: Lucie Duchateau | +33 7 62 85 35 10 | lucie.duchateau@atos.netPresident Trump has a superpower. His superpower is that he can irritate people into doing the dumbest things imaginable. How else to explain Senator Elizabeth Warren's (D-MA) hilarious self-own today, in which she, in preparation for a 2020 run, released a DNA test supposedly showing her Native American ancestry - a test that showed she was somewhere between 1/64th and 1/1024th Native American? That test provided no solid evidence of Native American ancestry - and even the Cherokee Nation slammed Warren:Ouch.Warren immediately backtracked from statements earlier today in which she said that anow she states thatBut she listed herself as Native for years in the Association of American Law School Directory, and according to The Boston Globe, she "had her ethnicity changed from white to Native American at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where she taught from 1987 to 1995, and at Harvard University Law School, where she was a tenured faculty member starting in 1995."Now, Warren isn't innately dumb - she's a former Harvard Law professor. But Trump has made her dumb. She understands that the Democratic base wants her to attack Trump on every front, and to fight every battle - and she thinks that the media will side with her no matter what she does. But most Americans weren't staying up at night wondering about Warren's ancestry, and she just fell prey to the infamous Streisand Effect: putting a spotlight directly where she doesn't want it. Now we're all paying attention.And before the day is out tomorrow, President Trump will bring the public relations hammer. And it will be glorious.The Constitutional Convention of 1787: Prayer Served a Purpose Just as Prayer Always Serves a Purpose

Here is a trivia question for you: Who were the oldest and youngest delegates at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, in 1787?



The oldest delegate, as many I'm sure remember from your history class, was Benjamin Franklin. He was the delegate from Pennsylvania and he attended the Convention at the ripe old age of 81. The youngest delegate was Jonathan Dayton, age 26, from state of New Jersey.



These two men share in a very special moment at the Convention:



On June 28, almost exactly a month after the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia convened, the 81-year-old Benjamin Franklin rose to address his fellow members. He had become frustrated over the constant and fruitless bickering and the inability of the representatives to made any significant progress in amending the federal government. He noted how some members had already left in disgust.



He began by talking about the fact that they were a well-read group of men; they had enjoyed a classical education and some studied further. In preparing for their important task that summer - of designing an appropriate government to unify the states - they brushed up on their ancient history. They reviewed ancient history and the models of government that were established back then. They analyzed why the Republics of the ancient civilizations and empires ultimately failed. They looked at the modern governments in Europe, but quickly concluded that none were suitable. The delegates at the convention couldn't find any common ground.



And so he suggested that they appeal to God for help.



And then he delivered the first prayer of the Convention:



Mr. President,



The small progress we have made after 4 or five weeks in close attendance and in continual reasonings with each other, with different sentiments on almost every question, is melancholy proof of the imperfection of the Human Understanding. We indeed seem to feel our own want of political wisdom, since we have been running about in search of it. We have gone back to ancient history for models of Government, and examined the different forms of those Republics which having been formed with the seeds of their own dissolution now no longer exist. And we have viewed Modern States all round Europe, but find none of their Constitutions suitable to our circumstances.



In this situation of this Assembly, groping as it were in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, Sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understandings? In the beginning of the Contest with Great Britain, when we were sensible of danger we had daily prayer in this room for the divine protection. Our prayers, Sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending providence in our favor.



To that kind providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? Or do we imagine that we no longer need his assistance? I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth: that God Governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid?



We have been assured, Sir, in the Sacred Writings, in Psalm 117:1a, that "Except the Lord build the House, they labor in vain that build it." I firmly believe this. And I also believe that without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the Builders of Babel. We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and bye word down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing Governments by Human wisdom and leave it to chance, war and conquest.



I therefore beg leave to move that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the Clergy of this City be requested to officiate in that Service.



Out of the 55 delegates at the Convention, only a handful were devoutly religious. And here was Franklin, perhaps one of the least religious of the Founding Fathers, calling for prayer and quoting Scripture. As James Madison noted, in the notes he meticulously took of the Convention, many were deeply moved.



New Jersey delegate Jonathan Dayton reported: "The Doctor sat down; and never did I behold a countenance at once so dignified and delighted as was that of Washington at the dose of the address; nor were the members of the convention generally less affected. The words of the venerable Franklin fell upon our ears with a weight and authority, even greater that we may suppose an oracle to have had in a Roman senate!"



Immediately after Franklin spoke, Roger Sherman of Connecticut seconded his motion for prayer.



But the motion ended up fizzling out among the other participants. There were some who opposed to the motion to appoint chaplains to begin each day with prayer because they had no funds to pay such chaplains. In fact, he recorded his disappointment at the bottom of his prayer speech, writing: "The Convention, except three or four Persons, thought Prayers unnecessary."



What is important to note in this tiny bit of history is that Ben Franklin's passionate plea served to break the stalemate, or impasse, that was crippling the convention. The delegates were dismissed for three days, and some, moved by Franklin's words, attended the Old First Reformed Church, where Rev. William Rogers held a special time of prayer for the proceedings. Dayton reported that when the delegates met again on July 2, much of the animosity was gone: He noted: "We assembled again; and ... every unfriendly feeling had been expelled, and a spirit of conciliation had been cultivated."



While some difficulties continued to arise before the conclusion of the Convention's business in September, the delegates apparently never returned to the fruitless bickering that had existed prior to June 28th. It would certainly be an exaggeration to suggest that the drafting in earnest of the US Constitution began as the result of a prayer delivered at the Convention in Philadelphia, but Franklin's call for prayer clearly played a pivotal role in softening the hearts and opening the minds of the delegates and reminding them that if they intended to proceed with such a critical undertaking without God's help, all their efforts would be in vain.



References:



Ben Franklin's Call for Prayer in the Constitutional Convention," Lost Episodes in American History, March 21, 2013. Referenced at: http://lostepisodes.us/37/



"Benjamin Franklin's Request for Prayers at the Constitutional Convention" - http://www.beliefnet.com/resourcelib/docs/21/benjamin_franklins_request_for_prayers_at_the_constitutional__1.html



"Franklin's Appeal for Prayer at the Constitutional Convention," Wallbuilders - https://wallbuilders.com/franklins-appeal-prayer-constitutional-convention/

Washington, D.C., Oct. 17, 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 Iowa.

Over 330 Iowans lost their lives to drug overdose last year according to preliminary CDC data that is currently underreported. With these new resources added to the ARC, we hope that residents of Iowa can find trustworthy healthcare providers and treatment centers more easily in their moments of crisis, says Jessica Hulsey Nickel, Addiction Policy Forum Founder.

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 and licensed social workers that provide callers with substance use disorder information, education on treatment options, and telehealth support. Iowa residents can call the line at 1-833-301-HELP (4357), Monday through Friday from 8 AM to 5 PM CST.

Weve added this new researched, unbiased database of treatment centers and healthcare providers in Iowa so that Iowa residents can more easily search for the type of help they need. Users can filter the database by their county, type of payment accepted, and type of treatment needed, says Danielle Tarino, Addiction Policy Forum VP of Health Information Technology.

Addiction Policy Forum, which has chapters in 42 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.



The animals we are transporting are all adoptable animals, like Bourbon, a five-year-old, neutered blue nose pit bull, who is on the contingent headed to San Diego. Bourbon is an extremely well-mannered dog who is great with other animals, and will certainly make some family very happy. Photo by Morgan Rivera/The HSUS

790 shares







Our Animal Rescue Team is on the ground in parts of Florida that were ravaged by Hurricane Michael. We are coordinating the movement of adoptable dogs and cats out of shelters affected by the storm and to shelters in other parts of the country, making room for animals who started to flow in before and after the storm hit.

Over this past weekend we coordinated and funded the transport of approximately 30 animals out of Escambia County to the Michigan Humane Society. The animals came from a shelter in Dothan, Alabama, which was hit hard by the hurricane and had such bad infrastructure damage that it destroyed one of the shelters buildings, stranding the animals who had to be temporarily accommodated in crates. Over the course of two days, we also moved more than 80 adoptable dogs and cats from Port St. Joe and Bay County, Florida, into Escambia, and they will soon be sent to other shelters across the country to make room for more animals. Later this week, these animals and other adoptable animals that were at the Escambia shelter will be moved to San Diego and other points west. Three hundred animals are expected to make this lifesaving cross-country journey.

These special souls are all amazing, adoptable animals, like Bourbon, a five-year-old, neutered blue nose pit bull, who is on the contingent headed to San Diego. Bourbon was pulled from the Humane Society of Bay County, which had no electricity or running water after the storm, and was expecting an influx of displaced animals. Our team members drove through devastation and debris to pick up this extremely well-mannered dog and dozens like him to ensure they could be delivered to safety. Bourbon, who is great with other animals, will certainly make some family very happy.

Some of the most important work we do before, during and after a storm is that of coordinating and funding transports of adoptable shelter animals away from decimated areas and into other shelters around the country where they have an opportunity to find a forever home. There are a number of elements our team needs to consider each time there is news of an intensive storm or disaster bearing down on communities across the county to ensure that as many animals affected receive the help they need. This process starts when we reach out to our shelter partners and allies, as well as emergency management officials, to encourage them to move unowned shelter animals out of harms way and secure pet-friendly transportation or shelter for residents evacuating with their animals. We work with animal care officials to identify a hub facility where animals rescued or surrendered after the storm can be accommodated. From this station, we work to move out any adoptable animals at affected shelters to other states or counties.

The need for transporting animals is especially acute this time around, given the scale of the damage Michael caused. Many shelters directly in the storms path, like the shelter in Dothan, took a major hit, stranding hundreds of animals. Michael also came right on the heels of Hurricane Florence. Shelters in adjacent states affected by Florence are still in recovery and have limited capacity for support.

As always, we are poised to serve the needs of all animals affected, from chickens to cows and everything in between. Michael permanently changed the landscape of the Panhandle, leveling homes and trees, and turning communities into heaps of debris. Animals affected by the storm are disoriented and still struggling for survival. Our Animal Rescue Team is there, on the ground, to offer immediate relief and support for the animals, the professionals in the state who are working to protect animals every day, and the people that love their pets.

The lasting effects of Hurricane Michael will be felt for many months or years to come, but as always, we are committed to seeing this through and making sure we are there for those in need during a time of crisis. But we cannot do it without your help. Please consider making a donation to the Emergency Animal Rescue Fund. With your support, we can continue to answer the call during natural disasters, situations of extreme cruelty and neglect, and whenever animals are in need of urgent rescue.

As busy as we are during times of natural disasters, we are all pausing today to reflect on the life and legacy of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who was as well known for his philanthropic work as he was for his leadership in the corporate world. Allen, who died yesterday, was dedicated to saving the worlds most imperiled wildlife. Allen conceived the HSUS-backed ballot measure in Washington state to fight wildlife trafficking, and put all of his energy and resources behind it, helping usher the initiative to unprecedented success in 2015. Allens Vulcan Inc. was instrumental in enacting similar wildlife trafficking laws in Oregon and Hawaii, and supported Humane Society Internationals rhino horn demand reduction programs in Vietnam. Allen was also behind the Great Elephant Census, an extraordinarily detailed and comprehensive survey of elephants spread across 18 African countries, that showed alarming declines in the populations of savanna elephants in the continent. With Allens passing yesterday, animals have lost a true friend.We thank our sponsor for making this content possible; it is not written by the editorial staff nor does it necessarily reflect its views. If you rely on a webpage to conduct your business, Google Analytics is arguably your greatest asset. The data-tracking tool allows you to see who visits your website and how they READ THE RESTNEW YORK, Oct. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Greg Coleman, the former global president of Criteo and Paul Haddad, president of A4 (Altice USA Data & Advertising Business), representing market leadership in both performance marketing and the future of advanced advertising, join the team to fuel the growth and continued adoption of the Eyeview Platform.

As investment in digital grows, marketers are increasingly expected to deliver compelling media experiences coupled with accountability for their spends. As TV and digital converge, significant advances are being made to deliver measurable video advertising solutions which directly impact sales and business outcomes.

Eyeview, the industry leader in personalized, outcome-based video advertising, has been working with many of the biggest brands in the world to evolve video beyond a broad awareness mechanism into a precision-based performance tool that delivers the indisputable power of sight, sound and motion coupled with the deep creative analytics and intelligence of digital media.

We are very pleased to welcome Greg and Paul to the team, said Oren Harnevo, CEO and co-founder of Eyeview. These individuals bring a wealth of expertise in two huge advertising markets that are currently converging  Performance Marketing and Advanced Multiscreen Advertising. Their tremendous experience will help us harness the power of TV, with digital video targetability and measurability, and disrupt the market. We look forward to their contributions and are excited they chose Eyeview.

Providing marketers with better proven return on their advertising dollars is a great value proposition for marketers and is what they have grown to expect across all channels, said Greg Coleman, a leading pioneer in digital media and performance marketing, with previous roles as president at Criteo, BuzzFeed, Huffington Post, Yahoo! and AOL. Eyeviews Platform is providing best-in-class solutions that truly deliver results and I believe marketers will pay attention.

We're in the midst of the evolution from traditional television advertising to advanced audience-based multi-screen targeting with proven outcomes, said Paul Haddad, president of A4. Ive seen many platforms and solutions trying to address these requirements, but none have the effectiveness and sophistication of Eyeviews solution. I am excited to be part of Eyeviews mission of raising the quality of people-based targeting and driving the greatest value for brands and marketers."

About Eyeview

Eyeview is a video marketing technology company and industry leader in 1-to-1 outcome-based video marketing.

Through proprietary VideoIQ technology, Eyeview easily leverages brand, product and consumer data to create and deliver personalized video ads to every consumer and ultimately drive sales and a guaranteed return on investment. Eyeview applies machine learning and decisioning algorithms built specifically to drive business objectives across retail, e-commerce, CPG and automotive verticals, closing the loop between brand communication and consumer action.

Headquartered in New York City, with offices in L.A., Detroit, Seattle and Chicago, Eyeview serves the nation's top brands, including P&G, Walgreens, Meijer, Lowe's, Caesars, Honda, Pfizer, and Office Depot.

About Greg Coleman

Greg Coleman recently joined Lerer Hippeau as EIR after serving as President of BuzzFeed since 2014. He has been advising BuzzFeed since 2010 to scale social advertising globally and expand mobile, video and ad products. Prior to joining BuzzFeed, Coleman was President of the advertising technology company, Criteo. He has previously held roles as President and Chief Revenue Officer at the Huffington Post and the EVP of Global Sales at Yahoo. Coleman also served as President of Platform-A at AOL from February to April of 2009 and was formerly Senior Vice President of Readers Digest Association and president of U.S. Magazine Publishing. At CBS, Inc., he spent 10 years leading advertising efforts for Womans Day as Vice President and National Sales Manager. Coleman holds a B.S. degree in Business Administration from Georgetown University and attended the M.B.A. program at New York University. He currently lives in Greenwich Village and is an adjunct professor at New York Universitys Stern School of Business where he teaches a class on digital marketing and innovation.

About Paul Haddad

Paul Haddad is the president of A4, Altice USAs advanced advertising and data business, which provides audience-based, multiscreen advertising solutions. An established veteran of the advertising and technology industries, Paul has been a pioneer in helping companies utilize data to make smarter business decisions. Prior to joining Altice in 2016, Paul served as SVP & GM, Advanced Data Analytics for Cablevision Media Sales where he founded and led the companys cutting-edge data business. Before this, Paul served as the SVP & GM of Concurrents Global Media Data and Advertising Solutions business. He was co-founder and CEO of Solusia Technologies, a leading information management software provider focused on the wireless industry after spending nine years at Nortel in various leadership positions. Paul holds several patents in the advanced data & information management systems, as well as bandwidth exchange technologies. He holds a B.S degree in electrical engineering from Concordia University (Montreal) and is fluent in five languages. Paul is member of the board of directors of the Video Advertising Bureau (VAB), and the board of trustees of the school of Business Intelligence & Analytics at Stevens Institute of Technology.The FCC justified its Net Neutrality-killing order by claiming that comments it received showed strong public support for dismantling the rules that stop your ISP from deciding which parts of the internet you get to use; but it was widely reported that the comments in the Net Neutrality docket were flooded by bots that opposed Net Neutrality, using names and personal information from stolen identities of dead people, sitting US senators, journalists and millions of others.



While bot-flooding has become routine in regulatory comments, the Net Neutrality case was especially egregious, in part because FCC Chairman (and former Verizon lawyer) Ajit Pai didn't seem to care that his regulatory proceedings had been taken over by corporate bots, and then actively obstructed law-enforcement efforts to discover who was behind these bots.





The New York Attorney General's office is undeterred by Pai's bot-complicity, and has expanded its investigation into the astroturf campaign, issuing subpoenas for records from a slate of telcoms lobbyists themselves, more than a dozen in all.



"The FCC's public comment process was corrupted by millions of fake commentsand our investigation found that as many at 9.53 million of those comments stole the identities of real people," Underwood said in a statement. "The law protects New Yorkers from deception and the misuse of their identities. And all Americans deserve a fair and transparent process for determining public policy that impacts their daily lives. My office will get to the bottom of what happened and hold accountable those responsible for using stolen identities to distort public opinion on net neutrality."

New York Attorney General Expands Investigation Into Bogus Net Neutrality Comments [Karl Bode/Motherboard]



(Image: David Saddler, CC-BY)Iowa Republican Steve King is graduating from retweeting white supremacists and earsplitting dogwhistles to openly endorsing the matter of their movement.

Faith Goldy, an excellent candidate for Toronto mayor, pro Rule of Law, pro Make Canada Safe Again, pro balanced budget, &BEST of all, Pro Western Civilization and a fighter for our values. @FaithGoldy will not be silenced.

Here's some quotes from Faith Goldy, the Toronto mayoral candidate he endorsed yesterday.

Goldy believes the white race is in the later stages of 'ethnocide,' in which non-white cabals are purposefully and systematically snuffing out those of the Caucasian persuasion.  "Canada's southern border is in a state of absolute crisis," Goldy breathlessly intoned in a dispatch entitled "Canada's illegal invasion" just as the number of migrants from the U.S. began decreasing, according to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. Goldy has also appeared on a podcast hosted by one of the most notorious white supremacists in the U.S.; she recited (on camera, while giggling) the white supremacist '14 words' trope about securing a future for the white race; she believes the 2016 shooting in a Quebec City mosque was a Muslim conspiracy; and she favourably quoted the work of a Romanian fascist who called for the elimination of the Jewish race.

Daniel Dale: "This is arguably the most explicit King has been in his support for white nationalism, though he's been unsubtle for a while. He continues to be treated by Ryan, Trump and the rest of the party as a member in good standing."Transnistria, officially the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, is an Eastern European territory with a strong Soviet vibe. Technically, the country does not exist. Transnistria is considered a part of the Republic of Moldova, and isn't an officially recognized nation of its own, despite declaring independence in 1990, followed by a war in 1992. I attended this year's Independence Day celebrations in Transnistria, hoping to understand what the place and the people are all about. Here's what I saw.

My journey into Transnistria began two days ahead of schedule, when my travel buddy and I accidentally crossed the border in the middle of the night, driving through via Ukraine. The shortest distance between the capitals of Ukraine and Moldova (where we were headed) takes you through Transnistria, and boy, were we caught off guard.

The border greets you with the Transnistria state emblem, which bears a prominent hammer and sickle. While you can freely enter without a visa, you are issued a pass that allows you to stay for up to 10 hours. There was a road toll of 58 Transnistrian rubles (a currency that cannot be exchanged outside of their borders; about 3.40 USD); when I asked if I could pay in the Ukrainian currency, the border guard mulled it over, then more than doubled the price. From then on, the road conditions went from bad to worse, so it's anyone's guess as to what that payment was really for.

Still on the way to Moldova, exiting Transnistria on the other side about 20 km later, there was another checkpoint. Upon inspecting our passports and papers, a border guard made us pull off to the side, and in extremely limited English, demanded "coins". Assuming this was another low-key bribe, we opened our wallets, offering euros and Ukrainian hryvnia, but after some back and forth, we learned he only wanted "coins from U.S.A.". Fortunately I had a couple of quarters, and we were waved through with a smile.

Following a day of exploring Chisinau, Moldova, a tour guide picked us up and drove us back to Transnistria for Independence Day. The border crossing went much smoother having a guide who spoke the main language (Russian) and knew the drill. The morning began with a military parade around the main street in the capital, Tiraspol, interspersed with speeches blared over loudspeakers and patriotic videos played on a large, permanent outdoor screen.

In all the parade was tamer than I expected for a micronation still fighting for recognition nearly three decades in. I guess I was expecting something more DPRK-style, but sadly they did not roll any tanks down the street, or fire any rockets, so it all felt a bit quaintwith a total population of only half a million people, the crowd was even smaller in size than that of a DJT inauguration. But what it may have lacked in scale and overeager bravado, one thing that did give it that eerie dystopian flair I longingly sought was how much affection they showed for Russia. The Russian flag and Russian colors were displayed in equal measure as their own, on every state building and every flagpole, which I later learned the reasons behind.

In Transnistria, the 2,000 Russian soldiers stationed there are called the "peacekeepers". These peacekeepers, in the words of our tour guide, prevent the Romanians of Moldova (who are Not Friends and also "joined the Nazis in WWII") from taking over. Should the kind peacekeepers leave, the subsequent invasion that the tour guide seemed certain of would mean the abolishment of the rogue government, Moldova collecting taxes, orgod forbidjoining the EU.

I also learned that since Transnistrian passports are not valid outside of Transnistria, every citizen carries a second passport, mainly from Russia (the cool kids), Moldova, or Ukraine. Despite all the fawning, Russia is included in the list of countries that don't recognize their status as a nation. Cold.

After the military parade, there was more or less a state fair, where different local businesses showed off their goods: shoes, furniture, clothes, arts & crafts. Then we went on a guided tour to see mostly monuments and state buildings in Tiraspol and Bender, the second largest city.

The little I knew about Transnistria prior to visiting was that they love their Soviet symbology. Lenin statues, red stars, and hammer & sickles are indeed aplenty, and they even have an un-ironic Soviet restaurant called CCCP. But it's not quite the bleary walk back in time that Wired and others led me to believe.

The city is clean and modern. They have excellent public transit, and a university that evidently teaches programming classes.

Sure, there are locked and loaded Russian tanks stationed along the borders, but the small-town vibe makes it feel safe. Their government appears to be your standard 20th-century democratic republic: they vote in elections, have political parties (Communist, Labor, Democratic, etc), and have a parliament and an executive branch. Presidents are elected for a six-year term, and there's a six-term limit.

I don't know how the situation in Transnistria will sort itself out, but weekly meetings with the Moldovan government seem to be fixed in a multi-decade stalemate.

As other Eastern European nations work diligently to bring themselves up to standard for joining the EU, Moldova is thwarted not only by Russia's presence in Transnistria, but also Gagauzia, another autonomous region within their borders that has also declared itself independent.

Like Ukraine and their situation in Crimea, Moldova's prosperity and status as a nation largely remains entangled in Russia's grip on power in the region.

For now, one thing's for certain: witnessing the living history is far outside the norm for most Westerners, and Transnistria remains a unique and bizarre place to visit.

[ALL PHOTOS: KATHERINE LEIPPER]No wonder he was smiling. The United States received $100 million from Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, which coincidentally, so weird!, was the same day Secty. of State Mike Pompeo landed in Riyadh to laugh and smile with Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman about missing Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

The money arrived, but not the truth about Khashoggi.

The Saudis provided no facts to Pompeo, who says he asked them for none.

We now know from audio tapes published today that Khashoggi was tortured, dismembered, and beheaded inside the Saudi embassy in Istanbul, presumably at the Saudi government's orders. The Saudis have denied everything.

We don't know what Trump's personal conflicts of interest are in this story, either. But what's a little journalist vivisection among amoral allies?

From John Hudson at the Washington Post:

The United States received a payment of $100 million from Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, the same day Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrived in Riyadh to discuss the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a State Department official confirmed Wednesday amid global calls for answers in the case. Saudi Arabia publicly pledged the payment to support U.S. stabilization efforts in northeastern Syria in August, but questions persisted about when and if Saudi officials would come through with the money. The timing of the transfer, first reported by the New York Times, raised questions about a potential payoff as Riyadh seeks to manage the blowback over allegations that Saudi agents were responsible for Khashoggi's disappearance. The State Department denied any connection between the payment and Pompeo's discussions with Saudi officials about Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributing columnist. "We always expected the contribution to be finalized in the fall time frame," Brett McGurk, the State Department's envoy to the anti-Islamic State coalition, said in a statement. "The specific transfer of funds has been long in process and has nothing to do with other events or the secretary's visit."

PHOTO: RFE/RL, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (left) meets with Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin SALMAN.

Several years ago, radio journalist Laura Krantz read an article about anthropology professor and pioneering Bigfoot researcher Grover Krantz who died in 2002. Laura was surprised to find out that Grover was her grandfather's cousin. Her interest sparked, she began her own cryptozoological quest. The result is Wild Thing, a fantastic podcast about Bigfoot researchers, Sasquatch and science, legend and myth, pop culture, and other fascinating threads. From the Los Angeles Times:



Krantz, a self-identified skeptic, says she approached the story from a scientific standpoint like Grover would. For instance, she opted not to talk to people who thought Bigfoot was brought to Earth by aliens or had the ability to move through different dimensions of space and time. Instead, she delves into topics such as evolution, e.g. where Bigfoot would fit on the tree of life. Ultimately, it was the steady stream of wildlife biologists and seasoned outdoorsmen recounting their own Bigfoot sightings that moved the believability needle for Krantz





The nine central story episodes of "Wild Thing" will be supplemented with intermittent bonus installments, which include in-depth conversations with writer Virginia Wade, who  at her peak  made about $20,000 a month writing Bigfoot erotica, says Krantz. She also talks with William Dear, writer and director of feel-good family flick, "Harry and the Hendersons." Krantz traveled to Northern California for the 50th anniversary of the quintessential Patterson-Gimlin film, in which grainy imagery captures an up-close Bigfoot sighting that's long been the source of debate. She also headed back to Los Angeles to speak with experts about the psychology of belief and the "business of Bigfoot"  like why companies use its name and imagery for branding.





While working on "Wild Thing," Krantz underwent a bit of a personal evolution herself. When she started the project, she saw Bigfoot mostly as "tabloid fodder."





"Finishing it, I still don't necessarily buy that Bigfoot is out there, but I'm a lot more open to the possibility of that than I was before," she says.



At least, Krantz adds, "I certainly hope Bigfoot is out there."Prince Harry and his lovely wife landed in Australia to start their first tour as married couple. During her appearance, Meghan honoured late Princess Diana by wearing her jewellery - a subtle nod to the most beloved princess in modern history.

PAY ATTENTION: Click "See First" under the "Following" tab to see Briefly news on your News Feed!

Australia welcomed the Duke and Duchess of Sussex as they started their very first royal tour as a married couple.

The two will be visiting New Zealand, Tonga and Fiji as well.

This tour was basically kicked off with the news that the couple is expecting their first child.

Briefly.co.za reported that the couple broke the news after they were spotted beaming with joy as they touched down in Sydney, for their first major international tour since their May wedding at Windsor Castle.

Meghan, who is known for her brilliant fashion sense, gave her late mother-in-law a subtle but powerful tribute by wearing her jewellery.

Meghan adorned herself with Princess Diana's earrings and bracelet. The gold and diamond jewellery was something that looked just as good on Meghan as it did on Diana.

It was a touching nod to the late beloved princess that melted our hearts.

Meghan's nod to the late princess (Image Source:eonline.com)

Source: UGC

PAY ATTENTION: Save mobile data with FreeBasics: Briefly is now available on the app

The couple visited Admiralty House and met with Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove and Lady Lynne Cosgrove. They discussed ways to stop animal trafficking.

Meghan's nod to the late princess (Image Source:eonline.com)

Source: UGC

According to a report by E! Online, Harry was gifted a stuffed kangaroo with a baby joey in its pouch. Meghan reportedly said the stuffed animals would go in their nursery.

READ ALSO: AfriForum in Australia to beg for help with farm murders in SA

Do you have news that might interest us? Message us on our Facebook page and we could feature your story.

Enjoy the silly Animated Joke: What Happened In A Locker Room? and take a look at what else is happening on Briefly South Africa's YouTube channel.

To stay up to date with the latest news, download our news app on Google Play or iTunes today.

Source: Briefly.co.zaPrince Harry and his wife, Meghan Markle, met an adorable boy while on the royal tour of Australia.

PAY ATTENTION: Click "See first" under the "Following" tab to see Briefly news on your News Feed!

The Duke and Duchess visited Dubbo in New South Wales, Australia, where they met five-year-old Luke Vincent.

A video of the Prince's meeting with the adorable toddler was shared on social media, and it showed the young man breaking royal protocol by rubbing Harry's beard.

Studio 10 shared the video on its Twitter page and it gathered quite the reaction from social media user.

"Our hearts are melting watching the moment a young Dubbo schoolboy dived into the arms of Prince Harry & Meghan," the video was captioned.

READ ALSO: South African man praises stranger who returned his lost wallet to him

Briefly.co.za decided to take a look at some of the reactions the video gathered on Twitter.

Social media user @MLoParis commented: "That is one of the most adorable things I've seen in quite some time & I teared up."

Leanne REID, who goes by the Twitter handle @LeanneR00554182, wrote: "Omg this is so special .. u r very special Harry and Meghan for spending time with the kids especially Luke xx"

Another tweep, @Angelin91503201, added: "That little boy stole everyones heart especially Harrys his so ready to be a dad.His got Diana heart she also loved meeting the kids.....shed be so proud of Harry and hes gorgeous wife Meghan!"

PAY ATTENTION: Save mobile data with FreeBasics: Briefly is now available on the app

What are your thoughts on the video? Leave us a comment on our Facebook page or inbox us your story and we could feature it.

Justin Bieber Joke: When Your Mom Hears Baby, Baby, Baby, Oh! Check out more videos on Brieflys YouTube page.

To stay up to date with the latest news, download our news app on Google Play or iTunes today.

Source: Briefly.co.zaNews / National

by Staff reporter

Concern has been raised over price hikes on meat and most beef products.The situation is even serious in Bulawayo where most butcheries are demanding only hard currency for payments.While most basic commodities have reverted to normal prices, a snap survey revealed that there has been a 100 per cent increase in meat products within the central business district of Bulawayo.The price of commercial meat grade which previously ranged between $6 to $8 has been increased to around $12 and $15.A butchery situated along 11th Avenue and Herbert Chitepo is charging $17 per kilogramme for t-bone meat while one has to fork out $18 per kilogramme for rump on bone.To worsen the situation, the butcheries are only accepting transaction on hard cash.Livestock Farmers Union Chairperson, Mr Sifiso Sibanda, who is also National Ambassador of Livestock Farmers castigated owners of abattoirs for paying livestock farmers lower prices which are not competitive."For the first time in history, the government through the command livestock set a precedent by buying a heifer for $1200 whereas in the past, abattoirs were paying less. The revival of the Cold Storage Commission (CSC) which is the only abattoir certified by the Europe Union (EU) will enhance livestock production within the country. Actually, the abattoirs are not paying for offal but they are increasing meat price," he said.Over the past week, prices of basic commodities had increased but a self-correction process began, leading to most commodities reverting back to their normal prices.News / National

by Stephen Jakes

MDC Alliance senator and secretary general Douglas Mwonzora has said Zimbabwean government of Zanu PF is notorious for over spending year in year out.Speaking in parliament Mwonzora said the Zimbabwean Government is notorious for overspending and Year-in, year-out, Minister of Finance comes with a supplementary budget every time."We are known for overspending. We are overspending but there is no devolution. So, why should we blame overspending on devolution which is not there? Devolution will lead to the creation of wealth. Fourth and last argument that is false is that devolution cannot be implemented in the absence of an enabling legislation. We have already argued that the Constitution is a law itself and can be implemented," he said."However, in this argument the Government of Zimbabwe is relying on its own inefficiency and sluggishness. How can it take a country like Zimbabwe five years to craft a law as simple as devolution law? In conclusion Mr. President, it is difficult to truly unite Zimbabweans without devolution. Devolution is the answer to the resentment and hatred generated by tribal domination. Why is the Chiadzwa area which is arguably one of the richest pieces of land in the world the home of the world's most poor and miserable people?"He posed questions, Why is Lupane sitting on huge gas deposits among the poorest and most deprived communities on earth? Why are the people of Mutoko whose granite is exported to many a capital in Europe among the people in the world? and Why are the Tonga people in the Zambezi Basin who over the centuries traversed that Zambezi Basin denied fishing rights in the Zambezi and are instead treated as common criminals and poachers in their own land?"Why are the people of Midlands wallowing in poverty with all the great deposits of gold, chrome, iron ore, asbestos and diamonds? I see my leader Hon. Josiah Hungwe is there and I pose this question through you Mr. President rhetorically to him. Why do Masvingo communities live in poverty with so many minerals and other resources in that province? The answer Mr. President to these sad questions is devolution; we must have devolution of power," he said.News / National

by Stephen Jakes

MDC Alliance senator Lillian Tiumveos has accused Chinese of taking advantage of Zimbabwe's crisis to swindle the nation of its resources.Timveos made the remarks during debate in parliament."What I am saying is that this country is one of the richest country in the world. We have got raw materials, we have got educated people, we have got over 4 to 5 million people that are outside the country that can actually come back and make use of the raw materials. I actually think the Chinese nationals are taking advantage of us but if we are to implement the devolution provincial councils, these things would not be happening as they are happening," she said."I am giving you an example of reality about the Chinese people, I stay in Zvishavane; they do not even pay workers well. The workers that are working in these chrome mines get US$5 a day, 7 days a week and they do not even have off days. If we had these provincial councils, the Government would actually be aware of how our people are being abused. They even beat up workers, the do not look after us well but you must know that as Zimbabweans we actually respect foreigners more than we respect our own people."She said when people go outside the country, they laugh at them saying ooh those poor people they are here looking for this and that."When they come here we handle them with kid gloves, we give them attention. Yes, let us give them attention, they must come and invest in this country but the first thing we should ask them is what our people are benefiting. If we are benefiting nothing then they must not get the deal," she said."I really need to support the motion and I really need the Government to really look at this, every Senator should look at this, this is the Constitution. The Constitution is clear and what I mentioned here, I actually took it from the Constitution which means that we actually agreed in 2013 to do this. So, why is it so complicated and why must we even debate about this because it should have been done way back. So, we are hoping that as Hon. Senators let us agree that this has to be done as soon as yesterday."Station Will Become One of the Largest Transportation Hubs in North America

SAN JOSE, Calif., Oct. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Arcadis (EURONEXT: ARCAD) and Benthem Crouwel Architects have teamed with the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA), City of San Jose, Caltrain and the California High Speed Rail Authority to reinvent Diridon Station  a major transportation hub in downtown San Jose.

By 2027, major transportation investments, including California High Speed Rail and the addition of Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) and Caltrain service, will blend with existing bus transit and rail lines that include Capitol Corridor, Altamont Corridor Express, Amtrak, and VTA Light Rail  with room for current services to grow. In addition, the Citys adopted land use plan calls for substantial public and private development near the station, which will bring thousands of new jobs and residents to the area. This is likely to make Diridon Station one of the busiest intermodal stations in North America.

The Arcadis-Benthem Crouwel partnership marks the first step into the future, with the creation of the San Jose Diridon Station Integrated Station Concept Plan. This initial, $6.4 million phase of the project is expected to take 18 months to complete, and will accomplish the following:

Design an integrated multimodal facility that will provide seamless transfer between all modes of transportation.

Delineate the spatial needs of the station to support the rail and transit operations while focusing on the experience of the transit and station user.

Focus on the interaction and cohesiveness between transit systems, public space and private development.

Plan and design a station that will accommodate future capacity needs.

Emphasize regional interconnectivity to expand and enhance service.

Create an organizational/governance model for the partner agencies to design, build and operate the station.

Services as part of this contract include architecture, engineering, urban design, project management and consultancy. Arcadis will be responsible for overall project management, engineering and fostering collaboration among the many partners involved in the reinvention of Diridon Station. Benthem Crouwel Architects will be responsible for urban planning and architectural design of the new station. Arcadis and Benthem Crouwel Architects have a local office in San Jose, supported by their respective offices in the U.S. and The Netherlands.

The Arcadis-Benthem Crouwel approach to creating this plan is consistent with Arcadis integrated approach to transit-related developments, called Mobility-oriented Development, or MODe. The approach focuses on the integration of four key elements that bring value to transit hubs: connectivity, urban environment, equitable social place-making and economic development. Read the full 2018 MODe report for more information.

San Jose is the 10th largest city in the United States and with the emerging public and private development, Diridon Station is set to become one of the busiest transit hubs in the nation, said Steve Truman, Arcadis contract manager. Arcadis is excited to once again team with Benthem Crouwel to prepare a cutting-edge, integrated roadmap for the future of Diridon Station.

In the past decade, an incredible redevelopment of the largest train stations of the Netherlands has been accomplished. The train stations of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht and The Hague have been transformed into future-proof multimodal hubs, explains Daniel Jongtien, partner at Benthem Crouwel Architects. We have changed the perspective from infrastructure to passengers, from disconnected transit systems to integrated solutions. Arcadis and Benthem Crouwel have successfully collaborated on many projects. We cant wait to take this joint experience to Silicon Valley.

FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:

ARCADIS GLOBAL CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS

Jochem Binst

Mobile: +32471202679

Email: jochem.binst@arcadis.com

ARCADIS NORTH AMERICA CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS

Jimmy Luthye

Mobile: 303-947-5925

Email: james.luthye@arcadis.com

BENTHEM CROUWEL ARCHITECTS

Esmee Gramberg

Telephone: +31 20 642 0105

Email: egramberg@benthemcrouwel.nl

ABOUT ARCADIS

Arcadis is the leading global design and consultancy firm for natural and built assets. Applying our deep market sector insights and collective design, consultancy, engineering, project and management services we work in partnership with our clients to deliver exceptional and sustainable outcomes throughout the lifecycle of their natural and built assets. We are 27,000 people active in over 70 countries that generate $3.5 billion in revenues. Arcadis. Improving quality of life. www.arcadis.com

ABOUT BENTHEM CROUWEL ARCHITECTS

Benthem Crouwel Architects designs innovative, flexible and efficient buildings in a variety of scales: from a tiny house to the major railway stations in the Netherlands. In all their designs Benthem Crouwel Architects seeks a balance between economic, social and ecological interests, with a particular focus on innovation and sustainability. Famous designs are the railway stations of Rotterdam, Amsterdam, The Hague and Utrecht, the North / South metroline in Amsterdam, Schiphol Airport and Stedelijk Museum.

A Map accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/c35a2994-efb8-4610-ae4f-7fb32b9f74adNews / National

by Staff reporter

Speaking to State media after Vice President Chiwenga's arrival, Deputy Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet (Presidential Communications) who is also the Presidential spokesperson, George Charamba said Foreign Affairs and International Trade Minister Sibusiso Moyo also travelled to South Africa for medical attention.He said Moyo had two operations at a local hospital and only travelled to South Africa yesterday for a review.Speaking to our Harare Bureau after VP Chiwenga's arrival, Deputy Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet (Presidential Communications) who is also the Presidential spokesperson, Mr George Charamba said the vice president and his wife were in high spirits."He touched down at 1850 hours accompanied by his wife and the Deputy Minister of Health and Child Care," said Mr Charamba."Very chatty and jovial both husband and wife hugging officers from his office. Obviously, the couple needs time to rally again. His Excellency the President spoke to the couple this evening (last night) and is set to visit them at their home tomorrow morning (today)."Mr Charamba cleared the rumour on social media suggesting that Foreign Affairs and International Trade Minister Retired Lieutenant General Sibusiso Moyo also travelled to South Africa for medical attention.He said Lt Gen Moyo received medical attention at a local hospital and only travelled to South Africa yesterday for a review."I also want to correct the impression that was in the market that Lt General SB Moyo was in South Africa," said Mr Charamba."In fact, he was treated at a local hospital and only travelled to South Africa today (yesterday) for a review. He is expected back in a day's time. It is understood that he had two operations meant to remove some growth in the stomach."After the White City Stadium bombing incident, VP Chiwenga did not receive thorough medical examination since it happened at the height of the July 30 harmonised elections campaign.He soldiered on to complete the campaign process and after the elections there was pressure of forming the new Government and he could not receive medical attention.Mr Charamba said VP Chiwenga also had a bullet lodged in his lung after he was injured around the Chiduku area in Hwedza during the liberation struggle, making it quite urgent to receive a thorough medical examination.The Bulawayo bombing incident affected VP Chiwenga and his wife Marry, alongside Vice President Kembo Mohadi and several Government officials and security personnel.News / National

by Staff reporter

Bulawayo City Council (BCC) has renewed its links with Japan after years of frosty relations during the reign of former president Robert Mugabe era.BCC and Japan used to enjoy good relations back in the early 1990's with the later distributing aid packages in the form of expert personnel who were deployed in the city under the auspices of the Japan International Co-operation Agency (Jica).Jica, however, cut ties with Zimbabwe at the height of Mugabe's "madness" where he ensured Zimbabwe was isolated from the rest of the world as his government implemented controversial and reckless policies.With the coming in of the new dispensation, the local authority grabbed the chance to renew the relations through an application for approval from the government."However, following the improved climate in international relations of late, Jica - through their local office in Harare - had engaged (June 2018) the BCC amongst other aid recipients with a view to recruit volunteer personnel to be deployed across the council's various service departments," reads in part a confidential council BCC general purposes committee report.Bulawayo deputy mayor Tinashe Kambarami hailed the new development which he said was going to go a long way in developing the second largest city."The local authority stands to benefit a lot from the relationship, particularly on skills transfer and expertise on local government issues and management."This is something that we appreciate and we hope this will leave the city richer than ever," he said.Opinion / Columnist

You can tell the dog has a flea or tick problem by the frequency the poor creature scratches itself and the greater the vigour the greater the infestation! Rigging the recent elections was the easy bit for President Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF junta but now it is turning to be worse than a Pyrrhic victory. Whatever it was the Zanu PF dogs killed and ate they inherited prey's flea and tick problem because they have been scratching themselves frantically ever since!The regime is on an all-out offensive to prove the elections were not rigged. It is a desperate rare-guard offensive."The recently released European Union Election Observation Mission (EU EOM) final report on Zimbabwe's July 30 harmonised elections reaffirmed how MDC Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa was fairly defeated by President Emmerson Mnangagwa," wrote Chido Chikuni in the Herald."While ZEC's poor management of the results may have opened up the process to a degree of legal jeopardy; the case brought by Chamisa did not adequately prove the case for a substantial change of result," quoting the EU report itself.What Chikuni failed to point out was that the EU's scathing criticism of the whole electoral process, not just ZEC's breath-taking incompetence, left one in no doubt that the whole election process and the result was a sham!"The electoral commission lacked full independence and appeared to not always act in an impartial manner. The final results as announced by the Electoral Commission contained numerous errors and lacked adequate traceability, transparency and verifiability," EU final report stated."Finally, the restrictions on political freedoms, the excessive use of force by security forces and abuses of human rights in the post-election period undermined the corresponding positive aspects during the pre-election campaign. As such, many aspects of the 2018 elections in Zimbabwe failed to meet international standards."The 2.4 million votes Mnangagwa is supposed to have garnered cannot be traced and verified because, one, no verified voters' roll was ever released. Two, the vote tally itself cannot be traced and verified because some V11 forms were never released and many of the figures on the ZEC results cannot be traced to available V11 forms. It is little wonder that ZEC itself has ended up with three different results; proof they had tampered with the figures. It beggars belief how anyone, anyone at all, can ever claim the elections were free, fair and credible.Ever since President Mnangagwa assume power following last November's coup, he has clearly understood the importance of attracting foreign investors and lenders back into the country to help kick-start the comatose economy. Hence his "Zimbabwe is open for business!" mantra which he has pursued with a passion.What President Mnangagwa failed to understand was that for Zimbabwe to be open for business the country must shed off its pariah state image and not just say it has changed. When he promised to hold free, fair and credible elections; he was expected to deliver on his promise. He did not!The penalty for rigging the recent elections was that the investors and lenders have shied away. Without the much needed foreign investment Zimbabwe's economic recovery will remain a pipedream!Ever since coming to power, nearly a year ago now, President Mnangagwa and his regime have squandered $4 billion in foreign currency and most of it on luxuries such as cars for Chiefs and Zanu PF leaders, election related expenses and $1.4 million chartering a plane for Grace Mugabe. This has left the country with no money left for essential like fuel, drugs, etc. The shortage of the US$ has forced its value to soar 600% in just one week.The shortage of basic commodities on the back of foreign currency shortage has helped refocus the minds on the fact that the country cannot borrow any bridging loans because Zimbabwe is a pariah state. The problem had the Zanu PF regime worried sick, it knows that these are the kind of events that could triggered social unrest.With unemployment a nauseating 90%, most basic services such as supply of clean running water and health care all but collapsed, etc. there is a lot of bottled anger in Zimbabwe today. The Zanu PF government is jumpy whenever there talk of public protest, there are just too many angry people with 1 000 001 damn good reasons why they must protest!What is now becoming increasingly clear to many Zimbabweans is the political reality that we cannot have the Zanu PF dictatorship, the pariah state, complete with its incompetent, corrupt and vote rigging thugs and still expect meaningful economic recovery. So if we want economic recovery we must dismantle the dictatorship. There is no other way out.Zanu PF rigged the recent elections, the regime is, per se, illegitimate and it must go. To allow the illegitimate Zanu PF regime to stay in power is to accept the economic meltdown and all it will bring; the economic chaos of the last two weeks was just a taste of worse to come.The Zanu PF dog has a serious infestation of fleas, ticks, mange, rabies, otitis, mycosis and every other dog disease there is out there. All brought upon itself because of its insatiable greed for absolute power. The dog must be forced to take a swim in the cattle dip-tank, have a anti-rabies vaccination, etc. before the fleas, ticks, etc. spread and bringing suffering and death to everyone else!Zanu PF must has ridden roughshod over the people denying them their freedoms and human right including the right to free and fair elections and even the right to life. This must now end, Zanu PF must be democratically accountable to the people and stop holding the people to ransom.The Canadian Union of Postal Workers says it has given strike notice to Canada Post that workers could walk off the job as early as next week.

The union representing 50,000 Canada Post employees says rotating strikes will begin Monday if agreements aren't reached with the Urban Postal Operations and Rural and Suburban Mail Carriers bargaining units.

The union is pushing for improved job security, an end to forced overtime, and better health and safety measures.

Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press

Locations of the rotating strikes have yet to be determined.

The possibility of a work stoppage has hovered over Canada Post since Sept. 26 after postal workers voted overwhelmingly in late summer in support of a potential walkout to back their contract demands.

Ted S. Warren/Associated Press

Canada Post is the biggest parcel shipping company in the country, having delivered about one million parcels a day during the holiday season last year  an increase of 20 per cent over the same period in 2016.Enjoy a flight over a place that as beautiful as it may seem, has a dark history. We fly over the settlement of "Dionysos" near Sitia, Crete. In the late 1990's SOE company presented the ambitious plan for the creation of this settlement. The settlement began to be built, but soon there were quarrels as, among other things, the Analouka Beach next to the settlement collects the most rubbish of the Aegean Sea and so their plans for "idyllic summers in the sand" were reduced to rubble. The current owners are trying to reform the settlement, but it is a difficult project. Check out the cool view from above!By Doina Chiacu and Jorge Cabrera WASHINGTON/ESQUIPULAS, Guatemala (Reuters) - The organizer of a migrant caravan from Honduras was detained in Guatemala on Tuesday as the U.S. government threatened to withdraw aid from both countries and El Salvador if the flow of migrants north to the United States was not stopped. Up to 3,000 migrants, according to organizers' estimates, crossed from Honduras into Guatemala on a trek northward after a standoff on Monday with police in riot gear. The Honduran Foreign Ministry called on its citizens not to join the group. The government "urges the Hondurans taking part in this irregular mobilization not to be used by a movement that is clearly political," it said. Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez said in a public address on Tuesday evening some Hondurans in the caravan had already returned home and the government was preparing to support them. He did not specify how many had turned back. Over the border, Guatemalan police officers detained Bartolo Fuentes, a former Honduran lawmaker, from the middle of the large crowd that he and three other organizers had led from San Pedro Sula, Honduras, since Saturday. The moves followed comments by U.S. President Donald Trump that his administration would halt aid if the Central American governments did not act, his latest effort to demonstrate his tough stance on immigration. The Honduran security ministry said Fuentes had been detained because he "did not comply with Guatemalan immigration rules" and would be deported back to Honduras in the coming hours. Security officials at the Honduran border with Guatemala in Agua Caliente blocked the road to prevent another much smaller group from getting through, television images from the border showed. "We can't attend to people en masse. People are going through one by one," police spokesman Alex Madrid said in a radio interview. Guatemala's government said it did not have official figures for how many migrants from the caravan had already crossed the border. Adult citizens of Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua need only present national identity cards to cross each others' borders. That rule does not apply when they reach Mexico. The local offices of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said in a statement on Tuesday evening they were worried about the safety of migrants in the caravan, noting the group included women, children and senior citizens. "NO MORE MONEY" Trump took to Twitter on Tuesday to express his annoyance at the caravan, which follows a similar event in May that ultimately led to hundreds of migrants either seeking asylum in the United States or remaining in Mexico. "The United States has strongly informed the President of Honduras that if the large Caravan of people heading to the U.S. is not stopped and brought back to Honduras, no more money or aid will be given to Honduras, effective immediately!" Trump wrote. Trump expanded his threat in a later tweet to include Guatemala and El Salvador. "We have today informed the countries of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador that if they allow their citizens, or others, to journey through their borders and up to the United States, with the intention of entering our country illegally, all payments made to them will STOP (END)!" he said. U.S. Vice President Mike Pence drove home the point, saying he spoke to Hernandez and Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales and warned them to help protect U.S. borders, adding "no more aid if it's not stopped!" The strong words could encourage Honduras to move closer to China amid intensified efforts by Beijing to win recognition from Central American countries aligned with Taiwan. Honduras is one of a dwindling number of countries that still have formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, an island nation off the Chinese coast that Beijing views as a renegade province. Hernandez said last month cuts in U.S. support for Central America would only hinder the country's ability to stem illegal immigration. He welcomed China's growing diplomatic presence in the region as an "opportunity." Pence told Central American countries last week the United States was willing to help with economic development and investment if they did more to tackle mass migration, corruption and gang violence. GROWING GROUP The migrants in the group making its way north plan to seek refugee status in Mexico or pass through to the United States, saying they are fleeing poverty and violence. "What Trump says doesn't interest us," organizer Fuentes said in an interview shortly before his arrest. "These people are fleeing. These people are not tourists." Widespread violence and poverty prompt thousands of Central Americans, mainly from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, to make the arduous journey north toward Mexico and the United States in search of a better life. Trump ran for president in 2016 on promises to toughen U.S. immigration policies and build a wall along the 2,000-mile(3,220-km) border with Mexico. Illegal immigration is likely to be a top issue in Nov. 6 U.S. congressional elections, when Democrats are seen as having a good chance of gaining control of the House of Representatives from Trump's fellow Republicans. (Reporting by Doina Chiacu in Washington and Jorge Cabera in Esquipulas, Guatemala; Additional reporting by Lizbeth Diaz in Mexico City; Writing by Delphine Schrank; Editing by Rosalba O'Brien, Sandra Maler and Paul Tait)LONDON (Reuters) - Iran has extended the range of its land-to-sea ballistic missiles to 700 km (435 miles), a senior Iranian military official said on Tuesday amid rising tensions with the United States over Tehran's missile program. U.S. President Donald Trump pulled out of an international agreement on Iran's nuclear program in May and reimposed sanctions on Tehran, saying the deal was flawed because it did not include curbs on Iran's development of ballistic missiles or its support for proxies in Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and Iraq. Iran, which says its missile program is purely defensive, has threatened to disrupt oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf if the United States tries to strangle Iranian oil exports. "We have managed to make land-to-sea ballistic, not cruise, missiles that can hit any vessel or ship from 700 km," Amirali Hajizadeh, head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' air space division, was quoted as saying by Fars news agency. Hajizadeh said the Guards focused on extending the land-to-sea missile's range after Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei asked the military a decade ago about the possibility of "hitting ships" with ballistic projectiles. He did not give details on the previous range of the missiles. In 2008, Iran displayed a ground-to-sea missile that it said could travel about 290 km (180 miles). On Monday, the U.S. special envoy on Iran, Brian Hook, said that Tehran's ballistic missile program was exacerbating tensions in Yemen, Iraq and Syria. "We are accumulating risk of regional conflict if we do not do more to deter Iran's missile proliferation in the Middle East," Hook said. The Islamic Republics government has ruled out negotiations with Washington over its military capabilities and dismissed U.S. assertions that its activities in the Middle East are destabilizing. Hajizadeh said some short-range Iranian missiles had been used over the past two years in Syria's civil war, in which Iranian forces have fought in support of President Bashar al-Assad against rebels and militants. He also said Iranian drones had carried out 700 attacks on Islamic State militant positions in Syria. Irans Revolutionary Guards have sent weapons and thousands of soldiers to Syria to help shore up Assad during the more than seven-year-long conflict there. (Reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin and John Irish in Paris; Editing by Mark Heinrich)SPRING HOPE, NC, Oct. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NEWMEDIAWIRE  Hemp, Inc. (OTC PINK: HEMP) applauds Californias commitment to agriculture, industrial hemp specifically, with the passing of SB 1409 . The new bill , which will go into effect on January 1, 2019, removes the previous requirement that industrial hemp seed cultivators be certified on or before January 1, 2013, finally opening the door for new cultivators to enter the market. This will unleash a dramatic expansion of hemp farming and hemp businesses in the nations largest state and as a global leader in the industrial hemp industry, with the largest multipurpose industrial hemp processing facility in the western hemisphere, Hemp, Inc. stands to gain an enormous amount of business opportunities in the Golden State.

This Bill will finally allow farmers in California to partake in this lucrative industry on a broad scale and I applaud Governor Jerry Brown for taking the proactive steps necessary to facilitate the growth of Californias industrial hemp industry, said Hemp, Inc. CEO, Bruce Perlowin. The immense opportunity represented by the states world-class economy combined with its ideal growing conditions is sure to convince many farmers to switch to hemp. Our new west-coast hemp processing facility in Medford, Oregon, stands to be an excellent resource for all of the new farmers entering the industry as laws continue to evolve. We are also continuing to scout new locations across the country to open additional hemp processing centers.

Hemp, Inc.s hemp cultivation and processing company, Local Processing Center, Inc. (LPC) in Medford, Oregon recently began processing the first harvest which is more than 100,000 pounds of industrial hemp from the first of many farms they have contracted with in that area. According to executives, Hemp, Inc. is currently creating strategic partnerships with farmers across Oregon to provide them with services including drying, curing and storing industrial hemp. With California adding an industrial hemp pilot program to their California Department of Food and Agriculture registration system, Hemp, Inc. executives say that could only add to their bottom line. (More information on opportunities to partner with Hemp, Inc. to sell or buy hemp biomass can be found by contacting ir@hempinc.com.)

Representing the world's fifth largest economy , California stands poised to become a dominant force in the legal hemp industry, especially pending the 2018 Farm Bill , which contains an amendment to fully legalize hemp cultivation at the federal level. The amendment has broad bipartisan support and is expected to be passed when the committee reconvenes after the midterm elections on November 6, 2018.

Notably, there are now 40 states in the nation that have legalized hemp. Companies seeking to enter or further develop their footprint in the industrial hemp marketplace are aligning with Hemp, Inc. for the companys proven expertise and state-of-the-art hemp processing and manufacturing infrastructure in Spring Hope, North Carolina and operations in additional states. The companys 85,000 square foot industrial hemp processing and manufacturing facility has been operational since August, 2017.

Its 500-acre strategic growing partner, Veteran Village Kins Community, in Golden Valley, Arizona, is also designed to grow hemp and produce cannabidiol (CBD) products to benefit veterans as well as generate revenue for Hemp, Inc., the Veteran Village and individual veterans living in the community.

Hemp, Inc. is also helping to build the industrial hemp infrastructure that was basically non-existent in America. And five years later, its still in its infancy as our nation, gradually, embraces industrial hemp as a new emerging multi-trillion dollar industrial agricultural green revolution. Hemp, Inc. has been building six hemp infrastructures, Divisions One through Six (the 6th Division just launched):

Division One  The Industrial Hemp Infrastructure

Division Two  The Hemp Extraction Infrastructure

Division Three  The Hemp Farming Infrastructure

Division Four  The Hemp Educational Infrastructure

Division Five  The Hemp Marketing Infrastructure

Division Six - Accessories, Products and Services

Division Six is the companys newest division to be formed which focuses on the sale of hemp accessories such as the sale of extractors, storage bags, containers, fertilizer, soil amendments, humidifiers, dehumidifiers, balers, greenhouses, and greenhouse equipment; the drying, trimming, curing, storing and brokering for other farmers; and ultimately anything else a hemp farmer may need to be successful.

Moreover, the hemp-derived cannabidiol (CBD) market is expected to hit $591 million this year, and it may grow 40 times this sizeto $22 billion by 2022, according to a new report by Brightfield Group.

ABOUT LOCAL PROCESSING CENTER, INC.

Hemp, Inc. entered into a majority ownership agreement with JNV Farms LLC for the hemp cultivation and processing company in Medford, Oregon. As the majority owner of the, now fully functional, hemp cultivation and processing company, Local Processing Center, Inc. (LPC), Hemp, Inc. will be able to create a pipeline of industrial hemp and hemp products in states, where legal, on the West Coast. This makes Hemp, Inc. a bi-coastal hemp processing center in America with many more Hemp Local Processing Centers planned for other areas where Hemp is being grown. Thus far, the company has created about 50 jobs in its LPC and also helps create even more jobs for the local farmer. A to Z services for the farmers are available - from harvesting to drying, bagging, curing, storing, nitrogen sparging, machine trimming, hand trimming, extracting and selling creating a one stop shop for the small to large family farm. Updates on LPC can be found on Bruce Perlowins personal Facebook page beginning October 13, 2018.

ABOUT HEMP, INC.

With a deep-rooted social and environmental mission at its core, Hemp, Inc. seeks to build a business constituency for the American small farmer, the American veteran, and other groups experiencing the ever-increasing disparity between tapering income and soaring expenses. As a leader in the industrial hemp industry with ownership of the largest commercial multi-purpose industrial hemp processing facility in North America, Hemp, Inc. believes there can be tangible benefits reaped from adhering to a corporate social responsibility plan.

SOCIAL NETWORKS

http://www.twitter.com/hempinc (Twitter)

http://www.facebook.com/hempinc (Facebook)

https://www.facebook.com/KingOfPot (Bruce Perlowin's Facebook Page)

https://www.facebook.com/TheHempUniversity/ (The Hemp University's Facebook Page)

SUBSCRIBE TO HEMP, INC.'S VIDEO UPDATES

"Hemp, Inc. Presents" is capturing the historic, monumental re-creation of the hemp decorticator today as America begins to evolve into a cleaner, green, eco-friendly sustainable environment. What many see as the next American Industrial Revolution is actually the Industrial Hemp Revolution. Watch as Hemp, Inc., the No. 1 leader in the industrial hemp industry, engages its shareholders and the public through each step in bringing back the hemp decorticator as described in the "Freedom Leaf Magazine" article " The Return of the Hemp Decorticator " by Steve Bloom.

" Hemp, Inc. Presents " is accessible 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, by visiting www.hempinc.com . To subscribe to the " Hemp, Inc. Presents " YouTube channel, be sure to click the subscribe button.

UPCOMING INTERNATIONAL AND DOMESTIC EVENTS

Across the globe, the hemp industry is rising to astronomical levels. In the wake of the hemp industry projected to grow 700% and hit $1.8 billion by 2020, there has been more education and networking within the industry. That means more events and conferences, thus, Hemp, Inc. has started compiling an ongoing list of upcoming hemp events around the world. Check out the listing of international and domestic events here .

FORWARD-LOOKING DISCLAIMER AND DISCLOSURESPARIS (Reuters) - Renault and Chinese partner Brilliance plan to launch three electric delivery vans in two years, seeking to capitalize on robust growth in China's commercial vehicle market and city center driving curbs on combustion engines. The battery vans will be part of a seven-model product offensive announced on Tuesday for the Renault-Brilliance joint venture, created last December. The first two electric vans are to be introduced as commercial and passenger versions under Brilliance's Jinbei brand, starting with an all-electric update of its F50 model. A battery-powered Renault vehicle to follow in 2020. "Now with the expertise of Renault in electrified technology we will get it into the zero-emissions (zones) for last-mile deliveries," Ashwani Gupta, commercial vehicles chief for the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance, told reporters on a call. The Chinese auto market overall shrank for the third consecutive month in September, recording its biggest year-on-year decline in seven years. But Renault expects commercial vehicle sales growth to stay resilient, Gupta said, with an 11 percent expansion to 3.2 million vehicles this year and a further 8-9 percent in 2019. (Reporting by Laurence Frost and Gilles Guillaume; Editing by Richard Lough)William Nylander and the Toronto Maple Leafs are picking up contract talks in Switzerland. (Getty)

The Toronto Maple Leafs and William Nylander have agreed to meet on neutral ground in an attempt to end their standoff.

According to the Toronto Suns Lance Hornby, Leafs GM Kyle Dubas has reportedly flown to Switzerland to meet with the restricted free agent and his representatives.

Its unknown whether Dubas is flying overseas to get a deal done or to simply double down on his commitment to Nylander, who has been training in Sweden and apparently arrived in Switzerland on Tuesday. But you have to imagine a meeting of this nature means both sides are ready to hash out a resolution.

Mister William Nylander, arriving from Stockholm, is requested to contact any ground staff.

Annoncement at Zurich Airport five minutes ago. #nylander #leafs #nhl  Robert (@Fritztram) October 16, 2018

Although the details of the negotiations are purely speculative, TSNs Darren Dreger reported in early October that Nylanders agent, Lewis Gross, wasnt budging from his $8 million ask on a long-term deal. Sportsnets Elliotte Friedman mentioned in 31 Thoughts Wednesday that the two sides have also discussed a bridge deal ranging from $4.8M-$6M. In an ideal world, Toronto would like to lock him in between $6-$6.5M long term to leave as much room as possible for Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner when their rookie deals expire next summer.

Dubas has made it clear he has no intention of trading the 22-year-old winger, who has put together back-to-back 61-point campaigns. But with the Maple Leafs off to a 6-1-0 start and Kasperi Kapanen filling in admirably alongside Auston Matthews (four goals and eight points in seven games), the scales have tilted in the Maple Leafs favour.

Story continues

More NHL coverage on Yahoo Canada Sports:



By Julie Gordon GROUNDBIRCH, British Columbia (Reuters) - At a massive natural gas field in northern British Columbia, Royal Dutch Shell Plc is using new technologies and processes to cut emissions to address public and environmental group concerns that Canada's nascent liquefied natural gas export industry could be a climate time bomb. The Groundbirch project, perched above Canada's richest shale gas deposit some 1,110 kilometers (684 miles) northeast of Vancouver, includes four gas plants and 500 wells dotted over an area the size of New York City. Shell has already slashed project emissions by moving its newest gas plant to hydro-electric power and replacing diesel with natural gas in drilling, and is now tackling methane with new electric components and a fuel cell trial. There is a considerable body of research showing natural gas is far cleaner than coal, but only so long as methane emissions are contained. Methane is many times more potent than carbon dioxide, though the industry produces far less of it. Groundbirch will eventually send gas hundreds of miles west to the Shell-led LNG Canada export terminal approved this month, where it will be cooled for exporting. LNG Canada is being touted as the world's cleanest major LNG plant. LNG demand is booming, as countries like China swap out coal plants for gas in the battle against choking pollution. But environmental groups say exports will boost carbon emissions in Canada, both through gas extraction and the liquefaction process. They warn that this could derail British Columbia's pledge to cut greenhouse gases by 40 percent by 2030 and test Canada's vow to cut emissions nationwide by 30 percent from 2005 levels by 2030. "There's no way to produce energy using gas without emissions," said Jens Wieting, a campaigner with Sierra Club BC. "Considering methane leakage, it's very difficult to make any statement that gas is any better than coal." Methane, the main component in natural gas, is released into the atmosphere mostly from the venting of unburned gas and through leaks in gas infrastructure like wells or pipelines. Estimates of the carbon impact of LNG Canada from wellhead to port vary; the British Columbia government pegs it at 3.45 million tonnes (Mt) per year, while environmental groups say it could be as high as 12 Mt. The province expects to cut emissions to about 40 Mt by 2030 and 13 Mt by 2050 from 61.6 Mt in 2015. Gas from several Canadian producers will eventually feed LNG Canada, with roughly 40 percent coming from Shell's Groundbirch project. Shell last month announced a plan to limit methane emissions at its assets around the world and is implementing a global methane monitoring program. Last year it set a goal of halving its global carbon emissions by 2050. In Canada, Groundbirch's methane intensity, a measure of methane emitted compared to total volume of product produced, is 0.1 percent, already half the new 0.2 percent by 2025 target set by the Anglo-Dutch company. MAKING CHANGES At one of Groundbirch's newest well pads, two hulking trailers hold thermal electric generators that power the batteries that run the pad's equipment. "They are efficient, but they do produce combustion emissions. So what we're looking at is finding new technology to replace that," said Chang Liu, a facilities engineer-in-training at Groundbirch. The company is testing whether methanol fuel cells, which have no carbon emissions, could be used in the next generation of well pads, eliminating vented methane. For now, the latest generation of well pads use electric valve actuators, cutting methane emissions. Such actions are a "fantastic" first step, said Duncan Kenyon of the Pembina Institute, an energy policy think-tank, but he said not all Canadian producers are following through on pledges to reduce emissions. "What we need is regulations that lock some of these volunteer commitments in place," he said. (Reporting by Julie Gordon, Editing by David Gaffen and David Gregorio)U.S. President Donald Trump threatened on Tuesday to withdraw funding and aid from Honduras if it does not stop a caravan of people that is heading to the United States, in his latest effort to show his administration's tough stance on immigration.

Up to 3,000 migrants crossed from Honduras into Guatemala on Monday on a trek northward, after a standoff with police in riot gear and warnings from Washington that migrants should not try to enter the United States illegally.

"The United States has strongly informed the President of Honduras that if the large Caravan of people heading to the U.S. is not stopped and brought back to Honduras, no more money or aid will be given to Honduras, effective immediately!" Trump said on Twitter.

It was not clear how Honduras would be able to exercise control over people who had already left the country.

The crowd more than doubled in size from Saturday, when some 1,300 people set off from northern Honduras in what has been dubbed "March of the Migrant," an organizer said.

The migrants plan to seek refugee status in Mexico or pass through to the United States, saying they are fleeing poverty and drug-fuelled violence in their countries.

Reuters could not independently verify the number of participants, but images showed a group carrying backpacks and clogging roads near the border, some waving the Honduran flag.

Cuts counterproductive: Honduras

The impoverished nations of Central America, from which thousands of migrants have fled in recent years, are under mounting pressure from Trump's administration to do more to curb mass migration.

It's not the first time this year that Trump has threatened to cut aid to Honduras. He issued a similar tweet in April.

While the president can signal his desires with respect to migration at the southern border, Congress ultimately plays a significant role. Congress has both rejected proposed steep cuts to Central America first proposed by the administration, as well as declining to tackle the contentious border wall issue in a spending bill that kept the government running in September.

Story continues

Guatemala said in a statement on Sunday that it did not promote or endorse "irregular migration." Guatemalan police initially blocked migrants from reaching a customs booth, Reuters images showed. The group was ultimately able to cross, said march organizer Bartolo Fuentes, a former Honduran lawmaker.

Moises Castillo/Associated Press

Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez said last month cuts in U.S. support for Central America would hinder efforts to stem illegal immigration as he welcomed China's growing diplomatic presence in the region as an "opportunity."

In an interview with Reuters, Hernandez expressed regret that prior U.S. commitments to step up investment in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador had been scaled back since Trump took office.

China is strengthening ties with Central America. In August, El Salvador broke off diplomatic relations with Taiwan in favour of China, citing economic reasons and following on the heels of Panama in 2017.

Honduras is one of a dwindling number of countries that still has formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan.

With files from CBC NewsGATINEAU, Quebec, Oct. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today, October 17, 2018, is destined to become the day Canada made history for legalizing adult-use cannabis. Celebrations are planned across the country as all Canadians adapt to the change. However, HEXO Corps employees remain focused on delivering on the companys commitments.



October 17th will be a historic day for Canada. We remain resolute in honouring the commitments that weve made to our customers, investors, partners, and to all cannabis supporters, said Sebastien St-Louis, HEXO Corps Chief Executive Officer and co-founder. As a community, we are working to protect public health and safety. At HEXO, that means an uncompromising commitment to quality, to innovation and to providing our clientele with an exceptional cannabis experience and incomparable service.

HEXO is pleased to announce that its products will be available in Quebec via the Societe quebecoise du cannabis, in Ontario online, and in British Columbia online and in store. HEXO has also delivered valuable training materials for front-line retail cannabis employees. Today, the adult-use Canadian market will gain access to HEXOs product lines, including dried flower, oils, decarboxylated (or pre-activated) powder, and pre-rolled cones.

HEXOs management team recognizes that the company has an important role as a leader in the field, and has the power to help position the cannabis industry as serious, business-oriented and responsible.

We know our audience, and we are delivering products powered by HEXO that align with their expectations and preferences for cannabis experiences, said Adam Miron, HEXO Corps Chief Brand Office and co-founder. Our goal is to become a leading global company, and to have a strong international presence. To achieve this goal, we know that we need to think about more than products and prices. We must also look at our impact on the natural and social environments in which we operate.

Further to its efforts to develop and deliver educational material in partnership with provinces, HEXOs Corporate Social Responsibility Charter focusses on four priorities: People, Public, Products and Planet. Recently, HEXO Corp has supported organization like Fondation Sante de Papineau , the Cegep de lOutaouais , the Gastrointestinal Society , Ottawa Riverkeeper and, most recently, donated $35,000 to tornado relief efforts led by the Red Cross and food banks in the Ottawa and Gatineau region. As always, HEXO remains committed to naturally grown and rigorously tested cannabis of uncompromising quality and to creating innovative and smoke-free products.

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.

Investor Relations:

Jennifer Smith

Senior Manager of Investor Relations

1-866-438-8429

invest@HEXO.com

www.ir.hexo.com

Media Relations:

Sarah Brown

sarah.brown@hexo.com

Director

Adam Miron

819-639-5498

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/19966d44-a67c-4ede-9ac3-0fb2cad58157

A video accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/c71f7100-4a51-47ab-bdfe-c346c324bbb6Photo - Mr Basil Sellers AM with our young writers brains trust  such a privilege Australia provides

ABC Radio National last week had a program that discussed privilege and this article highlights Australias privilege.

Australia has economic privilege. One of our young writers parents are from India and he sent me information on the India-Australia Business and Community Awards (IABCA) as he was nominated for the 2018 Young Community Achiever of the Year award for his work in India.

IABCA is a big deal. An enormous number of Indian migrants have worked hard in Australia and done very well in business. Australia is indeed full of such privilege. .

The same can be said for all of our migrants who have established businesses in Australia. Australian - Chinese are a classic example. I have numerous Australian-Chinese mission associates who are classic examples of economic privilege.

To deny Australia is full of economic privilege for Australian-(ethnic groups) illustrates you exist in cuckoo land.

Opportunity privilege

Australia has opportunity privilege. Consider the educational opportunities all Australian children enjoy. There are apprenticeship opportunities, TAFE is available, teaching colleges, seminaries, universities, post graduate scholarships  Australia is full of opportunity privilege.

Go on any university campus and youll find a sea of international faces. Visit any bible college or seminary such as Australias largest Morling College (NSW Baptist) and those studying for ministry come from the four quarters of the earth.

There are literally hundreds of indigenous programs funded by the tax payer to ensure our own first peoples can enjoy opportunity privilege. Its not rocket science. Look at the number of successful people in any chosen walk of life who have come from humble backgrounds regardless of their ethnicity.

Photo - Music privilege  young writer Thomas Devenish (Hobart) on double base

Internet privilege

Australia has internet privilege. Consider our social media avenues whereby we have immediate contact with our family members wherever they might be. Our family members travel - Messenger is a remarkable thing! Instant!

We connect with our friends and associates, we can do research and gather all kinds of information through the internet systems, and consider how many of our high school students have mobile phones. Its communication privilege on steriods.

Travel privilege

Australia has travel privilege - Australia is a long way away, and its part of our culture to travel. Our son, like many young Australians before him spent a good portion of his 20s in the UK. All of our four children have travelled extensively and some have come with me on international missions.

Go to any Australian international airport is it like the United Nations general assembly. Oodles of young Australians whose parents have come from countries around the world, are now part of this travel privilege. Australia illustrates travel privilege like no other considering our global geographical location.

Photo - Religious privilege such as Hillsong

Religious privilege

Australia has religious privilege. Believe as you wish in good graces. Hillsong illustrates this international privilege, with young people from around the planet.

Some in our young writers ministry represent this very thing  Indian, Palestinian, Greek, Chinese, Asian, Korean, South African, Mozambique, Canadian, West Indies, Kiwis, USA, England  Australia indeed has religious privilege.

Check out the Bible Society and the languages in which the Scriptures are printed. The Religious Press in Australia is alive and well heralded by the Australasian Religious Press Association (ARPA).

Political privilege

Anyone can nominate for election to our Shire Councils. Political parties seem to be dime a dozen, join one of them, along with lobby groups such as environmental and political such as Get-Up allow for voices from every which way .

Prime Ministers in Australia come and go at an astonishing rate, put your name down. Australia has a political privilege the envy of the world. Consider so many other such privileges Australia provides - medical, tourism, shopping, grocery selections, farming produce, welfare, charities, transport, garbage collection, clean water, industry, small business, rail .

What is privilege

The point of all this privilege is that none of this is a pre-programmed white privilege, rather there are numerous privileges as illustrated. These privileges exist for everyone in Australia. For Christians, it includes the privilege of telling others of the Salvation of Jesus Christ.

Moreover, we invite young people 18-30 years interested in writing for Christian Today with your own column please connect with Dr Mark Tronson timeout@bushorchestra.com 0419 917 713

Photo - Community events such as CoolyRocksOn encourages a church service  such a privilege

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 - Midge Point Bush Fire Truck

Australia it seems has a third certainty apart from the old adage of taxes and death, and this is that every summer the nation experiences bush fires and inevitably homes are destroyed, burnt to the ground.

Those volunteer bush fire personnel and those whose homes are in the face of such bush fires have a common experience, that of the sound of a bush fire rushing towards them with high winds. Even a 747 or a freight train has nothing on this frightening sound.

Major fire storms that result in severe loss of life are often named based on the day on which they occur, such as Ash Wednesday and Black Sunday. Some of the most intense, extensive and deadly bushfires commonly occur during droughts and heat waves, such as the 2009 Southern Australia heat wave, which precipitated the conditions during the 2009 Black Saturday busfires in which 173 people lost their lives.

Common causes of bushfires include lightning, arching from overhead power lines, arson, accidental ignition from agricultural clearing, grinding and welding, campfires, cigarettes and dropped matches, machinery and controlled burn escapes.

In 2009, a standardised Fire Danger Rating (FDR) was adopted by all Australian states. During the fire season the Bureau of Meteorology provides fire weather forecasts and by considering the predicted weather including temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and dryness of vegetation, fire agencies determine the appropriate Fire Danger Rating. In 2010, following a national review of the bush fire danger ratings, new trigger points for each rating were introduced for grassland areas in most jurisdictions.

Photo - Bush fire in the making (white smoke)

The rating are

Catastrophic / Code Red

Extreme

Severe

Very High

High

Low to moderate

Bushfires have accounted for over 800 deaths in Australia since 1851 and although bushfires can occur at any time of year, the most likely months are between November and March. Controlled burns have become a fundamental ingredient to bush fire protection. It's been interesting that bush fires in North Queensland tends to be a November event, much earlier than elsewhere across the nation, mainly due to winter and spring undergrowth in the light of their warmer cooler months.

Photo - Bush Fire aftermarth (4)

Homes

We have all witnessed on television newscasts the aftermath of houses devastated by bushfires. Moreover the all too common bewilderment of a bush fire destroying house after house and somehow leaving other houses untouched. Entire communities are sometimes sent into despair, in 2009 Marysville in Victoria was one such town. Utter destruction was the scene. Authorities needed to put up road blocks to counter the sight see-er phenomena.

The real question associated with bushfires is - what is a home? When a house is destroyed by bush fire what has been lost to the dwellers, the residents, the home owners. The Bush Fire Chaplains have years of experience as to what is lost:

A living home

Cherished memories

Family treasures such as photographs

A place where the family return

Familiarity

The sounds of footsteps

Comforting awareness of rooms

The homeliness of the clothes line

Making a cuppa

A favourite lounge chair

Decisions as to the future

Most of these things are intangible. The loss of the soothing and comforting experience of making a cuppa early in the morning, looking out through the kitchen window, is something that dollars and cents cannot fathom. The never ending daily walk to the washing line, when taken away, becomes an emotional insurmountable loss. Family heir looms and precious family photographs have untold sacred value.

Yet, in spite of all this, for many, it has been a means to a fresh start, and a realisation that our possessions have only a little consequence compared to the welfare of our precious loved ones. Life itself is such a gift from the Lord, that the joy of hugging someone of whom we love who escaped from such a fate, is beyond words. Nonetheless, it may take years to bring adjustment to such emotional loss of a home.

Photo - Midge Point Rural Fire Station

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There are so few Christians left in Iraq that just one more wave of persecution could wipe them out for good, a church leader has warned.

The Chaldean Catholic Archbishop of Basra, Habib Nafali, said Christianity's 2,000-year history in Iraq could come to an end if Christians are subjected to more persecution.

Speaking to the Catholic News Service, Archbishop Nafali blamed years of violence against Christians for the exodus.

He said the scale of the violence against Christians was tantamount to genocide and that the Islamic State continued to pose a threat.

While military campaigns have pushed the Islamic State back in the past year, it has not been completely defeated and he fears that Christians are still at risk.

'We have seen with our own eyes how they attack Christians,' he said.

The Archbishop said Christians had been the targets of 'systematic violence' designed to 'destroy their language, to break up their families and push them to leave Iraq'.

He estimated the number of Christians still in Iraq at around a quarter of a million, a huge drop from the 1.5 million living there in 2003.

While many have sought refuge in the UK, US and other countries, the Archbishop said Christian refugees were put off returning because in addition to the threat of violence from extremists, many struggle to get by because of the discrimination they face in the area of employment.

So many Christians have left the country that he now fears any more violence will push the last few remaining away for good.

'Another wave of persecution will be the end of Christianity after 2,000 years,' he said.

'There is a global game, and the peaceful people - the minorities - in the end will be the ones who are destroyed,' he said.

He added, 'If this is not genocide, then what is genocide?'WEDNESDAY, Oct. 17, 2018 (American Heart Association) -- While preeclampsia puts women at greater risk for stroke and high blood pressure following childbirth, a new study found that the pregnancy-related condition may not predispose them to significant cognitive impairment later in life.

Instead, other physical and social risk factors related to the condition may be contributing to those subtle cognitive changes, according to the Canadian study published Oct. 17 in the American Heart Association journal Hypertension.

Preeclampsia, a pregnancy complication most commonly characterized by high blood pressure and protein in the urine, usually resolves after delivery. But women who had the condition are twice as likely to have a stroke or prematurely develop heart disease within 10 to 15 years after giving birth than women who did not have preeclampsia.

This could be because of post-pregnancy development of high blood pressure, also known as hypertension, and damage to the vascular system, both of which can affect blood supply to the brain, said Dr. Natalie Dayan, the study's lead author.

"We wondered whether preeclampsia predisposes women to early onset cognitive impairment due to this type of damage to blood vessels in the brain," said Dayan, director of the McGill University Health Centre's obstetrical medicine program in Montreal.

Using a database that followed a group of healthy young U.S. adults for 25 years, researchers looked at 568 women who had given birth at least once. About a third of the women reported having preeclampsia while the rest reported pregnancies without blood pressure problems.

Both groups were given three sets of cognitive tests 18 years after their first childbirth. The average age of the women taking the tests was 49.

The cognitive assessments measured executive function, learning and memory, and attention and processing speed. Women who had preeclampsia scored lower on two of the tests than the women who didn't have the condition.

However, the differences in scores diminished after researchers accounted for age, high blood pressure, depression, body mass index and education level.

"This means that although women who reported preeclampsia appear to have lower scores on these neurocognitive tests than women who did not report this condition, it may not be the preeclampsia itself, but rather these other factors that are also common in women with preeclampsia that led to worse cognitive scores," Dayan said.

But because the study did not use MRI or another type of scan to compare the brains between the two groups, a link between cognitive impairment and preeclampsia could not be entirely ruled out, said Dr. Sudha Seshadri, director of the Glenn Biggs Institute for Alzheimer's and Neurodegenerative Diseases in San Antonio.

Childbirth is generally believed to reset a body affected by preeclampsia, but the high blood pressure associated with the condition may have permanently harmed the liver, kidneys and other organs -- including the brain -- during the pregnancy, she said.

"When your blood pressure goes up very high, you can have changes in the brain. In the absence of any direct visualization of the brain, I don't want to say we know that there wasn't a direct effect" on cognition, said Seshadri, who was not connected to the study.

"Preeclampsia, despite having been around forever, is still quite poorly understood. So it probably makes sense for physicians to monitor these women a little more carefully, with attention given to things like blood pressure."

Seshadri, a senior investigator for the Framingham Heart Study, also suggests the women take a simple cognitive test, "at least for a few years," to help detect possible changes.

Dayan agreed that the study stresses the need for doctors to closely monitor blood pressure and other heart disease risk factors in women whose pregnancies were complicated by preeclampsia.

"Physicians should keep an open mind about the possible blood vessel changes after preeclampsia that may occur in the heart and in other organ systems in the body," she said.Share this: Twitter

Facebook

WhatsApp

LinkedIn

Email

Telegram



New York, October 17, 2018The Committee to Protect Journalists today called on Pakistani authorities to investigate and promptly bring to justice the killers of journalist Sohail Khan. Khan, a reporter for the Urdu daily K2 Times, was shot dead while driving in Haripur, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, yesterday, according to multiple news reports.

News reports said that Khan received threats shortly after writing a story about the arrest of an alleged drug dealer named Musarrat Iqbal. Khan had filed an application at the district police office requesting protection on the day that he was killed, Iqbal Khattak, director of the media watchdog organization Freedom Network, told CPJ.

We condemn the killing of Sohail Khan in Pakistan, and urge authorities to carry out a thorough and transparent investigation and bring all those involved in the killing to justice, said CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Steven Butler in Islamabad. Pakistani authorities must send a clear signal that they are committed to stamping out the culture of impunity that continues to thrive in the country.

In a report today, The Associated Press cited a Haripur police official as saying that Khan was killed because of his reporting. The official said police were searching for Ali Sher and Himayun Iqbal, the sons of the jailed drug dealer. The sons are suspected of ambushing Khans car and killing him, the police official said.

The Freedom Network tweeted a photo of the Urdu-language first information report filed on Khans killing. Khattak told CPJ that two people listed in the report are Iqbals sons.

When CPJ called the district police office in Haripur for comment, the person who answered said he didnt know about the case and that no one else was available.

Last year, K2s Haripur bureau chief Bakhsheesh Elahi was shot dead. Police have not made any arrests in that case and CPJ is still investigating to determine if journalism was the motive. At least 33 journalists have been murdered in retaliation for their work in Pakistan since 1992, according to CPJ research. In a special report released last month, CPJ found that while fatal violence against the press has declined in recent years, journalists fear and self-censorship have increased.Share this: Twitter

Facebook

WhatsApp

LinkedIn

Email

Telegram



Bangkok, October 17, 2018The Committee to Protect Journalists today welcomed news that Vietnamese blogger Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh, known by her pen name Mother Mushroom, has been freed from prison and allowed to depart with her family on a flight to the United States.

We are greatly pleased that Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh is finally free, but strongly reiterate that she never should have been imprisoned in the first place, said Shawn Crispin, CPJs senior Southeast Asia representative. Authorities should follow through on the move by releasing all the other journalists still wrongfully held behind bars in Vietnam.

Quynh is scheduled to arrive in Houston, Texas, on Thursday with her two children and mother, according to a friend of the family who planned to meet her at the airport who communicated with CPJ by email. She plans to live in the American city in exile, the same source said.

Quynh had been jailed since October 2016 and was serving a 10-year sentence for distributing propaganda against the state, an anti-state crime under Article 88 of Vietnams penal code. Her conviction related to 18 articles she published online, including an investigative report on the high number of deaths of suspects in Vietnamese police custody.

News reports noted her release came shortly after U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis left the country amid a bilateral warming trend. It was not immediately clear if the U.S. government played a role in negotiating Quynhs release.

CPJ will present its International Press Freedom Award to Quynh at a ceremony in New York City in November in recognition of her courage in reporting. According to CPJs annual prison census, at least 10 journalists, including Quynh, were behind bars in Vietnam as of December 1, 2017.TORONTO, Oct. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Canada-Ukraine Trade & Investment (CUTIS) project celebrates the first anniversary of the Canada Ukraine Free Trade Agreement (CUFTA) on Monday, October 22, 2018 from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. at the Design Exchange, Toronto.



Key notes will be delivered by Stephan Kubiv, First Vice President & Minister of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine, Chrystia Freeland, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Canada, and Zenon Potoczny, President, Canada-Ukraine Chamber of Commerce.

"The success of the CUFTA is measured not only by striking new trade deals but also by ensuring that our agreements actually deliver, and we are on the right track. Most recently, Brookfield Asset Management announced their support of the Lviv Innovation District IT park, which will include office buildings, campuses and labs, kindergartens, shopping malls and the Ukrainian Catholic University. This $160 million dollar, 10-ha IT park is the biggest infrastructure project of the Lviv IT industry and was initiated by a group of Lviv based international IT companies, such as N-iX, SoftServe and Global Logic and the Lviv IT Cluster. said Zenon Potoczny, president, Canada-Ukraine Chamber of Commerce.

Brookfield Asset Management is a leading global alternative asset manager, focused on investing in long-life, high quality assets across real estate, infrastructure, renewable power and private equity.

On Tuesday, October 23rd and Wednesday, October 24th Torontos Bay Street players meet Ukraine. The CUTIS project and Crossways MK Consulting Inc. have organized the first ever Investment Roadshow to develop Canada-Ukraine investment collaboration in four major sectors: Infrastructure, Natural Resources, Agriculture, and Information & Communications Technology. The event will inform investors about large lucrative projects, share insights of CEOs and Ukrainian Deputy Ministers, and provide opportunities to interact with decision makers on both sides of the commercial and geopolitical coin.

We pride ourselves on showcasing the right companies to the right people and creating an immersive setting that will drive stronger investor engagement. said Markiyan Markevych, president, Crossways MK Consulting Inc. An important component of the Investment Roadshow is to market Ukraines potential, and encourage opportunities for economic growth for both partners.

Twenty presentations by C-level Ukrainian management for an estimated total value of USD 1.5 billion dollars will be made at The Albany Club, Toronto on Tuesday, October 23rd and Wednesday, October 24, 2018. The selected 20 Ukrainian companies have been reviewed and examined by Crossways MK Consulting Inc. Toronto, Canada and SP Advisors, Kyiv, Ukraine.

The Canada-Ukraine Trade and Investment Support (CUTIS) project is a 5-year initiative funded by Global Affairs Canada. The project aims to stimulate economic growth through the expansion of Ukrainian trade with Canada and the encouragement of Canadian investment in Ukraine. To maximize the impact of trade and investment between Canada and Ukraine the CUTIS project focus is on small and medium enterprises (SME's) that make an important contribution to Ukraine's employment and economic growth. CUTIS project offices are in Toronto and Ottawa, Canada and Kyiv, Ukraine. www.cutisproject.org Toronto office  info@cutisproject.org

The Canada-Ukraine Chamber of Commerce (CUCC) promotes and facilitates trade and investment between Canada and Ukraine, and creates a forum for networking, communication and learning. CUCC provides a respected voice to governments and agencies and is the business gateway between Canada & Ukraine. http://cucc.ca/ Canadian Head Office, Toronto, ON - info@cucc.caMexico Crypto Laws Wins Intl Praise - and Warnings

The head of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and former governor of the Mexican central bank has warned Mexico not to rest on its laurels after international government tech experts lauded the countrys decision to introduce cryptocurrency and fintech regulations. Agustin Carstens. Source: a video screenshot.

From March next year, crypto exchanges will need to apply to the central bank, Bexico, for operating permits. Exchanges will have to meet a range of Bexico criteria if they are to obtain permits, proving they use adequate management systems and Know-Your-Customer policies. Per one expert, the move has already resulted in overseas exchanges looking to establish branches in the country.

The fintech law, which also includes legislation pertaining to crowdfunding, cryptocurrencies and electronic pay, has won praise from G24, or the Intergovernmental Group of Twenty-Four on International Monetary Affairs and Development, financial leaders. A G24 report presented at the IMF-World Bank Bali Fintech event late last week heaped praise on Mexico for pioneering financial inclusion.

The report praises Mexicos law for being a good example for would-be regulators, with a balance of regulations that protect consumers.

However, BIS head Agustin Carstens warned against complacency in the light of the G24s seal of approval in an interview with El Economista. Carstens stated, I think Mexico is doing fine with its fintech laws, but it has to keep moving forward. In fact, there is a need to anticipate trends. [Information technology] has no borders. It is in a state of permanent innovation. Mexico must stay up to date or risk falling behind.

Carstens also warned Mexico against cryptocurrency-related cybersecurity threats coming from abroad.

Source: The World Bank

The BIS is a 60-member financial institution owned by central banks. Its duties include international regulatory functions and creating monetary policy for its members, which include the likes of China, the United States, Germany and most other major global economic powers.

Carstens has spoken out about cryptocurrencies before. Just after his appointment as BIS chief last year, he told Bloomberg, that the BIS would devote a lot of resources to policing cryptocurrencies, and stated, Anything that grows in price as fast as Bitcoin has, without having a real clear understanding of what is behind it, should at least raise some eyebrows.

Meanwhile, in a report, published in June, BIS stated that cryptocurrencies are not scalable and are subject to too much manipulation and fraud to ever gain the status of currency, and accused Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies suffering a range of shortcomings.

In a more recent report in September, BIS warned that international coordination is the only way to properly regulate the cryptocurrency market, due to the global nature of this new market.17 October 2018  ArcelorMittal (the Company) announces that, in-line with the Indian Supreme Court ruling dated 4 October 2018, it has approved a payment of 7,469 crore rupees (c. $1 billion) to the financial creditors of Uttam Galva and KSS Petron to clear overdue debts in order that the offer it submitted for Essar Steel India Limited (ESIL) on 2 April 2018 is eligible and can be considered by ESILs Committee of Creditors (CoC).



ArcelorMittals Board of Directors believes that ESIL represents a unique and compelling opportunity for the Company to establish a significant footprint, with substantial expansion potential, in the high-growth Indian steel market. It concluded that, given the significant benefits that ESIL would bring to ArcelorMittal, making this payment was an appropriate course of action under the circumstances.

As stipulated in the Supreme Court ruling, ESILs CoC now has an eight-week period to accept what it considers to be the best resolution plan from eligible applicants.

ENDS

About ArcelorMittal

ArcelorMittal is the world's leading steel and mining company, with a presence in 60 countries and an industrial footprint in 18 countries. Guided by a philosophy to produce safe, sustainable steel, we are the leading supplier of quality steel in the major global steel markets including automotive, construction, household appliances and packaging, with world-class research and development and outstanding distribution networks.

Through our core values of sustainability, quality and leadership, we operate responsibly with respect to the health, safety and wellbeing of our employees, contractors and the communities in which we operate.

For us, steel is the fabric of life, as it is at the heart of the modern world from railways to cars and washing machines. We are actively researching and producing steel-based technologies and solutions that make many of the products and components people use in their everyday lives more energy efficient.

We are one of the worlds five largest producers of iron ore and metallurgical coal. With a geographically diversified portfolio of iron ore and coal assets, we are strategically positioned to serve our network of steel plants and the external global market. While our steel operations are important customers, our supply to the external market is increasing as we grow.

In 2017, ArcelorMittal had revenues of $68.7 billion and crude steel production of 93.1 million metric tonnes, while own iron ore production reached 57.4 million metric tonnes.

ArcelorMittal is listed on the stock exchanges of New York (MT), Amsterdam (MT), Paris (MT), Luxembourg (MT) and on the Spanish stock exchanges of Barcelona, Bilbao, Madrid and Valencia (MTS).



For more information about ArcelorMittal please visit: http://corporate.arcelormittal.com/Bangladesh: One dies as fishing boats collide

October 17,2018 | Source: The Daily Star

A fisherman was killed and two others got serious injuries as two fishing boats collided in the Jamuna river near Alodia Char in the district's Shibalaya upazila early yesterday. Defying the ongoing ban, they went to the river with engine-run boats to catch hilsa, locals said.



The boats collided amid dark in the night around 1:45am. Bahaj Sheikh, 55, died on the spot while Ayub Ali, 45, and Saidul Islam, 35, were seriously injured. They are residents of Alokdia Char in Shivalaya upazila, said Khandaker Imam Hossain, OC of Shibalaya Police Station. The two injured fishermen were admitted to Shibalaya Upazila Health Complex. Police recovered the deceased's body and sent it to Manikganj Sadar Hospital for autopsy, he said.



Defying a government ban, a section of fishermen are catching hilsa from Padma and Jamuna rivers allegedly with the support of some ruling party leaders in exchange of money. The Daily Star published a report on the matter in its Country Page on Sunday.Pakistan: Three fish culture workshops being organized in Potohar Region

October 17,2018 | Source: Urdu Point

Three workshops on fish culture and conservation will be organized in Potohar region on the directives of Director General Fisheries Department Punjab Sikandar Hayyat.



According to Assistant Director Fisheries Training Sana Arooj, first workshop would be held in District Jhulam on October 17 while next would be arranged in District Chakwal on October 18. She further informed that third fish culture & conservation workshop would be held at fish seed hatchery Department of fisheries Rawal Town Islamabad on October 19.



Sana Arooj informed that Assistant Director Publicity Main Ghulam Qadir and other team members wold deliver lectures on the subject. They would impart basic information and latest techniques about fishfarming and methods of conservation. Sana Arooj said that fish was most suitable healthy food item for everyone.Letters written on death row were given to the Hankyoreh by Lee Sang-hyeok, the attorney who set up the Council for the Abolishment of Capital Punishment in South Korea in 1989.





For more than 2 decades, from Mar. 1994 until this past July, Lee received 63 handwritten letters running for more than 200 pages that record the fear of death, guilt for crimes committed and remorse for family members left behind.





"Even the most heinous of criminals should be given a chance to sincerely repent for their crimes and apologize to their victims," said Lee while showing the letters. Lee's correspondence with Kim Jin-tae, 52, offers insight into the life of inmates on death row.





Kim Jin-tae was a death-row inmate until his death sentence was commuted to life behind bars by a special amnesty on the last day of 2002. During the decade between 1993 and 2002, he wore a red name badge on his chest and spent each day waiting for death. In 1992, Kim was arrested by the police on charges of killing his father and abandoning his body, and he was sentenced to death the following year. That happened when he was 27 years old.





When Kim's father drank, he habitually resorted to violence. After getting married at the age of 18, Kim's mother endured this violence for nearly 30 years. On the day of the incident, his father had been drinking heavily, as usual. His intoxicated father struck his mother in the head with a blunt object, knocking her out. Seeing this drove Kim out of his mind. He shot his father with a shotgun and dumped his body in the Han River.





RELATED: South Korea has 61 people currently on death row





Arrested on charges of patricide, Kim said that he meekly confessed his crime to the police. This resulted in his incarceration and induction into death row at the Seoul Detention Center, where he has been doing time for 26 years now. Kim went behind bars in his 20s and is now in his 50s.





While on death row, Kim was referred to as a "maximum-sentence prisoner" rather than a "death row prisoner." The meaning is the same, as the term means a prisoner receiving the maximum sentence. The term "death row prisoner" is not often used in prison. The words "death penalty" exacerbate the inmates' fear. Referring to death row prisoners as "maximum prisoners" is normal practice in prisons.





Every passing day a step closer to death





Of course, use of the term "maximum-sentence prisoner" does not make the death penalty any less of a reality. While in prison, death row prisoners are constantly close to death. Every day could be their last. While most prisoners hope for the days to go by quickly, death row prisoners see each passing day as one step closer to death.





"We death row prisoners can't really be said to be serving sentences. I suppose it's like getting bonus life," Kim wrote on Mar. 17, 1997. "You could say that while people serving time get closer to their release as time passes, for us it means the day of our death is drawing nearer. It's been 6 years since I was put on death row. I came in as a 27-year-old, and now I'm 32."





Since every day is a "bonus," it is not considered strange that execution day eventually will arrive. This does not erase the fear of death, however. The life of a death row prisoner is one of constant uncertainty. Prisoners start at even the smallest noises. Every guard's footstep, every prisoner number that is called is a nerve-racking moment that could signal their ushering to the execution chamber.





That sense of day-to-day anxiety for prisoners was apparent in a 2009 piece Kim wrote from prison about his experience on death row. Its title was "Waiting in a Cold Prison Cell for the Death Penalty System to Kill Itself."





"The shoes of the approaching prison guard echoing as he strode through the corridor were like the ticking of a time bomb, the sound of the angel of death drawing near. When they finally called out a prisoner's number for a visit, chapel, or trip to the infirmary, cold sweat would stream down my spine and my heart would drop through my stomach. I would confront this fear of death several times a day. (Dec. 3, 2009)





Kim could still vividly remember one moment when he seemed to be staring death in the face. It happened on Dec. 30, 1997, during his 6th year of imprisonment. That morning, he woke up earlier than he ever had before. "Human beings are spiritual animals, and I just had a sense," he explained on why that morning in particular seemed so chilling to him.





From the moment his eyes opened, Kim felt that this was to be the day. He took a cold shower early in the morning. With his head now cleared, he wrote a final message and silently prayed. After some time of praying and waiting, a guard called out his prisoner number.





"4088, Kim Jin-tae. Visit."





Thinking his time had finally come, Kim said a final goodbye to the "brothers" sharing his cell and stepped outside, a Bible in his hands. He also said a last farewell to the people he saw as he walked down the corridor. But the place the guard escorted him to was the visitors' room, not the execution chamber. Standing there was Rev. Moon Jang-sik, the Seoul Detention Center's head pastor at the time. Seeing Moons bloodshot eyes, Kim vaguely sensed that someone else's execution had been carried out, not his. On that day, the Kim Young-sam administration carried out death sentences against 23 death row prisoners, including 6 members of the "Chijon family" gang, who kidnapped and cruelly murdered 5 innocent people. It was the last day executions were carried out in South Korea. One of the people who died that day was a fellow "maximum prisoner" Kim had been close with. He too had been baptized as a Christian. The fellow prisoner had his organs and body donated when he was executed.





Death row prisoners often pledge to donate organs





Many death row prisoners make pledges to donate their organs before their final day arrives. While it may have been a crime that brought them to prison, they feel they should save other people's lives when their time comes. Kim was one of them. In 1995, 2 years after his death sentence was finally confirmed, he signed a pledge to donate his organs and allow the use of his body for medical science experimentation. He reached the conclusion after pondering ways to ensure his death was "not in vain."





He asked for his organs to be donated to those in need, his body to be dissected in a medical school, and the remains to be cremated and spread on his father's grave.





"Please donate my organs and bodies as needed and cremate the rest so that I can at least fertilize the ground on the grave of the feather who died because of me. I hope that what can be used is put to use and the rest can serve as fertilizer on my father's grave as some small form of atonement to my departed father and my remaining family as a depraved person who killed the father who gave birth to me because he had become a servant of evil satanic demons and beaten and abused by mother," he wrote on Mar. 27, 1995.





The organ donation was meant as a small gesture of atonement to Kim's father. Donations have already become a customary way of expiation for Kim. Every year, he donates 1 million won (US$890) from his custody holdings to relief groups for underfed children and other causes. He also uses some of the money to buy needed items for prisoners without family. "I feel so happy and grateful to be able to help others from here," he wrote on Aug. 25, 2000.





Inmates performing penitence and turning to religion in prison





Death row prisoners often perform penitence for their crimes in prison. Many turn to religion while behind bars, or awaken to the brutality of their crimes on the outside during conversations with correctional commission members and volunteers.





One example is Seo Chae-taek, who received a final death sentence in 1987 on charges of homicide during a robbery. Seo became a Buddhist while in prison and sincerely repented his acts. The wife of the man whose life Seo had taken submitted a petition asking that his death sentence be commuted to life in prison. But in 1994, he was put to death. In his final message, he wrote, "I am sorry to [the victim's] family. I hope I will be the last, and there will be no other executions." Seo too donated his body to science.





Death-row prisoners who choose suicide before execution





Living in daily fear of death, some death row prisoners opt to take their own lives. In 2015, a prisoner surnamed Lee sentenced to death for killing 5 relatives was found hanging in his Seoul Detention Center; he died of related injuries 2 days later.





Another death row prisoner surnamed Jeong hanged himself in 2009 in a solitary confinement cell at Seoul Detention Center. No note was found, evidence suggests Jeong was fearful of his execution. A notebook he kept included a message that read, "They say there are no plans to abolish the death penalty right now. Recently, the death penalty has been issued once again. [. . ]. Life is like a cloud, coming and going all too soon." The Ministry of Justice speculated Jeong may have taken his own life out of fears stemming from public calls for enforcing the death penalty in the wake of the Cho Doo-soon assault case.





After hearing the news, Kim sent a letter to his attorney saying, "I can understand how he feels in some sense, having lived in fear of the execution that might come at any time during 10 years as a death row prisoner."





"Many of the prisoners who heard about it said something like, 'Good for him choosing to end his own life cleanly instead of living in fear of death every day,'" he added.





"If it weren't for religion, something might have happened to me too," he wrote.





"I've met with 70 to 80 death row prisoners over the years, and most of them have shown some potential for rehabilitation," said attorney Lee Sang-hyeok, who has devoted more than 3 decades to fighting for abolition of the death penalty.





"In some cases, prisoners turn over a new leaf and sincerely ask for and receive forgiveness from the victim's family," he added.





A model prisoner, Kim had his death sentence commuted to life in prison in 2002. At times, he seemed to have given up on life during period on death row. "I'm astonished at my bizarre attachment [to life] when I think about the crime I've committed," he wrote on Mar. 8, 1994. "I'll live an eternal life after death."





But after his sentence was commuted in 2002, he vowed to live life to the fullest. "After 10 years of waiting for execution day with a red prisoner number on my chest, I have been granted life by the grace of God," he said. Possessing 8 certificates that he earned in prison - as an auto mechanic, boiler technician, and hot-water heating technician - he is committed to a new life in the off chance he ever returns to society.





"There's something I used to imagine every time I crawled in my sleeping bag to escape the cold that seemed to scrape into my flesh - that this prison was a repository for human garbage, that I was garbage inside a trash bag. But while some garbage is completely unsalvageable and gets buried or incinerated, other garbage can be melted down and recycled," he wrote on Apr. 21, 2006.





"Sometimes I promise myself that I will be recycled, melting my ugly and foul past crime away in the furnace and becoming usable again, if a little worse for wear."





Dreaming of the day when the death penalty is abolished





In addition to his return to society, Kim also dreams of the day the death penalty is abolished. Though he is no longer technically a death row prisoner, he sees himself as "eternally a death row prisoner" in spirit, and he hopes to see the system abolished so other prisoners are given the opportunity for remorse for their deed and atonement to the victims. His hopes for the death penalty's abolition were apparent throughout his letters.





"It was very welcome and inspiring news to hear that the Ministry of Justice is re-examining the death penalty law. It was tremendously gratifying to think all of your efforts over the years are beginning to bear fruit, and I sincerely hope for and cautiously look forward to nothing unfortunate happening before it is fully achieved," he wrote on Apr. 1, 2006.





"People like us who have been sentenced cannot speak for ourselves. We can only await the disposition of the public and government," he added later in the same letter.





Kim, who said he collects newspaper articles on the death penalty, also voiced his hopes for the system's abolition in a letter from this year.





"I saw an article in the paper a few days ago saying the President was pushing for a moratorium on executions within the year, and I thought my wish and prayer was finally coming true," he wrote on July 3.





Inmates fear life in prison over death; the importance of redemption





Attorney Lee Sang-hyeok, who has been exchanging letters with death row prisoners for decades, said, "What the death row prisoners really are afraid of is not actually execution, but a life sentence."





"We need to abolish the death penalty and institute relative life sentences as an alternative while allowing for parole according to very strict standards," he recommended.





"What inspires [the prisoners] to truly repent is hope, even if it's just the eye of a needle in terms of possibility. It's a mistake not to grant opportunities for rehabilitation to offenders who have committed severe crimes," he said.





Kim's 71-year-old mother (surnamed Jang), who lost her husband as a result of her son's crime, tearfully pleaded for him to be allowed to return home.





"It is true that my son did wrong, but he has repented for his past deeds, he has lived an upstanding life in prison, and he has helped people in need," she said. "I hope to hear some good news."





Having witnessed her son imprisoned for over 25 years, Jang is now over 70 years old. She has set up a small home where she hopes to spend the rest of her life with the oldest son who committed an ineradicable crime to protect her. She currently lives there alone.

 | 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



Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE!





"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,

but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar WildeHyderabad: The Mumbai police has arrested a student from Hyderabad for murdering an aspiring model at Malad Oshiwara, in Mumbai.

Syed, 19, a second year college student from Hyderabad, has an extended family staying in Mumbai and keeps shifting frequently between the two cities. He was here this time with his family at their place in Oshiwara, said a source in the Mumbai police.

The source said that Syed and Mansi were in contact through an online platform and decided to meet at Syeds apartment in Oshiwara on Monday afternoon.

After an argument, Syed, in a fit of rage, allegedly hit Mansi with a stool and then strangled her to death, following which he stuffed the body in a suitcase and hailed a private cab from Oshiwara to Malad between 3 pm and 4 pm. He then dumped the body near Mindspace, amidst the cover of mangroves and fled from the spot in a rickshaw, added the official.

The cabbie who drove Syed to Malad tipped off the Bangur Nagar police, after seeing him dump the suitcase containing the body.

Using CCTV footage and the information provided by the cabbie, police traced Syed and placed him under arrest on Monday evening.

A case has been booked under section 302 (murder) of IPC. Syed will be produced before a metropolitan court on Tuesday, the official said.

He also said that Syed had confessed to murdering Mansi and had said that he did it unintentionally in the spur of the moment. The body has been sent for post-mortem examination.New Delhi: Sri Lanka on Wednesday denied Colombo media reports that President Maithripala Sirisena had accused an Indian intelligence agency of being involved in a plot to assassinate him, with President Sirisena calling up Prime Minister Narendra Modi to personally deny these reports. President Sirisena told Mr Modi that the mischievous and mala fide reports were utterly baseless and false, and seemed intended to create a misunderstanding between the two leaders as well as damage the cordial relations between the two friendly neighbours.

Speculation is rife in Sri Lanka of a turf war between its President and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, who incidentally will begin a three-day visit to New Delhi on Thursday.

The external affairs ministry in New Delhi said President Sirisena also told Mr Modi in the telephone call that he regards Mr Modi as a true friend of Sri Lanka, as also a close personal friend, emphasising that he greatly valued the mutually beneficial ties between India and Sri Lanka, and remained steadfast to work with the Prime Minister for further strengthening them.

It said Mr Modi appreciated the prompt steps taken by the (Sri Lankan) President and his government to firmly refute the malicious reports by publicly clarifying matters.

But what President Sirisena initially said has become the subject of much speculation in Sri Lanka. Interestingly, the denial of the media reports by the Sri Lankan foreign ministry said President Sirisenas remarks had been taken out of context. According to some media reports from Sri Lanka, Cabinet spokesman and minister Rajitha Senaratne said President Sirisena did not say the (Indian) Research and Analysis Wing was allegedly involved in a plot to assassinate him and the President at the Cabinet meeting had actually said attempts were being made to implicate RAW in the alleged plot to assassinate him and damage India-Sri Lanka bilateral ties.

Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe will, incidentally, hold talks with Mr Modi and external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj on Saturday, in which the entire gamut of India-Sri Lankan ties will be discussed.Not for distribution to United States newswire services or for release, publication, distribution or dissemination directly, or indirectly, in whole or in part, in or into the United States.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Oct. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Teal Valley Health Inc. ("Teal Valley" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the successful launch of its comprehensive medical cannabis software platform (the "Teal Valley Platform").

The Teal Valley Platform includes a cannabis specific Electronic Medical Records system ("EMR System") and is rapidly becoming the industry's most comprehensive patient and clinic prescribing, ordering, and management platform. The Teal Valley Platform provides an intuitive integrated solution that empowers and connects patients, healthcare practitioners and clinics with licensed producers of cannabis.

The Teal Valley Platform optimises and enhances the process of patient and customer acquisition and on-boarding, while managing the entire order lifecycle in a sector that is quickly realizing customers' demands for a seamless journey and healthcare experience.

Additionally, in anticipation of Teal Valley's expected listing application to a stock exchange in Canada, the Company announces a pre-listing non-brokered private placement financing (the "Financing") for gross proceeds of up to $10,000,000, comprised of up to 15,384,615 units in the capital of the Company (each, a "Unit") at the subscription price of $0.65 per Unit. Each Unit will consist of one common share in the capital of the Company and one-half of one common share purchase warrant (each, a "Warrant"), with each whole Warrant entitling the holder thereof to purchase one common share in the capital of the Company at an exercise price of $1.00 per share for a period of 24 months from the closing of the Financing, subject to acceleration. Where permitted by applicable securities laws, the Company may pay a finder's fee to individuals or companies who refer investors who participate in the Financing, payable in cash and/or securities, as the Company in its sole discretion may determine. All securities issued in connection with the Financing will be subject to a hold period of four months and one day in Canada.

Proceeds from the Financing are intended to be used to complete the acquisition of two world-class Health Canada licensed drug manufacturing and packaging facilities located in the Greater Toronto area and Montreal with an aggregate of 130 000 square feet of cannabis processing space. The Financing proceeds are also anticipated to be used to accelerate the installation of cannabis extraction systems and cannabis product manufacturing at the aforementioned facilities.

This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy the securities described herein in the United States, or in any jurisdiction in which such an offer or sale would be unlawful. The securities described herein have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the 1933 Act) or any United States state securities laws, and may not be offered or sold in the United States or to the account or benefit of a U.S. person (as defined in Regulation S under the 1933 Act) or a person in the United States absent registration or an applicable exemption from the registration requirements.

About Teal Valley

Investor Information

Teal Valley is a Canadian cannabis company establishing itself as a leader in cannabis extraction and cannabis infused product manufacturing for domestic and international markets.

Additional information regarding Teal Valley is available under the Companys profile at www.sedar.com or at the Companys website, www.tealvalley.com .

For further information contact:

Mr. Brett Walker

Chief Executive Officer

brett@tealvalley.com

1-877-778-2066

www.tealvalley.com

Forward Looking and Cautionary Statements



This news release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information (collectively, "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable Canadian and U.S. securities legislation, including the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein including, without limitation, statements regarding the amount of the Financing, the intended use of proceeds of the Financing, anticipated results from the Teal Valley Platform, the payment of finder's fees, the commencement of a stock exchange listing, the acquisition of the target facilities, the Company's expectation that it will be able to enter into agreements relating to the development of the target facilities, and the anticipated business plans and timing of future activities of the Company, are forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes that such statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Often, but not always, forward-looking information can be identified by words such as "believe", "expect", "anticipate", "intend", "estimate", "postulate" and similar expressions, or are those, which, by their nature, refer to future events. In making the forward-looking statements in this news release, the Company has applied several material assumptions, including without limitation, that investor interest will be sufficient to close the Financing, the receipt of any necessary regulatory approvals in connection with the Financing and future development of the Teal Valley Platform and facilities or any of the Company's other projects in a timely manner and the Company's ability to comply with environmental, health and safety laws.

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 differ materially from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking information. Such risks and other factors include, among others, lack of investor interest in the Financing, operating and technical difficulties in connection with the Teal Valley Platform and development activities at the Company's facilities, including the installation of cannabis extraction and manufacturing systems, the timing and amount of estimated future production, costs of production, capital expenditures, the costs and timing of the development of the facilities, changes in general economic conditions, changes in the financial markets, possible failures of the facilities, equipment or processes to operate as anticipated, accidents, labour disputes and other risks of the cannabis industry, delays or the inability of the Company to obtain any necessary permits, consents or authorizations required, including stock exchange approval, changes in laws, regulations and policies affecting cannabis operations, hedging practices, currency fluctuations, title disputes and the timing and possible outcome of pending litigation, environmental issues and liabilities, as well as those factors discussed in the filings of the Company with the Canadian Securities Authorities, copies of which can be found under the Company's profile on the SEDAR website at www.sedar.com.

Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Except as otherwise required by law, the Company undertakes no obligation to update any of the forward-looking information in this news release or incorporated by reference herein.Adidas is shifting sourcing of footwear from China to Vietnam. Photo by Reuters

Vietnamese footwear exporters seem to be benefiting from the ongoing trade war between the U.S. and China.

According to customs statistics, Vietnams footwear exports in the first nine months of this year were worth $11.74 billion, a 10.2 percent year-on-year increase.

Its exports to China in the period have risen by 28.5 percent, to Japan by 14.7 percent, and to the U.S. by 13.5 percent.

Vietnam is the second biggest exporter of footwear to the U.S. behind China, shipping 404 million pairs of shoes last year.

The upward trend is likely to continue, too, as rising wages in China increase the cost of goods produced there and the country is thus directing more of its manufacturing resources toward higher-priced goods like electronics, according to the global footwear news outlet Footwearnews.

Foreign companies are moving to other countries like Vietnam to cut cost.

Adidas CEO Kasper Rorsted told Reuters last May that his company is shifting sourcing of footwear from China to Vietnam.

Vietnam has in fact overtaken China as its top supplier, with Vietnamese factories producing 44 percent of its shoes by volume last year and Chinese manufacturers supplying 19 percent, according to Adidas.

This would help shield the company from potential tariffs or supply chain disruptions if President Donald Trumps trade war with China continues to escalate, a fact its competitors also seem to be taking notice of.

Vietnam may see export orders surging as footwear importers shun China to avoid high U.S. tariffs and choose the Southeast Asian nation instead, local media quoted Diep Thanh Kiet, vice chairman of the Vietnam Leather, Footwear and Handbag Association (Lefaso), as saying.

"Vietnams leather and footwear export can reach $19.5 billion or slightly higher this year depending on the situation," he said. Vietnams footwear exports were worth $14.65 billion last year.A Dong Nai Province court has jailed 18 Chinese and local people for organizing gambling and ordered an investigation into collusion by some police officers.

Chinese national Weng Guang Yu, 41, was sentenced to four and a half years in prison for organizing an illegal gambling operation.

The Dong Nai Peoples Court gave 17 others, including a Chinese man, between 11 months and three and a half years for the same crime.

The judges said investigators should probe the conduct of some Dong Nai officers to find out if they had connived with the guilty people in organizing the gambling.

Defendants at court on October 16. Photo courtesy of VnExpress/Thai Ha

According to the indictment, in May last year Chinese national Defu, 32, established Silver Lighting Co., Ltd in the provinces Bien Hoa city.

He hired Hoang Nguyen Tung Anh as a legal representative, Weng as a manager, and Yang ZhiBin as an accountant.

The defendants installed several game machines to facilitate gambling. These included Fish Table, Dragon Shooting and Number Guessing Party.

On September 22 the police raided Silver Lightning Company and took in company staff along with many patrons gambling there.

But Defu and Anh managed to get away.

According to the investigation, within four months the defendants had earned more than VND6.8 billion ($291,300).South Korean immigration officers have recommended criminal prosecution of two men for illegally brokering jobs for hundreds of Vietnamese students.

The two Korean brokers, identified as 58-year-old Choi and 59-year-old Chung, were found to have offered part-time jobs in 13 companies, including hypermarkets and logistics warehouses, for 262 Vietnamese students registered at a university in Gyeonggi Province between November 2016 and August 2018.

Knowing that the group of Vietnamese students did not have work visas, the brokers took about 30 percent of their hourly wage as commission, the Yonhap News Agency reported, citing Korean immigration officers.

More than half of the Vietnamese students confessed to the immigration officials that they wanted jobs to pay their tuition fees.

Korean authorities are also investigating the university where the Vietnamese students were studying to clarify whether it was involved in the allegedly illegal job brokering.

The university allegedly provided free office space for the two brokers to recruit students, Yonhap reports.

Vietnamese students are the fastest growing group in South Korean universities, second only to China in enrollment numbers, according to figures from the National Institute for International Education under the Korean Ministry of Education.

Vietnam sent nearly 15,000 students to South Korea last year, three times higher than the number in 2015, making it the fastest growing market for international education in the Northeast Asian country.At least seven parliament members have received death threats via text messages. Photo acquired by VnExpress

Vietnamese police are investigating death threats and blackmail messages sent to several officials from National Assembly delegations' offices.

Several officials of the National Assembly delegations' offices from the central provinces of Quang Tri, Quang Binh, Thua Thien-Hue, Quang Nam and Ha Tinh, northern Bac Giang province and Hanoi have received death threats via text messages delivered from the same anonymous sender.

At least seven officials of the National Assembly delegations' offices have been subjected to the threats.

Police said the messages had the same content, saying the sum of VND100 million ($4,400) has been offered to kill the officials. The message asks the recipients to transfer the same amount of money to a bank account in southern Vietnam, whereupon the identity of the hired killer would be revealed.

How the blackmailer obtained the phone numbers of these officials is not known.

Colonel Hoang Long, head of the police department of Hue City under Thua Thien-Hue province, said initial investigations show the culprit had used an unregistered SIM card to send out the threatening messages. They are looking for the person or persons involved based on the bank account mentioned in the message.

According to Vietnams Penal Code, a person who sends death threats can be convicted if they cause the recipients undue concern or if there is evidence that they will carry out the threats.

Punishment ranges from three to seven years in jail.

Earlier this year, a court in the northern province of Bac Ninh sentenced a man to 3 years in prison for sending threatening messages to the provincial chairman and police chief after his company was restricted from river dredging over environmental concerns.

Last year, Dao Tan Cuong, vice director of the Da Nang branch of Petrolimex Aviation Fuel JSC, was sentenced up to 18 months in prison for sending threatening text messages to Da Nangs former city chairman Huynh Duc Tho.VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Oct. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Asanko Gold Inc. (Asanko or the Company) (TSX, NYSE American: AKG) announces production results for the third quarter (Q3) of 2018 from the Asanko Gold Mine (AGM), located in Ghana, West Africa. The AGM is a 50:50 joint venture (JV) with Gold Fields Ltd (JSE, NYSE: GFI) which is managed and operated by Asanko.



Q3 2018 Highlights (100% basis):

Record quarterly gold production of 61,599 ounces, tracking higher end of H2 2018 guidance of 110,000  120,000 ounces

Quarterly gold sales of 65,267 ounces, generating US$78.2 million in gold revenue at an average realized price of US$1,198 per ounce

Mining operations ahead of plan, bolstered by resumption of steady state operations at Nkran

Strong quarterly mill performance, processing 1.3 million tonnes of ore

Zero lost time injuries during the quarter, continuing industry-leading safety LTIFR performance on a rolling 12 month basis of 0

Esaase pre-production program on schedule, with bulk sample planned in Q4 2018

Approximately US$33.5 million held by the JV in unaudited cash and immediately convertible working capital balances, as at September 30, 2018, with an additional US$14.3 million of unaudited cash held at the Asanko corporate level

Commenting on the quarters performance Peter Breese, President and CEO, said The Asanko Gold Mine delivered a third consecutive quarter of solid production results for the year, tracking the top end of 2018 guidance with production of 61,599 ounces for the quarter and 163,329 ounces year to date. The mine is well positioned to meet full year gold production guidance of 200-220,000 ounces.

The Esaase pre-production program is advancing according to plan, with site establishment well underway and preparations for the bulk sample exercise on schedule for Q4 2018, in anticipation of approval from the JV partners to commence mining in Q1 2019.

Health and Safety

There were no lost time injuries (LTI) reported during the quarter. As at September 30, 2018, the mine achieved over eighteen months without a Lost Time Injury with 9,223,124 million man hours worked.

Production

During the quarter, the AGM sourced ore from Nkran, Nkran Extension, Akwasiso and Dynamite Hill. Nkran operated throughout the quarter at steady state production levels following the substantial completion of the Eastern push back in June 2018, with 1.1 million tonnes (Mt) of ore mined at a grade of 1.5g/t. The Western portion of Cut 2 is also progressing on schedule.

The processing plant delivered another strong result for the quarter, milling 1.3Mt and maintaining its performance well above the recently upgraded process design of 5 million tonnes per annum. Metallurgical recovery at 94% continues to attain a level higher than originally planned despite significant volume throughput improvements.

AGM Key Production Statistics (100% basis) Units Q4 2017 Q1 2018 Q2 2018 Q3 2018 Total Tonnes Mined 000 t 11,494 12,743 10,759 10,814 Waste Tonnes Mined 000 t 10,692 11,976 9,814 9,084 Ore Tonnes Mined 000 t 802 767 945 1,730 Strip Ratio W:O 13.3:1 15.7:1 10.4:1 5.3:1 Average Gold Grade Mined g/t 1.5 1.3 1.5 1.4 Ore Treated 000 t 1,087 1,269 1,374 1,299 Gold Feed Grade g/t 1.5 1.3 1.4 1.6 Gold Recovery % 94 93 94 94 Gold Produced oz 51,550 48,229 53,501 61,599

Esaase Update

In anticipation of a mining and trucking operation at Esaase, which is expected to commence in Q1 2019 following JV approval in Q4 2018, a pre-production program commenced during the quarter. The intial phase of the program is site establishment in preparation for a bulk mining sample exercise that will take place in Q4 2018. Bush clearing is underway and grade control drilling is in progress. The purpose of the bulk sampling exercise is to confirm the previous co-leaching test work results that mixes ore from this new source with existing ore sources to support an investment decision by the JV partners. In addition construction has commenced on the haul road linking Esaase to the existing haul road infrastructure and this is expected to be completed before year end.

Sales and Liquidity

Gold production for the quarter was 61,599 ounces with gold sales of 65,267 ounces at an average realized price of US$1,198 per ounce, generating gold sales revenue of US$78.2 million for the JV. At September 30, 2018 the JV held approximately US$30.4 million in unaudited cash, US$1.2 million in gold receivables and US$1.9 million in dore (with a market value of US$2.4 million). The Company held an additional US$14.3 million in unaudited cash, and is scheduled to receive a further US$20 million in cash related to the JV transaction by no later than December 31, 2019.

Qualified Person Statement

Frederik Fourie, Asanko Senior Mining Engineer (Pr.Eng) is the Asanko Qualified Person, as definedby Canadian National Instrument 43-101 (Standards of Mineral Disclosure), who has approved the preparation of the technical contents of this news release.

Q3 2018 Operating & Financial Results Conference Call & Webcast - 9am ET on November 8, 2018



US/Canada Toll Free: 800 771 6781



UK Toll Free: 0800 496 0830



International: +1 212 231 2913



Webcast:

Please click on the link: https://cc.callinfo.com/r/1olxigpk29h4v&eom







Replay:

A recorded playback will be available approximately two hours after the call until December 8, 2018:



US/Canada Toll Free: 800 558 5253



UK Toll Free: 0800 692 0831



International: +1 416 626 4100



Passcode: 21895203

Enquiries:

For further information please visit: www.asanko.com , email: info@asanko.com or contact:

Alex Buck - Manager, Investor and Media Relations

Toll-Free (N.America): 1-855-246-7341

Telephone: +44-7932-740-452

Email: alex.buck@asanko.com

Rob Slater  Executive, Corporate Development and Strategy

Telephone: +27-11-467-2758

Email: rob.slater@asanko.com

About Asanko Gold Inc.

Asankos vision is to become a mid-tier gold mining company that maximizes value for all its stakeholders. The Companys flagship project is the multi-million ounce Asanko Gold Mine located in Ghana, West Africa.

Asanko is managed by highly skilled and successful technical, operational and financial professionals. The Company is strongly committed to the highest standards for environmental management, social responsibility, and health and safety for its employees and neighbouring communities.

Forward-Looking and other Cautionary Information

This release includes certain statements that may be deemed "forward-looking statements". All statements in this release, other than statements of historical facts, that address estimated resource quantities, grades and contained metals, possible future mining, exploration and development activities, are forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes the forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements should not be in any way construed as guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include market prices for metals, the conclusions of detailed feasibility and technical analyses, the timely renewal of key permits, lower than expected grades and quantities of resources, mining rates and recovery rates and the lack of availability of necessary capital, which may not be available to the Company on terms acceptable to it or at all. The Company is subject to the specific risks inherent in the mining business as well as general economic and business conditions. For more information on the Company, Investors should review the Company's Annual Form 40-F filing with the United States Securities Commission and its home jurisdiction filings that are available at www.sedar.com .

Neither Toronto Stock Exchange nor the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis visited the Bien Hoa military airport, a dioxin hotspot and former American airbase, on Wednesday morning.

U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis (R) is with Bui Anh Chung, Deputy Commander of Vietnam's Air and Air Defense Force at Bien Hoa Airport on Wednesday. Photo by Phuoc Tuan

Mattis, accompanied by American military officials and the U.S. ambassador to Vietnam, Daniel Kritenbrink, spent around 10 minutes with Vietnamese military officials, led by Major General Bui Anh Chung, Deputy Commander of Vietnams Air and Air Defense Force, at the airport in the southern Dong Nai Province.

The military delegations talked and surveyed the airport map in a tent, steps away from a Danger sign along the ditch that runs around the airport.

The visit will hopefully earn Vietnam more support from the U.S. for dioxin clearance, officials said.

A Vietnam's Defense Ministry statement cited Mattis as saying the result of the visit would be the foundation to report to the U.S. government and Congress, so that they can continue helping Vietnam dealing with war consequences.

After leaving the airport, Mattis met with Vietnams Defense Minister Ngo Xuan Lich in Ho Chi Minh City for nearly an hour.

Lich said at the meeting that solving wartime consequences would continue to be a main focus in Vietnam and U.S. relations, and Vietnam expects strong U.S. support in cleaning up Bien Hoa.

The campaign to decontaminate Bien Hoa is part of a bilateral cooperative effort that started in 2000 to resolve humanitarian and wartime legacies while continuing to strengthen economic, cultural and security ties.

It is the second time the U.S. will get directly involved in a dioxin cleanup effort in Vietnam, following a five-year, $110 million joint effort by the USAID and the defense ministry to clean dioxin-contaminated soil at the Da Nang International Airport that started in 2012.

U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis (R, second) studies the map of Bien Hoa Airport with Vietnamese and American military officials on Wednesday. Photo by Phuoc Tuan

Just 30 kilometers from Saigon, Bien Hoa, a major base for U.S. Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine units during the Vietnam War, is the largest remaining dioxin hotspot in Vietnam. Studies have found that more than 500,000 cubic meters of land at the airport, which Vietnam uses for military purposes, needs treating.

Officials from Office 33, the national agency tasked with handling the consequences of toxic chemicals used by the U.S. during the Vietnam War, said at a meeting in 2012 that some spots at the airport had the highest levels of dioxin contamination in the world, at 1.18 million parts per trillion (ppt). Dioxin concentration at the air base ranges from 1,000ppt upwards, while 100ppt is considered high.

The Vietnamese government launched a VND270 billion ($11.88 million) program to facilitate a massive dioxin cleanup campaign at the airport in September 2016. The U.S. then announced its commitment to dioxin remediation efforts at the area in anticipation of President Donald Trumps state visit to Vietnam last November.

Between 1961 and 1971, the U.S. Army sprayed some 80 million liters of Agent Orange over 78,000 square kilometers (30,000 square miles) of southern Vietnam.

Dioxin, a highly toxic chemical contained in the defoliant, stays in the soil and at the bottom of lakes and rivers for generations. It can enter the food chain through meat, fish and other animals, and has been found at alarmingly high levels in human breast milk.

Between 2.1 to 4.8 million Vietnamese were directly exposed to Agent Orange and other chemicals before the war ended in April 1975. These chemicals have been linked to cancers, birth defects and other chronic diseases, according to Vietnam Red Cross.

On arriving in HCMC on Tuesday, Mattis met with the citys Party Secretary Nguyen Thien Nhan. This is his second visit to Vietnam this year, following one to Hanoi in January, prompting international media including AP and Nikkei to call it rare and unusual.

A few days ago, Mattis had told USA Today that Vietnam "is a growing defense partner in a number of ways.

His next stop is Singapore, where he will participate in the ASEAN Defense Ministers' Meeting, scheduled for Thursday to Saturday.

Mattis had been scheduled to visit China as part of the trip, but that plan was changed as trade and defense disputes intensified between Washington and Beijing.A wood-paneled pedestrian promenade on the Perfume River is expected to boost tourism in the central city of Hue.

Work on the 380-meter-long walkway on the southern banks of the river took eight months, beginning in February, and was completed a month ahead of schedule, before the flooding season begins.

The walkway, costing VND64 billion ($2.74 million), is part of a $6 million project to improve city planning funded by the Korea International Cooperation Agency.

The promenade will connect the existing Nguyen Dinh Chieu pedestrian street with Ly Tu Trong Park.

The walkways surface covering more than 2,000 square meters, was paneled with lim (erythrophleum fordii) wood imported from South Africa.

The use of this wood had provoked controversy, with experts saying it was rare, expensive and listed as as endangered by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Local authorities, however, claimed that the city had tested public opinion and found people overwhelmingly (90.6 percent) in favor of using the rare wood.

Railings of walkway are made of copper.

A foreign couple go for a walk on the new walkway though it hasnt been opened to the public, officially.

City authorities said the pedestrian promenade is set to open before the Christmas season, around the same time that the Nguyen Dinh Chieu pedestrian street along the Perfume River is inaugurated.

The walkway is near the famous Truong Tien Bridge spanning Perfume River.

Hue is rich in architectural heritage, having been the imperial capital of the Nguyen Dynasty, the last ruling family to rule the country from 1802 until the end of feudal Vietnam in 1945. It is now a major tourist attraction in the central region.

Authorities are hoping to attract 4-4.2 million tourists this year, with foreign arrivals accounting for 40-45 percent, fetching VND4.2 trillion ($185.2 million) in tourism revenues.

Photos by Vo Thanh, Ty NguyenUS Trade Rep. Robert Lighthizer seen with US President Donald Trump, said trade talks will seek to end imbalances with the EU and Japan. Photo by AFP/Jim Watson

U.S. officials announced Tuesday negotiations for separate trade agreements with Britain, the European Union and Japan.

This is a part of efforts by President Donald Trump's administration to rebalance global commerce.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said the administration notified Congress of its intent to negotiate the three separate trade agreements.

"We are committed to concluding these negotiations with timely and substantive results for American workers, farmers, ranchers and businesses," Lighthizer said in a statement.

The move follows the Trump administration's renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico, and its push to correct what Trump maintains is an unbalanced trade picture.

In the notifications to Congress on Japan and the EU, Lighthizer cited "chronic US trade imbalances" and said US exporters have been long "challenged" by tariff and non-tariff barriers in Japan and in Europe.

The goal, he said, is to achieve "fairer, more balanced" trade with the US partners.

Lighthizer said the U.S. would seek a trade agreement with Britain as soon as it exits the European Union in 2019.

The letter to Congress said Washington would aim to address tariff and non-tariff barriers and achieve "free, fair and reciprocal trade" with the United Kingdom.

Playing hardball

Trump has been playing hardball with U.S. trading partners, using tariffs and threats in an effort to boost American exports and curb the longstanding deficit in merchandise trade, despite warnings from many lawmakers and the International Monetary Fund.

In May, the president had ordered the Commerce Department to investigate the possibility of imposing tariffs of up to 25 percent on foreign autos and auto parts, a prospect that alarmed the industry and could have serious repercussions for Japan and Europe.

"We need to work together to de-escalate and resolve the current trade disputes," International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde said at an IMF and World Bank gathering in Bali last week.

Trump has levied or threatened tariffs on goods from economies around the world, notably China, but also on traditional allies including the European Union.

More tariffs and their countermeasures "could lead to a broader tightening of financial conditions, with negative implications for the global economy and financial stability," the fund warned.

The new talks, if successful, would address trade with Europe and Japan but leave the tougher challenge of China, with which in 2017 the U.S. had a deficit of $376 billion, excluding services, out of a total goods deficit with the world of $832 billion.

Tensions with Brussels relaxed in late July when Trump and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker vowed to work together to eliminate tariffs, trade barriers and industrial subsidies -- excluding the auto sector.

A working group led by Lighthizer and European Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem has been tasked to work on the feasibility and contours of such an agreement.

But both sides have recently indicated they are far from resolving their differences.

The proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership has been at a standstill since Trump came to office, with European countries especially fearful of US imports of beef fed growth hormones and genetically modified organisms.

Initial negotiations took place between Lighthizer and Japanese Economy Minister Toshimitsu Motegi in August.

But Tokyo is still seeking to bring the US into the fold of a multilateral agreement such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership -- which Trump earlier pulled out from.

The U.S. trade deficit ballooned in August to its highest level in six months, according to government figures showing American consumers snapped up more imported cars and mobile phones.

The total U.S. trade deficit rose 6.4 percent over July to $53.2 billion, overshooting analyst forecasts.

Despite Trump's efforts to attack the trade deficit, so far this year it has risen 8.6 percent over the same period in 2017.

The gap in goods trade with China rose to $38.6 billion for August and with Mexico hit $8.7 billion -- both the highest monthly totals ever.

The August figures suggested retaliatory tariffs imposed by China continued to whipsaw American farmers, whose rural counties Trump's Republican Party traditionally counts on for political support.Poland's PGNiG challenges EU decision on Russia's Gazprom  media

The European Commission did not penalize the Russian energy giant. However, it imposed on it a number of obligations to allow unhindered gas supplies to Central and Eastern Europe at competitive prices.

If you see a spelling error on our site, select it and press Ctrl+EnterDeputy of Crimea's de facto "leader" detained in Moscow

FSB operatives raided the Crimean Railway and the Crimea Roads Service premises.

If you see a spelling error on our site, select it and press Ctrl+EnterUkraine's Cabinet leaves gas prices for households unchanged until Oct 27

The relevant decision is published on the government website.

If you see a spelling error on our site, select it and press Ctrl+EnterPosters at European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2018 Congress and Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) 33rd Annual Meeting to highlight safety of intratumoral INT230-6 in patients with advanced solid tumors

WESTPORT, Conn., Oct. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Intensity Therapeutics, Inc. , a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing proprietary immune cell-activating cancer treatments, today announced that preliminary data from a Phase 1/2 clinical study of INT230-6 will be presented in poster sessions at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2018 Congress, which is being held October 19-23 in Munich, Germany, and the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) 33rd Annual Meeting, which is being held November 7-11 in Washington, DC.



Details of the posters are below.

ESMO 2018 Congress

Title: Phase 1/2 trial evaluation of intratumoral INT230-6 for the treatment of solid tumors

Abstract Number: 4458

Presentation Number: 1160P

Session: Poster Display Session - Immunotherapy of Cancer

Date/Time: October 20, 2018, 12:30 p.m. CEST

Location: Hall A3; Poster Area Networking Hub, ICM Munchen

Presenter: Anthony El-Khoueiry, MD (University of Southern California, USA)

For more information about the ESMO 2018 Congress, please visit https://www.esmo.org/Conferences/ESMO-2018-Congress/ .

SITC Annual Meeting

Title: Phase 1/2 evaluation of intratumoral INT230-6 for the treatment of solid tumors

Poster Number: P622

Poster Hall Hours: November 9, 8 a.m.-8 p.m.; November 10, 8 a.m.-8:30 p.m. EST

Poster Presentation Hours: November 10, 12:20-1:50 p.m. and 7-8:30 p.m. EST

Poster Hall Location: Hall E; Walter E. Washington Convention Center

Presenter: Anthony Olszanski, MD, RPh (Fox Chase Cancer Center)

For more information about the SITC Annual Meeting, please visit https://www.sitcancer.org/2018/home .

About INT230-6

INT230-6, Intensitys lead product candidate designed for direct intratumoral injection, is comprised of two proven, potent anti-cancer agents and a penetration enhancer molecule that helps disperse the drugs throughout tumors and diffuse into cancer cells. INT230-6 is being evaluated in a Phase 1/2 clinical study ( NCT03058289 ) in patients with various advanced solid tumors. In preclinical studies, INT230-6 eradicated tumors by a combination of direct tumor kill and recruitment of dendritic cells to the tumor micro-environment that induced anti-cancer T-cell activation. Treatment with INT230-6 in in vivo models of severe cancer resulted in substantial improvement in overall survival compared to standard therapies. Further, INT230-6 provided complete responder animals with long-term, durable protection from multiple re-inoculations of the initial cancer and resistance to other cancers. In mouse models, INT230-6 has shown strong synergy with checkpoint blockage, including anti-PD-1 and anti-CTLA4 antibodies. INT230-6 was discovered from Intensitys DfuseRxSM platform.

About the Phase 1/2 Clinical Study

INT230-6 is being evaluated in a Phase 1/2 clinical study in patients with different types of advanced solid tumor malignancies. The studys primary objective is to assess the safety and tolerability of multiple intratumoral doses of INT230-6. Secondary assessments are the measurement of injected and bystander tumor responses, and determination of the systemic pharmacokinetic profile of multiple doses of INT230-6s drug substances after single and then multiple intratumoral injections. Exploratory analysis will characterize patient outcome, as well as evaluate various tumor and anti-tumor immune response biomarkers that may correlate with response. The study includes several adaptive components that will allow for adjustments in patient groups, dosing schedule and dose volumes administered. Data will be used to assess the progression free and overall survival in patients receiving INT230-6. For more information, please visit www.clinicaltrials.gov (NCT03058289).

About Intensity Therapeutics

Intensity Therapeutics, Inc. is a clinical-stage biotechnology company pioneering a new immune-based approach to treat solid tumor cancers. Intensity leverages its DfuseRxSM technology platform to create new drug formulations that, following direct injection, rapidly disperse throughout a tumor and diffuse therapeutic agents into cancer cells. Intensitys product candidates have the potential to induce an adaptive immune response that not only attacks the injected tumor, but also non-injected tumors and unseen micro-metastases. INT230-6, Intensitys lead product candidate, is being evaluated in a Phase 1/2 clinical study in patients with various advanced solid tumors. For more information, please visit www.intensitytherapeutics.com and follow us on Twitter @IntensityInc .

Forward Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements regarding Intensity Therapeutics plans, future operations and objectives. Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual performance or achievements to be materially different from those currently anticipated. These forward-looking statements include, among other things, statements about the initiation and timing of future clinical trials.

Contacts

Investors :

Lewis Bender

Founder & CEO, Intensity Therapeutics

(914) 329-6571

lbender@intensitytherapeutics.comUkrainian President Petro Poroshenko has approved the ratification of a financial agreement between Ukraine and the European Investment Bank (EIB) on a project to modernize the infrastructure of Ukraine's state railway operator Ukrzaliznytsia.

According to the press service of the head of the Ukrainian state, the president signed the law of Ukraine on the ratification of the financial agreement on the project to modernize Ukrainian railways (the modernization of the infrastructure of OJSC Ukrzaliznytsia) between Ukraine and the European Investment Bank, which was adopted by the Verkhovna Rada on October 3, 2018.

"The ratification of the financial agreement is a prerequisite for the entry into force and attraction of credit funds of the European Investment Bank in the amount of 150 million euros, which will be used to build a second rail track, electrification and modernization of alarm and communication systems on the Doliynska-Mykolaiv-Kolosivka route," reads the report.

The total cost of the project is about 300 million euros and will be co-financed by a loan from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

"It is assumed that the project will help increase the level of capacity of the relevant route and reduce operating costs, which in turn will solve problems with the passage of cargo in the direction of the Mykolaiv ports," reads the report.U.S. Air Force confirms its serviceman's involvement in Su-27 incident in Ukraine

The Sukhoi Su-27 incident in Ukraine involved a U.S. serviceman, the United States Air Forces in Europe - Air Forces Africa said in a statement.

"We have seen reports claiming a U.S. casualty and can confirm a U.S. service member was involved in this incident.

"It is currently under investigation and we will continue to provide more information as it becomes available."

It did not say how exactly the U.S. serviceman was involved in the incident. Nor did it clarify the fate of the U.S. pilot.

The Su-27UB fighter aircraft came down near the village of Ulaniv in Khmelnytsky district, Vinnytsia region, Ukraine, at around 5 p.m. The plane took off from an air base in Starokostiantyniv for a practice flight as part of the Clear Sky 2018 exercise.

Military prosecutors in Ukraine's Central region have launched an inquiry.

Both pilots are believed to be dead. One of them was a U.S. Air National Guard serviceman, the prosecutor's office said, before deleting this information.The French Gendarmerie with the active support of Europol, on October 5 in Burgundy close to Dijon in France arrested a citizen of Ukraine who is suspected of international fraud and money laundering, the press service of Europol reported on Tuesday.

"The seizures during the action day alone amount at over EUR 4.6 million and include a castle, a vintage Rolls Royce Phantom and 3 works of art by Salvador Dali," the press service said.

Earlier in January, the French Gendarmerie initiated an investigation on alleged suspicious transactions surrounding the purchase of a castle which was bought for EUR 3 million by a Luxembourgish company whose ultimate beneficial owner was a Ukrainian citizen suspected of corruption at a large scale in his country.

Given the international dimension of the case, the French authorities rapidly requested Europol's support. Effective cooperation with the Ukrainian and Luxembourgish authorities revealed that the main suspect was wanted in his country for corruption.

Europol said that he was living a lavish lifestyle in France and he had however managed to evade justice by producing forged death certificates.

According to the Ukrayinska Pravda publication, referring to a source in the Prosecutor General's Office (PGO), this is Dmytro Malinovsky, who is suspected of embezzling funds of Odesa Port-Side Plant.On October 16, Boris Lozhkin and Nadiia Shalomova, the founders of the Boris Lozhkin Charitable Foundation, donated medical equipment to the headed by Illia Yemets Center for Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery. Lozhkin mentioned this on his Facebook page. The cost of donations amounted to more than 9 million UAH.

Today we have handed over a High-Tech artificial blood circulation apparatus, Maquet HL 20, to the Yemets Center, which has been purchased for the funds raised during the fourth Art for Life auction. An invention of the artificial blood circulation apparatus some time ago made it possible to perform complex operations on the heart. The heart is disconnected during the operation and the device, in essence, performs its functions, said Lozhkin.

The first charity auction, organized by the Boris Lozhkin Foundation, was held in May 2015. The goal of the project is to save lives of the Ukrainian children by raising funds to support the children's medical institutions in Ukraine.

It was a kind of experiment. We did not know then that the idea of uniting the Ukrainian patrons and the leading artists at one place for the sake of helping the pediatric medical institutions and for the sake of saving lives of Ukrainian children would not only become a success, but also turn into a great cause and a good tradition, says Lozhkin.

For the proceeds from the first auction, the Foundation purchased a universal ultrasound system Philips EPIQ-7, with a possibility to diagnose heart diseases in children even before birth, in the womb. Such equipment appeared for the first time in Ukraine. The system was donated to the Center for Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery. More than 7,600 children and 2,900 pregnant women have been examined during almost three years of its use. The Foundation also purchased an intensive care equipment for newborns, which creates optimum conditions for the recovery of children in the postoperative period. Over the same period, more than 250 infants have been treated with its use, including those operated on during the first hours of life.

In March 2016, the second auction Art for Life took place in the Mystetskyi Arsenal. For the funds raised from the sale of 70 works of art, the Boris Lozhkin Foundation purchased and donated two Flow-I systems manufactured by the Maquet Critical Care (Sweden) to the Pediatric Cardiology Center. This system functions on the basis of a resuscitator with an artificial respiration and allows anesthesia to be performed even to newborns or premature babies. During almost two years of using two Flow-I anesthesia systems, more than 1,500 operations have been performed, including on the hearts of babies weighing below 2 kg.

The third auction was held in June 2017. That time the raised funds were directed by the Boris Lozhkin Foundation to open a unit for post-intensive care and rehabilitation of premature infants based on the Institute of Pediatrics, Obstetrics and Gynecology of the Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine. The main task of this unit is highly qualified medical assistance and rehabilitation of newborns from the risk group: born prematurely or with a perinatal pathology. At the expense of philanthropists, a major overhaul of the premises was carried out and equipment was purchased for intensive therapy of children with perinatal pathology  lung ventilators, patient monitors, seizure monitor alarm and alert devices, phototherapy lamps, pulse oximeters, incubators. The unit started its work at the end of December 2017. Physicians are able to treat more than 300 children every year in the unit with a capacity of 15 beds.

This year, the auction Art for Life was held on the nineteenth of June at the Mystetskyi Arsenal. More than 70 works of art of contemporary Ukrainian artists have been sold at the auction. As Boris Lozhkin noted, the Fund plans to keep on holding the auctions.

I do not know any person who could remain indifferent to what they do in the Center. And every year, the charity auction Art for Life, held by our fund, convincingly proves this: more and more people join our initiative. These are the artists who year after year provide their works for the charity auctions, and, of course, its participants  the leading patrons of Ukraine, says Lozhkin.Over the past day, militants have opened fire on the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine 19 times, with two Ukrainian servicemen reported as killed in action (KIA), and one injured in action (WIA), the press center of the Joint Forces Operation (JFO) headquarters has reported.

"Russian invaders opened fire on the positions of our troops 19 times. At the same time, the enemy used weapons that were forbidden by the Minsk agreements three times ... Two soldiers of the JFO have been killed, one injured in hostilities," the JFO staff said on Facebook on Wednesday morning.

Illigal armed formations opened aimed fire from 120mm and 82mm mortars, grenade launchers of various types, heavy machine-guns, and small arms. The press service also reported on the intensified sniper fire.

The invaders attacked Ukrainian army positions in the settlements of Stanytsia Luhanska, Novozvanivka, Luhanske, Pisky, Maryinka, Berezove, Chermalyk, Pavlopil, Hnutove, Vodiane, Lebedynske, and Shyrokyne.

According to Ukrainian intelligence, over the past day, three invaders were killed and two more were wounded.The Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office (PGO) has sent a request for extradition of citizen of Ukraine Dmytro Malinovsky detained in France for fraud, the press service of the prosecutor's office of Kyiv has reported.

"PGO has sent a request to the competent authorities of France for the extradition of 36-year old citizen of Ukraine detained on the territory of this country to face criminal charges," the prosecutor's office of Kyiv said on its Facebook page.

The prosecutor's office of Kyiv confirmed that Malinovsky in March-April 2015 on the disguise of signing a contract to supply mineral fertilizers made by OJSC Odesa Port-Side Plant embezzled the funds of a private company in the amount of over EUR 12 million, which were sent as an advance payment.

Later, these funds were transferred to accounts of companies registered in offshore zones and affiliated with him.

The law enforcers also established that the fraudster used the forged death certificate and currently uses the forged passport of a citizen of another country.

"According to the results of the pretrial investigation, the said person was informed in absentia of suspicion under Part 4 of Article 190 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (fraud committed on a large scale or by an organized group)," the prosecutor's office said.

On August 1, 2018, the investigative unit of the prosecutor's office of Kyiv put Malinovsky on the international wanted list.

On October 5, 2018, he was detained by law enforcement authorities of France.The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine insists on an urgent admission of Ukrainian doctors and a consul to Ukrainian film director Oleh Sentsov.

"Oleh, you must live! And fight. We demand that the Russian Federation urgently allow Ukrainian doctors and a consul to political prisoner Sentsov," Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mariana Betsa wrote on Twitter on Tuesday.

As reported, at a briefing in Kyiv on Tuesday, Kaplan stated that her brother was in a serious condition, who ended a multi-day hunger strike.

"He has now ended his hunger strike. He did so to avoid force-feeding. [...] He ended [his hunger strike] with very impaired health, all of his internal organs were affected quite seriously," Kaplan said at a briefing in Kyiv on Tuesday.

"Ending a hunger strike is quite a serious procedure, no one can say now whether Oleh will survive," she said.

His latest letters are very pessimistic, his cousin said. "He has made a will, he asks us not to leave his children, he does not believe he will be released. [...] Maybe he still believes in it, but he no longer expects it. [...] He is preparing to ensure that his work and children live on without him," Kaplan said.

She said she hopes he is released.

On October 6, he announced that he was ending his hunger strike over the threat of being force-fed.

In August 2015, the North Caucasus District Military Court sentenced Sentsov, arrested in Crimea in 2014, to 20 years in a high-security penitentiary for forming a terrorist group in Crimea.

Sentsov went on hunger strike on May 14, 2018, and demanded that all Ukrainians incarcerated in Russia be released.U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Madison to discuss fight against corruption in Kyiv  U.S. State Dept.

Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) Kirsten D. Madison will travel to Kyiv, Ukraine, and Copenhagen, Denmark, October 17-23, to participate in anti-corruption focused events and discussions.

"While in Ukraine, Assistant Secretary Madison will meet with officials from the National Anti-Corruption Bureau, the State Border Guard Service, and members of civil society to advance U.S.-supported justice sector reform in Ukraine," it says.

She will also give remarks at a graduation ceremony for the Patrol Police Academy, which the United States helped establish.

Following engagements in Ukraine, Assistant Secretary Madison will travel to Denmark to participate in the International Anti-Corruption Conference (IACC) on October 22.Dublin, Oct. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Ensuring Compliance with Advertising and Promotional Requirements for Drugs and Medical Devices" conference has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.



The Trump administration proposed a new rule that will require drug companies to disclose drug prices in TV ads.



The proposed rule, announced by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, would make manufacturers announce the Wholesale Acquisition Cost for drugs covered in Medicare or Medicaid in advertisements targeted at consumers.

Federal regulation of the advertising and promotion of pharmaceuticals and medical devices reflects an aggressive attitude on the part of the regulators that demands, in turn, that industry be keenly aware of the legal and regulatory duties, as well as key recent trends in enforcement activities by the Federal Government. This course will explore in detail what FDA requires of drug and device firms as well as recent current hot buttons in FDA enforcement activity for the advertising arena.



What's at stake if your advertising and promotional efforts violate the law? Colossal fines - the latest was $3 Billion; criminal liability, including even prison time; and huge disruption in operations while dealing with federal probes into illegal marketing.

Learning Objectives:



Key goals of the conference will include learning:

The basics of FDA law and regulations governing advertising and promotion, as well as sister agencies such as the Federal Trade Commission, which shares jurisdiction with FDA on certain regulated products (e.g., OTC drugs).

The distinctions between labels, labeling and advertising and how that impacts FDA's powers, and

How to properly position Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) promotions

The Dos and Don'ts of promoting products on the internet, including social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter

The perils of off-label promotion, including criminal and civil actions that have led to multi-billion dollar settlements by regulated drug companies

Whether the First Amendment provides any insulation for truthful statements regarding regulated products;

When disseminating medical educational materials crosses the line into improper promotion; and

Key considerations on how to implement appropriate procedures and controls in your company to minimize the potential for regulatory action by the FDA or the FTC relative to promotion and advertising.

Who Should Attend:



Senior executives, directors, managers and those who have responsibility for implementing advertising and promotional activities, as well as those that have key collateral roles in reviewing advertising for drug and device firms, including officials from these areas within regulated companies:

Sales

Marketing

Medical Affairs

Legal

Regulatory

Compliance

Agenda:



DAY ONE (8:30 AM - 4:30 PM)

Registration Process: 8:30 AM - 9:00 AM



Session Start Time: 9:00 AM



I. Understanding the Basics

Who Has Jurisdiction

Drugs & Biologics

RX Drug Advertising

OTC Drug Advertising

Devices

Restricted

All other Labeling vs. Advertising

Basic drug rules

Fair balance

Device rules

Intended use deviations

DTC advertising

Print

TV

Comparative Claims standard to support push to pursue CER

Detailing and Sampling:

Is there still a future?

What can be said?

Danger of custom pieces

How FDA learns of violations

Keep your house clean or your competitors will rat you out



II. Scientific Exchange

Guidances on Dissemination of Scientific Information

Risks involved in Off-Label Statements

Procedural Requirements and Unsolicited Requests for Information



III. First Amendment

Understanding Commercial Speech Doctrine

FDA and the Regulation of Advertising



IV. Websites & Social Media

FDA Policies on the Internet

Recent FDA Enforcement Activities

How to Handle at the Company Levels



DAY TWO (8:30 AM - 4:30 PM)



V. Enforcement Trends

FDA Hot Buttons

Understating risk

Overstating effectiveness

FTC

POM Wonderful and substantiation

Private Litigation - Understanding

Lanham Act

State Unfair Competition



VI. False Claims Act and Criminal Liability

Review of Key Settlements

Responsible Corporate Official Liability



VII. Handling at the Company Level

Compliance Programs

Internal processes

For more information about this conference visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/9p44mt/two_day?w=12



Cause of Ukrainian Su-27UB crash in Vinnytsia region still unknown, but flight recorder has been found

The cause of the crash of the Sukhoi Su-27UB fighter of the Ukrainian Air Force in Vinnytsia region is now being determined and a flight recorder has been found, Ukrainian Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak said.

"The causes are still unknown. As to the plane, it underwent maintenance this year, if I'm not mistaken, in July, and we have just received it from the plant," the minister told reporters on Wednesday.

The investigation continues and the flight recorder from the plane has been found, he said.

A Su-27 plane belonging to the 831st Tactical Aviation Brigade from Myrhorod in Poltava region crashed in Vinnytsia region on October 16. Two pilots, Col. Ivan Petrenko, the head of aviation of the Air Force's Skhid (East) air command, and a serviceman of the Air Force of the U.S. National Guard, were killed.

Military prosecutors in Vinnytsia entered information into the Unified Register of Pre-Trial Investigations under the article "Violation of rules governing flights or preparations for them."

Flight documentation and plane documents were seized at airfields in Myrhorod and Starokostiantyniv in Khmelnytsky region. Witnesses of the plane's takeoff are being questioned.

The joint command of the Clear Sky 2018 exercises has decided to continue conducting flights.

At the same time, the command of the Ukrainian Air Force will not hold the events with media access scheduled for October 18-19 at the Clear Sky 2018 military exercises.While the sale of alcohol as well as its consumption by Muslims remains illegal in Iran, the country has witnessed a rise in deaths caused by alcohol poisoning.

According to the Iranian Health Ministry, recent incidents involving the consumption of bootleg alcohol have caused more than forty deaths, as well as 460 hospitalisations in recent weeks.

The rise in deaths due to alcohol poisoning, as well as the increase in the number of people suffering from alcohol-induced blindness, shows the continued presence of alcohol consumption in Iran. This reality becomes even clearer when looking at statistics provided by Iranian anti-drug officials, which state that over 80 million litres of alcohol are smuggled to Iran every year.

The attitudes of the regime towards alcohol consumption and alcohol smuggling remain strict. Raids on private house parties have been on the rise, due to Ayatollah Ali Khameneis clamour for a renewed campaign against social harms such as alcohol consumption. These party raids often gain publicity, as was the case with a party in Birjand, the capital city of the South Khorasan province, in August. By detaining 40 people for attending a mixed-gender night party where alcohol was consumed, the regime seeks to uproot social harms.

These campaigns against vice are coupled with severe punishment for alcohol consumption by Muslims. While Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians are permitted to make their own alcohol for their own consumption, all Muslims are forbidden to drink alcohol, punishable by 80 lashes.

Human rights organizations such as Amnesty International have reported cases of public lashing of individuals detained for alcohol consumption. A notable example of these public lashings took place in Niazmand Square in Kashmar where a man was lashed for drinking alcohol when he was 14 or 15. This lashing served as a retroactive punishment since the supposed incidents took place roughly 10 years ago.

However, the institutionalised right of religious minorities to drink alcohol remains problematic to say the least. Indeed, as shown by the prosecution of Karen Vafadari and his wife Afarin Niasari, two Iranian-American Zoroastrians, being a religious minority does not fully protect them from punishment.

Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi, the Tehran Prosecutor-General, claimed that the couple were sentenced to 27 and 16 years for organizing mixed-gender parties for foreign diplomats and their Iranian associates and for having alcohol in their home. While the prosecutors report stated that the couple had over 4 thousand litres of alcohol stored in their home, it also failed to mention their religious denomination. In a sense, this case highlights the problematic stance of religious minorities in the country.

Despite claiming that these punishments serve as a way to deal with public vice and deter the public from drinking, alcohol consumption and alcoholism remain a reality for thousands of Iranians. According to a report by the World Health Organization, 0.3 percent of Iranians suffer from alcohol dependence. Translated to numbers, this means that there are over 240 thousand individuals suffering from alcoholism in Iran. The government finally began to take steps with the opening of 150 alcohol treatment centres in 2015. Indeed, according to the former Iranian chief of police Esmail Ahmadi-Moghaddam, There have always been attempts to conceal alcohol-related problems in the country, but alcohol consumption and an increase in alcoholism are facts. This statement highlights the counterproductive policy of the government, which seeks to punish rather than to provide means for treatment of alcohol dependency.

Moreover, the latest cases of alcohol poisoning show the current economic instability in Iran. Although the public campaign against alcohol smuggling was integral to the growth of a black market with bootleg alcohol, the current economic downturn seems to have exacerbated the problem. The weakening of the national currency, rial has made smuggled alcohol far too expensive for most of the population. Instead, individuals are forced to consume bootleg alcohol, which can often cause blindness or even death.

While alcohol smuggling and alcohol consumption are considered social harms, the government fails to address the increase in deaths caused by alcohol poisoning and its potential implications for public health.European Union exports to Iran declined 19% in the first six months of current Iranian fiscal year, starting March 21 and its non-oil imports from the Islamic Republic also decreased by 2%.

According to the new monthly report, released by Irans Trade Promotion Organization, the country imported $4.437 billion from EU and exported $636 million of goods to the Union.

During the March 21-September 21 period, EU also halved oil intake from Iran, according to the International Energy Agency, while Reuters reported October 16 that during the first half of this month, Iran has not loaded any oil to EU, except that Italy may take about 1 million barrels (about 33,000 b/d).

Before the U.S. withdrawal from the nuclear deal in May, Iran was exporting 450,000 b/d to EU members. The U.S. sanctions on Iranian oil will come into force on Nov.4.

As both oil and non-oil EU imports declined from Iran, Russia continued 100,000 b/d Iranian oil intake and its exports to Iran have doubled to $633 million during this period. However, this is not a significant figure compared with Iran-China and Iran-EU trade.

Recently, Russian energy minister Alexander Novak announced that regardless of U.S. sanctions, the country plans to continue its oil intake from Iran. Iran also has an oil-to-goods barter with Russia, which started in November 2017.

Irans foreign trade turnover

The statistics of Irans Trade Promotion Organization show that the countrys total non-oil exports increased by 13% to $23.123 billion, while its imports decreased by 12% to $22.182 billion in 1 half of the fiscal year.

Iran includes some raw oil products like gas condensate (ultra-light crude oil), propane, butane, etc. in the non-oil exports basket.

The countrys gas condensate exports declined 46% to 4.644 million metric tons (about 215,000 b/d) with $2.418 billion worth due to rising domestic demand after launching two units of Persian Gulf Star refinery. The nominal refining capacity of these units is 240,000 b/d of gas condensate together and the third unit is expected to add an additional 120,000 b/d to this capacity in coming months.

Irans non-oil exports to the major target market Markets March 21-September 22 (Million US $) Y/Y change China 4663 12% Iraq 4564 45% UAE 4063 33% Afghanistan 1668 31% India 1255 -4% South Korea 844 -61% Turkey 736 -21% Pakistan 572 66% Thailand 457 55% Oman 444 52%

Despite non-oil exports growth, Irans oil sales to foreign partners declined significantly since US withdrew from the nuclear deal in May.Iranian intelligence agents have stepped up their harassment of the Bahai religious minority with a slew of arrests over the last few months, according to an October 16 report from Human Rights Watch (HRW).

In August and September alone, more than 20 Bahai were arrested across the country, according to HRW

The Bahai faith is not recognized as an official religion in the Islamic Republic, and security agents routinely detain Bahais, often without charges. Bahais are prohibited from attending university or holding public office, they cannot worship openly, and their cemeteries and other cultural landmarks are demolished when discovered.

More than 90 percent of Iranians associate themselves with Shia Islam, the official state religion, according to the CIA World Fact Book. Around five to ten percent identify with the Sunni and Sufi branches of Islam, and a very small sliver of the population identify with non-Islamic religious minorities, among them Baha'is, Mandeans, Yarsanis, Zoroastrians, Jews, and Christians. The latter three minority religions are officially recognized in Iran, but other beliefs, including Baha'ism, with an estimated 300-350 thousand followers inside Iran, are derided by the regime as a deviant sect, and are accused of heresy, apostasy, and conspiracy against the Islamic establishment.

Citing its own anonymous sources, HRW reports that out of the twenty detainees, twelve are residents of the city of Shiraz, in southern Iran, and four of them are being held in detention centers administered by the Intelligence Ministry.

According to the New York based Campaign for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI), 11 of the detainees were arrested in Alborz and Isfahan provinces and are being held in the city of Shiraz.

It is not clear what charges the detainees face.

Authorities also detained Mehdi Hajati, a Shiite member of the Shiraz City Council, for tweeting about the arrest of his Bahai friends.

Over the past ten days I have tried my best to secure the release of two Bahai friends, but have failed, Hajati tweeted September 25. While standing against the foreign enemy, our generation has a duty to do its best to reform the judicial processes and other issues that threaten social justice.

On September 27, one of Hajati's fellow councilors confirmed that he was arrested for supporting Bahais, HRW reported.

The more than twenty arrests in a month without providing any justification shows how intolerant the Islamic Republic is towards Irans Bahai community, said Deputy Middle East Director at HRW Michael Page. And authorities are taking their campaign of intimidation, harassment, and persecution even further by detaining elected officials who dare to show solidarity with their fellow citizens who are Bahai.

Several members of Irans parliament have raised concerns about Hajatis arrest, arguing he was defending his friends rights, but the association of MPs from Fars province published an open letter October 3 asking authorities not to allow the deviant cult of Bahais to conspire against the state.

Hajati was ultimately released October 7 without charges.

For four decades Irans judiciary and security agencies have violated the most fundamental rights of the Bahai community in Iran, said Page. President Rouhani and his cabinet need to stop pretending that they arent responsible for persecuting the Bahai and end these violations.Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 17

Trend:

Over the past 24 hours, Armenian armed forces have 30 times violated the ceasefire along the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said Oct. 17.

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, Oct.17

By Leman Zeynalova  Trend:

Azerbaijan hopes for more understanding in the talks on the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Azerbaijans Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov said in an interview with EURACTIV.

I hope and I wish there will be more understanding, that without building a good neighborhood policy, there is no sustainable development, its as simple as it is. And the biggest part is for sure the withdrawal of Armenian troops from the occupied territory of Azerbaijan and the return of the internally displaced persons to their places of origin, said the foreign minister.

They need to realize and recognize that without good neighborhood, the sustainable development of the country is impossible, added Mammadyarov.

I think we made a pretty good progress in the negotiations even with the previous administration, but now there is a new one and probably they need a little bit more time to learn about whats going on in the talks, he said.

They need the educational process, to learn who is who and what is what, including in the negotiation process, added the foreign minister.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_ZeynBaku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 17

Trend:

The use of the expression "all parties to the conflict" in the comments of the Russian Foreign Ministry regarding the illegal visit of Armenian prime ministers wife Anna Hakobyan, as well as Russian State Duma member and other Russian citizens, to the occupied Azerbaijani territories causes surprise, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said in a message on Oct. 17.

"As a co-chairing country of the OSCE Minsk Group, the Russian Foreign Ministry is well aware that there are two parties to the conflict - Armenia and Azerbaijan, the message said. Armenia and Azerbaijan were defined as conflicting parties in the final statement and other documents of the OSCE Ministerial Council in 1992 in Helsinki.

Currently, negotiations are being held in this format with the mediation of the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, the message said. We think the comment of the Russian Foreign Ministry regarding the provocative visit of Deputy Chairperson of the Russian State Duma committee Svetlana Zhurova - which is illegal and detrimental to the interests of resolving the conflict through negotiations - is ineffective.

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, Oct. 17

By Leman Zeynalova  Trend:

Co-chairmen of the OSCE Minsk Group intend to visit the region soon, Spokeswoman of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova said at a press conference Oct. 17.

"During the visit, they intend to specify the position of the countries and discuss what concrete actions could be taken to intensify the settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, including the agreements recently reached in Dushanbe," she said.

Zakharova stressed that everybody knows the position of Russia as a co-chairing country of the OSCE Minsk Group.

"This position has been outlined in joint statements made by the presidents of Russia, the US and France in 2009-2013, foreign ministers, as well as co-chairmen of three countries," she added.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.

----

Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_ZeynBaku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 17

By Leman Zeynalova  Trend:

The Russian Foreign Ministry has commented on the recent illegal visit of Anna Hakobyan, a spouse of acting Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, to the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan together with a group of women from Russia.

The organizers of this campaign didnt appeal to the Russian Foreign Ministry, therefore it is difficult for us to objectively judge the campaigns conception, the Russian Foreign Ministry told Trend Oct. 17.

The understanding and support of all parties to the conflict are important for the success of such events, the ministry said.

Azerbaijan will raise an issue before the Russian Foreign Ministry about the initiative of Anna Hakobyan to organize an illegal visit of Russias women to Azerbaijans occupied territories, Leyla Abdullayeva, spokesperson of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry, told Trend earlier.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_ZeynBaku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 18

Trend:

Azerbaijan today marks the State Independence Day.

Thanks to the favorable historical conditions emerging after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the people of Azerbaijan gained independence in the 20th century for the second time.

As a result of the activity of democratic powers in Russia, it was impossible for the Soviet Union to suppress non-subordination of the republics to the central power and their wish to become independent.

At the extraordinary meeting held on June 30, 1991, the Supreme Council of Azerbaijan adopted a declaration on Azerbaijan's state independence.

The Constitutional Act about the State Independence of the Republic of Azerbaijan was adopted at the session of the Supreme Council of Azerbaijan on Oct. 18, 1991.

A referendum was held in Azerbaijan on Dec. 29. The referendum bulletins asked the voters: Do you support the Constitutional Act about the State Independence of the Republic of Azerbaijan, adopted by the Supreme Council of Azerbaijan?

The people of Azerbaijan unanimously supported the state independence.

In May 1992, Azerbaijani parliament adopted the state anthem of Azerbaijan, and soon after it, the tricolor flag and the coat of arms.

Azerbaijan is an independent and a sovereign state since Oct. 18, 1991, and people celebrate Oct. 18 as a holiday.ABMs Energy Performance Contracting Program Allows Schools of Guntersville to Save Funds for New Construction

NEW YORK, Oct. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ABM (NYSE: ABM) , a leading provider of facility solutions, has initiated an Energy Performance Contracting program for the Schools of Guntersville in Guntersville, Alabama. ABM's customized solution is projected to save the Schools of Guntersville more than $9.3 million in energy and operating costs over a 15-year period, which will help the school system fund the construction of a new high school. The project launched in September 2018 and is scheduled for completion in May 2019.

Energy and operations savings will be achieved by implementing HVAC and control, water system and transformer upgrades at each of the school systems five facilities. The upgrades will save the Schools of Guntersville more than $500,000 in energy and operating costs in the first year, which will climb during the life of the program, resulting in more than $9.3 million in savings.

"ABMs Energy Performance Contracting program will allow the school system to upgrade each buildings infrastructure, while dedicating funding toward building a new high school," said Mark Newsome, President of ABM Technical Solutions. "By leveraging guaranteed energy and operational savings, ABM will help the Schools of Guntersville take steps toward addressing infrastructure needs at each of its facilities."

The infrastructure at the Schools of Guntersville facilities is aging and inefficient, or near the end of its lifespan. The project will provide high-efficiency HVAC upgrades and state-of-the-art controls at Guntersville High, Cherokee Elementary, Guntersville Elementary and Guntersville Middle schools, and a rejuvenation of the existing HVAC system, as well as new WiFi enabled thermostats at the Guntersville Board of Education building.

The school system plans to save for the construction of a new Guntersville High School. The current facility, which was built in 1971, faces roofing issues, and is near the end of its lifespan. Along with creating savings through ABMs Energy Performance Contracting program, school officials are currently working with Guntersville City Council to secure funding for the new school.

ABMs project also includes a refrigeration management program at each of the schools, which will provide each school with energy-efficient refrigeration systems in the cafeterias. The new program provides school officials with instant updates of any temperature control issues in the refrigeration system.

ABM's Energy Performance Contracting program will enable the school system to make these upgrades without impacting its capital budget. The program is designed as a financial solution to meet clients' technical facility needs and sustainability goals. The goal is to drive costs out of a client's operating budget, allowing savings to be reallocated to fund mission critical facility needs. Click here for a video on how ABM is providing facility and financial solutions to school districts without upfront costs or tax increases.

As part of the Energy Performance Contracting program, ABM is working with SMALLab Learning to install a Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) laboratory at Guntersville Middle School. Schools across Alabama and nationwide are emphasizing the importance of offering STEM programming to students to increase engagement and provide students with an opportunity to learn hands-on lessons in a laboratory setting.

ABMs customized solution for the Schools of Guntersville will allow us to make crucial upgrades to our facilities, which will ultimately impact our students by creating a more comfortable learning environment, without affecting our budget, said Brett Stanton, Superintendent of the Schools of Guntersville. "It also provides us the ability to expand learning opportunities at Guntersville Middle School through the new STEM lab. By providing us with reliable facilities and equipment, this solution provides us with the freedom to focus on education more than our infrastructure.

Click here for a complete listing of the energy-efficiency improvements at the Schools of Guntersvilles facilities. Highlights of the project include:

Upgrading to high-efficiency HVAC systems, which will be controlled by state-of-the-art controls at Guntersville High, Cherokee Elementary, Guntersville Elementary and Guntersville Middle schools, while rejuvenating the existing HVAC system and installing WiFi-enabled thermostats at the Guntersville Board of Education

Replacing the roof at Guntersville Elementary School, and upgrading ventilation systems and sealing building envelopes at each facility

Refrigeration management programs and high-efficiency transformer upgrades will be put in place at each school

Upgrading water conservation systems at each facility

For more information on ABM's Energy Performance Contracting Program and other offerings, visit www.abm.com .

Connect with ABM

ABOUT ABM

ABM (NYSE: ABM) is a leading provider of facility solutions with revenues of approximately $5.5 billion and more than 130,000 employees in 350+ offices throughout the United States and various international locations. ABM's comprehensive capabilities include janitorial, electrical & lighting, energy solutions, facilities engineering, HVAC & mechanical, landscape & turf, mission critical solutions and parking, provided through stand-alone or integrated solutions. ABM provides custom facility solutions in urban, suburban and rural areas to properties of all sizes - from schools and commercial buildings to hospitals, data centers, manufacturing plants and airports. ABM Industries Incorporated, which operates through its subsidiaries, was founded in 1909. For more information, visit www.abm.com .

CONTACT

Media:

Alex Varjan

(212) 297-9737

alex.varjan@abm.comBaku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 17

By Elchin Mehdiyev  Trend:

Today, the 1st International Transplant Network (ITN) Congress kicks off in Antalya, in which the Deputy Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Healthcare of Azerbaijan Musa Gasimly participates.

The latest scientific innovations in the field of transplantation will be discussed at the congress, the exchange of experience in this area will be conducted, and also the meetings of specialists in the field of medicine from various countries of the world have been scheduled for the period of the congress.

The congress will continue until October 21.

At the same time, the Deputy Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Agrarian Policy, Head of the Parliamentary Delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (PABSEC) Eldar Guliyev has been in Greece since October 16 for the 52nd meeting of the PABSEC commission for legal and political issues.

At the meeting in Kavala city, along with current issues, the discussions will be held on the topic of economic empowerment in the PABSEC member countries, and the proposals from delegations on this issue will be heard. The visit will last until October 19.

In turn, the Member of the Azerbaijani Parliament Igbal Mammadov will take part in the meeting of the control and budgetary commission of the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly of the CIS in St. Petersburg on October 18-19. Such issues as financing the activities of the CIS Inter-Parliamentary Assembly, the formation and improvement of the mechanism for using the organizations membership fees, etc. will be discussed at the meeting. The visit will end on October 20.

In addition, the chairmen of parliamentary committees Eldar Ibrahimov, Ahliman Amiraslanov, Siyavush Novruzov, MPs Agalar Veliyev and Guseynbala Miralamov have been in China since October 16. The visit is aimed at further expanding bilateral cooperation between the ruling party of Azerbaijan "Yeni Azerbaijan Party" (YAP) and the Chinese Communist Party. The MPs will hold a series of meetings in China, exchange views on issues of interest to the parties. The visit will last until October 25.Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 17

By Samir Ali - Trend:

The recognition of the territorial integrity of Ukraine in the final statement of the Francophonie summit in Yerevan, the meeting of the president of Armenia with the head of Kosovo, and the refusal of the president of Serbia to attend the summit are the events that complement each other, Chief Editor of the Baki Xeber newspaper and political expert Aydin Guliyev told Trend.

It is obvious that the current leadership of Armenia, starting from April, continues the course that runs counter to the political interests of Russia, he added.

He noted that by meeting with the leadership of Kosovo, Armenia demonstrates that it does not show respect for the territorial integrity of Serbia and the geopolitical interests of Russia, which Armenia considers to be its historical ally, and also strikes a blow against Russias interests.

Armenias support for the territorial integrity of Ukraine is not a sign of respect for the norms of international law, but an attempt to break ranks with Russia and fulfill the policy of certain centers in the West. If the leadership of Armenia clearly respected the international principle of territorial integrity, it would refuse aggression towards Azerbaijan and would return the occupied lands of the country," the expert added.

He noted that the recent actions of Armenia are nothing but a betrayal of its historical ally, Russia, and a contradictory attitude to the international principle of territorial integrity.

"It is impossible to understand Armenia, which supports the territorial integrity of Ukraine, builds equal relations with Kosovo, violating the territorial integrity of Serbia, and does not want to recognize the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan," Guliyev said.

He noted that the world community received a weighty fact for comparing the state policies pursued by Azerbaijan and Armenia.

"While Azerbaijan treats with respect the international principle of territorial integrity, and its own allies and partners, Armenia demonstrates an obvious betrayal of its allies, as well as a controversial approach to international law. That country recognizes the international principle of territorial integrity when it is beneficial, and violates that principle and even betrays its allies when it isn't beneficial," Guliyev said.

He noted that in the context of the Francophonie event, it has been confirmed once again that Azerbaijan is the only reliable strategic ally of Russia in the region, and it also confirms the inclination of Armenia to betray at every given opportunity.Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 17

Trend:

Three foreign journalists who visited the occupied Azerbaijani territories in connection with the Francophonie event in Armenia will be included into the list of undesirable people in Azerbaijan, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said in a message on Oct. 17.

"The press of the Francophonie of Armenia, which failed to achieve the provocative goals pursued by the Francophonie summit, organized an illegal visit of some members of the Board of the International Organization of the Francophonie to the occupied Azerbaijani territories."

"By making this illegal visit contrary to the principles of journalism ethics and objectivity, Jean Kouchner, Francois Dost and Khadijah Ridouane will be included to the undesirable people list of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry," the message said.

The visits to Nagorno-Karabakh region and other occupied Azerbaijani territories without agreeing with the Azerbaijani side are considered illegal, and the names of the individuals who make these visits are included to the list of of undesirable people of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry.

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, Oct. 17

By Fikret Dolukhanov  Trend:

The most important direction of Turkmenistans foreign policy is the constant strengthening of relations with fraternal Azerbaijan, Turkmen ambassador to Azerbaijan Mekan Ishanguliyev said.

Ishanguliyev made the remarks at a solemn event dedicated to the 27th anniversary of independence of Turkmenistan, organized by the country's embassy in Baku.

The common history and culture brought the people of the two countries closer, he said.

The ambassador said that Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan are cooperating in such areas as ensuring of global and regional security, implementation of big energy and transport projects.

Ishanguliyev emphasized that the key role in the development of relations between the two countries belongs to President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @FDolukhanovBaku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 17

By Fikret Dolukhanov  Trend:

Turkmenistans joining the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway launched in 2017 will give impetus to the further development of trade and economic relations between Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, Azerbaijani Deputy Prime Minister Hajibala Abutalibov said.

Abutalibov made the remarks at a solemn event dedicated to the 27th anniversary of independence of Turkmenistan, organized by the country's embassy in Baku.

He congratulated the Turkmen side on a significant date, stressing that the peoples of the two countries have common roots and history.

Abutalibov also stressed that he himself was born in Krasnovodsk city (now Turkmenbashi) in Turkmenistan.

He emphasized that Azerbaijani national leader Heydar Aliyev, who repeatedly made official visits to Turkmenistan, attached great importance to the relations between the two countries.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyevs policy is also aimed at strengthening ties with Turkmenistan, as a result of which it was possible to implement large-scale projects, such as Turkmenistans further joining the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway, as well as the implementation of the Trans-Caspian gas pipeline project, Abutalibov said.

In conclusion, he once again stressed that fraternal relations between Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan are unbreakable.

The official opening ceremony of the BTK railway was held in Baku Oct. 30 last year. The BTK railway was constructed on the basis a Georgian-Azerbaijani-Turkish intergovernmental agreement.

The railways peak capacity will be 17 million tons of cargo per year. At an initial stage, this figure will be one million passengers and 6.5 million tons of cargo.

In May 2015, the Ashgabat Declaration on Energy was signed by the ministers of energy of Azerbaijan, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Vice President of the European Commission in Charge of the Energy Union Maros Sefcovic.

The project for laying a 300-kilometer gas pipeline along the bottom of the Caspian Sea to the shores of Azerbaijan, as previously noted by the parties concerned, is optimal for the delivery of Turkmen resources to the European market. Further, the Turkmen gas can get in Turkey, which borders European countries.

The Trans-Caspian pipeline could become a part of several large-scale projects, including AGRI and TANAP, to which Azerbaijan and Turkey are parties.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @FDolukhanovBaku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 17

Trend:

Within the scope of the working visit to the Czech Republic, the Minister of Defense of the Republic of Azerbaijan Colonel General Zakir Hasanov takes part in the Future Forces International Exhibition 2018, the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Azerbaijan said in a message on Oct. 17.

On October 17, after the official opening ceremony of the exhibition, Colonel General Zakir Hasanov held a bilateral meeting with his Czech counterpart Lubomir Metnar.

During the meeting, the sides held a broad exchange of views on the current state and prospects for the development of military cooperation between the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Czech Republic, as well as security issues in the region.Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 17

Trend:

The City of San Jose in the U.S. State of California has proclaimed October 18, 2018 as Azerbaijan Independence Day in the city. The relevant proclamation was signed by the Mayor of San Jose Sam Liccardo and the City Councilmembers.

Proclamation, which was sent to the Consulate General of Azerbaijan in Los Angeles, notes that the people of Azerbaijan restored their countrys freedom and independence, establishing the Republic of Azerbaijan as the successor to the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic.

The document stresses that the Republic of Azerbaijan has consolidated its freedom, sovereignty and independence, and is a strategic ally and the largest trade partner of the United States of America in the South Caucasus region

The proclamation further emphasizes that Azerbaijan is internationally regarded as a successful model for peaceful and harmonious coexistence of Muslims, Christians and Jews.

In the end, the Mayor and the City Council proclaim October 18 to be the Azerbaijan Independence Day in the City of San Jose and encourages all city residents to join in this celebration.

As the largest city of Northern California, San Jose is the political, economic and cultural center of Silicon Valley which serves as the global center for high technology, innovation and social media. Named as the Capital of Silicon Valley, San Jose is one of the wealthiest cities in the United States and the world and has the third highest GDP per capita in the world, according to the Brookings Institution.

San Jose is also home to tens of thousands of Azerbaijani Americans.Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 17

Trend:

Rector of Baku Higher Oil School (BHOS) Elmar Gasimov met with the first-year students awarded Presidential scholarship in 2018. Twenty-six BHOS undergraduates became Presidential Scholars, and this is a record among national universities this year.

Elmar Gasimov expressed his pleasure to meet the students and extended his congratulations to them. He emphasized that being awarded Presidential scholarship is a big honor and success for the 17-year young people and they can be proud of this achievement. You shall prove that you truly deserve this title, and the Higher School will provide you with all necessary support to help you become successful and competent students, said the rector.

Out of 26 Presidential Scholars, 13 people study Information Security and another 13 undergraduates study Process Automation Engineering. Thirteen students earned 700 points and the same number of students earned 695 points at the entrance exams to national higher educational institutions for 2018/2019 academic year. There are six girls and twenty young persons among the Presidential Scholarship holders at BHOS.Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 17

Trend:

Global payment technologies leader Mastercard held its annual meeting with partners for the third year in a row in Azerbaijan.

Besides the Awards Ceremony highlighting the achievements of banks for last year, the event also featured trending topics in the industry.

Delivering the welcome speech, Country Manager of Mastercard in Azerbaijan, Erdem Cakar highlighted the importance of Azerbaijan for the company and informed about the long-term commitment of Mastercard in the market.

Afterwards, Mastercards Marketing Director in Turkey & Azerbaijan, Ceren Turkben Kaya has delivered a presentation on "How to connect with digital customers.

Taking the stage, the chief professor of Sabanci University and the consultant of important institutions - Ozgur Demirtash has discussed shifting paradigms of the global economies, future of finance and the upcoming life-changing technologies.

The meeting was followed by Awards Ceremony where banks were rewarded for their achievements in 2017.

So, the bank with the highest increase of the quantity of Platinum, Black Edition and World Elite cards has been Expressbank, the bank with the highest increase of the quantity of Gold and Standard cards has been defined as Unibank, the bank with the highest increase of the quantity of debit Mastercard has been Kapital Bank, the bank with the highest increase rate of the quantity of debit Mastercard has been International Bank of Azerbaijan and Bank of Baku has been awarded as the bank presenting the most creative and innovative Mastercard product or service.

Other banks were also awarded under various categories.Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 17

By Jani Babayeva  Trend:

EducationUSA exhibition will be organized in Baku, Azerbaijan.

In this regards, a press conference was organized. Media Specialist at the US embassy in Azerbaijan Mehdi Huseynguliyev, consultants on education issues Leyla Hamidova and Sevinj Huseynova attended the press-conference.

EducationUSA exhibition is held with the support of the US embassy in Azerbaijan and the American Councils for International Education, Huseynguliyev said. It will be held on October 20 from 16:00 to 19:00 (GMT+4) at the Hilton Baku Hotel.

The main objective of the exhibition is to provide its visitors with the most complete information about educational programs and study opportunities at the US universities.

Visitors will be able to directly ask questions, consult with representatives of US universities and university graduates.

This year, nine US universities will be represented at the educational exhibition, including Indiana University Bloomington, University of California, Los Angeles, Valdosta State University, Wright State University and others, Huseynova said. The represented universities are located in six US states - California, Indiana, Georgia, Florida, Idaho and Ohio.

Brochures with a complete list of these universities, specialties and information about scholarships will be presented to the visitors, Huseynova added. Among these universities are two private universities, the other seven  public universities.

The education exhibition is held annually, Hamidova stressed. The representatives of the US embassy in Azerbaijan, coordinators for various educational programs, as well as graduates of US universities will attend the event.

EducationUSA is a big network for those who want to get education in the US, Hamidova added. EducationUSA has 400 centers in more than 120 countries. Education USA center in Azerbaijan has been operating since 2012. Since January 2018, services have been rendered to more than 1,500 people.

According to the statistics for 2017, 386 Azerbaijani students study in the US, including 148 students at the undergraduate level, 149 graduate students, the rest students study upon student exchange and short-term educational programs.

Most US universities provide students with many opportunities to receive full or partial scholarships.TORONTO, Oct. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Nutritional High International Inc. ("Nutritional High") (CSE: EAT, OTCQB: SPLIF, FRANKFURT:2NU) and Aura Health Inc. (Aura) (CSE: BUZZ) are pleased to announce the development of a framework to bring Nutritional Highs extraction and edibles technology and products to European and Israeli markets.



Nutritional High will work with Aura Health to outfit Aura with the knowledge and expertise to extract cannabis oil utilizing Nutritional Highs cryo ethanol process and other extraction methods. Aura will develop health and wellness products which, in turn, may be licensed to Nutritional High for distribution in the US. Management will work together in the coming months to develop the business plan and financial metrics for this partnership.

Jim Frazier, CEO of Nutritional High, commented, The Nutritional High team is excited to announce this new venture with our long-time strategic partners, Aura Health. Once finalized, this deal is an opportunity for Nutritional High to expand our reach on an international level while allowing our management team to continue our focus on an increasingly competitive US market. We look forward to advancing this venture with Aura Health and working closely with them to produce high-quality and consistent cannabis oil products for their customers.

Daniel Cohen, CEO of Aura, added: This partnership is a natural evolution of our relationship with Nutritional High and it significantly expands the scope of opportunity for both companies. We have made tremendous headway here at Aura in a short time as we have pivoted our focus toward European, Israeli and international markets, and this relationship allows us to leap ahead of many other companies developing a foothold in Europe.

About Nutritional High International Inc.

Nutritional High is focused on developing, manufacturing and distributing products under recognized brands in the cannabis products industry, with a specific focus on edibles and oil extracts for medical and adult recreational use. The Company works exclusively through licensed facilities in jurisdictions where such activity is permitted and regulated by state law.

The Company follows a vertically integrated model with a fully developed strategy for acquisitions in extraction, production, sales, and distribution sectors of the cannabis industry. Nutritional High has brought its flagship FLI edibles and extracts product line from production to market in California through its wholly owned processor Pasa Verde LLC and distributor Calyx Brands Inc., and Colorado where its products are manufactured by a licensed producer. The Company also owns a 50% interest in The Clinic Effingham (an Illinois dispensary), and is entering the Nevada, Washington State, Oregon and Canadian markets in the near future.

For updates on the Company's activities and highlights of the Company's press releases and other media coverage, please follow Nutritional High on Facebook , Twitter , Instagram and Google+ or visit www.nutritionalhigh.com .

About Aura Health Inc.

Aura has entered agreements to acquire a 54% interest in Israeli cannabis producer HollyCanna Inc., and to establish a chain of medical marijuana dispensaries throughout Israel in partnership with medical cannabis activity pioneer Shlomi Sendak. Aura is taking steps to secure cannabis production capabilities and distribution for the European market. In addition, Aura owns a 30% interest in four medical marijuana clinics in Las Vegas, Nevada; Mesa, Arizona; Tucson, Arizona and Hollywood, Florida, respectively, and an option to increase its interest in each such clinic (other than the Nevada clinic) to 51%.

For further information, please contact:

Daniel Cohen, CEO

Aura Health Inc.

(647) 202-1824



- and -

David Posner

Co-Chairman of the Board

Nutritional High International Inc.

647-985-6727

Email: dposner@nutritionalhigh.com

Disclaimer:

NEITHER THE CANADIAN SECURITIES EXCHANGE NOR OTC MARKETS GROUP INC., NOR THEIR REGULATIONS SERVICES PROVIDERS HAVE REVIEWED OR ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE.

This news release may contain forward-looking statements and 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. Such statements include submission of the relevant documentation within the required timeframe and to the satisfaction of the relevant regulators, completing the acquisition of the applicable real estate and raising sufficient financing to complete the Company's business strategy. There is no certainty that any of these events will occur. Although such statements are based on management's reasonable assumptions, there can be no assurance that such assumptions will prove to be correct. We assume no responsibility to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances.

Company's securities have not been registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act"), or applicable state securities laws, and may not be offered or sold to, or for the account or benefit of, persons in the United States or "U.S. Persons", as such term is defined in Regulation S under the U.S. Securities Act, absent registration or an applicable exemption from such registration requirements. 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 the United States or any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful.

Additionally, there are known and unknown risk factors which could cause the Company's actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking information contained herein. All forward-looking information herein is qualified in its entirety by this cautionary statement, and the Company disclaims any obligation to revise or update any such forwardlooking information or to publicly announce the result of any revisions to any of the forwardlooking information contained herein to reflect future results, events or developments, except as required by law.Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 17

Trend:

Phytosanitary inspectors of the Food Safety Agency in Azerbaijan revealed a quarantine pest in one of the batches of 17.2 tons of kiwi imported to Azerbaijan from Iran, the Agency said in a message on Oct. 17.

According to the preliminary version, this is pseudaulacaspis pentagona (commonly referred to as armored scale insects). Relevant samples were sent for research to the Agency's laboratory.

The laboratory test found that part of the kiwi was infected. The infected fruits were later destroyed.Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 17

By Azad Hasanli - Trend:

PASHA Bank, the largest corporate bank in Azerbaijan, has provided customers with access to 24-hour currency exchange via internet banking, which opens up additional business opportunities.

At the current stage, the new service will apply only to operations with dollars and euros - the two most popular currencies in the country in FX transactions, the Director of the banks Treasury Department, Jeyhun Hajiyev told Trend.

"All our customers, both legal entities and individuals will get access to our new service. I think it will be very popular among customers, especially among importing companies," Hajiyev said adding that the transactiona are carried out as quickly and safely as possible using a computer or smartphone.

PASHA Bank has been operating in Azerbaijan since 2007 and is a member of the PASHA Group of Companies, which is a large investment holding operating in the insurance, construction, construction materials production, tourism and other sectors. Kapital Bank, one of the largest banks in the Azerbaijani retail market, also belongs to the PASHA Group of Companies

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @AzadHasanliBaku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 17

By Rufiz Hafizoglu  Trend:

Three cargo trips are carried out between Turkey, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan weekly via the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway, Minister of Transport and Infrastructure of Turkey Mehmet Cahit Turhan said in an exclusive interview with Trend.

He said that presently Turkey exports construction materials, detergents, food and agricultural products via the BTK to Azerbaijan, Georgia, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia, and imports mainly grain, iron and zinc.

The minister also noted that since the start of operation of the BTK railway, 100,000 tons of cargo have been transported in 102 container trains.

"We plan to transport 17 million tons of cargo annually via the BTK railway in the long term, and reach the volume of three million tons of cargo in the medium term," said Turhan.

The minister also noted that with the BTK railway, construction of one of the important sections of the Middle Corridor in Turkey was completed.

Turhan noted that BTK became a part of the work to revive the Silk Road, which is not only a transport and economic project, but also a political, cultural and social one.

The Silk Road is the longest transport and trade corridor in the world, he said.

"The total length of the Silk Road is 18,000 kilometers and it covers more than 60 countries," he added.

"With the start of operation of the BTK railway, Turkey was able to create a transport corridor between Europe and Asia," he noted. "At the same time, with the completion of this project, the Turkish State Railways (TCDD Tasimacilik AS), a part of our ministry, became a member of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route Association since Feb. 15, 2018."

The official opening ceremony of the BTK railway was held in Baku Oct. 30 last year. The BTK railway was constructed on the basis a Georgian-Azerbaijani-Turkish intergovernmental agreement.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizogluBaku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 17

By Huseyn Veliyev  Trend:

The preliminary agreements on cooperation between the business circles of Mongolia and Azerbaijan have been reached, the Director of Neuron Technologies company Ismail Alekberov told Trend.

Alekberov noted that about 20 local export companies have taken part in a business forum organized as part of an export mission. The Azerbaijani delegation was led by Deputy Minister of Economy of Azerbaijan Niyazi Safarov, who held meetings with the head of state and with the ministers of Mongolia.

The business negotiations continue. The held meetings can be called fruitful. The proposed IT solutions have aroused great interest of the Mongolian colleagues. We can definitely say that the digital transformation process in this country is just being established. In Mongolia, many projects are expected to be implemented in the area of construction of e-government. It is not improbable that we will be able to introduce the Azerbaijani model of the ASAN Service in this country," Alekberov said.

In addition, the director of the Neuron Technologies company said, the implementation of such major projects as "e-education", "e-health" and "e-agriculture" is also expected in Mongolia.

"Mongolia is a developing country in Central Asia and the Far East. The country pays special attention to the agricultural sector. Despite the fact that the countrys area is about 1.6 million square kilometers, the population of Mongolia slightly exceeds three million people. A lot of infrastructure projects are being implemented in Mongolia, and many countries are interested in being present in this market," Alekberov said.

Alekberov noted that Azerbaijan and Mongolia have established quite fruitful contacts and the meetings held within the framework of the export mission will only serve to strengthen cooperation between the two countries.

The day before, we held B2B meetings, a business forum, met with state authorities of Mongolia. The Neuron Technologies company offered its solutions in specific areas, in particular for agricultural sectors. For example, there are more than 60 million heads of cattle and small cattle in Mongolia. We proposed to introduce an animal identification system - Personal Identification System of Animals, which aroused the interest of our colleagues. In addition, we also offer solutions for the education sector, and the cooperation issues were discussed with the leadership of the IT association of Mongolia and with large IT companies of this country. We have been offered specific projects that will be implemented jointly," Alekberov said.

The export mission to Mongolia was organized through the Azerbaijan Export & Investment Promotion Foundation (AZPROMO). During the visit of the mission in Ulan Bator, an Azerbaijan-Mongolia business forum was held, the meetings with officials of this country, as well as the B2B meetings between representatives of business entities of the two countries were held.

The parties discussed issues of expanding cooperation between entrepreneurs of Azerbaijan and Mongolia, the possibility of exporting Azerbaijani products to this country.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @h_veliyevBaku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 17

By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend:

In January-September 2018, the number of Turkish citizens arrived in Kazakhstan through the Turkish Employment Agency (ISKUR) in search of work fell by 25.68 percent compared to the same period in 2017, ISKUR told Trend on Oct. 17.

During the period, 217 Turkish citizens visited Kazakhstan through the Employment Agency, which is 75 people less compared to the same period of 2017.

In September 2018, 21 Turkish citizens arrived in Kazakhstan via ISKUR.

In September 2018, via ISKUR, a total of 2,010 Turkish citizens went abroad searching for work.

According to the agency, in January-September 2018, 16,781 Turkish citizens left the country via ISKUR, which is 14.14 percent more compared to the same period in 2017.

In September 2018, 105,892 Turkish citizens were provided with work in Turkey, which is 9.7 percent more compared to the same month 2017.

In Turkey, in September, among those provided with job men formed the majority with 66 percent, while the number of women accounted for 34 percent.

A total of 3.133 million people were registered as unemployed in Turkey in September 2018. Fifty-two percent of them are women and 48 percent are men.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizogluBaku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 17

By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend:

In January-September 2018, the number of Turkish citizens arrived in Turkmenistan through the Turkish Employment Agency (ISKUR) in search of work fell by 54.9 percent compared to the same period in 2017, ISKUR told Trend on Oct. 17.

During the period, 281 Turkish citizens visited Turkmenistan through the Employment Agency, which is 342 people less compared to the same period of 2017.

In September 2018, one Turkish citizen arrived in Turkmenistan via ISKUR.

In September 2018, via ISKUR, a total of 2,010 Turkish citizens went abroad searching for work.

According to the agency, in January-September 2018, 16,781 Turkish citizens left the country via ISKUR, which is 14.14 percent more compared to the same period in 2017.

In September 2018, 105,892 Turkish citizens were provided with work in Turkey, which is 9.7 percent more compared to the same month 2017.

In Turkey, in September, among those provided with job men formed the majority with 66 percent, while the number of women accounted for 34 percent.

A total of 3.133 million people were registered as unemployed in Turkey in September 2018. Fifty-two percent of them are women and 48 percent are men.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizogluBaku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 17

By Rufiz Hafizoglu  Trend:

At the end of January-September 2018, the number of Turkish citizens who visited Uzbekistan through the Turkish Employment Agency (ISKUR) to find a job has increased by 396.43 percent compared to the same period in 2017, the Turkish Employment Agency (ISKUR) told Trend Oct. 17.

The ISKUR noted that during this period, 417 Turkish citizens arrived in Uzbekistan with the support of the Agency, which is by 333 citizens more compared to the same period in 2017.

The government officials also noted that in September 2018, 84 Turkish citizens left for Uzbekistan via ISKUR.

In September 2018, 2010 citizens of the country made their way to abroad through the Turkish Employment Agency.

In the first nine months of 2018, 16,781 citizens of Turkey went abroad via ISKUR, which is 14.14 percent more compared to the same period in 2017.

In September 2018, 105,892 citizens of the country were employed in Turkey, which is 9.7 percent more compared to the same month last year.

In Turkey, in September, 34 percent of people provided with job fell to the share of women, and 66 percent  to the share of men.

In September 2018, the number of unemployed persons in Turkey amounted to 3.133 million people, of which 52 percent were women, and 48 percent were men.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizogluBaku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 17

Trend:

Azerbaijan is proposing Kyrgyzstan to create a joint venture (JV) in the field of tourism, Azerbaijans Deputy Economy Minister Sahib Mammadov said during the 8th meeting of economy ministers of the Cooperation Council of Turkic-Speaking States (CCTS) in Bishkek, Kyrgyz media reported.

Speaking about cooperation between the two countries, Mammadov also noted a good level of interaction in the agricultural sector.

He said that in 2017, Azerbaijan invested $18.8 million in the Kyrgyz economy, while Kyrgyzstan invested $2 million in the Azerbaijani economy for the year.

The 8th meeting of CCTS economy ministers is taking place in Bishkek. Representatives of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Hungary and the Secretariat of the Turkic Council are taking part in the meeting.

Council members discuss prospects of economic relations among countries, as well as develop a common position on the issues of further deepening cooperation, which were considered during the 6th Summit of the CCTS Heads of States Sept. 3, 2018.

On October 16, the 10th meeting of the CCTS Working Group on Economic Cooperation was also held with the participation of experts from the CCTS member countries and the Secretariat of the Turkic Council.Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 17

Trend:

European Investment Bank (EIB) allocates first loans to Uzbekistan, Uzbek media reported citing to the press service of the EU Delegation in Uzbekistan.

Some 100 million euros will be spent on water and wastewater projects under the EU-funded Climate and Environment Action Fund.

This operation is expected to help Uzbekistan cope better with its high dependence on external water resources and the lack of fresh water. According to the report, about 80 percent of the water used in the country comes from neighboring countries.

Another 100 million euros will be spent on improving the energy efficiency of small and medium-sized enterprises, mid-cap companies and private sector enterprises.

The financing of the EIB will contribute to achieving the governments goal of reducing the country's energy intensity by at least 50 percent by 2030. The industrial sector has considerable potential for improving the situation in this area.

"We are very pleased that the first EIB loan agreements ever signed in Uzbekistan is concluded one year after the launch of the EIB operations in Uzbekistan. They will help the local economy and at the same time mitigate the negative effects of climate change. These two loans will provide assistance in the modernization of water infrastructure and will facilitate the transition to more efficient and environmentally friendly technologies," Vice-President of the EIB responsible for Central Asia Vazil Hudak said.

Both projects are being developed in collaboration with the World Bank and are expected to receive technical support from the Investment Fund for Central Asia, which is managed by the European Commission and provides support to the countries of Central Asia.Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 17

By Ilkin Shafiyev - Trend:

The position of Azerbaijan in the Global Competitiveness Report 2018 of the World Economic Forum (WEF), prepared according to a new methodology, is the result of successful economic reforms carried out in the country, Doctor of Economics Muslim Ibrahimov told Trend Oct. 17.

"The rating has undergone major changes. The main changes involved describing the status of the country, its competitiveness and business environment in the context of global changes and challenges. However, in this case it is clear that there is a certain picture of how the country builds its institutional environment today. This includes, first of all, social policy, establishing business environment, and in general, the status of the socio-economic system," he said.

"Of course, it is very pleasing that all those actions that were carried out by Government of Azerbaijan in the course of time, ultimately did their positive part. The position taken by the country in this rating causes nothing but optimism," Ibrahimov said.

He noted that one of the features of the updated rating is that all the indicators in it are closely related to each other.

Each indicator provides some correlation to another indicator. I would say that all indicators that are included in this rating are primarily based on a new approach - this is an inclusive economic growth, when a country creates an environment that is resistant to global shocks. The country is ready to tackle issues that, in principle, were caused by problems in the global economy," says Ibrahimov.

"Speaking of inclusive economic growth, we can say that due to the fact that Azerbaijan implements the Strategic Road Maps for the national economy and the main sectors of the economy and economic growth is at the forefront, to some extent we even outpaced the events. Of course, those indicators that are being evaluated today are also indicated in the road maps. Azerbaijan continues the policy of sustainable economic development and a solid base has been created in the country to continue economic reforms," the expert noted.

Some 68 new indicators were included in the seriously changed methodology of the Global Competitiveness Report of the WEF, and 84 (74 percent) of 114 indicators were excluded. Thus, 70 percent of the 98 indicators are completely new. Azerbaijan is estimated by new methodology for the first time. The country together with Turkey, Serbia, Georgia, South Africa and Croatia entered the list of top seventy countries.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @IlkinShafiyevTORONTO, Oct. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Wayland Group (CSE:WAYL) (FRANKFURT: 75M) (OTCQB:MRRCF) (Wayland or the Company) is excited to announce the release of its portfolio of brands that cater to different ages, genders, and occasions. The Companys extensive research created a portfolio of brands, each designed to address segments of the cannabis market both present and future. Strategically using each of these brands, Wayland gave itself the ability to be present and relevant to consumers.



The advent of recreational cannabis legalization in Canada is truly a watershed moment for Canadians. As we lead the world by example on another modern and controversial issue, we are thrilled to be at the forefront to welcome this new age. As a company invested in the long-term growth of the legal cannabis industry, first in providing state-of-the-art, highest-quality medicinals and now, a breadth of recreational products formulated with the same pharmaceutical standards, we know this is just the first step towards educating and demonstrating to the naysayers that legalization is the right path.

"The responsibility now lies with us, the companies behind the products, to show through professionalism and dedication to the highest integrity and operating standards that the benefits far outweigh the risks and that slow and steady wins the race. Working closely with government and our peers to ensure education and safety remain top of mind has been the Companys operating edict since its humble beginnings on a farm in Norfolk, ON. We have now received the sales license from Health Canada for our expansion in Norfolk and will be able to ship product grown in our state-of-the-art facility, said Ben Ward, CEO Wayland Group.

Rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach, Wayland has taken a purposeful and consumer-centric approach to each of its brands and offerings, which was validated with local consumer research. Brands within the portfolio will represent the quality and consistency that Wayland Group is globally recognized for, in addition to satisfying consumer needs.

KIWI

Fun and approachable. Kiwi will be the brand people will look to make all things cannabis make sense. Designed for light users who are new to the category and looking to better understand cannabis.

HIGH TIDE

High Tide is Waylands collection of high-THC cannabis strains designed for experienced medium to heavy users.

NORTHERN HARVEST

Northern Harvest has something for any cannabis consumer that appreciates authentic, local quality. Designed for light / medium users who enjoy Cannabis.

LOST AT SEED

Lost at seed is a meticulously curated collection of the finest and most rare cannabis genetics. Designed for medium to heavy users who are looking for highly desirable and impossible to find strains.

SOLARA C

Solara C will be designed exclusively to produce only the highest quality CBD products. Solara C will strive to educate and give consumers the ability to experience a natural, non- pharmaceutical alternative.

RARE DANKNESS

This partner brand will be for experienced cannabis users who are knowledgeable about strains, potencies and profiles. It will offer a wide selection of premium award-winning strains that users wont be able to find anywhere else.

Kiwi, Northern Harvest, and High Tide will be available in select markets on October 17th, 2018.

Fast forward to today and our state-of-the-art, heavily automated, food-grade production facilities, investments in leading edge absorption technologies, products focused on the needs of every consumer, a deeply experienced team who have done this before in other legalized markets, and we believe Wayland is poised to deliver on our promise to improve lives through cannabis every day.

Today, Canada takes a leadership position among its global peers, many of which we are working with as they follow down the cannabis legalization path. As a country, we will lead by example. And while there is a lot of noise in the industry as we enter into this era, as is often the case, the future is brightest for those who focus on the work at hand. Success will lie with those who quietly build companies dedicated to customer experiences focused on quality, value and a commitment to getting it right.

Welcome to your future, Canada. Were excited to be a part of it.

Ben Ward, CEO, Wayland Group

Maricann Group Inc., through its subsidiaries, is operating under the Wayland Group name. For further details see the press release dated September 24, 2018.

About Wayland Group

Wayland is a vertically integrated producer and distributor of marijuana for medical purposes. The Company was founded in 2013 and is based in Burlington, Ontario, Canada and Munich, Germany, with production facilities in Langton, Ontario where it operates a medicinal cannabis cultivation, extraction, formulation and distribution business under federal license from the Government of Canada. The Company also has production operations in Dresden, Saxony, Germany and Regensdorf, Switzerland. Wayland is currently undertaking an expansion of its cultivation and support facilities in Canada and will continue to pursue new opportunities in Europe.

Forward Looking Statements

This news release includes forward-looking information and statements, which may include, but are not limited to, information and statements regarding or inferring the future business, operations, financial performance, prospects, and other plans, intentions, expectations, estimates, and beliefs of the Company. Forward-looking information and statements involve and are subject to assumptions and known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors which may cause actual events, results, performance, or achievements of the Company to be materially different from future events, results, performance, and achievements expressed or implied by forward-looking information and statements herein. Although the Company believes that any forward-looking information and statements herein are reasonable, in light of the use of assumptions and the significant risks and uncertainties inherent in such information and statements, there can be no assurance that any such forward-looking information and statements will prove to be accurate, and accordingly readers are advised to rely on their own evaluation of such risks and uncertainties and should not place undue reliance upon such forward-looking information and statements. Any forward-looking information and statements herein are made as of the date hereof, and except as required by applicable laws, the Company assumes no obligation and disclaims any intention to update or revise any forward-looking information and statements herein or to update the reasons that actual events or results could or do differ from those projected in any forward looking information and statements herein, whether as a result of new information, future events or results, or otherwise, except as required by applicable laws.

The Canadian Securities Exchange has not reviewed, approved or disapproved the content of this news release.

For more information about Wayland, please visit our website at www.waylandgroup.com

CONTACT INFORMATION

Investor Relations

Graham Farrell

VP, Communications

Graham.Farrell@waylandgroup.com

647-643-7665

Media Inquiries: media@waylandgroup.com



Corporate Headquarters (Canada)

Wayland Group (Toronto)

845 Harrington Court, Unit 3

Burlington Ontario L7N 3P3

Canada

289-288-6274



European Headquarters (Germany)

Maricann GmbH

Thierschstrasse 3, 80538 Munchen, DeutschlandBaku, Azerbaijan, Oct.17

By Leman Zeynalova  Trend:

Denmark welcomes collaboration with Azerbaijan in ports industry, Danish Ambassador to Azerbaijan Svend Olling told Trend.

He pointed out that the ports industry in Denmark is well renowned and known for its high level of innovative solutions.

Danish engineering companies can provide a wide array of competences in coastal engineering, port planning and design and their consultancy is of high quality. This has most recently resulted in the Ramboll Group signing of a billion dollar contract in Algeria, said the envoy.

The diplomat said that the task is to extend the biggest harbour in the country with the expertise from Danish engineers.

This is of course something we want to promote worldwide to countries that have an interest in development of ports and ports industry. Of course, we welcome it, should there be an interest from Azerbaijan in this sphere, he added.

Further, Olling noted that Denmark is happy about the possibilities provided by the establishment of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway in terms of its ability to connect countries and increase the trade and investments across borders.

As for the possibility of Denmarks participation in BTK, the diplomat said it is still too early to say how Denmark can take part in the project, as it is still in its early phase no Danish stakeholders have expressed interest so far.

However, maybe we will see interesting developments in the future, he added.

The cargo transshipment potential of the new Baku International Sea Trade Port, which opened on May 14, 2018, is 15 million tons in the first phase, including 100,000 containers per year.

Seven berths of 12 existing ones serve dry cargo vessels, two berths serve ferries, and other two berths serve vessels of Ro-Ro and Ro-Pax type. Another berth is used for the maintenance of the fleet of the port.

The official opening ceremony of the BTK railway was held in Baku Oct. 30 last year. The BTK railway was constructed on the basis a Georgian-Azerbaijani-Turkish intergovernmental agreement.

The railways peak capacity will be 17 million tons of cargo per year. At an initial stage, this figure will be one million passengers and 6.5 million tons of cargo.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_ZeynBaku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 17

Trend:

The oil extraction plant of the American Cargill company in the Volgograd region of Russia reached an agreement on the supply of its products to Azerbaijan, the press service of the regional government told TASS.

In addition to Azerbaijan, agreements have been reached with Belarus, the countries of the Middle East, Scandinavia and Africa. The opening of the plant took place today in the Novoanninsky town of Russia's Volgograd region.

"We will support the implementation of such projects. In 2024, agricultural exports should reach $ 45 billion. We are pinning great hopes on Cargill as well. It is gratifying that this enterprise has opened today in a rural area that will provide new jobs," the Deputy Minister of Agriculture of the Russian Federation Oksana Lut said at the opening ceremony.

The plant in Novoanninsky worked in the technological mode for a year, all operational licenses were obtained this spring, and now the company has switched to full capacity, the company explained to TASS.

The volume of investments in the creation of the plant is about $ 250 million, the company stated. The enterprise will be able to process up to 640,000 tons of sunflower seeds per year, producing 280,000 tons of sunflower oil and 260,000 tons of sunflower oilseed extraction cake (a by-product of manufacture).

It is planned that the work on engineering networks in the amount of 800 million rubles will be completed in 1H2019: based on the agreement with the authorities, the investor will pay for the reconstruction of the wastewater treatment plant and the construction of a new water conduit necessary for the plants operation and development of the citys infrastructure.Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Oct. 17

By Huseyn Hasanov  Trend:

Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov met CEO of South Korean Hyundai Engineering Co., Ltd. Sang-rok Sung, the Turkmen Altyn Asyr TV channel reported.

The businessman declared readiness to present new mutually beneficial proposals to the Turkmen side, which include investment projects in the field of processing of the fuel and energy sector products with the participation of South Korean and other companies in order to strengthen fruitful cooperation, the report said.

During the conversation, the sides noted great opportunities for building up business cooperation, the priority vector of which is the introduction of innovations, the implementation of joint projects in the field of industrial processing of natural resources and diversification of the industrial sector of the Turkmen economy, including the fuel and energy sector.

In recent years, Hyundai Engineering Co. has implemented a number of projects in Turkmenistan, involving construction of a gas desulfurization plant at the Galkynysh field and modernization of a refinery in the city of Turkmenbashi.

The company also announced completion of the construction of a polymer plant in the Balkan province of Turkmenistan. This plant is designed for the annual production of 386,000 tons of high density polyethylene and 81,000 tons of polypropylene.Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 17

By Fikret Dolukhanov  Trend:

Customers of GM Uzbekistan will now be able to learn about delivery of their car in the nearby dealer center on the official website of the company, the press service of the company reported.

In order to improve the services provided and achieve maximum satisfaction of customers, GM Uzbekistan introduced a new section on the official website: List of vehicles supplied to the car dealer center. A list of customers whose cars have already been delivered will now be published on the official page of the company, the press service noted.

Shipping information will be updated on a daily basis.

The new service is aimed at ensuring the transparency of the trading system at all its stages.

In January-September 2018, Uzbekistan produced 127,420 cars, which is 25.7 percent more compared to the same period in 2017.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @FDolukhanovBaku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 17

Trend:

The estimated cost of construction of nuclear power plant of Russian design in Uzbekistan will be about $ 11 billion, the launch of the first power unit has been planned for 2028, the Aide to the President of the Russian Federation Yury Ushakov said, Interfax reported.

"It is estimated that the cost of the project will be somewhere around $11 billion," Ushakov told reporters in Moscow Oct. 16.

Ushakov said that it is believed that the first power unit will presumably be launched in 2028.

Ushakov also said that during the state visit to Uzbekistan on October 18-19, President Vladimir Putin will take part in the ceremony of launching a project to build a nuclear power plant of Russian design in Uzbekistan.

According to the intergovernmental agreement of the two countries, Uzbekistan plans to build a nuclear power plant, which consists of two power units with VVER-1200 reactors with a total capacity of 2.4 GW. The project will be implemented jointly with the Russian Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation.

At the same time, Ushakov said, during the upcoming visit, the Russian leader will hold talks with President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev.

He also said that at the October 19 summit "a decision will be made to create a new mechanism for trade and economic cooperation."

"This is a joint commission on cooperation at the level of heads of government. That is, in fact, the intergovernmental commission will be headed by the prime ministers on the part of Uzbekistan and Russia," Ushakov said.

He noted that Uzbekistan "is among our leading economic partners."

"Russia's share in the total foreign trade of Uzbekistan exceeds 18 percent - this is second place after China," Ushakov said. "According to the results of the current year, there are all opportunities to reach the trade turnover of $5 billion."

At the same time, speaking about the international topics planned for discussion at the summit in Uzbekistan, Ushakov singled out Afghanistan, "as well as building up cooperation between Russia and Uzbekistan in the framework of the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization)."Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 17

Trend:

Russian President Vladimir Putin will officially visit Tashkent Oct. 18-19, press service of Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev said in a statement.

During Putins visit to Tashkent, educational and interregional forums, groundbreaking ceremony for a nuclear power plant and other events will be held.

At the talks between the two presidents, the state of Uzbek-Russian relations, the prospects for strengthening strategic partnership and alliance, the implementation of new joint projects and programs in various fields will be considered.

The presidents will also discuss topical international issues, including ensuring stability and security in the region and promoting the peace process in Afghanistan.

As part of the visit, for the first time, a joint Educational Forum and the Uzbekistan-Russia Forum of Interregional Cooperation will be held. A groundbreaking ceremony for a nuclear power plant in Uzbekistan is planned.

Following the talks, the Joint Statement of the Heads of State will be adopted and the Economic Cooperation Program for 20192024, the Program of Cooperation in the Cultural and Humanitarian Sphere for 20192021, the agreement on the establishment and operation of branches of the leading universities of Russia in Uzbekistan, the Road Map on the creation of the Suffa International Radio Astronomy Observatory and a number of other important documents will be signed.

During the visit, it is expected to sign major investment and trade contracts between regions and business circles of Uzbekistan and Russia.Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 17

Trend:

President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev has held a meeting on the accelerated development of the chemical industry, attraction of foreign investment and modern technologies to the industry.

Uzbekistans subsoil contains almost all elements of the periodic table. However, despite the rich reserves of hydrocarbons, the domestic chemical industry specializes mainly in the production of mineral fertilizers for agriculture.

The production of complex polymers, catalysts, reagents and synthetic fibers necessary for the construction materials, pharmaceutical, textile, engineering and other industries has not been established.

As a result, chemical products worth $1.5 billion are imported annually. Phosphorus and potash fertilizers produced in the country cover only a third of the demand for them.

Capacities for the production of complex mineral fertilizers are outdated by 60-70 percent, which leads to waste of energy resources, an increase in the cost of chemical products.

Since last year, 17 investment projects worth $ 3.1 billion have been launched in order to meet the need for mineral fertilizers. In addition, 17 more projects worth $4.2 billion will be implemented in order to diversify the chemical industry until 2025.

The upcoming measures to eliminate shortcomings in the industry and to further develop the chemical industry have been discussed at the meeting. As noted, the development of the industry requires the commissioning of new modern production facilities.

Today, the need for nitrogen fertilizers in Uzbekistan is met by 73 percent, in phosphate fertilizers - by 20 percent. The average wear level of nitrogen fertilizer production facilities is 64 percent, while the average wear level of phosphate fertilizer production facilities is 77 percent.

In order to improve the situation in this sphere, it is planned to implement 9 projects worth $2.8 billion in the next five years, as a result of which the production of mineral fertilizers and sulphate acid will double. The demand for nitrogen and potash fertilizers will be fully met, the level of satisfaction of demand for phosphate fertilizers will increase several times.

However, currently, only 14 percent of natural gas is deeply processed, in particular 5 percent of gas is processed in the chemical industry. The production of chemical products from silicon, kaolin and gypsum remains unaddressed.

According to the available data, there is a demand abroad for non-fertilizer products manufactured in Uzbekistan, mainly polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene in the amount of over $ 100 billion.

In this regard, in order to diversify the varieties of products of the chemical industry, it is planned to implement 15 projects for the production of organic substances and 8 projects for the production of inorganic substances.

At the meeting, the responsible persons have been charged with the development of a "roadmap" for the implementation of the set tasks with further continuous monitoring of its implementation.Italian investment companies remain active in Iran, despite the US unilateral sanctions, said the head of Trade Promotion Section of the Italian Embassy in Iran, IRNA reports.

We have received a great number of requests from the Italian companies to invest in Iran, and the embassy tries to facilitate them, said Augusto Di Giacinto in a meeting with the chairman of the chamber of commerce and businessmen of Irans northern province of Mazandaran.



He stressed that small family-owned businesses constitute over 90% of Italian production and industrial companies that can keep working in Iran during sanctions.



We have proven our goodwill and will continue to support Iran even in difficult economic conditions, he added.



He expressed hope that banking transactions for Italian businessmen would be facilitated soon.



He also reiterated that both countries should lever up trade ties with trade capacities.



Some Italian businessmen accompany Di Giacinto in his one-day visit to Mazandaran.



Currently the Iran-Italy trade exchange is roughly $5b and is expected to reach $13b in the next few years due to trade agreements between the two countries.Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 17

By Elnur Baghishov - Trend:

During the first five months of Iranian year (started March 21, 2018), Iran imported 28,000 tons of bees wax from several countries, according to customs statistics, Mizan News Agency reported.

Iran spent $207,096 for the import of bees wax from Germany, the UK, Turkey, China and India.

At least 13,000 tons of bees wax worth $89,364 were imported from China.

Iran imported 5,960 tons of bees wax worth $72,071 from Germany, 181 tons of bees wax worth $5,901 from Turkey, 9,200 tons of bees wax worth $36,210 from India and 100 tons of bees wax worth $3,550 from the UK.Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 17

By Elnur Baghishov  Trend:

The third Iran Petroleum Contract (IPC) will be concluded with a foreign company, Iranian Deputy Minister of Petroleum Ali Kardor said in an interview with ISNA.

Before signing an agreement, it is impossible to disclose the name of the company and at which fields it will operate, he said.

Kardor stressed that the contract is expected to be signed within the next two weeks.

While responding to a question whether Iran has a problem with getting money through oil sale, the deputy minister said there is no problem in this sphere.

He said Iran has no problem with getting money in euros instead of dollars in oil sale.

If Europe supports this issue, no problem will arise, Kardor added.

The first IPC was signed last year between the National Iranian Oil Company and a consortium led by the French company Total for the 11th block of South Pars gas field. Of course, after oil sanctions were imposed on Iran, Total left the agreement.

The second agreement was signed by the National Iranian Oil Company, Russia's Zarubezhneft and Iran's Dana Energy in March this year to increase production at the Aban and Paydare Qarb oil fields.AI-powered application helps top UK law firm quickly find and access relevant information, unlocks the value of their work product

CHICAGO, Oct. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- iManage , the company dedicated to transforming how professionals work, today announced that Howard Kennedy LLP  a forward-thinking UK law firm that provides straightforward advice to ambitious clients serving a domestic and international client base  has deployed iManage RAVN Insight to quickly find and access relevant information, improving knowledge management within the organization.

iManage RAVN Insight enables universal search to identify relevant content regardless of location. Seamlessly integrated with iManage Work document and email management, Insight uses the RAVN AI engine to find, analyze and identify information without requiring excessive taxonomy development, metadata or manual content management. Insight includes Knowledge Graph, a key feature that surfaces connections between people, expertise and knowledge to identify hidden experts, related projects and relevant clients.

We didnt have a coordinated approach to knowledge management and know-how generation within the firm, said Robin Hall, Head of Knowledge Management, Howard Kennedy. Our knowledge was scattered around in bits and pieces and it was challenging to identify the right people with the right knowledge. iManage RAVN Insight has made it seamless, quick and easy to find the know-how within our organization, saving us valuable time.

Implementing Insight has allowed Howard Kennedy users to quickly and easily find work product while reducing time spent on managing the content. iManage RAVN Insight requires very, very little resources on our side to manage and it delivers fantastic results, added Hall. We are not IT professionals  we are knowledge management professionals and iManage RAVN Insight allows us to spend more time as knowledge workers.

Smart firms like Howard Kennedy are looking for new ways to leverage firm expertise for competitive advantage, said Nick Thomson, General Manager, iManage RAVN. iManage RAVN Insight enables Howard Kennedy to take full advantage of their existing work product and derive greater value from the knowledge it contains.

For additional details on how Howard Kennedy is using iManage RAVN Insight, please read the case study: Howard Kennedy Improves Knowledge Management with iManage RAVN Insight

Follow iManage via:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/imanageinc

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/iManageinc/

Blog: https://imanage.com/blog/

Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/imanage

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/imanage

About iManage

iManage transforms how professionals in legal, accounting and financial services get work done by combining artificial intelligence, security and risk mitigation with market leading document and email management. iManage automates routine cognitive tasks, provides powerful insights and streamlines how professionals work, while maintaining the highest level of security and governance over critical client and corporate data. Over one million professionals at over 3,000 organizations in over 65 countries  including more than 2,000 law firms and 500 corporate legal departments  rely on iManage to deliver great client work  securely.Iran's ambassador to Iraq Iraj Masjedi says in the new era, the economic-centered approach of the Consulate's activities of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Iraq is economic, IRNA reports.

At a meeting of the Islamic Consulate Generals of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Najaf, Karbala, Basra, Suleimaniyeh and Erbil provinces, Masjedi said, The crystallization of the deep and unbroken bond between Iran and Iraq, especially in terms of reconstruction, should be followed by a movement in the economy, which means participation and effort of Iranian companies to benefit from opportunities in investment and cooperation with the country.'



Iran's ambassador to Iraq, in a reference to Iran's significant market share in the Iraqi market, added, The prosperity of the production and use of Iranian-Iraqi products will be mutually beneficial for the development of the trading system of these two countries and the preparation of the necessary ground for increasing the export of goods, services, energy and tourism will be vigorously pursued.



During this meeting, each of the Iranian Consulate Generals described the latest status of bilateral cooperation with their respective provinces and provided them with suggestions.



It was also stipulated by the proposal of Naser Behzad, the Islamic Republic of Iran Trade Advisor in Iraq, with the responsibility of each Iranian delegation in Iraq, identifying the advantages of the model for the purpose of trade and production.



Behzad said the strategy of the Ministry of Industry, Mining and Commerce in macro planning is paying particular attention to important export markets, and accurate planning in the target market requires comprehensive land-based information.Baku, Azerbaijan, October 17

By Azer Ahmadbayli  Trend:

In the early 2000s, the Taliban movement was considered a bitter enemy, for both Russia and the United States, and any peace talks with it were excluded.

Now, both the US and Russia are simultaneously looking for opportunities for negotiations with the leaders of Taliban. If official Kabul can be influenced in one way or the other, Taliban  a radical movement that, according to the latest data, controls more than 50% of the total territory of the country  needs to be reckoned with.

Official Kabul and the radical Taliban movement (banned in Russia) confirmed their participation in the meeting at the Moscow [negotiation] site. The date of the meeting can be announced this week, Izvestia reported, citing special representative of the President of the Russian Federation on Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov.

On the other side, last week Zalmay Khalilzad, the US special adviser on Afghan peace, met with Taliban representatives in Qatar for talks on possible paths to end Afghan war, a spokesman for the insurgent group said, according to the Washington Post.

The spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, said the presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan remains the greatest obstacle to peace, but he also noted that both sides agreed to continue the dialogue  a potentially major step toward formal negotiations with the Taliban to end the 17-year war, according to the newspaper.

In short, there is activity around the situation in Afghanistan. What is behind it?

In a few days parliamentary elections are due to be held in Afghanistan. The Taliban leaders have already warned that they will not allow them to take place.

Taliban leaders addressed the population of the country and the parliamentary candidates to refuse from participation in the elections, which, they believe, serve as a means to give legitimacy to foreign occupation, as well as to justify the failure of the ruling regime.

The insurgents seem confident in their abilities, and external players are aware of it. Otherwise, they would hardly sit down with the Taliban leaders at a round table.

For many, it is still unclear why the US is so clinging to Afghanistan and what is the ground for its relations with Taliban.

When being a candidate in the presidential race, Donald Trump supported the idea of withdrawal of the US military from Afghanistan.

Then, in August 2017, he said that the hasty withdrawal of the US troops from Afghanistan will leave a vacuum there, which will be occupied by terrorists, BBC reported.

And now Washington has entered the negotiations once again, suggesting withdrawal of the US forces, but not meaning that it will be carried out for sure.

At the time, the US declared the main reason for the presence in Afghanistan  preventing terror activities against the US before they emerge. That was reasonable in 2001 and several following years, when US was crushing the al-Qaeda terrorist net in the country. Then it became to sound a bit strange. Rather, neighboring countries  Russia or China  should have such concerns.

Timing of the US presence in Afghanistan (17 years!) and the outcome that have not been ever worse than now, gives thoughts for some strong doubts.

Another task stated as an objective by the United States was to combat drug production and international drug trafficking, where Afghanistan occupies a leading position.

According to the Afghan opium survey 2017, prepared by UNODC, in 17 years  from 2001 to 2017  the area of opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan increased from 8,000 to 328,000 hectares, whereas production increased accordingly from 185 tons to 9,000 tons.

Russia has its own problems in Afghanistan.

For some time, the IS terrorist group has been making efforts to entrench itself in the country.

At the end of last month, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev warned during the consultations on the Afghan settlement about the danger of recurrence of the "Syrian scenario" in Afghanistan.

Based on data from Russian intelligence, the number of the IS militants in Afghanistan ranges from 8,000 to 10,000.

In early October, a joint statement by the foreign Ministers of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) member States on the situation in Afghanistan, the strengthening of IS positions in the Northern provinces of the country and the growth of the drug threat from the territory of Afghanistan was published on the Russian Foreign Ministry's website.

In the statement, the CSTO member states express special concern regarding the activities and growth of the Islamic State and other terrorist organizations in Afghanistan, as well as with a significant accumulation of militants in the vicinity of the southern borders of the Republic of Tajikistan, which is a member state of the CSTO.

Against the background of the emergence of jihadists of the IS in Afghanistan, Russia, which has sharply protested for many years against cooperation with the Taliban movement, is now ready for contact. Moscow hopes that the dialogue with the Taliban will reduce risks of the terrorist spreading from Afghanistan to the republics of the Central Asia  Russias underbelly.The newly appointed Representative of UNICEF in Georgia, Dr. Ghassan Khalil, presented his official letter of accreditation to the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Georgia, Ms. Khatuna Totladze, GeorgiaToday reports.

It is a great privilege for me to be in Georgia. I am very enthusiastic about my new position and I am looking forward to working closely with the Georgian government for improving the wellbeing of children and families in Georgia," said Dr. Khalil.

Dr. Khalil expressed his gratitude to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for their fruitful cooperation with UNICEF over the past 25 years and on its considerable efforts to protect childrens rights in Georgia. He underlined the considerable progress for children in Georgia since independence in 1991. There are many children, however, who still need support.

We will continue to work with the Government of Georgia to address the needs and to protect the rights of these vulnerable children and their families. We need to create stronger systems and policies so that children have full access to services, added Dr. Khalil.

Before moving to Georgia Dr. Khalil, a Lebanese national, served as the Senior Advisor to UNICEF's Regional Office for the Middle East and North Africa. Previously, he served as the UNICEF Special Representative in Libya. He has more than 25 years of relevant professional experience in various capacities, which include senior positions with governments, NGOs, the United Nations, and as an independent senior consultant, university professor, researcher, and training expert.

Dr. Khalils work has been focused on promoting human rights, the rights of women and children, social policy, legal reform, cultural diversity, and intercultural dialogue, with extensive experience in strategic management and rights-based approaches to programming, in both development and emergency settings.

Dr. Khalil holds a Maitrise in Law from the Lebanese University, a Master's in International Business Law from the Sorbonne in Paris, and a Doctorate in International Law from Sorbonne Descartes (Paris-V) University.

UNICEF promotes the rights and wellbeing of every child, in everything we do. Together with our partners, we work in 190 countries and territories to translate that commitment into practical action, focusing special effort on reaching the most vulnerable and excluded children, to the benefit of all children, everywhere.G7 member states foreign ministers are calling for punishing everyone responsible for the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul, the joint statement said, Sputnik reports.

We remain very troubled by the disappearance of prominent Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Those bearing responsibility for his disappearance must be held to account. We encourage Turkish-Saudi collaboration and look forward to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia conducting a thorough, credible, transparent, and prompt investigation, as announced, the statement said on Tuesday.

The G7 foreign ministers as well as EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini have also affirmed their commitment to protecting the freedom of expression and free press.

Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist, went missing on October 2. He was last seen entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul where he went to receive papers he needed to remarry.

Turkey has expressed concerns that Khashoggi could have been murdered inside the building, while the Saudi government has denied involvement in the case, claiming that the journalist disappeared after he left the consulate.

On Tuesday, the NTV broadcaster reported that the Turkish police had found evidence during their authorized search of the Saudi Consulate showing that Khashoggi had been murdered there.

Saudi Consul General in Istanbul Mohammad Otaibi has left Turkey for Riyadh amid the growing scandal around the disappearance of Khashoggi.Former Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki reiterated his countrys opposition to the US sanctions against Iran, IRNA reports.

In a meeting with US Ambassador in Baghdad Douglas Silliman, he stressed the significance of supporting Iraqi future government, saying that Iraq is trying to have best relations with countries across the globe.



During the meeting, both officials discussed future of Iraq-US ties as well as ways to strengthen them.



Al-Maliki further noted that regional stability starts from that of Iraq.



Iraq is seeking to forge best ties with all countries, as it rejects policy of polarization, he said.



Iraq is opposed to sanctions against Iran and other countries, he said, noting that the sanctions will first harm the people from all walks of life.



The Iraqi official has on several occasions expressed opposition to anti-Iran sanctions, describing them as in flagrant breach of international regulations.The Syrian government gave approval for the U.N. to deliver aid next week to thousands of civilians stranded near a U.S. garrison on the Jordanian-Syrian border, aid workers and camp officials said on Wednesday, Reuters reports.

A siege earlier this month by the Syrian army and a block on aid by Jordan has depleted food at the camp in the southeastern Syrian area of Rukban. This led to at least a dozen deaths in the past week among its over 50,000 inhabitants, mainly women and children, residents and U.N. sources told.

The United Nations contacted local officials in the camp to say they had received authorization from Damascus to send an aid convoy on Oct. 25.

The Syrian army has tightened its siege of the camp, which is also near the Iraqi border, preventing smugglers and traders from delivering food.

Jordan, which agreed early this year to allow a one-off aid shipment, has said since it should not be held responsible as the camp was not on its territory and all future provisions must come from U.N. stores inside Syria.In Luxembourg Georgian Foreign Minister David Zalkaliani met with Irelands Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Simon Coveney, GeorgiaToday reports.

Highly appraising the increasing level of bilateral relations between Georgia and Ireland, both sides affirmed their commitment to further develop cooperation.

Coveney pledged his governments firm support for Georgias EU integration, offering to share Irelands EU integration experience with Georgia.

Discussions during the meeting focused mainly on the situation in Georgias occupied territories. Zalkaliani updated his counterpart on the ongoing conflict resolution process, Georgias peace policy and the new peace initiative A Step towards a Better Future. The necessity of keeping the occupation of the Georgian regions and the situation on the ground high on the international agenda was also highlighted. The Irish side reaffirmed its support for Georgias sovereignty and territorial integrity as is reflected in bilateral and multilateral formats of cooperation.

The Ministers welcomed the increasing level of inter-parliamentary relations between the two countries and the exchange of bilateral visits. Special attention was paid to the resolutions adopted in support for Georgia in 2017 and 2018 by the Foreign Relations, Trade and Defence Committee of the Irish Parliament.

Zalkaliani thanked his Irish counterpart for adding Georgia to the list of safe countries, which points to Irelands recognition of Georgias progress in improving its political and democratic climate, human rights and security situation.

Zalkaliani also provided Coveney with detailed information on Georgias European integration agenda and the governments EU Integration Roadmap. The sides also spoke about Georgia as an important regional transit and energy hub and the Irish business communities possible interest in Georgias investment climate.Britains government is not asking to extend the Brexit transition period, the BBC reported on Wednesday, after the European Union indicated it was ready to offer a one-year extension if it helps seal a post-Brexit trade deal, Reuters reports.

The BBCs political editor Laura Kuenssberg said on Twitter that Mays office had ruled out extending the period even though some members of the government had held out possibility that the period could be extended by a year.

Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney said on Wednesday an extension is something thats been discussed by the British side and the EU side because we simply arent where we need to be.It would not hurt Europe if Britain was allowed to remain in the European Union customs union and internal market beyond an agreed transitional arrangement, Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn said, Reuters reports.

What can be extended with no major problem is the Jan. 1, 2020 date for the transition period. If a year is added to that it wont hurt Europe, I hope not Britain as well, Asselborn told German broadcaster Deutschlandfunk on Wednesday.

German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung had reported late on Tuesday that the European Commission had offered to extend the transition period beyond the end of 2020.The EUs Trade Commissioner said on Wednesday that the bloc was open to talks with the United States on industrial goods tariffs but that Washington had not yet shown any serious interest, Reuters reports.

Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom said she welcomed U.S. Trade Representatives office statement that Washington intends to open trade talks with the European Union and the United Kingdom.

We have not started negotiating yet, she told reporters. We are prepared to start the scoping exercise on a limited agreement focus on industrial goods ... so far the U.S. has not shown any big interest.CALGARY, Alberta, Oct. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Further to its press release of October 9, 2018, Niko Resources Ltd. (Niko or the Company)(TSX  NKO) provides the following updates:



As a result of non-payments of D6 cash calls, a subsidiary of the Company received a default notice from the operator of the D6 production sharing contract (PSC) in India. Under the terms of the joint operating agreement (JOA) between the participating interest holders in the D6 PSC, during the continuance of a default, the defaulting party shall not have a right to its share of revenue (which shall vest in and be the property of the non-defaulting parties who have paid to cover the amount in default). In addition, if the defaulting party does not cure a default within sixty days of the default notice, the non-defaulting parties have the option to require the defaulting party to withdraw from the D6 PSC and JOA.





Under the terms of the Companys Facilities Agreement with its senior lenders (the Lenders), the receipt of the default notice from the operator of the D6 PSC would result in an event of default unless the default under the D6 JOA is cured within 10 days. As such, the Company has requested that the Lenders waive such default. The Company has consulted with the Lenders about its liquidity situation and will continue to have discussions with the Lenders with whom the Company believes it has a positive relationship.





The Company has also requested, under the terms of the Facilities Agreement, that some or all of the Lenders provide a senior loan facility for funding of D6 Block expenditures. None of the Lenders are under any obligation to provide this loan facility.

If the default under the D6 JOA is not cured on a timely basis and the non-defaulting parties request that Niko withdraw from the D6 PSC and JOA, then this will have a material adverse impact on the Companys stakeholders. No assurance whatsoever can be made that the Company will be able to meet its funding requirements under the D6 PSC or its other obligations on a timely basis or at all.

For further information, please contact:

Niko Resources Ltd. (403) 2621020, Glen Valk, VP Finance & CFO, or visit the Company's website at www.nikoresources.com

Forward-Looking Information

Certain statements in this press release constitute forward-looking information. Specifically, this press release contains forward looking information relating to the ability of the Company to fund its operations and meet its obligations. Such forward-looking information is based on a number of risks, uncertainties and assumptions, which may cause actual results or other expectations to differ materially from those anticipated and which may prove to be incorrect. Undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking information. Such forward-looking information reflects the Company's current beliefs and assumptions and is based on information currently available to the Company. This forward-looking information is based on certain key expectations and assumptions, many of which are not within the control of the Company. In particular, the Company has not been successful in its efforts to sell its interest in the D6 Block in India or secure financing for funding of its share of the R-Cluster, Satellite Cluster and MJ development projects in the D6 Block, and while it will continue such efforts to enhance its liquidity there can be no assurance whatsoever that these efforts will be successful on a timely basis or at all. In addition, the Company has requested that the Lenders waive a default under the Facilities Agreement and fund a senior loan facility. The Lenders may in their sole discretion determine to refuse both requests. Accordingly, absolutely no assurance can be made that the Company will be able to meet its funding requirements under the D6 PSC or its other obligations on a timely basis or at all, and nothing herein should be read as stating or inferring otherwise. The reader is cautioned that the assumptions used in the preparation of such information, although considered reasonable at the time of preparation, may prove to be incorrect. Actual results may vary from the information provided herein as a result of numerous known and unknown risks and uncertainties and other factors and such variations may be material. Such risk factors include, but are not limited to, the risks discussed under the heading "Risk Factors" in the Company's Annual Information Form for the year ended March 31, 2018 and in the Company's public disclosure documents, and other factors, many of which are beyond the Company's control. Niko makes no representation that the actual results achieved during the forecast period will be the same in whole or in part as those forecast.

The forward-looking information included in this press release is expressly qualified in its entirety by this cautionary statement. The forward-looking information included herein is made as of the date of this press release and Niko assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward- looking information to reflect new events or circumstances, except as required by law.Britains trade minister Liam Fox will categorically deny on Wednesday that the government plans to lower foods standards to win trade deals after Brexit, Reuters reports.

The United States wants Britain to cut European Union regulations after Brexit to boost the chances of the two countries striking a free-trade deal.

There have been a lot of reports lately, mostly on social media, that my department has been planning to lower food and farming standards when negotiating Free Trade Agreements post-Brexit, Fox will tell farming industry representatives in a speech. Let me tell you categorically that these reports are untrue.

Opponents of Brexit argue a U.S. trade deal means opening up Britains markets to the likes of chlorine-treated chicken and genetically modified crops.

Fox played down public health concerns last year, saying consumers should be given a choice and the British media were obsessed with chlorine-washed chickens.French President Emmanuel Macron has announced the release of a French citizen who had been held hostage in Yemen for more than four months and congratulated all those who contributed to securing freedom for Alain Goma, who will be back in France soon, Sputnik reported citing AFP.

Macron expressed his heartfelt thanks to Omans Sultan Qaboos Bin Said and Omani authorities for their decisive role in Mr. Gomas release, also thanking Saudi authorities for their assistance.

According to French media reports, Alain Goma was captured by Houthi rebels during a sailing trip to India after his boat was damaged, forcing him to make a stopover at the Yemeni port of Hodeida in June.

His boat was then sequestered by the Houthi militiamen, who control Hodeida and the capital Sanaa, where Alain Goma was transferred. In September, his family said he was "very worried about his state of health, calling on French authorities not to forget" him.

Gomas Houthi captors released him from a prison in Sanaa following intensive talks between the French envoy to Yemen and Houthi leaders in the countrys capital, Sanaa.Leaders of 27 EU member states noted that not enough progress has been made in the talks between the Brussels and London on the UK withdrawal from the European Union despite intensive negotiations on the issue, an informed source in the European Union told Sputnik.

On Wednesday, EU leaders convened a two-day summit dedicated to pressing issues, including the deadlocked Brexit talks, migration crisis, economy and security challenges.

"The EU27 leaders reaffirm their full confidence in [EU chief Brexit negotiator] Michel Barnier as the negotiator and their determination to stay united; note that, despite intensive negotiations, not enough progress has been achieved; call on the Union negotiator to continue his efforts to reach an agreement in accordance with previously agreed European Council guidelines," the source said late on Wednesday.

The EU27 leaders are ready to gather for a European Council meeting in case a decisive progress is achieved in the Brexit talks, but they currently have no plans to organize an extraordinary summit on the UK withdrawal in November, according to the source.The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have hit 20 military targets in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday in response to a missile attack on Israeli territory, said spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces Jonathan Conricus at a briefing for foreign journalists, TASS reports.

"Weve hit 20 Hamas military targets in the Gaza Strip in response to a missile attack on Israel," he said. "Among these targets are a Hamas tunnel in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, production platforms for missiles and a mine of another tunnel on the coast." Conricus noted that two missiles fired from the Gaza Strip on Israel on Wednesday night were "home-produced medium-range missiles that only the Hamas movement and the Islamic Jihad Movement have." "We believe the Hamas movement to be responsible for the missile attack, and the Israeli army is ready for any scenario," he added.Brazils far-right front-runner will not take part in any presidential debates or return to the campaign trail ahead of the Oct. 28 run-off election due to his medical condition, one of his closest aides told Reuters on Tuesday.

Congressman Onyx Lorenzoni, slated to become presidential chief of staff if Jair Bolsonaro wins the election, said the debates were pointless anyway and would make no difference to his candidates commanding lead in the race.

The main reason (Bolsonaro cannot take part) is that he has a colostomy bag that will not be removed until November ... he likes debating and wants to go, but we have to consider his health first, Lorenzoni said.

Bolsonaro was stabbed in the gut at a rally last month, while campaigning in one of Brazils most polarized elections in decades.

His doctors are working on his full recovery so, if he wins, he could take office on Jan. 1 without a colostomy bag, said Lorenzoni.

Leftist rival Fernando Haddad of the Workers Party (PT) has said in campaign ads that Bolsonaro is avoiding the scheduled debates because he is not prepared to be president.

Attempts to unite the Brazilian left against the former army captain have snagged on internal squabbles, making it even harder for Haddad to close a gap in opinion polls, less than two weeks before the run-off.

The latest poll, released by Ibope on Monday, showed Bolsonaro maintaining a wide lead over Haddad, with 59 percent of valid votes against 41 percent.

The poll, details of which ran in newspaper Estado de S.Paulo on Tuesday, showed Haddad with a higher rate of rejection among voters, driven by strong dislike of the PT even among fellow leftists. About 47 percent of people polled said they would never vote for him, compared with 35 percent rejecting Bolsonaro.

Efforts by Haddads campaign to attract the voters of center-left Ciro Gomes, who came third in the first round of voting on Oct. 7, devolved into a shouting match at an event on Monday night.

At a rally in the northeastern state of Ceara, which Gomes won in the first vote, his brother and campaign manager Cid Gomes was called upon to formally endorse Haddad.

But Cid Gomes took the opportunity to call for a mea culpa over sprawling graft schemes orchestrated by leaders of the PT. The partys founder, former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, is doing jail time for a corruption conviction.

Videos of the event showed Cid Gomes was met with rowdy boos.

Youre going to lose the election, and its your fault, Cid Gomes shot back. You morons! Lula is in prison!

The PT held the presidency for 13 of the last 15 years and Lula remains beloved by many for his social policies, credited with easing the lives of the poor in one of the worlds most unequal countries.

But Haddad, a former PT mayor of Sao Paulo, has been unable to distance himself from the disdain many Brazilians harbor for the partys role in corruption schemes uncovered by investigators in recent years.

Haddad has struggled to both stand by Lula, whom the PT considers an unjustly convicted political prisoner, and also acknowledge the partys errors.

Bolsonaro, 63, a seven-term congressman who openly defends Brazils 1964-1985 military dictatorship, is pitching himself as the anti-establishment candidate and appealing to voters fed up with the political corruption and violent crime.Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov has discussed arms control and relations between Moscow and Washington with a delegation from Israel, the Russian Foreign Ministry informs, TASS reports.

Deputy Director General of the Israeli Foreign Ministry Alexander Ben-Zvi heads the Israeli delegation, which is currently on a visit to Moscow.

"The sides have exchanged opinions on a broad agenda, including current issues of Russian-US relations, international security, issues of arms control and non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction with special attention paid to the situation in the Middle East," the ministry stated.

Historically, the US has been a key ally of Israel, also playing an important role in Syria, where they control the eastern shore of Euphrates. Meanwhile, the Russian-Israeli relations suffered a blow after the Il-20 aircraft crash.

On September 17, a Russian Il-20 aircraft flying over the Mediterranean Sea back to the Russian Hmeimim air base in Syria disappeared from radars during an airstrike carried out by four Israeli F-16 fighter jets on targets in the Syrian province of Latakia.

On September 18, the Russian Defense Ministry stated that the Il-20 aircraft had been accidently downed by Syrian air defenses as the Israeli F-16 jets had been using it as cover.

Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov stated that the Israeli Air Force and those who made the decision to use the Il-20 aircraft as cover were solely to blame for its crash, which claimed the lives of 15 Russian military servicemen.A copy of the Organ-Avt bioprinter devised to grow living tissue will be delivered to the International Space Station (ISS) during the next launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the press office of Invitro, the projects investor, told TASS on Wednesday.

The plans to deliver the bioprinters first copy failed after the aborted launch of the Soyuz-FG booster from the Baikonur spaceport on October 11. The magnetic 3D-bioprinter is devised to grow living tissues and eventually organs and it can also be used to study the influence of outer space conditions on living organisms during lengthy flights.

The experiment has been devised by 3D Bioprinting Solutions, a bio-technical research laboratory, which is a Russian start-up and a subsidiary of Invitro company.

The bioprinters second copy "will fly to orbit as soon as new launches are announced," the companys press office said.

The experiment will be carried out either by the next space crew that will arrive at the ISS or by cosmonaut Sergei Prokopyev who is currently working on the orbital outpost. For this purpose, he will have to undergo remote training.

"We are working out a detailed action plan together with Energia Space Rocket Corporation and Roscosmos [Russias State Space Corporation]. Already now the crew staying on the ISS has confirmed its readiness to participate in distance training to learn to operate the bioprinter. In the near future, we will adapt the experiments cyclogram for a flight aboard a Progress resupply ship to be ready to deliver the bioprinter both aboard the next Soyuz and the Progress space vehicle. The appropriate decision will later be made in Roscosmos," said Yusef Khesuani, managing partner of 3D Bioprinting Solutions that has devised the bioprinter.

As Invitro said, the experiments cyclogram will be adjusted, if a Progress space vehicle is used because the faulty Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft was launched using a shortened delivery scheme stipulating its docking with the ISS already six hours after the blastoff. Soyuz spacecraft Commander Alexei Ovchinin was due to have carried out the experiment after docking with the orbital outpost.

The degree of damage done to the bioprinters first copy will be determined in several days, after the completion of the work to inspect the habitation module of the Soyuz MS-10 where it stayed.

The Invitro press office rejected media reports that the bioprinter had burnt out in the atmosphere.Two heads of state discuss regional peace, bilateral relations and regional prosperity, local media reported.

Turkey and Serbias presidents held talks over the phone on Tuesday, during which they addressed a number of issues.

They discussed bilateral ties and agreed to further expand relations in every field.Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 17

Trend:

The US can lift some sanctions from Turkey, as the Turkish authorities released the American pastor Andrew Brunson and he returned to the US, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said, RIA Novosti reported.

Earlier, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that at the talks held in Ankara with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo they agreed that it was necessary to lift the sanctions imposed by Washington against Ankara.

"We will soon make a decision on this issue, but some of the imposed sanctions were directly related to pastor Brunson, and it is logical now to remove them," Associated Press quoted Pompeo as saying.

Earlier, US President Donald Trump promised to impose sanctions against Turkey for detaining American pastor Andrew Brunson, who was accused of complicity with the attempted coup in Turkey in 2016.The U.S. on Tuesday confirmed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will travel to Turkey later this week to meet with Mevlut Cavushoglu, local media reports.

The diplomat will arrive in Ankara on Wednesday, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement.

"In Ankara, the Secretary will meet with Turkish Foreign Minister Cavusoglu to welcome the decision to release Pastor Andrew Brunson and to discuss other issues of bilateral importance," she said. "The Secretary will also discuss the Jamal Khashoggi case and reiterate the U.S. offer to assist Turkey in its investigation."Public-Private Cooperative to Advance Real-World, Pragmatic Solutions to Interoperability Beginning with Information Blocking

VIENNA, Va., Oct. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Sequoia Project, a non-profit dedicated to solving health IT interoperability for the public good, announced a new public-private cooperative called Interoperability Matters . This new cooperative invites experts from across the healthcare and healthcare IT communities to identify, prioritize, and collaborate on the most pressing, discrete challenges to nationwide health information sharing.

The pipes to enable health information exchange have been laid by organizations like Carequality, CommonWell, DirectTrust, eHealth Exchange and health information exchange organizations (HIEs), explained Mariann Yeager, CEO of The Sequoia Project. However, there are remaining real and perceived barriers to making exchange more effective and seamless  but not for long.

The Interoperability Matters Advisory Group will prioritize critical issues that have the potential to improve nationwide health information exchange. Healthcare subject matter experts and critical stakeholders from across the private sector and government will form the Interoperability Matters workgroups. The Advisory Group will meet regularly to review workgroups progress and recommendations, and it will provide feedback. After getting input from the Advisory Group, workgroups will share their recommendations for public input to obtain even broader feedback from those impacted by the work. The final work product will be a consensus-built resource and plan of action for the healthcare sector to leverage and implement to minimize or eliminate that barrier.

The Interoperability Matters forum will focus first on information blocking in anticipation of the proposed rule from Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC). Additional priorities (and workgroups) will be identified at the upcoming Sequoia Project Annual Meeting.

Distinguishing legitimate policy differences from information blocking requires deep understanding of complex policy, technical and business issues, said Yeager. Our Interoperability Matters cooperative will focus on the practical implications of information sharing practices, and it will inform information blocking public policy.

The healthcare and healthcare IT community are encouraged to participate in the Interoperability Matters forum regardless of any affiliation with The Sequoia Project, ensuring a diverse representation of stakeholders. Interested individuals and organizations can apply now online at https://sequoiaproject.org/interoperability-matters/ .

About The Sequoia ProjectPresident Donald Trump said on Wednesday the United States has asked Turkey for any audio or video evidence it may have related to the disappearance of U.S.-based Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi but was not sure whether any such evidence exists, Reuters reported.

Trump, speaking to reporters at the White House, denied he was trying to give cover to Saudi leaders over Khashoggis disappearance, a day after he cautioned against assuming Saudi leaders were guilty in the case until proven innocent.

I just want to find out whats happening, he said. Im not giving cover at all.

Trump said he was waiting for a full report on Khashoggis disappearance from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo when he returns from his trip to Saudi Arabia and Turkey, where Pompeo met with leaders to discuss reports Khashoggi was killed at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

Asked whether the United States was seeking audio or video evidence that Turkey reportedly has, Trump said: We have asked for it, if it exists ... Im not sure yet that it exists, probably does, possibly does.

Ill have a full report on that from Mike (Pompeo) when he comes back. ... Thats going to be the first question I ask, he said.

Pompeo has said Riyadh should be given a few more days to complete an investigation into the disappearance of the journalist, a prominent critic of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Turkish officials have said they believe Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist, was murdered at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2 and his body removed. Turkish sources have told Reuters the authorities have an audio recording indicating Khashoggi was killed inside the consulate.

The Saudis have strongly denied those allegations but U.S. media outlets have reported they will acknowledge he was killed in a botched interrogation. Trump has speculated without providing evidence that rogue killers could be responsible.KYODO NEWS - Oct 17, 2018 - 19:21 | All, Japan

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sent a ritual offering Wednesday to Yasukuni Shrine, viewed as a symbol of Japan's wartime militarism by neighboring countries, on the first day of its four-day autumn festival.

Abe has refrained from paying tribute in person at the shrine in central Tokyo since late 2013.

The prime minister's ritual offering to the shrine which honors the nation's war dead came at a time when relations between Japan and China have been improving. This year also marks the 40th anniversary of a bilateral peace and friendship treaty taking effect.

"We urge Japan to faithfully face up to its history of aggression and deeply reflect upon it," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said at a regular press briefing in Beijing, adding Japan should "win the trust of Asian neighbors and the international community with actual action."

In Seoul, an official of South Korea's foreign ministry expressed "deep concern" over the offering, adding that the shrine "beautifies Japan's history of militaristic aggression and colonial rule."

Visits by Japanese leaders to Yasukuni have angered in particular China and South Korea, both of which suffered from Japan's past aggression, as it honors convicted war criminals, including wartime prime minister Gen. Hideki Tojo, along with more than 2.4 million war dead.

This time, however, China only repeated the same mantra about Abe's latest move, apparently taking into consideration recent improvement in ties with Japan and the prime minister's planned three-day visit to Beijing from Oct. 25.

The Japanese prime minister is scheduled to hold talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Oct. 26 to discuss ways to develop relations between the two Asian powers.

Abe, who is on a foreign trip to attend a meeting of Asian and European leaders, made the "masakaki" tree offering under the name of the prime minister, according to the shrine. The tree is typically used in Shinto-style rituals.

Backed by conservative supporters, Abe has regularly delivered ritual offerings to the Shinto shrine during its spring and autumn festivals and given ritual donations on Aug. 15, the anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War II.

On Wednesday, welfare minister Takumi Nemoto, House of Representatives Speaker Tadamori Oshima, and House of Councillors President Chuichi Date also separately offered masakaki.

Abe's visit to the shrine in December 2013 further soured relations between Japan and China, which were already at odds over a group of Japan-controlled islets claimed by Beijing in the East China Sea.KYODO NEWS - Oct 17, 2018 - 12:53 | All, World

U.S. President Donald Trump's administration plans to start negotiations for a bilateral trade agreement with Japan in mid-January, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer notified Congress on Tuesday.

In a letter to congressional leaders, Lighthizer suggested the administration will push Japan to "address both tariff and nontariff barriers" in sectors such as automobiles and agriculture, and to "achieve fairer, more balanced trade."

(Robert Lighthizer)

[File photo]

"We intend to initiate negotiations with Japan as soon as practicable, but no earlier than 90 days from the date of this notice," he wrote.

Citing the $68.9 billion U.S. trade deficit in goods with Japan in 2017, Lighthizer said, "U.S. exporters in key sectors such as automobiles, agriculture and services have been challenged by multiple tariff and nontariff barriers for decades, leading to chronic U.S. trade imbalances with Japan."

In a meeting last month in New York, Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe agreed to start negotiations for a trade agreement on goods, or TAG, between the two countries.

The move is a concession by Tokyo, which dropped its earlier insistence on a multilateral approach to trade issues.

In Tokyo, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said on Wednesday that the envisioned negotiations would be "by no means easy."

"Japan will proceed with the negotiations with the stance that we should aggressively push for what we want and protect what we need to, from the perspective of our national interest," the top government spokesman told a press conference.

Senior U.S. officials have thrown hardballs even before the start of the trade talks, with Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue indicating the United States will push Japan to reduce tariffs on farm products beyond levels agreed to under a free trade agreement between Japan and the European Union.

Perdue's call for better terms in a trade deal with Japan than the Japan-EU FTA came despite the understanding between Trump and Abe that Washington would not demand deeper farm tariff cuts than levels Japan has agreed in other trade pacts, also including the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an 11-member regional FTA.

Vice President Mike Pence has described the prospective deal with Japan as a "free trade agreement," contradicting Japan's assertion that the bilateral accord sought by the two governments will not be as comprehensive as an FTA.

The two governments are arranging a meeting between Pence and Japanese Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso in mid-November in Japan to pave the way for the upcoming trade negotiations involving Lighthizer and Toshimitsu Motegi, Japan's economic revitalization minister.

Also on Tuesday, Lighthizer notified Congress that the administration intends to initiate negotiations for a trade agreement with the European Union in mid-January, and for a separate pact with Britain "as soon as it is ready after it exits from the European Union on March 29, 2019."

"We are committed to concluding these negotiations with timely and substantive results for American workers, farmers, ranchers and businesses," the USTR said in a statement.KYODO NEWS - Oct 17, 2018 - 19:15 | All, World

A pair of crested ibises from China arrived in Japan on Wednesday as a symbol of friendship, for the first time since 2007, amid warming relations between the two countries.

The donation by China of the internationally protected species came as this year marks the 40th anniversary of the two countries signing a bilateral peace and friendship treaty and ahead of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's official visit to Beijing next week.

After arriving at Narita airport near Tokyo, the birds were transferred to the Sado Japanese Crested Ibis Conservation Center in Niigata Prefecture in the evening.

The 2-year-old male and female ibises, named Lou Lou and Guan Guan, respectively, were born and raised in China's northern province of Shanxi, according to the Environment Ministry.

Japanese-born ibises became extinct in 2003. Since then, Japan has been artificially breeding ibises by relying on the Chinese donations, the first of which was in 1999, and preparing them for reintroduction into the wild.

Since 2008, Japan has been releasing the ibises on Sado Island and their number is now estimated to be over 350.

During his visit to Tokyo in May, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang agreed on China's first provision of the endangered birds to Japan since November 2007.

In 2011, then Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao expressed Beijing's intention to offer ibises to Japan, but the plan was shelved after a diplomatic dispute escalated in the wake of the Japanese government's decision a year later to put the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea under state control.

Although China continues to claim the uninhabited islands, which it calls Diaoyu, ties between Tokyo and Beijing are currently much better than they used to be several years ago.KYODO NEWS - Oct 17, 2018 - 21:26 | All, Japan

The Japanese government on Wednesday took countermeasures against Okinawa over its recent move to block landfill work for a key U.S. military base transfer within the small southern island prefecture.

The central government requested the land ministry to review and invalidate the Okinawa government's decision that has suspended work for the controversial relocation of U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma.

"We still hope to realize an early (base) relocation to the Henoko area and the return of (land occupied by) Futenma Air Station," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a press conference.

Okinawa Gov. Denny Tamaki told reporters in Naha the central government move "tramples on the will of voters shown in the (Okinawa) gubernatorial election and is totally unacceptable."

Tamaki, who is opposed to the base transfer plan, won the Sept. 30 race, beating a major rival backed by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party led by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

The central government has been seeking to relocate the U.S. base from a crowded residential area of Ginowan to the less populated coastal Henoko area of Nago, based on the Japan-U.S. agreement in 1996.

(Henoko coastal area)

"I told Prime Minister Abe that the burdens of national security should be shared by all prefectures of Japan, and asked him to establish a dialogue (between the central and Okinawa governments)," Tamaki said, referring to his meeting with Abe in Tokyo last Friday, their first since Tamaki took office.

Okinawa, which was under U.S. control between 1945 and 1972 following Japan's defeat in World War II, hosts the bulk of U.S. military facilities in Japan and many local residents want the Futenma base moved outside the prefecture.

"We'll do our best to realize as soon as possible the complete return of (the land hosting) the Futenma base, which is said to be the most dangerous airbase in the world," Defense Minister Takeshi Iwaya told reporters after filing the request.

The minister said he takes the will of Okinawa voters indicated in the election seriously, but at the same time said he wants to "move forward with (the relocation plan) to achieve the grand purposes" of maintaining deterrence while reducing the base-hosting burden on the island prefecture.

The government filed the request under the Administrative Complaint Review Act.

But Tamaki said, "The request is distorting the spirit of the law," underscoring that the law is designed to protect citizens, not the government.

Iwaya denied such a view, saying the law is applicable when administrative actions are taken against not only citizens but also governing bodies.

Many Okinawa people criticized the central government's move.

"People in the prefecture will resist as much as possible. If believing it can override our opposition, the state will be sorry for that," said Kazunobu Akamine, a 64-year-old cook from Ginowan who takes part in protest activities in Henoko.

Hiroshi Ashitomi, 72, who heads a civic group, said, "We'll call for international attention (to the problem) in cooperation with the prefecture."

The landfill work was approved in 2013 by then Okinawa Gov. Hirokazu Nakaima, but his successor Takeshi Onaga revoked the approval in 2015, citing legal defects in Nakaima's decision. In an ensuing court battle, the revocation was found illegal and Onaga rescinded it in 2016.

On Aug. 31, Okinawa again retracted the landfill work approval as instructed by Onaga before his death earlier in the month. The prefecture cited illegality in the relocation work procedure and put the base construction on hold.

New governor vows all-out efforts to block base move within Okinawa

Anti-U.S. base ex-lawmaker Tamaki wins in Okinawa governor raceKYODO NEWS - Oct 17, 2018 - 20:52 | Arts, All

A troupe from Japan's all-woman Takarazuka Revue arrived in Taiwan to perform for a third time on Wednesday.

The 39-member Star Troupe will stage 14 performances at the National Theater in Taipei from Saturday to Oct. 28, and six more at a venue in the southern city of Kaohsiung from Nov. 2 to 5.

Welcoming the troupe members at Japan's de facto embassy in Taipei, Japanese chief representative to Taiwan Mikio Numata called them a "driving force behind advancing country-to-country relations."

The Takarazuka Revue performed for the first time in Taiwan in April 2013 to rave reviews. Following its second visit in August 2015, also to sell-out crowds, it received many requests to come again.

The upcoming performance will consist of two parts.

The first part is a new production, Thunderbolt Fantasy Sword Seekers, a martial-arts musical based on a Japanese-Taiwanese glove puppetry television series that has aired on Japanese TV.

The second part is a standard Takarazuka musical number, Killer Rouge, where the troupe's top star Yuzuru Kurenai, who plays a male character, will take center stage.

The Star Troupe is one of five main troupes.

Its leader Yuzumi Mari said most of its members have never performed in Taiwan before. She said they hope that audiences here will like their performance and that they can help advance relations between Taiwan and Japan.

Takarazuka Revue President Tomotsugu Ogawa said the troupe's final performance in Taipei will be live-streamed to audiences back home.

The revue has been active for more than a century, having given its debut performance in 1914. It made its first overseas tour in 1938 and has since performed around the world.The hotelier, Roy Joseph Vayalat, was quizzed for 11 hours at the Ernakulam South Police station on Tuesday.ATHENS, Greece, Oct. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Diana Shipping Inc. (NYSE: DSX), (the Company), a global shipping company specializing in the ownership of dry bulk vessels, today announced that, through a separate wholly-owned subsidiary, it has agreed to extend the present time charter contract with Glencore Agriculture B.V., Rotterdam, for one of its Kamsarmax dry bulk vessels, the m/v Astarte. The gross charter rate is US$14,250 per day, minus a 5% commission paid to third parties, for a period of minimum fourteen (14) months to maximum seventeen (17) months. The new charter period commenced yesterday. The m/v Astarte was chartered, as previously announced, at a gross charter rate of US$9,000 per day, minus a 5% commission paid to third parties.



The Astarte is a 81,513 dwt Kamsarmax dry bulk vessel built in 2013.

The employment extension of Astarte is anticipated to generate approximately US$5.99 million of gross revenue for the minimum scheduled period of the time charter extension.

Diana Shipping Inc.s fleet currently consists of 50 dry bulk vessels (4 Newcastlemax, 14 Capesize, 5 Post-Panamax, 5 Kamsarmax and 22 Panamax). As of today, the combined carrying capacity of the Companys fleet is approximately 5.8 million dwt with a weighted average age of 9.15 years. A table describing the current Diana Shipping Inc. fleet can be found on the Companys website, www.dianashippinginc.com. Information contained on the Companys website does not constitute a part of this press release.

About the Company

Diana Shipping Inc. is a global provider of shipping transportation services through its ownership of dry bulk vessels. The Companys vessels are employed primarily on medium to long-term time charters and transport a range of dry bulk cargoes, including such commodities as iron ore, coal, grain and other materials along worldwide shipping routes.

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

Matters discussed in this press release may constitute forward-looking statements. The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 provides safe harbor protections for forward-looking statements in order to encourage companies to provide prospective information about their business. Forward-looking statements include statements concerning plans, objectives, goals, strategies, future events or performance, and underlying assumptions and other statements, which are other than statements of historical facts.

The Company desires to take advantage of the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and is including this cautionary statement in connection with this safe harbor legislation. The words believe, anticipate, intends, estimate, forecast, project, plan, potential, may, should, expect, pending and similar expressions identify forward-looking statements.

The forward-looking statements in this press release are based upon various assumptions, many of which are based, in turn, upon further assumptions, including without limitation, our managements examination of historical operating trends, data contained in our records and other data available from third parties. Although we believe that these assumptions were reasonable when made, because these assumptions are inherently subject to significant uncertainties and contingencies which are difficult or impossible to predict and are beyond our control, we cannot assure you that we will achieve or accomplish these expectations, beliefs or projections.

In addition to these important factors, other important factors that, in our view, could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements include the strength of world economies and currencies, general market conditions, including fluctuations in charter rates and vessel values, changes in demand for dry bulk shipping capacity, changes in our operating expenses, including bunker prices, drydocking and insurance costs, the market for our vessels, availability of financing and refinancing, changes in governmental rules and regulations or actions taken by regulatory authorities, potential liability from pending or future litigation, general domestic and international political conditions, potential disruption of shipping routes due to accidents or political events, vessel breakdowns and instances of off-hires and other factors. Please see our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a more complete discussion of these and other risks and uncertainties.VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Oct. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- BLOK Technologies Inc. ("BLOK Tech" or the "Company") (CSE: BLK) (OTC: BLPFF) (FRANKFURT: 2AD) is pleased to provide an update on the development progress of its 100% wholly-owned subsidiary Greenstream Networks Inc. (Greenstream). As the Canadian Government's Cannabis Act bringing about the legalization of Cannabis comes into effect today, October 17, 2018, Greenstream is poised to provide a comprehensive technology solution to the Cannabis industry.



Greenstream is developing and commercializing a blockchain-enabled supply chain integrity platform to ensure the safe, legal and authenticated flow of products and value through the cannabis market and has made significant progress on the development of its technology and related infrastructure since its acquisition by BLOK Tech in January 2018.

We are pleased with the progress of the Greenstream Network as the industry moves towards full legalization, said BLOK Tech CEO Rob Dawson. Greenstream is developing and will commercialize a multi-component payment and supply chain integrity system to ensure the industry can effectively operate in this complex regulatory environment with multiple jurisdictions in Canada and beyond.

Greenstream has made significant progress to date.

In March 2018, Greenstream was accepted as a Silver Member of The Linux Foundation and a General Member of Hyperledger. Hyperledger is an open source collaborative effort created to advance cross-industry blockchain technologies. It is a global collaboration, hosted by The Linux Foundation, including leaders in finance, banking, Internet of Things, supply chains, manufacturing and technology. In joining these two prestigious communities, Greenstream will be collaborating in a community with global technology companies such as: IBM, Cisco, Intel, SAP and JP Morgan as well as blockchain start-ups from around the world.

In April 2018, Greenstream announced that it had completed the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) of its Greenstream Network, for the Canadian Cannabis industry, and also announced the Alpha release of the Greenstream Payments Platform enabling Canadian Cannabis businesses to process payments & exchange value across the Cannabis ecosystem. The Greenstream Network Platform is being built on leading-edge blockchain platforms including the Hyperledger stack, an open-source, collaborative technology initiative supported by partners such as IBM, Linux, Cisco, Intel, SAP and JP Morgan.

In July 2018, Greenstream was accepted into the Oracle Scaleup Ecosystem, a global acceleration program for start-ups. Oracles global start-up mission is to provide enriching, collaborative partnerships to enable next-generation growth, business development, and to drive cloud-based innovation for start-ups throughout all stages of their development. The program is designed for start-ups and venture capital and private equity portfolio companies to enable hypergrowth and scale.

In August 2018, BLOK Tech entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Varipay Inc. (Varipay) to collaborate on the development of a payment gateway to be integrated into the Greenstream Network Platform.

In August 2018, Greenstream also successfully completed a deployment of its payments network and applications to the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (Oracle Cloud), as part of the previously announced strategic relationship with Oracle on July 11, 2018.

The deployment has been fully tested and optimized by the Greenstream technical team and the platform, including a demo environment, are running smoothly and at a speed that is scalable. This represents a key milestone in the platforms development in that it is operating in multiple environments, including the world-class infrastructure provided by Oracle. It provides a proof-point for the technical excellence of the system and assurance to the Cannabis industry that the Greenstream Network is enterprise-ready. It is further proof that Greenstream is a key step closer to having an enterprise-grade platform for integration with major customers through the Oracle Scaleup Ecosystem.

Near Term Developments

BLOK Tech is working on collaboration and strategic partnerships with Cannabis industry companies, suppliers and technology providers to build out implementations and pilot projects using the Greenstream Network Platform.

Following the Alpha release of the payments platform earlier this summer, the Greenstream technology team is focused on building the seed to sale tracking and traceability platform, GreenTrack. The platform aims to bridge the gap within existing seed to sale solutions in the Canadian Cannabis industry to benefit consumers, industry participants and regulators. GreenTrack will enable consumers and businesses to verify product pedigree & track the products across the Cannabis industry.

BLOK Tech and Greenstream are joining forces to closely work with stakeholders on documenting and integrating the regulatory requirements of the Cannabis industry in its various jurisdictions in North America, South America and Europe. This will help BLOK Tech & Greenstream to expand its technology across other jurisdictions complying with regional regulatory requirements.

The Greenstream Verifiable Digital Identity System ("GreenID") component including a decentralized, point-to-point exchange of information about businesses to confirm the authenticity within the cannabis industry for the execution of smart contracts will be developed later in the fiscal year. In its full release, the Greenstream Network Platform will be comprised of an integrated GreenID, GreenTrack & the Payments platform to enable the regulators, industry participants & consumers to ensure supply chain, financial & identity compliance across the Cannabis ecosystem.

About BLOK Technologies Inc.

BLOK Technologies Inc. is a public company that invests in and develops emerging companies in the blockchain technology sector. The Companys approach is to provide capital, technology and management expertise to the companies it develops. BLOK Techs Greenstream technology platform is designed to effectively manage value transfer, supply chain integrity and identity verification in complex and highly regulated industries. This scalable and adaptable platform is being developed on the Hyperledger technology stack and with the support of Oracle Cloud infrastructure. BLOK Tech continues to grow its business into adjacent industries and emerging technologies. The Company systematically identifies early-stage technologies with potential to disrupt and innovate within their industry and invests the necessary resources to ensure the success of their projects.

For additional information regarding BLOK Technologies and other corporate information, please visit the Company's website at BLOKTECHINC.COM

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Robert Dawson

President & CEO

For further information, please contact:

James Hyland, B.Comm.

Vice President Corporate Development, Director

(604) 442-2425

jamie@bloktechinc.com

Statements in this news release may be viewed as forward-looking statements. Such statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. There are no assurances the company can fulfill such forward-looking statements and the company undertakes no obligation to update such statements. Such forward-looking statements are only predictions; actual events or results may differ materially as a result of risks facing the company, some of which are beyond the companys control.

Aliso Viejo, CA, Oct. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- OrthAlign, Inc., a privately held U.S.-based medical device and technology company providing orthopedic surgeons with advanced precision technologies, announced the first cases of the KneeAlign CFS system. The CFS system is an accessory that can be used during KneeAlign-assisted total knee arthroplasty (TKA) surgeries, that provides for rotation and soft tissue balancing. The cases were completed by David Mayman, M.D. at Hospital for Special Surgery in New York, NY.

OrthAlign technology provides real-time, actionable data for precise alignment and positioning of implant components. With surgical applications for Total Knee (KneeAlign), Partial Knee (UniAlign) and Total Hip arthroplasties (HipAlign), OrthAlign deploys a platform of solutions directly into the surgeons hands via a hand-held device not much bigger than a cellphone. Now, with these new capabilities, the KneeAlign application applies the same levels of accuracy and simplicity to guiding rotation of the femoral component as well as balancing soft tissue in both the extension and flexion gaps during TKA.

With the addition of rotation and soft tissue balancing, KneeAlign provides me with all of the information I need to achieve an aligned and balanced knee, said David Mayman, M.D. This now puts the capabilities of KneeAlign equal to any robotics or navigation system on the market, while at the same time being much faster, simpler, and easier to use.

KneeAlign has already powered more than 75,000 cases around the world, providing surgeons with the type of information that delivers confidence to their results on a daily basis, said Eric Timko, OrthAligns CEO and Chairman. After a diligent research and development process, were now bringing that same confidence to rotation and balance during a total knee procedure, which positions KneeAlign among the most complete navigation and robotics solutions available as we power the next 100,000 cases in the coming years.

OrthAlign will be showcasing its full portfolio of products at this years AAHKS meeting in Dallas, TX, November 2-4, 2018 at booth #715.



About OrthAlign, Inc.

OrthAlign is a privately held medical device and technology company, developing advanced technologies that deliver healthier and more pain-free lifestyles to joint replacement patients, globally. We provide healthcare professionals with cutting edge, computer-assisted surgical tools that seamlessly and cost-effectively deliver vital data and clinical results to optimize outcomes for our patients. For more information regarding OrthAlign, please visit www.orthalign.com or contact Adam Simone (asimone@orthalign.com).

ORTHALIGN, KNEEALIGN, HIPALIGN and UNIALIGN are [registered] trademarks of OrthAlign, Inc.English French

TORONTO, Oct. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- As cannabis becomes legal for recreational consumption in Canada, the Canadian Urban Transit Association (CUTA) calls on the federal government to establish clear rules to permit transit systems to randomly test employees who work in safety-sensitive positions for substance impairment, where necessary. Random testing would serve as an additional tool for transit systems to reinforce safety in public transport and urban mobility across the country.



Canadian transit systems are among the safest public transport networks in the world. Passenger and public safety are their highest priority. CUTA, its members and other Canadian stakeholder organizations have raised awareness of the potential safety risks inherent to cannabis legalization with the federal government, and have advocated for federal rules to permit random testing. To date, Canada has declined to follow the lead of other countries, including the U.S., U.K., and Australia, which permit or require this practice in the interests of public safety.

CUTA provided evidence to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice1 in late September 2017, calling on the federal government to work with the provinces and territories to establish clear mechanisms to promote security in public transport post-legalization.

Canada lags behind other jurisdictions on this important issue, stressed Marco DAngelo, President and CEO of CUTA. We believe that the federal government should take a leadership role in establishing mechanisms to permit random drug and alcohol testing for safety critical industries such as transit. The government should work with the provinces and territories to facilitate regional solutions to protect public safety. Our members will closely monitor the impacts of cannabis legalization on operations and continue to work with employees to ensure a safe transition to this new regulatory reality.

Some CUTA members have prepared for today by introducing their own policies to randomly check and/or test for cannabis consumption among all employees in safety-sensitive positions. The objective of random testing is to deter impairment in the workplace, and to identify those rare situations where an employees faculties and judgment are impaired.

There is no doubt that the vast majority of Canadian transit employees, including operators, mechanics, supervisors, engineers and managers, would never carry out their professional duties while under the influence of cannabis, said Marco DAngelo. Though this situation would be the exception to the norm, our philosophy is that one incident is one too many. CUTA calls on governments to cooperate closely and establish rules that empower transit systems to continue to operate safe public transport in our communities.

About CUTA

The Canadian Urban Transit Association ( http://cutaactu.ca/ ) is the collective and influential voice of public transportation in Canada. CUTAs membership includes the vast majority of Canadian transit systems, private transport operators and transit thought-leaders from across the country. CUTA is uniquely positioned to work with all levels of government to provide industry insights on key transit policy issues affecting Canadians and their communities.

For further information

Chad Jeudy-Hugo

Director, Public Affairs and Communications

jeudy-hugo@cutaactu.ca

514-207-7072

__________________________Dubai, Oct. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NEWMEDIAWIRE -- Argentum 47, Inc. ( www.arg47.com ) (OTCQB: ARGQ) and its fully-owned foreign subsidiaries, a specialist in both Retail and Corporate Financial Services, Corporate Consultancy and Human Resources, with offices located in Dubai and the United Kingdom, would like to Update the Market on the current status of the Companys recent achievements.



On September 6, 2018, the Company announced that it had executed a binding letter of intent to appoint Aurum Wealth Management Limited as an Appointed Representative of Cheshire Trafford (UK) Limited, a UK Financial Advisory Firm with circa 700 clients and US$38.75 million of Funds under Administration, that Company acquired on August 1, 2018.

On October 11, 2018, the Company announced that they expected the UK Financial Authority (FCA) to approve Aurum Wealth Management Limited as an appointed representative sometime during the week of October 15, 2018.

Today, October 17, 2018, the Company is extremely excited to announce that the UK FCA has notified us the following:

Firm Aurum Wealth Management Limited (FRN: 803202) has been added as an Appointed Representative under Cheshire Trafford UK Limited (FRN: 115194). Effective Date: 17/10/2018

This meaning that the Appointed Representation has been fully approved by the UK FCA.

Enzo Taddei, CFO of Argentum 47, Inc., said: This UK FCA approval for Aurum Wealth to become an appointed representative of Cheshire Trafford is, without a doubt, a massive leap forward for our Company as Aurum Wealth previous stated in prior PRs that they have the capacity to increase the Funds under the Administration of our subsidiary, Cheshire Trafford, by 3 to 5 million GBP per month. We are very excited about this as, once again, it proves that everything Management does is a process and does take time, but we have now put Cheshire Trafford into a position to become a true monster and grow the annual revenues geometrically.

About Argentum 47, Inc. and Subsidiaries.

Argentum 47, Inc. (Argentum) is a full service Financial Intermediary, Corporate Consultancy, Retail and Corporate Financial Services and Human Resources Company. Through its wholly-owned foreign subsidiaries, it advises both business and retail customers with their most critical decisions and opportunities pertaining to growth, capital needs, structure and the development of their financial plans. With offices in Dubai and he United Kingdom, Argentum has developed significant relationships in the US, UK, Central Europe, the Middle East and South East Asia to assist clients in realizing their full value and potential. Bringing business to external capital and resources, and retail customers to a suite of secure effective financial solutions. Furthermore, as Argentum has offices in key financial centers of the world, they are able to introduce their clients to the right financial partner without geographical constraints.

Safe Harbor Statement

This press release may include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements related to anticipated revenues, expenses, earnings, operating cash flows, the outlook for markets and the demand for products. Forward-looking statements are no guarantees of future performance and are inherently subject to uncertainties and other factors which could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements. Such statements are based upon, among other things, assumptions made by, and information currently available to, management, including managements own knowledge and assessment of the Companys industry and competition. The Company refers interested persons to its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and its other SEC filings for a description of additional uncertainties and factors, which may affect forward-looking statements. The company assumes no duty to update its forward-looking statements.



Pregnant women in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan are more likely to express preference for cesarean section (CS) as their mode of delivery later in pregnancy and postpartum, as compared to early in pregnancy, according to a study published this week in PLOS Medicine. The study, conducted by Qian Long of Duke Kunshan University in China, and collaborators, found that fear of pain, antagonistic relations with providers, and beliefs of deteriorating quality of care during labor and vaginal birth contributed to perceptions of planned CS as preferable.

The CS rates in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan are roughly or over 30% according to recent studies, though WHO research has shown that population-level CS rates higher than 10% are not associated with reduced maternal or newborn mortality. To understand why, Long and colleagues conducted a mixed-methods systematic review of quantitative and qualitative studies that investigated preferences for CS among women in these settings. The researchers found that in longitudinal studies, the pooled proportions of preference for CS reported by women were 14% in early or middle pregnancy (95%CI 12-17%) and 21% in late pregnancy (95%CI 15-26%). In cross-sectional studies, the proportions were 17% in early or middle pregnancy (95%CI 14-20%), 22% in late pregnancy (95%CI 18-25%) and 30% at postpartum (95%CI 19-40%). Women's preferences for CS in longitudinal studies were found to rise as pregnancy progressed (mean difference 7%, 95% CI 1%-13%). Qualitative data indicated that women who prefer CS in China are informed by healthcare system interactions, unsatisfactory relationships with providers, concerns about quality of care during labor and vaginal birth, and social support for the right to choose CS.

Study limitations include heterogeneity and potential biases among the reports reviewed, which were not population-representative. However, results across 66 longitudinal, cross-sectional, and qualitative studies were concordant. The authors state, "[b]oth quantitative and qualitative findings in this review suggest that women's request for CS on the basis of genuine preference for this mode of delivery is unlikely to be the major driver of high CS rates and that women's preference may underscore health systems deficiencies and sub-optimal relationships with health professionals."

In an accompanying Perspective, Mairead Black and Sohinee Bhattacharya of the University of Aberdeen, United Kingdom, discuss possible benefits of planned CS where only one child is planned, emphasize the importance of Chinese data to clarify the outcomes of planned CS, and argue for a woman-centric approach to facilitating birth choices in China following the end of the one-child policy.

###

Peer-reviewed / Systematic Review / People

Research Article

Funding:

There was no funding source for this study.

Competing Interests:

The authors declare no competing interest.

Citation:

Long Q, Kingdon C, Yang F, Renecle MD, Jahanfar S, Bohren MA, et al. (2018) Prevalence of and reasons for women's, family members', and health professionals' preferences for cesarean section in China: A mixed-methods systematic review. PLoS Med 15(10): e1002672. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1002672

Image Credit: SantaRosa OLD SKOOL, Flickr

Author Affiliations:

Global Health Research Center, Duke Kunshan University, Kunshan, Jiangsu Province, China

School of Community Health and Midwifery, University of Central Lancashire, Preston, United Kingdom

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America

College of Osteopathic Medicine, Des Moines University, Des Moines, Iowa, United States of America

School of Public Health, Central Michigan University, Mount Pleasant, Michigan, United States of America

Gender and Women's Health Unit, Centre for Health Equity, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne, Carlton, Victoria, Australia

UNDP/UNFPA/UNICEF/WHO/World Bank Special Programme of Research, Development and Research Training in Human Reproduction (HRP), Department of Reproductive Health and Research, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland

In your coverage please use this URL to provide access to the freely available paper: http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1002672

Perspective

Funding:

The authors received no specific funding for this work.

Competing Interests:

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Citation:

Black M, Bhattacharya S (2018) Cesarean section in China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong--A safe choice for women and clinicians? PLoS Med 15(10): e1002676. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1002676

Author Affiliations:

Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Institute of Applied Health Sciences, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, United Kingdom

In your coverage please use this URL to provide access to the freely available paper:

http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1002676ADELPHI, MD. (October 4, 2018) - Professor Frances Arnold won a 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for research initially funded by the U.S. Army in new enzyme production that led to the commercial, cost-effective synthesis of biofuels tested on the U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopters in 2013, and are now approved by the aviation standards body for use in commercial aviation.

Arnold is only the fifth woman to win the prize in its 117-year history.

Gerard Mourou, a French scientist and pioneer in the field of electrical engineering and lasers, won a 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics for Army-funded research in fundamental physics that led to new developments high-intensity, ultrashort laser pulses, which led to a number of commercial advancements from masonry, i.e., drilling tiny holes, to medicine's Lasik eye surgery.

With a modest single investigator grant from the U.S. Army Research Laboratory's Army Research Office in the 1990s, Arnold demonstrated the ability to modify an enzyme that provided robust native activity but at higher temperatures. Through a process of protein sequence alteration and selection, directed evolution stretches the boundaries of enzyme activity and function beyond what nature provides.

During this grant period, Arnold also developed a computational algorithm called SCHEMA which provides a means of improving molecular evolution searches toward targeted protein sequence alterations. Through SCHEMA, she demonstrated that this algorithm can be used to design variations of a model protein that confers functional diversity (e.g. enhanced activity, enhanced thermal stability, altered substrate specificity).

In 2003, the Army began funding Arnold through the Army's Institute for Collaborative Biotechnologies (AICB) in Santa Barbara. There, Arnold has utilized SCHEMA to design novel activities for a broad host of enzymes including activity and stability improvements in enzymes capable of degrading cellulosic biomass toward renewable fuel synthesis and developed new machine learning tools to enhance the selection of novel engineered enzymes.

Most notably, as a transition of Army basic research funding, Arnold co-founded a start-up company (Gevo) in 2005 that received its initial funding through the AICB applied research program. Gevo's business goal was to scale-up processing systems that utilize SCHEMA-designed enzymes incorporated into microorganisms for the cost-effective synthesis of biofuels. From these beginnings, Gevo developed into a business that is the world's only commercial producer of renewable isobutanol and in 2013, the US Army successfully flew the Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk Helicopter on a 50/50 blend of Gevo's ATJ-8 (Alcohol-to-Jet).

"This recognition validates the way ARO pursues basic research," said ARL's Dr. Robert J. Kokoska, program manager in microbiology.

"Twenty years ago, an ARO program manager recognized a potentially unique and exciting approach that could change the way biology can be used to expand the possibilities and range of biochemical synthesis. As Prof. Arnold successfully pursued her vision in large part through this modest initial investment and then through the AICB, the Army can take great pride in knowing that it helped nurture this ground-breaking research which has provided valuable tools for enhancing the creativity of biologists and engineers within the Army research enterprise and the research community at-large. The exciting Army-impactful industrial biofuel transition further validates ARO's basic research investments," Kokoska said.

Arnold is the Linus Pauling professor of chemical engineering, bioengineering and biochemistry at the California Institute of Technology.

The Nobel Prize in Physics winner, Mourou, was initially funded while he was at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. There, he created ultrashort, high-intensity laser pulses, called chirped pulse amplification, that were used to develop a positron source for positron spectroscopy. According ARO program manager Dr. Richard Hammond, this research will lead to new kinds of directed energy sources for the Army. Mourou continues his research at the Ecole Polytechnique, public institution of higher education and research in Palaiseau, a suburb southwest of Paris.

"It is good the world recognizes the value of the research funded by ARO," Hammond said.

"This research opened the door to an entirely new kind of physics, both in spectroscopy to and high intensity physics interaction leading to directed energy include X-rays, neutron beams and beta rays. This work could lead to developments in new detection mechanisms of future failure of rotors in helicopters, finding voids in materials for electronic and photonic devises, and in radiation therapy," Hammond explained.

Arnold shares the prize in chemistry with George Smith, who developed a method known as phage display, where a bacteriophage - a virus that infects bacteria - can be used to evolve new proteins.

Mourou shares the prize in physics with Dr. Donna Strickland, of Canada, who is only the third woman to win the prize in physics.

###

The U.S. Army Research Laboratory is part of the U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command, which has the mission to ensure decisive overmatch for unified land operations to empower the Army, the joint warfighter and our nation. RDECOM is a major subordinate command of the U.S. Army Materiel Command.BOSTON, Oct. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- A lawsuit brought against both asbestos and tobacco defendants resulted in a substantial verdict for the Plaintiff, Joanna Summerlin. After four days of deliberation, the eleven-member jury delivered a verdict in favor of the Summerlin family that totaled $43.1 million. The judgment, against cigarette maker R.J. Reynolds, encompassed $5.3 million for pain and suffering, $3.5 million for loss of consortium, $4.3 million for wrongful death, and $30 million in punitive damages. The jury found that the products of co-defendants Philip Morris and Hampden Automotive Sales Corporation were defective, but were not a cause of Mr. Summerlins lung cancer.



When Louis Summerlin was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2015, he and wife Joanna Summerlin filed suit against cigarette makers Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds, and several asbestos-containing brake companies, including Hampden Automotive Sales Corporation. Louis had been a heavy smoker, having started smoking menthol cigarettes as a teenager in the 1950s. He had also worked for many years as an automobile brake mechanic, at one point doing 3-4 brake jobs a day, six days a week. He passed away 7 months after his diagnosis. Before he died, he gave videotaped trial testimony that was shown to the jury during trial.

Summerlins lawyers, Michael Shepard of Shepard Law, P.C. and Jerry Block of Levy Konigsberg, LLP, presented evidence to the jury over the course of five weeks showing Mr. Summerlins addiction to menthol cigarettes and his exposure to asbestos dust from grinding brake linings. Neither the cigarettes nor the asbestos brake linings came with a warning about their health hazards.

The jury heard evidence about what tobacco companies knew regarding cigarette smoking by the 1950s and were shown internal company documents revealing that the amount of nicotine was precisely calculated and manipulated to initiate and sustain addiction in smokers. Documents also revealed that tobacco companies knew that adding menthol to cigarettes made it more likely for teenagers to start smoking, easier to create addiction in smokers, and harder for smokers to quit.

The jury also heard evidence that Hampden Automotive had ignored the dangerous nature of asbestos dust and had neglected to test their brake linings to see if they released toxic asbestos fibers. Michael Shepard presented evidence showing that the hazards of asbestos were well established in the medical and scientific literature by the late 1950s, and that Mr. Summerlins work grinding Hampden Automotives brake linings exposed him to billions of asbestos fibers each year.

The jury was swayed by the evidence of the manipulation of nicotine and menthol and by evidence that the tobacco companies had created confusion and controversy for decades by publicly debating the health effects of smoking. Internal company documents showed that tobacco companies understood the true nature of those health effects and the jury found RJ Reynolds fraudulent in what they told their customers about the nature of their cigarettes.

This was the result of a tremendous team effort between the lawyers and support staff at Shepard Law and Levy Konigsberg, said Shepard. The amount of work needed to try both a tobacco and an asbestos case at the same time was staggering. Shepard also commended the jury on staying focused during the five-week trial. We appreciate the attention that the jury gave to the evidence. They saw through the defendants attempts to blame our client for his cancer and clearly recognized the role of nicotine addiction and menthol additives in keeping him hooked on cigarettes.

The case was tried in Suffolk Superior Court in Boston, in front of Judge Heidi Brieger. Jury selection began on September 5, 2018, and trial started on September 7.

The Summerlin family was represented at trial by Michael Shepard, Michael McCann and Erika ODonnell from Massachusetts-based Shepard Law, P.C. and Jerry Block, Bobby Ellis and Amber Long from New York City-based Levy Konigsberg LLP.

Philip Morris was represented by Bill Geraghty and a team of attorneys from Shook Hardy & Bacon LLP, Mayer Brown LLP, and local counsel from Latham & Watkins Boston office.

RJ Reynolds was represented by Mark Belasic and Kaitlyn Kline from Jones Days Cleveland office along with local counsel Conn Kavanaugh Rosenthal Peisch & Ford LLP.

Hampden Automotive Sales Corporation was represented by David Governo and Vincent DePalo from Smith Duggan Buell & Rufo in Boston.

About Shepard Law

Shepard Law is a Boston-based law firm and one of the top personal injury law firms in Massachusetts focusing on major asbestos claims involving mesothelioma or lung cancer, tobacco, dangerous drugs, and defective product liability. The firm has been litigating mesothelioma lawsuits in both state and federal courts for over 20 years and has represented victims of asbestos exposure throughout New England and across the United States.

Michael Shepard is the founder of Shepard Law and was appointed this year as Plaintiffs Liaison Counsel in the Massachusetts Asbestos Litigation Docket.

Michael McCann is an Associate at Shepard Law and specializes in representing victims of asbestos exposure throughout Massachusetts.

www.shepardlawfirm.com

Contact:

Chengxue Lee

774-317-3452FireEye (FEYE) is a Great Momentum Stock: Should You Buy? Does FireEye (FEYE) have what it takes to be a top stock pick for momentum investors? Let's find out.

Looking for a stock that has been consistently beating earnings estimates and might be well positioned to keep the streak alive in its next quarterly report? Alaska Air Group (ALK), which belongs to the Zacks Transportation - Airline industry, could be a great candidate to consider.

This airline has an established record of topping earnings estimates, especially when looking at the previous two reports. The company boasts an average surprise for the past two quarters of 14.56%.

For the last reported quarter, Alaska Air came out with earnings of $1.66 per share versus the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.63 per share, representing a surprise of 1.84%. For the previous quarter, the company was expected to post earnings of $0.11 per share and it actually produced earnings of $0.14 per share, delivering a surprise of 27.27%.

Price and EPS Surprise

With this earnings history in mind, recent estimates have been moving higher for Alaska Air. In fact, the Zacks Earnings ESP (Expected Surprise Prediction) for the company is positive, which is a great sign of an earnings beat, especially when you combine this metric with its nice Zacks Rank.

Our research shows that stocks with the combination of a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) or better produce a positive surprise nearly 70% of the time. In other words, if you have 10 stocks with this combination, the number of stocks that beat the consensus estimate could be as high as seven.

The Zacks Earnings ESP compares the Most Accurate Estimate to the Zacks Consensus Estimate for the quarter; the Most Accurate Estimate is a version of the Zacks Consensus whose definition is related to change. The idea here is that analysts revising their estimates right before an earnings release have the latest information, which could potentially be more accurate than what they and others contributing to the consensus had predicted earlier.

Alaska Air has an Earnings ESP of +2.37% at the moment, suggesting that analysts have grown bullish on its near-term earnings potential. When you combine this positive Earnings ESP with the stock's Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), it shows that another beat is possibly around the corner. The company's next earnings report is expected to be released on October 25, 2018.

Story continues

Investors should note, however, that a negative Earnings ESP reading is not indicative of an earnings miss, but a negative value does reduce the predictive power of this metric.

Many companies end up beating the consensus EPS estimate, but that may not be the sole basis for their stocks moving higher. On the other hand, some stocks may hold their ground even if they end up missing the consensus estimate.

Because of this, it's really important to check a company's Earnings ESP ahead of its quarterly release to increase the odds of success. Make sure to utilize our Earnings ESP Filter to uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they've reported.



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



Alaska Air Group, Inc. (ALK) : Free Stock Analysis Report



To read this article on Zacks.com click here.



Zacks Investment ResearchIn a blog entry published Tuesday celebrating his friendship with his co-founder, Paul Allen, who died on Oct. 15 at age 65, Bill Gates remembered the moment Microsoft leapt into being.

The memory dates back to 1975. The two men thought theyd already missed the microcomputer revolution, and in fact, they didnt realize until later how ahead they had been. Gates credits Allen with understanding that far better and far earlier than he did.

Allen and Gates both lived in the Boston area, Allen working as a programmer for Honeywell after dropping out of Washington State University, and Gates attending Harvard. Gates recalls Allen finding him and taking him urgently to a newsstand to show him the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics.

The cover depicted the Altair 8800, an unimpressive box covered with switches to modern eyes, but which sparked the PC revolution. Gates recalled that Allen said, This is happening without us!

Neat piece of history: Here's the cover of Popular Electronics that Paul Allen and Bill Gates were geeking out about in Boston, that inspired the founding of Microsoft.https://t.co/ob8ALnEgEE pic.twitter.com/o2VSg3tHQP  John Patrick Pullen (@jppullen) October 16, 2018

Despite the cover calling it a minicomputer, the Altair had a powerful microprocessor in it. An editorial inside trumpeted, The Home Computer Is Here! For $400 ($1,900 in 2018 dollars), you could purchase and assemble a kit that gave you a shocking amount of computational powerespecially when the next fastest device available to consumers and hobbyists was a scientific calculator. Beyond that, only businesses and colleges had minicomputers or mainframes, both expensive, with restricted access, and shared with many other users.

On the basis of that magazine cover and Allens enthusiasm, Gates left college. The next year the two founded Micro-Soft. (It later lost the hyphen.)

Gates remembrance of Allen concludes with strong emotion: Paul deserved more time in life. He would have made the most of it. I will miss him tremendously.In 1989 Sears was the largest retailer in the United States. When it filed for bankruptcy on Monday, it had fallen to 23rd biggest. Today it seems inevitable that the company once known as Americas store would fail, but 30 years agoeven though there were signsthis was much less clear.

Many people will lay the blame at the feet of Eddie Lampert, the Wall Street power investor who took control of Sears in 2004 and soon after merged it with Kmart which he also controlled. Lampert, who has now stepped down as CEO of Sears as part of the bankruptcy filing, remains its chairman and its largest shareholder. According to a person close to the situation, Lampert is relieved and even happy. Lampert, the source says, wishes he could have avoided this, but now is focused on getting to the other side and taking it from there. Asked what the other side might entail, this person said they had no idea.

Sears CEO Edward Lampert during a news conference to announce the merger of Kmart and Sears back on Nov. 17, 2004. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull) (Photo: GREGORY BULL, AP)

A massive one-two punch

Lampert cites Searss pension fund and its 90,000 beneficiaries as a huge drag on the company. Amazon doesnt have this kind of thing and neither does Walmart. This was a problem for him, the source said. Eddie really put his heart and soul in this. He could have walked away and didnt.

Well, you could say the same for those 90,000 former employeesnever mind the 140,000 current workersas far as the heart and soul part. Walking away, not as easy.

Story continues

No matter what you think of Lampertand some characterize him as a shell gaming, wheeler-dealer who was only in the company for its real estate holdings and to milk it dryyou have to acknowledge that when he got into Sears it was already in deep trouble. True, Sears filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on his watch, but years of mismanagement and giants shifts in the business preceded that.

At the very least, Sears was hit with a massive one-two punch. First came the big-box stores, principally Walmart of course, but also Home Depot, Staples, PetSmart, and Toys R Us (more on the latter in a second.) The big-box stores replicated every department that was in Sears.

Next of course came the internet, particularly Amazon, which was the second punch, and which is what killed Toys R Us. Amazon didnt just depress Searss sales year after year; it also made its once-vaunted real estate portfolio much less valuable as it killed off retailers, aka mall tenants, left and right. That made Searss footprint in malls worth less and less every year, further undermining Edie Lamperts monetization and/or turnaround planwhatever that exactly might have been.

Credit: David Foster/Yahoo Finance

How long Lampert remains in the fray is anyones guess. Hes still heavily invested in the company, but at some point you have to figure enough will be enough. Its been kind of a bizarre obsession if you think about it  Lampert, once called the next Warren Buffett, sinking all that real and emotional capital into  wait for it  Sears!

You have to ask why.

Lampert is still a billionaire with houses in Greenwich, Aspen and Florida. He has a $130 million yacht, Fountainhead, no doubt named after the 1943 Ayn Rand novel. And he was recently spotted relaxing at a David Byrne concert.

Wonder what Lampert thought when the former Talking Heads front man played Burning Down the House.

Andy Serwer is editor-in-chief of Yahoo Finance.

Read more about Sears:

Timeline: How bankrupt Sears dug its own grave

Sears bankruptcy isnt surprising when you look at these numbers

How Sears plans to save 400 stores from dyingOn Oct 14, Alphabet, Inc. GOOGL owned Googles CEO Sundar Pichai acknowledged the companys plans of launching a censored search app for China. However, Google is still considering whether to launch a censored version of its search engine in China. The companys plans to return to China, a market it abandoned over censorship issues eight years ago, were first reported in August.

Although Googles core services, Google Search, Gmail and YouTube, remain blocked in China, the company is involved in providing digital tools and support to large a number of Chinese app developers and manufacturers, mobile companies and advertisers, who want to reach out to their global customers.

However, Pichai said that the plan was in very early stages and may not progress. That said, there are challenges aplenty for Google in China, which the company needs to overcome. Moreover, the news comes at a time when tech and Internet companies are being punished by investors amid renewed concerns over user data privacy and security.

Can Google Return to China?

On Oct 14, Pichai acknowledged Googles leaked plans of creating a censored search app for China. He said that the censored search app could serve over 99% of queries. However, Pichai also said that the plan was in very early stages and may not take off. That Google was trying to make a possible return to China was reported initially in August. The proposal had drawn criticism from employees.

The company also publicly confirmed the existence of such a project during a Senate committee hearing in late September. Although Googles core services, Google Search, Gmail and YouTube remain blocked in China, the company has played a key role in supporting local tech companies. Google provides digital tools and support to a large number of Chinese app manufacturers, developers and advertisers, who want to reach out to global customers.

The search engine giant decided to pull out of China in 2010 over censorship issues. However, it has been providing its digital services and tools to many local companies.

Story continues

Bigger Challenges for Google

Pichais comments come at a time when tech and Internet giants are reeling under pressure of a trade war. Moreover, renewed concerns over user data privacy and security after breaches and vulnerabilities by the likes of Facebook, Inc. FB and Google are also affecting tech companies. This has seen tech companies led by the FANG stocks, which include, Facebook, Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN, Netflix, Inc. NFLX and Google, taking a beating in recent times

In fact, on Oct 8, Google announced that it will be shutting down its Google+ social network. The decision comes after The Wall Street Journal on Oct 8 reported that the company did not disclose that private data of hundreds of thousands of users of Google+ was potentially exposed due to a bug from 2015.

Concerns of a regulatory clampdown on how tech and Internet companies handle user data, has been looming large on a number of companies. A regulatory clampdown means restricted use or ad-free paid service, which will weigh on the companies as they tend to lose users, who cant afford pair service.

5 Medical Stocks to Buy Now

Zacks names 5 companies poised to ride a medical breakthrough that is targeting cures for leukemia, AIDS, muscular dystrophy, hemophilia, and other conditions. New products in this field are already generating substantial revenue and even more wondrous treatments are in the pipeline. Early investors could realize exceptional profits.

Click here to see the 5 stocks >>



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



Netflix, Inc. (NFLX) : Free Stock Analysis Report



Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) : Free Stock Analysis Report



Facebook, Inc. (FB) : Free Stock Analysis Report



Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL) : Free Stock Analysis Report



To read this article on Zacks.com click here.



Zacks Investment ResearchNEW YORK, Oct. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Labaton Sucharows pro bono immigration team won another asylum case, this time for a Ugandan man who was persecuted in his home country of Uganda because he was gay. Homosexuality and engaging in homosexual activity are illegal and considered a cultural abomination in Uganda.



On October 15, an immigration judge granted asylum to our client who had endured 15 years of persecution for his sexual orientation. The victory comes on the heels of another asylum win obtained by the Firms pro bono immigration team on October 12, for a Pakistani national persecuted for his religious belief.

Uganda is one of the worst places on earth for LGBTIQ individuals, said Labaton Sucharow partner Gregory Asciolla, one of the mentor partners who led the pro bono team. Our client was brutally persecuted and tortured by members of his village, students and teachers at his school, and the police throughout his life. He narrowly escaped the last attack before he fled to the U.S. Tragically, his boyfriend and brother were not so fortunate and were murdered that same night.

Asciolla noted that our client still suffers from his severe injuries, but is looking forward to his new life in the United States where he can finally be himself and start the healing process.

In the declaration the client submitted in support of his asylum application, he wrote, I am happy in the United States because I am safe. I am able to express myself fully without fearing for my life. Even though I arrived here terrified and had heavy cuffs and chains around my hands, waist, and legs, the Elizabeth Detention Center has felt like home because I do not have to hide who I am. I was delighted to see Pride Week celebrations in America. It makes me hopeful that I will find a better life here.

Everyone on the team and at the Firm are thrilled with the outcome, said Asciolla. Our client can now live the life he deserves  one of dignity, respect and hope for the future.

The Labaton Sucharow pro bono immigration team for this case also includes partner Christopher McDonald and associates Joseph Halloran and Anna Menkova. They were supported by the Firms professional staff, including Stacy Redman, Cheryl Boria, Peter Schneider, Rian Wroblewski, Elise Latimore, Claudia Moran-Alvarado, and Lisette Rodriguez.

The case was the third immigration victory for the Firm this year. In July, through our partnership with the American Immigration Council, the Firm also helped reunite a Honduran asylum seeker and his 12 year old daughter who had been separated for four months after entering the country at a legal port of entry with identification and proof of parentage.Magna International Inc. MGA has opened a seating business and facility in Chomutov, Czech Republic, with BMW AG. The companys facility will offer seating systems in a variety of configurations to support assembling BMWs numerous vehicle models.



With an aim to increase efficiency and offer value products to customers, the hub utilizes smart factory manufacturing concepts. Having a manufacturing area of 6,000 square meters, the plant has the capability to create more than 360,000 sets of seats in a year. The current employee count of the hub is 150, which is expected to double in 2019. Manufacturing at the hub is anticipated to start by 2018 end.



The companys seating business has six research and development centers, and 50 manufacturing locations across the globe. Out of total production locations, 16 hubs are in Europe, with five in Czech Republic.



This is not the first plant that Magna opened to supply seats for BMWs vehicles. In March 2018, Magna announced that it opened a 230,000-sq-ft plant in Moore, SC. Manufactured seating systems at the Moore plant are supplied for the production of BMWs X models.



Per Magnas management, winning business from BMW, which is an existing customer, is significant for its global expansion. Further, the new business demonstrates Magnas cost-saving and innovative seating solutions.



A few other stocks in the auto space are Allison Transmission Holdings, Inc. ALSN, Advance Auto Parts, Inc. AAP and AB Volvo VLVLY. The long-term growth rate of Allison Transmission, Advance Auto and LKQ Corporation are 10%, 12.3% and 15%, respectively.



5 Medical Stocks to Buy Now



Zacks names 5 companies poised to ride a medical breakthrough that is targeting cures for leukemia, AIDS, muscular dystrophy, hemophilia, and other conditions.



New products in this field are already generating substantial revenue and even more wondrous treatments are in the pipeline. Early investors could realize exceptional profits.



Click here to see the 5 stocks >>





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



Advance Auto Parts, Inc. (AAP) : Free Stock Analysis Report



Magna International Inc. (MGA) : Free Stock Analysis Report



Allison Transmission Holdings, Inc. (ALSN) : Free Stock Analysis Report



AB Volvo (VLVLY) : Free Stock Analysis Report



To read this article on Zacks.com click here.



Zacks Investment ResearchOil up on Iran; U.S. stockpiles worry tempers gains.

Investing.com - Oil prices rebounded on Tuesday on evidence of falling Iranian exports, but gains were limited by fears of another outsize U.S. crude build in weekly storage data.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude settled up 14 cents at $71.92 a barrel. Its U.K. peer Brent, the global benchmark for crude, rose 53 cents to $81.31 by 2:53 PM ET (18:53 GMT),

Prices were propped up by data showing Iran exported 1.6 million barrels per day (bpd) in September, down from 2.7 million bpd in June. A rally in stock markets, which pushed the Dow up more than 1.7%, also boosted sentiment in oil.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration is expected to cite a crude build of a little more than 2.1 million barrels for the week to ended Oct. 12, forecasts by industry analysts showed. That would be much smaller than the inventory increases of 6 million and 8 million barrels it announced in two previous weeks, jolting traders who were expecting a lot less and causing a slump in oil prices.

The American Petroleum Institute, an industry group, will issue its own crude supply-demand report on the Oct. 12 week at 4:30 p.m. ET on Tuesday. APIs data typically serves as a snapshot of what the market could expect from the EIA, though their numbers often diverge.

Separately, the EIA said on Monday that oil production from seven major U.S. shale basins was expected to rise by 98,000 barrels per day (bpd) in November to a record of 7.71 million bpd. U.S. oil production has increased steadily over the last five years, reaching a record high of 11.2 million bpd in the week to Oct. 5, with Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) saying last week the trend could continue into 2021 at least.

The crisis over the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi was another drag on sentiment amid speculation that Saudi Arabia could agree to put additional oil barrels on the market to appease President Donald Trump and avoid any U.S. sanctions. Trump has been pressuring Riyadh to partially offset the loss of supply from the U.S. action against Iran and the Khashoggi matter may have given him unexpected leverage, analysts say.

Story continues

We do expect to see (inventory) numbers tomorrow that could be above consensus, said Tariq Zahir, managing member at New York energy hedge fund Tyche Capital Advisors. But any settlement the Saudis agree directly or indirectly with the U.S. that will bring additional barrels to the market will be another impediment to prices.

Related Articles

Mexico hopeful steel industry can avoid Canada tariffs: minister

Oil Down 3% on Supply Build; $100 Bet Looks More Distant

Gold Slips, Halting 2-day Climb; $1,250 Still in SightBy Christopher Johnson

LONDON (Reuters) - Oil prices steadied on Monday as tension over the disappearance of a prominent Saudi journalist stoked supply worries, balancing concerns over the long-term demand outlook.

Benchmark Brent crude oil jumped by $1.49 a barrel to a high of $81.92 before giving up its gains to trade around $80.38, down 5 cents, by 1345 GMT. U.S. crude was down 5 cents at $71.29.

"Growing tensions over the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul has proved supportive," said ING commodities strategist Warren Patterson.

Saudi Arabia has been under pressure since Khashoggi, a critic of Riyadh and a U.S. resident, disappeared on Oct. 2 after visiting the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

U.S. President Donald Trump threatened "severe punishment" if it is found that Khashoggi was killed in the consulate.

Saudi Arabia said it would retaliate to any action against it over the Khashoggi case, state news agency SPA reported on Sunday, quoting an official source.

"This has raised concerns that the Saudis may use oil as a tool for retaliation if any sanctions or other action is taken against it," Patterson said.

But analysts said it was difficult to imagine Saudi Arabia taking action that would greatly affect world oil supply.

"So far the oil market is withstanding the verbal war and though prices are slightly higher ... they are a good $5 below the peak last week," said City Index analyst Fiona Cincotta.

Exerting downward pressure on prices, Friday's monthly report from the International Energy Agency said the market looked "adequately supplied for now" and cut its forecasts for world oil demand growth this year and next.

OPEC, Russia and other oil producers, such as U.S. shale companies, had increased production sharply since May, the IEA said, raising world crude output by 1.4 million barrels per day (bpd).

"These (factors) are very bearish for oil prices," said Commerzbank commodities analyst Carsten Fritsch.

The secretary general of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries last week said that the group saw the oil market as well supplied and that it was wary of creating a glut next year.

(Reporting by Christopher Johnson in London and by Meng Meng and Aizhu Chen in Beijing; Editing by David Goodman)By Davide Barbuscia and Tom Arnold

DUBAI (Reuters) - Qatar National Bank (QISB.QA), the largest bank by assets in the Middle East and Africa, and Qatar Islamic Bank (QNBK.QA), the Gulf state's largest sharia-compliant lender by assets, have raised a combined $1.3 billion in privately placed bonds, sources familiar with the matter said.

Private placements allow debt issuers to diversify their funding base by tapping different sources of cash than that provided by traditional bond investors. Private placements can also be executed quickly as they require less paperwork than public debt issues.

QNB raised $1 billion at the end of September with Standard Chartered (STAN.L) arranging the issues, the sources said. One of the sources said the fundraising was split into 10 separate issues of $100 million each.

Qatar Islamic Bank raised $300 million earlier this month, also with Standard Chartered as the arranger, the sources said.

One of the sources said some of the investors in the private placements were based in Asia, with Malaysia and Indonesia accounting for a significant chunk of the investors in QIB's issues.

Qatar National Bank and Standard Chartered declined to comment. Qatar Islamic Bank did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Qatari banks have for the most part weathered a crisis that erupted on June 5 last year when Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt cut diplomatic ties with Qatar and imposed economic sanctions on the country.

Al Khalij Commercial Bank (KCBK.QA) raised $500 million through a public bond earlier this month, demonstrating Qatari banks' ability to tap the international debt markets despite the Gulf rift.

QNB's chief executive Ali Ahmed al-Kuwari told Reuters this week that the bank's U.S. dollar liquidity was excellent and that it had no immediate funding need.

The bank, which is 50-percent owned by sovereign wealth fund Qatar Investment Authority, on Wednesday reported a 3.5 percent rise in third-quarter net profit.

Qatar Islamic Bank, considered one of the banks potentially most vulnerable to impact of the sanctions at the start of the crisis, has reported a rise in net profit in the second quarter of this year. It is expected to announce its third-quarter results next week.

(Editing by Jane Merriman)New York, New York, Oct. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The 2018 World Tourism Awards will be presented to Global Himalayan Expedition, the Jordan Trail Association, and The Intrepid Foundation, on November 5, 2018, the opening day of WTM London at the Excel London. In addition, the actress Maggie Q will receive the World Tourism Humanitarian Award as part of the annual World Tourism Awards ceremony. The awards are co-sponsored by Corinthia Hotels , The New York Times , United Airlines and host sponsor Reed Travel Exhibitions . Emmy Award-winning journalist, Peter Greenberg, CBS News Travel Editor and world-renowned travel expert, will host the award presentation.



The distinguished 2018 Honorees are being recognized for outstanding initiatives related to the travel and tourism industry, and in fostering sustainable tourism and developing programs that give back to local communities.



The first award will honor Global Himalayan Expedition, in recognition of their commitment towards sustainable development of remote communities situated at an average altitude of 12,000 ft through impact tourism, providing access to clean energy, digital education and livelihood creation opportunities for over 30,500 people across 71 off-grid Himalayan villages to date.



The second award will honor the Jordan Trail Association , a non-profit NGO, founded in 2015, in recognition of its commitment to developing, maintaining, and promoting the Jordan Trail as a platform for socioeconomic development for the 52 villages along the trail, with an impact of $6 million USD to-date.



The third award will honor The Intrepid Foundation , in recognition of Intrepid Groups commitment through its not-for-profit, The Intrepid Foundation, to empower travelers to give back by matching all donations dollar-for-dollar, resulting in a contribution of more than $4.2 million USD to over 100 local communities and international organizations since 2002.

This year, the World Tourism Humanitarian Award will be presented to actress Maggie Q, Good Will Ambassador for Kageno , in recognition of her humanitarian efforts by raising funds in support of Kageno, an organization that transforms impoverished communities, specifically in Kenya and Rwanda, by focusing on programs for clean water, health care, conservation and education.

The Award itself, Caring for Our World, was specially designed and handcrafted on the Mediterranean Island of Malta by Mdina Glass , and celebrates the qualities of leadership and vision that inspire others to care for all people around the Globe.





About the World Tourism Awards

The World Tourism Awards, celebrating its 21st Anniversary, are presented annually at WTM London and sponsored by Corinthia Hotels , The New York Times , United Airlines and host sponsor Reed Travel Exhibitions . It was inaugurated to recognize individuals, companies, organizations, destinations and attractions for outstanding initiatives related to the travel and tourism industry, and in fostering sustainable tourism and developing programs that give back to local communities. Now in its 21st year, The World Tourism Awards were created by The Bradford Group on behalf of the sponsors.(Bloomberg) -- Twitter Inc. has published data sets comprising millions of tweets, images and videos and thousands of accounts linked to operatives based in Russia and Iran, shedding light on how bad actors outside the U.S. sought to manipulate social-media discourse in their home countries and abroad.

The social-media company has previously disclosed the activities, going back to 2016, but said in a blog post Wednesday that it was opening up the data to the public to encourage independent analysis by researchers, academics and journalists.

The data sets just released are made up of 3,841 accounts affiliated with the Russia-based Internet Research Agency, 770 other accounts potentially based in Iran as well as 10 million tweets and more than 2 million images, videos and other media.

Many of the accounts disclosed in the data sets have been previously reported. Whats unprecedented is the size of the archive of information. Researchers were able to glean that the IRA posted far more in Russian than in English, especially in late 2014 until early 2015, when Russia was fighting in Ukraine, according to analysis conducted by the Atlantic Councils Digital Forensic Research Lab.

"One of the big takeaways is just how big these operations were. The second point is that these operations started out for the benefit of the countries they were working in," said Ben Nimmo, a senior fellow at the DFRLab. "It really started out as a domestic tool for repression and then it was turned into an outward weapon targeting the U.S."

The Iran operation was largely pushing pro-Iranian government messaging abroad and directing users to certain websites. The top three geopolitical phrases mentioned by the Iranian trolls included Saudi, Iran, and Trump. One-third of the posts from the Iranian troll farm led users to AWDNEWS.com, which calls itself an independent news agency, yet Nimmo refers to it as "part of the Iranian messaging laundromat."

Story continues

The Russian operation had multiple goals, including interfering in the U.S. presidential election, dividing polarized online communities, unifying support for Russias international interests, and weakening trust in American institutions, according to the DFRLab. One main purpose was to prevent a victory by Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, with Russian troll accounts amplifying the hashtag #CrookedHillary and claiming voter fraud in favor of Clinton on election day. One post from an account masquerading as the Tennessee GOP tweeted, "BREAKING: Machine refuses to allow Vote For Trump in Pennsylvania! RT the hell out of IT! #VoterFraud." It received over 25,000 retweets.

The trove of data revealed numerous instances when Russian troll accounts tweeted on both sides of divisive debates in the U.S. After shootings in San Bernardino in 2015, one post wrote, "mass shootings wont stop until there are #GunFreeZones #Prayers4California." Another post read, "Im tired of this whole anti gun thing. Saying that Guns cause murders is like saying Steering Wheels cause car wrecks #Prayers4California."

According to Nimmo, the English-language Russian troll accounts defended Russia as well, including posting 781 tweets referring to U.S. Special Counsel Robert Muellers investigation into Russian election interference as a "witch hunt."

Tech companies have come under pressure in the past year from lawmakers in the U.S. and Europe to do more to rein in such activity, after intelligence services concluded that Russia spread disinformation across their platforms to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election and the U.K.s Brexit vote.

The data disclosed Wednesday also shows that the operatives directing the Russian bot accounts used U.S.-based businesses that allow users to relay content onto Twitter, such as IFTTT, RoundTeam and dlvr.it, in addition to Twitter products like TweetDeck, and the Twitter mobile apps for iPhone and Android. For instance, San Francisco-based IFTTT offers software that connects multiple apps to run automated tasks. RoundTeam automates the task of searching and sharing tweets. Portland, Oregon-based Dlvr.it, which is used by publishers including Reuters and BuzzFeed, automatically posts content across social media pages.

Twitter said it doesnt expect such information operations to stop and expects bad actors to continue to adapt to new technologies. The company said an independent analysis of the activity is an important step toward a shared understanding of the threats.

(Updates with details from data disclosures starting in third paragraph.)

To contact the reporters on this story: Natalia Drozdiak in Brussels at ndrozdiak1@bloomberg.net;Nour Al Ali in London at nalali1@bloomberg.net;Selina Wang in San Francisco at swang533@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Giles Turner at gturner35@bloomberg.net, Jillian Ward, Molly Schuetz

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

2018 Bloomberg L.P.Minerva Neurosciences has been struggling lately, but the selling pressure may be coming to an end soon.

For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL October 17, 2018  Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: Altria Group Inc. MO, Coca-Cola Company KO, PepsiCo PEP, Constellation Brands STZ and Canopy Growth Corp. CGC.

Here are highlights from Tuesdays Analyst Blog:

Cannabis Market Attracts Cigarette Makers

Altria Group Inc., Americas leading cigarette manufacturer, is in talks with Canadian cannabis producer Aphria Inc. to buy a stake in it, The Globe & Mail reported last week.

Altria, parent of Marlboro cigarette-maker Philip Morris USA, is making the move at a time when Canada is set to legalize recreational marijuana on Oct 17.

This could be one of the reasons why many consumer goods manufacturers, food and beverage giants are trying to partner with Canadian cannabis growers in recent months.

Marijuanas Benefits and Market Growth Opportunities Entice Cigarette Makers

The marijuana industry is expected to reach $146.4 billion by 2025 end, at a compound annual growth rate of 34.6%, according to Grand View Report. This could be prompting American cigarette manufacturers to seek an entry into the booming cannabis market.

The legalization of medical and recreational marijuana could offer unlimited options in terms of newly formulated products that could attract health-conscious consumers.

Smoking marijuana for medical purposes has been legal across 29 states in the United States since January while recreational marijuana is legal in 9 states.

Benefits of medical marijuana include curing and preventing eye diseases such as Glaucoma, controlling epileptic seizures, decreasing anxiety, easing pain induced by arthritis etc.

Marijuana-infused beverages and food products captured the attention of major American giants such as Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo. Earlier this year, these two companies announced their interest in preparing cannabidiol-infused products. Cannabidiol (CBD) is a non-psychotropic drug found in the cannabis plant and its benefits include curing seizures, reducing inflammation, preventing cancer from spreading rapidly and decreasing pain.

Story continues

Major Investments Promise Solid Growth Prospects

Marijuana stocks have witnessed an uptick in their prices since mid-August when Constellation Brands confirmed it plans to invest an additional $4 billion in Canadas Canopy Growth Corp. The Corona beer maker had acquired a 9.9% stake in Canopy Growth in October 2017.

Not a month later, Coca-Cola expressed its interest to invest in Aurora Cannabis. This was followed by PepsiCos inclination toward making investments in the marijuana industry. While Coke and Pepsi could be eyeing new food and beverage products, Altrias plans to formulate new consumables in place of its classic cigars remain to be seen.

The increasingly changing preferences of consumers and the legalization of cannabis across Canada and many states in the U.S. indicate solid growth prospects for the Marijuana-exposed stocks.

You can seethe complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank 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.

See Zacks' 3 Best Stocks to Play This Trend >>

Media Contact

Zacks Investment Research

800-767-3771 ext. 9339

support@zacks.com

https://www.zacks.com

Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss. This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research does not engage in investment banking, market making or asset management activities of any securities. These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit https://www.zacks.com/performance for information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.



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



Constellation Brands Inc (STZ) : Free Stock Analysis Report



Pepsico, Inc. (PEP) : Free Stock Analysis Report



Coca-Cola Company (The) (KO) : Free Stock Analysis Report



Altria Group, Inc. (MO) : Free Stock Analysis Report



Canopy Growth Corporation (CGC) : Free Stock Analysis Report



To read this article on Zacks.com click here.



Zacks Investment ResearchStocks jump as much as 105% in 30 daysand still rising!

Undervalued Chemesis International Inc. (OTC: CADMF / CSE: CSI) is the single best way for investors to play this fast-moving scenario.

While most cannabis investors are still looking to Canadian producers for big stock profits, the California pot market is starting to rise like a tsunami.

The savviest investors are jumping from Canadian cannabis stocks to catch the California wave. If youre out for big profits, its time for you to jump in too.

Consider this. In the 30 days ending September 11, these California-focused cannabis stocks have given their investors returns that beat the market by an average of 29-to-1.

Returns since early August:

Chemesis Intl (CADMF) 150%

Solis Tek (SLTK) 105%

CannaRoyalty (CNNRF) 58%

MedMen (MMNFF) 55%

Sunniva (SNNVF) 34%

S&P 500 2%

Its the beginning of the biggest new bull market today

No other industry today is recording these kinds of returns. Not technology, not Internet retail, not industrials or oil and gas. California-focused cannabis stocks are out-performing nearly everything else in the market, and this is just the beginning.

Legal sales of recreational cannabis began in California on January 1, 2018. The state gave sellers six months to become compliant with new regulations. By July 1 they had to be in strict compliance on purity testing, safety packaging, and content labeling of products.

Plenty failed to meet the stringent standards, and the state started shutting them down. But those that are compliant have seen their stocks soar as laggards are weeded out.

These companies are benefitting from what will soon be the worlds biggest legal cannabis market.

California will soon eclipse entire Canadian cannabis market

California is already the largest cannabis market in the world  by a long shot. ArcView Market Research estimates that the legal and illegal cannabis market in the state surpassed $8 billion in 2016. Newsweek puts the figure even higher at $13.5 billion. The California legal medicinal market alone is responsible for an estimated 62% of US sales.

Now, with legalization, much of the illegal sales will transfer to legal dispensaries, contributing to a growth rate for legal cannabis that is expected to compound at an annual rate of 23%. By comparison, the entire Canadian cannabis market is $4.2 billion.

Its easy to see why California legal sales will surpass all of Canadas. More people live in California than in all of Canada. And Californias GDP is nearly three times larger than Canadas. That means there are more people to use cannabis and more money to buy larger quantities of it.

To put Californias massive cannabis market size in perspective, experts believe legal cannabis sales could surpass beer sales in the state by the end of 2019, topping $5 billion, and $6.5 billion by 2020.

All of which is why California-focused cannabis companies will grow the largest and will dominate the market for years to come.

For comparison, take a look at how cannabis legalization in Canada fueled investor profits.

Profits as high as 9,755%

Though medicinal cannabis has been legal in Canada since 2001, until 2014 it could only be purchased through the government. Laws were relaxed in 2014 to allow sales through private companies. That triggered a gold rush, and produced the first wave of cannabis stock millionaires. Investors saw returns as high as 9,755% in Abattis Bioceuticals and 9,150% in United Cannabis.

Theres no question that Canadas cannabis stocks have made investors rich. In the last 12 months the Canadian Marijuana Index has shot up 291%, despite a dramatic pullback in January. The last three years has seen a 1,437% rise.

But for Canada-focused cannabis companies, the biggest gains are behind them. The market leaders have already been established. Now you will see a wave of consolidation as second-tier companies are bought up or go out of business, unable to compete with the geographic range and low production costs of the leaders.

Thats why savvy investors are turning to California.

A remarkably uncrowded marketplace

Savvy investors are buying up stocks like Solis Tek (SLTK), CannaRoyalty (CNNRF), MedMen (MMNFF), Chemesis International (CADMF), and Sunniva (SNNVF).

These are not only the dominant players in California, they are among the few players there. One of the reasons is because the new rules are making it harder for new companies to find their financial footing, with licenses and compliance for everything from product potency and zoning requiring the expenditure of tens of thousands of dollars. Since all of the regulations went into place, now it takes a few hundred thousand to a few million to start, said Kimberly Cargile, CEO of Sacramento retailer A Therapeutic Alternative.

Morgan Paxhia, founder of Poseidon Asset Management, notes that there are thousands of sellers in the state that have been put out of business because they dont have the capital or expertise to meet regulatory requirements.

That leaves the enormous California market to a handful of companies that can afford the kind of investment required. Venture capital companies want you to be holding several half-acre or 1-acre permits and licenses to even think about investing, says one grower. Most of the bigger guys, a half-acre grow isnt going to make them the kind of money they want to make. They want something extremely large.

One cannabis company that has what it takes to attract the kind of venture capital necessary to be a major player is Chemesis International (OTC: CADMF / CSE: CSI).

Deep-pockets challenger aims to be Californias biggest cannabis company

On August 7, 2018 Chemesis announced the finalization of a draw-down $25 million equity financing deal with Alumina Partners, a New York-based private equity firm. The financing is at the sole discretion of Chemesis, allowing the company to access funds as needed.

The financing is designed to protect shareholder value while the company aggressively grows its market share. Such major investments are rare for early stage companies, and serves as a validation of Chemesis business plan and growth strategy.

Terms of the deal allow Alumina Partners the purchase of up to $25 million in Chemesis units, consisting of one common share at a 15-25% discount to market price, and one purchase warrant at a 50% premium over market price, all at the exclusive discretion of Chemesis. There are no upfront fees or interest associated with the use of the financing.

Such robust financing is rare for cannabis companies doing business in California. For one thing, cannabis is still illegal on the Federal level. This has stopped many venture capitalists from wanting to participate in the market.

However, the tide is rapidly turning. Casa Verde Capital says that the cannabis industry will be among the most compelling investment themes of our generation.

Americans overwhelmingly support legalization

President Trump has promised to protect states that have legalized cannabis. His position was made clear in April of 2018 when he told Colorado Senator Cory Gardner that the states cannabis industry would not be targeted, despite the objections of Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Whats more, in April, the US House of Representatives proposed legislation to loosen federal cannabis regulations. Even formerly staunch opponents are coming around, including former House Speaker John Boehner and conservative Republican congressmen Dana Rohrabacher and Tom Garrett.

More than half of US states allow some form of cannabis use, either medical or medical and recreational. By the end of 2018 that number could be more than three quarters.

They are responding to the will of the people: Americans, including Republicans, overwhelmingly support legalization.

For these reasons and more, venture capital company Alumina Partners bet big on Chemesis International. What they saw was a company that could dominate its market.

Says CEO Edgar Montero, We are very well capitalized at this point. We have control of our destiny, which is very, very refreshing for our shareholders because now the leverage is on our side.

Chemesis International (OTC: CADMF / CSE: CSI): First-mover advantage in the enormous California market

In marketing strategy, theres a term called first-mover advantage that offers rare benefit to those companies that can claim it. Its when a company is among the first key players in a new market or a new industry, and therefore are able to establish themselves before being overrun by competitors.

These companies are able to establish strong brand recognition, shore up the best sources of funding, and build a loyal customer base simply because there arent any competitors in the way during their first few years of operation.

Chemesis is one of the few fully compliant first movers in the California market. The company is vertically integrated, which means they are involved in every stage of the cannabis market from seed to sale. That includes cultivation, product manufacturing, branding, distribution, and retail.

The company also owns a state-of-the-art, fully state-compliant facility in Cathedral City, California that provides legal cannabis to a network of dispensaries throughout California.

Chemesis also owns 80% of SAP Global, a California producer with a 2,000 pound processing capacity that can yield as much as 200 pounds of compliant cannabis oil per day, which is substantial. SAP is known for its high quality, and has been the recipient of 26 awards in the past five years.

The producer is intended to provide Chemesis with a consistent revenue stream as the company invests its resources in aggressive growth strategies.

Chemesis also owns Desert Zen, a state-compliant cannabis manufacturing, packaging, distribution, and transport company with a large existing network of dispensaries and distributors throughout California.

Importantly, Desert Zen is able to track all products, monitor safety, and ensure that all seed-to-sale laws are followed throughout the entire supply chain.

Chemesis projects annual revenue from California operations of $61.5 by 2022, with a net income of $27.2.

But California isnt the companys only market where they have first-mover advantage.

Chemesis expands into second new market

Part of the companys unique strategy is to be first-to-market as cannabis legalization expands globally. That was how they were able to establish an early presence in California. And it is why they have now expanded into Puerto Rico.

With medicinal cannabis now legal in Puerto Rico as of 2017, Chemesis has become a first-mover in that market. More than 20,000 patients have registered for medical cannabis in the first year in the territory.

Secretary of Health Rafael Rodriguez Mercado says that the market is growing exponentially, with approximately 500 new patients per week. The US territorys treasury secretary says medical cannabis could generate up to $100 million a year in sales taxes.

In August 2018 Chemesis purchased an 80% interest in Natural Ventures PR LLC, a seed-to-sale medicinal cannabis company based in Caguas, Puerto Rico. Natural Ventures has operated since 2017, and is licensed to cultivate 100,000 square feet of cannabis.

Currently the company owns a 35,000 square foot manufacturing facility, and is producing oil-based products as well as edibles and other cannabis products. (Puerto Rico law restricts medicinal cannabis products to capsules, extractions, lotions, patches, edibles, flower, and oils.)

Chemesis expects their Puerto Rico operations to provide a significant revenue stream totaling $6.7 million in revenue by 2022, with a net income of $2.8 million.

Dont miss your chance for oversize profits from Californias new recreational cannabis market

On July 1, compliant California cannabis companies put the pedal to the medal. With thousands of non-compliant sellers being wiped from the market, those that remain  the ones with deep-pockets financing and fully compliant facilities and products  will quickly rise to the top.

There are only a small number of them, like Solis Tek (SLTK), CannaRoyalty (CNNRF), MedMen (MMNFF), Chemesis International (OTC: CADMF / CSE: CSI), and Sunniva (SNNVF).

Chemesis International has distinct advantages. If youre eager to get your share of big cannabis profits, take a close look at Chemesis (OTC: CADMF / CSE: CSI) today. And remember to always do your own due diligence.

[1] https://www.ino.com/blog/2017/12/6-cannabis-stocks-set-surge-californias-rec-market/#.W5lQPM5Khpg

[1] https://newfrontierdata.com/marijuana-insights/california-legal-cannabis-market-projection/

[1] https://newfrontierdata.com/marijuana-insights/california-legal-cannabis-market-projection/

[1] https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/11/05/surprise-the-market-for-canadian-marijuana-stocks.aspx

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/california-legalizing-weed-on-january-1-market-size-revenue-2017-12

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/julieweed/2017/11/26/california-weed-entrepreneurs-will-make-5-2b-in-2018-with-almost-no-banks-to-put-it-in/#1162d9ff4e52

[1] https://mjbizdaily.com/why-financing-is-a-key-hurdle-for-california-cannabis-companies-and-forcing-some-to-the-black-market/

[1] https://www.pehub.com/canada/2018/05/america-can-learn-canadas-first-mover-advantage-cannabis/#

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-gardner-strike-deal-on-legalized-marijuana-ending-standoff-over-justice-nominees/2018/04/13/2ac3b35a-3f3a-11e8-912d-16c9e9b37800_story.html?utm_term=.e5ccd78b840b

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2018/04/20/whats-up-with-politicians-suddenly-embracing-pot/?utm_term=.4079d8ff7f56

[1] http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-pol-republicans-legal-marijuana-20180417-story.html

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/10/25/for-the-first-time-a-majority-of-republicans-support-marijuana-legalization/?utm_term=.a725a33a6018

[1] https://mjbizdaily.com/puerto-rico-medical-marijuana-market-growing-exponentially/

[1] https://www.apnews.com/ef52a9e5ed484df4baf70047f432f3d9FILE -- In this Wednesday, March 15, 2017 photo a traffic sign shows a red light in front of the Audi headquarters in Ingolstadt, Germany. Audi accepted a fine of 800 million euro (927 million US$) for it's involvement in the Diesel scandal. (Armin Weigel/dpa via AP, file)NEWMARKET, Ontario, Oct. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- AirBoss of America Corp. (TSX: BOS) announced today that AirBoss Defense, the defense products line of its Engineered Products segment, has been awarded components of the personal protective equipment portion of the Land 2110 Phase 1B program for the Australia Defence Force (ADF), from Leidos Australia Pty Ltd. (Leidos). In partnership with Leidos, AirBoss Defense will deliver critical capability in the area of Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defence (CBRND) to the ADF by supplying its gloves, overboots and recently-commercialized Low Burden Mask. The value of the contract is expected to be USD$11 Million plus any potential revenue from an initial five-year support phase. Deliveries under the contract are expected to commence in 2019 and continue through 2023.



The primary objective of Phase 1B of the Land 2110 program is to provide force protection to deployed ADF personnel, assigned coalition personnel, and designated civilians, both offshore and within Australia, against extant and emerging Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear (CBRN) threats, including environmental hazards. Additional objectives of the ADF's CBRN capabilities are to enhance support to other government agencies in domestic CBRN incidents, and to assist integration in a coordinated government effort.

This award represents the second major adoption by a modern military of AirBoss Defenses state-of-the-art Low Burden Mask (LBM). The LBM was designed and developed to be the worlds most advanced gas mask with a state-of-the-art lens, optical viewing area, improved fit, and reduced breathing resistance. The LBM has seen strong adoption since its introduction by AirBoss Defense.

AirBoss Defense is a world leader in the design, development, and manufacture of CBRN personal protective equipment, as well as protection against communicable diseases and respiratory threats, for the individual, First Responder, Medical, Military, Law Enforcement, Fire and Industrial communities. For more than 40 years, AirBoss Defense has supplied military and first-response forces worldwide with hand wear, footwear, and respiratory protection from CBRN agents and extreme cold weather.

AirBoss of America Corp. is a group of complementary businesses using compounding technology and engineering expertise to create value for its customers. With a capacity to process approximately 400 million turn pounds of rubber annually, AirBoss Rubber Solutions is one of North Americas largest custom rubber compounding companies and a leading supplier of essential calendered and extruded products for a broad range of applications. AirBoss Engineered Products is a world leader in the supply of life saving products for the military and a leading supplier of innovative anti-vibration solutions to the North American automotive market. The Companys shares trade on the TSX under the symbol BOS. Visit www.airbossofamerica.com .

AIRBOSS FORWARD LOOKING INFORMATION DISCLAIMER

Certain statements contained or incorporated by reference herein, including those that express managements expectations or estimates of future developments or AirBoss future performance, constitute forward-looking information or forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws, and can generally be identified by words such as will, may, could is expected to, believes, anticipates, forecasts, plans, intends or similar expressions. These statements are not historical facts but instead represent managements expectations, estimates and projections regarding future events and performance.

Statements containing forward-looking information are necessarily based upon a number of opinions, estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable by management at the time the statements are made, are inherently subject to significant business, economic and competitive risks, uncertainties and contingencies. AirBoss cautions that such forward-looking information involves known and unknown contingencies, uncertainties and other risks that may cause AirBoss actual financial results, performance or achievements to be materially different from its estimated future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking information. Numerous factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking information, including without limitation: impact of general economic conditions; dependence on key customers; cyclical trends in the tire and automotive, construction, mining and retail industries; sufficient availability of raw materials at economical costs; weather conditions affecting raw materials, production and sales; AirBoss ability to maintain existing customers or develop new customers in light of increased competition; AirBoss ability to successfully integrate acquisitions of other businesses and/or companies or to realize on the anticipated benefits thereof, changes in accounting policies and methods, including uncertainties associated with critical accounting assumptions and estimates; changes in the value of the Canadian dollar relative to the US dollar; changes in tax laws and potential litigation; ability to obtain financing on acceptable terms; environmental damage and non-compliance with environmental laws and regulations; potential product liability and warranty claims and equipment malfunction. This list is not exhaustive of the factors that may affect any of AirBoss forward-looking information.

All of the forward-looking information in this press release is expressly qualified by these cautionary statements. Investors are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking information. All subsequent written and oral forward-looking information attributable to AirBoss or persons acting on its behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by this notice. Forward-looking information contained herein is made as of the date of this press release and, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, AirBoss disclaims any intent or obligation to update publicly this forward-looking information except as required by applicable laws. Risks and uncertainties about AirBoss business are more fully discussed under the heading Risk Factors in our most recent Annual Information Form and are otherwise disclosed in our filings with securities regulatory authorities which are available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.Packages of Kraft Foods sliced American cheese on display at a supermarket in Princeton, Illinois, on July 2, 2014. MUST CREDIT: Daniel Acker/BloombergIn this July 8 photo, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., greets people following a town hall event at Belkin Family Lookout Farm, in Natick, Mass.VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Oct. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Westhaven Ventures Inc. (TSX-V:WHN) is pleased to report further results from its recently completed drill campaign at its 15,542 hectare Shovelnose gold property, located within the prospective Spences Bridge Gold Belt (SBGB), which borders the Coquihalla Highway 30 kilometres south of Merritt, British Columbia.



Recent Highlights Include:

SN18-14: 17.77 metres (m) of 24.50 g/t gold (Au) and 107.92 g/t silver (Ag) , including 6.78m of 50.76 g/t Au and 203.54 g/t Ag .

of and , including of and . SN18-12: 175.00m of 0.65 g/t Au and 2.08 g/t Ag, including 4.00m of 11.82 g/t Au and 10.92 g/t Ag.

20-metre quartz vein encountered in hole SN18-15, assays pending.

The strike length of the South Zone is 700 metres and open to southeast.

Gareth Thomas, President & CEO of Westhaven stated, We are pleased to report the widest high-grade drill intercept at Shovelnose, which consists of 17.77m of 24.50 g/t Au and 107.92 g/t Ag, including 6.78m of 50.76 g/t Au and 203.54 g/t Ag (hole SN18-14). It is important to highlight that hole SN18-14 is 300 metres to the southeast of hole SN18-12, (previously announced October 2, 2018) which contains 1.65m of 175.00 g/t Au and 249.55 g/t Ag, including 0.65m of 285.00 g/t Au and 255.00 g/t Ag. Assays pending include hole SN18-15 which is 100 metres to the southeast of hole SN18-14 and contains visible gold. We are initiating a fully financed, follow-up drill campaign to begin in early November as we look to advance this important new discovery."

SOUTH ZONE DRILLING Hole From (m) To (m) Interval (m) Au (g/t) Ag (g/t) SN18-10 100.00 111.74 11.74 1.29 7.50 225.00 225.50 0.50 5.62 34.50 241.45 242.00 0.55 4.84 9.64 313.75 314.15 0.40 5.69 33.70 SN18-11 402.00 403.00 1.00 2.00 7.30 433.00 433.85 0.85 5.20 10.50 SN18-12 123.80 125.35 1.55 0.60 1.60 125.35 125.00 1.65 175.00 249.55 incl 125.35 126.00 0.65 285.00 255.00 incl 126.00 127.00 1.00 103.50 246.00 127.00 302.00 175.00 0.65 2.08 incl 284.00 288.00 4.00 11.82 10.92 SN18-14 210.23 228.00 17.77 24.50 107.92 incl 218.00 224.78 6.78 50.76 203.54 SN18-15 ASSAYS PENDING SN18-16 ASSAYS PENDING SN18-17 ASSAYS PENDING

Drilling to date is limited so true widths cannot be definitively determined. However, based on the geology of the vein zone with a steep dip to the west, true widths are estimated to be about 80-90% of reported interval lengths.

Peter Fischl, Exploration Manager goes on to add, Drilling continues to define a horizon of stronger gold mineralization. This hole targeted the shallower portions of the vein system above deeper weakly mineralized vein intersections in holes SN18-09 and SN18-11. Mineralization over the 700m long strike length now appears to be strongest along a horizon centred at about 1200m elevation. Follow-up drilling will test the vertical range and strike length of this horizon.

Shovelnose Gold Property Overview

There is evidence of a significant mineralized alteration system within the property. Recent drilling intersected 17.77 metres of 24.50 g/t Au, including 6.78 metres of 50.76 g/t Au. For further information on the Shovelnose Gold Property, please visit: http://westhavenventures.com/projects/shovelnose-gold/details/

The Spences Bridge Gold Belt (SBGB)

Westhaven owns a 100%-interest in 4 properties covering over 35,000 hectares within the prospective SBGB, which is situated within a geological setting like those which host other significant epithermal gold-silver systems. It is close to major transportation routes and infrastructure allowing for cost-effective exploration. The SBGB is a 110-kilometre northwest-trending belt of intermediate to felsic volcanic rocks dominated by the Cretaceous Spences Bridge Group. Sable Resources and Westhaven have a combined control of 86% of the SBGB (225,000ha). Any ground staked by Sable within 5-kilometre of Westhaven's existing projects will be subject to a 2.5% NSR. In addition, Westhaven has a 30 day Right of First Refusal (ROFR) for a three-year period for any properties within this 5-kilometre radius.

On behalf of the Board of Directors

WESTHAVEN VENTURES INC.



"Gareth Thomas"



Gareth Thomas, President, CEO & Director

Westhaven Ventures Inc. is a Canadian based exploration company focused on the acquisition and exploration of prospective resource properties. Westhaven is focused on advancing its Shovelnose, Prospect Valley, Skoonka and Skoonka North gold projects in British Columbia. Westhaven trades on the TSX Venture Exchange under the ticker symbol WHN. For further information, please call 604-681-5558 or visit Westhavens website at www.westhavenventures.com

Qualified Person Statement

Peter Fischl, P.Geo., who is a Qualified Person within the context of National Instrument 43-101 has read and takes responsibility for this release.

QA/QC

Core samples were prepared using the PREP-31 package in ALSs Kamloops facility each core sample is crushed to better than 70 % passing a 2 mm (Tyler 9 mesh, US Std. No.10) screen. A split of 250 g is taken and pulverized to better than 85 % passing a 75 micron (Tyler 200 mesh, US Std. No. 200) screen. 0.5g of this pulverized split is digested in aqua regia and analyzed via ICP-MS and ICP-AES (method code ME-MS41L), which reports a 53-element suite of elements. All results greater than 100 ppb gold were reanalyzed by ALS using their Fire Assay with an AAS finish, method code Au-AA23 (30g sample size). Additional Au screening is performed using ALSs Au-SCR24 method, select samples are dry screened to 100 micron. A duplicate 50g fire assay is conducted on the undersized fraction as well as an assay on the entire oversize fraction. Total Au content, individual assays and weight fractions are reported. All analytical and assay procedures are conducted in ALSs North Vancouver facility. A QA/QC program included laboratory and field standards inserted every 25 samples.

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.

A map accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/c98c7c13-430d-412a-bca0-4808945ee065Sellbyville, Delaware, Oct. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --



Marine Selective Catalytic Reduction Systems Market is slated to cross USD 5 billion by 2024, as reported in the latest study by Global Market Insights, Inc. Increasing levels of nitrogen emissions from maritime industry along with growing concerns over its adverse effects on human health and environment will drive the marine selective catalytic reduction (SCR) systems market growth . Rising concerns pertaining to NOx emissions coupled with stringent legislative norms is anticipated to encourage the product adoption.

China marine selective catalytic reduction system market size is predicted to expand over 3% by 2024. Increase in long international voyage coupled with rising inter-border trade, cross-border mergers, and tax inversions will encourage the product adoption. The China Ministry of Transport published new NOx control requirements on 3rd July 2018, that specifically imply to second hand imported & domestic diesel engine vessels.

Request for a sample of this research report @ https://www.gminsights.com/request-sample/detail/2942

Growing regulatory pressure on ship manufacturers to meet environmental norms coupled with monetary penalties will stimulate the marine selective catalytic reduction systems market growth. However, high installation cost and rise in clean fuel adoption may act as a constraint for the product demand.

Increasing ocean acidification along with rising legislative pressure with an aim to limit NOx emissions will fuel the Europe marine selective catalytic reduction system market growth. Ongoing R&D investments pertaining to product design and ability to reduce the cost pressure will strengthen the business outlook. In addition, the need for the big ships to report its annual emission data along with other information post 2018 will propel the product installation.

Commercial marine selective catalytic reduction systems market will grow over 2% by 2024. Growing standards with regard to system operation, inspection, and construction to maintain safe trade will stimulate the product adoption. Rising awareness to minimize maritime pollution coupled with ongoing R&D ventures with an aim to develop emission control technologies will positively impact the industry landscape.

Make an Inquiry for purchasing this report @ https://www.gminsights.com/inquiry-before-buying/2942

Rising disposable income, demographic shifts, and improved standard of living leading to growth in investments toward tourism industry will drive the Asia Pacific marine SCR system market size. In addition, increase in shipbuilding activities, most notably in China, Japan and South Korea is anticipated to encourage the regional industry growth. Ongoing investments to limit pollution by marine industry through establishing new ECA zones will further boost the product adoption.

Key manufacturers active in the marine selective catalytic reduction system market comprise Tenneco, Wartsila, YARA International, Hyundai, Mitsubishi, Johnson Matthey, PANASIA, Hitachi Zosen, MAN Energy Solutions, Agriemach, Hug Engineering, DCL International, Caterpillar, ECOUREA, ME Production, and DEC Marine amongst others.

Browse key industry insights spread across 446 pages with 657 market data tables & 22 figures & charts from the 2018 report Marine Selective Catalytic Reduction Systems Market in detail along with the table of contents:

https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/marine-selective-catalytic-reduction-systems-market





Browse Related Reports:

Stationary Catalytic Systems Market Size By Technology (Selective Catalytic Reduction, Catalytic Oxidation), By Application (Power Plants, Chemicals & Petrochemicals, Cement , Metal), Industry Analysis Report, Regional Outlook (U.S., Canada, Mexico, Germany, UK, France, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Australia, Saudi Arabia, UAE, South Africa, Nigeria, Angola, Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Chile, Peru), Price Trends, Growth Potential, Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2016  2024

https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/stationary-catalytic-systems-market

Marine Diesel Engines Market Size By Technology (Low Speed, Medium Speed, High Speed), By Application (Merchant [Container Vessels, Tankers, Bulk Carriers, Gas Carriers, Roll On/Roll Off], Offshore [Drilling Rigs And Ships, Anchor Handling Vessels, Offshore Research Vessels, Floating Production Units, Platform Supply Vessels], Cruise And Ferry [Cruise Vessels, Passenger Ferries, Cargo Ferries, Fast Ferries, Yachts], Navy), Industry Analysis Report, Regional Outlook (U.S., Canada, Germany, Italy, Norway, UK, France, Russia, Denmark, China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia, Vietnam, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Angola, Egypt, South Africa, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina) Application Potential, Price Trends, Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2017  2024

https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/marine-diesel-engine-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.VANCOUVER, B.C., Oct. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Sunniva Inc. (Sunniva or the Company) (CSE:SNN) (OTCQX:SNNVF), a North American provider of cannabis products and services, is pleased to announce that the Company has signed a non-arms length binding letter of intent dated October 16, 2018 with the Oakland Vision Project (Vision) to acquire all the issued and outstanding equity interests of the companies that comprise Vision (the LOI). Vision is co-owned by Vinayak Shastry, Sunnivas President of US Operations. Vision operates a licensed cultivation facility located in Irvine, California (the Vision Facility). Completion of the acquisition remains subject to a number of conditions including, among other things: the negotiation and execution of a definitive agreement between Sunniva and Vision, completion of due diligence and receipt of regulatory approvals, including approval of the Canadian Securities Exchange (CSE).



The Vision Facility is lead by a seasoned group of cultivation professionals who have experience in both small and large-scale operations. The cultivation team is currently producing some of the highest quality pesticide free cannabis flower in California. The acquisition will provide Sunniva with:

A proven cannabis cultivation team to manage Sunnivas production operations in California

Proof of concept of Sunnivas strategy focussed on full vertical integration across the entire value chain, from seed to sale

Current production capacity of ~1,600 lbs per year with development plans to scale production to ~8,000 lbs per year in 2019, with an estimated capital investment of $1.5 million and estimated production costs below $1.00 per gram

Clean clones for onboarding into the Sunniva California Campus

Library of more than 20 proven genetic strains with on-site genetics lab for the development of future strains

Premium flower and trim to launch high end Sunniva branded product lines

This acquisition will deliver full vertical integration in California that strategically enhances the value of the Sunniva brand. Production from this facility will allow Sunniva to launch its first premium-quality craft flower brand with the assurance of large-scale production from this facility and the large-scale 325,000 sqft purpose-built, high technology Sunniva California Campus greenhouse. The key to brand success in California will be the ability to produce high-quality pesticide-free products at a large-scale. This acquisition and our state-of-the-art cultivation and extraction facility positions us as a market leader in California, commented Leith Pedersen, President of Sunniva.

Sunniva has recently assembled a preeminent in-house marketing team that is developing a house of brands that will include high end extracts, flower, pre-rolls, vaporizer and vape cartridges along with a future beverage line. We are excited to immediately show proof of concept with this strategic acquisition demonstrating vertical integration from seed to sale and we anticipate the initial Sunniva house of brands to be launched commencing January 2019.

Total transaction consideration will be USD $1 million through the issue of common shares of Sunniva Inc. (Shares) upon closing and up to an additional USD $2 million through the issue of Shares based on the achievement of certain operational milestones by the end of 2019. The Company is not assuming any long-term debt of Vision as part of the transaction and there are no finders fees payable. The number of Shares issued will be based on a price per Share of $5.24, which is the volume weighted average trading price of the Shares on the CSE for the five (5) trading days prior to execution of the LOI.

About Sunniva Inc.

Sunniva, through its subsidiaries, is a vertically integrated cannabis company operating in the worlds two largest cannabis markets  Canada and California. Our ability to leverage our large-scale, purpose-built cGMP designed greenhouses, offering better quality assurance with cannabis products free from pesticides, uniquely positions Sunniva as a leading supplier of safe, high quality products at scale. Through our strategically positioned cultivation and extraction facilities, we are launching Sunniva branded products in various product categories including flower, pre-rolls, beverages, vape cartridges, extracts as well as aggressively pursuing upstream vertical opportunities including distribution and retail expansion. Sunniva's management and board of directors have a proven track record for creating significant shareholder value both in the healthcare and biotech industries.

About the Oakland Vision Project.

The Oakland Vision Project (Oakland Vision Project Leasing, LLC, Oakland Vision Project, Inc. and Vision Alchemy, LLC) have been in business since 2015 producing high-grade cannabis flower in California. Lead by a well-established cultivation team which has developed proprietary IP and standard operating cultivation procedures in order to maximize production yields while ensuring costs below $1.00 per gram. The Vision team have extensive knowledge, understanding and expertise operating a vertically integrated cannabis facility in California.

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.

This news release includes statements containing certain "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities law ("forward-looking statements"), including, but not limited to, statements with respect to the conditions of completing the acquisition, including negotiating and executing the definitive agreement, regulatory approvals, and future production estimates, timing and costs from the Vision Facility. Forward-looking statements are frequently characterized by words such as "plan", "continue", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate", "may", "will", "potential", "proposed" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur. These statements are only predictions. Various assumptions were used in drawing the conclusions or making the projections contained in the forward-looking statements throughout this news release. Forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates of management at the date the statements are made and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. The Company is under no obligation, and expressly disclaims any intention or obligation, to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as expressly required by applicable law.

Company Contact:

Dr. Anthony Holler

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Investor Contact:

Phil Carlson / Erika Kay

KCSA Strategic Communications

Phone: (212) 896-1233

Email: pcarlson@kcsa.com / ekay@kcsa.com

Media Contact:

Katelyn Tumino

KCSA Strategic Communications

Phone: (212) 896-1252

Email: ktumino@kcsa.comNew York, NY, Oct. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Berkeley Language Services LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkeley Educational Services of New York, Inc. (BES), on October 17, 2018, acquired Rennert International, a New York City-based international language school, teacher training center and translation services provider, for an undisclosed amount.

BES is the parent of Berkeley College, a family-owned institution with campuses in New York and New Jersey.

The venture allows Berkeley College and Rennert to scale our international offerings, combine resources and better serve students through a one-stop approach to language education and English as a Second Language (ESL) teaching and learning resources, said Kevin L. Luing, Chairman, Berkeley College, and Chairman, Berkeley Language Services.

Berkeley College has conducted business with Rennert for nearly three decades through Berkeleys international studies and certificate programs. The long-term relationship between Berkeley College and Rennert, combined with their longevity, quality reputation, and focus on student success, makes this a strong strategic fit for the future of both Berkeley and Rennert, Mr. Luing said.

He added that the move underscores his confidence in Rennert and in the future of international education in New York City, where Berkeley College is centrally located off of Fifth Avenue at East 41st and 43rd streets, within walking distance to the New York Public Library, Grand Central Terminal, Times Square and The Port Authority Bus Terminal.

Cesar Rennert, President of Rennert International, called Berkeley College a first-rate institution. Berkeleys history of excellence in experiential teaching and learning and putting students first, is complementary to Rennerts approach to serving clients. This is a win-win for both of our organizations, said Mr. Rennert, who founded Rennert International in 1973 after a teaching career at New York University, where he began to conceptualize the signature Rennert Experiential Approach to Language learning (R.E.A.L.) method.

Cynthia Marchese, Senior Vice President, International, Berkeley College, said the venture opens new opportunities for Berkeley College to expand its international enrollment and corporate executive offerings, while strengthening Rennerts position in language education.

The scope of offerings at Rennert encompasses English for international students and corporations, foreign language classes for domestic clients and businesses, teacher training, summer immersion programs for teens and college students, and translation, interpretation and localization services.

Rennert works with many respected educational partners, colleges and universities from around the world to implement a strong language pathway for students to access the colleges of their choosing. These services will not only continue but will expand alongside our partnership with Berkeley College, said Mr. Rennert.

Rennert will continue operating independently under its current management at its location at 211 East 43rd Street, New York. Plans are underway to open a Rennert learning and resource facility in April 2019 at the Berkeley College location at 12 East 41st Street in New York City. The purpose-designed building is also home to the New York campus of Fresenius University of Germany, another Berkeley College international education partner.

All of Rennerts offerings will be made available to Berkeley students and students from colleges and universities throughout the United States and around the world. Berkeley College students will benefit from having access to Rennerts ESL resources on-site and to outbound study abroad programs. Learning resources, extracurricular activities and special events at Berkeley College will also be available to Rennert students, immersing them in New York City culture and activities alongside American students.

Berkeley College is a world-class destination for higher education, with students from more than 50 countries contributing to the rich diversity of the College and benefitting from its 87-year history of applied learning.

Rennert employs an expansive team of language instructors, teacher trainers and support staff, and has an 80,000-plus member alumni network. In 2017, Rennert served more than 800 students. Courses span over 15 different languages, including Spanish, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Arabic, Korean, Japanese, Hebrew, Russian, Portuguese, Greek, Hindi, Polish, and Farsi.

Our vision is to offer students a world-class intercultural learning experience that removes the language barriers and makes experiential learning accessible to all students in the greatest city in the world, Ms. Marchese said.

About Berkeley College

A leader in providing career-focused education since 1931, Berkeley College is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education and enrolls more than 7,000 students  including more than 350 international students  in its Masters, Bachelors, and Associates degree and Certificate programs. Throughout 2018, Berkeley College also hosted more than 300 international exchange students in its inbound study abroad program. Students can study in more than 20 career fields. Berkeley College is comprised of the Larry L. Luing School of Business, the School of Professional Studies, the School of Health Studies and the School of Liberal Arts. The School of Graduate Studies offers an MBA in Management online and in Woodland Park, NJ.

Berkeley College has three New York campuses  Midtown Manhattan, Brooklyn and White Plains. In New Jersey there are four campuses  Newark, Paramus, Woodbridge and Woodland Park. Berkeley College Online serves a global population. For five consecutive years, U.S. News & World Report has named Berkeley College among the Best Colleges for Online Bachelors Programs and among the Best Online Bachelors Programs for Veterans. The website address is www.BerkeleyCollege.edu.

About Rennert International

Founded in 1973, Rennert International is a full-service language school, teacher-training center and translation services provider. Rennerts Mission is dedicated to enhancing the lives of its students by providing uniquely enriching language programs in English and foreign languages for academic, professional, cultural and social purposes. By promoting global awareness, workplace values, and professional development of its staff, Rennert fosters an inclusive, supportive environment, which encourages students, faculty and staff members to learn from each other. Rennert is committed to providing exceptional customer service through cultural sensitivity and respect for its community of students, faculty, staff members, and educational partners.

Rennert New York is certified as an ESL School by the Bureau of Proprietary School

Supervision, part of the New York State Education Department. The Rennert New York TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) Center is licensed as a career school by the Bureau of Proprietary School Supervision. Rennert is a founding member of the prestigious International Association of Language Centers and has been shortlisted for the 9th consecutive year for Study Travel Magazines Star Awards 2018 as one of the top 5 English schools in North America.

To view this press release in the Berkeley College News Room go to:

https://newsroom.berkeleycollege.edu/news/acquisition-of-rennert-international-sets-pathway-to-world-class-international-learning-hub-at-berkeley-college-new-york

To view the above photo as a high-resolution image go to:

https://berkeleycollege.edu/press_release_images/RennertGroup.jpg

AttachmentsAbdurRakib wrote:

The foundation works to strengthen local and regional agricultural markets and cooperating with governments, improving access for farmers for productive resources such as land and credit.



A) cooperating with governments, improving access for farmers for

B) cooperates with governments to improve access for farmers to

C) cooperate with governments for improvements of access for farmers to

D) cooperate with governments and improve accessibility for farmers for their

E) in cooperation with governments to improve access for farmers for



2017 New Question

The foundation works to strengthen local and regional agricultural markets and cooperates with governments to improve access for farmers to productive resources such as land and credit.





The foundation works to strengthen local and regional agricultural markets and cooperates with governments to improve access for farmers to productive resources such as land and credit.



The foundation works to strengthen local and regional agricultural markets and cooperates with governments to improve access for farmers to productive resources such as land and credit.





The foundation works to strengthen local and regional agricultural markets and cooperates with governments to improve access for farmers to productive resources such as land and credit.

(B) is correct , reasons highlighted below -_________________Official Solution:



After the new CEO took over the position, an automobile companys cars seat covers were changed to only silver and gold colours. Previously, the seats were displayed only in their heritage white seat covers. An acclaimed automobile journalist mentioned that the changes made by the automobile company are relevant again. However, many car magazine editorials, automobile journalists opponents, did not agree and pointed out that the new CEO is more interested in boosting sales than in maintaining cars heritage feature.



Which of the following is an assumption that has to be made for the argument made by the acclaimed automobile journalists opponents?



Choice A The change of covers motivates public to buy new cars but similar was the case when the car had heritage white covers, so it does not link CEO's intention to put profit over heritage features. There could be some other reason for the change. Hence option A is not a necessary assumption. Choice B Correct. Since the conclusion concerns the CEOs desires based on the content of the automobile companys cars seat covers, the editorials have to assume that the CEO is the one who decides what colour the seat cover has to be. If not, there is no connection between the seat cover colours and the CEOs interests. Choice C The argument is concerned with cars with seat covers of gold and silver colours. Information about cars with seat covers of other colours is irrelevant. Choice D The information that silver and gold coloured seat covers are featured in an expo is irrelevant. Choice E The rate at which the cars with silver and gold coloured seat covers are purchased is not necessary to be assumed for the conclusion to be true.

A. The shiny lustre of silver and gold coloured seat covers often attracts public attention as much as the heritage white cover did and motivates them to buy new cars.B. Final say in choosing the seat cover colours for the cars lies with the CEO.C. An automobile company can boost sales while highlighting the seat covers of grey and crimson colours.D. The silver and gold coloured seat covers are featured in the new international automobile expo.E. Automobile companys cars with silver and gold coloured seat covers are purchased at a rate more than three times greater than is the case with cars with heritage white seat covers.The argument presents the facts of a change in an automobile company's seat covers colours since the new CEO took control. While an automobile journalist somewhat supported the change, car magazine editorials disagreed and concluded that the CEO favoured profit over maintaining heritage a feature. The editorials are the opponents of the automobile journalist; since their conclusion is about the CEOs decision, there must be an assumption connecting the CEO to the seat covers.Answer: B_________________RALEIGH, N.C., Oct. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- A $2 million grant from the member-funded SECU Foundation will help revitalize the Southeast Raleigh community. SECU Foundation Board Chair Cynthia Jolly announced the grant and presented a ceremonial check to the Southeast Raleigh Promise organization during a special event held last week at the Raleigh Pathways Center. Ms. Jolly was joined by colleagues from State Employees Credit Union (SECU) and the Foundation, along with business leaders, educators, and many others to celebrate the SECU Foundation investment, which furthers the vision to build the 2nd Purpose Built Community in North Carolina.



The mission of Southeast Raleigh Promise is to end the cycle of intergenerational poverty within the neighborhoods that comprise the Rock Quarry Road Corridor in Raleigh. Plans for the new campus include a Wake County public elementary school, a YMCA, which is currently under construction, 120 units of affordable housing, and some commercial entities. The campus development is an initiative that encompasses all four of SECU Foundations core areas of focus  education, housing, healthcare, and human services. It further supports an earlier Foundation commitment in the area to SECU Advance Community Health, which provides health services to community members.

Once fully developed, the Southeast Raleigh Promise campus will become a vibrant, sustainable community that will have the capacity to address the dramatic health and societal needs of families, including education and careers, decreased poverty rates, and improved neighborhood safety, said Ms. Jolly. We are honored to take part in an initiative that has such a strong commitment from community leaders who share a common goal and vision  to enhance the quality of life for children, adults, and families in Southeast Raleigh.

Southeast Raleigh Promise is incredibly grateful for this investment from the SECU Foundation to help end the cycle of intergenerational poverty in Southeast Raleigh, remarked Kia Baker, Executive Director of Southeast Raleigh Promise. Because of SECU Foundations long-standing and dedicated service in our community, we look forward to working together to improve the lives of all residents within the Rock Quarry Road Corridor.

About SECU and the SECU Foundation

A not-for-profit financial cooperative owned by its members, SECU has been providing employees of the State of North Carolina and their families with consumer financial services for 81 years. The Credit Union also offers a diversified line of financial advisory services including retirement and education planning, tax preparation, insurance, trust and estate planning services, and investments through its partners and affiliated entities. SECU serves over 2.3 million members through 264 branch offices, nearly 1,100 ATMs, 24/7 Member Services via phone and a website, www.ncsecu.org. The SECU Foundation, a 501(c)(3) charitable organization funded by the contributions of SECU members, promotes local community development in North Carolina primarily through high impact projects in the areas of housing, education, healthcare and human services. Since 2004, SECU Foundation has made a collective financial commitment of more than $154 million for initiatives to benefit North Carolinians statewide.

Contact: Jama Campbell, Executive Director

Office: 919-839-5562 | secufoundation@ncsecu.org

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/1a34113c-4753-4d6b-905f-49e229b3cfc6AMITYVILLE, NY, Oct. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NEWMEDIAWIRE -- Iconic Brands, Inc. (OTC PINK: ICNB)



Iconic Brands Letter to Shareholders:

The Company is excited to provide shareholders with an update on all the progress we have made on a number of fronts in 2018.

We have been working diligently to increase distribution of our Bellissima product line both domestically and internationally. Since Labor Day we have announced new distribution agreements with (1) approximately 200 Vintage stores of the LCBO in Ontario Canada, (2) Wegmans Supermarkets which has over 100 stores in 6 States, and (3) a distributor that sells in Norway. We believe Canada and Wegmans provide opportunities that have only begun to surface and in the coming months management will be focused on vastly expanding those relationships.

The Company is enthusiastic about the enhanced distribution of brands by the Companys distribution partner, Romano Beverage, in the State of Illinois. The focus by Romano Beverage has resulted in not only an increased presence of Bellissima at Binnys but also the placement of Bella Sprizz Classic Aperitif and Elderflower. Romano Beverage has also added Garfields Warehouse stores in Illinois to our retail distributor partner list for both Bellissima and Bella Sprizz Aperitifs.

Management continues to work tirelessly on expanding the footprint of Bellissima and Bella Sprizz. The expansion has yielded placements with many new retail partners. The process of building a brand is painstaking and difficult. It requires strong management, patience and perseverance. The Companys sales team continues to gain shelf space. These efforts are starting to yield significant traction that all global brands strive for.

The Company is laser focused on expanding Bellissimas International presence. Management is in talks with a number of Global Distribution Partners.

On the corporate side the Company have made great progress. Since the beginning of the year the Company (1) engaged a PCAOB approved auditor that helped us to bring our financials current, (2) Hired David Allen as our Chief Financial Officer (Dave has been a CFO for public companies the past 20+ years) and (3) Retired all the toxic convertible debt that was on our balance sheet. These three milestones have put the Company in position to up-list off the Pink Sheets. Many shareholders have asked, Why does the Company need to consummate a reverse split so soon? There are several reasons as set forth below:

As a penny stock, it is very challenging to be taken seriously by: (a) institutional investors, (b) investment firms, (c) potential strategic partners and (d) retail brokers. A consistent objection is that it is nearly impossible to justify making an investment or collaboration with a pink sheet penny stock company. These potential investors/partners look for companies that are on solid financial footing and have a stock price that reflects a stable company. The need for a reverse split has been accelerated due to interest from a potential partner to enter into a significant licensing and distribution agreement. This potential opportunity with a well-known national brand also has an International presence. We are in discussions with the highest level of management and they have told us that they would like to see our capitalization table and share price more in line with its other public company partners in order to justify a major collaboration. This potential partnership is not related to our current product portfolio and management anticipates this partnership could be transformational for the Company and its shareholders. Investors from our financing want the Company off the pink sheets. The new investment group was instrumental in helping the Company negotiate the retirement of the toxic debt. The investment group has been an invaluable source of advice and strategic support. The Companys investors are investment bankers in one of the most successful groups in the small cap space. These individuals recognized the dislocation in the market place with the Companys stock price and its true value. They have been strong proponents of cleaning up the cap table to enable the Company to tap into additional sources of capital in the investment community. Two of the investors in our financing were former CEOs of major investment banks. We are thrilled with the caliber of long-term investors now in place and look forward to a very long relationship with all of them. The financing terms mandate that the Company up-list following the reverse split. Contemporaneously with the reverse split management will roll the remaining 49% ownership of Bellissima and BiVi into Iconic for all the Companys shareholders to benefit from the success of these brands. The culmination of all of these steps will result in the up-listing of our stock to a National Exchange.

The last step in the process of attracting long-term institutional shareholders is cleaning up and simplifying our current share structure. Management will be restructuring the outstanding Preferred D shares in the coming months. The cash covenant that would be taken by management upon a Brand sale is being eliminated as well. It is important for the shareholder base to understand that Management put these covenants in place when the company was Bellissima and BiVi centric. The Company is in the process of building an alcohol beverage business framed on the likes of the major names in the industry.

In addition, the Company will be lowering our authorized share count from 2 Billion to a more normalized, 200 million shares. Managements restructuring of their Series D shares and rolling the current brands into Iconic further demonstrates and affirms how confident management is about the future of the Company.

Shareholders can rest assured that the Company will no longer be able or willing to take on ANY variably priced instruments as investments in the Company.

The Company will soon comply with all these prerequisites putting the Company in a strong position for future success. These actions taken by the Company in 2018 are truly monumental steps for any small cap company and demonstrate how proactive the Company is in creating shareholder value.

Last but certainly not least is the recognition the Company would like to give to Christie Brinkley. Christie has been the ultimate partner for Bellissima and Bella Sprizz and she gives 1000 percent each and every day. Christie has traveled across the country building the Bellissima and Bella brands. This past weekend Christie traveled to Toronto Canada to officially launch Bellissima at the largest LCBO (Liquor Control Board of Ontario) store in Toronto.

The moment has arrived when all of Iconics management and the Companys shareholders come together and go shoulder to shoulder to work on unlocking tremendous value across the spectrum of revenue streams that will be added to the Company in the coming months. Bellissima has been our lead product, and now Bella Sprizz Aperitifs have added a second stream of revenue. Management is optimistic that by the end of Q2 2019 the Company will have realized the addition of several more significant assets that will grow our revenues exponentially.

As we embark on this exciting Iconic journey together I can definitely say I have never been more excited about the direction of the business. We are finally debt free, have cash in the bank and are expanding our management team. The Company continues to increase distribution for Bellissima and Bella Sprizz and our pipeline continues to grow. We are looking forward to providing updates in the near future on all of these exciting endeavors.

Sincerely,

Richard DeCicco,

CEO Iconic Brands Inc.

About Iconic Brands, Inc.

Iconic Brands Inc. ("Iconic") is a beverage company with the highest expertise of developing, from inception to completion, alcoholic beverages for itself and third parties. Iconic Brands markets and places products into national distribution through long standing industry relationships. Iconic is also a leader in "Celebrity Branding" of beverages, procuring superior and unique products from around the world and branding its products with internationally recognized celebrities. Currently offering Bivi Vodka, www.BiviVodka.comand Bellissima Prosecco, www.BellissimaProsecco.com.

Please visit our website and follow us on twitter @BellissimabyCB and on Instagram @BellissimaProsecco: View Christies appearance schedule which we will continue to update, and great new recipes; www.bellissimaprosecco.com

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release may contain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. These statements relate to future events or our future financial performance. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terminology including "could", "may", "will", "should", "expect", "plan", "anticipate", "believe", "estimate", "predict", "potential" and the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology. While these forward-looking statements, and any assumptions upon which they are based, are made in good faith and reflect our current judgment regarding the direction of our business, actual results will almost always vary, sometimes materially, from any estimates, predictions, projections, assumptions or other future performance suggested in this report. Except as required by applicable law, we do not intend to update any of the forward-looking statements so as to conform these statements to actual results. Investors should refer to the risks disclosed in the Company's reports filed from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission and available at www.sec.gov.



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Bowling Green, Ky., Oct. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Connected Nation is celebrating its 900th job placement through its Digital Works (DW) program. This one-of-a-kind job-creation program, launched in 2013, was developed specifically to meet the growing demand for online and digitally trained workers.

This is an extraordinary milestone for us, and we are very proud of the hard work and impact that it represents. Through the Digital Works program, weve been able to help people from all kinds of backgrounds and education levels find meaningful and exciting employment options in todays fast-growing digital economy, regardless of their geography, said Tom Ferree, Chairman & CEO, Connected Nation. These 900 job placements include single moms, veterans, military spouses, the physically challenged, the formerly incarcerated, and so many others from rural and urban settings alike. All of them seeking highly mobile or flexible jobs, or who just needed an opportunity to change and improve their lives.

Through the program, Connected Nation has provided job training and placement assistance in both rural and urban settings, including those hit hard by company closures or economic depression.

Digital Works has partnered with a network of more than 70 regional, national, and global employers that have an incredibly high demand for remote workers. The program delivers customized training so that students learn the in-demand skills that companies are searching for in todays modern workforce.

Remote jobs allow our graduates to apply and work at companies across the country without having to move, said Stu Johnson, VP of Digital Works. Digital and online jobs are the fastest-growing segments of the workforce. Yet there are not enough workers trained in customer service-specific skills employers are asking for in employees. Because of that, many of our graduates are able to be placed quickly and, often, move from entry-level positions to better-paying jobs as their careers progress.

Our 900th graduate to find a job is Wendy Dickens. She is a military spouse who has three children. Dickens took part in the first classes offered specifically for military spouses and veterans in Elizabethtown, which is near Fort Knox, Kentucky. She worked hard and landed a remote job even before finishing the four-week class.

Military spouses and veterans have unique needs when it comes to securing new jobs, said Tammy Spring, Operations Manager for Digital Works and the facilitator of the first classes in Elizabethtown. Veterans who have not necessarily worked in a civilian setting can still excel with the right kind of support and guidance. Military spouses are often moving and need positions that can move with them. For example, Wendy has moved 11 times during her 22-year marriage. Thats once every two years.

The program has graduates in seven states to-date: Ohio, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Texas, New Mexico, and Kansas. Not only are students given the skills to work in a digital position, but Connected Nations staff also provides long-term support for graduates who are dealing with the unique challenges and opportunities of digital jobs and telework.

Digital Works continues to evolve to meet the unique needs of each community. This includes a virtual program thats proven successful in Greensburg, Kansas, and a one-week, Digital Works boot camp scheduled to take place in December 2018 at the Gallia County Ohio Jobs and Families Services event.

Go to digitworksjobs.com to learn more about bringing Digital Works to your community today.

# # #

About Digital Works

Digital Works, a program of Connected Nation, connects people to leading-edge customer support and IT jobs for global corporations by providing training, mentorship, and job placement assistance, as well as the opportunity for advanced careers.

About Connected Nation

Connected Nations mission is to improve lives by providing innovative solutions that expand the access, adoption, and use of broadband (high-speed internet) and its related technologies to all people. We believe that everyone belongs in a Connected Nation. For more information, please visit: www.connectednation.org or follow Connected Nation on Facebook and Twitter

AttachmentsParent company Hip Lik Packaging was founded in 1969 and has grown into the global leader in printed plastic packaging



CHICAGO, Oct. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Pack Expo -- HLP Klearfold, the North American visual packaging company that is always calling on brand owners to Visualize, has reason to create a compelling picture of a half-century of success. Its parent company, Hip Lik Packaging, is officially celebrating its 50th anniversary. Founded in Hong Kong in 1969, the company now serves the world from a very large production facility in Southern China, which has the capacity to manufacture 1 million printed plastic cartons per day.

According to Steve Frazier, HLP Klearfolds U.S. President, Hip Lik is a privately held, second generation, family-owned business, and since the beginning, the company has had a singular, unwavering focus to be the worlds best producer of printed plastic packaging. And we are proud of the contribution that HLP Klearfold has made toward that goal.

The company shipped their first orders to North America in 1995, and established a direct sales presence in 2003. Rebranding as HLP Klearfold in 2010, it has since grown to become the largest seller of plastic folding cartons in North America.

As a global source, no other visual packaging producer has Hip Liks and HLP Klearfolds combined experience or scale. The company is the worlds largest plastic carton producer and serves four continents from its expansive, dedicated facility, which in 1996 became the first plastic carton production facility in China to be ISO:9001 certified. The company is also ISO:14001 (Standards for Environmental Management Systems), OHSAS: 18001 (Occupational Health and Safety Management System) and BRC and GMI certified, and a member of both Sedex and C-TPAT.

HLP Klearfold is especially proud of its advanced UV print reproduction, providing exceptional quality offset, silkscreen, and flexo printing for the highest fidelity printed graphics available on plastic folding cartons. To better manage quality and its material supply chain, the company produces most of its own box-grade substrates on its own custom extruders.

It is also the world leader in radio frequency (RF) scoring. Its proprietary Soft Crease RF creasing technology ensures more uniform score lines with less folding resistance, so that Klearfold cartons fold precisely, have clean lines, and maintain their crisp shape. Soft Crease scoring ensures efficient hand loading, and is the only, real choice for applications requiring automated filling.

Looking ahead to the next 50 years, HLP Klearfold is already exploring new innovations and market opportunities for plastic packaging. Last month, the company commercialized the first of its kind, certified, child-resistant cannabis package . HLP Klearfold also recently conducted an eye-tracking and qualitative research program at the CUshop Retail Laboratory at Clemson University. The studys participants expressed a strong belief that plastic cartons deliver higher value, higher product quality, and a more premium brand aesthetic than paperboard cartons. A white paper on the study will be available soon.

For more information, contact: HLP Klearfold, 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 808, New York, NY 10038, (888) 457-7225, www.hlpklearfold.com .

Photos accompanying this announcement are available at

http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/5fceb517-fbab-4ff4-bfe8-f559a2e62bce

http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/60f2f34b-018c-449f-b07f-241fdfb0a3db157 years ago, a Hoosier from Monroe County wrote about fighting for the Union in the Civil War in a diary he kept almost daily. Peter Thomas Matthews was 20 years old when he enlisted in the army and served as a drummer in the 19th Indiana Regimental Band.

Follow along as we publish his diary entries in real-time on the day they were written.

Read the first entry here. Learn more about Matthews and read all former and future entries here.

Editor's note: We have left Matthews' words as he recorded them, which means spelling and punctuation may not conform to modern standards.

October 17, 1861

Thursday nothing of Importance transpired up in this Date

Monday and Wednesday Battallion Drill to Day Skeleton Brigade Drill

Found Plenty of ripe Persimmons neare Arlington House here

I talked of going to mansions hill which is in sight of here and wich the Rebels left it was mounted with Stove Pipe wooden Guns and the gurf thrown up to look like great fortification

Our men are makeing a splendid fort of itIt commands a great Region of Country and why they vacated it of there own free will I cannot understand.

Probably they expected to ave another Bull Run affair on there side this time Gen McClellan says weve had our last defeat.

Check back for the next entry on October 18.Democrats havent won the race for Secretary of State since 1990. Jim Harper hopes to change that this year as he faces incumbent Republican Connie Lawson and Libertarian Mark Rutherford. Indiana Public Broadcastings Brandon Smith talks with Harper about the races key issues.

Brandon Smith: So, I think a topic  when it comes to the Secretary of States race  thats on a lot of peoples minds is the issue of election security. Should Hoosiers feel like Indianas elections are secure?

Jim Harper: What we do know is that our state leadership is not doing enough to ensure that our voting machines are secure in the state of Indiana. We know that our voting machines are vulnerable in this state and we know that Indiana  and the entire country  is a target. What Im concerned about is that we havent taken enough steps to make sure that were securing our voting machines this year.

Smith: So, what steps would you take?

Harper: Im a strong supporter of making sure that theres a voter verified paper trail  paper ballots, essentially  in every county. Indiana is one of only 13 states that does not require a voter verified paper trail. Most counties do not have them. I think we that need to enact them. I wish we had done it this year, but absolutely we need to do it for 2020.

Smith: And now thats something that Connie Lawson has talked about, which is the idea of she does want to move towards that. These recommendations came out from the national level about all these things that states should be doing, some of which Indiana has been doing, some of which  notably the paper ballots  it is not. But that also requires money so is Connie Lawson just in a bind for this particular cycle?

Harper: We could have had paper ballots this year. The reason that we do not is because Secretary Lawson did not show leadership on the issue. There are federal funds available that could have helped us this year change to paper machines in every county. Secretary Lawson decided not to use it for that purpose. And moreover, she also decided not to go to the legislature at any point in the last two years to request funding to make sure that we upgrade our machines.

Smith: Beyond election security, theres the issue of election reforms. Ill start with this, which is  is the Secretary of State the person who should be advocating for reforms like independent redistricting?

Harper: Yes. The Secretary of State is the chief elections officer so I think its critical that the person in that office show leadership on making sure our election system is more fair and more robust. You mentioned nonpartisan redistricting. There is no bigger threat to our democracy than extreme partisan gerrymandering. You cannot run fair elections with unfair districts and so its incumbent upon the Secretary of State to take leadership on that issue.

Smith: Beyond redistricting, which seems like the headline grabber when we talk about election reform, are there other reforms you think Indiana needs?

Harper: Absolutely. We need to work to improve Indianas voter turnout. Voter turnout has been historically very low in this state over the last several cycles. In 2014, we had the lowest voter turnout in the country; we were 51 out of 51. Im a strong supporter of longer voting hours  Indiana has some of the shortest voting hours in the country. I also think that we need to expand voting by mail. Voting by mail is secure; its also something that we know improves turnout.

Smith: On the issue of balance, Connie Lawson  when I posed that question  talked about a very recent example of the Democratic Party accidentally sent out faulty absentee ballot applications to a lot of voters. Connie Lawson was alerted to the problem, stepped up and said I want clerks to accept these. Isnt that a good case for the balance is already there because shes acting in a nonpartisan way?

Harper: So, I think its pretty clear that Secretary Lawson has done a lot of things that have made it harder for people to vote in this state and that have reduced our voter turnout. And initially Secretary Lawson was not saying that those forms should be accepted. Its pretty clear that the absentee ballot forms complied with the spirit of state law. Obviously, there were some issues with them and Im glad that everything got resolved. But initially Secretary Lawson wasnt pushing for those to be accepted. And there are other examples, like the voter purge last year. Secretary Lawson eliminated about 500,000 Hoosier voters from the voter rolls. A federal judge later came in and said that that was illegal, that that violated federal law. I dont think that that was an area of bipartisan compromise or consensus.Workers compensation rates in the state of Indiana will continue to decline in 2019. The state Department of Insurance announced the change Wednesday.

The Indiana Department of Insurance will decrease how much employers should pay in workers compensation by an average of 7.6 percent, beginning in January of 2019.

Commissioner Stephen Robertson approved the change. He says in a statement the decrease will create savings for Indiana businesses and provide support as they grow their companies.

The Department of Insurance says the rate decrease is part of a larger, ongoing trend in Indiana. Rates also dropped 9 percent in 2017, and nearly 13 percent in 2018.

In a press release, the department says the lower rates are made possible by a drop in the number of workplace injuries. And it says the growing labor force is creating a larger pool for premiums.

The department estimates that the reduction will save the states businesses $62.7 million. It goes into effect Jan. 1.Secretly sent from prison, Iranian political prisoner Hassan Sadeghi, who has spent many years in the Iranian regimes prisons, wrote an open letter from Irans Rajaie Shahr Prison, revealing details about the execution of political prisoners during 1980s. Sadeghi highlighted the widespread executions of Iranian opposition members

by the Iranian regime. He wrote:

We are approaching the World Day for the Abolition of the Death Penalty and the executions continue in Iran. The ruling mullahs have no scruples in resorting to the death penalty as a tool for repression because it is founded on pillars of executions, killing and criminality and from the very first day, it found his survival in this inhuman act.

The regime ironically has worn the execution of so many innocent people as a badge of honor. The execution of innocent children and juveniles like and Fatemeh Mesbah and Ezzati Mesbah at the ages of 13 and 15 will not be erased from the record of this regime.

I had two uncles, Haj Mohammad Mesbah and Ata Haj Mahmoudian. We were always together. Fatemeh, Ezzat-o-Sadat, Mahmoud, Asghar and I, were childhood playmates. Our toys were pens, papers and books. Our play was to read and write books like Little Black Fish, or the stories of Qoran, Imam Hussein and Imam Ali. Everyone should tell what he understood so that our fathers gave us scores.

We had never thought that one day what we had learnt from Imam Hussein and Imam Ali (two of the most revered Shiite leaders) would lead to imprisonment of Fatemeh, Ezzat and I, and eventually to the execution of 13-year-old Fatemeh, and 15-year-old Ezzat, even without trial. We had never thought that one day Ezzat-o-Sadat 15, and his brother, Mahmoud 18, would be executed without committing any crime.

The regimes crimes got to a point where it had to conceal them under the banner of supporting the children in Yemen. Can you tell what you have done to the Iranian children that you are now talking about killing children? What did you do with the youth like Mohammad Mesbah, Teymour Davar, Masoud Khastou and Ali Khademi so now you are talking about the killing of Palestinian youth? Of course, it is not surprising that if the hangman Pourmohammadi shamelessly says before camera that, we executed people and it was our right.

Who gave you the right to execute teenagers like 15-yer old Afshin or the youth like 20-year-old Mostafa Mosana?

I was taken to Ghezelhesar Prison in 1982. Later, I heard that Mahmoud Mesbah, whose leg was broken the time of the farewell, was executed shortly after my departure along with his brother Akbar Mesbah while holding their hands at the last moments.

Less than a year later I was transferred to Evin Prisons room 30 of Hall 6. Only five people had remained of 30. Ahmad, Jebreil, Teymour, Behrouz, where had they all gone?

I got my answer from a sob caught in their throat and their heads down. The regimes execution machine is still on after 40 years and continues to kill. Just a few weeks ago, they executed Zaniar and Loghman. No matter how many youths are murdered, the ruthless dictators never get satisfied. I hope one day the world makes any relations with the record holder of per capita executions, conditional on an end to the death penalty.

Hassan Sadeghi

Gohardasht Prison

October 2018This is part of the US larger policy of putting pressure on the Regime to radically alter its malign behaviours, including developing ballistic missiles, supporting terrorists, and abusing human rights.

According to the Treasury, the Bonyad Taavon Basij network shows how the IRGC and Irans military have increased their financial involvement in major industries and seemingly legitimate businesses in order to fund terrorism and other horrible activities.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement: This vast network provides financial infrastructure to the Basijs efforts to recruit, train and indoctrinate child soldiers who are coerced into combat under the IRGCs direction.

The international community must understand that business entanglements with the Bonyad Taavon Basij network and IRGC front companies have real-world humanitarian consequences. This helps fuel the Iranian regimes violent ambitions across the Middle East.

These sanctions ban Americans from doing business with the network or its affiliates and freeze any assets they have in the US.

The Donald Trump administration has been reimposing sanctions on Iran since May, when the US pulled out of the 2015 nuclear accord. This has had a grave impact on the Iranian economy, which was already destabalised by decades of corruption and mismanagement, and now the country is facing nationwide protests from its people.

The first round of nuclear-related sanctions was reimposed in August and the second set will be reimposed in November.

The sanctions announced this week are non-nuclear, targeting the business network of the Basij Force; a paramilitary unit run by the IRGC.

The Treasury said that the Basij Force brainwashes schoolchildren and provides combat training to 12-year-old Iranian and Afghan refugee children, whom they send to fight in Syria.

Iran has tried to downplay US sanctions, especially those targeting the countrys vital oil and gas sector, which will come into place on November 4.

But they have tried to avoid further international sanctions by voting to join the Combating the Financing of Terrorism (CFT), a global convention to cut off terror financing. However, given Irans long history of providing support to terrorist groups like the Lebanese Hezbollah and armed Palestinian groups, it seems unlikely that the Regime is committed to this in reality.They need to be removed blacklist in order to remain connected with the international banking system and continue to trade with Europe and China, something that is especially important after the hammering that the Iranian economy has taken from renewed US sanctions.

The US sanctions came into play after Donald Trump pulled out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in May, but Iran is still currently benefitting from trade with the European Union countries, Russia and China, who have stuck with the deal.

However, there is great debate among the warring factions in the Iranian Regime about whether they should be seen to comply with anti-terrorism efforts at all.

The Iranian government sent four pieces of legislation to parliament regarding banking transparency; including amending the countrys anti-money laundering/counter-terrorism financing law in accordance with FATF standards and joining the UN Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime and the International Convention for the Suppression of Financing of Terrorism.

Three laws were passed in Parliament and sent to the Guardian Council, appointed by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, for approval. The Guardian Council rejected the counter-terrorism financing law, citing that it did not comply with Irans Sharia law, while Khamenei also criticized it and urged the Parliament to work on other bills.

It is generally the factions that publically opposed the nuclear deal to begin with that oppose complying with FATF criteria, but to be clear, Irans decisions are all ultimately made by Khamenei, regardless of what others may say and the rest of the mullahs fall in line. Supposedly, Khamenei has given the FAFT bill a yellow light, as he did with the JCPOA, which gives him the power to claim the credit if it works out or distance himself if it doesnt.

FATFs Secretary of Executive Affairs David Lewis said that there was no guarantee that Iran would be removed from the blacklist, although countermeasures against Iran have been suspended since the JCPOA was reached. After all, the Iranian Regime and FAFT disagree on the funding of terrorist organizations  Iran is the worlds leading state sponsor of terrorism and currently proposed up terrorist groups across the Middle East.Global corporate lending platform Trade Ledger says it has warned the Australian Government of substantial weaknesses in its proposed Open Banking implementation plan, when compared to the global best-practice model.

Trade Ledger claims the Federal Governments open banking plans primarily include the lack of an independent implementation and governance organisation, and limited consumer and SME representation in the development of industry standards.

According to the Australian-based global fintech, these omissions risk a scaremongering campaign around data security that could stall progress and reduce the scope of the changes, leaving the door open for overseas financial markets to take over local markets when open banking arrives.

Open banking has the potential to revolutionise the Australian financial landscape  which is to say, the Australian economy as a whole, said Trade Ledger co-founder and chief executive Martin McCann.

Businesses and consumers could gain real-time control of their own financial information, allowing them to evaluate financial products from multiple lenders, and switch instantaneously to a better deal. Currently, only 2% of bank customers switch products, despite the fact [that] most could access a better deal.

Unlocking a veritable treasure trove of bank customer data and placing it in the hands of technology-driven fintechs could also bring forth all manner of new and exciting financial products and processes that could change the way we transact forever.

However, its my fear that we may not see this array of potential benefits by not learning from the best practices and mistakes of the UK, the only country to have already implemented open banking.

McCann said that in the UK, the banks were made to pay for implementation of open banking under law; this incentivised them to act rapidly and efficiently.

The UK also set up a range of trade and consumer lobby groups to balance the power of the incumbent institutions, and a governance body with unprecedented powers to compel all parties to work in the national interest.

So far, Australia does not have most of this in its implementation plans.

McCann pointed to the fact that Open Banking Review chairman Scott Farrell specifically recommended that Australia use the UK Open Banking technical specification as a starting point for developing Australias technical standards.

And, he said Prime Minister Scott Morrison also stated that Australia could become a global leader in open banking in his recent Australian Fintech Awards dinner speech.

This is a once-in-a-generation transformation on the global banking industry, driven by governments around the world legislating adoption of disruptive technology, McCann said.

However, given the fact that digital banking services dont observe national borders, the consequences of getting this wrong could be catastrophic for our local industry.

It could mean a shift away from a local-banks-versus-fintechs stand-off, and instead Australia might find itself competing against a whole hoard of unstoppable open banking entrants from overseas  an absolute tragedy for Australian financial services.PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Phoenix Management Services, a leading provider of operationally focused client solutions, served as the Chief Restructuring Officer to Hooper Holmes Inc. d/b/a Provant Health (Provant or the Company) providing leadership to the company in consummating the sale of its assets to Summit Health Inc. (Summit), a subsidiary of Quest Diagnostics (Quest). The sale was completed under Section 363 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.



Hooper Holmes, Inc. d/b/a Provant Health was a publicly traded corporation and recognized as a national leader in comprehensive workplace well-being and clinical research support services, with a growing global presence. Headquartered in Kansas with significant operations and systems support in Rhode Island, the company partners with employers and brokers to improve members whole-person health and productivity, and to support health care cost management.

Phoenix was engaged by the Board of Provant to complete a comprehensive review of the business, identify potential strategic alternatives, and ultimately to lead the Company during the bankruptcy proceeding, which ultimately resulted in the sale of the business. While many strategic alternatives and restructuring approaches were considered, ultimately the overleveraged condition of the balance sheet and substantial losses in 2017 necessitated the bankruptcy filing. James Fleet, Senior Managing Director and Shareholder of Phoenix, served as the Chief Restructuring Officer with the support of additional Phoenix professionals. While the proceeds from the sale were insufficient to satisfy the creditors, it did provide for the continuation of the business operations and preservation of hundreds of jobs, added Fleet.

About Phoenix:

For 30 years, Phoenix has provided smarter, operationally focused solutions for middle market companies in transition. Phoenix Management Services provides turnaround, crisis and interim management, specialized advisory for both distressed and growth-oriented companies. Phoenix Transaction Advisory Services provides quality of earnings, quality of operations, Quality of Enterprise, management/organizational reviews, business integration, sell-side business preparation and other transaction related support. Phoenix Capital Resources provides seamless investment banking solutions including M&A advisory, complex restructurings and capital placements. Phoenix Capital Resources is a U.S. registered broker-dealer and member of FINRA and SIPC. Proven. Results.MONTREAL, Oct. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- I-MED Pharma Inc., a Canadian company specializing in dry eye diagnosis and management, is pleased to announce the signing of an exclusive distribution agreement with Quidel Corporation, a leading provider of rapid diagnostic testing solutions, cellular-based virology assays and molecular diagnostic systems, for I-MED Pharmas I-LID N LASH  product line, the I-RELIEF  HOT & COLD THERAPY EYE MASK with THERMABEADSTM and the SMTube.



A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/caa51a71-d83f-4d0c-a3c3-b620eb911f37

Daniel Hofmann, President of I-MED Pharma stated, This is the start to a very promising partnership with a company that shares our drive and commitment to improving the ocular health of patients globally. We are confident that this alliance will lead to many further collaborations in the future.

Quidel provides InflammaDry and AdenoPlus Eye Health diagnostic assays, which are rapid, lateral-flow based, point-of-care (POC) products for the detection of infectious and inflammatory diseases and conditions of the eye. InflammaDry is Quidels diagnostic test that detects elevated levels of MMP-9, a key inflammatory marker for a condition known as Dry Eye Syndrome. AdenoPlus is a test on market today that differentiates between a viral and bacterial infection of acute conjunctivitis (pink eye). Both products utilize innovative patented technology, are CE marked, FDA-cleared, CLIA-waived, and complement Quidel's existing rapid diagnostic testing solutions.

"We are pleased to partner with I-MED Pharma in providing ocular patients and health care providers with test-and-treat solutions at the point of care," said Rick Graham, Senior Director, Business Development of Quidel Corporation. We look forward to growing the Eye Health business in the future through further I-MED Pharma product introductions, as well as added diagnostic testing opportunities."

About I-MED Pharma

I-MED Pharma Inc. is a privately held Canadian company, headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, servicing Canadian ophthalmologists, optometrists and the global eye care community. Established almost thirty years ago, I-MED Pharma creates and distributes innovative medical, surgical and veterinary eye care products worldwide. It continually researches, develops and sources the most effective and advanced solutions to eye disorders like cataracts, corneal degeneration, dry eye, glaucoma and meibomian gland dysfunction.

I-MED Pharma is proud to have been at the forefront of managing Dry Eye Syndrome as a serious disease and invests heavily into education and developing effective dry eye products. I-MED Pharmas ocular surface disease product range includes diagnostic tools, dry eye drops, ocular hygiene, nutrition and therapeutic accessories.

About Quidel

Quidel Corporation serves to enhance the health and well-being of people around the globe through the development of diagnostic solutions that can lead to improved patient outcomes and provide economic benefits to the healthcare system. For more information about Quidels comprehensive product portfolio, visit quidel.com.- Luis Manzano took to Twitter his frustration on why people are hating on his real mom for a fake Twitter account

- The 37-year old Kapamilya game show host himself replied to some posts against the fake account confirming that that is not his moms

- Governor Vilma Santos-Recto has yet to comment

PAY ATTENTION: Click "See First" under the "Following" tab to see

In a recent Twitter post, Luis Manzano himself informed the public that the Twitter handle @VilmaSRecto does not belong to Batangas Governor Vilma Santos-Recto. He is also requesting the public to report the questionable account.

Even to the point of retweeting directly to a post explaining that suspected Twitter profile is indeed not his moms still finds himself baffled by it.

What adds insult to injury is that even news outlets themselves are not aware of the scam.

Without getting into the actual posts, upon first glance, the Twitter account does look legit. Its just when you start reading the actual tweets is when it starts to get suspicious.

PAY ATTENTION: Using free basics app to access internet for free? Now you can read

Of course, why would Luis Manzano say that the Twitter handle he is trying to report is not his mom, right? After all, Vilma Santos-Recto is in a respectable spot as the Governor of Batangas and any negative press will definitely affect her image.

As much as possible, being the supportive son that he is, he will definitely report if his mom officially gets into something. Like the time she finally got back to Instagram.

POPULAR: Read more news about Luis Manzano! Read more

The Kapamilya game show host will definitely pull no stops to get the poser out of Twitter.

Luis started his showbiz career at the age of 21 but he has been a familiar name thanks to his parents Edu Manzano and Vilma Santos.

Upon professionally entering showbiz, the young Manzano changed his name from Lucky to Luis.

Luis is and has always been a part of Viva Artists Agency from 2005.

In a previous report by , Luis boasts of his moms new and official Instagram account.

Our friends from BeKami YouTube channel have recently done an unusual experiment. They made a reality show about a girl from the Philippines named Sam who is trying to lose weight by doing different exercises each week.

We think its fascinating and useful content for all those people who are fighting against extra weight!.- on

Source: Kami.com.phHELENA, Ala., Oct. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- International Expeditions, a pioneer in upscale experiential adventure, is offering travelers a $500 per person air credit on the December 21, 2018 Costa Rica to Panama Cruise. This new journey aboard the deluxe yacht Variety Voyager features stops in seven wildlife hotspots along the Pacific coast. Solo travelers can take advantage of cabins with no single supplement fees.



Alongside a field staff which includes two naturalists, travelers explore famed national parks, including Soberania, home to over 530 species of birds and 105 species of mammals, as well as the remote Darien, one of Central America's most ecologically diverse areas. Guests also slip beneath the waves to swim and snorkel in protected waters in the Pearl Islands and Restingue Island, exploring coral reefs, which are home to four species of sea turtles, rays and moray eels. Travelers also sample the regions ancient and modern history during excursions to an Embera village, Fort San Lorenzo and newly expanded Panama Canal.



"As a nut when it comes to the tropical rainforest, I loved that we spent so much time in the forest hiking, and the swimming and snorkeling was a great way to mix in beach time, said Anna Voeks, who traveled on International Expeditions Costa Rica to Panama pilot program in February 2018. The extent of wildlife that we saw was thrilling and the guides were beyond superlatives."



Pricing for the Costa Rica to Panama expedition cruise starts at $5,799, and includes pre- and post-cruise accommodations; all excursions; snorkeling equipment; all onboard meals and group meals ashore; all entrance fees; arrival and departure transfers; and some tips.



For more information on International Expeditions, please visit www.IEtravel.com or call 800-633-4734.



###

About International Expeditions

Celebrating 38 years of nature travel, International Expeditions specializes in small-ship voyages and escorted journeys to more than 20 countries worldwide. Hosted by knowledgeable local naturalists, International Expeditions travelers survey the habitats, cultures, cuisine and traditional lore of Earths most exhilarating destinations. A pioneer of environmentally responsible travel, IE is committed to preserving natural habitats and improving the welfare of the people and communities it visits.

AttachmentLAWRENCE, Kan.  Kansas rowing will be back in Lawrence for the first of two home regattas this season, as KU hosts the sixth annual Jayhawk Jamboree on Sunday, Oct. 21, at Burcham Park.



Kansas will welcome 11 teams and over 120 boats for the only regatta of the year held on the Kansas River, racing begins at 11 a.m.. Among those competing from around the Midwest are Kansas State, Oklahoma, Tulsa, Central Oklahoma and Iowa. Club teams, including KU Crew, Kansas State Crew, Wichita State, Creighton, Colorado Crew and UMKC will also be present.



The Jayhawks have already brought home two medals during the fall season and will look to capitalize off of that momentum against some of the best competition in the region. KU earned gold in the womens open 4+ and bronze in the womens collegiate 4+ at the Head of Oklahoma.



The Jayhawk Jamboree is a head race style where the boats will start about 10-15 seconds apart from one another and the boat with the fastest time wins the race.



While Kansas will be competing on the water, spectators can take advantage of all the Jayhawk Jamboree has to offer on the banks of the river. Fans can enjoy food trucks from local vendors, a fun zone for kids, live music, the Kansas Spirit Squad and more.



More info about parking, seating and pets can be found here.



UP NEXT

In its final regatta of the fall, Kansas will travel to Oklahoma for Tulsas Fall Regatta on Nov. 3.

FOLLOW

@KU_rowing

/KansasRowing

@KansasRowing

KUAthletics.com: The official online source for Kansas Athletics, Williams Education Fund contributions, tickets, merchandise, multimedia, photos and much, much more.English French



Inventiva announces two appointments to its management team ahead of future key development milestones

Marie-Paule Richard appointed as Chief Medical Officer and

David Nikodem as Vice President of US Operations

Daix (France), October 17, 2018 - Inventiva S.A. ("Inventiva" or the "Company"), a biopharmaceutical company developing innovative therapies in non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), systemic sclerosis (SSc) and mucopolysaccharidosis (MPS), announces today the appointment of Dr Marie-Paule Richard, M.D., as Chief Medical Officer (CMO) and Dr David Nikodem, Ph.D., as Vice President of US Operations in anticipation of the Company's next development milestones.

Dr Jean-Louis Abitbol, M.D., who has been Inventiva's CMO for the past three years and at the helm of the Company's medical development team, will retire at the end of April 2019. The arrival of Marie-Paule Richard as CMO today will ensure a smooth transition ahead of the coming key developments that are expected over the course of 2019 such as the presentation of top-line results from the Company's Phase IIb FASST (For A Systemic Sclerosis Treatment) trial in early 2019 and the results from the Phase IIa iMProveS (Improve MPS treatment) trial during the second-half of 2019. Dr Richard will bring to Inventiva her extensive experience in clinical development and regulatory strategy. Her successful experience in both filing and finalising approvals with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) will be a key asset for the Company given its anticipated interactions with these regulatory agencies.

Inventiva will also benefit from the appointment of David Nikodem who joined the Company as Vice President of US Operations in September. His deep industry knowledge and experience of the US markets from both a biopharmaceutical and financial perspective will be critical in reinforcing the Company's increasingly active presence in the United States. Dr Nikodem's international profile, experience and instrumental roles at Ally Bridge Group, Exane Asset Management and BNP Paribas amongst others will surely be valuable to the development of Inventiva.

To mark these movements, Frederic Cren, Chairman, CEO and cofounder of Inventiva, stated: "We look forward to welcoming Marie-Paule and David to the Inventiva team. Their international profiles combined with their healthcare and financial expertise will be critical in the achievement of new milestones, starting with the presentation of top-line results from the SSc trial in early 2019. Marie-Paule and David will also serve a crucial role in helping to reinforce our expanding presence abroad. My team and I would like to thank Jean-Louis for his continued commitment and dedication to Inventiva over the past years. He has indeed been an important pillar in Inventiva's development and we already wish him all the best for his retirement next year."

"I am very pleased to be joining Inventiva during this pivotal time," added Marie-Paule Richard. "I believe that Inventiva's differentiated programs have real potential to address unmet medical needs and I am excited to be a contributing factor to the many developments that lie ahead of us."

David Nikodem commented: "This is an exciting time for Inventiva, particularly given the coming development milestones that are to take place both in France and abroad. I am honoured to be joining the team and look forward to help bring novel therapies to patients on a global scale."

Biographies

Dr Marie-Paule Richard, M.D.

Marie-Paule Richard is a seasoned medical leader who brings a long and diverse international experience acquired in senior executive positions for leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. She is particularly accredited in the field of clinical development strategy and regulatory affairs, having driven several drug approvals and international license agreements in both Europe and the United States.

Prior to joining Inventiva, Marie-Paule Richard acted as CMO of the Belgian biotech firm Tigenix from 2014, which was recently acquired by Takeda. Before this, she was the CMO of AiCuris GmbH from 2010 to 2012 in Germany and held several international management positions at Bristol Myers Squibb, Aventis Pharma, GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi Pasteur. Marie-Paule Richard holds a medical degree from the University of Nancy in France, and a certification in Clinical Immunology among other qualifications.

Dr David Nikodem, Ph.D.

David Nikodem has a wide experience of over 15 years across all healthcare subsectors, as a portfolio manager, analyst and risk manager in both public equities and public investments listed in the United States, France and Hong Kong. He is based in the United States, in Washington, D.C.

Prior to joining Inventiva, David Nikodem founded Sapidus Partners LLC in 2014, a US-based consulting group, where he has acted as a senior consultant for Ally Bridge Group for the past four years, with a focus on the biopharmaceutical sector, and at which he will continue his efforts in parallel with his new role at Inventiva. Previously, he worked as a Portfolio Manager for Exane Asset Management in Paris (2010-2013), as a Director and Portfolio Manager for BNP Paribas in New York (2005-2009), and as a Senior Healthcare Analyst for Blumberg Capital Management in New York (2002-2005). David Nikodem has also previous experience as a Patent Examiner at the USPTO and as a basic science researcher at the National Institutes of Health. Dr Nikodem holds a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Georgetown University and a double B.A. in Chemistry and in English Language and Literature from the University of Virginia.

About Inventiva: www.inventivapharma.com

Inventiva is a biopharmaceutical company specialized in the development of product candidates interacting with nuclear receptors, transcription factors and epigenetic modulators. Inventiva's research engine has the potential to open up novel therapies against fibrotic diseases, cancers and orphan diseases with substantial unmet medical needs.

Lanifibranor, its lead product, is an anti-fibrotic treatment acting on the alpha, gamma and delta PPARs (peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors), which play key roles in controlling the fibrotic process. Its anti-fibrotic action targets two initial indications with substantial unmet medical need: NASH, a severe and increasingly prevalent liver disease already affecting over 30 million people in the United States, and systemic sclerosis, a disease with a very high mortality rate and for which there is no approved treatment to date.

Inventiva is also developing a second clinical program with odiparcil (IVA 336) for the treatment of patients with mucopolysaccaridosis type VI (or Maroteaux-Lamy syndrome), a rare and severe gene disease affecting children. Odiparcil has also the potential to address other MPS types, characterized by the accumulation of chondroitin or dermatan sulfate (MPS I or Hurler/Sheie syndrome, MPS II or Hunter syndrome, MPS IVa or Morquio syndrome and MPS VII or Sly syndrome). Inventiva is also developing a portfolio of early research projects in the field of oncology.

Inventiva benefits from partnerships with world-leading research entities such as the Institut Curie in the field of oncology. Two strategic partnerships have also been established with world-class major pharmaceutical companies, AbbVie and Boehringer Ingelheim, in the fields of autoimmune diseases (specifically in psoriasis) and fibrosis respectively. These partnerships provide milestone payments to Inventiva upon the achievement of pre-clinical, clinical, regulatory and commercial milestones, in addition to royalties on the products resulting from the partnerships.

Inventiva employs over 100 employees and owns R&D facilities near Dijon, acquired from the international pharmaceutical group Abbott. The Company owns, a proprietary chemical library of over 240,000 molecules as well as integrated biology, chemistry, ADME and pharmacology platforms.

ContactsManufactured housing industry members recognized at annual conference

NOVI, Mich., Oct. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Six members of the Michigan Manufactured Housing Association (MMHA) were presented with prestigious awards at the associations annual conference October 11, at Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi, Michigan.

The Best Model Home Staging award was given to HomeFirst/Brookside. HomeFirst/Brooksides entry showcased one of their brand-new model homes that is contemporary, trendy and truly comparable to a stick-built home.

The award for Best Community Event or Activity went to Highland Greens and M. Shapiro Management. Highland Greens organized a back to school raffle for all elementary-school-aged children within the community. They managed to make every child who entered a winner. Over 50 backpacks were given away, filled with school supplies.

Sun Communities of Western Michigan was awarded Best Member Sales Event or Activity. Sun Communities held open house events at six different communities in Western Michigan and promoted them using digital marketing. The result was over 9,000 clicks to their landing page, hundreds of in-person community visits, and multiple home sales.

Best Member Website award went to Preferred Homes. The new website for Preferred Homes is www.preferredmobilehomes.com and is an easy-to-navigate site filled with beautiful home photos, floor plans, homeowner testimonials and financing information.

The winner of the newly added category for Exceptional Customer Service was presented to Capitol Supply & Service. Capitol Supply & Service has generously donated the installation of equipment and materials to families in need living in manufactured housing communities. These special cases were brought to Capitols attention by community managers, school districts and news station agencies.

The only award given to an individual is for Best Community Manager. The 2018 winner was Kitty Cole of Sherwood Forest. Kitty Cole has been Community Manager of Sherwood Forest in Ionia, Mich., for the past three years. She is a lifetime Ionia resident, as well as former business owner, and an active Chamber of Commerce member.

The MMHA Member Awards program is designed to recognize the exceptional leadership, marketing and communications efforts of its members, and to enable members to display the award as a point of pride and accomplishment. For photos and more information about these exceptional manufactured housing industry members, please visit www.michhome.org .

Contact

Gretchen Monette

gmonette@allseasonscommunications.com

The Vietnamese dissident known as Mother Mushroom has arrived in the United States after her release from prison.

Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh, one of Vietnams most famous dissidents, landed in Houston, Texas late on Wednesday. Earlier in the day, she was released from a Vietnamese prison where she had been serving a 10-year sentence for anti-state propaganda. She was jailed in the northern province of Thanh Hoa.

Quynh was reunited with her two children on the flight from Vietnam. She told VOA, Although I was prepared to meet my family, I was still shocked when my son and daughter hugged me on the plane. We have been waiting for more than two years for this.

She added that Vietnamese officials had kept her from having any contact with her son and daughter until the last minute.

A small group of relatives and supporters greeted Quynh on her arrival in Houston after the 11-hour long flight. She told a cheering crowd, I will not be silent.

She added, "the reunion sends a message to those who have imprisoned me that I am not alone and the voice of freedom is never lost.

Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh is a blogger and environmental activist. She was among 13 women to receive an International Women of Courage Award last year from the U.S. State Department. President Donald Trumps wife, Melania, presented the awards at a ceremony in Washington.

Mother Mushroom was arrested for publishing what police described as anti-state reports on the internet. One message talked about civilians dying while under police control.

She was sentenced last year in a government campaign against dissidents. It began in 2016 when more conservative leaders gained top Communist party positions.

Quynh is the second dissident released this year. Vietnam freed human rights lawyer Nguyen Van Dai in June. He went to Germany.

Nicholas Bequelin is with the rights group Amnesty International. He says Vietnam is requiring dissidents to promise to leave the country in order to get out of prison.

"While Mother Mushroom is no longer imprisoned, the condition for her release was exile," he said. He added that more than 100 people remain in Vietnamese jails because they peacefully expressed their opinions, in public, on blogs and on social media.

I'm Dorothy Gundy.

Hai Do wrote this story for Learning English with additional material from Caty Waever and the Reuters news service. George Grow was the editor.

_______________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

greet - v. to meet (someone who has just arrived) with usually friendly and polite words and actions

reunion - n. an act of getting people together again after they have been apart

hug - v. to put your arms around someone as a way of showing love or friendship

blogger - n. someone who writes and posts regularly on a webpage called a blogA United States federal court in Boston, Massachusetts, is hearing a discrimination case against the oldest university in the country.

The nonprofit organization Students for Fair Admissions first took legal action against Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 2014. It says the school discriminates against Asian-Americans seeking admission.

The legal action accuses Harvard of holding Asian-American students to higher requirements than students of other races. It says the university uses racial balancing policies that unlawfully limit how many Asian American students it accepts.

The organization argues that race should not be considered when deciding which students to accept. The use of racial classifications and preferences is unfair, unnecessary, and unconstitutional, the group says on its website.

It accuses the school of discriminating against Asian-Americans seeking admission by giving them a personal rating.

Lawyers for Students for Fair Admissions said these ratings seek to measure personal qualities such as courage and likeability. Such qualities are measured subjectively, leaving the process open to discrimination, the lawyers argued.

The group says it has more than 20,000 members, including students, parents and others.

Harvard denies using discriminatory practices in its admissions process. The Ivy League school says it uses race as one of many things it considers in admissions decisions. It believes considering race can help create a mixed community where students from all walks of life can learn with and from each other.

Education and employment policies that consider race are known as affirmative action. Supporters say these policies can help make up for historic, widespread racial discrimination of minority groups. Critics have long argued that affirmative action is unfair to white people and Asian-Americans who outperform other groups on academic measures.

The U.S. Supreme Court has heard several cases about affirmative action in recent years.

The Supreme Courts most recent decision on the subject approved limited use of race in the admission process. That 2016 decision came from a lawsuit against the University of Texas that accused the school of discriminating against white students.

Harvard leaders have said the school only considers race in the way earlier Supreme Court cases have ruled is permitted.

The university has also noted that its share of Asian-Americans has grown in recent years, reaching 23 percent of the latest first year class.

Harvard reports that 15.2 percent of its most recent first year class is African-American. Hispanic or Latino students make up 12.3 percent, while 1.9 percent are Native American. That leaves a remaining group of mainly white students at under 50 percent.

President Donald Trumps administration supports the argument against Harvard.

In July, the Trump administration announced it was withdrawing government guidelines meant to increase student diversity at U.S. schools. The guidelines were developed during the presidency of Barack Obama. The guidance stated that schools could consider race in admissions decisions as long as the policies did not violate Supreme Court decisions.

The U.S. Justice Department said it was withdrawing the guidelines because it considered them unnecessary or outdated. Civil rights groups criticized the move and some university officials said they would continue their efforts toward mixed student populations as before.

Im Bryan Lynn.

Bryan Lynn wrote this story for VOA Learning English. Caty Weaver was the editor.

______________________________________________________________

Quiz - Harvard Accused of Discriminating Against Asian-Americans Start the Quiz to find out Start Quiz



_______________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

classification  n. the process of putting people or things into groups by their type, size, etc, or one of these groups

preference  n. the feeling of liking something or someone more than another person or thing

courage  n. the ability to do something without being afraid

subjective  adj. influenced by someone elses beliefs or feelings instead of facts

affirmative action  n. the practice of improving the educational and job opportunities of members of groups that have not been treated fairly in the past because of their race, sex, etc.The Russian Orthodox Church has announced plans to break ties with the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.

Russian orthodox officials acted after the Patriarchates recognition of a new Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which will be independent of the Russian church.

Orthodox Christianity has several leaders, or patriarchs, across the world unlike the Roman Catholic Church, which is led by the Pope.

However, the Patriarch of Constantinople is considered the first among equals in the leadership of Orthodox Christianity. Constantinople is the former name for Istanbul, Turkeys largest city.

Traditionally, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church has been led by the Patriarch of Moscow. But several issues have increased tensions between Ukrainian and Russian religious leaders.

Russias annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its continued support for separatists fighting Ukraines central government have led to a split between the two sides.

On October 11, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople officially recognized the new Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Ukraine as independent. While church members in Ukraine celebrated the move, the decision angered Russian church officials.

On Monday, Moscow Patriarch Kirill held a meeting, called a Holy Synod, with top church officials in Minsk, the capital of Belarus. Following the talks, the Russian Orthodox Church announced the split and what it would mean to worshipers.

Now, clergy from the Russian Church and the Constantinople Patriarchate will be barred from serving together. Worshipers of one church also may not take part in holy communion in the other church.

We cannot be in communication with this church, which is in schism, said a Russian Orthodox spokesman. He added that the Russian church hopes that common sense will prevail and that the Constantinople Patriarchate changes its mind.

The Ukrainian Patriarch blamed his Russian counterpart for the split, adding that his actions have pulled all of Orthodox Christianity into conflict.

The move affects millions of Orthodox Christians across Eastern Europe and Russia. An estimated 100 million of the worlds 260 million Orthodox Christians live in Russia.

Some consider the split the most important since Eastern and Western Christianity split more than 900 years ago.

Im Mario Ritter.

Max Jungreis wrote this story for VOA News. Mario Ritter adapted his story for Learning English and adding information from a report published by RFE/RL. George Grow was the editor.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

church  n. an organization of religious believers; a building used for Christian religious services

schism  n. a division among members of a group that occurs because they disagree on an issue

prevail  v. to defeat an opponent

communion  n. a ceremony where Christians remember the death of Jesus Christ

worshiper  n. someone who attends religious services

annexation  n. the act of taking control of something, such as part of a state or country

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments section, and visit our Facebook page.Startup Grind Google for Entrepreneurs organise, les 28 et 29 novembre a Casablanca, la 3eme edition de la conference Meet the Lead autour du theme Touch the future.

Startup Grind Innovation Conference se decline en un espace dechanges, de partage, de networking et dinspiration, avec la participation de plusieurs speakers venant dici et dailleurs. L'occasion de plonger dans le futur de la Banque, du digital, de la connectivite, du Healthcare, du travail et du divertissement a lere du Digital, de la Blockchain, de l'Intelligence artificielle, du Big Data et du Growth Hacking...English French

Paris, 17 October 2018 (6.00 p.m.)

HIGHCO STRENGTHENS ITS GROWTH IN Q3 (GROSS PROFIT UP 2.7% LFL) THANKS TO DIGITAL

LFL business growth of 2.7% in Q3

Q3 2018 1 gross profit of 21.19 M, up 10.6% on a reported basis and 2.7% LFL 2 .

9-month 2018 1 gross profit of 64.38 M, up 4.8% on a reported basis and 2.3% LFL 2 .

Strong growth in digital business: Q3 up 13.4% LFL, 9-month YTD up 7.9% LFL.

Continued robust growth in France: Q3 up 7.6% LFL, 9-month YTD up 5.9% LFL.

Decline in Belgium: Q3 down 11.6% LFL, 9-month YTD down 6.9% LFL.

2018 guidance confirmed

Gross Profit (in  M) 2018 2017 Reported 2017 LFL2 2018/2017

Reported change 2018/2017

LFL2 change Q1 20.73 20.38 20.38 +1.7% +1.7% Q2 22.47 21.90 21.90 +2.6% +2.6% Q31 21.19 19.16 20.62 +10.6% +2.7% 9-month total1 64.38 61.44 62.90 +4.8% +2.3%

1 Unaudited data.

2 Like for like: Based on a comparable scope (i.e. including Useradgents over three months in 2017 and 2018, as of 1 July) and at constant exchange rates (i.e. applying the average exchange rate over the period to data from the compared period).

3 Adjusted headline profit before interest and tax: Recurring operating income before restructuring costs and excluding the cost of performance share plans. Adjusted operating margin: Adjusted headline PBIT/Gross profit.

Cecile Collina-Hue, Chairman of the Management Board, stated: "With the strong growth in digital businesses and the integration of Useradgents, the Group posts growth in its gross profit of 10.6% on a reported basis and 2.7% like for like in Q3. Our solutions have been praised by the industry. Developed by drawing on artificial intelligence and UX, they attest to our innovative nature and confirm our strategy of focusing on data and mobile. This good performance has enabled HighCo to confirm its guidance for 2018."

STRONG GROWTH IN DIGITAL BUSINESSES

Driven by Digital in Q3 2018, the Group posted solid business growth, up 10.6% on a reported basis and 2.7% like for like to 21.19 M. For the first nine months of 2018, the Group's gross profit totalled 64.38 M, climbing 4.8% on a reported basis and 2.3% like for like.

With like-for-like growth of 13.4% in Q3 2018, Digital shows a strong performance. The share of Digital in total Group business also increased significantly, from 46.6% in Q3 2017 (50.4% including Useradgents) to 55.6%. Offline businesses showed a like-for-like decline of 8.1% over the quarter.

Over the first nine months of the year, digital businesses rose 7.9% on a like-for-like basis, accounting for 50.9% of the Group's gross profit at end-September 2018 (47.1% at end-September 2017, 48.3% including Useradgents). The rate of growth in Digital accelerated, especially for fully digital Drive to Store businesses and following the integration of Useradgents. Meanwhile, offline businesses declined 2.9% like for like over the same period.

Over the past few weeks, the Group's digital solutions have received praise within the industry on many occasions, namely:

- the Tourist Tracker artificial intelligence solution developed by CapitalData for Franprix and,

- the Boulanger and Franprix mobile applications designed by Useradgents and recognised for their UX (User eXperience).

CONTINUED ROBUST GROWTH IN FRANCE

Up 7.6% like for like, France turned in gross profit of 16.25 M in Q3 2018, representing 76.7% of the Group's gross profit. For the first nine months of 2018, gross profit totalled 47.74 M in France, climbing 5.9% like for like.

This growth is driven by the strong development of digital businesses, which grew 14.3% like for like in the quarter, reaching a 62.5% share in the gross profit for France. Over the first nine months of the year, digital businesses grew 9.5% on a like-for-like basis, representing 57.2% of the Group's total business. Meanwhile, offline businesses held up well with like-for-like growth of 1.5% over the same period, essentially driven by the event-related promotional campaigns launched for brands and retailers.

DECLINE IN BELGIUM

International gross profit slipped 10.5% like for like to 4.94 M in Q3 2018, i.e. 23.3% of the Group's gross profit. In Benelux, gross profit fell 11.6% like for like in Q3 2018 to 4.72 M. Amid a challenging market environment in Belgium, the 6.6% growth in digital businesses over the quarter, representing 30.1% of gross profit, did not offset the drop in the volume of paper coupons cleared and the decline in offline in-store media.

For the first nine months of 2018, international gross profit totalled 16.64 M, down 6.6% like for like. Benelux declined 6.9% like for like, now accounting for 24.6% of the Group's gross profit. After a good Q3, business in Southern Europe (Spain and Italy) remained stable over the period (down 0.3% like for like). The region accounts for 1.2% of the Group's gross profit.

AWARDED BY THE GAIA INDEX

At the ESG award ceremony based on the 2018 Gaia Rating standards, HighCo had the honour of winning second place in the category of companies with revenue of less than 150 M. The ESG rating agency of EthiFinance, Gaia Rating conducts an annual data collection campaign covering most of the listed SMEs in France. Based on the information gathered, the companies are rated for their extra-financial transparency and performance. This award recognises the Group's ongoing commitment to CSR.

2018 GUIDANCE CONFIRMED

Based on the strong performance reported since the beginning of the year and the integration of Useradgents, the Group has confirmed its guidance for 2018:

Growth in 2018 gross profit higher than growth in 2017 on a like-for-like basis (2017 gross profit: up 1.4% LFL);

Share of Digital in the Group's total business for 2018 higher than the share in 2017 (47.8% in 2017);

Rise in adjusted operating margin3 (2017 adjusted operating margin: 18.1%).

About HighCo

Since its creation, HighCo has placed innovation at the heart of its values, offering its clients - brands and retailers - Intelligent Marketing Solutions to influence shopper behaviour with the right deal, in the right place, at the right time and on the right channel.

Listed in compartment C of Euronext Paris, and eligible for the "long only" DSS, HighCo has more than 750 employees and since 2010 has been included in the Gaia Index, a selection of 70 responsible Small and Mid Caps.

Your contacts

Cecile Collina-Hue Cynthia Lerat

Chairman of the Management Board Press Relations

+33 1 77 75 65 06 +33 1 77 75 65 16

comfi@highco.com c.lerat@highco.com

Upcoming events

Publication takes place after market close .

Q4 and FY 2018 Gross Profit: Wednesday, 23 January 2019

HighCo is a component stock of the indices CAC Small (CACS), CAC Mid&Small (CACMS) and CAC All-Tradable (CACT).

ISIN: FR0000054231

Reuters: HIGH.PA

Bloomberg: HCO FP

For further financial information and press releases, go to www.highco.com.A cruise can be one of the most exciting vacations for people of all ages. To enjoy this type of getaway experience, some individuals may choose to join unique travel clubs that specialize in cruises. Instead of making reservations for individual cruises, members have the choice to select specific tours based on personal preference. A prepaid membership essentially grants members the right to reserve cabins on certain cruises that are not available to other people.

Holiday-style cruise companies essentially team up with some of the largest cruise operators in the world. This partnership leads to major discounts and more flexible reservation options for members. Additionally, there are dozens of possible destinations to explore from a specific menu that is only available to those that hold memberships in holiday cruise companies.

The Caribbean region can be explored for relatively affordable rates. U.S. tourists can truly get their moneys worth by boarding a cruise line and navigating the Caribbean Sea for more than a week. Some of the most popular destinations in this region of the world include US Virgin Islands, Turks and Caicos, Bahamas, and Puerto Rico. Certain Caribbean cruises may even stop at Floridas Key West islands.

Sometimes, the cruise trips may involve multiple stops, which allows passengers to explore multiple islands in a period of only a few days. Tourists usually explore beautiful beaches, coral reefs and colorful carnivals along the Caribbean islands. Scuba diving is definitely one of the most popular activities for cruise line passengers that get the chance to explore the Caribbean region. Extended trips to southern Caribbean destinations like Aruba and Barbados may also be offered.

European cruise tours are also available to allow passengers the chance to explore historic cities and rich culture. For example, a Baltic Sea cruise may include stops in major cities like Oslo, Berlin, Helsinki, Stockholm and St. Petersburg. Such a tour is quite a contrast to the warm and tropical atmosphere in the Caribbean Sea. Passengers boarding Baltic Sea cruises should dress in multiple layers even during the summer and spring seasons. Tourists usually get the chance to get off the cruise ship and explore each city on a guided tour that lasts for a day. At the same time, passengers have the opportunity to view up-close some of the major ports of Northern Europe and Russia. Many cruise line operators offer trips to dozens of worldwide destinations.

US passengers that would like to experience North Americas beautiful landscapes may opt for cruises to Alaska. Tourists may have the chance to stop at Glacier Bay, Skagway, Ketchikan and Juneau. Alaska cruises invite passengers to enjoy pristine sights that include some of Americas most beautiful forests, glaciers, rivers and bays. Additionally, a stop in Vancouver is an ideal finish to a cruise in the Pacific Northwest region of America.

Cruise passengers may explore British Columbias largest city and enjoy cultural attractions, fine dining, shopping and much more. Sometimes, Alaska cruise line itineraries may include stops in Seattle, Washington. Tourists embarking on cruise trips to Alaska should dress warm even during the summer time. Temperatures in this region may dip below freezing on any given day. Additionally, sunglasses should be worn whenever looking at the icy landscapes.

Photo Credit: quinetChinese electronics company Hisense is getting ready to launch a new smartphone with two screens: a full color display on the front and a black and white E Ink screen on the back.

There arent many details about the upcoming smartphone, which should be formally announced next week. But the company has posted an image showing both sides of the device to social networking site Weibo.

This wouldnt exactly be the first device of its type. Yota Devices has released a few color + E Ink phones over the past few years, and in 2016 Hisense launched its own version called the Hisense A2. In fact, you can still pick one up for about $230 if you dont mind the dated specs.

More recently the company launched the Hisense A6, a phone with a 6 inch screen color screen on the front, a 5.6 inch E Ink screen on the back, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 processor, 6GB of RAM, and 128GB of storage. Its up for pre-order in China from JD.com for  3999 (about $580).

The new phone looks a lot like the Hisense A6 on the back. The camera and screen layout seem to be nearly identical.

But the front of the new phone features a notch in the top of the display, which either gives you more screen space or less, depending on how you think about notches.

Theres no word on whether the new phone will feature any other changes. But its interesting to see that dual screen phones continue to be a thing at least in China.

Share this article: Share this: Facebook

Twitter

Reddit

Pocket

Tumblr

Pinterest

LinkedIn

Email

The prices for flagship smartphones have been creeping upward in recent years, with a number of new phones selling for $1,000 or more. And then theres the Xiaomi Pocophone F1.

It has the same Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor as most of this years high-end Andorid phones, slim bezels, a big display (and a notch), and plenty of RAM and storage.

But when Xiaomi launched the phone this summer, the company promised a starting price of about $300 in China. Its also available in a number of other markets for prices ranging from about $300 to $380.

Now you can also buy one in the United States. B&H is taking pre-orders for $370. But unless youre looking for a 6.2 inch Android tablet, you probably shouldnt buy it.

Thats because this is the global version of the Pocophone F1. Its sold as an unlocked device with very limited support for US wireless carriers.

Theres no support at all for Verizon or Sprint. AT&T customers can use it as a 3G phone, and T-Mobile customers may be able to get some 3G coverage, but are more likely to get reliable reception on 2G assuming you live in an area where T-Mobile still supports 2G.

Xiaomi currently has no plans to make a version of the Pocophone that supports US networks. So this is about as good as it gets right now. Its unusual to see B&H selling the phone  usually this is the sort of device that finds its way to stores like Banggood, Geekbuying, and Gearbest which import Chinese gadgets to the US.

But $370 actually isnt a bad price for this phone even if you dont plan to use it to make phone calls. Its also nice to know that you could pop in a SIM card if you plan to use it while traveling to a country where you would have better network support.

What you get for the money is effectively a pocket-sized tablet with a 6.2 inch, 2246 x 1080 pixel display, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor, 6GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, a microSDXC card reader, a headphone jack, and a USB 2.0 Type-C port.

There s a 20MP camera on the front and a dual rear camera system with a 12MP primary camera and a 5MP monochrome camera. Theres also a fingerprint reader below the cameras.

The Pocophone F1 has a 4,000 mAh battery, Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0 support, and the phone measures about 6.1 x 3 x 0.3 and weighs about 6.4 ounces.

via GizmoChina

Share this article: Share this: Facebook

Twitter

Reddit

Pocket

Tumblr

Pinterest

LinkedIn

Email

DENVER, Oct. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- CoBank, a cooperative bank serving agribusinesses, rural infrastructure providers and Farm Credit associations throughout the United States today announced a multi-year sponsorship of the National FFA Organizations Living to Serve Platform.

The FFAs mission is to make a positive difference in the lives of students by developing their potential for leadership, personal growth and career success through agricultural education. A commitment to service has always been a core tenet of FFA and the Living to Serve platform supports that commitment by expanding engagement opportunities for FFA members at local, state and national levels.

Through Living to Serve, FFA chapters throughout the country are able to seek funding for a variety of service-learning projects through a competitive grant application process. CoBanks three-year, $450,000 grant will support the continued expansion of this popular program, increasing the number of grants to FFA chapters seeking to address issues of:

Hunger, health and nutrition

Community engagement

Community safety

Environmental responsibility

CoBank and FFA share a strong commitment to service and support for our nations rural communities, said Thomas Halverson, CoBanks president and chief executive officer. Living to Serve is a tangible demonstration of that support. Through our sponsorship of this national program we hope to enable more FFA members to live that commitment every day and to make a difference in the communities they call home.

The last line of the FFA motto, Living to Serve, signifies the vital role that service plays in our organization, said Michele Sullivan, Senior Team Leader of Local Engagement, National FFA Organization. The Living to Serve platform allows us to take that motto and turn it into action, empowering every student in every classroom to make a positive impact in their community. But, we couldnt do this without the financial support of generous sponsors like CoBank.

In addition to Living to Serve projects at the state level, CoBank is a proud sponsor of National FFA Days of Service, which are part of the organizations upcoming national convention. From Oct. 24, FFA members will participate in a variety of service projects that will put their leadership into action, creating a positive impact throughout the city.

As well as its support of Living to Serve, CoBank also supports FFA through its contributions to Farm Credits community engagement programs. Farm Credit is an active supporter of FFA programs that are working to develop the next generation of farmers, ranchers and Farm Credit leaders.

About CoBank

CoBank is a $131 billion cooperative bank serving vital industries across rural America. The bank provides loans, leases, export financing and other financial services to agribusinesses and rural power, water and communications providers in all 50 states. The bank also provides wholesale loans and other financial services to affiliated Farm Credit associations serving more than 70,000 farmers, ranchers and other rural borrowers in 23 states around the country.

CoBank is a member of the Farm Credit System, a nationwide network of banks and retail lending associations chartered to support the borrowing needs of U.S. agriculture, rural infrastructure and rural communities. Headquartered outside Denver, Colorado, CoBank serves customers from regional banking centers across the U.S. and also maintains an international representative office in Singapore.

For more information about CoBank, visit the bank's website at cobank.com.

About National FFA Organization

The National FFA Organization is a national youth organization of 669,989 student members as part of 8,630 local FFA chapters in all 50 states, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The organization is supported by 459,514 alumni members in 2,236 local FFA Alumni chapters throughout the U.S. The FFA mission is to make a positive difference in the lives of students by developing their potential for premier leadership, personal growth and career success through agricultural education. The National FFA Organization operates under a federal charter granted by the 81st United States Congress and it is an integral part of public instruction in agriculture. The U.S. Department of Education provides leadership and helps set direction for FFA as a service to state and local agricultural education programs. For more, visit the National FFA Organization online at FFA.org and on Facebook, Twitter and the official National FFA Organization blog.Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Flash drought is a rapidly intensifying water deficit process accompanied by high temperatures in a short period of time. Recently, heat extremes have become more frequent in a warming climate, and have substantially increased the occurrence of flash drought, which threatens crop yields and water supply.

Dr. Linying Wang and Professor Xing Yuan, from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, used in-situ observations and reanalysis datasets to explore the long-term variability and trends of two types of flash drought. Their findings are published in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences.

Type I flash drought is high-temperature driven, combined with increased evapotranspiration (ET) and decreased soil moisture, while type II flash drought is initialized by a lack of rainfall and combined with decreased ET and warmer temperatures.

They found that both types of flash drought have increased significantly in the past 30 years, but with a two-fold greater increase for Type I compared with Type II.

They further examined the spatial distribution characteristics of flash drought under two different physical mechanisms and the connection with seasonal drought, and uncovered some interesting findings.

As explained by Dr. Linying Wang, "The anticyclonic circulation patterns can provide favorable conditions for both types of flash drought. But, as the local climate, vegetation and soil moisture conditions are quite different, the spatial distributions of the two types of flash drought are different as well. In humid and semi-humid regions, where the moisture supply is sufficient, ET is mainly restricted by available energy, so high temperatures can elevate the ET quickly, which explains why Type I flash drought occurs preferentially over humid and semi-humid regions, such as southern China."

"Composite analysis showed that anomalously high temperatures one pentad before the onset of flash drought leads to a rapid increase in ET and reduced soil moisture. For flash drought associated with seasonal drought, there is a greater likelihood of occurrence during the onset phase of seasonal drought over southern China. In northern China, meanwhile, due to the limited terrestrial moisture supply, ET decreases with the decrease in soil moisture, resulting in Type II flash drought. Also, they are more common in both the onset and recovery phases of seasonal drought", she added.

Professor Xing Yuan further explains that the perfect conditions for flash drought are during dry/wet transition periods, which may provide a basis for the early warning of flash drought by connecting multiscale drought phenomena.

Explore further Multimodel ensemble prediction of summer droughts over the Yellow River Basin

More information: Linying Wang et al, Two Types of Flash Drought and Their Connections with Seasonal Drought, Advances in Atmospheric Sciences (2018). Linying Wang et al, Two Types of Flash Drought and Their Connections with Seasonal Drought,(2018). DOI: 10.1007/s00376-018-8047-0Australia has raised the prospect of following the United States by relocating its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in a policy shift that critics described yesterday as a desperate grab for domestic political gain to win a crucial by- election.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the idea was suggested to him by a former ambassador to Israel, Dave Sharma, who is a candidate for the ruling conservative Liberal Party in a by- election Saturday in a Sydney electorate with a large Jewish population.

At stake is the governments single-seat majority in the House of Representatives and Morrisons ability to retain power without doing deals with independent lawmakers.

Any political gain could come at the cost of strained ties with Muslim-majority countries including neighboring Indonesia, whose foreign minister expressed strong concern.

In May, the Trump administration turned its back on decades of U.S. policy by recognizing Jerusalem as Israels capital and moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv. The decision angered the Muslim world and was a setback for Palestinian aspirations for statehood. Palestinians see East Jerusalem as their future capital under the two-state framework for ending the conflict between Israel and Palestine.

Morrison said Australia remained committed to finding a two- state solution.

When sensible suggestions are put forward that are consistent with your policy positioning and in this case pursuing a two-state solution, Australia should be open-minded to this and I am open-minded to this and our government is open-minded to this, Morrison told reporters.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had recently spoken to Morrison and welcomed the Australian policy shift.

Morrison informed me that he is considering officially recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel & moving the Australian embassy to Jerusalem. Im very thankful to him for this, Netanyahu tweeted. We will continue to strengthen ties.

In Indonesias capital, Jakarta, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki, who was attending solidarity events in the country, said Morrisons statement was very sad news that would violate U.N. Security Council resolutions.

Australia, by doing so, is risking trade and business relations with the rest of the world, particularly the Arab world and Muslim countries, he said at a joint news conference with Indonesias foreign minister. I hope Australia would reconsider that position before taking action.

Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported that an unnamed Indonesian official had said Jakarta had been taken by surprise by the announcement, which could harm trade negotiations between the two countries.

When Morrison became prime minister in August, he made his first overseas trip to Indonesia, the worlds largest Muslim-majority nation and an ardent supporter of the Palestinian cause.

Morrison and Indonesian President Joko Jokowi Widodo plan to sign an agreement this year aimed at boosting trade and investment.

Morrison told Parliament that he had briefed Jokowi overnight about the announcement.

Ive been pleased to be able to explain very clearly the nature of the announcements that Ive made today and Ive been very pleased with the response that Ive received from President Joko Widodo, Morrison said.

But statements from Indonesian officials made it clear Widodo and his government were disappointed by the Australian stance.

Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said the government questions the merits of Morrisons announcement and has conveyed its strong concern.

Indonesia has asked Australia and other countries to continue to support the Palestinian-Israeli peace process in accordance with the principles agreed upon and not take steps that could threaten the peace process itself, and threaten the stability of world peace, she said.

Bey Machmudin, an official at the presidential palace, said Jokowi was not making his own statement on the issue as his foreign minister had clearly expressed the governments view.

Morrison also announced that Australia would vote against a United Nations resolution this week to recognize the Palestinian Authority as the chair of the Group of 77 developing countries and would review the 3-year-old Iran nuclear deal.

The opposition center-left Labor Party said the announcement was a desperate attempt to win the by-election in the Wentworth electorate.

The people of Wentworth, and all Australians, deserve a leader who puts the national interest ahead of his self-interest, and governs in the best long-term interest of the nation, Labor lawmaker Penny Wong said.

Labor reminded the government that Frances Adamson, the head of Australias foreign department, said in June that the U.S. move had not been helpful for the Middle East peace process.

George Browning, president of the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network, accused the government of aligning itself with the most erratic, reactionary and bullish U.S. foreign policy ever.

This is an irresponsible policy that compromises the future of millions of people in the Middle East for a handful of votes in Wentworth, Browning said in a statement.

Morrison denied that the United States or the by-election had influenced his announcement.Rod McGuirk, Canberra, APThe exhibition Macau: A Gateway to the Cultural Interaction between China and the West, Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Rare Collections Exhibition is being held on the fifth floor of the University of Macaus (UM) Wu Yee Sun Library. Old documents on local studies collected from Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau are on display and highlight the citys important role in the cultural exchange between the East and West from the 16th century to the 19th century, UM states. The exhibits are divided into seven categories: A Pictorial View of Macau, China in the Eyes of Foreigners, the Society of Jesus, the Translated Works, Trade and International Relations, Early Periodicals of Macau and the Life of Early Macau. The exhibition is jointly organized by the libraries of Sun Yat-sen University, Hong Kong Baptist University, the Macau University of Science and Technology and UM, as well as the Macau Public Library, the Archives of Macau, and Macau Museum.

Four injured in bridge car crash

Five cars were involved in a collision at the Ponte de Amizade yesterday morning at 7 a.m. resulting in four minor injuries. Two men and two women sustained injuries to their heads, waists, and chests. On the same bridge, another car accident took place at 7:20 a.m. Following the abovementioned accident, further car crashes were reported. These involved tourism buses, motorbikes and taxis. The only injured victim was a motorbike rider. The injured were sent to the Kiang Wu Hospital for medical treatment.

IAM to have 180 workers in total

The Municipal Affairs Bureau (IAM) will have a total of 180 workers, including management positions, according to a dispatch published in the Official Gazette. The figure represents 14 more employees than those at the Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau (IACM). The bureau will comprise one chairman and two vice-chairmen. It will continue to be run by a board of directors, but will be divided into 12 departments (one more than IACM) and 36 divisions (three more than IACM). IAM will officially come into operation on January 1, 2019.

Agreement to bolster rough-diamond trade regulation

Macau signed an agreement this week with the General Administration of Customs of China regarding the implementation in Macau of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme. The Secretary for Economy and Finance, Lionel Leong, who was in Beijing, said local application of the Certification Scheme  which seeks to regulate the international trade in rough diamonds  would advance Macaus high-value-added commodities sector and bolster the citys efforts to diversify its economy. The Kimberley Process Certification Scheme, an international certification scheme that regulates trade in rough diamonds, came into force in 2003, when participating countries started to implement its rules to prevent the flow of conflict diamonds and protect the legitimate trade in rough diamonds.

Contact information modification service extended

The Identification Services Bureau (DSI) is cooperating with the Marine and Water Bureau (DSAMA) to extend the coverage of contact information modification services. As of yesterday, residents are able to update their address and contact information at various government departments at one time, covering the Marine and Water Bureau, the Social Security Fund and the Pension Fund. The service can be conducted at integrated self-service kiosks. Once applicants update the contact information associated with their resident identity card record and authorize the DSI to transfer relevant data, the new contact will be provided to the DSAMA for the use of updating the information related to maritime registration for ships, seaman registrations and leisure boat driver licenses.

45 telecommunication interception requests recorded

The Court of First Instance received a total of 45 communication interception requests in the first nine months of the year, according to a report by Chinese-language newspaper Macao Daily News (Ou Mun Yat Po). The court did not reveal, however, the number of approved requests, on the grounds of judicial confidentiality. Meanwhile, the court also stated that in 2015, 2016 and 2017, it received 104, 118 and 71 communication interception requests, respectively. According to the court, the presiding judge will handle each file and either issue an approval or a refusal. The court office does not possess any records or information concerning the details of the request, nor of the judges decision.

One corpse found at Kun Iam Statue

A male corpse was found at the Kun Iam Statue on Monday morning. Based on a preliminary investigation, the Judiciary Police (PJ) believes that the mans death is not related to criminal activities. The late man, surnamed Li, was a mainland resident aged around 50 years old. No note was found on him. According to the PJ-led investigation, the corpse was spotted at 7:15 a.m. on Monday. After the Fire Services Bureaus check-up, the mans death was confirmed. The man had sustained injuries on his body. The PJ believes that the wounds were caused by a boats running propellers while the corpse was floating on the water.SEATTLE, Oct. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via OTC PR WIRE -- SinglePoint Inc. (OTC:SING) is excited to announce a successful first week of sales of the newly listed product Lalpina CBD Water . SingleSeed has already received 25 orders for the 12 pack cases of water in the first week. The water has been a nice success so far and has drove sales of other products listed on SingleSeed as well. SingleSeed supplies multiple different hemp-based CBD products. The company is in a perfect position to continue adding relationships for additional distribution of products.



According to the Hemp Business Journal the CBD market is projected to grow to $2.1 Billion by 2021. SingleSeed plans to capitalize on this growth through distributing CBD products to a wide range of customers both online through the ecommerce store as well as to physical locations. SingleSeed currently has two of its own products but plans to continue growing its distribution footprint of products manufactured outside companies.

SinglePoint recently signed a distribution agreement with the manufactures of Lalpina CBD Water, American Premium Water Corporation (OTC:HIPH). We are thrilled at this first week of sales results, it has blown away our expectations especially when taking into consideration we have not yet added it to our mix of search marketing, most of the orders have been organic direct search for singleseed.com, states Wil Ralston, President of SinglePoint.

SinglePoint is currently in negotiations with additional manufactures to distribute products and potentially supply bulk CBD to these manufactures. Through SinglePoint subsidiary DIGS the company has access to bulk CBD, white label products and can fulfill and dropship from our San Diego facilities. Any companys interested in product creation and fulfillment are encouraged to reach out to Sales@whitelabelcbdco.com

About SinglePoint, Inc.

SinglePoint, Inc (SING) is a technology and investment company with a focus on acquiring companies that will benefit from the injection of growth capital and technology integration. The company portfolio includes mobile payments, ancillary cannabis services and blockchain solutions. Through acquisitions into horizontal markets, SinglePoint is building its portfolio by acquiring an interest in undervalued companies, thereby providing a rich, diversified holding base. Through SingleSeed , the company is providing products and services to the cannabis industry.

Connect on social media at:

https://www.facebook.com/SinglePointMobile

https://twitter.com/_SinglePoint

https://www.linkedin.com/company/singlepoint

For more information visit: www.SinglePoint.com

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements in this news release may contain forward-looking information within the meaning of Rule 175 under the Securities Act of 1933 and Rule 3b-6 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and are subject to the safe harbor created by those rules. All statements, other than statements of fact, included in this release, including, without limitation, statements regarding potential future plans and objectives of the Company, are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements.

Technical complications, which may arise, could prevent the prompt implementation of any strategically significant plan(s) outlined above. The Company undertakes no duty to revise or update any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this release.The Macau Polytechnic Institute (IPM) is expected to open its new Taipa campus by 2020, the Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture, Alexis Tam, announced yesterday during a visit to the unfinished campus.

Located at R. do Delegado, in the area of Chun Su Mei, the future IPM Taipa campus will be used as a seniors academy.

The new campus occupies an area of 1,800 square meters and will offer musical and multifunctional classes, among others, as well as providing leisure space.

It should be a nice place [with which] to expand our seniors academy, said Im Sio Kei, the recently appointed president of IPM.

The construction of the campus is estimated to take approximately one year. Im hopes that the facilities will be ready in 2019. However, Im indicated that the projects completion might only occur in 2020 if special circumstances arise during production.

Once the new campus is put into operation, the old seniors academy, which is currently located at the IPM headquarters, will continue to be utilized.

[The new campus] is mainly for expanding the schools quota for seniors, stated Im, according to whom IPM is planning to welcome 170 more senior students each year after the new campus is ready.

IPMs current seniors academy has approximately 500 students.

Each year, [the seniors academy] will receive 170 more students. After three years, there will be approximately 500 more students, said Im. To respond to the increasing number of students, IPM will also have more teachers serving the academy, he added.

In addition, the government has considered finding additional spare land to build facilities for the seniors academy.

In the future, we will try to find more spare land to build teaching facilities and classrooms so that IPM can expand the seniors academy even further, said Tam. [The government] already has a plan and [the government] will introduce the plan to the public at the right time.

According to the secretary, the government is in the middle of searching for land for its plan.

We are rather optimistic regarding being able to let IPM expand its campus, regarding younger students being able to go to the new areas to attend classes, and regarding the downtown IPM being saved for seniors because its convenient and the transportation around is rather good, said Tam, who revealed that the government is planning to set up such facilities at the old campus of the University of Macau.The chief executive officers of HSBC Holdings Plc and Credit Suisse Group AG became the latest top bankers to abandon an investment conference in Saudi Arabia as pressure grows on the kingdom amid allegations it killed a dissident journalist.

HSBC CEO John Flint will not be attending the Future Investment Initiative event in Riyadh next week, spokeswoman Heidi Ashley said, and nor will Credit Suisses Tidjane Thiam, according to a person familiar with the matter. Both banks, among the biggest in Europe, are strategic partners of the conference and have close ties to Saudi Arabia. Standard Chartered Plc chief Bill Winters has also pulled out, a spokesman wrote in an email.

The withdrawals deal a severe blow to Saudi Arabias efforts to draw international financiers after JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon pulled out along with Blackstone Group LPs Steve Schwarzman and BlackRock Inc.s Laurence Fink. The fiasco around the conference shows how the kingdom is coming under mounting pressure to explain what happened to journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a government critic who disappeared two weeks ago.

Relations with Saudi Arabia are of key importance for London-based HSBC, which gets most of its revenue from Asia. The bank is one of the most active international banks in the kingdom and has been a top adviser for initial public offerings since 2010, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Earlier this year, Saudi Arabias Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman asked Flint and other British bank chiefs for an impromptu meeting in London, people with knowledge of the matter said. Flint canceled his appearance at another event so he could attend, the people said at that time.

Credit Suisse, based in Zurich, has also been trying to expand its business in Saudi Arabia by seeking a license to open branches and hiring more relationship managers for wealthy clients. The kingdoms Olayan family are also one of the largest shareholders in the bank.

Khashoggis disappearance is the latest in a series of developments that have undercut Prince Mohammeds self-styled image as a modernizer, including his jailing of hundreds of businessmen, royals and activists over the past year in an alleged crackdown on corruption and national security threats. Donal Griffin, Jan-Henrik Forster, BloombergThe 23rd Macao International Trade and Investment Fair (MIF) kicks off tomorrow along with the 2018 Portuguese-speaking Countries Products and Services Exhibition (PLPEX).

The three-day event is themed Co-operation  Key to Business Opportunities, featuring a total of some 1,500 booths, with nearly 1,000 participating companies and institutions.

More than 30 themed events, including forums and conferences, have been arranged for this years MIF.

The event is organized by the Macao Trade and Investment Promotion Institute (IPIM) and is co-organized by 15 economic and commercial departments as well as business associations from Macau, Mainland China, and Hong Kong.

This years exhibition establishes for the first time a number of special-theme exhibition areas, including the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area Business Zone, the Guizhou Congjiang County Exhibition Area, the Smart Zone, the Youth Entrepreneurship Exhibition Area, and the Featured Finance Pavilion.

During the same period, a number of summits, forums and roundtables covering economics, trade, exhibition and investment will also be held.

This year, MIF has invited Mozambique and Fujian Province as its partner country and partner province, respectively, thus setting up the Mozambique Pavilion and the Fujian Pavilion.

The Mozambican government will bring a delegation of nearly 90 people to Macau, with some 14 Mozambican companies participating in the exhibition.

During yesterdays conference, Ragendra Berta de Sousa, Minister of Industry and Commerce of Mozambique, called for investment from the local market, noting that they are here to expand its horizons.

We also look to promote trade with China through MIF so industrialization will speed up, he said. We need investments to commercialize our products, he added.

On the first day of the event, the Mozambique-Fujian-Macau Trade and Investment Forum will be staged, where the representatives from the three regions economic and trade departments and enterprises gather in a bid to expand co-operation and business opportunities.

Announcing this years budget, Sam Lei, executive director of IPIM said, the budget of MIF is about MOP30 million, while PLPEXs is MOP8 million. We have more demand for booths in PLPEX. Last year, there were 220 booths but this year there will be 250 booths, said Lei.

The 2018 PLPEX will roll out the Brazil Unmanned Shop Experience Zone, showcasing assorted Brazilian products with an innovative retailing approach.

The zone will combine a series of publicity and promotional activities to seek Sino-Brazilian economic trade and co-operation and cultural exchanges.

At the same time, the first China-PSC [Portuguese- speaking Countries] E-commerce Experience Pavilion and the Portuguese-speaking Countries Cross-border E-Commerce Workshop will be held to present the cross-border e-commerce + new retail model, with a view to helping merchants from lusophone countries to enter the Mainland market through online platforms.

During the PLPEX, local and international merchants will visit the Macao Young Entrepreneur Incubation Centre and the Macau Brand Incubation Center and participate in community tours.

In addition, after the exhibition, the organizer will arrange entrepreneurs from Portuguese-speaking countries and Macau to visit the cities of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area, including Shenzhen and Zhongshan.

The tours will also include visits to local business associations and enterprises, as well as key local projects, giving companies from Portuguese- speaking countries a deeper understanding of the policies and development opportunities of the Greater Bay Area.

In addition to traditional credit card payment methods, new electronic payment services such as Macao Pass, M+Pay, and Alipay have been introduced to the SMEs Exhibition Area this year.

Meanwhile, the 8th Asian Trade Promotion Forum (ATPF) Exhibition will be held concurrently at this years MIF.

During this period, networking activities will be arranged for representatives of the ATPF and from the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area and local chambers of commerce, in an effort to create an effective exchange and matching platform.New Zealands conservative opposition party was in turmoil yesterday after one of its own lawmakers accused leader Simon Bridges of corruption for hiding a donation from a wealthy Chinese businessman.

Jami-Lee Ross made the allegation and then said he was resigning from Parliament. Ross said he regretted his own complicity in a scheme to split the party donation into a series of smaller amounts to avoid it being publicly disclosed.

Ross said he planned to provide evidence to police and to release a phone conversation with Bridges that hed secretly taped.

I believe Simon Bridges is a corrupt politician, Ross said.

Soon after, Bridges said the National Party caucus had unanimously voted to expel Ross.

We are talking about a guy whos lying, whos leaking, whos lashing out, Bridges said.

Bridges said the accusations were baseless, that hed done nothing wrong, and that he welcomed a police investigation.

But Bridges did not answer specific questions about the alleged scheme to hide the 100,000 New Zealand dollar (USD66,000) donation from Zhang Yikun, saying it was now a matter for the police.

The allegations follow a series of destabilizing events within the party that began in August, when somebody leaked a report of Bridges expenses to a television station.

An investigation into the leak was launched, with Ross denying he was the leaker.

Ross then announced in early October that he was taking leave for unspecified health reasons, which Bridges characterized as embarrassing. Bridges later said he regretted using the term.

Bridges announced Monday that the investigation pointed to Ross being the leaker and that the caucus would decide his fate yesterday.

But Ross, who said he drove nine hours from his home in Auckland to the Parliament in Wellington, pre-empted that announcement with one of his own.

He said hed suffered a mental breakdown but was healthy now. He said it came after Bridges told him that four women had complained that Ross had harassed them and that he should resign from his portfolios.

Ross said he didnt harass anybody.

No one should have their boss tell the nation that their mental health and their medical needs are embarrassing, he added.

Rosss resignation will mean a fresh election will be held in his district. Ross has said he will contest that election as an independent candidate.

Zhang, the Chinese businessman whose donation came into question was awarded an Order of Merit from the New Zealand government in June for services to New Zealand-China relations and the Chinese community.

An autobiographical account he wrote on an overseas Chinese website says his grandfather was a Thai businessman who returned to China. He was born into a farmers family and spent time in the army before migrating to New Zealand.

Zhang started out running restaurants but company registries show he later branched out into residential property and construction. Nick Perry, Wellington, APU.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met yesterday with Saudi Arabias King Salman over the disappearance and alleged slaying of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi, who vanished two weeks ago during a visit to the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.

Pompeos arrival came hours after a Turkish forensics team finished a search inside the consulate. Police planned a second search, this one of the Saudi consuls home in Istanbul, a Turkish Foreign Ministry official said.

Turkish officials say they fear Khashoggi was killed and dismembered inside the Istanbul consulate. Saudi officials previously have called the allegations baseless, but reports in U.S. media yesterday suggested the kingdom may acknowledge the writer was killed there.

Pompeo landed in Riyadh yesterday and was welcomed by Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir on landing. He didnt make any remarks to the media.

Soon after, Pompeo arrived at a royal palace, where King Salman greeted him. Americas top diplomat thanked the king for accepting my visit on behalf of President [Donald] Trump before going into a closed-door meeting.

Trump had dispatched Pompeo to speak to the monarch of the worlds top oil exporter over Khashoggis disappearance. Trump, after speaking earlier yesterday [Macau time] with King Salman, said without offering evidence that the slaying could have been carried out by rogue killers. That potentially offers the U.S.-allied kingdom a possible path out of a global diplomatic firestorm.

The king firmly denied any knowledge of it, Trump told reporters. It sounded to me like maybe these could have been rogue killers. I mean, who knows? Were going to try getting to the bottom of it very soon, but his was a flat denial.

However, left unsaid was the fact that any decision in the ultraconservative kingdom rests solely with the ruling Al Saud family. Pompeo also was to meet with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whom Khashoggi wrote critically about for The Washington Post and whose rise to power prompted the writer to go into a self-imposed exile in the United States.

The effort behind the scenes is focused on avoiding a diplomatic crisis between the two countries and has succeeded in finding a pathway to deescalate tensions, said Ayham Kamel, the head of the Eurasia Groups Mideast and North African practice. Riyadh will have to provide some explanation of the journalists disappearance, but in a manner that distances the leadership from any claim that a decision was made at senior levels to assassinate the prominent journalist.

CNN reported that the Saudis were going to admit the killing happened but deny the king or crown prince had ordered it  which does not match what analysts and experts know about the kingdoms inner workings.

The New York Times reported that the Saudi royal court would suggest that an official within the kingdoms intelligence services  a friend of Prince Mohammed  had carried out the killing. According to that reported claim, the crown prince had approved an interrogation or rendition of Khashoggi back to Saudi Arabia, but the intelligence official was tragically incompetent as he eagerly sought to prove himself. Both reports cited anonymous people said to be familiar with the Saudi plans.

Saudi officials have not answered repeated requests for comment over recent days from The Associated Press.

Saudi officials have been in and out of the building since Khashoggis disappearance Oct. 2 without being stopped. Under the Vienna Convention, diplomatic posts are technically foreign soil that must be protected and respected by host countries.

Turkey has wanted to search the consulate for days. Permission apparently came after a late Sunday night call between King Salman and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. In statements after the call, both praised the creation of a joint Saudi-Turkish probe.

The Turkish inspection team included a prosecutor, a deputy prosecutor, anti-terror police and forensic experts, the state- run Anadolu news agency reported. Certain areas of the consulate were to remain off-limits, although officials would be able to inspect surveillance cameras, Turkish media reported.

What evidence Turkish officials gathered at the consulate remains unknown, though Erdogan told journalists that police sought traces of toxic materials, without elaborating. Turkeys private DHA news agency said the Saudi consuls office was among the rooms searched.

Yesterday, a Turkish Foreign Ministry official acknowledged police want to search the Saudi consuls home as well. Surveillance footage previously leaked in Turkish media shows vehicles moving between the consulate and the consuls home immediately after Khashoggis disappearance.

The Foreign Ministry official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with government regulations.

Khashoggi has written extensively for the Post about Saudi Arabia, criticizing its war in Yemen, its recent diplomatic spat with Canada and its arrest of womens rights activists after the lifting of a driving ban for women. Those policies are all seen as initiatives of Prince Mohammed, the son of King Salman, who is next in line to the throne.

Prince Mohammed has aggressively pitched the kingdom as a destination for foreign investment. But Khashoggis disappearance has led several business leaders and media outlets to back out of the upcoming investment conference in Riyadh, called the Future Investment Initiative.

They include the CEO of Uber, a company in which Saudi Arabia has invested billions of dollars; billionaire Richard Branson; JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Jamie Dimon; and Ford Motor Co. Executive Chairman Bill Ford.

Trump previously warned of severe punishment for the kingdom if it was found to be involved in Khashoggis disappearance, which has spooked investors in Saudi Arabia and SoftBank, a Japanese firm that manages tens of billions of dollars for the kingdom.

Trumps warning drew an angry response Sunday from Saudi Arabia and its state-linked media, including a suggestion that Riyadh could wield its oil production as a weapon. The U.S. president has been after King Salman and OPEC to boost production for weeks to drive down high crude oil prices, caused in part by the coming re-imposition of oil sanctions on Iran after the U.S. withdrawal from thats countrys nuclear deal with world powers.Fay Abuelgasim, Suzan Fraser & Jon Gambrell, Istanbul, AP

UN urges lifting of diplomatic immunity in probe

The U.N. human rights office is calling for the immediate and absolute lifting of diplomatic immunity enjoyed by any officials or premises in the investigation into the disappearance and suspected slaying of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi.

U.N. rights chief Michelle Bachelet said the inviolability or immunity of people or premises granted under the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations should be waived immediately.

She said yesterday the onus is on the Saudi authorities to reveal what happened, and insisted no further obstacles should be placed in the way of a quick, thorough, impartial and transparent investigation.

Bachelet stopped short of calling for an international investigation.

Rights office spokesman Rupert Colville said we hope the lifting of immunity is absolute and that investigators need to be able to investigate everything they may wish.Escalating tensions between the U.S. and China over trade, the South China Sea and recent arms sales are pushing Taiwan back into the American foreign policy spotlight, attracting Beijings ire.

After a precedent-shattering phone call with Trump when he was president-elect, Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen has found a more receptive audience in the U.S. during the recent disputes. Shes been aided in that by the presence of long-standing allies in the White House, the State Department and the Pentagon, including National Security Adviser John Bolton.

The Republic of China has more high-level friends in this administration than its had for many, many years, said Nicholas Eberstadt, who focuses on Asian security issues at the American Enterprise Institute, referring to Taiwan by its official name. Its also apparent that the administration has an approach that is going to contest China on many different fronts.

While its not clear how far the Trump administration is willing to boost Taiwan, it is seen as an increasingly valuable point of leverage over Beijing, which considers the islands fate a core interest  more important than nearly any other issue. A faction in Boltons National Security Council is seeking a more aggressive posture, including by sending more warships through the Taiwan Strait, while Trump and Vice President Mike Pence have advocated proceeding with caution, according to one current and one former administration official.

An NSC spokesperson said the president didnt need to give further authorization for the U.S. Navy to sail or operate wherever international law allows.

Decades have passed since the fate of Taiwan was considered so important that it featured in the 1960 U.S. presidential debate. The U.S. broke diplomatic ties with Taiwan and officially recognized the Communist government in Beijing in 1979. But the brewing confrontations over trade and security have created a new opportunity for the island to push back against Chinas bid to steadily erode its influence overseas.

Taiwans importance to Beijing was why Trump set off a shock wave in China when, as president-elect, he took a call from Tsai. The move raised questions about Americas continuing commitment to the one-China policy, which underpinned the restoration of ties between the two powers.

The move prompted then-President Barack Obama to offer a rare rebuke of the president- elect. If youre going to upend this understanding, you have to have thought through what the consequences are, Obama said at the time.

ARMS SALES

While Trump has since affirmed U.S. support for one China, his administration has followed its predecessors and gone ahead with weapons sales to Taiwan and made clear that the islands fate will feature in a broader realignment toward greater confrontation with leaders in Beijing.

In an Oct. 4 speech, Vice President Mike Pence assailed China for a series of moves chipping away at Taiwans diplomatic presence overseas and its ramping up of pressure on private companies to refer to Taiwan as a province of China rather than what he called a distinct geographic entity.

America will always believe Taiwans embrace of democracy shows a better path for all the Chinese people, Pence said.

The speech followed sharp condemnation from the U.S. after China persuaded three Latin American and Caribbean countries to switch their allegiances and declare diplomatic ties with China, rather than Taiwan.

CONGRESSIONAL PRESSURE

Adding to the pressure from the U.S., Congress passed the Taiwan Travel Act in February over Chinese objections, arguing that American policy should be to encourage more Cabinet-level officials to visit. And prior to Trumps inauguration, Bolton had advocated sending U.S. troops to the island.

China has tolerated Taiwans autonomy  and U.S. arms sales to the island  so long as both sides respect there the one-China policy. Tsai has refused to accept that framework. She echoed Pences remarks with her own speech on Taiwans national day last week, describing China as a threat to the international order.

Our democratic transition lightens our dark past and provides a ray of light in the dark night for all those seeking democracy, Tsai said.

That debate  and the U.S. moves  havent gone unnoticed in Beijing, where officials have assailed the U.S. in increasingly sharp terms over Taiwan, a tone that coincides with President Xi Jinpings own greater assertiveness toward Taiwan since Tsai, who leans more in favor of independence than her predecessor, Ma Ying-jeou.

CHINAS REBUKE

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi delivered an unusually sharp rebuke during Secretary of State Michael Pompeo visit to Beijing on Oct. 8. Wang urged the U.S to stop had incorrect actions which harm Chinas core interests. While he didnt specify what he meant, there were many potential culprits: Pences speech, the announcements of USD1.4 billion in arms sales in 2017 and another $330 million proposed in September.

The U.S. side recently took a string of wrong actions on the Taiwan issue, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a regular briefing Monday in Beijing. Such acts have severely violated the one-China principle.

As the debate roils, analysts caution that the U.S. is still a long way off from 1960, when Richard Nixon and John Kennedy traded barbs over the tiny islands of Matsu and Quemoy  now Kinmen  and whether the U.S. would be prepared to use nuclear weapons in the event of a Chinese invasion.

Taiwan is no longer seen as a bulwark of resistance against a Communist threat, and the economic relationship between China and the U.S., the worlds two biggest economies, is too important to risk war, several analysts said.

Although Washingtons rhetoric is loud and its provocative movements are frequent, as a researcher who followed the issue for years, I dont worry that much about a fundamental change in status quo, said Zhu Feng, dean of the Institute of International Relations of Nanjing University. If the Trump administration abandons the One-China policy and fully support Tsai Ing-wen militarily, that will be doomsday for U.S.-China relations. Nick Wadhams, BloombergBelleville, Illinois, Oct. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Allsup, the nations premier disability representation company, now offers its Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) Extended Benefits service for employers to use as help beyond group disability insurance plans for employees with disabilities who cant work.

SSDI Extended Benefits offers assistance for employees who are ineligible or have declined group disability insurance, but may be eligible for SSDI in the event of a severe disability. Allsups SSDI Extended Benefits service is available at no cost to organizations and provides discounted SSDI representation services to their employees.

We know how important it is for employers to rely on trusted sources when offering ancillary services or benefits to their employees, said John McGrath, Director, Business Development for Allsup. With more than 30 years of SSDI and benefits coordination experience, we help ensure the transition from work to disability benefits is seamless for both the employer and the employee, even when LTD benefits are not available.

Workplace disabilities can result in serious financial risk and hardship, especially when they force an employee to terminate his or her employment when their sick leave or short-term disability has been exhausted. The SSDI application process is often frustrating and arduous, and the majority (two-thirds) of first-time applications nationwide are denied by the Social Security Administration. Getting the proper assistance and support from the beginning can have a valuable impact on an individuals chances of being approved for the disability benefits they deserve, and carries the potential of exploring a return to work following medical recovery.

In addition to expertise in disability representation, Allsup helps employees with disabilities understand their healthcare options, so they can make an informed decision when signing up for COBRA or alternative coverage. For employees who receive SSDI benefits, Allsup facilitates their transition to receiving Medicare at not cost to them. The organization further provides a comprehensive suite of specialized services, including veterans disability and return to work services. VA-accredited Claims Agents are available to guide veterans through the VA disability appeal process. Employment consultants can help successful SSDI beneficiaries manage their return to work through Social Securitys Ticket to Work program.

Allsup has helped more than 300,000 people to receive their SSDI benefits. The online tool empower by Allsup combines an SSDI assessment for eligibility and Social Security disability application support, along with return to work guidance for those who may medically recover. Allsup award rates are approximately 75% higher than the nationwide averages at each level.

Employers interested in SSDI Extended Benefits may contact Allsups Client Customer Service at (866) 346-8872.English French

The CS100 aircraft donated by Bombardier was welcomed by hundreds of students at the Ecole nationale daerotechnique

This aircraft will enhance aerospace technical training by giving Quebec students access to the latest technology in commercial aviation

MONTREAL, Oct. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today, a C Series aircraft landed for the first time at the St-Hubert airport, where it was officially handed over by Bombardier to the Ecole nationale daerotechnique (ENA). Hundreds of students welcomed the newest addition to the ENAs fleet at an event attended by professors, staff members and representatives from both Bombardier and Airbus.

The CS100 aircraft, which was donated by Bombardier in May 2018, will create new training opportunities across the fields of avionics, maintenance and aerospace engineering, giving Quebec students access to the most advanced technology in commercial aviation. Over the next few months, the ENAs professors will study the unique features of the C Series to determine the best way to intregrate this aircraft into their courses.

Building strong partnerships with local teaching institutions is key to develop the next generation of aerospace professionals, said Alain Bellemare, President and Chief Executive Officer, Bombardier Inc. The C Series integrates ground-breaking technologies and Canadian know-how into the worlds most innovative commercial aircraft. By donating a C Series to ENA, we hope to inspire a growing number of Quebec students to consider exciting careers in the aerospace industry.

The CS100 becomes the 38th aircraft to join the ENAs static fleet, which already includes two Learjet and two Challenger aircraft from Bombardier. As the third Flight Test Vehicle (FTV3) of the C Series program, it accumulated approximately 1,400 flight hours. It was mainly used for avionics and electrical tests as well as for community noise testing.

To be the first, and possibly only school in the world, to receive such an immense gift from our partner, Bombardier, positions our school as the best in the world, said Sylvain Lambert, Director of the ENA. The public will be able to visit and experience our C Series aircraft and our school at our Open House on November 11.

Bombardier is a leader in terms of aerospace research and training in Canada. Last year, the company donated a CRJ100 aircraft to the British Columbia Institute of Technology, and a Learjet 60 business jet to ENA. In June, it announced multi-million dollar contributions to the Downsview Aerospace Innovation and Research Consortium (DAIR) to establish an aerospace hub in Toronto. In addition, Bombardier provides hundreds of internships annually to students across engineering, finance, IT, marketing, production, supply chain management and other disciplines.

About the Ecole Nationale dAerotechnique

The Ecole nationale d'aerotechnique (ENA) is an affiliated school of cegep Edouard-Montpetit, the largest college in Quebec. ENA can accommodate approximately 1,300 students a year for regular full- time programs and several hundred technicians in continuing education. Its 4 programs (3 in French and 1 in English) in aeronautical technology are recognized by Transport Canada. ENA is a leader in terms of technical training in aerospace technology in North America and has five hangars and a fleet of 38 aircraft, 27 airplanes and 11 helicopters, and is equipped with modern installations that include over 30 laboratories and specialized workshops.

About Bombardier

With over 69,500 employees across four business segments, Bombardier is a global leader in the transportation industry, creating innovative and game-changing planes and trains. Our products and services provide world-class transportation experiences that set new standards in passenger comfort, energy efficiency, reliability and safety.

Headquartered in Montreal, Canada, Bombardier has production and engineering sites in 28 countries across the segments of Transportation, Business Aircraft, Commercial Aircraft and Aerostructures and Engineering Services. Bombardier shares are traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange (BBD). In the fiscal year ended December 31, 2017, Bombardier posted revenues of $16.2 billion US. News and information are available at bombardier.com or follow us on Twitter @Bombardier .

Bombardier, Challenger, CRJ100, Learjet and Learjet 60 are trademarks of Bombardier Inc. or its subsidiaries.

For Information Simon Letendre Catherine Saucier Manager, Media Relations and Public Affairs Advisor, Communications Bombardier Inc. Cegep Edouard-Montpetit  Ecole nationale daerotechnique +1 514 924 4893 +1 514 297 2855

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/4902f48f-d688-42a8-86a6-8c0c923945e2Fort Lauderdale, FL, Oct. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NEWMEDIAWIRE -- MediXall Group Inc., (OTCQB: MDXL), creator of MediXall.com, a new generation healthcare marketplace platform designed to address the growing need of self-pay and high deductible consumers for greater transparency and price competition in their healthcare costs, is pleased to announce the appointment of Ambassador Ned L. Siegel as a non-executive director. Ned L. Siegel is a former U.S. Ambassador to the Commonwealth of the Bahamas who brings more than 30 years of business and government experience to MediXall Group and will assist the Company with its strategic development and financing needs.



We are honored to add Ambassador Ned L. Siegel, who has an impressive record of service and successes within both the government and private sectors, to our board, said Michael Swartz, President of MediXall. We are extremely proud of what we accomplished over the last several years and with the response, we are now getting from the Investment and Healthcare Community. Ambassador Siegels business success speaks for itself and his reputation throughout commercial and government circles is second-to-none. We are confident that Ambassador Siegels broad relationships and expertise will be invaluable to MediXall and our customers, as we continue to take our business to the next level and continue to tell the MediXall story more widely.

In 1997, Ambassador Siegel founded The Siegel Group, Inc., an international business management advisory firm, specializing in real estate, energy, utilities, infrastructure, financial services, oil & gas, and technology with its primary focus on the United States, Israel, the Caribbean, and Latin America markets. The firm has an unprecedented track record of acquiring and developing successful master plan residential communities, corporate office developments, industrial parks, and retail centers.

After demonstrating his success in the private sector, Ambassador Siegel was appointed by Florida Governor Jeb Bush to serve as a Member of the Board of Directors of Enterprise Florida, Inc. (EFI), the state's primary organization promoting statewide economic development through its public-private partnership. He served in this role for several years before being appointed by President George W. Bush to serve as a Member of the Board of Directors of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), a development agency of the U.S Government to help U.S. businesses invest overseas. OPIC's mission is to foster economic development in new and emerging markets, complement the private sector in managing the risks associated with foreign direct investment, and support U.S Foreign Policy. Subsequently, Ambassador Siegel was again honored by President Bush and appointed to serve with Ambassador John R. Bolton at the United Nations in New York as Senior Advisor to the U.S. Mission and Representative of the United States to the 61st Session of the United Nations General Assembly.

In October 2007, President George W. Bush once more sought out the service of Ambassador Siegel, appointing him to serve as the U.S. Ambassador to the Commonwealth of The Bahamas where Ned served as the Chief of Mission and was responsible for all operations of the U.S. Embassy Nassau. His responsibilities included oversight and management of over 200 U.S. Department of State employees located in five separate locations throughout the Bahamas, representing seven different government agencies.

"I have known the management team of MediXall & TBG Holdings for many years and appreciate both their business acumen and their commitment to social causes. I am committed to the success of this company and look forward to working alongside the MediXall Team to accomplish our mission of delivering a new standard of price transparency and digital convenience for healthcare consumers," commented Ambassador Siegel.

About MediXall.com

Medixall.com is a new generation healthcare marketplace platform designed to address the growing need of self-pay and high deductible consumers for greater transparency and price competition in their healthcare costs. The MediXall.com platform makes scheduling an appointment for specific healthcare services as simple and easy as booking a flight and hotel. The online experience was designed to mirror e-commerce and online booking sites found in other markets, with it centered on providing consumers with ratings/reviews, transparent pricing, and comparative shopping. With MediXall.com, consumers can search and compare most medical, dental and wellness services based on all-in cash price, location/distance, ratings, & availability, and select the best value according to their personal preferences. In this era of rapidly increasing deductibles and healthcare costs, the cloud-based platform is designed to be transformational and disruptive to traditional methods of medical care and provisioning of medical services to the consumer. For more information, please visit www.medixall.com or call (954) 908-3481.

About MediXall Group, Inc .

MediXall Group is a technology and innovation-driven organization purposefully designed and structured to bring effective change to the U.S. healthcare industry that is actively trading on the OTCQB under the symbol MDXL. The Company believes its revolutionary approach will help drive much-needed change that it envisions is needed in the current healthcare system. The mission of the MediXall Group is to revolutionize the medical industry by improving communication; providing better technology and support services; and enabling more efficient, cost-effective healthcare for the consumer. By approaching the healthcare ecosystem as a whole, MediXall creates, invests and incubates companies that embody its mission statement. For more information, please visit www.medixallgroup.com or call (954) 908-3481.

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 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. Specifically, the Companys ability to raise additional capital, execute its business plan and strategy, sustain or increase gross margins, achieve profitability and build shareholder value are forward looking statements. A more extensive listing of risks and factors that may affect the Companys business prospects and cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements can be found in the reports and other documents filed by the Company with the Securities and Exchange Commission. 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.



Manama-based Arcapita Group has pumped money into NuYu, a Saudi leading chain of women-only boutique gyms, amid rising of the sector following recent reforms in Saudi Arabia in favor of women.

The investment, estimated at $67 million, will help multiply over 200 per cent NuYus gyms boutiques, from seven to 30 across the kingdom, Trade Arabia reports.

The expansion will reportedly generate hundred new jobs and provide women access to fitness outlets in currently underserved locations.

NuYu currently has five boutiques in capital Riyadh and one in each of Khobar and Dammam.

We look forward to working in partnership with NuYu, helping it realize its full potential during this exciting period of social change. The investment in NuYu is underpinned by robust fundamentals and demonstrates our confidence in the long-term growth prospects of Saudi Arabias sport and leisure industry, said Atif A Abdulmalik, the Chief executive officer of Shariah-compliant alternative investments firm.

It is also aligned with the Kingdoms Vision 2030 goals of empowering women and for citizens to lead healthy and active lifestyles, he added.

Princess Sara Al Saud, NuYus co-founder and creative director noted that the launch of new gyms boutiques will enable Saudi women to access fitness and reap the benefits of regular exercise.

The kingdom has witnessed a set of reforms under the leadership of Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman. Women in the Arab country have been since June 24 allowed to sit behind a wheel. The reforms have also remove the ban on womens participation in public sporting events.Nalinikanth Kotagiri, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor in the James L. Winkle College of Pharmacy and a cluster hire for the Cincinnati Cancer Center. Credit: Colleen Kelley/University of Cincinnati

When treatment is working for a patient who is fighting cancer, the light at the end of the tunnel is easier to see.

However, with metastatic breast cancer, the prognosis can be a bit disheartening with poor outcomes for patients.

This is why Nalinikanth Kotagiri, MD, Ph.D., assistant professor in the James L. Winkle College of Pharmacy and a cluster hire for the Cincinnati Cancer Center, is hoping to study ways ultraviolet light can activate light-sensitive drugs to treat this invasive breast cancer and provide that light at the end of the tunnel patients yearn for.

"Metastatic breast cancer can be a devastating diagnosis with high rates of relapse and death, and there are currently no effective therapies," he says. "Despite newer treatments, many patients still succumb to the disease. Major limitations include acquired resistance to therapies and serious side effects from treatment. Due to the widespread location of breast cancer cells, particularly in the bone marrow, which harbors the tumor cells as well as vital stem cells, the risk of toxicity is even higher with conventional therapies. Therefore, new therapeutic strategies that selectively destroy tumor cells, increase treatment efficacy, prevent relapse and reduce side effects by sparing the healthy stem cells are necessary."

Kotagiri has been awarded the Department of Defense Breast Cancer Breakthrough Awardover $600,000 for three yearsto try to do just that. His project will focus on light-mediated therapies, which could activate light-sensitive drugs to target only the cancerous cells.

"Therapies such as photodynamic therapy (PDT), involving light and a photosensitizing chemical substance, which used in conjunction with molecular oxygen can cause cell death, offer a high degree of control that is effectively used to manage cancer in early to advanced stages," he says. "It operates on a simple principle where a light-sensitive drug, which is otherwise nontoxic, introduced into certain tissues can cause cell death when activated by light. Despite the promise of PDT, it can't penetrate tissue deeply so its use is limited. Also, current light-sensitive drugs require oxygen to be effective, but many tumors, including breast tumors, have pockets of low oxygen or grow in regions where oxygen is either low or absent, which could prevent effective application of PDT in cancer treatment."

However, Kotagiri says recent work in the lab has led his team to a "two-pronged approach" in addressing these issues.

"We've been using ultraviolet (UV) light from radionuclides (radioactive nuclide or atom), which are already used to image tumors and tissues, and tried to solve oxygen dependence by using metal-based light-sensitive drugs for depth- and oxygen-independent PDT," he says. "By replacing the external light source, such as lasers and lamps, with light from radionuclides as an 'internal' light source, we've been able to better control therapy in the body.

"This could mean more effective therapies with minimal toxicity to vital organs and tissues. Since radionuclides are used in imaging and locating tumors, we can now simultaneously image and treat breast cancer metastasis using the same radionuclide."

Using animal models, researchers in Kotagiri's lab will test whether radionuclide light activation of tumor targeting, light-sensitive drugs will destroy metastatic cancer cellsincluding those that are resistant to traditional therapies.

"Since how we're killing the cells is not dependent on a certain molecular pathway, the technology could be applicable to treat a wide variety of breast cancers," he adds. "This has the potential to be a common image-guided treatment strategy to treat patients in early as well as advanced stages of the disease, and because of the safety of this treatment strategy, it could be effectively used alongside other treatments, like chemotherapy and immunotherapy, without the risk of additional side effects.

"This could tremendously benefit patients, as it could potentially improve therapeutic outcomes in addition to setting a precedent to tailor other FDA-approved light-sensitive drugs as radionuclide activated therapies, expanding the scope and range of the diseases these drugs currently treat. If proven beneficial, this treatment could be ready for a patient population in 5 to 10 years, since all the materials involved have already been used in humansthis could be an exciting breakthrough."

Explore further New Markey study shows promise for targeting breast cancer metastasisCredit: CC0 Public Domain

Biochemists, microbiologists, drug discovery experts and infectious disease doctors have teamed up in a new study that shows antibiotics are not always necessary to cure sepsis in mice. Instead of killing causative bacteria with antibiotics, researchers treated infected mice with molecules that block toxin formation in bacteria. Every treated mouse survived. The breakthrough study, published in Scientific Reports, suggests infections in humans might be cured the same way.

The molecules cling to a toxin-making protein found across Gram-positive bacterial species, called AgrA, rendering it ineffective. Treating mice with the therapeutic molecules effectively cured infections caused by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). S. aureus is notorious for its ability to overcome even the most potent antibiotics. Its resistance arsenal is broad, limiting therapeutic options to treat infections.

In a mouse model of S. aureus sepsis, treatment with small molecules alone resulted in 100 percent survival, while 70 percent of untreated animals died. The small molecules were as effective in promoting survival as antibiotics currently used to treat S. aureus infections. The molecules also appear to give antibiotics a boost. Septic mice treated with a combination of the small molecules and antibiotics had 10x fewer bacteria in their bloodstream than mice treated with antibiotic alone.

"For relatively healthy patients, such as athletes suffering from a MRSA infection, these molecules may be enough to clear an infection," said Menachem Shoham, Ph.D., associate professor of biochemistry at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, and senior author on the study. "For immunocompromised patients, combination therapy with the molecules and a low-dose antibiotic may be in order. The antibiotic in the combination could be one to which the bacteria are resistant in monotherapy, because our small molecules enhance the activity of conventional antibiotics, such as penicillin." With support from the small molecules, previously obsolete antibiotics could reenter the clinic. Said Shoham, "This could provide a partial solution to the looming, global threat of antibiotic resistance."

If available, antibiotics kill most bacteria, but a small number of bacteria with natural resistance survive. Over time, antibiotic-resistant bacteria multiply and spread. By Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates, at least two million Americans get an antibiotic-resistant infection annually. For some infections, effective antibiotics are no longer available. Disarming bacteria of disease-causing toxins represents a promising alternative to dwindling antibiotics.

Eliminating toxins frees up the immune system to eliminate bacterial pathogens instead of antibiotics, said Shoham. "Without the toxins the bacteria become harmless. And since they don't need the toxins to survive, there is less pressure to develop resistance."

The small molecules work against multiple bacterial species. The new study included preliminary experiments showing the molecules prevent three other bacterial species from killing immune cells. "These results indicate broad-spectrum efficacy against Gram-positive pathogens," wrote the authors. Added Shoham, "We have proven efficacy not only against MRSA but also against Staphylococcus epidermidis which is notorious for clogging catheters, Streptococcus pyogenes that causes strep throat, Streptococcus pneumoniae, and other pathogens."

Shoham led the study in collaboration with colleagues from the departments of biochemistry and dermatology and the Center for RNA and Therapeutics at Case Western Reserve University. The researchers developed two small molecules, F12 and F19, both of which potentiate antibiotic efficacy in the mouse models. The researchers are now working to commercialize both potential drugs. Case Western Reserve University has issued a license to Q2Pharma, Ltd., a biopharmaceutical startup company in Israel, to perform additional preclinical studies and develop F12 and F19 for clinical trials. Their initial trials will focus on patients suffering from systemic multi-drug resistant infections.

Explore further New study increases understanding of how antibiotic resistance arises

More information: Michael Greenberg et al, Small-molecule AgrA inhibitors F12 and F19 act as antivirulence agents against Gram-positive pathogens, Scientific Reports (2018). Journal information: Scientific Reports Michael Greenberg et al, Small-molecule AgrA inhibitors F12 and F19 act as antivirulence agents against Gram-positive pathogens,(2018). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-32829-wA cardiovascular specialist known for his stem cell research has seen his once high-flying career falter as several top-flight US institutions have accused him of falsifying data in his studies.

So far, more than 30 articles by Piero Anversa are now believed to be fraudulent, including one retracted on Wednesday by the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine.

In a remarkable statement, Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston this week said Anversa, the former lab director at the institutions, had included "falsified and/or fabricated data" in those articles.

Harvard and the hospital advised the relevant journals to retract the articles at issue.

In the world of scientific research, a retraction is the worst disavowal of the author's work. It means the article or study has serious problems or errors, intentional or not.

The article pulled by the NEJM made headlines in 2011. Numerous media outlets including AFP covered its publication at the time.

Anversa had announced the discovery of the first human lung stem cells that are self-renewing, saying they could offer important clues for treating chronic lung diseases.

Anversa then announced several other "discoveries" about cardiac stem cells, earning praise and amassing credibility in the fieldwhich allowed him to get tens of millions of dollars in federal grant money.

But for the past several years, doubts accumulated about the veracity of his work.

Other researchers were unable to reproduce his lab results in the same conditions. Scholarly articles were corrected, and the first retraction came in 2014, by Circulation, a journal published by the American Heart Association.

Now, dozens more could be added to that blacklist.

"A bedrock principle of science is that all publications are supported by rigorous research practices," Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital said in their joint statement.

"When these practices deviate from community standards, there are far-reaching consequences for the scientific enterprise," they added.

"The scientific community is interdependent and reliant on the rigor and good faith of researchers as we work collaboratively to advance knowledge and transform human health."

Explore further Results triple researchers' projections with use of adult stem cells for heart failure

 2018 AFPNew York, NY October 17, 2018, Oct. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Foundation Center has launched new dashboards on its Foundation Funding for U.S. Democracy site, a nonpartisan data visualization platform featuring tens of thousands of grants, publicly available to anyone interested in understanding philanthropy's role in U.S. democracy. Perhaps surprisingly, the dashboards reveal that only 12 percent of democracy funding from foundations is directed toward campaigns and elections. Civic participation and government each account for about 37 percent, while funding towards journalism and media account for 28 percent of total democracy funding.



The platform defines foundation funding for democracy as efforts by foundations to foster an engaged and informed public and support government accountability and integrity, and includes funding for policy research and advocacy. It compiles over 50,000 grants awarded by nearly 6,000 funders totaling $4.6 billion across four major categories: campaigns and elections, civic participation, government strengthening, and media. The new dashboards, one for each of the four subject categories, allow users to browse through granular grants-level information and provide a detailed picture of how institutional philanthropy is engaging with U.S. democracy.



Recent journalistic and academic interest in philanthropy and its interplay with democratic processes has reinvigorated the enduring debate around the role of philanthropy in a democratic society. A practical starting point is to learn more about what grantmakers are actually doing to affect democracy in the United States.



At a time of increased foundation scrutiny, this publicly-available platform provides transparency to the field and complements broader discussions about the role of philanthropy in a democratic society by offering concrete details about relevant grantmaking, says Anna Koob, knowledge services manager at Foundation Center.



The data is useful for journalists, staff at nonprofits and foundations, and anyone in the general public who is interested in understanding philanthropys engagement with U.S. democracy. The new dashboards allow users to see how funding breaks down for each of the four major categories, and includes data that can help identify:

The largest funders of campaigns and elections work

How grantmaking in support of civic participation is broken down by population type

What strategies are used to affect democracy work

The largest recipients of grants for journalism and media

Some insights from the data:

About two percent of all philanthropic funding in the United States meets our criteria for democracy funding. A modest amount considering that this subset captures a wide range of topics, including money in politics, civic education, civil rights litigation, and journalism.

A modest amount considering that this subset captures a wide range of topics, including money in politics, civic education, civil rights litigation, and journalism. Funding for campaigns and elections is the smallest of the four major funding categories tracked. While most people might think of elections as the basic mechanism of democracy, this category only constitutes about 12 percent of democracy funding represented in the tool.

While most people might think of elections as the basic mechanism of democracy, this category only constitutes about 12 percent of democracy funding represented in the tool. Less than a quarter of funding supports policy and advocacy work. Work to effect policy is often considered front and center when discussing philanthropys impact on democracy, but the data reveal that many funders are working in other ways that strengthen democracy, but have less direct implications for public policy.

The Foundation Funding for U.S. Democracy site also features a collection of research on U.S. democracy, powered by IssueLab, links to a number of relevant blog posts, and hosts infographics developed using data from the tool. You can access the dashboards and all other resources for free at democracy.foundationcenter.org.



###



About Foundation Center

Established in 1956, Foundation Center is the leading source of information about philanthropy worldwide. Through data, analysis, and training, it connects people who want to change the world to the resources they need to succeed. Foundation Center maintains the most comprehensive database on U.S. and, increasingly, global grantmakers and their grants  a robust, accessible knowledge bank for the sector. It also operates research, education, and training programs designed to advance knowledge of philanthropy at every level. Thousands of people visit Foundation Center's website each day and are served in its five regional library/learning centers and its network of more than 450 funding information centers located in public libraries, community foundations, and educational institutions nationwide and around the world. For more information, please visit foundationcenter.org, call (212) 620-4230, or tweet us at @fdncenter.



AttachmentA new study led by NIDCR clinical investigator Dr. Niki Moutsopoulos suggests that periodontal disease is driven by Th17 immune cells, which are triggered by an unhealthy bacterial community. Credit: National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, NIH

An unhealthy population of microbes in the mouth triggers specialized immune cells that inflame and destroy tissues, leading to the type of bone loss associated with a severe form of gum disease, according to a new study in mice and humans. The research, led by scientists from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) at the National Institutes of Health and the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine, Philadelphia, could have implications for new treatment approaches for the condition. The findings appear online Oct. 17, 2018, in Science Translational Medicine.

Periodontal disease is a common disorder that affects nearly half of American adults over age 30, and 70 percent of adults 65 and older. In those affected, bacteria trigger inflammation of the tissues that surround the teeth, which can lead to loss of bone and teeth in an advanced stage of the disease called periodontitis.

"We've known for years that microbes stimulate inflammation. Removing bacteria by tooth-brushing and dental care controls inflammation, but not permanently, suggesting there are other factors at play," said study senior author Niki Moutsopoulos, D.D.S., Ph.D., a clinical investigator at NIDCR. "Our results suggest that immune cells known as T helper 17 cells are drivers of this process, providing the link between oral bacteria and inflammation."

Moutsopoulos and colleagues observed that T helper (Th) 17 cells were much more prevalent in the gum tissue of humans with periodontitis than in the gums of their healthy counterparts, and that the amount of Th17 cells correlated with disease severity.

Th17 cells normally live in so-called barrier sitessuch as the mouth, skin, and digestive tractwhere germs make first contact with the body. Th17 cells are known to protect against oral thrush, a fungal infection of the mouth, but they are also linked to inflammatory diseases such as psoriasis and colitis, suggesting that they play dual roles in health and disease.

To better understand this dynamic, the NIDCR scientists teamed up with an NIDCR-funded research group led by study senior author George Hajishengallis, D.D.S., Ph.D., at the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine and colleagues from NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and National Cancer Institute (NCI).

The scientists found that similar to humans, more Th17 cells accumulated in the gums of mice with periodontitis compared to healthy mice, which served as a control group.

To see if the oral microbiome might be the trigger for Th17 cell accumulation, the researchers placed mice on a broad-spectrum antibiotic cocktail. They found that eliminating oral microbes prevented expansion of Th17 cells in the gums of mice with periodontitis while leaving other immune cells unaffected, suggesting an unhealthy bacterial population triggers Th17 cell accumulation.

Next, the group wanted to know if blocking Th17 cells could lessen periodontal disease. When the scientists genetically engineered mice to lack Th17 cells, or gave the animals a small-molecule drug that prevents Th17 cell development, they saw similar outcomes: reduced bone loss from periodontitis. RNA analysis showed the Th17-blocking drug led to reduced expression of genes involved in inflammation, tissue destruction, and bone loss, suggesting that Th17 cells may mediate these processes in periodontitis.

Finally, the researchers studied a group of 35 patients at the NIH Clinical Center with a gene defect causing them to lack Th17 cells. The scientists reasoned that if Th17 cells are as important to periodontitis as the animal studies suggested, not having Th17 cells should protect against gum disease. This is indeed what the group foundthe patients were less susceptible to the condition and had less inflammation and bone loss compared to age- and gender-matched volunteers.

"Our clinical observations point to the relevance of our animal studies to humans and provide further evidence that Th17 cells are drivers of periodontitis," said NIDCR researcher Nicolas Dutzan, Ph.D., first author of the paper.

"These results provide key insights into the mechanisms that underlie development of periodontal disease," said NIDCR Director Martha J. Somerman, D.D.S., Ph.D. "Importantly, they also offer compelling evidence for therapeutic targeting of specific cells, which might eventually help us provide better treatment and more relief to patients with this common disease."

Explore further Research reveals surprising health benefits of chewing your food

More information: N. Dutzan el al., "A dysbiotic microbiome triggers TH17 cells to mediate oral mucosal immunopathology in mice and humans," Science Translational Medicine (2018). Journal information: Science Translational Medicine N. Dutzan el al., "A dysbiotic microbiome triggers TH17 cells to mediate oral mucosal immunopathology in mice and humans,"(2018). stm.sciencemag.org/lookup/doi/  scitranslmed.aat0797

Provided by NIH/National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial ResearchCredit: CC0 Public Domain

The influential Leapfrog Group, which grades nearly 2,000 U.S. hospitals, is launching a national survey to evaluate the safety and quality of up to 5,600 surgery centers that perform millions of outpatient procedures every year.

The group now issues hospitals an overall letter grade and evaluates how hospitals handle myriad problems, from infections to collapsed lungs to dangerous blood clotshelping patients decide where to seek care.

The new surgery center effort will focus on staffing, surgical outcomes and patient experience in facilities that are performing increasingly complex procedures and seeing more aging patients. The grades will also cover surgery centers' closest competitor, hospital outpatient departments.

Leah Binder, Leapfrog Group's chief executive, said she wants to fill gaps in information about same-day surgery, which employers and health plans have embraced for its lower costs.

Employers, she said, "don't have enough information on quality and safety of that care."

Binder said a recent Kaiser Health News/USA Today Network investigation highlighted the need for independent information about surgery centers. The investigation found that since 2013, more than 260 patients died after care at centers that lacked appropriate lifesaving equipment, operated on very fragile patients or sent people home before they fully recovered.

"Your reporting did highlight the real lack of information from the federal government and the need for us to have an independent means of reporting," Binder said. "People are going in for surgery, and our federal government doesn't think it's important to tell us how it's going. Maybe that was OK 30 years ago, but now it's not OK."

The news report was based on inspection reports, lawsuits and data from many states that tally patient deaths but which refuse to note where they occurred. Seventeen other states collect no data on deaths at all.

The new Leapfrog plan will start with a survey of 250 centers in 2019 and include up to 5,600 surgery centers in 2020. At that point, it will publish data on the outcomes of specific procedures, such as total knee replacements, across the hospital outpatient departments and surgery centers nationwide.

The Leapfrog Group is funded by employers and health plans that cover the health care of the half of Americans who get health benefits through their job, Binder said. The organization was founded to shed light on health care quality and safety to help consumers pick high-value providers. It plans to disseminate the new surveys through its 40 business group members that steer millions in health spending.

Bill Prentice, chief executive of the Ambulatory Surgery Center Association, an industry trade group, said he supports the move toward greater transparency. However, he said the work to determine the specific measures is still underway, and "the devil is in the details."

Ty Tippets, administrator of St. George Surgical Center in Utah, said he welcomes what Leapfrog is doing.

"Anytime (data) is gathered and provided in a transparent, easily accessed forumit helps empower patients," said Tippets, who recently testified before Congress about transparency in health care.

The Leapfrog Group announcement comes as Medicare is reviewing the data it will collect to gauge the quality of surgery centers.

The agency previously asked each surgery center to report its emergency transfer rate, or how often a patient 65 or older was sent from a center to the hospital. Yet the agency only required the centers to send data for half or more of its Medicare patients.

In the current rule-making period, Medicare declared the resulting data of little value, given the minimal differences among centers' scores. The agency proposed dropping the measure, but has not yet finalized the proposal.

Going forward, Medicare has said it will use its own billing data to report the percent of surgery center patients who seek care at a hospital in the week after a procedure.

Medicare recently announced plans to shine more light on the performance of accreditors, which play a key role in granting or denying health facilities approvals to operate. A recent KHN investigation into accreditor performance in Californiathe only state where the private bodies' inspection reports are publicshowed repeated lapses in oversight.

A Medicare spokesman said new reports will show how well accreditors fare when state health officials inspect the same facilities. In recent years, Medicare has found that accreditors overlooked the majority of problems that government officials uncovered.

In September, the White House Office of Management and Budget approved another health agency's proposal to collect and report data about the "culture of safety" in surgery centers. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality will ask surgery center staff about issues such as whether staff feel comfortable speaking up about patient care concerns.

The plan says summary datanot facility-by-facility dataon the survey's results will be reported publicly.

That effort would add to the overall information the public has about surgery centers, said Dr. Ashish Jha, a patient safety expert at Harvard's School of Public Health.

"Places that do badly on safety culture surveys tend to have worse outcomes," Jha said. "But you can't bank on it."

He said the most useful data for the public would cover actual eventssuch as deaths after surgery, admissions to the hospital or functional status and pain three months after surgery.

"Those are the things that actually matter," he said.

Explore further Increased use of ambulatory surgery centers for cataract surgery

2018 Kaiser Health News

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.Binding status of Nivolumab can be divided into three different types based on occupancy of PD-1 in T cells: complete binding, partial binding and no binding. PD-L1 can interact with T cells already in partial binding status. Credit: Osaka University

Dr. Tasuku Honjo won the 2018 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for discovering the immune T-cell protein PD-1. This discovery led to a set of anti-cancer medications called checkpoint inhibitors, one of the first of which was nivolumab (Opdivo).

Nivolumab helps T-cells fight tumors, however, different patients respond in different ways. It now appears that monitoring the effect of nivolumab on critical immune cells with simple and novel methods may help guide decisions to optimize treatment.

Dr. Shohei Koyama and a team of researchers from Osaka University have devised a simple method for testing the impact of nivolumab in the body. This method measures how nivolumab binds to PD-1 on T-cells weeks after treatment and could provide information needed to monitor treatment more effectively. They recently published their findings in JCI Insight.

The researchers analyzed tiny samples of blood and lung fluid from patients with lung cancer. They measured the amount of nivolumab bound to T-cells, and they also isolated only those T-cells bound by nivolumab to comprehensively analyze cell activation.

The researchers found that the effects of nivolumab on T-cells often persisted in patients for a considerable time after dosing.

"Our simplified method was feasible in real-world patients and demonstrated that nivolumab binds T-cells for more than 20 weeks even after the patient has stopped treatment," study co-author Atsushi Kumanogoh says. "Also, the plasma concentration at which nivolumab stops binding T-cells, and the percentage of bound T-cells, varies from patient to patient."

Their findings also confirmed that the level of T-cell binding does not indicate the functional effect of the drug. A further measure of T-cell proliferation is needed.

"Our findings show that for any given patient we need more information than blood levels of the drug," lead-author Akio Osa says. "It is now clear that we need to measure the amount of nivolumab bound to T-cells and the degree of T-cell proliferation to make treatment decisions. Our method makes this possible with just a drop of blood."

Results from two study participants illustrate the importance of measuring both proliferation and T-cell binding. The first patient showed no response when proliferation was low. In contrast, the second patient showed no tumor growth when proliferation was higher.

"Our combination strategy of monitoring nivolumab binding and the proliferation status of T-cells, is a better way to determine the effect of this drug than monitoring the blood level of nivolumab alone," says co-author Takeshi Uenami.

Overall, understanding in which patients nivolumab has persisting effects over time may be useful for preventing treatment related side effects and guiding the selection of additional therapies.

Explore further White blood cell count predicts response to lung cancer immunotherapy

More information: Akio Osa et al. Clinical implications of monitoring nivolumab immunokinetics in nonsmall cell lung cancer patients, JCI Insight (2018). Akio Osa et al. Clinical implications of monitoring nivolumab immunokinetics in nonsmall cell lung cancer patients,(2018). DOI: 10.1172/jci.insight.59125Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Study from Australia is the first to evaluate a population-level roll-out of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) in men who have sex with men.

Rapid, targeted, and high-coverage roll-out of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to men who have sex with men was associated with a reduction in HIV diagnoses by 25% in one year across New South Wales (Australia), according to a study published in The Lancet HIV journal.

Diagnoses in men who have sex with men across New South Wales reduced from 295 cases in the year before PrEP roll-out to 221 cases in the year afterthe lowest levels recorded since the beginning of HIV surveillance in 1985.

The study, led by the Kirby Institute at UNSW Sydney, followed 3,700 men who had been dispensed PrEP as part of the roll-out and found generally high levels of adherence. In this group, the incidence of HIV infection was less than 1 in 2,000 per year, compared with an expected incidence of 2 per 100 per year or higher in the absence of PrEP.

Randomised controlled trials have previously demonstrated the efficacy of PrEP. In addition, mathematical models have predicted that PrEP can have a large and fast impact if rolled out rapidly and at high coverage for people at risk. However, empirical studies to confirm PrEP's population-level effectiveness have not tested these findings until now.

The study in New South Wales was possible due to the existing surveillance system for recent HIV infection in the area, which allowed researchers to quickly document the population-level effect of PrEP. It illustrates the successes possible with effective roll-out of PrEP.

Although a number of countries, including the USA, France, and England, have approved HIV PrEP, uptake has until recently been slow and geographically patchy.

"Our results support the population-level effectiveness of PrEP one year after rapid PrEP implementation at scale," says Professor Andrew Grulich, from the Kirby Institute at UNSW Sydney. "PrEP is a highly effective preventative approach when implemented alongside high levels of HIV testing and treatment. Roll-out should be prioritised as a crucial component of HIV prevention in epidemics predominantly affecting men who have sex with men."

The study recruited 3,700 participants aged 18 years or older from 21 clinics across New South Wales. All participants in the study were at high risk of HIV infection, and were given PrEP for free. HIV testing was conducted at one and three months after enrolment into the trial, then every three months.

Among the 3,700 participants, 3,645 (99%) were dispensed PrEP or had a HIV test at least once during follow-up. During the year-long study, only two men became infected with HIV and these men were not adherent to PrEP.

The authors found that adherence to PrEP was high (median medication possession ratio of 98%). However, approximately 30% of participants had adherence below 80%, but this could also indicate on-demand PrEP use, or stopping using PrEP after a period of high-risk behaviour.

State-wide, the authors found that after PrEP roll-out there were 25% fewer HIV diagnoses, compared to the 12 months before PrEP roll-out (295 cases vs 221 cases).

The decline was greatest for recent HIV infections (32% decline, from 149 cases to 102 cases). These declines were greatest in men aged 45 years or older, Australian-born men, and those who lived in the gay neighbourhoods of Sydney.

In comparison with other international settings, PrEP roll-out in New South Wales was more rapid and at higher coveragemeeting the initial target of 3,700 participants on PrEP within eight months. 12 months after, 7,621 participants were taking part. By the end of the study, 9,714 people were taking part.

In the USA, PrEP was approved in 2012 and it was estimated that 492,000 men would benefit from the drug. However, uptake was sluggish before accelerating more recently, and by late 2016 it was estimated that 83,672 men in the US had commenced PrEP.

In England, the NHS announced it would provide PrEP to 10,000 patients through an implementation study in selected clinics from September 2017. Reductions in HIV diagnoses in 2017 in London have been attributed to a combination of increased testing and treatment, as well as PrEP sourced through trials or privately.

In France, 2,805 people (97% MSM) were prescribed PrEP in the first 12 months of roll-out in 2016 with only four new HIV infections in this cohort, but population-based trends in HIV have not yet been reported.

Professor Grulich adds: "This study involved a large-scale and state-wide response to ensure that PrEP was made available to men at high risk of HIV infection. This involved leadership from the NSW Government, advocacy groups working to help improve health literacy, and a network of free, publicly funded and private sexual health services serving men who have sex with men."

The authors note some limitations, including that they cannot rule out that some other factors may be involved in the reduced levels of infection at a state level, and some infections may have been missed if people did not attend the last HIV test at 12 months. They also note that some men may have obtained PrEP privately and the level of coverage may have been higher than described in the study.

Writing in a linked Comment, Professor Sheena McCormack, MRC Clinical Trials Unit, UK, notes that New South Wales was an ideal location to help identify the added benefit of PrEP as it has met the 90-90-90 targets for the proportion of individuals with HIV diagnosed, treated, and virally suppressed, which were surpassed in 2016, but adds that most countries are unlikely to reach these targets by 2020.

She notes: "Now, the EPIC-NSW study has provided robust evidence for the added value of PrEP at the population level, as well as endorsing the biological efficacy in individuals who use PrEP consistently during periods of possible exposure to HIV."

Explore further HIV prevention drug could be hindered by slow roll out

More information: Population-level effectiveness of rapid, targeted, high-coverage roll-out of HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis in men who have sex with men: the EPIC-NSW prospective, The Lancet HIV (2018). Population-level effectiveness of rapid, targeted, high-coverage roll-out of HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis in men who have sex with men: the EPIC-NSW prospective,(2018). DOI: 10.1016/S2352-3018(18)30215-7Not for distribution to United States newswire services or for dissemination in the United States

TORONTO, Oct. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- PIMCO Canada Corp. (PIMCO Canada) today announced the October 2018 cash distributions for the ETF series (ETF Series) of the PIMCO Canada mutual funds that distribute monthly (Funds). Unitholders of record of the ETF Series, at the close of business on October 24, 2018, will receive per-unit cash distribution payable on October 31, 2018.

Details of the per-unit cash distribution amount are as follows:

Fund Name Ticker Cash Distribution per Unit PIMCO Monthly Income Fund (Canada) PMIF $ 0.00577 PIMCO Investment Grade Credit Fund (Canada) IGCF $ 0.05390 PIMCO Monthly Income Fund (Canada) US$ PMIF.U US$ 0.01986

The Manager, PIMCO Canada administers and manages the PIMCO Canada ETFs, and retains Pacific Investment Management Company, LLC, (PIMCO), to provide sub-advisory services to the Funds.

About PIMCO

PIMCO is one of the worlds premier fixed income investment managers. With our launch in 1971 in Newport Beach, California, PIMCO introduced investors to a total return approach to fixed income investing. In the 45+ years since, we have continued to bring innovation and expertise to our partnership with clients seeking the best investment solutions. Today we have offices across the globe and 2,150+ professionals united by a single purpose: creating opportunities for investors in every environment. PIMCO is owned by Allianz S.E., a leading global diversified financial services provider.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements included in this news release constitute forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, those identified by the expressions expect, intend, will and similar expressions to the extent they relate to the Funds. The forward-looking statements are not historical facts but reflect the Funds, PIMCO Canadas and/or PIMCOs current expectations regarding future results or events. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from current expectations, including, but not limited to, market factors. Although the Funds, PIMCO Canada and/or PIMCO believes that the assumptions inherent in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and, accordingly, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such statements due to the inherent uncertainty therein. The Funds, PIMCO Canada and/or PIMCO undertakes no obligation to update publicly or otherwise revise any forward-looking statement or information whether as a result of new information, future events or other factors which affect this information, except as required by law.

Commissions, management fees and expenses all may be associated with an investment in the ETF Series Units. Please read the prospectus and ETF Facts carefully before investing. The ETF Series Units are not guaranteed, their value may change frequently and past performance may not be repeated.

For a summary of the risks of an investment in the fund, please see the specific risks of mutual funds section of the prospectus. Units of ETF Series trade like stocks, fluctuate in market value and may trade at a discount to their net asset value, which may increase risk of loss. Distributions are not guaranteed and are subject to change and/or elimination.

The products and services provided by PIMCO Canada may only be available in certain provinces or territories of Canada and only through dealers authorized for that purpose. PIMCO Canada has retained PIMCO LLC as sub-adviser. PIMCO Canada will remain responsible for any loss that arises out of the failure of its sub-adviser.

Contact:

Agnes Crane

PIMCO  Media Relations Phone: +212 597.1054

Email: agnes.crane@pimco.comStrategic partnership created to help entrepreneurs and companies succeed in the rapidly expanding Canadian cannabis industry



TORONTO, Oct. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Leading global cannabis brand and media platform PRHBTD today announced a partnership with Sussex Strategy Group, Canadas premier government relations and strategic communications agency. The partnership combines Sussexs industry-leading expertise with the tremendous depth and experience of PRHBTD to better service cannabis companies who include licensed producers, prospective retailers, technology companies and startups developing the next wave of ancillary cannabis products and services.

The partnership comes on the heels of PRHBTDs recent expansion into Canada and broadens its service offering to Canadas newly regulated market. Sussex Strategy Groups long-standing credibility as the go-to boutique strategy firm for companies that require advice and support in challenging and complex industries made it PRHBTDs ideal partner. The two organizations will collaborate as PRHBTD grows its portfolio of Canadian brand partners, guiding them with their applications to build licensed cannabis businesses.

We strongly believe that companies need to become effective story-tellers in order to be successful in the cannabis space. Traditional advertising wont work and will not be as effective given how regulated cannabis advertising is. PRHBTDs proven expertise in this area can give our clients the edge they need to reach new audiences and grow brand share and influence quickly and efficiently, said Michael Edwards, Director of Digital and Creative for Sussex Strategy Group.

Our partnership with PRHBTD is a key component of our strategy to build an unrivaled advisory practice for cannabis companies. The goal is to bring together the best people and provide the best possible suite of services, said Paul Pellegrini, President of Sussex Strategy Group.

"Sussex Strategy is the go-to boutique firm who represent best in class practices when engaging with government entities, says PRHBTDs Founder and CEO, Drake Sutton-Shearer. The expertise of the Sussex partners and team will provide critical knowledge and support that will continue to accelerate our expansion in Canada."

Media Contacts:

Zac Rivera

PRHBTD

zac@zacrivera.com

+1 (347) 251-1662

Colleen Ryan

Sussex Strategy Group

cryan@sussex-strategy.com

647-232-6867

About PRHBTD:

PRHBTD are leading cannabis from the black market to the supermarket.

The company has built a first-of-its-kind cannabis ecosystem that includes a brand creation and product development platform complemented by an original content studio. Additionally, PRHBTD created the first and largest multi-platform video distribution network in the cannabis industry reaching, an available audience of 100+ million people.

Through the companys in-house creative agency, more than 60 cannabis brands partner with PRHBTD for brand and product development, design, market strategy and branded integration within its original content, which is made by a team of award-winning creators.

PRHBTD is recognized as the exclusive global cannabis partner of Advertising Week and Entrepreneur Magazine. The company is venture backed with $12 Million in funding and has offices in Los Angeles, New York, Toronto, and Vancouver. Learn more at www.prohbtd.com and www.prohbtdmedia.com .

About Sussex Strategy Group:

Sussex Strategy Group is Canadas leading government relations and strategic communications agency. For 20 years, Sussex has helped clients at all levels of government achieve their goals and discover legislative success.

Sussexs entrance into the global cannabis industry is measured and disciplined. Our cannabis practice builds upon our integrated approach to solving problems and navigating policy at all three levels of government. Sussex provides regulatory and application support, corporate communications, issues management, brand development, media relations and video and digital strategies and assets to organizations in the cannabis industry.

Sussex is recognized for its ability to identify and motivate the public to take action on issues affecting Canadians through our advocacy arm. Our award-winning digital advocacy agency, Sussex Adrenaline, has helped millions of Canadians interact and engage with government directly on issues and policies of importance to our clients and their industries. Learn more at www.sussex-strategy.com

A video accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/72362a95-3dcd-4160-9dc1-189975b66ab0NOTICE:

TO BE CLEAR:

WE HAVE OUTLINED UNDER OUR RECORD MAINTENANCE POLICY WHAT WE BELIEVE TO BE A FAIR PROCESS FOR ALL. SIMPLY PUT: IF THE COURT SAW FIT TO EXPUNGE YOUR RECORD,SO WILL WE, FREE OF CHARGE. ARRESTS DO NOT IMPLY GUILT AND CRIMINAL CHARGES ARE MERELY ACCUSATIONS,EVERYONE IS PRESUMED INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY IN A COURT OF LAW AND CONVICTED. FCRA DISCLAIMER: MUGSHOTS.COM DOES NOT PROVIDE CONSUMER REPORTS AND IS NOT A CONSUMER REPORTING AGENCY. OUR DATABASE CANNOT BE USED TO MAKE DECISIONS ABOUT CONSUMER CREDIT, EMPLOYMENT, INSURANCE, TENANT SCREENING, OR ANY OTHER PURPOSES THAT WOULD REQUIRE FCRA COMPLIANCE. MUGSHOTS.COM PARTICIPATES IN AFFILIATE PROGRAMS WITH VARIOUS COMPANIES. WE MAY EARN A COMMISSION WHEN YOU CLICK ON OR MAKE PURCHASES VIA LINKS. MUGSHOTS.COM IS AN AGGREGATOR OF THE TODAYS CRIME NEWS. IN EACH FRONT-PAGE POST, THE HYPERLINK TO THE PRIMARY SOURCE IS SPECIFIED. ALL TRADEMARKS BELONG TO THEIR RIGHTFUL OWNERS, ALL MATERIALS TO THEIR AUTHORS. IF YOU ARE THE OWNER OF THE CONTENT AND DO NOT WANT US TO PUBLISH YOUR MATERIALS, PLEASE CONTACT US BY EMAIL mugshots.com1@gmail.com. THE CONTENT WILL BE DELETED WITHIN 48 HOURS.

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...Bolivar County, MS - A Mississippi grandmother was arrested Tuesday after officials found a baby girl stabbed, placed into a hot oven on Monday night.

Carolyn Jones, 48, is charged with first-degree murder for the death of her granddaughter in Shaw, Miss., Bolivar County Sheriff Kelvin Williams confirmed to NBC News on Tuesday.

The infant, 20-month-old Royalty Marie Floyd, was found by a relative who then contacted the Shaw Police Department. Upon arriving at the scene, the police contacted the Bolivar County Sheriff's Office for assistance.

Royalty had been living with Jones at the time of her death the sheriff's office said in a press release. It was unclear where the girl's parents were.

Jones had a court appearance Tuesday evening and was given a $500,000 bond.

When asked why Jones might have possibly committed the horrific act, Williams told reporters, "We're trying to figure that out ourselves. We have no idea at this point. Again, we might get some closure once we sit down with the investigator and once they present that to a judge for official charges."

He added, "Dark days such as these can only be brightened when justice is served."

Officials did not say what temperature the oven was at or how long the child may have been in it.

Mississippi Department of Public Safety spokesman Warren Strain said investigators were still determining the girl's exact cause of death, as well as when she may have died. Williams said Tuesday that the girl's body had been sent to a crime lab for autopsy, where are state pathologist will try to determine whether the girl was dead before or after being put in the hot oven.ARCHIVED - 12 more migrants brought ashore in Cartagena: 87 in the last 5 days



Unauthorized immigrants walk free in Alicante as detention centres are full

12 more migrants were picked up by Spains maritime rescue service on Tuesday off the coast of the Region of Murcia as they made their way on a small boat towards Spain from northern Africa, bringing the total for the last five days to 87.

This latest group heading for the Costa Calida was spotted by a Frontex aircraft as far as 62 miles from the headland of Cabo de Palos, and a maritime rescue vessel was sent to the area to intercept those on board. They were then brought to the port of Cartagena, where Red Cross volunteer workers report that at least one of the twelve men was suffering from symptoms of hypothermia.

It is the region of Andalucia which has borne the brunt of the wave of migrants heading to the EU from northern Africa this summer, but in Murcia the numbers have been significant and even in Alicante 207 have been brought ashore, many of them in the last few days, despite the distance of the Costa Blanca from Africa. This has resulted in the facilities to house the new arrivals being full to overflowing, and it is reported that in consequence at least 32 have been allowed to walk free because there is simply nowhere to put them.

Following the detention of the occupants of 5 small boats in quick succession, 19 of the 23 who were intercepted in the Marina Alta area at the weekend were granted temporary freedom while deportation proceedings begin, while the other 4 will be held in temporary detention centres while their claims that they are under 18 are verified.

The same situation applies to 13 more migrants who were picked up by the Salvamar Mirfak rescue vessel 80 miles from Alicante: they arrived in port on Sunday night, received attention from Cruz Roja volunteers, reported that they were from Algeria and Morocco and were then taken to the police station.

There they were identified and then allowed to walk free while their cases are processed, but the problem is that in the meantime their whereabouts are unknown. This means that even assuming repatriation orders are issued, they cannot be implemented unless for some reason the police stop and identify these individuals in the future.

Knowing that this shortfall in infrastructures exists in Alicante, the mafias offering transport to Spain from Africa specifically target the province, and last year there were a total of 388 intercepted on or off the Costa Blanca, a total which could be matched in 2018. This compares to figures of only 120, 26 and 87 in the previous three years.

Follow Murcia Today on Facebook to keep up to date with all the latest news, events and information in the Region of Murcia and the rest of Spain: https://www.facebook.com/MurciaToday/South Africa is going through one of its toughest economic periods in history, with record unemployment, the country slipping into a technical recession, and a weakening currency.

A National Planning Commission report warned of South Africa veering into a downward spiral, with declining investments and low tax revenue leading to even lower investments.

A report by the Centre for Risk Analysis painted an even bleaker picture, which said South Africa is now in the longest downward business cycle since 1945.

This, IRR CEO Frans Cronje said, is extraordinary as other emerging markets are driving the global economy.

Self-inflicted economic woes

What makes South Africas economic problems particularly difficult to stomach is the fact that they were created by mismanagement, corruption, and poor leadership by the government.

Under former President Jacob Zumas leadership, loyalty towards him and the willingness to further his personal objectives replaced competence and qualifications as the criteria for top positions.

Some of his close allies, like Dudu Myeni and Hlaudi Motsoeneng, were given top positions at state-owned enterprises (SOEs), despite not having the experience or qualifications needed for the job.

Hlaudi Motsoeneng was appointed as the COO of the SABC, despite not having completed matric.

Dudu Myeni, in turn, was appointed to the SAA board and later made chairperson, despite only having a teaching diploma and no airline experience.

It is not surprising that both the SAA and SABC are now facing severe financial problems, with annual losses of R5.67 billion and R622 million, respectively.

The same thing happened across many ministries and SOEs, and South Africa is now facing the consequences of these very poor appointments.

Some hope returns

Despite the huge challenges the country faces, President Cyril Ramaphosa is bringing hope to the South African economy.

He started to clean up institutions like Eskom, SAA, and the SABC, with new boards and new leadership teams.

He also acted decisively when former finance minister Nhlanhla Nene admitted to not being truthful about meeting the Gupta family, and replaced him with the qualified and respected Tito Mboweni.

Ramaphosa seems to genuinely look for the best person for the job within the South African political framework, and focuses on qualifications and experience over narrow self-interest.

Qualifications of SA Presidents

Some people argue that Zumas lack of respect for qualifications and poor leadership come from the fact that he did not receive a formal education.

Prince Mashele, CEO of the Forum for Public Dialogue and a political analyst for Nedbank Capital, has been critical of Zumas lack of formal education and argued that Zuma was not fit to rule.

Others disagree, arguing that the negativity over Zumas lack of academic qualifications are unjustified, and that he is a leader of the people.

The image below provides an overview of the qualifications of South African presidents from 1994 to 2018.

BRICS leaders qualifications

The graphic below gives an overview of the qualifications of BRICS leaders under Zumas presidency, and the current leadership.

Now read: South Africa is going to get a lot worseI did not get the real ...--Husband/wife team come to U.S. from India, start managed services/IT staffing companies in 1996 that grow to be become worldwide industry leaders --



EL SEGUNDO, Calif., Oct. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- RJT Compuquest, RJT Solution Beacon and RJT Compusolutions announced today that the three entities have merged to become Apolis, a $70 million IT staffing and cloud solutions company. The announcement was made during an employee town hall meeting at U.S. headquarters in El Segundo, CA, and simultaneously at Indian-based operations in Noida, India. Apolis is a human-centered ERP, professional IT staffing and managed cloud solutions company that seamlessly integrates experts into organizations to help solve business challenges with Oracle, SAP, AWS and a wide variety of other managed services solutions.

Prior to todays Apolis merger announcement, the three entities had, and will continue to be, privately owned and operated by Co-founders Amar Shokeen and Rita Shokeen, who together with their two small children, came to the U.S. in 1994 to pursue the American Dream, and in 1996, started their first company. Mr. Shokeen is now Chief Executive Office of Apolis, while Mrs. Shokeen is Chief Operating Officer. Other executive management appointments are Lori Tabb, Chief Marketing Officer; Michael Follin, SVP Sales; Doug Jett, SVP Managed Services; Arjun Shokeen, Vice President Strategy; and Timothy Vo, Director Global Recruitment.

RJT Compuquest -- now Apolis -- has proven to be a valuable partner in our ongoing effort to land top talent, said Jordan Rao, Senior Corporate Recruiter/Talent Selection & Engagement for The Cheesecake Factory, Inc., named one of Fortunes 100 Best Places To Work for five consecutive years. They take time to understand our business needs and work hard to deliver qualified candidates.

Other big brands including Fortune 500 and 100 giants 3M, Nestle USA, Qualcomm Inc., Toyota Motor Sales, USA, Inc., Toyota Industries Global Commercial Finance, and Baxter Healthcare all entrust ERP, managed services and professional IT staffing needs to Apolis.

Although the technology ecosystem in which we do business has changed dramatically since 1996, our core philosophy and corporate mission have not changed in the last 22 years, said Mr. Shokeen during todays Apolis announcement. We remain a human-centered company, dedicated to nurturing the life-long relationships we have built with client companies and IT professionals worldwide. Even though we have hit a $70 million revenue milestone, our biggest accomplishment still remains the thousands of lives we have positively impacted, and the hundreds of companies we have helped to solve business challenges.

We understand that what got us to 20 years and $70 million is not necessarily what will guide us through the next 20 years, thus the re-organization and renewed commitment to the future, concluded Mr. Shokeen in todays announcement. The move to the cloud has drastically changed the way we do business and will continue to evolve for quite some time. Apolis is poised to lead that evolution. Companies and professionals also need to embrace AI, IoT and blockchain, all areas of focus for us throughout the next decade. We will soon be debuting our own new AI recruiting tool, which will significantly enhance the way we screen professionals.

About Apolis

Based in the Los Angeles area, Apolis is a human-centered ERP, professional IT staffing and cloud solutions company that seamlessly integrates experts into organizations to help solve business challenges.

Apoliss growth to $70 million is the product of over 20 years of experience in analyzing clients needs and evolving the approach to SAP, Oracle, and IT and consulting solutions. Its global workforce of thousands keeps the company responsive and able to support virtually any business, anywhere in the world. The company is investing in training and the development of leading-edge technologies to help its clients stay ahead of the technology curve.

Apolis pairs an expansive array of IT capabilities with a spectrum of service levels, from full managed services to on-demand and offshore staff augmentation. The company also has an extensive training program for its IT professionals, including mobile app development training and job placement.

Apolis operates under the premise that behind every innovative solution are extraordinary people. As Apolis grows, so does its commitment to superior personalized service and the people who provide it.

For more information, please visit www.ApolisRises.com

Editors Note  Apolis CEO Amar Shokeen will be accepting a limited number of interviews at Oracle OpenWorld, Oct. 22-24, San Francisco. To request an interview, please contact Stacey Doss, SDDPR, stacey@sddpr.com , 949-285-2362.

Media contact:

Stacey Doss, APR

SDDPR

stacey@sddpr.com

949-285-2362The St. Helena Hometown Harvest Festival will take place from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 20.

The citys Recreation Department will kick off Harvest Festival by hosting the St. Helena Community Thanks & Gratitude Potluck from 4-6 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 18 at Lyman Park.

Saturdays events will begin with the Annual 5k, 10k, and Fun Run coordinated by the St. Helena Montessori School. The Fun Run will kick off at 8 a.m., with the 5K and 10K beginning at 8:30 a.m. Runners and fans should meet at the corner of Adams and Oak Avenue to check in or register on that day.

After the race, the annual Pet Pawrade takes place on the corner of Adams Street and Oak Avenue. Day of registration is available  for $20 per pet, on the corner of Pine and Oak at 8:45 a.m.

Scouting for Food comes to the Hometown Harvest Festival with a Pancake Breakfast and Food Drive, from 9-11 a.m., at the Catholic School parking lot, served up by Boy Scout Troop 1 to benefit the Saint Helena Community Food Pantry. Cost is $5 or five items of non-perishable food.

Scouts will accept food donations all day at the Harvest Festival at their wine barrel planter craft booth. Scouting for Food is part of National BSAs Do A Good Turn Day programs. If you cant make it to the breakfast stop by the Boy Scout craft booth and exchange a full grocery bag of non-perishable food items for a chance to win a wine barrel planter crafted by Troop 1.

Afterwards, walk down Oak Avenue to shop and enjoy more than 40 local, handcrafted arts and craft vendors, which will be set up by 11 a.m., and showcasing their goods until 4 p.m. During this time, kids can jump around in inflatables, partake in a Bike Rodeo with the St. Helena Police Department and get their faces painted. Wristbands for the kids area are $20 per child.

During the day, take a second to enjoy some music from the Dixieland Band and Saint Helena Community Band at 11 a.m., followed by a performance demonstration from Matias Martial Arts, featuring St. Helena martial arts students, at noon.

Other activities include:

the FFA Pumpkin Patch on Tainter Street,

the photo booth across from the Catholic Church, sponsored by the St. Helena Hospital

Ordinary Sons will rock the main stage on the south end of Oak Avenue toward Spring Street, including dancing, ring toss and street bocce ball

Cornhole tournament

St. Helena Oddfellows will host its wine auction fundraiser

St. Helena Kiwanis Club will sell beer, including 805 blonde ale

Nonprofit groups selling food and treats, hot dogs from Junior Womens group, corn on the cob from the Girl Scouts, cotton candy and cultural food from the Maldonado Fund and Catholic Church, and pies from the Federated Women.The St. Helena Planning Commission gave the green light Tuesday to a plan by Verizon to install a new antenna array that should improve cell service in and around the city.

The 12-foot-tall array will be placed atop an existing 83-foot-tall PG&E lattice tower in a vineyard near Grayson Avenue, bringing the towers total height to 95 feet. Other equipment will be installed at ground level on a fenced concrete pad.

To limit its visibility, the antenna array at the top of the tower will be surrounded by reflective 3M Conceal Film designed to mirror its surroundings  in this case the sky.

Verizon determined that co-locating the array on top of the PG&E tower was less visually intrusive than building a new monopine  a cell tower designed to mimic a pine tree  at an alternate location such as Mills/La Fata, said Verizon representative Brian Moore.

Verizon redesigned the antenna array and added the reflective film in response to neighbors who were concerned about the arrays appearance.

The apparatus should improve signal quality for local Verizon customers, who were the only cell customers to have any signal at all during last Octobers wildfires.One of the things that all Vietnam veterans carried with them into the war zone was the mantle of honor that had been placed upon our parents, our aunts and our uncles during and after World War II.

We all grew up with family stories of wartime life. Many of our grandparents spoke of their experiences during World War I. Most of our friends parents were veterans. Some of them were actual heroes.

There was a definite sense of honor and pride in being Americans as we did our duty for this country, whether voluntarily, or through the Selective Service.

Then, the 1970s happened, and then the 80s, and 90s, etc., etc. Life goes on.

The phrase Thank you for your service is nice, but it is becoming hollow and almost routine. Thats just the way that such things settle out in our culture.

However, regardless about how you feel about veterans, the one thing that all citizens should reflect upon is whether or not they themselves perform the most simple, most basic service to our country that they can.

Vote.

James Wayson

St. HelenaVoting for Measures E and I is a crucial first step toward addressing the countys affordable housing needs. But dont expect it to be a cure-all.

Measure E will increase St. Helenas hotel tax  also known as transient occupancy tax (TOT)  by 1 percent to raise money for housing. Measure I will do the same for hotels in the unincorporated areas.

The cost will be paid entirely by the million or so visitors who stay overnight in Napa County annually. Residents wont pay a dime.

Similar measures are on the ballot in each Napa County jurisdiction. City residents will be asked to vote on two measures  one for the county and one for the city  and its important to vote yes on both to ensure that hotel taxes remain uniform throughout the county.

Catherine Heywood of Visit Napa Valley, Napa County Supervisor Diane Dillon, St. Helena City Councilmember Mary Koberstein, and John Sales of Our Town St. Helena made a rock-solid pitch in favor of the hotel tax measures.

Measure E would raise about $279,000 a year for St. Helena housing efforts, and Measure I would raise over $1 million in the county. Since the county is focused on agriculture, you can expect most of its share to be spent on housing projects and programs in the cities. So if both measures pass with the necessary two-thirds supermajority, expect to see more city-county collaborative efforts.

The question isnt how to vote. Think of the measures as E for Essential and I for Indispensable. Both should be slam dunks, with strong endorsements from the Napa Valley Vintners and the lodging industry and no organized opposition.

The real question is whether we begin to look at housing as the existential problem that it is.

The problem is no longer limited to low-wage folks. It takes a $65,000 income to afford the average rent in St. Helena. Thirty-six percent of the people who live here cant afford that, and are only living here today because they got in when prices were lower.

It takes income of $200,000 or more to buy a house in St. Helena. Seventy percent of the people who live here cant afford that.

Even people making decent salaries are being priced out of the county, forced to either commute from neighboring counties or opt out of the Napa County job market entirely.

Local restaurants like Terra and Cindys Backstreet Kitchen in St. Helena, Brannans in Calistoga, and Redd in Yountville have closed, each citing the difficulty of finding qualified workers as a contributing factor.

Barring dramatic action to quell the problem, restaurants, shops and other businesses that depend on local workers will continue to peter out. A greater share of the remaining workers will have to commute in, exacerbating rush-hour logjams. The lost sales taxes will start to hit local government budgets, forcing officials to make tough decisions.

Even worse, formerly thriving neighborhoods will increasingly be replaced by second-home enclaves where nobody knows their neighbors names. School fundraisers, nonprofits, service clubs and volunteer-supported recreational programs will be further diminished. St. Helena will start to resemble more and more a film set  the perfect picture of an idyllic small town, but with no sense of community behind the facade.

That gloomy scenario is avoidable. Affordable housing consultant Erica Sklars recent housing white paper warned that St. Helena is losing its middle class, but it listed TOT funds as one component of a multi-pronged solution that would also encompass zoning changes, new development standards and more meaningful housing contributions by hotel developers.

Measures E and I are a good start, but whats really necessary is a complete attitudinal change. Affordable and workforce housing must be seen not as a threat to St. Helenas small-town character, but as a vital component in preserving that character for future generations.

In the meantime, we urge you to be part of the solution by voting yes on Measures E and I.

The Star editorial board consists of editors David Stoneberg and Sean Scully and community volunteers Norma Ferriz, Christopher Hill, Shannon Kuleto, Bonnie Long, Peter McCrea, Gail Showley and Dave Yewell.CALISTOGA  Having endured economic losses and psychological trauma from the towns power being cut off for 24 hours for a wildfire threat that never materialized, the Calistoga City Council wants an explanation from Pacific Gas & Electric.

The citys schools had to shut down Monday and scores of businesses had to close or limp along with limited operations due to lack of electricity.

In response to windy and dry weather conditions in the region, PG&E chose to activate its Public Safety Power Shutoff Program for the first time Sunday night, cutting power to about 59,000 customers in the region to reduce risk of wildfire.

Most power was restored by Monday evening, but many questions have been raised about the implementation  mainly, why was the entire city of Calistogas power shut down?

On Tuesday, Calistoga council members said they wanted to know what criteria are used to shut off the power; why was there no public information officer on-site to field questions and problems; what did PG&E learn from the experience and how will it improve future planned outages?

Council members wondered why Calistoga isnt on a separate grid from the surrounding wildlands. No other Napa Valley city had its power cut off on Sunday.

Mayor Chris Canning said the city wants PG&E representatives to attend a town meeting the week of Oct. 29 or Nov. 5, avoiding Halloween and Election Day. The goal is to have PG&E decision makers, not public information officers, answer questions, he said.

As required by the state, after any peremptory outage, PG&E must first meet with the California Public Utilities Commission within 11 days of any cutoff.

Why cant they give us an exact time when the power will be shut off? asked Councilmember Michael Dunsford, whose inn and restaurant lost customers and thousands of dollars due to the outage.

City Manager Dylan Feik noted that Calistoga is not a high-hazard area but is surrounded by one, like nearby St. Helena. However, St. Helenas power was not shut off.

The City of Calistoga was made aware that a planned outage might occur on Sunday, and took measures to increase staff, but They never gave a specific time, Feik said.

We were all guessing. Were planning on it happening again, but what if it was a 48-hour incident?

Feik said he will call PG&Es attention to the fact that they need to turn on the most impacted and vulnerable facilities power first, like the sewer system, instead of the public schools, which were closed Monday.

Council members said the city and the county could have responded better, providing health and human services in denser elder communities and counselors for those with post-traumatic stress disorders triggered by a reminder of last years devastating wildfires.

Despite the confusion and impositions suffered, Canning lauded the community. We are a pretty rough-and-tumble community and acted well, as is typical of Calistoga.

You can reach Cynthia Sweeney at csweeney@weeklycalistogan.com or 942-4035.

Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy.A bean bag chair, tea caddy, ping pong table and more than six dozen workers wearing casual clothing and headphones sitting row after row at open plan desks.

Sounds like scenes from a downtown San Francisco or Silicon Valley-style startup. But this operation is right here in Napa.

Called nakedwines.com, the business is perhaps most visible to drivers whizzing along the Maxwell Bridge. The companys new offices are located in the South Napa Century Center on Gasser Drive.

What does nakedwines.com do?

We crowdfund winemakers all around the world, said Ryan OConnell, a company spokesman with the title Naked Narrator.

Nakedwines.com works with independent winemakers to help them make their wine. The winemakers can use their own label or name but nakedwines.com is listed on the back of the bottle as the winery that produced the wine.

The company uses a custom crush facility in Kenwood to make the wines. Nakedwines.com then sells the wine for the winemakers. The company serves buyers in the U.S. the U.K. and Australia.

We want to get to a world where wine drinkers can afford to drink really great wines, and you do that by connecting winemakers and wine drinkers directly, said OConnell.

The company uses a somewhat unusual method of financing the business. Angels or subscribers pay $40 per month up front. The angels can then buy wine from nakedwines.com at a deep discount  40 to 60 percent  using their credits.

Nakedwines.com now has more than 115,000 angels in the U.S. who have helped the company invest in more than 159 independent winemakers in 14 countries.

Some in the wine industry consider the company business model a disrupter, OConnell acknowledged.

But I dont think of us that way, he said. We want to create a great system for people to enjoy wine and we want everybody to benefit from it.

Its really inspiring being part of an industry trying a new take on an old industry, said Cari Cameron, head of acquisitions at nakedwines.com.

This is the fifth Napa location for nakedwines.com, said OConnell. The company moved last spring after most recently occupying space near the Napa County Airport.

The design of the new building includes cork flooring, sliding partition doors, large windows, metal and wood accents and winery-inspired elements such as metal catwalks and viewing platforms.

It was really important that it be an office built around wine and wine tasting, said OConnell. We have a real facility to taste all of our winemakers wines; all the bells and whistles to really feel like were part of wine country.

Plus, its a fun place to work, he said.

The staff break room features Astro Turf-style grass, along with personalized bulletin boards displaying hashtags such as #wallofhappiness, #makeadifference and #keepingthemagic.

Large handmade dioramas made by a nakedwines.com employee decorate one coffee bar area.

Were part old world wine-making tradition and new world dot com, and we think the design reflects that, said OConnell.

While the back of the building that faces the Maxwell bridge is clearly identified with a nakedwines.com sign, the actual entrance and front door of the business is harder to identify.

Except for a small security keypad located off to one side, theres no actual door handle or sign. Instead, upon admittance, a large wooden and metal door pivots to open, as if to reveal a secret entrance.

The front door isnt meant to be mysterious, said OConnell. But even though nakedwines.com is all about wine, the Napa location isnt open for wine tasting or drop-in visitors.

Originally, the company planned to host a wine-tasting room for clients at its new Napa location, but that idea did not progress. However, nakedwines.com still hosts its own events and groups on the property, said OConnell.

Inside the vast open office, 84 people staff departments such as finance, operations, business development, data, shipping, compliance and customer service. From 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., staffers work in multiple shifts.

Large monitors installed at row ends display current statistics such as the number of calls, average customer hold time and number of missed calls.

We want a person to answer you within one minute, OConnell said.

The open plan office takes some getting used to, OConnell admitted. Even company executives sit side-by-side with the other staffers.

If anyone likes hearing the buzz, its the executives, he said.

To know what customers want and wine drinkers are talking about, You have to be close to the people talking to your customers, he noted.

Now that nakedwines.com is established in the Century Center and has more employees, the company is evolving in new ways.

We finally have the ability to reach out and participate in the community a little more effectively, said OConnell. That includes joining in with local charity events and organized activity such as with Napa Humane or for fire relief.

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 Friday, Puertas Abiertas Community Resource Center (PACRC) and California HOPE will celebrate One Year Later  In CommUNITY, to honor a year of resilience for the Latino community in the wake of the October fires of 2017.

Those affected by last years fires and supported by PACRC are invited to attend the event from 6-8 p.m. at 952 Napa St.

The center will celebrate and thank the donors from throughout the North Bay that have made it possible for Puertas Abiertas to respond to the needs of the community during and after the fires, including:

 Providing trauma and grief counseling to 1,338 individuals, group therapy to 175 individuals, and drop in support for 811 individuals thanks to California HOPE.

 Validating and processing the replacement of $500 each of lost property and wages for 100 families thanks to Mechanics Bank.

 Providing services and programs to stabilize Napa County Latino Families impacted by the fires thanks to $100,000 donated by Kenzo Estates

 Validating and processing the replacement of $1,000 to $1,800 each of lost property or wages to 447 families thanks to Redwood Credit Union. Additionally, Redwood Credit Union provided a $284,692 grant to our community.

 Providing direct financial assistance to 80 families thanks to gifts from the Napa Valley Community Foundation ($25,000), PG&E ($25,000), California Health ($10,000), and the North Bay Auto Auction ($10,000).

 Serving meals to 557 people affected by the fires thanks to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. This gathering was held at Napa Valley College and meals were prepared and donated by Salamoya catering from Oakland.

 Distributing more than $8,000 in gift cards to 138 families thanks to private donations.

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.River School will not begin classes next August on its new campus in Napa as originally planned, according to the Napa Valley Unified School District.

NVUSD announced Wednesday morning that the opening of the new River School campus  located at the former Salvador Elementary School site on Salvador Avenue in north Napa  will be postponed.

The new 530-student campus had been scheduled to open in August 2019, but construction is taking longer than anticipated.

Mike Pearson, director of Facilities, Maintenance and Operations, said they now expect construction to finish by Aug. 30, 2019, which would be after the school year has begun.

Once construction is complete, he said, it takes about a month to finalize the information technology, fire suppression and other systems.

Moving the entire school to the new campus, though it can be done fairly quickly, is very disruptive and it does not serve our strategies in terms of teaching and learning, said NVUSD Superintendent Rosanna Mucetti in a press release.

Given the facts at hand, she added, we would rather postpone the opening than try to accelerate the schedule, which would likely result in the students and staff moving onto a campus that isnt ready for them on Aug. 12 when school begins next year.

A new opening date has not been decided, according to Pearson. Options include moving the school over winter break and opening in January 2020, or waiting to open the new campus in August 2020.

Mucetti and Pearson met Monday with the charter council of River School, an NVUSD dependent charter, to inform them of the changes.

We are disappointed, of course, said Richard Hall, president of the River School Charter Board of Directors. That said, we also realize that the initial schedule was quite ambitious, and wed rather have a complete, well-built campus than one that is accelerated to meet the first day of school deadline.

Weve let the district know that our preference would be to open the school in January, and send our first class of 8th grade graduates off to high school from our new facility.

NVUSD decided to relocate River School from its current location on Old Sonoma Road where it shares a campus with Harvest Middle School.

The former Salvador site became available for River Schools new campus after the district merged Salvador with El Centro Elementary School to form the new Willow Elementary School.

The new campus is being built using funds from Measure H, the $269 million school bond approved by voters in June 2016.

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 Monday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren released the results of a DNA test to confirm what she has long claimed - she has some Native American ancestry in her family tree.

The test, performed by Stanford geneticist Carlos Bustamante, identified trace evidence of indigenous ancestry, a revelation so disconnected from genealogical experience that it indicates very little. While the political consequences of Warren's decision to release the test remain to be seen, her motivations for taking it are clear. She pursued the test because President Donald Trump has turned the nickname "Pocahontas" into a punchline, one intended to degrade, ridicule and minimize her personal and political legitimacy.

People all along the political spectrum have criticized Trump for wielding the moniker "Pocahontas" as a weapon. It is crass and degrading of Native American people. But this is not just a racial joke being made in poor taste.

Trump's choice of "Pocahontas" as a nickname reflects a deeply complicated history of ancestry and white racial fantasy. White Americans have long been familiar with the story of Pocahontas. Grade-school children can recite the bullet points: She was the 17th-century daughter of Powhatan, who negotiated with the English at Jamestown, married an English colonist and converted to Christianity.

But this narrative has always been a distorted projection of Anglo-American desires rather than a reflection of who the real Pocahontas actually was.

Myths about Pocahontas have historically been mobilized to serve purposes ranging from colonial conquest to Civil War and from racial segregation to white supremacy. Each usage promoted an unequal society that benefited whites at the expense of indigenous peoples and African-Americans.

The tragic irony, one we see unfolding each time Trump uses the name "Pocahontas" to advance a politics of racial division, is that even today, the misuse of her name and her history continues to have devastating effects on the lives of indigenous people. It perpetuates the long historical problem by which white people have claimed the right to define what it means to be Indian to justify the marginalization of native people.

The story of Pocahontas perversely became a symbol of national pride among white Americans during the era of forced Indian removal. The celebration of her imagined past helped deflect attention from the brutality of ongoing genocidal policies. In 1837, Congress commissioned an artist named John Gadsby Chapman to paint a massive mural for the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol. Chapman chose as his subject the "Baptism of Pocahontas," a rich image in which Pocahontas kneels luminous in a gleaming white dress, hands on her heart, with head bowed in prayer, accepting the superiority of English Christianity.

At the same time Chapman worked on his Pocahontas masterpiece, however, the federal government was aggressively pursuing a policy of forced Indian removal, rounding up native people off ancestral lands throughout the southeast and marching them to reservations in the Oklahoma territory. By the time his painting was installed in the Rotunda (where it remains today), the U.S. Army had removed over 45,000 southeastern Indian people from their homes and forced 4,000 native people to march to their death. This marked the beginning of a pattern in which Americans would venerate the history of Pocahontas, while simultaneously mistreating indigenous people and African Americans in the present.

During the Civil War, the Confederacy adopted this practice, as well. The sectional crisis of the 1840s and 1850s prompted Northerners and Southerners alike to begin crafting stories of national origins. Northerners argued the Puritans at Plymouth were national forebears, while Southerners claimed the founding of Jamestown as the site of American genesis.

For white Southerners, that made Pocahontas the mother of the South. For the Confederacy, she was a symbol of Southern exceptionalism, a link to royal ancestry, a queen among the heathen. As John Esten Cooke wrote in his 1861 poem "Dream of the Cavaliers," she was "Our own dear Pocahontas! Virgin Queen of the West - With the heart of a Christian hero, in a timid maiden's breast!"

An Indian who embraced the virtues of whiteness, her symbolic presence in the Confederate cause helped to justify the subjugation of nonwhite people. During the war itself, one Virginia cavalry unit went so far as to name itself "The Guard of the Daughter of Powhatan" and emblazoned an image of Pocahontas on its battle flag as it fought to preserve slavery.

In the decades following the Civil War, white Americans continued to fetishize Pocahontas as an Indian princess and a symbol of nativist pride. As immigrants from southern and Eastern Europe flooded to American shores, white Americans searched for ways to distinguish themselves as racially and ethnically superior to the newcomers. Pocahontas provided an ancestral touchstone from which white Americans could defend their racial and national superiority.

In 1887, former Virginia governor Wyndham Robertson published "Pocahontas and her Descendants" to assist those searching for ancestral connection to this most American of founding mothers. He noted that the descendants of Pocahontas ranked among the finest Americans, and, therefore, he argued, she was clearly of superior stock. "History, poetry, and art," Robertson wrote, "have vied with one another in investing her name from that day to the present with a halo of surpassing brightness."

By the early 20th century, Pocahontas was fully embraced by the growing American eugenics movement. For those invested in white supremacy, Pocahontas was the link to an imagined English past and, thus, an important marker of status for elite families. As journalist and author Ella Lorraine Dorsey explained in her 1906 book "Pocahontas," "it was not until the little Snow Feather of Powhata[n] took under her special care the English soldier Captain John Smith and his handful of adventurers, that the Anglo-Saxon race found a permanent foothold in the new world."

Groups such as the First Families of Virginia, an invitation-only society of wealthy families claiming descent from Jamestown colonists, celebrated their genealogical connections to Pocahontas as a marker of their superior whiteness. When Virginia passed the Racial Integrity Act in 1924, this posed a problem. This deeply racist, anti-miscegenation law divided society into two groups, "white" and "colored" and classified racially mixed and indigenous Virginians as nonwhite.

To circumvent the stigma of Jim Crow segregation, the First Families of Virginia demanded the law contain a "Pocahontas exception" to ensure they would maintain their Jamestown pedigrees and still be classified as fully white. This exercise laid bare the absurdity of the Pocahontas myth: This group needed an exception to claim an indigenous woman as a symbol of their superiority over nonwhites, which included actual Indian people still living in Virginia.

So long as Trump continues to mock Warren as "Pocahontas," conservatives will also continue to accuse her of using claims to indigenous ancestry, however problematic they have been, to gain unfair professional advantage, an argument that has never had merit.

Even worse, such imagined critiques fail to acknowledge the name and the myth of Pocahontas do have a long history of being used to secure unfair advantage: by white Americans. For centuries, the myths and mythmaking that divorced an indigenous subject from her history has secured unfair advantage to those invested in the preservation of white supremacy.

And if there is one thing Trump understands intuitively, it is how to manipulate a myth to gain undue personal advantage.

Honor Sachs is an assistant professor of history at the University of Colorado Boulder and is currently a fellow at the National Humanities Center. She wrote this for The Washington Post.WESTMINSTER, Colo., Oct. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Sustainable Forestry Initiative Inc. (SFI) announced the 2018 SFI Dr. Sharon Haines Memorial Award For Innovation and Leadership in Sustainability at the SFI Annual Conference today. Jay Jensen, Director of the Southern Regional Office at the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) is this years winner.



This is a true surprise and its extremely gratifying. SFI sets such a strong sustainable forestry example to follow and to be recognized by such a body is truly a humbling experience. My thanks to the people and the teams and the collaborators Ive worked with over the years who helped make this possible, Jensen said.

The award, created by SFI and sustainability leader International Paper, celebrates Dr. Sharon Haines, who was International Papers Director of the Office of Sustainability before her sudden passing in 2007. The award pays tribute to Sharons legacy by recognizing individuals or teams who have demonstrated a forward-thinking approach to sustainability and fostering collaboration.

Jay Jensen embodies the collaborative and innovative spirit that Sharon brought to her lifes work. Throughout his career, Jay has been known for working in close cooperation with outside stakeholders to foster relationships built to achieve sustainability goals, said Paul Trianosky, Chief Conservation Officer at SFI. Jay is also a thought leader when it comes to developing long-term, science-based conservation programs with measurable outcomes that move the needle for key species and issues.

Jensen runs NFWFs Southern Regional Office, which addresses conservation priorities in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas. NFWFs work on standardized metrics echoes SFIs own work to clarify the contribution of working forests to measure landscape-level conservation outcomes. NFWFs work to restore and conserve southern forests has also been particularly noteworthy and intersects well with the spirit of collaboration represented by the Sharon Haines Award.

Jays leadership and collaborative spirit have been most evident through Forestland Stewards, International Papers partnership with NFWF, said Tom Cleves, International Papers Vice President of Global Citizenship. His expertise has guided our progress toward protecting and enhancing ecologically important forestlands and coastal savannas in eight southern states.

Another signature effort benefitting from Jensens guidance is the Longleaf Stewardship Fund. This longstanding NFWF program expands, enhances and accelerates longleaf pine ecosystem restoration across longleaf pines historical range. This precedent setting public-private partnership includes support from the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. Forest Service, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and private funding from Southern Company, International Papers Forestland Stewards partnership and Altria Group, as well as the American Forest Foundation and the Orton Foundation.

Prior to joining NFWF in 2015, Jensen served as the Associate Director for Land and Water for the White House Council on Environmental Quality and also as the Deputy Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment in the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

About the Sustainable Forestry Initiative Inc. (SFI)

SFI Inc. is a sustainability leader that stands for future forests. We are an independent, non-profit organization that provides supply chain assurances, delivers conservation leadership, and supports environmental education and community engagement. SFI works with the forest sector, brand owners, conservation groups, resource professionals, landowners, educators, local communities, Indigenous peoples, governments, and universities. SFI standards and on-product labels help consumers make responsible purchasing decisions. Additionally, we oversee the SFI Forest Partners Program, which aims to increase supply of certified forest products, the SFI Conservation and Community Partnerships Grant Program, which funds research and community building, and Project Learning Tree, which educates teachers and youth about forests and the environment. SFI Inc. is governed by an independent three chamber board of directors representing environmental, social, and economic sectors equally. SFI believes caring for forests improves everyones quality of life. Learn more: sfiprogram.org.

About International Paper

International Paper (NYSE: IP) is a leading global producer of renewable fiber-based packaging, pulp and paper products with manufacturing operations in North America, Latin America, Europe, North Africa, Russia and India. We produce corrugated packaging products that protect and promote goods, and enable worldwide commerce; pulp for diapers, tissue and other personal hygiene products that promote health and wellness and papers that facilitate education and communication. We are headquartered in Memphis, Tenn., and employ approximately 52,000 colleagues located in more than 24 countries. Net sales for 2017 were $22 billion. For more information about International Paper, our products and global citizenship efforts, please visit internationalpaper.com.

About Dr. Sharon G. Haines

Dr. Sharon G. Haines, who died on Aug. 10, 2007, was the first director of International Papers Office of Sustainability. Her successes included developing many of the companys innovative partnerships with conservation groups, leading the development of its sustainable forestry programs, championing projects to protect endangered species across company land, helping to establish sustainable forestry policy issues at the national and international levels, and mentoring colleagues to help them excel professionally. Haines was selected as a Fellow of the Society of American Foresters and received an American Forest & Paper Association 2005 Conservation Award. She was a member of the National Commission on the Science of Sustainable Forestry and worked with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.

SFI Media Contact

Media Contact Daniel Pellegrom, VP, Communications

202-596-3452

daniel.pellegrom@sfiprogram.org

International Paper Media Contact

Adam Ghassemi, Staff Communications Manager, Corporate Communications

901-419-4436

adam.ghassemi@ipaper.comIt took nearly two years, but President Donald Trump has finally said something unflattering about Secretary of Defense James Mattis. Rumors of the presidents unhappiness with Mattis date back several months, yet only last weekend did Trump himself express any, telling 60 Minutes that he thinks the retired four-star Marine general is sort of a Democrat.

In another era, when retired generals gravitated toward the center, being called a Democrat by a Republican president would be worth its weight in Sunday talk-show invitations. In Trumps Washington, the remark is the kiss of death. So its worth asking why Trump thinks his secretary of defense is on the other team.

From the beginning of Trumps presidency, much of Washington saw Mattis as a kind of guardrail. When the Trump transition team floated his name in November 2016, there was a palpable sense of relief at a national security forum I was then attending. Democratic and Republican lawmakers praised the pick.

It was easy to see why. Mattis is a consummate military professional. In 2016, when so many former senior national security officials chose sides, his politics remained inscrutable. Mattis let it be known that he thought Iran still needed to be deterred and that America should not fight wars unless the American people were willing to commit the resources needed to win them. He had devoted a lot of his time to studying the transition of soldiers to civilian life, and believed that national service should not be a partisan matter.

So its not surprising that Mattis sought to build a bipartisan team at the Pentagon. The most obvious example was his courting of Michele Flournoy, who almost certainly would have been Hillary Clintons secretary of defense, to be his deputy. In the end, Flournoy declinedbut Trump loyalists noticed the courtship. As one White House official told me at the time, Trump did not understand why Mattis would want to bring in someone so close to Clinton.

Mattis clashed with the White House on other key posts as well. In some cases, he wanted to bring in Republican defense policy hands who had signed letters in 2016 denouncing Trump. But the White House made it clear that never Trumpers had no place in the administration.

Another factor in Trumps mistrust of Mattis is policy. Trump campaigned against the Iran nuclear deal even before he became president. Yet Mattis counseled against withdrawal, supporting the strategy of then-national security adviser H.R. McMaster to fix the agreement, not abandon it.

Mattiss reputation as one of the adults in the room is well known: He has been a key voice calming allies in NATO. He managed to soften Trumps initial ban on transgender Americans serving in the military. He was one of the people who persuaded Trump to embrace a strategy of keeping troops in Afghanistan to fight for the elected government in Kabul.

It is not unusual for a president and members of his Cabinet to have differences of opinion. At times, however, Mattis has seemed like he was managing the president as much as the Pentagon. In Bob Woodwards latest book, for example, he writes that Mattis did not present Trump with robust options for a military strike on Syria in 2017, after the U.S. had concluded that the regime had ordered a chemical weapons attack. Mattis and the Pentagon wanted to keep the attack as narrow as possible, Woodward writes. After the book came out, Mattis denied ever questioning Trumps sanity and disputed other details as well.

At the time, Trump made a show of saying how much he appreciated that statement. Now he says he doesnt know if Mattis will remain in his Cabinet. In some ways, Trump sounds a little like the officials in the previous administration who saw Mattis as too aggressive on Iran. President Barack Obama ended up shoving Mattis out of his post as commander of U.S. Central Command a year early.

Trump is well within his rights, of course, to hire a secretary of defense who will more enthusiastically implement his policies. But Trump should also appreciate that the man who currently has the job is one of the few remaining public figures in America who has the trust of both parties. Trump may find that irritating, but it will help him in the next crisis.

Eli Lake is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering national security and foreign policy. He was the senior national security correspondent for the Daily Beast and covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times, the New York Sun and UPI.Bhutan is all set to hold its third parliamentary elections on Thursday. Polling for 47 seats of National Assembly, the lower house of the parliament will be held tomorrow. A total of 865 polling stations have been set up in 20 districts for the general elections.

Over 4,38000 voters are eligible to cast their votes in the final round of elections who will decide the fate of 94 candidates, 47 each from Druk Nyamrup Tshogpa (DNT) and Druk Phuensum Tshogpa (DPT) parties.

According to Bhutans constitution only two political parties, who get highest votes in the primary round, can participate in the final round of general elections.

The primary round concluded on September 15, and saw the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) ousted from the race. The two parties that will battle it out are the Druk Phuensum Tshogpa (DPT) and the Druk Nyamrup Tshogpa (DNT)

The ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had got third place and it failed to qualify for the final round.

Pema Gyamtshos DPT has highlighted self-reliance as the chief promise if voted to power. Lotay Tsherings DNT has focused its attention on accessible healthcare, particularly in rural areas. The million dollar question is where the money will come from. Thus, both parties have taken a stand on hydropower as a source of state revenue, News Click reported.

According to BBS, a team of six polling officials were airlifted to lunana in Gasa on Sunday. The election this time has more female registered voters.

On poll day tomorrow, government offices, schools and commercial establishments will remain close.Russian will quit the Council of Europe voluntarily if its opponents in the association insist on its expulsion, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday, TASS reported.

"I dont think presence in the Council of Europe is more important for Russia than it is for European countries. It is my firm position. We joined the Council of Europe being convinced that it is geared to ensure a common European universal legal and humanitarian space," he said in an interview with the EuroNews television channel.

"Those who have undermined this space through illegitimate actions that violate the Charter and striped the Russian delegation of equal rights with other delegations are aware of what they are doing. I am sure of that. If they want to expel Russia from the Council of Europe, we will not give them such a pleasure. We will quit it voluntarily," he stressed.

According to the Russian top diplomat, Council of Europe officials who will be elected with Russias say will be illegitimate for Moscow. "The Council of Europe will elect its new Secretary General next June. If we are denied participation in the elections of these officials, a right we enjoy under the Council of Europes Charter, they [officials] will be illegitimate for us," he said. "So, I hope very much that all of our partners, first of all those who have caused this whole mess, who seek to punish peoples representatives for Crimeas free expression of will, I hope they will ultimately see the gravity of the situation and understand the responsibility they are undertaking."Newspaper: Russia's obligations before Armenia, border situation

Frank Pallone: Azerbaijan's escalation of violence on Armenian soil is unacceptable

Blinken urges Armenia, Azerbaijan to take immediate concrete steps to reduce tensions

Canada FM calls Armenia, Azerbaijan for de-escalation of situation

Contract soldier Meruzhan Harutyunyan died in hostilities

Armenia Ambassador stresses need for targeted condemning calls during talk with Amanda Sloat

Earthquake hits 10 km northeast from Armenia's Tashir, felt in Lori and Tavush Provinces with 3-point magnitude

Minister: Armenian Nuclear Power Plant has major toolkit to protect itself from potential military attacks

US calls on Armenia and Azerbaijan to 'resume substantive negotiations'

Armenia ruling party MP: At end of day, Azerbaijan lost advantages it had, Armenian army retrieved many positions

His Holiness Aram I: Silence of Armenia's allies and friendly countries is strange

Pashinyan to Putin: Actions of Azerbaijan are aggression against Armenia's sovereign territory

Russia Ambassador to Armenia fails to comment on current situation on Armenian-Azerbaijani border

UN calls on Yerevan and Baku to show restraint

US Ambassador to Armenia on escalation on Armenian-Azerbaijani border: We're trying to stabilize situation

Meeting with foreign ambassadors at Armenian MFA is over

France is concerned about escalation of situation on Armenian-Azerbaijani border

Russian MOD: Armenia and Azerbaijan took measures to stabilize situation after talk with Sergey Shoygu

Firing in eastern direction of Armenia's border stopped starting from 6:30 p.m. through Russia's mediation

Azerbaijani and Turkish defense ministers discuss escalated situation on Armenian-Azerbaijani border

Iran MFA calls on Armenia and Azerbaijan to show restraint

Russian MFA: Moscow is in contact with Yerevan and Baku to move escalated border situation to peaceful path

CSTO hasn't received official applications from Armenia for assistance with regard to border escalation

Putin, Pashinyan discuss current situation on Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Opposition 'Armenia' Alliance issues statement on situation on Armenian-Azerbaijani border and solutions

Sergey Shoygu calls on Armenian and Azerbaijani MODs to stop operations inciting escalation

Armenia PM holds phone talks with Charles Michel

Armenia PM delivers speech at Security Council session

Republican Party of Armenia demands that authorities stop adventurism and apply to Russia through legal procedure

Armenia Ombudsman: Azerbaijan's attacks of terrorist nature have endangered life and health of civilians

Armenia Ambassador presents situation on Armenian borders to Dereck Hogan

Armenia Ambassador discusses situation on Armenian-Azerbaijani border with U.S. Co-Chair of OSCE Minsk Group

Morgan Stanley predicts growth in luxury brand sales in the Metaverse

UN Security Council still hasn't planned discussion on current situation on Armenian-Azerbaijani border

Armenia President and PM discuss situation on border

Jon Inarritu calls on international community for measures against continuous provocations of Aliyev regime

BREAKING on Azerbaijani-Armenian border: 12 Armenian soldiers captured

Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin calls on intl community, religious structures to suspend Azerbaijan's encroachments

Opposition Homeland Party: All healthy national forces of Armenia need to gather and support army

Armenia MOD releases new footage showing how Azerbaijani armored vehicles are struck

Head of Armenia's Geghamasar: Situation is tense, enemy has accumulated a lot of armored vehicles on border

Armenia's Yolyan Hematology Center says blood donors are needed

Armenia MOD Suren Papikyan holds phone talks with Russian counterpart

Armenian National Committee of Europe: We urge the EU to put political pressure on Azerbaijan

Armenian political party leader: Armenia needs to address US, France and UN Security Council as soon as possible

Baku is putting the blame on Yerevan

Armenia minister: Unpredictable processes are unfolding after Karabakh war

Armenia Security Council Secretary discusses situation on border with US Ambassador

Armenia Security Council Secretary meets with Iran Ambassador, situation on Armenian-Azerbaijani border discussed

Charles Michel calls for urgent de-escalation of situation on Armenian-Azerbaijani border

Employees of Armenia's Sotk gold mine are evacuated

Armenia MP: We are anticipating more active steps from our strategic ally

Armenia ruling party MP calls on CSTO to issue statement on situation on Armenian-Azerbaijani border

RFE/RL: Armenia parliament committee chair: Armenian side has 15 casualties, 7 soldiers are captured

Armenia MOD: 12 Armenian servicemen captured, intensity of battles not weakening

Dollar drops in Armenia

Android banking apps and crypto wallets are under threat

Ambassador: Russia, Armenia are holding consultations over escalation of situation on Armenian-Azerbaijani border

BREAKING: Armenia has casualties, 2 military posts lost, 6 soldiers reportedly captured

Opposition MP: Faction of 'Armenia' Alliance is holding urgent and ongoing sessions and discussions

Opposition MP on possibility of Armenia exiting Collective Security Treaty Organization

ARF-D Armenia Supreme Body convenes urgent session

Ruling party MP: Azerbaijan has launched armed attack against sovereign territory of Armenia

Armenian army units destroying adversary's armored vehicles that invaded Armenia's territory on Nov. 16

Republican Party of Armenia vice-president: I told you a hundred times that the war is not over

Republican Party of Armenia and Prosperous Armenia Party convene urgent sessions

Armenian military-political figure Samvel Babayan: Enemy is trying to meet two objectives

Ann Linde shares deep concern over situation on Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Armen Grigoryan: Pashinyan received Biden's invitation to participate in Summit for Democracy, confirmed participation

WSJ: Ohio attorney's office sues Meta for $ 100 billion

NEWS.am 16.11.21 BREAKING: Situation is tense on Armenia-Azerbaijan border

Armenia Security Council Secretary receives France Ambassador

Armenia MOD: Armenian side has casualties and injured, there is news about loss of two military posts

MFA: Armenia, in accordance with the UN Charter, has the right by all means to reflect the use of force by Azerbaijan

Armenia MOD: Azerbaijan Defense Ministry is trying to blame Armenian side for its large-scale provocation

Armenia Ombudsman: Azerbaijani armed forces invaded and unlawfully deployed near Armenian communities

Armenia Security Council Secretary: There are injured and casualties

Security Council Secretary: If Armenia fails to resolve crisis via Russia and CSTO, it will have to use other mechanisms

Armenia MOD: Situation hasn't changed essentially, adversary has major losses of armored vehicles and manpower

Newspaper: Armenian side has 10 casualties as a result of exchange of fire

Russian and Iranian presidents discuss situation around Nagorno-Karabakh

Security Council Secretary: We are applying to Russia with call to protect Armenia's territorial integrity

Bitcoin price collapsed

Armenian Defense Ministry on situation on Azerbaijan border: Local battles are ongoing

Armenia MP calls on CSTO, OSCE, PACE and EU to implement necessary acts of restraint

Armenia recalls Ambassador to Brazil, Colombia and Bolivia

TASS: Yerevan applying to Moscow with the call to protect Armenia's sovereign territory

Issue on fate of Armenian captives removed from Armenia parliament's agenda, main speaker was absent

Majority faction MP: Armenia has suffered positional losses

Hraparak.am: Azerbaijanis capture 6 Armenian servicemen

Deputy Mayor: Gunshots being fired can be heard in Goris

Armenia parliament speaker, UK ambassador confer on aggravation of border situation in recent days

Armenia MOD: Situation at eastern part of border with Azerbaijan remains tense

Networking capacity of office of high commissioner for Armenian diaspora to be expanded

Armenia Security Council chief, Russia ambassador discuss situation on border with Azerbaijan

MOD: Azerbaijan armed forces fired at Armenia positions

Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan, ex-deputy PM now lawmaker Gevorgyan case court session put off for 1 month

Armenia ex-president Kocharyan, former deputy PM now MP Gevorgyan criminal case court hearing reconvenes

Biden expresses concern over China's actions regarding Tibet and Hong Kong

Oil is getting more expensiveDiscover Original Artworks from Local and International Artists with Special Installations and Features Exclusive to The Other Art Fair

SANTA MONICA, Calif., Oct. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Saatchi Arts The Other Art Fair (The Fair), a leading international art fair championing emerging and independent contemporary artists, will return to the Brooklyn Expo Center in Greenpoint, November 8-11. The Other Art Fair Brooklyn will showcase the work of 130+ local and international artists across a range of mediums, including sculpture, paintings, photography and more. This edition is also proud to introduce Brooklyn-based multimedia and Emmy-winning artist Mike Perry as its Guest Artist.

Unlike exhibitors of traditional art fairs, which are typically comprised of galleries representing artists, The Other Art Fairs exhibitors are the artists themselves, giving buyers unparalleled direct access to meet artists and learn about their work firsthand.

Brooklyn was our very first U.S. location for The Other Art Fair, and we continue to see growing support from the local arts community, said Ryan Stanier, founder of The Other Art Fair. As we introduce new editions, we strive to push boundaries and find new interactive ways to engage fair goers and create bespoke experiential programming that reflects our independent spirit.

Guest Artist Mike Perry is a Brooklyn-based artist, animator, creative director, brand consultant, poet and designer, as well as the mastermind behind the animated titles of Comedy Central's hit television show, Broad City. Perry is also the creative director of the magazine Tidal, and his work has been exhibited across the globe in countries such as Germany, Australia, China, Singapore and Holland with solo shows featured in London, Tokyo, New York and Los Angeles. In support of Free Arts NYC, the official non-profit partner of The Other Art Fair Brooklyn, Perry will present a limited edition print sold exclusively onsite throughout the weekend.

The artists showcased are chosen by a panel of art world experts and tastemakers to ensure attendees have the chance to encounter works of an exceptionally high caliber. The selection committee for The Fairs Brooklyn edition includes: Rebecca Wilson, Chief Curator and VP of Art Advisory at Saatchi Art, Liz Hopfan, Founder & Executive Director at Free Arts NYC, Steven Peterman, Co-founder/Director at Sketchbook Project, and Sara Hashim, Freelance Creative Director.

Meeting artists in person is a meaningful way for new buyers to begin their art collecting journey, said Rebecca Wilson, Chief Curator of Saatchi Art. The Other Art Fair creates a relaxed environment that makes discovering and investing in art an enjoyable experience. We also have very knowledgeable curators present throughout the weekend to offer complimentary guided tours and advice on where to begin when looking for art.

The Saatchi Art Talks Program, led by Saatchi Arts Chief Curator and Selection Committee member Rebecca Wilson, will be hosted in the Saatchi Art Lounge at The Fair. In this engaging program, artists, collectors and cultural influencers will gather to discuss a range of topics relating to the emerging art scene and design, including a discussion on investing in art under $1,000. Proceeds from the Private View on Thursday, November 8 will support Free Arts NYC, an organization that empowers underserved youth through art and mentoring programs to develop their creativity, confidence, and skills to succeed.

To learn more about The Other Art Fair Brooklyn visit nyc.theotherartfair.com. Tickets can be purchased here.



Private View:

Thursday, November 8th: 6pm-10pm

Tickets $30 USD



General Entry:

Friday, November 9th: 3pm-10pm

Saturday, November 10th: 12pm-9pm

Sunday, November 11th: 11am-6pm

Tickets $15 USD Adults, $13.00 USD Students and Seniors

For fair-related inquiries, please contact: Sophie Lucas, Group Fair Director - sophie@theotherartfair.com



For press inquiries, please contact: Mia Mendez, Director of PR  mia.mendez@saatchiart.com

About The Other Art Fair

The Other Art Fair, a leading artist fair for discovering emerging artists, provides a platform for artists to present and sell their work directly to art buyers. Each fair presents more than 90 artists chosen by a selection committee of art experts, enabling both collectors and first-time buyers to buy directly from emerging artists. In seven years, The Other Art Fair has hosted 30 fairs working with over 3,000 artists from more than 20 countries. Unlike other fairs, The Other Art Fair creates an accessible and open fair designed for visitors to enjoy an interactive and immersive experience. www.theotherartfair.comSARASOTA, Fla., Oct. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- HC Government Realty Trust, Inc. (HCGRT or the Company) today announced that it has recently completed the acquisition of a specialized USDA SIRF building in Sarasota, FL.



The Sarasota facility is a 28,210 square foot, single-tenant office and laboratory building which was developed to meet the specific requirements of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The property is located at 7525 Commerce Court, Sarasota, Florida and is 100% leased under a 20 year lease commitment ending in May of 2038. Stan Johnson Company served as buyers broker. The lease is backed by the full faith and credit of the United States of America.

This acquisition marks quite a unique opportunity for the Company both in the very specific function of the facility for the USDA and the propertys location right in our back yard, said Ed Stanton, chief executive officer of HC Government Realty Trust and Holmwood Capital Advisors, the REITs external manger. This property is the first of its kind serving as the prototype for the USDAs new sterile insect release facilities and replaces their previous location with a brand new high-tech facility.

The Companys strategy is to acquire and operate built-to-suit and refit-to-suit properties leased to the United States of America that fulfill mission-critical or direct citizen service functions primarily located across secondary or smaller markets. The Companys real estate portfolio currently includes 16 properties representing approximately 321,000 RSF and houses 11 different tenant agencies located in 11 states.

For more information, please visit our corporate website at www.hcgovtrust.com .

About this Press Release

This press release is neither an offer to sell, nor a solicitation of an offer to buy, any securities of the Company, including without limitation the common stock. Any such offer is made exclusively through the Companys final offering circular dated November 7, 2016, as the same may be amended or supplemented (the Final Offering Circular). The Final Offering Circular, as supplemented, is available at:

https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?company=hc+gove&match=contains&action=getcompany

Forward-Looking Statements

We make statements in this press release that are considered forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the Securities Act), which are usually identified by the use of words such as anticipates, believes, estimates, expects, intends, may, plans, projects, seeks, should, will, and variations of such words or similar expressions. We intend for these forward-looking statements to be covered by the safe harbor provisions for forward-looking statements contained in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and are including this statement in this press release for purposes of complying with those safe harbor provisions. These forward-looking statements reflect our current views about our plans, intentions, expectations, strategies and prospects, which are based on the information currently available to us and on assumptions we have made. Although we believe that our plans, intentions, expectations, strategies and prospects as reflected in or suggested by those forward-looking statements are reasonable, we can give no assurance that the plans, intentions, expectations or strategies will be attained or achieved. Furthermore, actual results may differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements and will be affected by a variety of risks and factors that are beyond our control. For further discussion of the factors that could affect outcomes, please refer to the risk factors set forth in the Risk Factors section of the Final Offering Circular. We assume no obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.SHERMAN OAKS, Calif., Oct. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Petroteq Energy Inc. (the Company) (TSXV:PQE; OTC:PQEFF; FSE: PQCF), a fully integrated oil and gas company, announces the closing of two previously announced financings.



The Company issued 500 debenture units of the Company to two arms length investors consisting of an aggregate of US$500,000 principal amount unsecured debentures convertible into an aggregate of up to 581,394 common shares of the Company at US$0.86 per share and warrants exercisable for an aggregate of up to 581,000 common shares of the Company at a price of US$0.86 per share until the date that is 12 months from the date of issuance. Each debenture has a term of 12 months and bears interest at a rate of 10% per annum. The Company had previously announced (September 20, 2018) that this financing would be completed with a conversion and exercise price of US$1.01 for up to 1,500 units.

The Company also announces the closing of the previously announced (September 26, 2018) financing for an aggregate of 833,269 common shares of the Company at US$0.98 per share and 520,408 common share purchase warrants, for gross proceeds of an aggregate US$816,605.

The net proceeds will be used by the Company for use on its extraction technology in Asphalt Ridge, Utah, for potential acquisitions of new oil sands resources, and for working capital. All securities issued pursuant to the financings are subject to a four-month hold period.

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: final completion of the above noted financings; and the Company successfully developing block chain technology for the oil and gas industry, 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: receipt of final approval of the TSX Venture Exchange for the transactions; PetroBLOQ successfully developing and implementing a blockchain-based supply chain management system, the blockchain-based supply chain management system being adopted by energy participants, and producing the benefits anticipated. 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. 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; 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

Tel: (800) 979-1897Participating in a traditional Costa Rican dance dressed as a campesino and making lasting friendships as part of a hunger outreach effort are experiences that Stephen Thomson, C19, an international studies major, will always remember from his volunteer service trip to Costa Rica this past summer.

Thomson taught English using songs and short stories at the Pavas location of Fundacion DEHVI (vital human development), an organization that operates elementary schools focusing on specialized education and nutrition programs. In addition to teaching English, Thomson served meals, played games with the students and participated in a project to help students appreciate nature. He even shared in the celebration of the Annexation of Guanacaste Day where he participated in traditional dance dressed as a campesino!In addition, Thomson served with Asociacion Obras del Espiritu Santo (AOES), a Catholic, faith-based, grassroots organization that works to provide poverty relief. He worked in the AOESs daycare program, which offers daycare free of charge for parents in impoverished communities so their children have somewhere to go while the parents are working. He also served with AOESs Hunger Outreach Program. The most moving experience for me as a part of the Hunger Outreach Program was the Saturday that I went to the town of Infernito. The name of the town in Alajuela literally translates to little hell, Thomson reflected. I truly felt as though I was making a difference in the lives of many people, and I felt incredibly blessed to have such an opportunity to serve. He was also deeply moved by the genuine concern the Costa Rican people demonstrated for their neighbors. Everyone I met was incredibly genuine and I formed lasting friendships, Thomson noted.Thomsons service opportunity was made possible by the research relationship of Amanda Beal, Ph.D., chair and associate professor of the political science department and director of the philosophy, politics and economics Program (PPE), with both Fundacion and AOES. One of the best parts of being a member of the Mount community is that we get to know our students well and can personally connect them with great opportunities around the world, said Beal, who noted that her connections helped to create an extraordinary educational and personal growth experience for Stephen. I couldnt be prouder of him!Jamie Gianoutsos, Ph.D., assistant professor of history and director of the Office of Competitive Fellowships, said that her office was delighted to partner with the political science department to offer Stephen a summer grant for his travel and living expenses. Stephens experience in Costa Rica afforded an unparalleled opportunity to build personal relationships and to serve communities in a region of the world that greatly interests him; at the same time, these relationships helped Stephen develop his Spanish-speaking skills, Gianoutsos said. In applying this fall for a Fulbright Fellowship, Thomson described his experiences in Costa Rica in his application. He applied for a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship with the hope of returning to Costa Rica and continuing his relationship with these communities.Thomson believes that the Mount has prepared him well for life after college. The Mount has prepared me for the future by helping me develop as a human being. All of my classes, jobs, extra-curricular activities, and experiences have not only given me skills to prepare me for jobs after graduation, but they have also prepared me for life after college in the real world, Thomson said. He hopes to pursue a career in international development policymaking, working for the U.S. State Department or the United Nations. When he realizes his goals and looks back on his time at the Mount, he will remember the people who pushed me to be the best that I can and realize my potential, who taught me valuable lessons both inside and outside the classroom, and all of my friends I have made.Places Been. People Met. Photographs Made  Daniel Overturf, a professor in cinema and photography, left, with Randy Grunt Masterson, in Mastersons home near Thebes, Illinois, on Christmas Day, 2012. A photo featuring Masterson is among those in an exhibition featuring Overturfs work that starts Oct. 21 at the Cedarhurst Center for the Arts in Mount Vernon. (Photo provided)

Cedarhurst exhibition to highlight SIU photography professors work

by Pete Rosenbery

CARBONDALE, Ill.  Photographers operate on curiosity. For Daniel Overturf, a professor in the cinema and photography degree program at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, the curiosity is endless.

Overturfs work is featured starting this week at the Cedarhurst Center for the Arts in Mount Vernon. The exhibition  Places Been. People Met. Photographs Made: Daniel Overturf  runs Oct. 21 through Dec. 30. A gallery talk is set for 6 p.m. on Oct. 20 in Mitchell Museum main gallery.

Selected works date back to 2004

The 113-piece photography exhibition of observations and portraits recognizes the mundane to the unpredictable, with plenty in between, but always from life, according to Overturf. Known for his small-town documentary classes and his own work and exhibitions, along with the 2008 book A River Through Illinois, the exhibition includes work from a variety of locations.

Some of the work that Overturf selected is culled from unprinted negatives tin stored notebooks in his darkroom and are strong enough to show, but unrelated to any specific project.

I went back and collected work from different locations and people that I have experienced within the last few years. The set of images had merit but did not fit into one of the bigger projects tidy categories, Overturf said. Looking at the photographs in this exhibit I suppose I felt I had something more to say than just those specific projects.

The result was a collection with a broader theme than any of his other projects.

Like most photographers or artists, my motivation comes from curiosity and thats the guiding principle in this show. 

Overturfs social documentary photography

Rusty Freeman, director of visual arts at Cedarhurst Center for the Arts, said he invited Overturf to show because of his incredible photography project involving people in the regions small towns.

It is an extraordinary example of representation, a social documentary photography project so necessary in todays world, Freeman said.

He sees Overturfs work as philanthropic  photographing with respect the people and their ways of living and working that could very well be ignored in todays fast-paced, digital high-tech world.

Working on project brings back memories

There are images that do have related themes but have never been shown together. There are works from annual trips to Scotland, along with photos and portraits of people from other regions, including Barbados and Bangkock, Thailand; Alexander County, Illinois; the American Bottoms, a river collection; California; Albuquerque, New Mexico; the aftermath of the May 2011 tornado that hit Joplin, Missouri; and Chicago, Illinois.

There are 360-degree pieces of work and platinum palladium prints in the collection. Overturf notes there are only two large prints with an idea of showing more moments, people and information.

Reminders of why he was going to be a photographer

Overturf is regularly looking for things to photograph in his spare moments, whether early morning in Thailand or on a recent family vacation to South Carolina. For Overturf, it is a way of life.

Its not about those things, those places, he said. If you have that reason to get up out of bed and to make pictures  you are going to do that wherever you happen to be, he said.

He is quick to point out the exhibition is introspective view of his work, not a retrospective.

Thats the R word when you get up to a certain age, he said.

Finds exhibitions trigger visitors memories from their own lives

Overturf has participated in several exhibitions throughout his career. He is fascinated by the ways a photograph sparks conversation about triggered memories from a viewers own experience.

Its amazing that the more fact-based your work is, the more people want to talk about another set of facts from their own lives, which is interesting, he said. The conversation does end up back talking about the photograph.

Small-town documentary class work underway

The eight students in Overturfs biennial Small Town Documentary Class are spending the fall semester chronicling separate communities, this year including Golconda, Fayetteville, Crab Orchard and Cypress. This is the 11th edition of the class since it started in 1996.

The exhibit will begin Nov. 27 in the north wing of the Communications Building, between the School of Journalism and cinema and photography departments.

Some of Overturfs work that will be part of an exhibit at Cedarhurst Center for the Arts include a portrait of Rebecca Taylor in her yard in Alexander County; cousins on a turkey hunt; and a green wall in Thailand. (Photos provided)In the year since the #MeToo movement took center stage, one thing is clear: Consent can still be a hard concept to grasp. What is consent? Is there a double standard that comes with it? And when an encounter is not consensual, what's the best path to accountability and healing? In a recent VICE on HBO episode, correspondent and producer Isobel Yeung (pictured above) explores the conversations around sexual assault. A survivor herself, the episode is a harrowing look at the long-term effects of assault for the victim...and the assailant.

Highlighting one of the most polarizing ways to hold the accused accountable, Yeung takes viewers through an emotional "restorative justice" session between a survivor and her alleged assailant. Sitting face-to-face, the two discuss the alleged assaulta revealing and powerful inside look at how both parties have processed the incidentand what justice looks like for the victim. Of course, for many victims, restorative justice isn't enough justice. But, as Yeung states in the episode, this avenue isn't a solution for all. "But at least it's providing the beginning of a way forward."

Here, Yeung describes what watching that session was like, the complexities of consent and the path to redemption and healing for survivors.

If one thing is clear after the tumultuous Kavanaugh-Ford hearings last month, its that trauma from sexual assault is real, lasting and deep. As millions of Americans listened to Dr. Christine Blasey Fords brutal, heartfelt testimony, many survivors were triggered to think back to their own, harrowing experiences. Hundreds felt compelled to recount their stories to colleagues, friends, family members, the Sexual Assault Hotline, and even C-SPAN.

Many of these stories emerged from women who for so long had resolved not to speak about their sexual encounters in public or even with those closest to them. Anxiety, self-blame, shame and fear are among the reasons that individuals stay silent.

Story continues

That was the case for me. When I was 18, a man who I considered my close friend forced himself upon me. I didnt understand what was happening until I looked around to see him with his clothes off, pushing my head towards his genitals. The details of that night are hazy and have long been a deep source of embarrassment to me, resulting in a resolution not to discuss it with anyone or to allow it to define my life.

At the time, I dismissed the criminal justice system as a means to any solution, knowing that I would have to explain, justify and relive that night in a public arena. I also had very little faith in justice effectively being served, which reflects thousands of other survivors, too. According to the non-profit RAINN, only 6 out of 1,000 rape cases result in successful convictions, meaning survivors are left fearing not only the humiliation of court proceedings, but also the high likelihood of their offender walking free.

Yet in this extraordinary moment of cultural reckoning, our lack of real options for addressing such experiences should not be ignored. How can we move on with accountability, healing and closure? And what should these look like? As part of our VICE on HBO documentary Consent,' we wanted to break through the heated political debates raging on both sides of this issue and search for solutions.

What we found was that the most compelling alternative to the legal system is a relatively new technique known as restorative justice. The concept is simple: to facilitate a dialogue between perpetrator and survivor, allowing both sides to talk openly.

In California, we met a woman named Alexis and a man named James (not his real name). Back when they were college roommates, they had been drinking heavily one night and wound up having sex. In the decade since then, James has maintained that this was merely a drunken incident while Alexis believes it to be rape. Alexis reached out to James several months ago to let him know that legal action was off the table, but that she wanted to talk. We watched as the two of them arrived in a dimly lit warehouse for one of a series of highly orchestrated sessions that professor and restorative justice facilitator Alissa Ackerman had arranged. For two excruciatingly uncomfortable hours in which they sat directly facing one another, they recounted their memories of that night almost 10 years ago.

Alexis broke down as she recalled flashes of James letting himself into her room and climbing on top of her. But she spoke more of how that one incident had impacted every facet of her physical and mental life. She felt disbelieved and outcast from their friendship group, eventually dropping out of college. Shes suffered from years of severe depression and at one point attempted to take her own life. Even now, she continues to suffer from profound PTSD, which has only been made worse by the inescapable news in recent months, weeks and days.

James also sobbed as he grappled to come to terms with his own behavior and how he had inflicted so much hurt. With the encouragement of Professor Ackerman he eventually stuttered, It was rape... Thats not easy to say, both because I know what its done to you and I know, you know... theres a flash of fear every time I associate with it.

It was tense and uneasy to be a witness to this and I was mesmerized by the level of honesty, humanity and vulnerability in the room. It ended with the two of them standing up and hugging. It all seemed like a visible relief for Alexis, who was eager to continue the sessions on a regular basis. This is a justice process that puts the survivor in the drivers seat, she told me. Were not really moving the needle at all until men start doing it, and your words have the potential to reach any other men and show that theres a path to taking responsibility.

Theres limited data on the long term benefits of restorative justice, but initial studies suggest participant satisfaction and a lower recidivism rate. Of course, that wont be the case for everyone. In some cases, it is too soft an approach and is seen as excusing criminals or even giving them a platform, while risking re-traumatization for survivors.

Despite that, interest is steadily growing. In this nauseating time of very public anger, denial and partisan noise, its refreshing to think of an alternative reality where accountability is palpable. What James and Alexis proved was that in some of the darkest corners of ourselves, there could still be a chance for redemption, healing and repair.

Isobel Yeung is a VICE correspondent and producer. You can watch the full "Consent" VICE on HBO special report, here.

MORE: Your Best Consent Ever: How You Both Can Get the Sex You WantHome | News | General | Lagosians are tired of being under the grip of 1 person for almost 20 years - Jimi Agbaje

- Jimi Agbaje expressed optimism of the PDP winning Lagos in 2019

- The PDP gubernatorial candidate said the people were tired of being under one person

- He said the party was expanding its base in Lagos

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate in Lagos, Mr Jimi Agbaje, has said that the party had assurance of winning the state governorship election in 2019.

Agbaje said this in an interview with newsmen at the partys National secretariat on Tuesday in Abuja.

He said that coming out of the partys national convention stronger and united, with its presidential candidate and his running mate, the PDP was getting seriously ready for the 2019 general elections including those of Lagos.

READ ALSO: 2019 election will be free and fair - President Buhari

This time around, we intend to take over Lagos in 2019. The campaign for Lagos is set for us.

It is clear to us in Lagos that what Lagosians are looking for is freedom from the vested interest that have gripped Lagos for nearly 20 years.

We have a situation where it had been under the grip of one or two persons and we are tired of that.

We believe Lagos is doing well compared to other states; but it can do much better than it is doing now; but it is being crippled by vested interests.

Things that could have been done differently are being done in a manner that is slowing down the progress and that is what the campaign is set against.

Free Lagos campaign is a campaign that Lagos can be better and that the alternative can be, a lot more, better than it is today.

The structure is being put in place and I am sure that at the end of the day, it is going to be victory for PDP in Lagos and at the centre and in most of the states that we lost, he stated.

Agbaje said that although the PDP had been opposition party in Lagos since 1999, the party base still remained intact and PDP was working to expand it.

There is a lot of confidence and dont forget in 2015 and irrespective of what happened, that base we had in 2015 still remains intact. Those that voted for us are still there for us.

The strategy is to expand that base in a way that we have every assurance that we are taking Lagos.

Asked if the defection of the Chairman, PDP Lagos State, Chief Moshood Salvador, to the All Progressives Congress would affect PDP performance in the state, Agbaje said his defection had no impact on the party.

He left on his own. If you go alone, I dont know how that will affect the party in any way.

If he was really somebody that has a structure or followership, you will expect the followership to go with him but when you leave as one person it means you are of no effect on the party.

We have not felt anything with his departure and it will not affect us. We have not had defections from the PDP in the last few years.

On his relationship with Chief Bode George, Agbaje said that George remained the leader of PDP in Lagos State and I dont think anybody is going to doubt that.

PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 news app

NAIJ.com previously reported that Agbaje emerged as the winner of the PDP governorship primary election conducted in Lagos state on Friday, October 5, defeating his opponent, Deji Doherty, with 1,100 votes to 742.

The primary election which lasted for two days was supervised by an electoral panel chaired by Victor Kassim Oyofo.

Agbaje was the PDP's candidate in the 2015 election but he lost to Akinwunmi Ambode, the incumbent governor of the state.

Lagos Governor: Is Sanwoolu a better candidate than Ambode?| Naij.com TV

[embedded content]

Subscribe to watch new videos

Source: Naija.ng

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: GeneralHome | News | General | Just In: Shortly after inauguration, Fayemi makes 3 important appointments

The newly sworn-in Ekiti state governor, Kayode Fayemi, has announced his first set of appointments.

In a statement released in the evening of Tuesday, October 16, the governor named Abiodun Oyebanji as Secretary to the State Government (SSG).

The Punch reports that Governor Fayemi also appointed Biodun Omoleye as the Chief of Staff and Yinka Oyebode as Chief Press Secretary.

READ ALSO: 2019 election will be free and fair - President Buhari

Oyebanji, a former university lecturer, had previously served as Chief of Staff during the administration of Otunba Niyi Adebayo and was Commissioner for Budget and Economic Planning during Fayemis first term.

Omoleye, a former university administrator and former chairman of Ijero local government, had also served as a special adviser in the Governors Office.

Oyebode, a seasoned journalist served as CPS to the governor in his first term.

He later served as special adviser on media to Governor Fayemi when he was the minister of mines and steel development.

The appointments are with immediate effect, the statement said.

PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 new app

NAIJ.com previously reported that Fayemi, on Tuesday, October 16, formally took over the reins of power as governor of Ekiti state, with a vow to probe the administration of his predecessor, Ayo Fayose.

Delivering his inaugural address after taking his oath of office at the Ekiti Parapo Pavilion in Ado Ekiti, Fayemi said the state had been in the throes of underdevelopment and financial crisis as a result of bad governance.

The inauguration was well attended by leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC), including its national leader, Bola Tinubu; Bisi Akande; John Odigie-Oyegun; APC governors in the southwest and from the northern part of the country; cabinet ministers; and the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Boss Mustapha, who represented President Muhammadu Buhari.

According to Fayemi, preliminary investigations have shown that the immediate past government plunged the state into a debt of about N170 billion and committed the state to needless projects.

He said the economy of Ekiti is in a state of emergency, needing the support of the federal government within the provisions of the 1999 Constitution.

Were Ekiti Residents Paid to Vote? | Naij.com TV

[embedded content]

Subscribe to watch new videos

Source: Naija.ng

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: GeneralHome | News | General | Wage: Labour will not sign agreement less than N30,000 - Ajaero

- Organised labour says it would never sign any agreement with the FG on new national minimum wage which is less than N30, 000

- Joe Ajaero, a labour leader who disclosed this said N24, 000 can never be the new minimum wage for workers.

- He said that the committee had concluded its meeting on the new wage and labour was expecting the government to invite them to sign an agreement

A labour leader, Mr Joe Ajaero, on Tuesday, October 16, said that the organised labour would never sign any agreement with the federal government on new national minimum wage which is less than N30, 000.

N24, 000 can never be the new minimum wage for workers. If the government pays it, then it is an award, Ajaero, president, United Labour Congress (ULC), said.

Ajaero told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos that the tripartite committee agreed that N30, 000 would be paid at the end of its negotiation as the new minimum wage for workers.

READ ALSO: Why I criticised Peter Obis nomination as Atikus running mate - Governor Umahi

He said it was sad that N30, 000 was adopted by the tripartite committee but the representatives of government announced N24, 000.

The labour leader said that the organised labour would stand against it and would not sign any document, which does not reflect the true deliberation by the tripartite committee.

He said that the committee had concluded its meeting on the new wage and labour was expecting the government to invite them to sign an agreement on the decision.

No more meetings. A date has been fixed to sign an agreement on the figure agreed. On that day, if the amount is not what the tripartite committee agreed, the organised labour will not sign, he said.

NAN recalls that on Nov. 27, 2017, President Muhammadu Buhari, approved the appointment of a 30-member tripartite National Minimum Wage Committee for the negotiation of a new national minimum wage for the country.

Labour collectively demanded for N65, 000 per month as the new Minimum Wage for all workers as harmonized by the organised labour.

However, after many delays on reaching an agreement on the figure for a new wage, the NLC, TUC and the ULC on Sept. 26 went on a two-day nationwide warning strike, to protest governments delay on the wage by not allowing the committee conclude its job.

PAY ATTENTION: Get the Latest Nigerian News Anywhere 24/7. Spend less on the Internet!

NAIJ.com had reported that the federal government was set to announce the new minimum wage as the tripartite committee completes its assignment for onward submission to President Muhammadu Buhari.

Ayuba Wabba, Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) president, made this known while speaking with newsmen on Monday, October 8, in Abuja.

Lets Talk About Salaries of Nigerian Senators | NAIJ.com TV

[embedded content]

Subscribe to watch new videos

Source: Naija.ng

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: GeneralEnglish French

OTTAWA, Oct. 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Known as the Jewel of the Dehcho, Edehzhie, N.W.T. is an extraordinary place. The 14,249-square-kilometre area west of Yellowknife has supported First Nations people for millennia, making it an integral part of their culture and identity. Its also a significant refuge for wildlife. The areas wetlands and forests provide essential habitat for waterfowl, caribou and wood bison. Now, Edehzhie has another deserving claim to fame: designation as a new Indigenous Protected Area (IPA).



Ducks Unlimited Canada (DUC) congratulates the Dehcho First Nations, the Government of Canada, the Canadian Wildlife Service, the Government of the Northwest Territories and the many partners who helped realize this important achievement. The IPA is a powerful example of collaboration, which will also help Canada meet its Target 1 goal to protect at least 17 per cent of terrestrial areas and inland water by 2020.

Under the Edehzhie IPA designation, the Dehcho First Nations and the Government of Canada will work together to protect the areas ecological integrity from impacts of development while maintaining Indigenous Peoples ways of life now and into the future.



DUC supports the creation of Indigenous Protected Areas and will continue sharing our conservation knowledge with Indigenous Peoples as part of their land-use planning, says Jim Brennan, director of government affairs. Ongoing collaborations like this are key to conservation progress in the North.

Thanks to a unique land contribution, DUC was among the partners who helped the Dehcho people along the journey to secure protection for Edehzhie.

More than 15 years ago, when the Canadian Wildlife Service began discussions with stakeholders, one private land holding remained isolated within the boundaries of the proposed Edehzhie protected area. It was the missing piece of the puzzle.

DUC purchased this key property with funds provided by a variety of sources, including the North American Wetlands Conservation Act and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, and agreed to hold it until the Edehzhie lands would be formally and permanently protected, enabling DUC to then relinquish its ownership.

DUC is proud to have played a role in helping the Dehcho people realize their conservation vision for the Edehzhie lands, says Brennan.

DUC has been delivering conservation work in Canadas boreal region for more than 20 years. The area, rich in wetlands, is central to DUCs conservation objectives and key to continental waterfowl populations.



Visit Edehzhies Horn Plateau in spring and youll see millions of migratory birds including Tundra swans and greater white-fronted geese flocking to the area to breed and raise their young. But thats not all. Boreal wetlands also filter pollutants from fresh water and store vast amounts of carbon, making them an important climate adaptation tool. Boreal wetlands are ecological powerhouses, and approximately 34 per cent of the Edehzhie IPA consists of wetland habitat.

Just as the boreal region has been central to DUCs mission, so have partnerships with the Indigenous Peoples who live there. To assist with the development of various land-use plans, DUC combines its expertise in mapping and classifying wetlands with traditional knowledge provided by Indigenous communities. Results help the communities determine which lands to protect and where to allow development, providing clarity for industry and opportunities for conservation.

Last year, DUC partnered with the Akaitcho Treaty 8 Tribal Council in the Northwest Territories to map 77 million acres (312 million hectares) of boreal wetlands in the Akaitcho region. This summer, DUC and the Dehcho will embark on a new project to map wetlands in the Dehcho region, to further assist with their land use planning.

DUC will continue to work in close partnership with Indigenous Peoples in the boreal region and across Canada, says Brennan. These relationships reflect our commitment to the spirit of reconciliation, Indigenous land management and the concept of self-determination over its future use.



Ducks Unlimited Canada (DUC) is the leader in wetland conservation. A registered charity, DUC partners with government, industry, non-profit organizations and landowners to conserve wetlands that are critical to waterfowl, wildlife and the environment. www.ducks.ca

For more information, please contact:

Ashley Lewis

Senior Communications Specialist

Ducks Unlimited Canada

204-467-3252

a_lewis@ducks.caHome | News | General | Warri South LG boss tasks firms on devt

By Jimitota Onoyume

WARRICHAIRMAN of Warri South Local Government Area, LGA, Dr. Michael Tidi, has enjoined companies doing business in the LGA to contribute meaningfully to the growth and development of the area.

ongoing dredging of Escravos and Warri

Tidi, who spoke when he inspected a state of the art hospital being built by Matrix Energy, an oil giant to serve communities in the local government said the local government was willing to partner with any firm doing business in the area to promote their corporate social responsibilities.

He said when they give to the area where their business is located, they would continue to enjoy the support of the people.

Tidi commended Matrix Energy for the hospital, adding that it would add value to lives when completed.

2019: APC Assembly candidate in Delta promises to deliver votes to Buhari

He said: I thank Matrix Energy for this laudable project that will add value to the lives of the people in the local government. When this hospital is completed it will serve the medical needs of the people. Let me also appeal to other firms doing business here to perform their corporate social responsibility.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: GeneralHome | News | General | Militiamen kill 5 in Numa-Jalingo Road

By Umar Yusuf

YOLANO fewer than five traders travelling to the Iware International Cattle Market in Taraba State were confirmed killed along the dreaded Numan-Jalingo Federal Highway by suspected militias, even as seven others are still not accounted for.

Sources revealed that the traders, who were mostly cattle merchants, were travelling in a trailer to the market.

Dollar pares losses as equity sell-off eases

Their trailer was reportedly blocked at Bali village on Numan- Jalingo Highway by the militia.

According to sources, as they attacked the occupants of the trailer, the driver took refuge in Pasham village.

Expectations rise as Fayemi takes over in Ekiti

Five were slaughtered, four wounded, many escaped into the bushes, while three of the victims were hospitalised at the Numan General Hospital.

Spokesman of Adamawa State Police Command, SP Othman Abubakar, said in Yola, yesterday, that preliminary investigation has revealed that the attack was carried out by some Bali and Bachama militias.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: GeneralHome | News | General | Osun gov poll: Police, APC trying to distract me  Adeleke

as PDP files petition against Oyetolas victory

OSOGBO  THE Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, governorship candidate in Osun, Senator Ademola Adeleke, Tuesday, accused the police of conniving with the All Progressives Congress, APC, to stop him from retrieving his stolen mandate.

Adeleke

In a statement, Adeleke said there is a plot to harass and intimidate him in order to disrupt the commencement of his petition before the election tribunal.

Adeleke said the examination malpractice allegation is politically motivated.

His words: The police is in collusion with the APC in the plot to implicate me on trumped-up charges as a way of disrupting the commencement of our petitions before the Election Petition Tribunal.

Their plan was originally to arrest me before the election so that I wont be able to effectively participate at the governorship election but the court order and interventions stopped the evil agenda.

Osun Election : PDP demands justice, says democracy under Siege

Now that the APC knew the game is up and the stolen mandate is about to be retrieved, the party in collusion with the police has perfected a fresh plot to distract, harass and intimidate me.

Nigerians are aware that the so-called examination case is politically motivated. The public is aware of the many intimidation and attacks I have been subjected to before, during and now after the election. We stand by the people and we will not surrender their mandate to anti-democratic forces.

PDP files petition

Meanwhile, the PDP in Osun State, yesterday, filed a petition against the victory of the governorship candidate of the APC, Mr Gboyega Oyetola, who was declared winner by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.

State chairman of the party, Mr. Soji Adagunodo, who led other party chieftains filed the petition yesterday evening.

Speaking with newsmen shortly after filing the petition at the premises of Osun State High Court, in Osogbo, Adagunodo, who was flanked by the former Osun State Attorney General, Mr. Niyi Owolade and other chieftains of PDP, said his party has valid grounds to challenge the victory of the APC candidate.

How zoning is tearing Ubas constituency apart

He said: We are keeping all that under wraps. Our legal team is working so hard to ensure diligent prosecution.

The party, which described the matter of certificate forgery involving the governorship candidate of the party, Senator Adeleke, pending before an Abuja High Court as diversionary, expressed confidence in the judiciary to dispense justice in Adelekes favour.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: GeneralThe trip made to Dubai by the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar, was on Tuesday said to be delaying the full composition of the partys presidential campaign council.

However, it was gathered that Atiku in conjunction with the national leadership of the party approved the selection of some members of the council before he left Nigeria for the United Arab Emirates.

Some members of the National Working Committee of the party, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told our correspondent in Abuja on Tuesday.

The National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Mr Kola Ologbondiyan, confirmed to our correspondent that Atiku confirmed the list.

The former Vice President approved the list we just released on the composition of members of the campaign council. We would work on others when he returns to the country, he added.

However, he did not mention when the former Vice President would return to the country.

Earlier, Ologbondiyan, in a statement, named the President of the Senate, Senator Bukola Saraki, as the Director General of the Atiku Abubakar Presidential Campaign Organisation.

Ologbondiyan also listed some zonal coordinators.

The coordinators are the Governor of Sokoto State, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, (North-West); Governor of Gombe State, Ibrahim Dankwambo, (North-East); Governor of Benue State, Dr Samuel Ortom, (North-Central); Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, (South-South); former Governor of Ekiti State, Mr Ayodele Fayose, (South-West); and the Governor of Ebonyi State, Mr Dave Umahi, for the South-East.

Others are a former Minister of Special Duties and Inter-Governmental Relations, Kabiru Tanimu Turaki (SAN), who was named as the Chairman, Legal Matters, while the Governor of Akwa Ibom State, Emmanuel Udom, is the Chairman, Fund Raising Committee.

Ologbondiyan added that the NWC would make further announcements on the composition and structure of the PDP Presidential campaign, in due course. YOU MIGHT ENJOY READINGHome | News | General | Governor Amosun opens up on reported defection from APC, reveals his candidate for 2019 presidency

- Governor Amosun reveals that he had been facing pressures to leave the APC since the recently held primary election

- Amosun, the governor of Ogun state, denies any plan to leave the ruling party on account of the primary election

- The governor says he remains loyal to and supports President Muhammadu Buhari's presidential ambition

The governor of Ogun, Ibikunle Amosun, has denied the rumour that he planned to dump the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to another party due to the recent alleged shoddy primary election held in the state.

He said the report was the figment of imagination of the writers.

The Nation quoted a statement from commissioner for information and strategy in the state, Otunba Dayo Adeneye, s saying Amosun wondered how he could be expected to quit a house he jointly built with other patriots.

READ ALSO: Just In: Fayemi appoints SSG, CoS, CPS

It is true that enormous pressure was brought to bear on Governor Amosun to move to another party, because of the glaring injustice meted out to some party members at the recent primaries.

But the governor maintained his stand that he would not decamp, especially on account of President Muhammadu Buhari, whose judgment and sense of justice, as the leader of the party, he cherishes and values immensely.

For those who know Amosun over the years, his struggles are usually not about his own person but equity, justice and fairness for all, especially the downtrodden masses.

President Buhari represents this spirit and Amosun will stand by him and with him in any party at all times and at all costs, he said.

Earlier unconfirmed reports reaching NAIJ.com indicated that Senator Ibikunle Amosun dumped the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) for Accord Party.

PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 new app

The news was announced on Twitter by a handle (@ogun_state) citing the state owned Ogun state television as its source.

Is President Buhari really unable to rescue Leah Sharibu from Boko Haram?| Naij.com TV

[embedded content]

Subscribe to watch new videos

Source: Naija.ng

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: GeneralHome | News | General | After court ruling against APC, new political parties reportedly taking over Zamfara state ahead of 2019

Reports indicate that new political parties are currently taking over Zamfara following the fallout of the protracted crises in the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) over the primary elections across the state recently.

Daily Trust reports that the new political parties are gaining prominence in the state with some followerships.

READ ALSO: Just In: Fayemi appoints SSG, CoS, CPS

The report said the two major party in the state had been the APC and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and it was difficult to hear anything about the other political organizations.

However, with recent developments, some of the parties recently registered by INEC had opened offices in Gusau, the state capital and in other major towns, the report said.

The report adds that the political parties also conducted primaries for various offices, including producing governorship candidates ahead of 2019.

The report added that the ADC had produced Badamasi Bello as its gubernatorial candidate; NCP had Muhammed Bala; Surajo Ibrahim had emerged the gubernatorial candidate of Accord Party; NUP had produced Alhaji Yusuf Sadiq PDM had Ahmed Ibrahim and NNPP had elected Isiyaku A Tunau as its candidate.

PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 new app

It is learnt that while some of the candidates and their parties have the resources to execute their campaigns for various office, others would be consumed by aggrieved aspirants from the APC and PDP.

NAIJ.com earlier reported that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Monday, October 15, said it stands by its statement that the All Progressives Congress (APC) will not field candidates for the 2019 general elections in Zamafa.

Professor Mahmood Yakubu, the chairman of INEC, stated this on the sideline of the opening of a two-day validation workshop in Abuja.

However, the All Progressives Congress (APC) said it would field candidates for all elective positions in Zamfara in the 2019 general elections, despite its alleged disqualification by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

Zamfara state governor, Abdulaziz Yari, also revealed that he is under strong pressure to leave the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) with his supporters.

Nigeria Election 2019: What are Bukola Sarakis chances against President Buhari? | Naij.com TV

[embedded content]

Subscribe to watch new videos

Source: Naija.ng

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: GeneralHome | News | General | Withdraw Bishop Kukah from Peace Committee - BMO warns after visit to Atiku, Obasanjo

- A pro-Buhari organisation has called for the withdrawal of the Bishop of Sokoto diocese from the National peace committee

- The organisation accused Bishop Mathew Kukah of partisanship by alleged display of support for PDP's presidential candidate

- BMO's request followed a recent meeting between former president Olusegun Obasanjo and Atiku Abubakar

The Buhari Media Organisation (BMO) has called for the withdrawal of the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Most Reverend Matthew Kukah from the National Peace Committee led by former Head of State, General Abdulsalam Abubakar.

The organisation made the call in a statement issued by its chairman Niyi Akinsiju and secretary Cassidy Madueke on Tuesday, October 16, in Abuja.

The group said the call had become necessary because of Kukahs alleged open display of support for the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar.

It noted that the Abdulsalam Abubakar-led committee was one that should be seen to be non partisan because of the role it was meant to play in the run-up to the 2015 general elections.

READ ALSO: President Buhari speaks about 2019 elections, what Nigerians should expect

We are surprised, like many Nigerians, to see Bishop Kukah in the company of the opposition candidate at a reconciliation meeting with former President Olusegun Obasanjo, the group said.

It recalled that Kukah had later on claimed to be the strategic mind behind the reconciliation which was targeted at bringing the two parties together to fight President Buhari administration.

This is not expected of a clergyman who is seen in some quarters as the alternate head of the National Peace Committee.

He has shown his bias and as such cannot be trusted to be non-partisan, the group stressed.

It dismissed claims by the Catholic Bishop that he was not aware of the political nature of the gathering as tales that no one would believe.

According to the group, Kukah is the key figure behind the reconciliation, a step he took knowing that Atiku was a PDP presidential aspirant.

READ ALSO: 11 facts you should know about Dapo Abiodun, Ogun APC governorship candidate for 2019

And if it is true that Bishop Kukah is insisting that he was only exercising his right to free movement.

We are also demanding that having shown his hand, he has no reason to sit on a panel that is meant to be non-partisan, the group maintained.

It added that it fully supports President Buharis admonition that religious leaders abstain from partisan politics.

Meanwhile, NAIJ.com previously reported that Bishop Kukah had denied endorsing Atiku Abubakar.

PAY ATTENTION: Get the Latest Nigerian News Anywhere 24/7. Spend less on the Internet!

The bishop also explained his role in the October 11 meeting in Abeokuta that ended in the historic reconciliation of former president Olusegun Obasanjo and his former deputy, Atiku Abubakar.

Bishop Kukah said he only facilitated reconciliation between the two men. He also claimed that he was not part of the event which saw Obasanjo endorse Abubakar for the 2019 presidential election.

Buhari to Contest for Presidency in 2019! NAIJ.com TV

[embedded content]

Subscribe to watch new videos

Source: Naija.ng

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: GeneralHome | News | General | Hauwa Liman's killing barbaric, unacceptable - Group

- A group has condemned the killing of a health worker, Hauwa Liman, by Boko Haram terrorists

- The Global Amnesty Watch said Hauwa's killing is barbaric and unacceptable

- They said Boko Haram and any other terror group in the world should be met with harsh retribution

A civil society organisation has expressed shock at the murder Hauwa Liman, an aid worker with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), by members of the Boko Haram sect.

Global Amnesty Watch (GAW) described Liman's killing as barbaric and unacceptable.

Speaking on the recent atrocity committed by the terrorist group, Tom Lever, in-charge, Africa regional office of the human rights group, described Leman's said such an act must be met with the harshest retribution possible to serve as a deterrence to Boko Haram and any other terror group in the world that the sacredness of human life is not to be toyed with.

Lever said: "Killing another aid worker whose only crime is dedicating her life to make life better for others confirms that Boko Haram has sunken to its lowest level of weakness yet."

READ ALSO: President Buhari speaks about 2019 elections, what Nigerians should expect

"The gruesome killing of the aid worker has confirmed that Boko Haram is a group driven by mindless wickedness and one that must be collectively dealt with by the entire world.

"We urge the Nigerian authorities to continue to tighten the noose around the terrorists until the last of those being held captive by Boko Haram is released as the desperate action on the part of the terrorists must not be allowed to slow down the operations meant to restore normalcy to the region.

"In view of the current atmosphere in Nigeria, the Global Amnesty Watch appeals to every stakeholder in the country not to exploit the grief of Hauwas family as this will be most unkind to them at a trying time like this.

READ ALSO: Lagosians are tired of being under the grip of 1 person for almost 20 years - Jimi Agbaje

Boko Haram must also not be encouraged to see itself as being capable of unsettling the Nigerian state through evil acts like this as it will only motivate its fighters to abduct more helpless people.

We share in the grief of Hauwa Limans family as we wish them to find the strength to bear the loss inflicted on them by these sick terrorists," Lever noted.

Meanwhile, NAIJ.com previously reported that the mother of late Hauwa has reacted in a tone of pain and lament the death of her daughter.

Late Hauwa's mother is still in shock over the sad development.

PAY ATTENTION: Get the Latest Nigerian News Anywhere 24/7. Spend less on the Internet!

The mother to the health worker who was killed by Boko Haram terrorists has said that she is yet to believe her daughter is dead.

Mama Hauwa as she is fondly called by many said she believes her daughter is still alive and could not have been killed by the terrorists as threatened.

Boko Haram Kidnappings: Dapchi Protests Abduction of Their Daughters by Boko Haram - On NAIJ.com TV

[embedded content]

Subscribe to watch new videos

Source: Naija.ng

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: GeneralHome | News | General | Lagos judiciary to impose sanction on lawyers for delaying trials

By Abdulwahab Abdulah & Henry Ojelu

LAGOSTHE Chief Judge of Lagos State, Justice Opeyemi Oke, yesterday, vowed that lawyers, who are in the habit of delaying trial, will no longer have their days in the state judiciary as she promised that lawyers who engage in frivolous activities may lose their practicing licence.

Justice Oke said no frivolous adjournment would be granted anymore to lawyers, as she noted the authorities of the state judiciary is set to review its Civil Procedure Rules 2012 to ensure speedy dispensation of justice.

File: Lawyers

She said this at a summit in Lagos, to review the 2012 Civil Procedure Rules.

She said: We need to take firmer position particularly on adjournments. In Singapore, adjournment is only allowed on matter of life and death. Things we tolerate here are not tolerated in America and UK. Why cant we replicate those rules in our court rules in Nigeria if it will hasten justice delivery?

Justice Oke emphasised the need to always review the court rules to suit socio-economic demands and for laws in the state to remain sound, active and functional.

Oke equally pointed out that court congestion has been a major problem in the justice sector, adding, henceforth, adjournment will no longer be granted on unnecessary applications.

The Chairman of the Civil Procedures Rules Committee, Justice Kazeem Alogba, giving insight into the proposed review already carried out, disclosed that any lawyer who scuttled any trial date will pay a minimum fine of N100,000.00 and N50,000 in the case of an interlocutory application for which a date has been fixed for hearing.

Justice Alogba said non- compliance with Form 01 on Pre-Action Protocol will render the process a nullity in addition to serious punishment.

Nigeria not practising women equality-Prof. Ezeilo

He also stated for instance that where a matter is left in the docket of a judge, six months after commencement of trial, the matter will be summarily struck out.

Earlier, the Chairman of the event, Justice Williams Dawodu, a Justice of the Court of Appeal, commended Lagos Judiciary for setting the pace by coming up with new rules that can be replicated by other States and comparable in other jurisprudence of the world.

She said: We want to ensure that the rules in Lagos State continue to be functional and for them to be functional, they must adapt to changes in the society.

Alleged $40 m contract: Im being vilified because of Jonathan  Robert Azibaola

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: GeneralHome | News | General | The final return of Atiku Abubakar

By Mazi Ohuabunwa

THE drab Nigerian political environment has lightened up. The expected unexpected happened. Atiku Abubakar, former Vice President of Nigeria was elected at the PDP primaries held in Port Harcourt recently. It looked like this was never going to happen. Not just that this was the fifth and to my mind the final attempt of Atiku to become presidential candidate, but so much obstacle was put on his way by seen and unseen forces. As if those forces were not strong enough, the competition became even stiff in his new old  party. For the first time in the history of PDP, there were twelve solid contestants, each who could easily have become a formidable presidential material.

Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, candidate in the forthcoming primaries of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)

Indeed, the choice was a very tough one for the party. The party was very conscious that the country was looking up to it to produce a formidable candidate that will square up with President Muhammadu Buhari who has received endorsement from 15 million APC members to stand as the partys candidate for the 2019 elections. Talking about 15 million APC members, reminds me of the video I recently watched of one Mr. Biggi who was trying to commit suicide by hanging on a plantain stem. A lady perhaps his wife was trying to dissuade him from taking his life. Mr Biggi, what is your problem?

How can APC say that 15 million people voted for the President at the congress, when they were only 7000 delegates at the convention. It then means that in the election, they will announce that 100 million people voted for Buhari Is that all Mr Biggi?, please do not kill yourself the woman pleaded. I responded to the video by saying that Mr Biggi was not serious. If he wanted to commit suicide indeed, why would he chose to hang from a plantain stem? Nevertheless Mr Biggi made his point. Not a few Nigerians marveled at APCs 14.8 million voters for the President at the primaries. Another commentator in another medium concluded that APC was only preparing our minds. I did not quite understand what he meant by preparing our minds.

The PDP primary as I said was keenly contested. The venue for the convention which had earlier been decided upon was reopened leading to some controversy. Luckily this potentially divisive issue was settled. Then the gambles as to who would win the day intensified. On Saturday/Sunday  6/7 October, PDP organized what has been dubbed the most free and transparent primaries, though some argue that given the allegations of delegate buying, how free could the election be? Others, however, counter that delegate buying or vote buying which has become part of Nigerias political culture is a common denominator and, therefore, cancels itself out as a significant determining factor. When the results were released, most Nigerians were pleasantly surprised that all the twelve distinguished contestants accepted the verdict with out as much as a grumble. This is unusual, as in Nigerias political culture, no one loses elections fair and square.

Yoruba, tribalism and the tragedy of a new Nigeria

Again this seems to be an evolving trend with PDP. Since President Jonathan set the record of accepting defeat without a whimper, it seems that a new culture may well be on its way. Chairman Uche Secondus and leaders of PDP deserve some commendation for this great feat. Maybe PDP has learnt some lessons! This contrasts sharply with the situation with APC primaries. Virtually all the primaries except for the 15 million-man affirmation of the President were enthralled in major controversies, though the 15 million votes announced has itself generated debates across the isle. Indeed the way some of the primaries were conducted made many Nigerians very sad.

In Lagos gubernatorial primaries, the chairman of the electoral committee sent to conduct the elections announced that no primaries were held. But three hours later following consultations with Abuja, the man shamelessly announced the results of an election which he had said never held. In Imo, the militant national chairman announced to the world that the results submitted by two factions of the electoral committee were fake giving credence to my earlier question: is Nigeria a fake nation or a nation of fakes? The chairman of the electoral committee announced the result of his own elections in Abuja instead of in Owerri where the election was supposed to have been held citing security concerns. The secretary of the committee and other members sat in Owerri and wrote up a new set of figures that favored Governor Rochas Okorochas son-inlaw.

After the governor went to see the president, a rerun was ordered, which was boycotted by one faction, giving Okorochas faction leeway to return Uche Nwosu. The story is similar in many states and in Zamfara, things were so bad that even this INEC had to rule APC out of order, virtually foreclosing the possibility of APC fielding candidates in the 2019 elections. I believe this is only a bluff by INEC as it is certain that INEC would be over-ruled by Abuja. Indeed APC made a real mess of its primaries that the Presidents wife Aisha could not keep her cool. In her characteristic forthrightness she blasted APC for rigging its own primaries. This is really painful as it has already began to taint the credibility of the 2019 elections. With Ekiti and Osun elections still fresh in peoples minds, the sanctity of the 2019 election results is already being put to test. Every well meaning Nigerian must be praying that this APC government will conduct national elections that will not produce fake results. They must aim at equaling if not doing better than PDPs performance in 2015.

Atikus victory has brightened up the political space. Nigerians now have a lot to talk about in beer parlors, social media, radio/TV houses, markets, motor parks and in offices. There is excitement and animation in the polity. For and against. But within one week of his emergence as PDP presidential candidate, Atiku has hit two bull eyes. First, he got President Olusegun Obasanjo to support his candidacy. This is a most significant accomplishment, almost like a miracle. Since 2003 when Atiku as vice president threatened to displace Obasanjo prematurely but later reneged after Obasanjo prostrated for him, OBJ has been at daggers drawn with Atiku. He has painted Atiku with the brush of corruption and has done everything to demonize him. Despite several apologies by Atiku and several visits to Obasanjos hill top mansion, Baba Iyabo had refused to forgive. As recently as one month ago, OBJ reiterated his opposition to Atiku ever becoming the President in his life time, even saying that God would not forgive him if he forgave Atiku.

But within one week of winning the primary, Atiku has mobilized all the resources- human, material and spiritual to make OBJ swallow his words. That is certainly not a mean achievement and perhaps exemplifies Atikus character as a man who will not give up on any problem and who knows how to mobilize forces to move mountains. The second bull was the choice of Mr Peter Obi, former governor of Anambra State as his running mate. Truly the South East has great men and women who could pair with Atiku but to be true, none beats Peter Obi.

Peter is a tested hand who gave a sterling account of himself as the governor of Anambra State. His landmark achievements in Anambra remain visible and audible. He was an effective governor, he was prudent and remained human in and outside office.

Peter belongs to that rare class of state governors who governed well, brought development, security and peace to their states exhibiting the highest levels of prudence and efficient resource management. Today, Peter is very well respected and regarded not only in the South East but in most regions of Nigeria as a politician with integrity. Yes his opposition to the second term of the incumbent governor of Anambra, may have rubbed off some of his cult following in Anambra State, yet he remains perhaps the most popular and well respected past governor in the South East. Therefore the choice of Obi has been acclaimed all over the Nation and there is a consensus that given his private sector background in banking, business and investment he will prove a very capable Vice President and will ably help the president manage the economy if they win the election.

Therefore it is looking to me like the Nigerian political equation which in one of my recent dispatches was described as difficult to balance, now looks solvable as the number of variables has declined, while constants have increased. Yes we have so many other presidential candidates from the newer and smaller parties, great people like Dr Kingsley Moghalu, Dr Oby Ezekwesili, Sowore, Fela Durotoye, Donald Duke, Dr Mimiko, Prof Jerry Gana, etc, the 2019 presidential elections may just be a duel between Buhari and Atiku. The third force of course, could play the role it played in Osun. Nevertheless, it is too early to predict the outcome but it will be a real fight. As long as INEC avoids the predicted and predictable shortcomings and bobby traps, the first real political contest between a sitting President of Northern Nigeria extraction and another candidate from the North promises to be a real derby and may turn out to be quite decisive for the future of Nigeria.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

US trade hawks seize their chance to reset China relations



Latest tariffs look more like the start of a cold war than a trade war



Rana Foroohar







It would be easy to see the latest $200bn round of US tariffs against China, set to go into effect on Monday, as just another provocative shot fired off by an American president in need of overseas distractions at a time when the legal noose seems to be tightening around his own neck.



But 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.



This reset is supported by factions stretching well beyond Mr Trump, on both the left and the right. That is what makes it so serious. The president is indeed single-mindedly obsessed with the US-China trade deficit, but hes also the sort of person who will cut a deal for personal gain, and it is hard to imagine that the Chinese could not come up with something that would make him flip to a more moderate position.



Not so the economic hawks within the administration, like Mr Trumps trade adviser, Peter Navarro, and Robert Lighthizer, the US trade representative, who are playing an entirely different game. They believe it is in the long-term national interest for the US to decouple economically from China.



There are plenty of people in the Pentagon, as well as some in the labour faction of the progressive left, who agree. Many of these people will be in positions of power long after this president is gone. 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.



That marks a fundamental shift for global business. The economic hawks have little sympathy for multinational chief executives who complain that the latest round of tariffs is broad and deep enough to create real inflationary pressure or force them to raise prices. Indeed, they see these companies as traitors who have naively sold out for short-term gain in a country that does not share fundamental western values, and will ultimately not allow them equal market access.



And in the current economic and political environment, they have taken control of the narrative. Hawks can cite Chinese intellectual property theft, human rights violations, and aggression in the South China Seas as proof of their position.



You hear a lot of them talk about China as a revisionist power, like the Soviet Union  a purveyor of a completely different system, says Arthur Kroeber, managing director of Gavekal Dragonomics, a China-focused consultancy. That vision may be overblown, but it is an easier sell than defending status quo economic globalisation to an American public who are increasingly anxious about China or robots (or Chinese-made robots) taking their jobs.



The hawks have also been quite clever so far about crafting tariffs that will minimise the impact on consumer prices while also penalising companies that have shifted the most sensitive supply chains to China. Think of chipmaker Qualcomm (which has found itself on the wrong side of nationalism in both countries) or tech group Cisco, which lobbied unsuccessfully to have its routers and switches, which power smart cities in China as well as the US and Europe, left off the latest tariffs list.



A white paper recommending some US supply chain insourcing, prepared by the Department of Defense and likely to be released next month by the White House, may provide guidance on where the Trump administration will take its nascent attempt at industry policy. But it is clear that not all companies will suffer equally in a US-China cold war.



Traditional consumer businesses  Starbucks, say, or Walmart  will be able to maintain a Chinese market presence more easily than high-tech companies trafficking in sensitive data, or any business working in strategic areas such as mapping or autonomous vehicles. Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Google and any number of other US multinationals doing business in China may have tough choices to make in the future if the trade war escalates into a cold war in which they can no longer turn a blind eye to the national concerns of the states where they operate.



The pain may be felt in China first, since the country is still much more export dependent than the US. But over the mid- to longer-term, US companies have more work to do in terms of insourcing supply chains.



It is both politically and logistically unfeasible to become Fortress America, insourcing everything, which means that the Trump administration must build alliances with trade partners in places including Europe if it wants to be able to execute an American industrial policy  not a strength of this president.



Business faces more existential challenges. What does it mean for a company like, for example, Google to launch a censored search engine in China, while its parent company, Alphabet, refuses to send its chief executive, Larry Page, to testify in the Senate on Russian meddling in US tech platforms? Can corporate leaders be above politics? They used to like to think so. Today, that seems like wishful thinking.Home | News | General | Just in: Ex-governor Ibori loses appeal against his conviction in London for $66m money laundering

James Ibori, who was jailed in Britain for laundering tens of millions of dollars in stolen public funds, through British banks and properties, lost an appeal against his conviction in London on Wednesday, October 17.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Ibori, a former governor of oil-producing Delta state in southern Nigeria for eight years, had pleaded guilty in a London court in 2012 to a 10-count charge of fraud and money-laundering, involving sums amounting to at least 50 million pounds ($66 million).

READ ALSO: Just In: Fayemi appoints SSG, CoS, CPS

NAN quoted Reuters as reporting that he received a 13-year jail sentence of which he served half, as is common in the British system.

Ibori, who is now back in Nigeria, appealed against his conviction, alleging misconduct by British police and prosecutors, which he argued, tainted the judicial process.

NAIJ.com earlier reported that the British Home Office clarified the release of James Onanefe Ibori from prison and his further deportation to Nigeria.

The report quoted the BBC as saying the ex-governor agreed to be deported after serving half of his 13-year sentence for fraud totalling nearly 50m (about N19,462,224.748) in April 2012.

PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 new app

However, when the former governor was detained beyond the set date, another report said he was compensated for his unlawful detention by a court in United Kingdom

He was awarded 1 (N408) as compensation for his detention in UK.

Oby Ezekwesili's Presidential Ambition In 2019 | Naij.com TV

[embedded content]

Subscribe to watch new videos

Source: Naija.ng

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: GeneralHome | News | General | How INEC will distribute 400, 000 uncollected PVCs in Benue - REC

- Benue state REC has lamented poor collection of PVCs in Benue state

- He said not less than 400,000 PVCs are still in the commission's custody

- He, however, added that INEC is on the move to facilitate the collection of the cards

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said that over 400,000 Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) are yet to be collected by registered voters in Benue state.

The commission's Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Nentawe Yilwatda, expressed this concern on Tuesday, October 16, adding that Walimayo ward, one of the largest wards in the state still had not less than 12,000 PVCs left uncollected, The Punch reports.

NAIJ.com gathers that the INEC officer, during a questions session with journalist, also added that the electoral body would create 12 additional distribution points in strategic areas across the state to facilitate easy distribution of the PVCs.

READ ALSO: Withdraw Bishop Kukah from peace committee - BMO warns after visit to Atiku, Obasanjo

Yilwatda also warned that those who have not collected their voting cards risk self-disenfranchisement come 2019 general elections.

He said: "We are working towards ensuring that those 400,000 uncollected PVCs are distributed before the elections. So, we are creating about 12 distribution points in the local government on Thursday.

We have listed the distribution areas already and we are tagging them. We will move from our office to all public places such as the Wurukum Park, the motor parks, Wadata market, modern market and some of the strategic areas within the state between November 6 and November 12, 2018, to mark the proposed distribution areas.

The electoral officer also noted that INEC would embark on door-door campaign to ensure that the PVCs are collected by their respective owners.

He added: "We are hoping that before the election, we are going to have additional 200,000 PVCs printed and returned to us. That means we will have over 600,000 uncollected PVCs before the elections and we must get them distributed."

PAY ATTENTION: Download our mobile app to ennjoy the latest news update

Meanwhile, NAIJ.com previously reports that a socio-political Igbo group had accused the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of deliberately disenfranchising the people of the southeast region.

The president general of the group, John Nnia Nwodo, on Monday, March 12, while making the allegations insisted that it was not just mere a talk, but facts that emerged out of investigation.

He made the allegation when the Resident Electoral Commissioner in Enugu state, Emeka Ononamadu, paid him a courtesy visit.

INEC official at Abuja court NAIJ.com

[embedded content]

Subscribe to watch new videos

Source: Naija.ng

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: GeneralHome | News | General | Religion, ethnicity not responsible for farmers-herders clashes - FG

- The federal government has said the farmers-herders clashes have no religious or ethnic colouration

- This was the submission of the minister of information and culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed

- Mohammed made the comment during a presentation at The Chatham House in London

The federal government has said the farmers-herders clashes in Nigeria have no religious or ethnic colouration.

This was the submission of the minister of information and culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, during a presentation at The Chatham House in London on Wednesday, October 17.

Alhaji Mohammed said the clashes have become more persistent, because of a mixture of many factors, including population explosion, effects of climate change, keener contest for dwindling natural resources and sheer criminality.

Religion and ethnicity are not the reasons for these clashes, he added.

READ ALSO: Governor Lalong lied with Plateau killings - PDP governorship candidate alleges

He blamed the escalation of the clashes on the dual challenge fake news and hate speech.

Pictures of gun-totting herdsmen from other lands are routinely used to depict the herdsmen in Nigeria. Age-long clashes between farmers and herders have suddenly been dressed in the garb of religion and ethnicity, he lamented.

He, however, informed his audience that the federal government has launched a national campaign against fake news and hate speech.

His words: The aim is to sensitize Nigerians to the dangers posed by fake news, how to spot fake news and what to do.

We are under no illusion that the campaign can immediately stop fake news and hate speech. But we want to bring the issues to the front burner of national discourse. And I can say that we are succeeding in that respect.

Today, fake news has become a topical issue in Nigeria. To Nigerians, we say: If you cant vouch for the veracity of any news item, dont share it!

PAY ATTENTION: Get the Latest Nigerian News Anywhere 24/7. Spend less on the Internet

Meanwhile, political economist and management expert, Professor Patrick Utomi, on Monday, October 15, expressed concern that Nigerian politics if left unchecked would be in danger of being infiltrated by criminals.

Professor Utomi made the comment in Abuja at the High Level Public-Private Sector Forum, with the theme: Democracy that Delivers.

Professor Utomi said: One of the most frustrating things about Nigeria today is that most of those in public offices dont have the capacity for where they are. There is no talent profile to determine who should be where. Most of them dont have the foggiest clue what it takes to provide the environment to make the country prosperous.

Nigeria Latest News: Not Too Young to Run Pay a Visit to APC and PDP | Naij.com TV

[embedded content]

Subscribe to watch new videos

Source: Naija.ng

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: GeneralHome | News | General | Niger Delta groups condemn smear campaign on Kachikwu

A coalition of leaders from nine states of the Niger Delta on Wednesday criticised ongoing smear campaign targeted at Dr Ibe Kachikwu, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources.

The leaders, who spoke to the Newsmen in Yenagoa, said that unwarranted attacks to tarnish the image of Kachikwu were unacceptable.

A Niger Delta activist, Prince Tonye Jemenimiema, said that frivolous allegations of operating a foreign account while holding a public office was laughable and mischievous.

Kachikwu: Hosted APC Northern leaders

He said that Kachikwu had a fruitful career in the international oil sector spanning several decades and worked in many countries before he rose to become a Vice President at Exxonmobil before his appointment.

Jemenimiema who is also President Niger Delta Youth for Practical Development noted that the attempt by certain interest groups to discredit Kachikwu who is performing creditably in the oil and gas sector was regrettable.

The youth leader said it was an irony that Kachikwu, who midwifed reforms in the downstream sector of the oil industry and brokered peace in Niger Delta that stabilised oil production, could be targeted by critics.

He said that the region would not condone further attacks on the Minister whose laudable polices had translated to transparency in the oil sector adding that those affected by Kachikwus reforms were behind the attacks.

It is interesting that the cabal is out again, masquerading in another disguise with bogus allegations to demonise the gentle, God fearing and upright personality in the face of the public.

This is a man who brought transparency and orderliness to the system. One may ask what is the reputation of the faceless group behind these spurious allegations and campaign of calumny.

Debt servicing: ULC urges Senate to reject FGs request for $2.78bn, $87m loans



What have they contributed towards the advancement of the country?

We trust that the frivolous litigation will fall like a pack of cards and the judiciary will not sacrifice the innocent for the wicked.

We are very worried and concerned over the safety of our brother; who knows if such evil collaborators may resort to going after his life.

We know Kachikwu is innocent and must not bow to any pressure to bend him, Jemenimiema said.

Also Pastor Tiedor Olayinka, President, Niger Delta Youths Coalition for Peace and Progress, berated those who felt envious and intimidated by Kachikwus verifiable records.

Those affected by the reforms carried out under Kachikwu are the ones operating behind the scene to cause Kachikwus downfall.

The steady attacks on Kachikwus hard earned reputation is one too many. They say when you want to kill a dog you hang him a bad name. Who is desperate to take Kachikwus office?

Who is offended by his giant strides as reforming the sector and bringing sanity to the once ailing industry?

It is evident that result achieved by the current administration is traceable to Kachikwu.

If it is not degree classification it is now baseless and unfounded allegations asking a man who rose up to the rank of Vice President of a multinational oil firm why he is operating foreign account.

These have to stop, Olayinka said.

He urged the public to be wary of groups whose stock in trade was to spread malicious false allegations against public office holders to blackmail them to succumb to their demands for gratification.

He urged the federal government to scrutinise those making allegations merely to attract attention and sanction them if investigation showed that such allegations were false.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: GeneralHome | News | General | Former Thai monk sentenced to 16 years in prison for statutory rape

A Thai Criminal Court on Wednesday found a jet-setting former Buddhist monk guilty of statutory rape, an Official told dpa.

Wirapol Sukphol, 39, was sentenced to 16 years in prison for raping and impregnating a 14-year-old girl between 2000 and 2001, an official who spoke on condition of anonymity said.

In August, he was handed a combined sentence of 114 years in jail for public fraud, money laundering and a computer crime violation.

Should they stay or should they go? Nigerias dilemma on FDI

However, a Thai law only allows a maximum of 20 years in prison, making his total imprisonment to 36 years.

Sukphol fled Thailand to the United States in 2013 after an arrest warrant was issued on him.

He was extradited back to Thailand in July 2017 after spending one year in a U.S. prison.

Months before Wirapol left Thailand, he made headlines when videos and photos surfaced showing him in brand-name sunglasses carrying a Louis Vuitton bag on a private jet.

Thailand is a predominantly Buddhist country where monks are revered for their discipline and non-materialistic devotion.

The uproar over Sukphols inappropriate behaviour and unusual wealth was soon followed by a string of accusations.

The accusation include scamming dozens of people up to 845,000 dollars in donations to fake causes advertised on his website.

Following many allegations, including alcohol consumption and claiming to have supernatural abilities, which violate Buddhist monastic rules, Sukphol was expelled from the monkhood in 2017.

His assets worth up to 1.3 million dollars have also been seized.

NAN

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: GeneralHome | News | General | Zamfara students seek govt help over new tuition fees

The National Union of Zamfara State Students has appealed to the state government to help offset the news tuition fees charged students by Sokoto State University.

The appeal was contained in a statement by the Acting President of the union, Comrade Muhammad Tambura, issued in Gusau on Wednesday.

Tambura said most of the students would be unable to pay the additional N60,000 tuition fee announced by the school.

Media Advocates file lawsuit against Trump for Stifling free speech

He said that with this development, each student would pay up to N90,000 per session.

Some of our students in the institution can no longer continue with their studies due to financial constraint, which we consider as unfortunate.

Deaf students cry for help over funding in Ibadan

Before now, Sokoto State University treated students from Kebbi and Zamfara states equally with their Sokoto counterparts, but now it has suspended that gesture.

With the introduction of the new tuition fees, our students will now pay a total of about N90,000 per academic year, which is too high for most of the students.

We are therefore appealing to Zamfara state government and all stakeholders in the state to come to our aid, he said.

NAN

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: GeneralRecent events in the country will leave anyone - including those outside Zimbabwe's borders - having a rethink on our citizens' claims to being one of the most literate nations on the continent.

No-one would doubt that things are so bad in the country but surely there is something that government can do urgently to protect the hapless citizen.

Finance minister Mtuli Ncube - outlining his Transitional Stabilisation Programme - announced that government would introduce a 2 percent tax on all electronic transactions.

Of course, the policy smacks of all the marks of unfairness given that Zimbabweans are the most heavily taxed in the region. Imposing another tax was a sign of desperation on the part of the cash-strapped and highly indebted government.

However, even before the tax was gazetted or operationalised, prices had gone up on several commodities, including commuter fares, as the domino effect of the policy announcement took effect.

While business has genuine concerns that are forcing them top increase the price of commodities, there are some - bent on profiteering - who have ambushed consumers and claim to have incurred unsubstantiated costs in bringing commodities to shop shelves.

Such unscrupulous businesspeople can not be let to get away with such demonic behaviour. In such case, government must surely protect the suffering public. If it means licences of those who increase prices without any justification are revoked, then so be it.

We have seen cases where bread - one of the basic commodities in the country - had its price adjusted upwards on the basis of the shortage of wheat.

That would be understandable but honestly when a retailer then increases the price to beyond the recommended $1.10 - even going as high as $2,00 per loaf, when he has acquired it for less than a dollar, then it is something else.

Commuter fares have been increased even though fuel prices have not gone up and touts are the main culprits in this mess. The towns and cities had acquired some measure of normalcy after vendors were driven out. Authorities must thus nab the touts and money changers.

If President Emmerson Mnangagwa is serious, he must simply put in place and enforce regulations that bar money changers and touts whether they are operating from the streets or from shopping centres in residential areas and rural settlements.

There is no way people can support policies - no matter how prudent - when they make them suffer perpetually. Order has to return as a matter of urgency.

Recent events in the country will leave anyone - including those outside Zimbabwe's borders - having a rethink on our citizens' claims to being one of the most literate nations on the continent.

No-one would doubt that things are so bad in the country but surely there is something that government can do urgently to protect the hapless citizen.

Finance minister Mtuli Ncube - outlining his Transitional Stabilisation Programme - announced that government would introduce a 2 percent tax on all electronic transactions.

Of course, the policy smacks of all the marks of unfairness given that Zimbabweans are the most heavily taxed in the region. Imposing another tax was a sign of desperation on the part of the cash-strapped and highly indebted government.

However, even before the tax was gazetted or operationalised, prices had gone up on several commodities, including commuter fares, as the domino effect of the policy announcement took effect.

While business has genuine concerns that are forcing them top increase the price of commodities, there are some - bent on profiteering - who have ambushed consumers and claim to have incurred unsubstantiated costs in bringing commodities to shop shelves.

Such unscrupulous businesspeople can not be let to get away with such demonic behaviour. In such case, government must surely protect the suffering public. If it means licences of those who increase prices without any justification are revoked, then so be it.

We have seen cases where bread - one of the basic commodities in the country - had its price adjusted upwards on the basis of the shortage of wheat.

That would be understandable but honestly when a retailer then increases the price to beyond the recommended $1.10 - even going as high as $2,00 per loaf, when he has acquired it for less than a dollar, then it is something else.

Commuter fares have been increased even though fuel prices have not gone up and touts are the main culprits in this mess. The towns and cities had acquired some measure of normalcy after vendors were driven out. Authorities must thus nab the touts and money changers.

If President Emmerson Mnangagwa is serious, he must simply put in place and enforce regulations that bar money changers and touts whether they are operating from the streets or from shopping centres in residential areas and rural settlements.

There is no way people can support policies - no matter how prudent - when they make them suffer perpetually. Order has to return as a matter of urgency.HTMLCountry1

Members of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention

The Working Group is composed of five independent experts appointed by the Human Rights Council. All members serve in their personal capacities. A mandate-holders tenure is limited to a maximum of six years.

The Working Group holds three sessions per year, usually in April, August and November, each lasting between five to ten working days. At the end of its April session every year, the members of the Working Group elect their Bureau, comprised of the Chair-Rapporteur, Vice Chair on Communications and Vice Chair on Follow up.

Since 2017, the Working Group also appoints a focal point on reprisals from among its members. The working languages of the Working Group are English, French and Spanish.

Current members

Ms. Elina Steinerte (Chair-Rapporteur) has a Ph.D. from Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen and has taught public international and human rights law at numerous universities in Latvia, the United Kingdom and the Bailiwick of Jersey. The prime focus of her work and research, through the University of Bristol Human Rights Centre, has been the implementation of the United Nations Convention against Torture and its Optional Protocol (OPCAT). She has worked worldwide with respect to the implementation of the Convention including advising upon the calibration of domestic legislation and the designation and effectiveness of National Preventive Mechanisms. Additionally, she has provided expert advice on a variety of criminal justice reforms concerning pre-trial detention, overuse of imprisonment, overcrowding and independent oversight over the places of deprivation of liberty. Recently she has been working with the UNHCR on streamlining its methodology for monitoring immigration detention. Until 2016 she was an expert member of the inaugural Council of Independent Experts on International and European Law to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Latvia. Ms. Steinerte became a member of the Working Group on 1 November 2016.

Dr. Miriam Estrada-Castillo (Vice-Chair on Communications) is a Professor of International Law, International Criminal Law and Human Rights and the Director of the UNESCO Chair at Casa Grande University, of Guayaquil, Ecuador. She is also a Visiting Professor at Bards College (NY/Palestine).

Professor Estrada worked for the United Nations Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED) and as an International Prosecutor at Timor-Leste being part of the first 100 Brahimi Civilian Experts deployed in a Peacekeeping Mission by the UN. She is a former Vice chairperson of the Committee for the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and member of the group which drafted the CEDAW Optional Protocol.

Dr Estrada was the Latin America Regional Adviser on Gender, Human Rights and Culture of Peace for UNESCO.

She has been Visiting Professor, and International Leading Expert on Human Rights at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law (RWI). Professor in Residence at the UN University for Peace and at the Australian National University. Former Minister of Social Affairs and a Former President of the National Court for Minors in Ecuador. She is the author of the Childrens and Family Law of her country and is known as the founder of the Human Rights Education on Ecuador. She has written profusely about Human Rights, Gender and Civil and Political Rights.

Ms. Leigh Toomey holds an LL.M. from Yale University where she studied human rights law as a Fulbright scholar. She provides expert advice in the design, implementation and evaluation of human rights and development projects, particularly monitoring of places of detention, improving access to justice, supporting national human rights institutions, and building the capacity of police, prosecutors, judges, lawyers and corrections officers. Her experience includes extensive field-based work in developing, conflict and post-conflict settings worldwide for UN agencies, NGOs, academic institutions and development organisations. Ms. Toomey has taught human rights and criminal justice reform at Queensland University of Technology and for the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law. She is qualified as a Solicitor in England and Wales and a Barrister in Australia. Ms. Toomey was appointed to the Working Group on 1 August 2015. Since April 2016, she has served as Vice-Chair on Follow-Up, including initiating a new follow-up procedure from August 2016 in Working Group opinions, and strengthening the referral mechanism to share findings in opinions with other relevant Special Procedures mandate holders.

Mr. Mumba Malila holds a Doctor of Laws degree (LLD) in Human Rights from the University of Pretoria and LLM degrees from Cambridge and Cumbria universities. He is presently a judge of the Supreme Court in Zambia. He previously taught law at the University of Zambia. He was once Chairperson of the Zambian Human Rights Commission during which time he among other things undertook country-wide visitation of prisons and other places of detention in Zambia and engaged authorities to improve conditions of detention. He later served twice as Attorney General of Zambia. He also served as a Member and subsequently as Vice Chairperson of the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights. He was Special Rapporteur on Prisons and Conditions of Detention in Africa for four years. He took up membership of the Working Group on 1 November 2020.



Ms. Priya Gopalan is a Malaysian lawyer specialising in international criminal law, human rights law, and gender. Her expertise is in international criminal prosecutions, strategic litigation, advocacy and human rights investigations in conflict and post-conflict settings, as well as other transitional justice processes. Her work has included operationalising reparations for survivors of sexual violence, developing technical guidance and policy on issues such as access to justice and, best practices for working with survivors of grave crimes. Her experiences cover Kosovo, Bosnia, Croatia, Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, Moldova, Sri Lanka, Syria, and The Gambia. She provides expert advice to international and national bodies, UN agencies, states, and civil society organisations.

Ms Gopalan has held a variety of positions in the field of transitional justice and accountability. She was a prosecutor and appeals counsel at the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, where she played a leading role in cases that developed progressive legal precedents on conflict-related sexual violence. Ms Gopalan served as the first Legal Advisor for sexual and gender-based crimes at the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism to Assist in the Investigation and Prosecution of Persons Responsible for the Most Serious Crimes under International Law Committed in the Syrian Arab Republic (the IIIM Syria). She has held several roles in the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), including Gender Advisor for the OHCHR Investigation on Sri Lanka. Ms Gopalan also served as Senior Advisor to the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission of The Gambia.

Ms Gopalan qualified as a solicitor in England and Wales in 2002. She holds a LL.M in Public International Law (Distinction) from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a B.A. Jurisprudence (Hons) from the University of Oxford, where she was a UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office Chevening Scholar from Malaysia.



Former members

Mr. Seong-Phil Hong (Republic of Korea),2014-2021

Mr. Setondji Roland Adjovi (Benin), 2014-2020

Mr. Jose Guevara Bermudez (Mexico), 2014-2020

Mr. Vladimir Tochilovsky (Ukraine), 2010-2016

Mr. Mads Andenas (Norway), 2009-2015

Ms. Shaheen Sardar Ali (Pakistan), 2008-2014

Mr. El Hadji Malick Sow (Senegal), 2008-2014

Mr. Aslan Abashidze (Georgia), 2008-2010

Ms. Manuela Carmena Castrillo (Spain), 2004-2009

Mr. Seyyed Mohammad Hashemi (Islamic Republic of Iran), 2002-2008

Ms. Soledad Villagra de Biedermann (Paraguay), 2002-2008

Ms. Leila Zerrougui (Algeria), 2001-2008

Mr. Tamas Ban (Hungary), 2001-2008

Mr. Roberto Garreton (Chile), 1992-2002 and 2008-2014

Mr. Louis Joinet (France), 1992-2003

Mr. Laity Kama (Senegal), 1992-2001

Mr. Kapil Sibal (India), 1992-2001

Mr. Petr Uhl (Czech Republic), 1992-2001She says she was cramped in her seat because the woman in front of her had reclined.



Oh don't let me down ONTD.

Reply

Thread

Link

yaaasss the wildest times on ontd are recliner time and tipping time

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

And that lemon water post! 

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

Lmao! You beat me to it. Fuck HTML on a phone is much more annoying. Same with copy/pasting. Anyway... I concur. Don't let us down, y'all! 

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

You recline, I kick your seat! Have some damn respect and get outta my space. Its already cramped, dont be an asshole. *You may recline on a red eye, however, Im not a monster.



Edited at 2018-10-17 01:02 am (UTC)

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

Oh please let them down



... THE BACK OF THE SEATS I MEAN. / reclines til i am folded over 360

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

Those seats are made to recline for a reason!!! If we weren't meant to put them back, then they wouldn't be recliners!



(exception made for when meals are served. Then you put your seat up.)

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

Im OK with reclining but only on red eye flights. If you're only flying for a few hours in the daytime/evening and you recline, you're an ass.

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

I think most people dont mind reclining when the lights are out and everyone is sleeping, thats what its designed for, I just hate when the first thing the person in front of me does is recline their seat for the entire flight, it makes it really hard to eat comfortably or use your laptop

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

I came in here only for that line.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

I recline when i'm going to sleep otherwise i keep it up /not sorry

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

here we go



before that post, i didn't know it was effed up TO recline... i'm on the petite side so I don't take up much room so whenever someone reclined on me it wasn't that big of a deal, it's not like i'm a 250 lb man or something but when i recline on someone else...

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

The theme from Jaws started playing in my head when I read that

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Came here for exactly this lmao

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Assuming she's in business, those seats don't recline INTO anyone though? They're clamshell and just move forward and down...

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

i don't remember anymore but are airplanes tighter than your average long distance bus or train?

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

lmao the only reason why i came into this post

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

I have overseas flights a couple of times a year. I'm in the air for 12 hours, I am going to recline my damned seat. Be as judgy as you want, but you don't have to deal with my sciatica.

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

getting reclined on sucks but I dont understand how people will die on this hill over ITS NOT RIGHT!! youre flying fucking coach, you're crammed in like a sardine regardless...was that space the difference between a palace and a shed? no it wasn't. just recline back yourself. they literally recline like 8" too...it's so weird to me. I go into a flight knowing I'll be cramped and miserable during it and everyone else is too.



I am much much much more annoyed by parents walking their screaming child up and down the aisles (exposing the entire plane to the aural chaos) or parents who let their children kick seats or run down the aisles, or my seat mates with boundary issues asking personal questions or not giving you peace.

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

lol

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

My exact first thought. *cackles*

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

I had my legs crossed on a flight once and the person in front of me kept trying to recline and bashing the chair into my knees. Bitch, if it didn't work the first time STOP.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

It's crazy how she and Lindsay were the two with actual careers, yet kim and Paris both built empires while they crashed and burned.

Reply

Thread

Link

mte

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

well her and lindsay are actual addicts, while kim and paris are just fame whores who had nothing to lose.



i wouldn't say paris has an empire anyway, i only ever see her products at discount stores like tj maxx.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

And it's still crazy that's how it ended up.





Paris has an estimated 300 mill dollar net worth independent of her family money, from all the shit she sells and her paycheck from whatever it is she does. I'd say that's an empire

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

yeah. tara had a great beginning of her career...the big lebowski, cruel intentions, josie and the pussycats, american pie, urban legend...like, damn girl, so much wasted potential. addiction is a bitch.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Addiction is a real bitch

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

tara could've been on guiliana's place today

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

the woman in front of her had reclined



Not today, Satan! Let the games begin. 

Reply

Thread

Link

Ughhh this shit makes my blood boil. If I was on that plane..

Reply

Thread

Link

Tara's story is she thought she had a window seat. She says she was cramped in her seat because the woman in front of her had reclined.



lmao ok bitch

Reply

Thread

Link

I suddenly sympathize with her, which is a shock.



Also aren't you supposed to not recline your seat until the plane is at cruising altitude? Poor thing was sitting behind a demon!

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

yeah you're not. the flight attendants will make you put it in the upright position usually.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

can't believe im in time for a seat reclining wank post.

Reply

Thread

Link

i always feel weird leaving shady comments about celebs with obvious issues bc like...what if they're really going THROUGH it



i know this is ontd and THAT'S THE POINT but i feel like karma is gonna get my ass. damned guilty conscience

Reply

Thread

Link

If Karma came after people who rolled their eyes at Tara Reid we'd all be dead. You're safe. 

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

idk, even if you are going through shit why take it out on innocent people who are just trying to do their job?

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Meh, karma has bigger fish to fry and the skillet isn't even on.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

NO. We can't do this again. We have to just accept that seat reclining is the moral impasse of our time

Reply

Thread

Link

this. fuck it.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

usually I recline a little bit but not all the way



the new delta planes are the best

Reply

Thread

Link

Omg, I love Delta's Airbus from LA to NYC and will only schedule Delta flights on that plane, lol. That 2-4-2 configuration in economy is awesome, there's a good amount of leg room, they serve a meal... a huge step up from what Delta's economy used to be.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

oooh i'll make a note of this next time. but i love sticking with jetblue and accruing points with them lol

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

I fly that route a lot and Delta is my favorite, too (but I'm almost always on a 2-3-2 configuration). I like not having to worry about procuring food at the airport and just showing up at the gate 10 mins before boarding.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

OP i think you mean prompted

Reply

Thread

Link

lol ty

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link





This is still her funniest quote

Reply

Thread

Link

OMG I might stan

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

LMAO WHAT

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

that's NOT from clickhole?

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

The best part is not the misunderstanding, but her not blinking an eye that she may have been asked if she's scared of tomatoes.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Lmaooo what a dolt.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

okay, i'm game !



i only recline on long ass flights where i will actually sleep, like LAX-SYD or something. i guess i would recline to europe too (about 7 hours when i'm home, from montreal). i went to new zealand this weekend and did not recline for a 3h30 long flight.

Reply

Thread

Link

i would never recline all the way back in economy, maybe just like 30 degrees at most. anyone who reclines all the way is an asshole

Reply

Thread

Link

definitely! i'm tallish, so I always splurge to sit where there isn't a seat directly in front of me. having to deal with some punk reclining over my limited leg room would be hell

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Yes! I presume (maybe wrongly) that she was in first class, and she is using this to get our working class sympathy.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

i'm not sure tara reid could afford first class or even business, tbh!

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

MTE and the people who fully recline are rarely super-tall or overweight

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

I never recline in coach. Thats so rude.



And so is flying when you are sick. Dumb woman coughed in front of me on a three hour flight last week.

Reply

Thread

Link

My last flights I bought my tickets three months in advance. Didnt exactly wanna be sick on vacation but its not like I change it lol

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Girl, the last place a sick person wants to be is on a plane. Sometimes its necessary. Perspective. Find it.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

omg flying with a cold hurts so bad if you have sinus congestion. can damage your hearing, too, afaik. i couldn't hear right for a few days last time i had to.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Ive been there before. Got sick right before my flight back home. I had to work the next day so I couldnt reschedule, plus it was too expensive to otherwise. You complain about that sort of thing until you get in that situation, then you realize it can't be helped :/

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

She was seated in first class, wasn't she? Even if the person in front reclined she should still have plenty of space.

Reply

Thread

Link

first class, rly? think about it again

Reply

Parent

Thread



LinkJesus, that's rough. :( My heart goes out to her.

Reply

Thread

Link

God, I can't even imagine the pain she's going through. :(

Reply

Thread

Link

holy shit :(((((((

Reply

Thread

Link

is this a pet post? does anyone have a blind dog? tips for walking them, getting them comfortable, etc please.



my dog went blind in one eye about a month ago. ophthalmologist says it's something with the optic nerve behind the eye, but cant tell what's causing it without doing an mri ($$$$). steroids and antibiotics did not help, so it's not an infection.

then this weekend she lost vision in her other eye, too. so she's been running into things, walking off curbs, staring at the wall when i'm talking to her, etc. it's upsetting. and we just moved to a new town/apartment this weekend, too, so her being in a new environment is not helping at all.

Reply

Thread

Link

calm down, there's nothing wrong with trying steroids first to see if that brought down the inflammation or not. you can't just quit steroids cold turkey and the specialist doesn't want to move forward until this round of prednisone is finished.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

My parents adopted my grandmother's blind dog after my grandmother died about a year ago. Don't leave anything on the floor (guests are bad about not putting their shoes away.) Always push chairs in, don't leave packages by the door. Basically make it easy for her to learn the lay of the land by keeping everything consistent. Get down to her level and see if there is anything dangerous at her face level so that she can't walk into something that will hurt her and "baby proof" anything that can.



We use area rugs to help define her spaces and all the rugs have different textures. One rug at the front hall where she goes out for her walks, one rug where her food and water bowls are. Another in the family area. It helps her find herself if she gets confused about where she is.



When we're on walks, we tell her "up" and "down" when there are curbs and steps and she's learned what that means so she can go up and down without tripping. Walks are slow. We also make a point of telling her when another dog is approaching so she isn't surprised.



When she first moved to my parents, I jokingly said "boop" any time she was about to run into something. She still ran into things but now when someone says boop, she's turn away and dodge the obstruction most of the time.



We have a routine but don't follow it strictly. It was harder at first but she's smart and has learned. Sometimes she'll still look off in the distance when we're talking to her and she still bump into things but the improvement in the 10 months is astounding. She just traveled to a relative's house for 4 days and did very well because she's more comfortable and confident after months of growing to trust that my parents and I are looking out for her.

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

One of our dog is mostly blind, honestly he adjusted so well you wouldnt even know. He even likes playing fetch. We believe he mostly sees blobs of shapes and shadows. He gets kind of mean during the night, I mena honestly hes a really nasty dog but hes even worse at night when it gets dark and he cant see anymore. Sometimes dogs can get agitated by sight loss, so keep an eye out on that.

Really, they become accustomed to it. Except when you move furniture lmao. Hes pretty good to walk as well, except for that time I accidentally knocked him into a pole when escaping another dog. I apologized him to him so hard for that :x

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WC3TcEqwwl4 I don't have a blind dog but you can def buy or make little bumpers for them so they can walk around without hurting themselves:

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

they sell (or you can make) halos for dogs. It's basically a vest/harness that has a circular antennae that goes above/around their heads that will bump into things before the dog does.

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

Be patient. It'll take time for the dog to get used to their blindness but it can have a perfectly healthy and happy doggy. Try to act normal yourself. Don't let her feel like she's should be scared. Just walk her slowly when you're outside so she won't hurt herself

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Aww, poor puppy. Is your dog older? my dog went blind her last 2~ years. She had cloudy eyes, cataracts. Finding out she was blind was such a relief tbh. She was staring at walls and stuff and I thought she was going crazy.  Dogs are very adaptable. They can and will adjust and use their other senses. It's when they get older and lose sight & hearing & dementia sets in that is harder to have a quality life.



Like others have mentioned, the halos can help if your dog is very active. My dog was small and older. She slowed down, didn't run as much. But she still went on walks and got around the house (not stairs) very well on her own. Keep the layout the same, keep floors clear. Go on the same paths when you walk. Your dog is so capable and smart!! Just give a little extra time, be patient and keep an eye on things. It will all be ok <3



ps yikes at that person that replied. shameful.

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

:(

Its good that her boyfriend is being supportive

Reply

Thread

Link

ugh this is awful! i really feel for her. i lost my MIL, my grandpa and my dog all within 3 months (2 of the deaths were very unexpected). trying to keep it together while in college feels impossible but such is life -___-

Reply

Thread

Link

Aw man. That's so rough :(

Reply

Thread

Link

Fuck, that's awful. I was a mess when my dog died.



My dad has just been diagnosed with prostate cancer and it has spread to some of his lymph nodes and bones and I have no idea what his chance of survival is. I keep thinking the worst. idk. This fucking sucks.

Reply

Thread

Link

I'm so sorry :(

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

:(((



idk, my family's experience with cancer is that is depends on how responsive it is to the treatments... even crazy awful-sounding cancer can be beaten if the chemo 'works'. the doctors probably also have no way to inform you. that's been the frustrating part to me - no one can answer anything definitively, at all, because every case is different. endless tests...

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Im so sorry.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Im so sorry. My mom was recently diagnosed with rectal cancer. If you ever need someone to talk to, my inbox is always open.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

im sorry bb :(

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

I'm really sorry. My mom died of cancer a few years ago, and the cancer being spread to the bones was the reason treatment didn't work. Spend all the time you can with him now, I was travelling a lot before my mom was diagnosed and really regretted it.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

I'm really sorry. That fucking sucks.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

i'm sorry and i wish him all the best in treatment. <3

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

aw, that's so sad, losing a dog is the worst. RIP to these fur babies.

Reply

Thread

Link

That's really terrible. I feel for her. I lost my cat not too long (months, not weeks though) after my mom and I was so hysterical that the vet that came to my house didn't even charge me to put him to sleep. He just took my bf aside and told him someone was nice to him when his mom died and he wanted to pay it forward and that he was sorry he couldn't save my kitty.

Reply

Thread

Link

<3 thats so nice of your vet. Im sorry.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Thats too much at once, omg. I hope shes okay.

Reply

Thread

Link

Daaaaamn. RIP to her beloved dogs especially her dad. Thats triple whammy, maaan. Hope shes alright <3

Reply

Thread

Link

Poor Sandra :( I couldn't imagine that amount of loss happening so close together.

Reply

Thread

Link

My moms dog is 88 and he acts like hes in his 20s... He annoys me a lot (i prefer cats) but I bet Ill be the one crying his death right behind my mother.





offtopic: does anyone else is having issues with youtube?



Edited at 2018-10-17 01:34 am (UTC)

Reply

Thread

Link

Do you mean 8 or are you trying to do dog years?

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

oh no, hes 88 human years, or like 13 dog years

Reply

Parent

Thread



LinkA day after the oversensitive oil market yet again demonstrated surprise at APIs estimate of a 2.13-million-barrel crude oil inventory draw, the Energy Information Administrations official figures refuted that: the authority reported an increase in U.S. commercial crude oil inventories of 6.5 million barrels for the week ending October 12.

EIAs report comes amid relatively stable prices as the tension between Saudi Arabia and the Untied States prompted by the suspicious disappearance of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi was countered by oil demand forecasts from OPEC and the International Energy Agency.

Both the oil producers cartel and the international authority this week had bad news for oil bulls, forecasting demand growth will slow down both this year and in 2019. Although in his comment on the news Bloombergs Julian Lee said that this does not necessarily mean oil prices will follow down, it was reason enough for Brent and WTI to stop rising so fast.

The EIA said refineries processed 16.3 million bpd of crude last week, compared with 16.2 million bpd a week earlier. They churned out 10.4 million bpd of gasoline, versus 9.7 million bpd a week earlier, and 4.8 million bpd of distillate, down from 5 million bpd in the prior week. Related: U.S. Shales Glory Days Are Numbered

At the time of writing, Brent crude was trading at US$81.55 a barrel, with WTI at US$72.12, both up from yesterdays close slightly. Prospects remain mixed. Just yesterday Goldman Sachs warned of an oil surplus on the global market, to emerge in 2019 because of higher utilization of spare capacity. This, the investment banks commodity analysts said, would offset the loss of Iranian crude after the November sanctions enter into effect and swing the market into an excess of supply.

Whats more, Saudi Arabias warning it will retaliate if the United States decides to punish it for Khashoggis disappearance, seems to have lost whatever substance it had when it was made on Sunday. As Reuters John Kemp noted, self-interest makes it improbable the government will retaliate by reducing oil sales or trying to drive up prices, which has reduced the upward potential for oil for the time being.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:The Khashoggi case is far from over, as current harsh statements coming from Washington are showing.

Not only is there a long line of U.S. Senators calling for an in-depth investigation of the matter, some have even openly called for the removal of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin. Senior R-Senator Lindsay Graham, one of the staunchest supporters of US president Trump and Saudi Arabia, has broken ranks as he asked on US Fox-News to remove MBS from his position.

These moves from Washington are not only endangering the very strong ties between Washington and Riyadh, but also endanger the overall Middle East and internal stability of OPEC. The oil cartel, led by Saudi Arabia, is looking at a very stormy ride the next couple of months, while the U.S. is heading for another showdown in the Arab world.

The Khashoggi case has become a possible watershed in international relations. Statements made by US R-Senator Graham, already supported by other high-ranking U.S. officials, show that the position of Saudi Arabia as a strategic ally of Washington in the Middle East, and MBS in particular, is under severe pressure.

The public threat, made by Graham news channel Fox-News, to put strong sanctions on Saudi Arabia, if the Crown Prince is not being removed, is a first. Not even in the case of Iran, Russias involvement in the Ukraine or the ongoing disaster in Syria, an open call was made for regime change. If threats were made by U.S. government-linked senators, it always was directly linked to a strong opposition movement in that country, or being directed at an anti-U.S. government or entity.

This time, the threat has been directed at a, until 2 weeks ago, strongly supported ally, with strong ties to Washington policymakers, the financial world and the defense industry. U..S. president Trumps current statements on Saudi Arabia, the moves made by U.S. Secretary of State Pompeo and others, now seem to be very hollow. The Washington Administration looks like a lame duck, as its supporters in Congress and the NY financial world are calling for a strong and anti-Saudi reaction. Such as reactions, however, could have a more negative impact for the U.S. and Western interests than currently is being discussed. Related: Are U.S. Oil Exports Really Unstoppable?

The Khashoggi crisis comes at a pivotal moment in the energy markets and geopolitical arena. While the West tries to revamp its influence in the Middle East, they are being confronted by the re-emergence of Russian power and influence of China. At the same time, Washington is set to implement sanctions on Iran, possibly shaking global energy markets to its foundations. Strong support is needed from the Arab states. Washingtons approach is very diffuse, as it also threatens legal action against OPEC. The so-called No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels Act or NOPEC legislation is threatening anti-trust lawsuits against the oil cartel. According to Reuters, OPEC has already stated to its members not to discuss oil price hikes, as it could result in legal action or another Washington  Riyadh clash. We solemnly believe that market stability, and not prices, is the common objective of our actions, UAE Energy Minister Suhail al-Mazroui, who holds the rotating OPEC presidency this year, wrote in the letter, seen by Reuters. In the same letter, Mazroui reiterated that to refrain from any reference to prices in their commentary about our collective efforts or oil market condition.

Ongoing pressure in Washington to put the law up for voting has caused bad blood in several OPEC capitals. Trumps repeated calls on OPEC to increase production to lower prices also has not been taken lightly. The Khashoggi case could increase support in Washington to back the NOPEC bill. Saudi Arabia is extremely worried about the bill. There is a major fear NOPEC could turn into another JASTA, one of the sources familiar with Aramco IPO preparations said, referring to the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act which allows victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to sue Riyadh. At present, $1 trillion in Saudi investments in the U.S. could be at stake. If the NOPEC bill is signed into law, the move would revoke the sovereign immunity from U.S. legal action which oil producers, including OPEC members, currently enjoy.

In addition to U.S. interests in the region, Europe is being confronted by growing Russian and Chinese involvement in the Arab world, threatening in theory its economic and military interests too. Washingtons strong hand policies on Saudi Arabia could lead to a weakening of overall Western interests in the coming weeks. A call for the removal of MBS in Saudi Arabia is for sure going to be seen in the other Arab capitals as new Western (colonialist) betrayal of its friends in the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt. Western influence already has diminished after their support for change in Libya and Egypt. The current Western moves are seen by most in this light.

A possible shift in geopolitical alliances is imminent. The pressure from the West will entice or even force Saudi Arabia, and its allies, to reassess their future. As indicated before, Saudi Arabia has already opened up its doors to Russia. These ties were forged by a slump in oil prices and the need to strengthen the hold of the Kingdom and OPEC on the oil market. The success of the OPEC/Russia cooperation has become clear, but also has led to a discussion on security and investments. The historical orientation of the Arab world, especially Saudi Arabia, but also the UAE and Egypt, on the West has changed already dramatically, but will now take a giant leap further.

Economically Asia has taken over already, as immense investments made by oil companies such as Aramco and ADNOC in China, India and other Asian emerging markets show. Russia has taken its share too. Moscows real strength, however, next to oil-gas markets, is it willingness to back up its friends in time of need. A military alliance is on the table, looking at the current developments. The security of the Arab regimes is at stake, so choices will have to be made. A full-stop cooperation between Riyadh and Moscow, based on OPEC oil issues and security developments, is to be expected in the next months. The first signs will be seen in Riyadh next week at the FII2018. Related: Goldman Sachs: This Is The Next Big Risk For Oil

For the global oil markets this will be a game-changer. If Arab regimes need to get security and political support from Moscow, and Beijing, Western energy interests are at stake. A possible anti-cartel law as proposed in the U.S. will only add to this. The year 2018 could become the year of a new geopolitical oil market reality. Full cooperation between OPEC leader Saudi Arabia, supported by the UAE, and Russia will present Washington and Brussels with a new global energy market situation which they wont be able to mitigate anymore.

Washingtons strive to change the oil market, which already was a fata morgana, could be ended before the first green sprout is showing. With the current antagonistic position taken by Washingtons elite, a clash is imminent with Saudi Arabia and others. The main OPEC leaders will keep to their current production strategy, not willing to open up their taps. A possible stronger move to keep volumes lower than expected is also in the offing, as Saudi Arabia is not forced to produce at current levels at all. A strong reaction is to be expected soon.

In addition to a smiling Putin, who is going to be the main beneficiary of the current crisis, the mullahs in Tehran will be enjoying their free lunch too. Without support of Saudi Arabia and others, U.S. sanctions on Iran could be an empty threat. Trump can forget full support from Saudi Arabia/MBS as long as the latter is under pressure. Iran could be one of the beneficiaries of the current clash. The regional power struggle between Riyadh and Tehran could be put aside when looking at a pure OPEC strategy. Consolidation of the current production agreement, without Saudi Arabia and Russia filling the void of Irans oil volumes, could be an outcome to be expected.

By Cyril Widdershoven for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:Kuwait Petroleum Corp (KPC) has set the official selling prices (OSPs) for its new Super Light Crude grade at a premium to a similar Saudi grade for October and November, Platts reported on Wednesday, quoting industry sources.

The first cargoes of the new Super Light Crude from Kuwait were loaded to Japan and South Korea in July, with Asian economists and market sources saying that the new Kuwaiti super-light grade could be an alternative to Iranian condensate for Asian buyers amid the returning U.S. sanctions on Irans petroleum sector.

Japan and South Korea were buying Iranian condensate and crude oil, but ahead of the U.S. sanctions they have halted all imports from Iran.

South Korea, for example, imported zero Iranian oil in September for the first time in six years.

Japanese refiners, for their part, have stopped buying Iranian crude ahead of the November 4 deadline set by Washington to all countries doing business with Iran before economic sanctions return. The head of the Petroleum Association of Japan said last month that It is my view that each firm is taking the same stance and temporarily suspending (the loading) and watching the situation carefully.

With Asian refiners looking for alternative supplies to Iranian crude oil and condensate, Kuwaits new super light grade could find a welcome home in the Asian markets.

Kuwaits OSPs for its Super Light Crude for October was set at a premium of US$2.30 a barrel over the Oman/Dubai average, while the November OSP was set at US$3.05 per barrel above Oman/Dubai.

To compare, Saudi Aramcos OSP for October for its Arab Extra Light to Asia is at a US$1.80/b premium to Oman/Dubai, while the November OSP was set at a US$2.55/b premium.

Kuwaits new Super Light is rightly priced at a premium to the Saudi grade, a source at a refiner in northeast Asia told Platts.

Kuwait plans to have Super Light production reach 120,000 bpd, according to Reuters.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:Nevada Senator Dean Heller has proposed lifting the tax credit ceiling for electric cars, Reuters reports, citing the text of the proposal, which has not yet been made public. If the proposal becomes a law, Tesla and GM will be among the biggest beneficiaries.

Under Sen. Hellers proposal, electric car manufacturers could claim tax credits on more than 200,000 vehicles, which is currently the maximum for claiming maximum tax credit, after which the sum begins to taper.

Yet the Republican senators bill comes with a caveat: in exchange for raising the maximum number of cars eligible for tax credit of a maximum of US$7,500, all tax credits will be phased out in 2022.

Tesla earlier this year announced it had sold 200,000 cars, Reuters recalls, which immediately started the phase-out mechanism: for the following six months after the target was met, tax credits will be 50 percent lower. Over the next six months, it will be just US$1,875 per car. After that, the incentive ends.

GM will reach the 200,000 milestone by the end of this year, the company said earlier, telling Reuters that it was important to provide a federal tax credit for consumers to help make electric vehicles more affordable for all customers.

Both Tesla and GM have called on Congress to raise the ceiling on the number of cars eligible for tax credits. But some smaller carmakers are against the Heller proposal: if they have not ramped up their production by 2022, they will be unable to take any advantage of higher tax credit eligibility figures.

Other car companies, Reuters says, are in favor of tax credits being limited to more affordable cars, but Tesla and GM would certainly be against that, especially Tesla. Yet this is not the only EV tax credit proposal being discussed by Congress. In September, a group of Democrats in the Senate introduced a bill that would both lift the ceiling on the number of cars eligible for tax credit and extend the period of its duration to 10 years.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:OPEC has urged all its members not to mention specific oil prices, to instead stick to the market stability narrative in public comments about oil policies to avoid the risk of potential U.S. antitrust lawsuits for manipulating the market if the United States passes a proposed legislation, Reuters reported on Wednesday, citing sources close to OPEC.

The proposed U.S. legislationthe so-called No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels (NOPEC) Actcould pave the way to antitrust lawsuits in the U.S. against the cartel and its national oil companies, if passed.

Forms of antitrust legislation aimed at OPEC were discussed at various times under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, but they both threatened to veto such legislation.

In May this year, the NOPEC Act was introduced again. Such legislation would make OPEC subject to antitrust law by removing a state immunity shield created by judicial precedent.

Given President Trumps continued criticism of OPEC and the way the cartel manipulates the oil market and prices, OPEC members are concerned that the legislation may pass this time around.

Last month, Saudi ArabiaOPECs largest producer and de facto leader hired former U.S. Solicitor General Ted Olson, now partner in law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, to lobby against the proposed NOPEC bill.



Related: U.S. Oil Production May Jump To 14 Million Bpd By 2020

In July this year, senior OPEC officials gathered in Vienna to discuss the NOPEC bill with international law firm White & Case, and the law firm advised refraining from mentioning oil price in public discussions, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

OPEC also sent a letter on August 1 to the ministers of the member states, urging them to avoid referring to oil price when discussing oil policy, which is a break from past practices, when Saudi Arabia would usually point to a preferred price of oil.

I would like to call upon OPEC Member Countries, as well as our participating Non-OPEC colleagues, to refrain from any reference to prices in their commentary about our collective efforts or oil market condition, UAE Energy Minister Suhail Al Mazrouei, who holds the rotating OPEC presidency this year, wrote in the letter seen by Reuters.

We solemnly believe that market stability, and not prices, is the common objective of our actions, he says.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:Saudi Arabia has added 3 million bpd of oil export capacity to its West Coast on the Red Sea after the upgrade of Saudi Aramcos Yanbu South Terminal, the state oil giant said on Wednesday.

The Yanbu terminal in the port city on the Red Sea coast of western Saudi Arabia is now integrated with the existing crude oil supply network and adds 3 million barrels per day to Saudi Aramcos export capacity through the West Coast, the company said.

The increased export capacity from the Saudi West Coast comes as the Kingdom looks for routes other than the ones from its East Coast and via the Strait of Hormuz, the worlds most important oil chokepoint, which Iran threatened earlier this year to close should the U.S. drive Iranian oil exports to zero.

The Strait of Hormuz is the worlds most important chokepoint, with an oil flow of 18.5 million bpd in 2016, the EIA estimates. The Strait connects the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea and is the key route through which Persian Gulf exportersSaudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE, and Bahrainship their oil.

Most of Saudi Arabias seaborne oil exports pass through the Strait of Hormuz, but an East-West pipeline in the Kingdom carries crude oil from the eastern oil fields to Yanbu, which lies north of another oil chokepoint around the Arabian PeninsulaBab el Mandeb. The Bab el-Mandeb Strait is one of the three crucial chokepoints around the Arabian Peninsula. Located between Yemen, Djibouti, and Eritrea, Bab el-Mandeb connects the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea.

Aramco also plans to launch the overhauled Muajjiz oil terminal on the Red Sea this year, which would increase the total Saudi loading and export capacity to 15 million bpd.

While Saudi Arabia is raising its oil export capacities, it has recently started to vow that it will boost its oil production as well. Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said earlier this week that the Saudis are currently pumping 10.7 million bpdvery close to the all-time high of 10.72 million bpdand would further increase that production in November.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:FOUR suspected members of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters who were allegedly planning to stage an attack in Sultan Kudarat were arrested on Wednesday morning, October 17, in Maguindanao.Spokesperson

FOUR suspected members of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters who were allegedly planning to stage an attack in Sultan Kudarat were arrested on Wednesday morning, October 17, in Maguindanao.

Spokesperson of the 6th Infantry Division, Major Arvin Encinas, said Datu Parido Banabagan, alias Kumander Banog, and three others who are yet to be identified were nabbed during joint police and military operations in Barangay Lumabao, General Salipada K. Pendatun, around 5 a.m.

Banabagan was the alleged leader of the group.

Recovered from the suspects were two M14 rifles, two RPG launchers, and three grenades.

Encinas said based on intelligence report, the arrested BIFF members were gathering information, as they are planning to launch an attack in the municipality of Lambayong in Sultan Kudarat.

The arrested suspects were brought to the Philippine National Police-Criminal Investigation and Detection Group in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao for proper disposition. (SunStar Philippines)British Prime Minister Theresa May will call on fellow EU leaders Thursday to take united action to punish cyber attackers, warning hackers cause economic harm and undermine democracies. Britain is among eight European Union countries pushing for the bloc to urgently agree to a new sanctions regime to address malign cyber activities. "We should accelerate work on EU restrictive measures to respond to and deter cyber attacks, including a robust sanctions regime," May will say, according to pre-released comments. She will add: "Malign cyber activity causes harm to our economies, and undermines our democracies. "As well as protecting ourselves against attack, we must impose proportionate consequences on those who would do us harm." The move comes amid growing concern at Russia's activities, with Western powers blaming Moscow for numerous acts of hacking and electronic interference. This month the Netherlands revealed dramatic details of a bid by Russia's GRU military intelligence agency to hack the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague. This was "a stark example of the very real threats that we face", May will say, but also "a clear example of where these attacks can be prevented". A confidential EU proposal seen by AFP and backed by Britain, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Denmark, Finland, Romania and the Netherlands warns that "the pace of events has accelerated considerably". The paper says it is "only a matter of time before we are hit by a critical operation with severe consequences on the EU". Lithuania and the other Baltic states, Latvia and Estonia, say they come under near-daily cyber attacks, most originating in Russia, targeting everything from banks and government institutions to transport infrastructure. Britain's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) revealed this week that it has dealt with more than 1,100 cyber incidents in the two years since it was set up, the majority carried out from within "hostile nation states". May has repeatedly stressed that despite Britain leaving the EU in March, London wants the fullest possible security relationship with the bloc post-Brexit. If approved, the EU sanctions regime would freeze assets held in the bloc by targeted individuals and ban them from travelling to the 28 member states. But the proposal may face resistance from some EU members who want to improve relations with Russia, such as the new Italian government.A peep into a Thimphu toy shop shows stacks of Pokemons, all made in China, a testimony to the quiet overtures Beijing is making in Bhutan at rival India's expense. China's annexation of Tibet in 1951 and an unresolved border dispute have long been irritants in ties with Bhutan, and India would prefer they remain estranged. India jumped to Bhutan's defence last year when Chinese troops started building a road on Doklam, a territory claimed by both China and Bhutan. The eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation lasted 72 days before the Indian and Chinese armies pulled back. But now Beijing is seeking to mend relations and extend a hand of friendship to the tiny Himalayan kingdom, despite the two having no diplomatic relations. Chinese shipments have shot up in the past decade, with goods from machinery and cement to electricals and toys making Beijing the third largest source of foreign products to heavily import-dependent Bhutan. And stuck between the competing regional powers, Bhutan has been gasping to assert its sovereignty and shrug off decades of heavy dependence on India. Many among Bhutan's 800,000 population feel India's embrace is becoming a stranglehold and getting in the way of Thimpu's ties with other countries. "Within Bhutan, there is a growing demand to diversify and loosen its dependence on India," University of British Columbia historian Tsering Shakya said. "However, given the geography and history it is not easy for Bhutan to ignore India's interest." Nestled in the highest, snow-capped mountain range in the world, Bhutan is one of the world's few countries to have never been colonised, and has retained much of its unique culture and charm. The country's fourth king famously introduced the concept of gross national happiness in the 1970s, shunning the usual gross domestic product used by most modern countries to measure economic growth. - 'Jealous big brother' - Bhutan was almost as isolated as the mythical Shangri-La until the early 1960s when its first highway was built. But it has become increasingly dependent on neighbours, as shown in 2013 when India was accused of triggering a fuel crisis by cutting subsidies on cooking gas and kerosene -- which some say was a punishment to Bhutan for warming up to the Chinese. "If we (India and Bhutan) are good friends, our friendship shouldn't be affected by our relations with other countries," said Vimla Pradhan, a 21-year-old college student. "It appears as if everything Bhutan does, it should have tacit approval from India. India will always come before others but please don't behave like a jealous big brother," she told AFP in Thimpu. Pradhan, who studies political science and philosophy, is not isolated in her views. Many aspiring Bhutanese are restless for new opportunities at a time when youth unemployment is 10.6 percent against the national average of 2.4 percent. India has been generous with loans and grants but Bhutan could do with more investment, and China has deep pockets. "Where are the jobs? Look at any nook and corner and you will find young men hanging around aimlessly," said Karma Choden, a mother of two, as she waited for customers at a roadside stall selling dry cheese and red chillies. Bhutan, a growing economy which has been trying to shed its tag as one of the world's least developed countries, is struggling to reduce unemployment as it gears up for only its third ever election on Thursday. The ruling party was knocked out in the first round of polling in mid-September, signalling the electorate's desperation for change. - Rich dividends - China's policy of mixing soft diplomacy and economic aid has reaped rich dividends in South Asian countries where India has long held sway like Sri Lanka and the Maldives. China has been reaching out to Bhutan through sports, religious and cultural visits as well as scholarships to Bhutanese students. Its vice foreign minister Kong Xuanyou made a rare trip to Bhutan in July. Bhutan has also been receiving a growing number of Chinese tourists, who have to pay a sizeable visa fee, unlike their Indian counterparts. The number of Chinese tourists visiting Bhutan surged from fewer than 20 a decade ago to 6,421 in 2017, according to official figures. Taxi driver Kinzang Dorji is unable to make much sense of Bhutan's diplomacy and history. But he understands the value of foreign investment. "Bhutan should make friends with other countries," Dorji said. "Many Chinese tourists have started coming and they are bringing in a lot of money. We don't mind them at all," he said before zooming past a Chinese restaurant in the heart of Thimphu.French prosecutors on Wednesday announced they were investigating leftist firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon after he shoved a prosecutor and an officer in a fit of rage over police raids on his home and party headquarters. The leader of the France Unbowed party has drawn a torrent of criticism over Tuesday's outburst, with ruling party members and several newspapers accusing him of placing himself above the law. Speaking during question time in parliament, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said he was "shocked" by the "very virulent reaction to police officers who were doing their job". Melenchon, a 67-year-old member of parliament, said he had "no regrets", adding that he was furious because of the way the searches were carried out -- and not merely because they took place. "They searched us as if we were a band of thieves," he told BFMTV channel, adding that as a person of "Mediterranean" origin -- he was born in Morocco -- he had a tendency to lose his temper and there was "no need in making a big deal of it". - Being treated 'like Lula' - The first standoff occurred when officers arrived at Melenchon's Paris apartment at dawn and began combing it for evidence in two investigations -- one into the party's use of European Parliament funds, the other into the funding of Melenchon's 2017 presidential campaign. Filming the scene and broadcasting it live on his Facebook account, the MP cast himself as the victim of a state plot to silence him. "Tomorrow they'll find an excuse to throw me in the slammer like (former Brazilian president) Lula... It's not normal!", he said. Things got more heated later at the party's headquarters, which was also searched by police. Arriving at the office housed in an apartment building, Melenchon and a group of party officials tried to force down the door. "The Republic, it's me, I'm the one who is a parliamentarian. Get out of the way and open up this door" an apoplectic Melenchon shouted at the policeman standing guard outside before proceeding to try ram the door open. After gaining entry through another door, the former Socialist minister rounded on the prosecutor overseeing the operations inside, shouting: "I'm the leader of an opposition group. You should not be treating me in this way. I'm not a cigarette thief!" - Channelling Le Pen? - In a video shown on the Quotidien news programme, Melenchon is then seen shoving the prosecutor and a policeman, taunting the latter: "Go on, just try and touch me!" The Paris prosecutor's office said it had launched an investigation for "threats and acts of intimidation against judicial authorities" and "violence against people carrying out public duties". It asked for another office to conduct the probe to ensure impartiality as some of its investigators took part in the raid. A France Unbowed official, Manuel Bompard, said the party had filed a counter-complaint for police violence causing the injury of four people. In one video, a policeman could be seen wrestling a party member to the floor. A political veteran famous for his tirades against globalisation, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and elites, Melenchon enjoys a cult following among leftists but is seen as a polarising figure on the centre and right. His latest flare-up was condemned by centrist parties and the media. "Jean-Luc Melenchon, an outburst too far?" the leftwing Liberation newspaper questioned in a front-page headline Wednesday. Government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux accused him of using "the same arguments" as far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who has also cast the multiple investigations into her party's finances as a political plot. The leader of the centrist Modem party Francois Bayrou stressed that it was not unusual for a French party, including his own, to be raided by police. "A politician is as answerable to the law as anyone else," he said. But Le Pen's National Rally party came to Melenchon's defence, with European parliamentarian Nicolas Bay calling the raids a sign of the "interference of the judiciary in the democratic process". An MP from the conservative opposition Republicans party, whose presidential candidate Francois Fillon was last year charged with fraud, also expressed concern about the "repeated investigations of various opposition parties".Apparently, in the past few years, Robinsons Galleria has transformed from a run-of-the-mill mall into a legit destination for hip, trendy types looking for new food and shopping options.

The Quezon City mall used to be my stomping grounds years ago when my workplace was located on the ground floor. But I have to admit  back then, many areas were dimly lit, the interiors looked dated, and there werent many places to eat.

Now, thanks to a refurb that was first announced way back in 2010, the old mall has shed its retro look and has finally joined the modern age.

This means, of course, that there are also more places to chow down, and eaters get the flexibility of being choosey. Theres now a variety of cuisines, representing a range of price points, from budget-friendly eateries to premium dining spots.

One of these newcomers is Kisoya, a three-month-old mid-tier chain restaurant originating from South Korea that offers a fusion of Korean and Japanese cuisines.

Photo: Rachel Malaguit

Photo: Rachel Malaguit

Kisoyas Galleria branch is the first to open in the Philippines. Founded in 1988 in Incheon, the menu is a fusion of Korean and Japanese food  a combination that may sound strange to purists of each cuisine, but to them, we say: Keep an open mind. This place makes it work.

Lets start with a look at the ingredients, the high quality of which is probably to thank for the chains intercontinental success. According to Manila branch manager Jessmary Bringino, these are all imported from South Korea, and noodles are made fresh in-house. Bringino tells us that this is why she thinks the restaurant is packed with Korean families on weekdays  it reminds them of home.

The noodles being made in-house at Kisoya. Photo: Rachel Malaguit

She told Coconuts Manila in a mix of English and Filipino: They would eat side-by side right next to each other. Sometimes we have to arrange tables all the way to the exit. But they dont mind.

On the Saturday I visited for lunch, however, it was rather quiet. The tables and chairs reminded me of a mid-tier Chinese restaurant. Thanks to the upbeat K-pop songs that they were playing, however, there was no mistaking the kind of food I was about to dive into.

Story continues

Photo: Rachel Malaguit

I tried the Kisoya set (PHP599/US$11.07), composed of Kimchi udon, tonkatsu, and a side of rice. I got the Kimchi udon with a mild spice level  the perfect level of spice for me.

The udon was certainly on the salty side (which would appeal to a lot of Filipinos) and the texture of the noodles was silky-smooth. This noodle bowl would be the perfect thing to eat on a rainy day, but its too bad that I was eating it on a day when it was blazing hot.

The tonkatsu, the sliced, deep fried pork cutlet, was crunchy and the breading wasnt too thick, unlike other places that tend to go overboard. It was good. A solid, straight-forward iteration. Great? The meat itself was not quite juicy enough to hit that mark.

Photo: Rachel Malaguit

Photo: Rachel Malaguit

Head Chef of the Manila outpost, Alejandro Mirral, also created a dish just for our citys Kisoya: the Kisoya Special Rolls (PHP399/US$7.38), a combo of salmon, mango, cucumber, and crab.

The seafood tastes fresh, and the combination of the fruit and the Japanese mayo drizzled on top brings a slightly tart and sweet flavor. Its definitely one of the better contemporary-style makizushi in town, and one of those must-try dishes here.

Photo: Rachel Malaguit

Theyve got desserts, too. We tried the Injulmee Bingsu (PHP200/US$3.69), made with almonds and traditional Korean rice cakes.

They told me this version is exactly how its made in Korea, but I wish it were sweeter. Ive been eating Filipino and Indonesian desserts my whole life  and to me, this one simply didnt pack enough of a dessert punch to be all that satisfying. I can see, however, how this one would work better for someone who isnt quite as fond of sugar as I am.

In any case  Kisoya is certainly worth a visit. Its like experiencing Incheon, with a touch of Tokyo, right in the middle of busy Metro Manila.

Chef Mirrals more than 15 years of experience in the business, combined with his training in Incheon, definitely shows in the quality of his food. He knows his stuff, and a meal at the restaurant is relatively cheap compared to some of the other mid-range, upper mid-range spots that have created a fair bit of buzz around town lately.

FIND IT:

Kisoya is at 3rd floor, Veranda area, Robinsons Galleria

EDSA corner Ortigas Ave., Ortigas Center, Quezon City, Metro Manila

Open MondaysSundays; 10am9pm (MondaysFridays) and 10am-10pm (Saturdays and Sundays)

Reservations: +632 6375362



The post Review: Kisoya, the Korean-Japanese fusion restaurant from South Korea, comes to Quezon City appeared first on Coconuts.The United States and eight other countries on Tuesday requested a UN Security Council meeting on Myanmar to hear from a UN fact-finding mission that has accused the country's military of atrocities against Muslim Rohingyas. The request is likely to run into opposition from China, which has friendly ties with Myanmar's military and has sought to shield Myanmar from action by the Security Council. In a joint letter seen by AFP, the nine countries said the mission's chairperson should brief the council to allow it to "receive further information on this situation and its implications for international peace and security." The UN fact-finding mission released an explosive report last month that called on the council to refer the Myanmar situation to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, or to create an ad hoc international criminal tribunal, as was done with the former Yugoslavia. The fact-finding mission said that Myanmar's top generals, including Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing must be investigated and prosecuted for genocide in Rakhine State. Myanmar has rejected accusations that its military committed atrocities in the crackdown last year that forced more than 700,000 Rohingya to flee over the border to Bangladesh. - Myanmar objects - In a separate letter to the council, Myanmar's Ambassador Hau Do Suan said his government "strongly objects" to the request to hear the fact-finding mission. The ambassador repeated Myanmar's complaints that the report was "one-sided", based on "narratives and not on hard evidence". "Putting accountability above all else without regard to other positive developments is a dangerous attempt that will face utter failure," he warned in the letter obtained by AFP. Britain, France, Peru, Sweden, Ivory Coast, the Netherlands, Poland and Kuwait jointed the United States in requesting the meeting to be held during the month of October. Support from the nine countries for the request means that China would likely fail to block a meeting through a procedural vote. Nine votes are required at the 15-member council to approve an agenda item and vetoes do not apply. Myanmar maintains that the violence in Rakhine was triggered by Rohingya extremists who attacked border posts in August 2017. But the fact-finding mission said there were reasonable grounds to believe that the atrocities were committed with the intention of destroying the Rohingya, warranting the charges of "genocide." The report found that the military's tactics had been "consistently and grossly disproportionate to actual security threats", and said that estimates that some 10,000 people were killed in the crackdown was likely a conservative figure.Credit: CC0 Public Domain

A team of researchers from across Europe and Israel has found evidence of dogs traveling with people from the Near East to Europe during the Neolithic. In their paper published in the journal Biology Letters, the group describes their genetic study of dogs living in ancient Europe and the Near East and what they found.

Prior research has shown that dogs were living in both the Near East and Europe prior to the Neolithic. They were, in fact, the only domesticated species already present in Europe when the Near Easterners arrived. Now, the researchers in this new effort have found evidence of dogs traveling with people as they moved from the Near East to Europe and subsequently mated with the dogs already living there.

To learn more about the history of dog domestication, the researchers studied 100 mitochondrial sequences obtained from ancient dog remains found in both the Near East and Europe. They used the genetic information they found to trace the lineage of dogs from the Upper Paleolithic to the Bronze Age.

Prior research has also shown that farming began in the Middle East in an area known as the Fertile Crescent. Some of the people of that time stopped being hunter-gatherers and started domesticating animals and growing their own food. Approximately 9,000 years ago, some of those farmers from the Near East began migrating to Europe and Asia, bringing with them samples of crops they wanted to grow such as wheat and barleyand they also brought a host of domesticated animals such as sheep, goats and dogs.

The researchers were able to trace the path of dogs migrating into southeastern parts of Europe along with their human companions. Once there, the evidence showed, the dogs began mixing with local dog populations. They suggest that such evidence shows that dogs were an integral part of the farmer-dog partnership during the earliest stages of agricultural developmentlikely serving as herding assistants. The researchers note that they also found that the European dog lineage was heavily diluted even before Near East dogs made their way into Western and Northern Europe.

Explore further New twist in tale of dogs' origins

More information: Morgane Ollivier et al. Dogs accompanied humans during the Neolithic expansion into Europe, Biology Letters (2018). Morgane Ollivier et al. Dogs accompanied humans during the Neolithic expansion into Europe,(2018). DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2018.0286 Abstract Near Eastern Neolithic farmers introduced several species of domestic plants and animals as they dispersed into Europe. Dogs were the only domestic species present in both Europe and the Near East prior to the Neolithic. Here, we assessed whether early Near Eastern dogs possessed a unique mitochondrial lineage that differentiated them from Mesolithic European populations. We then analysed mitochondrial DNA sequences from 99 ancient European and Near Eastern dogs spanning the Upper Palaeolithic to the Bronze Age to assess if incoming farmers brought Near Eastern dogs with them, or instead primarily adopted indigenous European dogs after they arrived. Our results show that European pre-Neolithic dogs all possessed the mitochondrial haplogroup C, and that the Neolithic and Post-Neolithic dogs associated with farmers from Southeastern Europe mainly possessed haplogroup D. Thus, the appearance of haplogroup D most probably resulted from the dissemination of dogs from the Near East into Europe. In Western and Northern Europe, the turnover is incomplete and haplogroup C persists well into the Chalcolithic at least. These results suggest that dogs were an integral component of the Neolithic farming package and a mitochondrial lineage associated with the Near East was introduced into Europe alongside pigs, cows, sheep and goats. It got diluted into the native dog population when reaching the Western and Northern margins of Europe. Journal information: Biology Letters

 2018 Phys.orgCredit: CC0 Public Domain

When Australian scientists presented evidence in 2016 of life on Earth 3.7 billon years agopushing the record back 220 million yearsit was a big deal, influencing even the search for life on Mars.

But that discovery, based on an analysis of primordial rocks in Greenland, has now been challenged, with another team of researchers arguing in a study published Wednesday that the structures presented as proof of microbial activity were, in fact, geologically forged by underground heat and pressure.

The truth hinges on whether the cone-shaped formations in question are genuine stromatolites, layered structures left in the wake of water-dwelling microorganisms.

Previously, the earliest confirmed stromatolites were found in 3.45-billion year old rocks in Australia.

Being able to accurately date the first stirrings of life on our young planetroughly a billion years old at the timehas important implications for understanding how it emerged and evolved.

Writing in the journal Nature, Abigail Allwood of the California Institute of Technology and colleagues analysed the three-dimensional shape of the disputed formations, along with their orientation in space and chemical composition.

The 3-D view led them to conclude that the alleged fossils lacked internal layers, a signature trait of stromatolites. Upon closer examination, the cone-like shapes were shown to be ridges that typically arise over millions of years through a natural deforming process called metamorphism.

Also missing, they said, were the chemical traces of microbe activity.

"We believe that the current evidence does not support the interpretation of these structures as 3.7 billion-year-old stromatolites," Allwood's team concluded.

Their analysis, the study continued, should also serve as a "cautionary tale" in interpreting rock formations in the search for life on Mars.

Mark Van Zuilen, a geomicrobiologist at the Institut de Physique du Globe in Paris, said the reassessment is convincing, and suggests the Australian stromatolites should regain their status as the earliest confirmed proof of life on Earth.

"These observations provide strong evidence for physical rock deformation and therefore offer a non-biological explanation for the observed structures," he commented in Nature.

Allen Nutman, a professor at the University of Wollongong in Australia and lead researcher on the 2016 study, was not available for comment.

Explore further Oldest fossils point to thriving life on young Earth

More information: Abigail C. Allwood et al. Reassessing evidence of life in 3,700-million-year-old rocks of Greenland, Nature (2018). Journal information: Nature Abigail C. Allwood et al. Reassessing evidence of life in 3,700-million-year-old rocks of Greenland,(2018). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-018-0610-4

 2018 AFPBreakthrough Prize Co-Founders Mark Zuckerberg (L) and Yuri Milner speak onstage during the 2017 Breakthrough Prize at NASA Ames Research Center on December 4, 2016 in Mountain View, California

Nine scientists were recognized Wednesday with a "Breakthrough Prize," a $3 million Silicon Valley-funded award meant to confer Oscars-style glamour and prestige on the basic sciences.

The prizes in physics, life sciences and mathematics went to six men and three women, including four researchers who shared two prizes and five who get the full reward to themselves.

Vincent Lafforgue, of France's National Center of Scientific Research (CNRS), was awarded the prize in mathematics for groundbreaking work in multiple areas.

Five US-based researchers who won prizes in the life sciences included Frank Bennett and Adrian Krainer, from companies in Carlsbad, California and Long Island.

They were recognized for their discovery of a DNA-linked process that led to a treatment for a rare infantile disorder, spinal amyotrophy.

They were joined by Chinese-born scientists Xiaowei Zhuang (Harvard), who developed a new tool for super-resolution molecular imagery, and Zhijian "James" Chen (University of Texas), for his discovery of a DNA-sensing enzyme that could be associated with auto-immune disorders.

The US-based contingent was completed by Angelika Amon, an Austrian researcher at MIT, for determining the consequences of aneuploidy, when cell does not have the normal number of chromosomes.

The physics prizes went to Charles Kane and Eugene Mele (University of Pennsylvania) and Jocelyn Bell Burnell (Oxford).

Six $100,000 awards were given to 12 researchers for promising early career work.

The "Breakthrough Prize" is only six years old but it is far more lavish than the coveted Nobel, which comes with prize money of around $1 million and is often shared by two or three laureates.

The prizes will be presented at a star-studded red carpet ceremony in November, hosted at a NASA research center in Silicon Valley by actor Pierce Brosnan.

The mathematics prize propels 44-year-old Lafforgue into a celebrity world which has not typically been part of his day-to-day work, he acknowledged.

"I'm game," he told AFP before the official announcement. "It's American culture."

He recalled that Yuri Milner, a physician and internet pioneer who became a prominent Silicon Valley investor, created the prize in 2012 to make scientists stars, hoping to repopularize the basic sciences and generate public support.

"Breakthrough Prize" patrons include Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Google co-founder Sergey Brin and Ma Huateng, founder and CEO of Chinese internet giant Tencent.

Unlike the Nobel, which often goes to retirees, the "Breakthrough Prize" seeks to recognize recent discoveries, and not necessarily concrete applications of their work.

"One does math for its beauty, not for its applications," said Lafforgue, while stressing that there are applications of his work in the field of cryptography.

Explore further Winner of year's final scientific Nobel Prize to be named

 2018 AFPVolunteers prepare to take flow measurements on Muddy Creek. Credit: Centre County Pennsylvania Senior Environmental Corps, CC BY-ND

Water insecurity is a touchstone for 2018. Our planet isn't running out of water, but various kinds of mismanagement have led to local water crises across the planet, directly threatening millions of people.

Ensuring water quality requires regular testing, protecting source water, monitoring and repairing distribution systems, treatment plants and other infrastructure, and developing the ability to recycle water and desalinate salt water. These activities require many types of specialists. But they can also benefit from the direct participation of engaged citizens, who themselves can also benefit from getting involved with this work.

Most of my career has focused on information sciences and technology. Over the past 40 years, I have investigated cases in which people creatively mastered information and technology that was poorly designed relative to their needs, or applied technology to problems it was not originally designed for, such as strengthening local heritage, community governance or collaborative learning. I have learned that making technology effective often requires the creative engagement of everyone who is affected by it.

Contemporary reports on failing water systems tend to overlook the critical roles that citizens can play in addressing environmental challenges at the local level. Water systems are human-technology interactions. Engaged and informed volunteers who are committed to protecting water quality are as critical to a successful water system as pumps and filters.

Taking responsibility for water systems

In the course of a research project on citizen-initiated health collaborations, I learned that people in my own community in central Pennsylvania were deeply involved in monitoring local water quality. Many Americans probably think of this as a job for state or local government agencies. But it also can be a community engagement activity, much like working at a food bank, driving for Meals on Wheels or building homes with Habitat for Humanity.

This does not mean the work is any less about environmental protection. Rather, it incorporates environmental protection into the core of hyperlocal community work  the actions people take locally to strengthen their communities.

Spring Creek is a stream in the West Branch of the Susquehanna River watershed. Within this 146-square-mile watershed, there are at least seven springs that each produce more than 1 million gallons per day of clean, cold water. Credit: Spring Creek Watershed Atlas, CC BY-ND

Roughly 100,000 people live in the Spring Creek watershed in central Pennsylvania. Spring Creek is a well-known trout fishery, but the region faces ongoing water quality challenges, including agricultural runoff, stormwater silt and invasive species. It also has legacy pollution sources, including abandoned clay and coal mines and a chemical plant that was a Superfund site in the 1980s. Future challenges include a threat of runoff from Marcellus Shale gas drilling.

Several dozen local groups  including nonprofits, municipal entities and regional water and sewer authorities  carry out a wide variety of water quality testing programs. Each group gathers and organizes its own data sets, but they also coordinate through overlapping memberships, arrangements to share equipment, space, funding and data, and initiatives involving multiple townships and boroughs, which the groups sometimes create themselves.

Citizen water monitoring connects communities

Although these groups have only a few hundred members in total, they are involved in many activities. They advise municipalities and the public on watershed issues, such as development proposals. They also coordinate planning among towns, conduct outreach programs at public schools, observe and collect samples at field sites, and interact with testing laboratories and government agencies.

Some groups have developed data sets and analyses that are curated and published online or available by request. They also have produced a community watershed atlas, which explains what the watershed is, how it works and how it serves the people who live in it.

Several groups that mainly collect data consist almost entirely of older adults. For example, members of the Pennsylvania Senior Environmental Corps work in teams of four to six, regularly visiting sites throughout the watershed to measure about 40 data points per site, including water chemistry, stream flow characteristics and counts of macro invertebrates.

Members of Trout Unlimited focus specifically on indicators of healthy fish populations, such as identifying trout spawning nests. This involves regular physical work and social interaction, so the groups coproduce better community and personal health as they protect local water resources.

Trout Unlimited volunteers work to identify high-quality trout streams in Pennsylvania and target them for protection.

There are 350 local nonprofit water quality groups in Pennsylvania alone. These volunteer groups could be seen as a transitional workaround whose work will eventually be replaced by remote sensor networks. But that is a narrow view of what they do for local communities and for people. Automation will not engage citizens in learning about water resources, or provide meaningful and rigorous tasks that motivate them to be active outdoors.

Leveraging citizen water activism more effectively

These water monitoring initiatives are sustainable and valuable. They are a hyperlocal variety of citizen science  citizens organizing and carrying out water monitoring activities in their own communities.

Their work produces more than data. It strengthens trust and social capital throughout the community, and makes people more aware of local water challenges. It cultivates critical environmental knowledge and skills, and gives volunteers meaningful work.

But it could be even more beneficial. My Penn State colleagues and I are working with citizens in central Pennsylvania to design and develop a community water quality data platform, which would integrate and amplify local groups' and government agencies' diverse data sets, making it easier to visualize and analyze water quality data.

Clean water groups could use this tool to explore scenarios, such as enhancing riparian buffers  planted zones near stream banks  to mitigate impacts from springtime agricultural runoff or summertime thermal pollution episodes. Using data this way could make watershed events and patterns more accessible to residents, and more effective as opportunities for learning and engagement.

This platform could make it easier for citizens to become knowledgeable about water resources, and more generally, about data visualization and analysis and data-driven thinking. We do not think fixing failing water systems should be up to citizens, but we believe it is better for everyone if citizens are informed and engaged about their water supplies. It would be nice to assume that responsible authorities will ensure our water is clean and safe, but examples like the drinking water crisis in Flint, Michigan, show that this is not always true.

In Spring Creek, and probably many other locations, promising local networks like this are hidden in plain sight. Once they are identified, communities can leverage them. And others can work to foster them where they do not yet exist.

Explore further Watershed groups have a positive impact on local water quality, study finds

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.Scientists with NASAs Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope devised a set of constellations for the high-energy sky to highlight the missions 10th year of operations. Characters from modern myths, like the Hulk and the time-warping TARDIS from Doctor Who, represent one source of inspiration. Others include scientific concepts and tools, like the Fermi Satellite, and famous landmarks in countries contributing to the development and operation of Fermi. The mission has mapped about 3,000 gamma-ray sources -- 10 times the number known before its launch and comparable to the number of bright stars in the traditional constellations. The background shows the gamma-ray sky as mapped by Fermi. The prominent reddish band is the plane of our own galaxy, the Milky Way; brighter colors indicate brighter gamma-ray sources. Credit: NASA

Long ago, sky watchers linked the brightest stars into patterns reflecting animals, heroes, monsters and even scientific instruments into what is now an official collection of 88 constellations. Now scientists with NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have devised a set of modern constellations constructed from sources in the gamma-ray sky to celebrate the mission's 10th year of operations.

The new constellations include a few characters from modern myths. Among them are the Little Prince, the time-warping TARDIS from "Doctor Who," Godzilla and his heat ray, the antimatter-powered U.S.S. Enterprise from "Star Trek: The Original Series" and the Hulk, the product of a gamma-ray experiment gone awry.

"Developing these unofficial constellations was a fun way to highlight a decade of Fermi's accomplishments," said Julie McEnery, the Fermi project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "One way or another, all of the gamma-ray constellations have a tie-in to Fermi science."

Since July 2008, Fermi's Large Area Telescope (LAT) has been scanning the entire sky each day, mapping and measuring sources of gamma rays, the highest-energy light in the universe. The emission may come from pulsars, nova outbursts, the debris of supernova explosions and giant gamma-ray bubbles located in our own galaxy, or supermassive black holes and gamma-ray burststhe most powerful explosions in the cosmosin others.

Fermi scientists developed unofficial constellations for the gamma-ray sky to highlight the missions 10th year of operations. These high-energy constellations include characters from modern myths, like Godzilla, the Little Prince and Starship Enterprise from Star Trek: The Original Series. Others represent scientific concepts and tools, like Saturn V Rocket, and famous landmarks in countries contributing to Fermis development and operation. The background shows the gamma-ray sky as mapped by Fermi. The prominent reddish band is the plane of our own galaxy, the Milky Way; brighter colors indicate brighter gamma-ray sources. Credit: NASA

"By 2015, the number of different sources mapped by Fermi's LAT had expanded to about 3,00010 times the number known before the mission," said Goddard's Elizabeth Ferrara, who led the constellation project. "For the first time ever, the number of known gamma-ray sources was comparable to the number of bright stars, so we thought a new set of constellations was a great way to illustrate the point."

The 21 gamma-ray constellations include famous landmarkssuch as Sweden's recovered warship, Vasa, the Washington Monument and Mount Fuji in Japanin countries contributing to Fermi science. Others represent scientific ideas or tools, from Schrodinger's Catboth alive and dead, thanks to quantum physicsto Albert Einstein, Radio Telescope and Black Widow Spider, the namesake of a class of pulsars that evaporate their unfortunate companion stars.

Ferrara and Daniel Kocevski, an astrophysicist now at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, developed a web-based interactive to showcase the constellations, with artwork from Aurore Simonnet, an illustrator at Sonoma State University in Rohnert Park, California, and a map of the whole gamma-ray sky from Fermi. Clicking on a constellation turns on its artwork and name, which includes a link to a page with more information. Other controls switch on the visible sky and selected traditional constellations.

"Fermi is still going strong, and we are now preparing a new all-sky LAT catalog," said Jean Ballet, a Fermi team member at the French Atomic Energy Commission in Saclay. "This will add about 2,000 sources, many varying greatly in brightness, further enriching these constellations and enlivening the high-energy sky!"

Explore further Fermi satellite celebrates 10 years of discoveriesDuke researchers have identified the social component to a young bird's ability to learn songs from an adult. Credit: Dennis Irwin

Youngsters learn many important behaviors by imitating adults. But young learners are selective in who they copy, and scientists don't understand how they choose the right teacher.

Young male zebra finches must learn to copy the song of an adult tutor in order to ultimately attract a mate. Researchers already knew that juveniles don't copy songs played through a loudspeaker or sung by other species of birds. Now, findings from Duke University scientists show how the juvenile birds identify the right teacher.

The study, which appears early online Oct. 17 in the journal Nature, reveals that being near a singing tutor activates connections between a social area of the young bird's brain and the part of the brain responsible for the juvenile's ability to sing. If those connections aren't activated, a young finch fails to copy the tutor's song.

"In humans it's clear that being able to learn species-specific behaviors like speech is really important," said Richard Mooney, the George Barth Geller professor of neurobiology. "Birdsong is one of the very few examples in the animal world where a behavior is transmitted from one generation to the next by imitation as opposed to genetic inheritance." The fact that birds learn "speech" as we do gives researchers the opportunity to use the animals to study how a young learner memorizes someone else's actions and then eventually learns to imitate those actions.

The researchers focused their work on two areas of the finch's brain. The first is the part of the cortex essential for singing and is a bit like Broca's area in the human brain, which is essential to speech. The second is a pinhead-sized region known as the periaqueductal grey or PAG, which contains a group of nerve cells that release dopamine and, in mice, respond to other mice. In the finch, these dopamine-secreting PAG neurons send long fibers that end in the song cortex.

In young birds who hadn't met a tutor before, the researchers found that PAG neurons lit up with activity in the presence of a singing adult male, but were silent when the juvenile encountered quiet males or adult females, which do not sing, or heard zebra finch songs played over a speaker. The activity in the juvenile's PAG continued for a short while even after the tutor stopped singing, meaning that the neurons likely respond to something other than soundpossibly social cues from the older bird. In fact, turning off the PAG in juveniles caused them to ignore their tutors, suggesting that this brain area affects the young finch's ability to recognize and attend to an appropriate tutor.

Scientists have known for decades that zebra finches have a sensitive period for song learning. If juveniles don't meet a suitable tutor before they are 60 days old, they grow up to sing songs that are much simpler than those they might learn from a tutor. Notably, these simple songs are much less attractive to females, putting the unschooled bird at a serious disadvantage for mating.

"If the bird gets beyond a certain age, then it becomes very hard for it to learn from other birds," said Mooney. "That's directly analogous to sensitive periods for human speech learning. Songbirds can age out of the capacity to learn a tutor song just like a person can age out of the capacity to learn to speak French fluently."

When the researchers prevented the PAG brain region from communicating with the song cortex during the sensitive period, the juvenile bird grew up to sing very simple songs, as if it had never heard any tutor at all. But blocking this pathway just after a pupil's daily session with a tutor did not affect its ability to copy the older finch's song.

When the research team activated the dopamine-releasing PAG region while playing adult male zebra finch songs through a speaker, juvenile birds copied the song, even though there wasn't a real bird there.

Dopamine is important for learning that is reinforced by external rewards, such as money or candy, Mooney said. Because this pathway in the bird involves the same molecule, it's possible that, for the pupil, meeting the right teacher serves as its own reward.

Going forward, Mooney and his team will investigate how this group of cells influences other behaviors, particularly courtship behaviors.

"One idea is that this dopamine pathway helps the young songbird recognize and internalize an appropriate example of adult male courtship behavior," Mooney said. "Then, when the pupil reaches adulthood, that same pathway is recruited to 'recall' that behavior, allowing him to effectively woo a nearby female."

Explore further How the songbird learns its melody

More information: Masashi Tanaka et al, A mesocortical dopamine circuit enables the cultural transmission of vocal behaviour, Nature (2018). Journal information: Nature Masashi Tanaka et al, A mesocortical dopamine circuit enables the cultural transmission of vocal behaviour,(2018). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-018-0636-7Ask a Reporter is an occasional series about civic engagement in and around the city. Do you have a question about how you can make a difference in your neighborhood, city or state? What about voting, the elections or navigating civic life in New York? Ask us! We want to help you get involved by answering your questions.

Q: Litter is a big issue in my neighborhood. How do I get the Department of Sanitation more involved to clean it up and provide closed trash bins?

A: The good news, believe it or not, is that New York City streets and sidewalks are actually the cleanest theyve ever been, according to city records going back to 1975.

Still, the person asking this question is concerned about their neighborhood. And despite the overall progress, everyone, including Department of Sanitation commissioner Kathryn Garcia, agrees that litter is still an enormous problem for the city.

There seems to be no end to the reminders that people need about not littering, she said in a phone interview.

Just last year, the Department of Sanitation launched a public service campaign around littering. But its not the only department responsible for this blight.

A gum wrapper, for example, dropped by a careless walker in a public park is the responsibility of the parks department until it blows into the street, at which point the Department of Sanitation briefly takes ownership before the wind kicks it up again and takes it to the door of a public housing building, where it becomes the responsibility of the New York City Housing Authority.

This lack of clarity about who to call when the situation gets out of hand can lead to inertia and incredible dereliction of duty. Case in point: a story I reported from Brownsville, where the city once allowed nearly seven tons of trash to accumulate over 30 years on a sidewalk next to a NYCHA parking lot.

Nearly. Seven. Tons. (See above!)

So, how do regular folks take control of the litter problems in their neighborhood?

Along with Garcia, I spoke with James Brodick, Director of Community Development and Crime Prevention with the Center for Court Innovation, to get some useful tips. The Center has a broad focus on reforming how young people interact with the criminal justice system, so it offers community service programs across the city, including neighborhood cleanup initiatives. Brodick helps oversee those cleanup programs  and after years of interacting with the Department of Sanitation, the man knows trash.

Understand what you, resident, are responsible for.City law dictates that residential and commercial property owners are responsible for keeping the sidewalks and gutter areas (18 inches from curb into the street) clean. That includes the areas around the perimeter of a property that are also adjacent to sidewalks, not just out front. In other words, home and building owners are responsible for cleaning up litter! At least the litter on the sidewalks and just adjacent to the curb.

The city is responsible for sweeping the streets (hence, the alternate side parking dictate that all New Yorkers with cars must live and breathe by).

What can you do on your own? Its okay to think small, Brodick said.

I would first say, What do you feel like you can do? he said. Is there [an] area that you would want to kind of adopt and start to model behavior in your neighborhood?

He suggests organizing a few neighbors to divvy up your block or create a rotating weekly schedule for folks to pick up litter on the block.

Garcia pointed out that litter attracts litter. Seems obvious, right? But remember the 30-year-old, seven-ton mountain of trash I mentioned earlier? It started small. Dont let even a little bit of litter pile up.

Organize cleanup days. Some situations require more hands on deck. The Sanitation Department has a guide for organizing a volunteer cleanup, and it will provide gloves and trash bags. Theyll even loan brooms and  if, unfortunately, the occasion calls for it  shovels and rakes.

I think any time we're engaging with the public that's very helpful, Garcia said. And an added bonus of a collaborative cleanup days, she added, is the vigilance they can foster in the community.

Because if you're part of the picking up then you actually are even less tolerant of the people who are literally throwing things on the ground, she said.



Meet with local sanitation folks. Brodick, in his role overseeing cleanup programs for the Center for Court Innovation, said that local district managers will help residents troubleshoot trash problems. He has helped arrange for block associations to meet with sanitations officials, which have yielded:

Neighborhood cleanup days

Adjusting pickup times of public litter baskets

Courtesy visits from residents and officials to local businesses to educate them about their cleanup duties and, ahem, potential fines. (Brodick said this really helps.)

He also noted that street and sidewalk scorecards help incentivize sanitation managers to keep neighborhoods clean and respond well to residents. So utilize them.

Sanitation officials said the best way to arrange meetings is to email their Community and Government Affairs office. To flag problems or raise other questions related to service, call 311.

Adopt or sponsor a litter basket. Yes, this is a thing. Residents or business owners can adopt one of the citys green litter baskets in order to keep the things from overflowing.

The Sanitation Department will provide plastic liner bags, work gloves, a dust bin and a broom. Your job: monitor the basket and when it is three-quarters full, tie up the bag and replace it with a new one. Sanitation workers will collect the garbage as usual. This program could be especially effective on commercial stretches, where baskets fill quickly, or near busy transit hubs.

Sponsoring a bin can also mean that instead of the standard, green wire basket, the city will give you a larger, sturdier bin, maybe even one with a lid. These bins are especially helpful in high-traffic areas. Many City Council members purchase them for their districts. Businesses do, too.

Several locations around the city have smart bins with built-in trash compactors. These bins can hold five times the amount of garbage as a regular trash can, and they use the Internet to signal when theyre nearly full. They are extremely expensive, though  upwards of $7,000  and are generally purchased and maintained privately, although the city owns a few.

On a related note, the city is evaluating new designs to replace the green litter basket, which has been around in some form since the 1930s. The city hopes the new basket design will reduce litter and keep the rats at bay.

Still, there is no guarantee, sanitation officials said, that the proposals will actually yield a replacement for the more than 23,000 green litter baskets around the city.



Address other conditions that could lead to litter. Nothing beats the proven strategies of not littering and picking up litter. However, Brodick said, there are other variables involved, too.

Some of the places where I see high litter its because people feel like others don't care, he said. For example, litter tends to happen where there's a vacant lot. Litter tends to happen where there's not good lighting.

Find organizations that can help. Besides working through a block association, you should find out if your neighborhood has a Business Improvement District that can help keep the sidewalks clean. Brodick and the Center for Court Innovation have helped businesses form a BID.

Agencies like NYC Service and the non-profit Citizens Committee for New York City can help with resources for block beautification. They also have a Love My Block grant initiative to help with cleanup.

Plus, there are numerous community service-oriented groups, like the Center for Court Innovation, where Brodick works, that will help residents both cleanup and learn how to organize neighbors for long-term change.

Loading...Hashknife cowboys, Arizona, 1880s. Credit: Arizona Collection, Arizona State University

More than 130 years ago, a small community of settlers in a remote northern Arizona valley erupted into a frenzy of ambushes, murders and massacres.

In one five-year period during what has come to be known as the Pleasant Valley War, 18 people were killed and four were wounded by lawmen, Apache raids, vigilantes and their fellow ranchers.

The story of the American West is rife with violence, but, until now, no one has delved into the psychological effect of living constantly under the threat of death.

Western movies don't tell us what happens after the sun sets and the story fades to black. In historian Eduardo Obregon Pagan's new book, "Valley of the Guns: The Pleasant Valley War and the Trauma of Violence," a character that stands in the shadow of all Westerns finally comes out into the light: traumatic stress disorder.

"We never see the messy aftermath," said Pagan, Bob Stump Endowed Professor of History at Arizona State University. "Everybody involved in this conflicteverybody I could tracethey were indelibly marked by the violence here in tragic ways. Suicides later on. Women took their lives, ended up in insane asylums. Many of the men became alcoholics and died because of that.  We never talk about the aftermath of violence in the West, but everyone was affected, in very negative ways."

Homes built like fortresses. Men armed to the teeth, at all times. The closest neighbor a reservation of thousands of angry Apaches, pushed to their limits. Outlaws and rustlers who had been chased out of other states. Lawmen who shot first and asked questions later.

Stir all these elements together in a secluded locale and you'll get scenes like these:

A lone sheriff serves a warrant. Twenty seconds later three men are dead, one lies wounded and a sobbing woman stands splattered in blood, cradling a screaming infant.

A request for supper at a remote ranch erupts into a gunfight with two men shot dead and two others crawling, wounded, for days.

And so it went, for years, hammering psyches.

Discouraging words: Conversations of the Pleasant Valley War (taken from 'Valley of the Guns')

"Good morning. Who are you looking for?"

"You, you son of a bitch."

Gunfire erupted.

Gradual beginnings

The Pleasant Valley War is an extremely complicated story, too much so to be condensed neatly into an article-length narrative. There were no good guys and bad guys. Almost completely unknown outside of Arizona, what is remembered about the saga today is myth, not fact.

Pleasant Valley, Young, Arizona. Young is a ranching community about 150 miles northeast of Phoenix in the Tonto National Forest. It played a central part in the bloody events of the 1880s. Credit: Charlie Leight/ASU Now

"There's so much mythology that layers these stories," Pagan said. "A lot of what we live with in the modern age is really the mythology."

It wasn't a feud between the Graham and Tewksbury families. It wasn't a conflict between cowboys and sheepherders. And it wasn't Mormons versus non-Mormons. Or ranchers and rustlers.

It was everybody against everybody else.

"It's not a triumphant narrative," Pagan said. "It's a struggle between those who were trying to make an honest living and those who were trying to make a dishonest living, and in the process a lot of lives were lost."

The settlers were mostly single men, ranging in age from their early 20s to early 50s. They came from New York City, the Midwest, Texas and Tennessee. A few of the native languages spoken were Swedish, French, Polish and Spanish. Some had fought in the Civil War or the Indian Wars. They were small-time ranchers living far from civilization. Perhaps no more than 250 people were settled in the 7,600-acre Pleasant Valley in 1880. Everyone knew each other.

"Life and difficult circumstances led them to make choices," Pagan said. "Those choices led to other choices, and it started to spin in different directions. Eventually those choices came into conflict with each other.  I try to tell a human story versus white hats versus black hats."

The Graham family is a perfect example. They weren't bad kids when they left the farm in Iowa, Pagan said. They grew up in a religious household. They went to California with stars in their eyes and ended up in Arizona with some of that glint dimmed.

It was a question of survival. It wasn't that they pulled bandannas over their faces suddenly and immediately headed out on a moonlit night to steal cows. It was more of a case of a friendly face riding up one day with an offer along the lines of, "You mind if I leave these cows here for a few days?"

The Pleasant Valley War is often referred to as Arizona's Hatfield-McCoy feud, with the Tewksbury clan facing off against the Graham family.

"The historical evidence simply does not support these claims," Pagan said. "(It) was larger than both sets of brothers, and something that lay beyond the Grahams or the Tewksburys compelled the settlers to turn on one another."

In 1882 the Apache raids and rustling began. Litigation amongst the settlers started the following year. The killing began in 1887 and continued for five years.

Why did an isolated settlement in a remote part of northern Arizona ultimately turn on itself with murderous violence?

Pagan calls it a place sitting at the "crossroads of violent economies."

A time and a place

"For me, the geography tells you almost everything you need to know about the story," Pagan said.

Young, Arizona, is as isolated today as it was in the 1880s. The town sits in the middle of a national forest. There are no paved roads leading there. It's situated about eight miles from the western edge of the Fort Apache Indian Reservation. The soil isn't good enough for farming, which automatically makes it cattle country.

Horses get an afternoon drink at a ranch's watering hole in Young, Arizona, 150 miles northeast of Phoenix. Credit: Charlie Leight / ASU Now

"There's no natural barrier that separates the western border (of the reservation) from Pleasant Valley," Pagan said.

The valley also sat at the crossroads of ancient Apache raiding trails, which swept from southern Colorado and Utah far down into Mexico. It lay smack-dab in the middle of a rustling corridor before anyone settled there. The Apache raided cattle in Mexico and sold them to the Navajo long before ranchers moved into the valley.

The Apache never agreed to be "pacified" until 187273. They were highly mobile people. They ranged down into Chihuahua, Mexico, and as far west as California, raiding and trading. Within their culture, status and honor was gained by their abilities in these areas.

"It was difficult for that first generation to switch gears," Pagan said. "Terribly, terribly difficult, on that level alone, just to ask a culture to completely change their way of life that they had known for centuries."

Another problem was corruption. The government contracted private businesses to supply the Apache with blankets, food, tools for farming and other goods they needed. When goods made it to the reservation at all, the people were shorted by corrupt agents, or were provided with substandard supplies.

"When the first winter comes along and there's no food and there's no blankets, what are you going to do?" Pagan said. "You're going to do what you've always done. You go hunting. That means you go off the reservation."

About 7,000 to 8,000 Apache lived on the White Mountains reservation.

"This is a land they know very well," Pagan said. "They're skilled hunters. You have a handful of soldiers who are supposed to keep watch over thousands of skilled hunters. It's impossible.  There are outbreaks."

Around 187677 the first settlers moved into the valley. The first outbreak exploded in 1881.

An Apache cultural value was stealth. You never knew when they were coming. But they didn't attack at night. That was another cultural value.

The night belonged to the rustlers.

Discouraging words: Conversations of the Pleasant Valley War

At a ranch, visiting cowboys asked for supper, a customary thing to do on the range.

"No, sir! We ain't running no hotel here."

"(Racial epithet)"

And bullets started to fly.

Video by Ken Fagan/ASU Now

Cowboys and rustlers

In cattle country, "theft was a problem," Pagan said. "An enormous problem.  If you lose your livestock, you lose your livelihood. If you lose your livelihood, you pack up and leave. There's nothing left for you."

The price of beef was on the rise, leading outside investors to jump into ranching. A Texan outfit called the Aztec Land and Cattle Company drove immense herds into northern Arizona. Their employees, dubbed the Hashknife cowboys, were a rough bunch. Frequently on the run from the law, they had no compunction about shooting each other or anyone else.

Holbrook became a regional rail terminus, where cattle were shipped back East. Cowboys and sheepherders, pockets full of cash after delivering livestock, crowded into Holbrook's saloons and shot up the town. In 1886, 26 men were killed by gunfire in a town of only 250 full-time residents. The town had such a bad reputation the Salvation Army designated it as a special target for evangelizing.

Cowboys had a lousy reputation in the Old West. They were rootless, often used aliases, and they were usually believed to be involved with rustling.

"If you look at the documents from the 1870s and 1880s, to call someone a cowboy was an insult," Pagan said. "It was a fighting word. A cowboy back then had the reputation of being a thief. ... If you liked someone, you called them a cowherder."

Hashknife cowboys in particular were notorious. When not poaching cattle from small ranchers, they stole from their own herds. They also went about heavily armed. The Apache may have been confined to the reservation, but that didn't stop cattle rustling.

"As the native communities began to agree to stay put within reservations, and white settlers started to come to Arizona, that economy didn't go away," Pagan said. "It simply changed players. And there were enterprising Americans who realized, 'Oh, there's opportunity here.' There's lots of records white Americans got involved in this trading economy."

And they did so at night, when the Apaches were not about.

Settlers

"By night, you can't get a good rest because that's when the rustlers come out," said Pagan, describing the daily life of a Pleasant Valley settler in the 1880s. "You're worrying about sneak attack by day. You're worrying about your livestock at night. How on earth do you get a decent rest? At any point? It might seem like a silly question to ask, but it has an impact over time."

It wasn't the suburbs. People lived next to dependable waterways, of which there are few. Living close meant being half a day's ride away.

"You can't circle the wagons," Pagan said. "You can't depend on each other in times of stress. When the Apaches come raiding through, you're on your own. This is a highly tense environment."

John Tewksbury Sr.'s cabin still stands, not in Young, but at the Pioneer Living History Museum outside Phoenix. The cabin's architecture gives vivid insight into daily life.

The logs it is built of are about 11 inches thicksturdy enough to stop a bullet. Every wall has two gun ports. There are gunports at the headand footof the bed. There's a gunport at the kitchen table. There are gunports by the fireplace.

"There is not a spot in that cabin where you're not more than a couple of strides away from being able to defend yourself," Pagan said. "Or, on the other hand, were those gunports to remind you that on the other side of that wall was death and danger? That becomes important in my trying to reconstruct what life was like in this small community.  There's nowhere in that cabin that doesn't remind you that you've got to stay alert because you never know when the Apaches are coming."

Middleton ranch, Pleasant Valley, Arizona. A day after a notorious shootout that left two dead and two wounded, the ranch was burned to the ground on Aug. 10, 1887. Credit: Arizona State University

Prescott was the county seat and where the law was. It was three days' hard ride from Pleasant Valley.

The valley was a different community than Globe, Prescott or the Mormon towns on the Mogollon Rim. There was no town council or elder statesman or offer of an olive branch, no one to say, "Hey, let's step back from this and cool down for a moment."

"You're on your own," Pagan said. "What that does is produce a community of fear. That's what existed in the early 1800s was this small communityand I really mean smallreally no more than about a dozen households during this time.  How did the relentless anticipation of surprise attack wear on them day after day, year after year?"

Pagan worked with colleagues in psychology, physiology and biology to discuss the science of how the brain works under trauma.

"The impact of trauma, of violence, of fearand how that impacts our abilities to function on a normal, rational, reasonable basis: even something as simple as your ability to just get a normal night's sleep over time," he said.

Nature never intended the fight-or-flight response to be a long-term solution to crisis. "That neurochemical response that quickens the blood flow and stimulates heart and nerves becomes toxic over time," Pagan wrote. "The acute stress response can turn into an acute stress reaction."

Symptoms include anxiety, restlessness, anger, depression, difficulty concentrating and sleeping and overreaction to circumstances.

Litigation

Between 1883 and 1888, about two dozen households in the valley participated as complainants, defendants or witnesses in about 30 court hearings.

"The law in a lot of ways was just as much a problem," Pagan said. "Part of the problem with this community was the Grahams tried to use the law to intimidate their neighbors.  They issued the lion's share of lawsuits against their neighbors. 'You stole my cattle.' 'You stole my cattle.' They named everyone they could possibly name. Here's the problem with that: The legal system was such that for every lawsuit, there were three hearings."

There was a preliminary hearing, grand jury hearing and a court hearing. Attending court in Prescott meant a three-day rideeach wayfrom the Tonto Basin.

"What that means was you were either in jail after the indictment or if you were out on bail, you were constantly making that trip back and forth to Prescott," Pagan said. "The point is, this is significant harassment. If I sue you, it's not just a one-time court appearance. You were making that trip back and forth to Prescott three times. It's a real pain, and it's not just you. They named witnesses. So half the community is now going back and forth to Prescott."

Hiding behind badges

If there was a conflict, it was between those who were trying to protect their livestock and the law, and those who were trying to make a quick buck off their neighbors.

"That was the issue, and that's why the law would come sweeping in," Pagan said.

Lawmen were not Officer Friendly. They weren't trained, at all. They simply pinned on a badge and strapped on a gun.

Gravesites of the Pleasant Valley War in Young, Arizona. Note the dates of death. Credit: Charlie Leight/ASU Now

"In every situation they rode into, their guns were raised and their fingers were on the trigger and their weapons were primed," Pagan said. "Unless you showed every sign of yielding, they would shoot. That was the law in Arizona.  The people who were shot and killed did not yield fast enough."

Commodore Perry Owens, the Apache County sheriff, "would shoot not only at the drop of a hat, but before the hat was dropped," an Arizona newspaper quipped. Owens killed three members of a rustling family and wounded a fourth in a 20-second gunbattle in Holbrook. He was alone and he simply saw a weapon through a doorway.

William Mulvenon, the sheriff of Yavapai County, went up to the valley to make arrests in recent killings. When he lured two suspects into a trap, he stepped into the open and ordered them to put up their hands. They yanked on their reins to wheel their horses around, and the sheriff opened fire.

It was the death of a settler in a case of mistaken identity during an attempted arrest that lit the whole powder keg. Throughout the conflict, lawmen killed more people than did Apaches, settlers or vigilantes.

The unspoken price

"What it is in my mind is a darker story about the settling of the American West than what we've often told ourselves," Pagan said. "This is a story of a small community that cracked and turned on itself within this pressure cooker of violence."

After the chronic theft, competition from corporate cattle outfits, legal complaints, lynchings, executions by masked men, torched ranches, ambushes and shootouts, the constant exposure to violence and death left a profound emotional impact.

"Eighteen men in the Pleasant Valley War lost their lives violently, and of those who survived the conflict, some were permanently disabled," Pagan wrote. "Others were stalked by depression, insanity and suicide."

While there is no written record of how those times affected the White Mountains Apaches, one famous Chiricahua Apache's reflections at the end of his life were recorded.

Geronimowhose own children had been killed by soldiersdiscussed when he was 77 how nightmares born in guilt caused him to wake in terror, years after he himself had killed children. "Now I wake up groaning and very sad at night when I remember the helpless little children," he said, quoted in Pagan's book.

The story of the Pleasant Valley War faded from view, even during the Cold War, when the myth of the Old West, where good vanquished evil, was resurrected to serve national narratives.

"The Pleasant Valley War as history, instead, does not provide such affirmation," Pagan wrote. "Rather, it reveals sides of our national story, if not the human experience, that we would rather not see.  There is no great story of chivalric behavior, or right and wrong, on which to hang the themes of the Western. There were only desperate souls behaving most desperately."

Explore further Domitilla catacombs unveiled after years of renovationTree Swallow population on Canada's Kent Island has collapsed as immigration from the mainland has declined. Credit: B. Woodworth

Aerial insectivoresbirds that hunt for insect prey on the wingare declining across North America. Conserving vulnerable species such as these requires a good understanding of the factors impacting them at every stage of life. Juveniles and adults, for example, may face different threats and die at different rates. Two new studies from The Condor: Ornithological Applications take a deep dive into the demographic factors behind declining populations of Tree Swallows and show that although specifics may vary between locations, action is needed to address environmental changes affecting these birds across their geographic range.

Queen's University's Amelia Cox and her colleagues used a dataset from a swallow population in southeastern Ontario that was monitored from 1975 to 2017, while Bowdoin College's Liam Taylor and his colleagues looked at data from a population from an island off the coast of New Brunswick that was monitored from 1987 to 2010. Having access to detailed long-term data allowed both sets of researchers to do demographic analysis and determine which life stages were having the largest impact on local population declines. In Ontario, overall declines were driven primarily by drops in overwinter survival and the rate at which swallow chicks successfully left the nest. On Kent Island, analysis showed that the population was dependent on immigration from the mainland, which dropped as mainland populations declined throughout the region. Over the course of the study, the Kent Island population plummeted from 202 adult birds to only 12.

Cox and her colleagues believe that increasingly unfavorable weather conditions and declines in insect availability may be behind the demographic shifts they found. "I hope that our results will spur more research into the environmental causes of Tree Swallow declines and declines of other similar species. Our research points the finger at poor survival overwinter and poor fledging as the probable demographic causes of population declines," says Cox. "The next step is to figure out exactly what has changed in their environment and why these birds are dying during these critical life stages. We have additional work in progress that is aimed at answering these questions. When we know that, I hope we will be able to start making changes to improve survival and fledging."

"It was an incredible opportunity to analyze a dataset that started before I was born," adds Taylor. "Working with these long-term data had an emotional connection for me as a researcher and birder. My own fieldwork on Kent Island took place during the summers of 2014 and 2015, by which time most of the swallow nest boxes on the island were empty. For me, it was sobering to look back through the data and envision those nest boxes full of activity and life."

"These studies are part of a growing number of studies addressing the causes of population declines among aerial insectivores," according to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Peter Dunn, a Tree Swallow expert who was not involved in either project. "In terms of understanding population declines in aerial insectivores, both studies point to adult survival during migration or on wintering areas as an important factor. Thus, these models identify areas where we can focus our future research efforts. Recent studies of Tree Swallow migration using geolocators suggest that populations breeding in eastern Canada are migrating along the east coast to winter primarily in Florida and Cuba, so these areas should probably be the next focus of study."

More information: "Demographic drivers of local population decline in Tree Swallows (Tachycineta bicolor) in Ontario, Canada" "Demographic drivers of local population decline in Tree Swallows (Tachycineta bicolor) in Ontario, Canada" americanornithologypubs.org/do  .1650/CONDOR-18-75.1Diatom cells aggregate around a silicate-loaded bead. Credit: Karen Grace Bondoc, FSU Jena

Unicellular diatoms are able to adapt their behavior to different external stimuli based on an evaluation of their own needs. This was discovered by scientists of the Friedrich Schiller University and the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, Germany, together with partners from Belgium. The algae depend on nutrients in order to reproduce. However, they also need reproductive partners, which they find by following pheromone traces. In experiments, Seminavis robusta diatoms directed their orientation either toward nutrient sources or reproductive partners, depending on the degree of starvation and the need to mate. This represents a primitive form of behavioral biology. The study is published in The ISME Journal.

Diatoms dominate marine phytoplankton, which is ubiquitous in the oceans. On shores and beaches, these algae can be observed as biofilms on rocks and other surfaces. Diatoms are the food source for many marine animals, and are also responsible for an extremely important ecosystem service: They contribute significantly to global photosynthesis and thus to the production of atmospheric oxygen on Earth. Moreover, they are discussed as possible producers of biofuels.

The diatom Seminavis robusta is an ideal model organism for behavioral studies in the lab. The cells respond to environmental conditions, and their sexuality can be controlled. The research group of Georg Pohnert, professor of Instrumental Analytics/Bioorganic Analytics at Friedrich Schiller University and head of the Max Planck Fellow Group at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, wanted to know whether the tiny organisms are able to make decisions about what they needed more urgently: food or sexual mates.

Movie 2 shows how chemical signals trigger sexual activity in diatoms. The same cells suddenly prefer pheromones (round particle). Credit: Karen Grace Bondoc, FSU Jena

In order to find out, the scientists cultivated cells under different conditions. In particular, the cells were confronted with different amounts of nutrients and sex pheromones. Since diatoms primarily reproduce asexually by cell division, sexual reproduction may become necessary for their survival if the cells become smaller and smaller after continuous division. After all, the cells die if they become too small and fall below a minimum size. Diatoms also search actively for nutrients they need for the formation of their cell walls. They can trace silicate minerals in their environment and move actively toward this food source. A recent study showed that they are attracted by the odor of the minerals (see press release The odor of stones, February 4, 2016).

"It is striking that even unicellular organisms that obviously lack a nervous system can process different stimuli and even evaluate their individual needs. Our study showed that diatoms can adapt their behavior flexibly to environmental changes. They also responded differently depending on their need to mate. We observed that the diatoms moved toward pheromones or food sources depending on how hungry they were for sex or nutrients. Until now, this kind of decision-making has only been attributed to higher organisms," says Pohnert.

The decision of one diatom does not only determine the fate of a single cell. Moreover, it is crucial for the dynamics of biofilms, which are composed of communities of countless diatoms. Using mathematical models, the researchers calculated interactions between cell density and the availability of nutrients (silicate minerals) and mating partners (pheromones). Based on these results, the scientists are able to explain how biofilms are organized and why they are often patchy and distributed in certain patterns.

Movie 1 shows cells that aggregate around a particle loaded with nutrients (rough particle). Credit: Karen Grace Bondoc, FSU Jena

The scientist would now like to find how the single-cell organisms perceive, process and evaluate chemical signals. "Our goal is to identify the corresponding receptors and signal processing pathways, but this will be a very complex endeavor given the fact that we know so little about these important micoralagae," says Georg Pohnert.

Explore further The odor of stones

More information: Karen Grace V. Bondoc et al, Decision-making of the benthic diatom Seminavis robusta searching for inorganic nutrients and pheromones, The ISME Journal (2018). Journal information: ISME Journal Karen Grace V. Bondoc et al, Decision-making of the benthic diatom Seminavis robusta searching for inorganic nutrients and pheromones,(2018). DOI: 10.1038/s41396-018-0299-2In this Jan 21, 2018, file photo provided by Rocket Lab, electron rocket carrying only a small payload of about 150 kilograms (331 pounds), lifts off from the Mahia Peninsula on New Zealand's North Island's east coast. A California-based startup says it will rocket small satellites into orbit from Virginia. (Rocket Lab via AP, File)

A California-based startup said Wednesday that it will rocket small satellites into orbit from Virginia, an endeavor that reflects increasing demand from companies and governments alike to monitor ships, crops and the weather from space.

Rocket Lab said it will build its launch pad at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on the Eastern Shore. It's located at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility where unmanned cargo missions already are dispatched to the International Space Station.

Rocket Lab, which recently built its first launch pad in New Zealand, is setting up in Virginia at a time of unprecedented growth in the use of smaller and relatively inexpensive satellites.

As small as a loaf of bread, the devices circle the earth for a few years before burning up in the atmosphere. Atlanta-based consulting firm SpaceWorks predicted in January that up to 2,600 of these will need to be launched into orbit over the next five years.

The industry is attracting venture capitalists, while firms in China and companies such as Virgin have built launch systems dedicated to the smaller devices. Dozens more are under development.

Rocket Lab has sent up two rockets so far, humorously calling those missions "It's a test" and "Still testing." The second rocket successfully reached orbit in January.

Rocket Lab's next commercial mission, known as "It's Business Time," is scheduled to lift off from New Zealand in November. Launches from Virginia are set to begin as early as summer 2019.

"We're not focused on the next flight, we're focused on the next 100 flights," Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck, a New Zealander, said at a news conference in Virginia.

Small satellites have often hitched rides on rockets carrying bigger satellites into orbit or with supplies to the space station. But more firms are offering small satellites their own launches, providing more control over their schedules and the orbits to which they're delivered.

Headquartered in Huntington Beach, California, Rocket Lab plans to keep costs low by using lightweight, expendable rockets with 3D-printed engines. It's a different plan than some other space companies like Elon Musk's SpaceX, which uses larger rockets to carry bigger payloads.

Rocket Lab said its cargo in January included an earth-imaging satellite for Planet, a company that offers clients information on anything from flooding to deforestation.

Rocket Lab said future launches will serve Luxembourg-based firm Kleos Space. That company says it can help law enforcement officials detect illegal activity, such as human trafficking or illegal fishing, by pinpointing maritime radio transmissions.

NASA also has a contract with Rocket Lab to deliver small satellites. But the firm's most famous cargo was perhaps the "Humanity Star," a geodesic sphere designed to reflect the sun's light back to Earth.

Beck said he hoped it would remind people to look past daily concerns and face larger challenges like climate change. The "Humanity Star" fell out of orbit a couple months after the January launch. Its life span was up to nine months.

Rocket Lab chose Virginia's state-owned spaceport over U.S. finalists that included Alaska's Pacific Spaceport Complex and Cape Canaveral in Florida. Virginia officials said it could create 100 jobs as flights increase to once a month.

Currently, there are four companies that have developed six vehicles dedicated to launching small satellites, and dozens more are under development, according to Carlos Niederstrasser, an engineer with Northrop Grumman who tracks the industry. His company also launches small satellites.

Other firms getting into this market include Virgin Orbit, a sister outfit to space-tourism company Virgin Galactic. It's been testing a small rocket that is to launch satellites into space from a 747 jet flying at 35,000 feet (10,000 meters). Chinese firms are also up and running.

Niederstrasser wrote in his 2018 industry survey that the market won't be able to support most of the new companies. But he said it's clear that the company's founders and investors believe there'll be room for at least some.

Explore further NASA set to launch DOD rocket from Va. spaceport

 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.Credit: WWF / Ezequiel NAVIO

Spanish authorities announced the arrest of 76 people involved in a large illegal trade of bluefin tuna worth over 12 million per year between Malta and Spain, and with the engagement of other EU countries. 80,000 kg of illegally caught and marketed tuna were seized in the investigation, led under the coordination of EUROPOL. Irregularities found in the handling of the fish could also cause food poisoning.

The international investigation has discovered a large network of fishing companies and distributors that includes one of Europe's biggest seafood farming companies, the Ricardo Fuentes and Sons Group, based in Spain.

The investigation provides crucial information ahead of the meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) taking place from 12 to 19 November in Croatia and where fishing nations and the EU will agree on new measures to manage the lucrative fishery of the east Atlantic and Mediterranean bluefin tuna.

Commenting on the case, Alessandro Buzzi, Bluefin Tuna Regional Manager with WWF, said:

"It's simply unacceptable that such a massive trade of illegal bluefin tuna involving European companies and worth millions of euros has managed to escape the controls of governments and most especially the EU institutions. Bluefin is one of the most economically valuable fish on the planet, therefore we need stronger rules and better monitoring to effectively protect the stock. Fishing nations and the EU should take into account these unreported catches before moving forward with the planned increase of fishing quotas and any change is made to the recovery plan currently in place. We cannot let the bluefin stock crash once more."

According to the investigation, Malta was one of the main sources of the illegal tuna that was sold and traded together with legal quantities. Here about 2.5 million kilos of undeclared tuna are estimated to be sold for a total profit of 12.5 million per year. Italy was the starting point of another route: all the products came from illegal catches and were transported to Spain by road without any type of documentation and without any system of traceability and distributed to smaller businesses in the sector. French ports were used for transferring the illegal goods from Italy to Malta.

The investigation also reported several health and hygiene irregularities regarding the conservation of the fish after being caught, that could have caused food poisoning among consumers.

"All illegal seafood that reaches our plate has escaped the traceability and hygiene controls that are so important to protect our health. Tackling illegal fishing is important to protect our ocean as well as our own health." concluded Buzzi.

Explore further Mediterranean bluefin tuna will recover if conservation ambition remains highCredit: Rawpixel.com, Shutterstock

An EU initiative has studied the cultural dynamics characterising societies and institutions, and their impact. The resulting analyses can guide the development of policies to effectively address the crisis in Europe.

Europe faces a complex social and institutional crisis that can be adequately countered only if it is understood in depth. Facets of the crisis include such diverse factors as the politicisation of European institutional and monetary integration, the weakening of the partnership among European countries, xenophobia, radicalisation and the rise of far-right/populist parties.

The EU-funded Re.Cri.Re. project aimed at "understanding the cultural dynamics underpinning the social identities that are active within European societies and drawing implications from that for policymaking," says project coordinator Marco Boaria. "This is extremely valuable because such dynamics moderate the impact of policies, particularly in times of crisis." Re.Cri.Re. analysed this influence and impact to better understand how to develop targeted policies.

By examining the cultural dynamics that portray societies and institutions, and the dynamic forces that ultimately influence policy, Re.Cri.Re. was able to gather suggestions to improve the efficiency of policies operating in, or for the sake of, a post-crisis scenario. Project partners examined what kind of social identity change occurs in Europe during a crisis. To frame better policies at local, national and European levels, they analysed different cultures of European societies and how the socio-economic crisis impacted them.

Guidelines to empower policymaking

With the assistance of policymakers, opinion leaders and stakeholders, researchers elaborated and validated general and context-specific guidelines for designing culture-sensitive policies. The guidelines provide a strategic and methodological framework that is able to enforce policymaking's capacity for coping with the crisis. Boaria envisions these key research documents as an important guide for policymakers to develop decisions and actions that really consider the different contexts, cultures, visions, problems and needs.

Studies provided evidence of the impact of symbolic universes on several psycho-social dimensions and phenomena. These include mental function, political orientation, and attitudes towards foreigners, institutions and welfare agencies.

Crisis and changes of social identity

The project team produced scientifically-grounded and contextualised knowledge regarding social identity change. These changes are ongoing within European societies as a consequence of the crisis.

Even though Re.Cri.Re. was completed in mid-2018, the team is committed to improving the exploitation of the outcomes at the level of their impact on policymaking, societies and institutions. To this end, it developed three lines of work intended to provide continuity to Re.Cri.Re.'s future cultural, political and strategic implications. The first is the creation of the European Institute of Cultural Analysis for Policies with the ambition of becoming a think tank to further develop and promote the Re.Cri.Re. methodological approach. The second is a systematic presence in the media. Lastly, a series of studies have been carried out to further specify and validate the guidelines.

European citizens and policymakers now have the opportunity to better understand cultural dynamics for informed policymaking. "The expected impact of Re.Cri.Re. is to grasp how to develop policies that are able to leave the socio-economic crisis behind and to strengthen the resilience of societies," concludes Boaria. "Of equal importance is renewing the promotion of integration and European identity, and strengthening the sense of solidarity in the public sphere."

Scientific coordinator Sergio Salvatore adds: "There's a strong feeling that Re.Cri.Re. has just started to discover fundamental findings. The end of the project will instead be the launch of a new policy vision."

Explore further Civic solidarity under the microscopeCredit: South Ural State University

Being the head of the world's leading trendsetter company of digital industry, Mr. Train will talk about the idea of digital industry and of its key components; he will also describe the current state of digital industry in the USA and other countries, and provide a forecast of its development in the closest and mid-term prospective.

Moreover, Rector of Saint Petersburg State University, Andrey Rudskoy ("Formation of digital industry on the basis of digital twins"), Philippe Bertrand from the National Engineering School of Saint-Etienne (ENIS) ("Synergy of additive and subtractive manufacturing for the future of the Manufacturing Industry"), Manus Henry from the University of Oxford, Great Britain ("PRISM: checking the accuracy of measurements for the Internet of Things") have already confirmed their participation in the Conference as honorable guests and keynote speakers.

The following world-level specialists in the sphere of digital manufacturing will share results of their research: Professor of CICESE Research Center (Mexico),Andrei Tchernykh ("Security of IoE (Internet of Things) under conditions of unknown risks"); Professor of the School of Automation Science and Electrical Engineering of Beihang University (China), Tao Fei ("From Digital Twin to Digital Twin Shop-Floor"), and many other.

Credit: South Ural State University

Overall, SUSU will bring together leading researchers in the sphere of digital manufacturing from Russia, USA, China, Germany, Portugal, Turkey, Italy, India, Poland, and other countries of the world. "The International Program Committee has done a serious work in selection of articles for the Conference. Out of more than 400 submitted articles, reviewers admitted only 100 papers, which proves the high level of preparation for the International Conference at our university, as well as of high quality of research materials," noted Gleb Radchenko, Director of the SUSU School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

During three days of the Conference, there are going to be plenary sessions and industrial sessions featuring more than 100 representatives of leading industrial enterprises of the abroad and the Ural Federal District, such as SMS Group, Schneider Electric, Samsung,  and other. Within the industrial session, a video conference featuring Jonathan Cullen (University of Cambridge, Great Britain) and representatives of Emerson Company is planned to be held on the topic "Resource efficiency for resource-consuming industries".

"There was no scientific conference on digital manufacturing of such level in Russia yet. This is an important event not only for national science but for the world's science as well," says Vice-Rector for Informatization of SUSU, Professor Leonid Sokolinskiy. "Our university is acting as a venue that unites scientific resources, supercomputer calculation systems and unique laboratory facilities that allow performing really difficult tasks. This union becomes a good catalyst for determination of new directions towards Industry 4.0; this is also an opportunity for experience exchange between leading developers of Russia and the world."

The upcoming Conference will become a unique chance for students to obtain an extensive review of modern technology and have a glimpse at the future of various industries, and for participants of the Conference this will become a chance to perform exchange of research-and-technology competencies, consider new objects of cooperation, and share their vision regarding the industry of the future.

Provided by South Ural State UniversityThe arrests of two Black men in a Philadelphia Starbucks this past spring spurred debate about whether calling cops is an act of racism. Since then, similar incidents where police were called on a napping Black college student, Black Airbnb users and even Black barbecuers by white people have reached new levels of absurdity and even inspired proposed legislation aimed at making 911 calls against innocent Black people a hate crime.

Last week, #CornerstoreCaroline became a viral outrage after video showed a white woman named Teresa Klein calling the police; she could be heard in the video claiming she was sexually accosted by a 9-year old Black boy. But video shows that his bookbag may have brushed up against herlike any normal person might assume.

Needlessly involving cops reflects a longstanding problem with modern policing and at the root is a political trajectory that traces back to the not-so-distant history of New York City.

In the 1990s, the city radically repurposed police to focus on low-level offenses. A war against "quality of life" offenders became a rallying cry amplified at the bully pulpit of former mayor Rudy Giuliani. The Broken Windows theory of policing blamed low-level offenders for serious crimes by suggesting that a breakdown of order fueled violence.

Low-level arrests in the city skyrocketed in a fifteen year stretch from just over 60,000 in 1993 to over 240,000 in 2008, a pace far exceeding the rest of the state or other urban cities. Complaint-based arrests also steadily rose during that span. The overwhelming majority of those arrested? You guessed it: Black and Latinos. This, of course, doesn't count the summonses or informal contacts police had with so-called "disorderly" New Yorkers.

Giuliani's crusade not only unleashed cops, it also deputized the public to scapegoat low-level offenders. The city encouraged the public to rub the police genie lamp in response to almost any annoyance. Nuisances were now police issues. Loud music? Call the cops. Someone begging on the train? Call the cops.

This war on "disorder" helped instill into New York City what can be described as a nuisance neurosis. Our nuisance neurosis began as an obsession to rid ourselves of every perceived inconvenience: beggars, squeegee men, vendors. This mentality picked up steam in the post-9/11 "see something, say something" era and cultivated a Big Apple where calling cops became a reflexiveand destructiveinstinct.

Broken Windows policing, however, didn't emanate organically. "Order maintenance policing" was originally championed by theater owners in Times Square who wanted a more orderly Broadway. The Times Square Alliance, the city's first ever business improvement district, organized business voices to ask police to rid the area of undesirables, as they saw them. Aggressive policing helped pave the way for the the Disneyfication of Times Square as corporate hustlers sought to reclaim the space from street hustlers.

Is it so different when white people summon a gun and badge to reclaim their sense power over Black people through the threat of arrest?

In NYC, we still accommodate complainers and target the vulnerable. At NYPD-hosted neighborhood policing meetings, business reps demand enforcement against street vendors, who see them as nuisances (and competitors). Recent police crackdowns on deliverymen using e-bikes were intensified by Mayor Bill de Blasio after a white Upper West Sider complained to him on a radio show. Not coincidentally, vendors and e-bike delivery workers are mostly non-white.

Nuisance neurosis seems to be made stronger by gentrification. A recent BuzzFeed report suggested that gentrifying neighborhoods see increased calls to police. Though new residents don't have a monopoly on cop-calling, what rings true is that white peopleboth longtime and gentrifying residentscan complain about things many people of color wouldn't. How one sees street vending, loud music, barbecuing and even subway dancing is often informed by race and class. These concerns have come up as police have defended their adherence to Broken Windows policing by pointing to complainers (though enforcement doesn't necessarily correlate with complaints).

Does gentrification lead to hyper-policing, or vice versa? Both. As NYC aggressively policed nuisances, the city gentrified. As it gentrified, the complaints of new New Yorkers further fueled nuisance neurosisand calls to police. The result: A city of thin-skinned whiners who don't hesitate to snitch on a single Mister Softee truck or wage an annual war on steel pan drum practice.

How do we break the cycle of nuisance neurosis? Needlessly calling the cops is a learned behavior. #CornerstoreCaroline wasn't the first and certainly won't be the last cop-dialing video that infuriates us. First, let's remember that being a New Yorker was once synonymous with being thick-skinned, resilient and, though often grudgingly, tolerant to the millions of people we call our fellow New Yorkers. We can choose today to bury our deputy police badges, put down our phones and be real New Yorkers. Minding your own business is highly underrated.

At the policy level, demand that local elected officials reel in the size and scope of the NYPD by reducing their budget. Policing will never be the answer for questions of street vending, e-biking, poverty or any number of issues. The billions that are poured into police every year maintain Broken Windows policing. Instead, dedicate taxpayer dollars to non-police solutions. Decades of hyper-policing public urination or fare-beating haven't stopped people from peeing or jumping turnstiles. What if we radically expanded access to public restrooms or made public transportation free for all low-income residents? Our budget is finite. We can't properly fund programs to actually help people while feeding a police state.

Villainizing white complainers has its limits. These are creative ways to deal with issues associated with living in a city of over 8 million people that don't require a gun and badge. Nuisance neurosis and Broken Windows are a testament to our inability to think past policing and its effects on the lives of Black and Latino New Yorkers. It's time to put that era behind us.

Josmar Trujillo is a writer, trainer and organizer based in Spanish Harlem.Oh, I'm sorry, were you hoping to take advantage of a running L train in these last few moments/months before service to Manhattan is completely shut down in April? One resounding nope to that: On Wednesday, it came to our attention that the MTA had quietly posted a fresh service change that will seed discord into your travel plans through the end of November.

Effective immediately (actually, it turns out, since Monday), the L train will not run between Broadway Junction and 8th Avenue, from 10:45 pm until 5 a.m. every weekday until November 30th, because of "track maintenance."

Commuters can instead take free shuttle buses in Brooklyn and, in Manhattan, the M14 crosstown bus. If for some wild reason you wanted to cross from Brooklyn to Manhattan, or vice versa, you'll need to take one of these buses to the J or A lines. The MTA has provided a helpful chart to help you plan your travel between now and November 29th, so you can reduce your risk of getting stranded because again, the MTA announced this disruption in a manner akin to whispering on a rush hour L train.

Reminder: Weeknight L service between Broadway Junction in Brooklyn and 8th Av in Manhattan ends early, at approximately 10:45 PM, depending on your station. Get the details at the station booth or check out https://t.co/EyOa8lGFu7 to plan your trip. 1/2 pic.twitter.com/8tILQkGuBo  NYCT Subway (@NYCTSubway) October 15, 2018

But wait, there's more! From 11 a.m. and 3 p.m., on Monday through Friday, from now until November 16th, L trains will run every 12 minutes between Myrtle-Wyckoff and Rockaway Parkway. The MTA cites "signal improvements" as the reason for this slow-down.

A few important caveats: Regular night service will be available on Oct. 31, so if you have a rowdy Halloween and need to get back to Manhattan or Brooklyn or anywhere along the line at, say, 3:00 a.m. on Nov. 1st, your drunk ass won't need to navigate a tangled web of provisional bus routes. Regular night service will also remain intact from Nov. 21 to 23, presumably because Thanksgiving. Thanks, MTA, for that.

But no thanks for this in a larger sense, because recall, the L has already been suspended every weekend in October, as well as the weekends of November 9-12 and 16-19. And that's just 2018! The L will also enter into mini-shutdown mode every weekend in February, and also three weekends (read: most weekends) in March. This is just a small taste of the much larger inconvenience we will all suffer when the MTA begins its larger shutdown in April, slated to stretch at least 15 months.

We asked the MTA to comment on this latest update, and to explain why these newly scheduled track maintenance and signal improvements could not be undertaken in the course of the larger shutdown, which, again, does not have an official start date set and therefore, no definite end date. Here is what MTA spokesperson Shams Tarek had to say about that:

Theres been signage out about this for quite a while. Note that the entire L line is not shutting down in April. Only the Manhattan stations are closing. Bedford to Canarsie-Rockaway Pkwy will still be running. Right now theres extensive maintenance work going on that portion of the line as well as on other lines we expect people to take as an alternative, so that service is as reliable as possible while the L tunnel to Manhattan is closed.

Meanwhile, the MTA pinky swears that it will do its best to avoid weekend work on train lines that run between Brooklyn and downtown Manhattan for the duration of the shutdown. Ha ha ha it feels so good to laugh again.20 minutes ago

Q&A: Binance CEO on bubbles, meme coins and crypto's swings

NEW YORK (AP)  The CEO of Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, doesn't try to explain why some cryptocurrencies that started purely as a joke have surged so much in price. He also doesn't want to say if the exuberance for meme coins like Dogecoin is an indication of a dangerous bubble.

Read ArticleIt was 1941, America was throwing everything it had into prepping for the war, and the Brooklyn Navy Yard was frantic with activity. So frantic, in fact, that it took the Navy only five months to construct Building 77, a 16-story, one-million-square-foot command and supply center running operations for the entire North Atlantic fleet. Constructed with solid cast concrete, the massive structure housed mountains of supplies in the bottom, windowless two-thirds. The top third, which did have windows, served as offices. Two five-ton gantry-fed rail lines ran along the east-west axis of the building, and trains would roll in, load up, and continue on to ships waiting in the harbor.

The Navy decommissioned Building 77, along with the rest of the 225-acre yard, in 1966, and apart from an occasional gig as a storage facility, the enormous space had been sitting hulking and empty until 2010, when the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation commissioned a first assessment of the structure to see what could be done. Eight years of gut renovation laterincluding adding windows to the entire facadewe have the result, a combination of light manufacturing, food services, public space, and a dozen floors of offices, all readily accessible right from Flushing Avenue.

Over the weekend, as part of Open House New York, we joined a tour of the newly reoccupied space, led by representatives of the two principal architectural firms who brought it to life, Beyer Blinder Belle and Marvel Architects.

One of the primary goals of the project was to open up the building, and the Navy Yard beyond, to the community. Gone is the fence on Flushing, and the entrance to 77 functions as a gateway to the gantry corridor, a public space where businesses like Russ & Daughters will sell their goods adjacent to their commercial kitchens. There are multiple communal tables at either end of the block-long corridor, and the layout and space feels similar to the Tunnel building in Chelsea.

Up on the 16th floor, which may not have a tenant yet, there are most definitely some spectacular views to the north, to the east, and especially to the west looking out over the yard. Among the new(ish) spots in this rapidly changing area: the Brooklyn Grange rooftop farm; the huge, still-under-construction future home of WeWork, called Dock 72; and the low-slung, green manufacturing buildings that house businesses like Brooklyn Roasting Company. Between Building 77, the WeWork space, and the manufacturing complex, this one section of the yard is expected to have some 3,000 people coming here every day.

Click through for a look at Building 77, and other buildings nearby. Then go read Jennifer Egan's Manhattan Beach, which partially takes place in the Navy Yard.A week after the Manhattan DA's office dropped one of the sexual assault charges against former movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, another problem with the prosecution has come to light. In a letter sent to Weinstein's attorney and released to the media today, Special Counsel to the DA Joan Illuzzi-Orbon has revealed that the former lead NYPD detective in the case, Nicholas DiGaudio, allegedly told one of Weinstein's accusers that she could delete messages from her cellphones before handing them over to prosecutors.

Last week, an attorney for the woman, who says Weinstein raped her in his Manhattan hotel room in 2013, contacted DA Cy Vance's office to make the disclosure. According to the attorney, the witness had complained to DiGaudio about prosecutors' request for cellphones she may have used to communicate with Weinstein.

The woman said she was uncomfortable that the cellphones had personal information she didn't want to to reveal, and after conveying this concern to DiGaudio, the detective allegedly told the woman to "delete anything she did not want anyone to see" before turning over the phones. DiGaudio allegedly added, "We just won't tell Joan."

According to Illuzzi-Orbon's letter, the woman did not ultimately delete anything from her phones and turned them over to prosecutors unaltered. A spokesperson for DA Vance declined to say how prosecutors are certain nothing was deleted.

The NYPD Special Victims Division has repeatedly been at odds with Vance's office over the Weinstein case. NYPD detectives were so frustrated with Vance's previous refusal to prosecute Weinstein that detectives reportedly went so far as to hide Weinstein accuser Ambra Battilana from prosecutors, because they feared the DA's office was trying to undermine the case.

Vance has also been criticized for accepting campaign donations from attorneys associated with Weinstein after initially dropping charges against the producer. Citing anonymous sources, the Daily News reports today that "FBI agents are probing the Manhattan district attorneys office over its handling of high-profile cases that were dropped once lawyers for the well-connected subjects made donations."

Vance's spokesman said he is unaware of any FBI investigation.

It's unclear how this latest disclosure by prosecutors will affect the case against Weinstein. In September, Illuzzi-Orbon informed Weinstein's attorney that DiGaudio had admitted to withholding information from a witness he interviewed in February. That witness, a casting director, told DiGaudio that Weinstein accuser Lucia Evans informed her she consensually performed oral sex on Weinstein after he offered to get her an acting acting work. This account was allegedly not passed along to prosecutors, and the Evans part of the DA's case was dropped last week.

DiGaudio was removed from the case last week. Page Six also reports that a second member of the Weinstein prosecution team quit the Manhattan DAs Office last month, for unknown reasons.

Weinsteins attorney, Benjamin Brafman, told the AP that the latest allegation against DiGaudio even further undermines the integrity of this already deeply flawed indictment of Mr. Weinstein.

In a statement, NYPD Lieutenant John Grimpel said, "The evidence against Mr. Weinstein is compelling and strong. The NYPD will continue its work with the prosecution to deliver justice for the courageous survivors who have bravely come forward."

UPDATE, 10/18: In a statement, Detectives Endowment Association President Michael J. Palladino defended DiGaudio:

"The Manhattan DAs office needs to enter the 21st century. This is the age of technology. People keep loads of personal info on their phones that they prefer remains confidential.

"A woman should not have to surrender confidential intimate information that is immaterial to the case to defend herself against a sexual predator. Thats being victimized twice. Detective DiGaudio was sensitive to that.

"I am not impressed by ADA Illuzzis letter. The most important part is paragraph six, which indicates Detective DiGaudio did not influence the victims evidence or testimony. The rest of her letter says an awful lot about nothing.

"This appears to be just another smear campaign against Detective DiGaudio to cover up the Manhattan DAs own incompetence.Grand Old Partisan salutes William Marshall, born in Missouri this day of 1825. The surveyor and lead miner settled near St. Paul at age twenty-four. He served in the territorial legislatures first term, and in 1855 chaired the founding convention of the Minnesota Republican Party.

During the Civil War, Marshall commanded the states 7th Volunteer Infantry, which fought at Nashville and Mobile. Peace restored, he was proprietor of a dairy farm and a hardware store.

In 1865, a grateful citizenry elected Marshall to the first of two two-year terms as Governor. His administration oversaw a thriving economy and soaring population. On his third attempt, he secured passage of a law extending voting rights to African-Americans. "The free young state of Minnesota," he declared, "is now altogether free."

Later years were devoted to the University of Minnesota board of regents, the railroad commissioners board, and the state historical society. Marshall County is named for him.

Here is a Video Version of this article on YouTube: https://youtu.be/MItaNDCZcMY

Michael Zak is author of Back to Basics for the Republican Party, a history of GOP civil rights achievement.

Each day, his Grand Old Partisan blog celebrates more than sixteen decades of Republican heritage. And, see Speech Raves for audience feedback from his presentations in thirty-one states so far.

Clarence Thomas cited Back to Basics for the Republican Party in a Supreme Court decision.

Buy the book at Amazon

See www.youtube.com/q?v=IzxKCiXc5Qc for a brief video of a Texas Republican praising Back to Basics for the Republican Party.

"This is the most amazing book about politics that I have ever read. The Overview should be required reading for anyone with even a minor interest in government. The remainder is an enthralling history lesson that I will never forget. For years, we have all been misled about the true nature of the GOP. This is the real deal! Read it and be proud!"

"Michael Zak wrote the definitive history of the GOP."

"Back to Basics for the Republican Party is the most significant contribution to the Republican Party in the last twenty years apart from Ronald Reagan."

"Back to Basics for the Republican Party is more important to our party now than ever before."

and

"one of the best books I ever read"Thank you for reading!

Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription to continue reading.Oracle has just released a security update to prevent 2.3 million servers running the RPCBIND service from being used in amplified DDoS attacks.

The flaw was discovered by the Brazilian researcher Mauricio Correa, founder of Brazilian security company XLabs. The exploitation of this vulnerability could cause major problems on the Internet.

A proof of concept (POC) made in only one XLabs server generated a traffic of 69 gigabits per second, Mauricio told Cibersecurity.net.br.

At the time of the discovery, the expert queried Shodan and found that there were nearly 2.6 million servers running RPCBIND on the Internet. The multiplication of this exploit in a 2.6 million server farm leads to a frightening conclusion.

RPCBIND is software that provides client programs with the information they need about server programs available on a network. It runs on port 111 and responds with universal addresses of the server programs so that client programs can request data through RPCs (remote procedure calls).

These addresses are formed by the server IP pool plus port. Since its launch, RPCBIND has been receiving updates that cover several failures, including security. This, however, is the most serious finding so far.

The discovery of the crash began on June 11 this year. On that day, one of the web application firewalls (WAFs) installed in the XLabs SOC (security operations center) detected an abnormal pattern of network traffic that caught the eye of Mauricio.

The data showed that a DDoS attack was in progress, coming from port 111 of several servers, all from other countries.

We then decided to open a server with port 111 exposed on the Internet, with the same characteristics as those who were attacking us and we were monitoring that server for weeks. We found that he was receiving requests to generate attacks,  he explained.

After further analysis of the subject, it was possible to reproduce the attack in the laboratory.

By analyzing the servers exposed at Shodan, the extent of the problem was confirmed, continues Mauricio.

The problem discovered by Mauricio is worse than Memcrashed, detected in February of this year. In this type of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, the malicious traffic generated with the technique is greater than the once associated with the use of memcached, a service that does not require authentication but has been exposed on the internet by inexperienced system administrators. The service runs on UDP port 11211 and its exploitation by cybercriminals has already generated 260GB traffic according to Cloudflare company measurements.

After developing the POC, Mauricio reported the problem to Oracles security team, since RPCBIND is a solution originating from Sun, which was acquired by the company in 2010.

He sent the information to Oracle so that the experts of the company could confirm and evaluate the problem. The confirmation arrived by email (see image), with the announcement of the publication date of the patch. It was on Tuesday, October 16, 2019 at 5:00 p.m., Brasilia time, 1:00 p.m. in San Francisco, California.

The Brazilian version of the post is available on the authors blog.

About the Author: Paulo Brito

Pierluigi Paganini

( Security Affairs  Oracle, DDoS)

Share this...

Linkedin

Share this: Twitter

Print

LinkedIn

Facebook

More

Tumblr

Pocket





Share On(File photo: Reuters/Chip East)

By Catherine Bosley

The U.S. is back at the top of the global competitiveness league, according to the World Economic Forum, which praised the nations entrepreneurial culture and financial system while noting its weakening social fabric.

In a report that President Donald Trump is likely to see as validating his Make America Great Again drive, the U.S. placed ahead of Singapore and Germany in the 140-nation table. The 2018 edition of the rankings used an overhauled methodology that focuses more on factors such as idea generation and agility.

Despite the U.S. top billing for the first time in almost a decade, WEF  which brings together leaders from public and private-sector institutions  took a swipe at the protectionism advocated by the Trump administration. It said countries that ranked highly on measures such as low tariffs, ease of hiring foreign labor and collaboration in patent application tended to do well on innovation and market efficiency.

At a time of escalating trade tensions and a backlash against globalization, the report also reveals the importance of openness for competitiveness, it said. Global economic health would be positively impacted by a return to greater openness and integration.

U.S. companies scored highly for the speed with which they embrace change, but the nation fared poorly on metrics such as health and security. It is far from the frontier on checks and balances, judicial independence and corruption, WEF said.

Be Inclusive

Switzerland, which has long led the rankings, fell to fourth under the new methodology. China, one of the chief targets of U.S. criticism over trade, was 28th. Argentina, hit by a currency crisis, was lowest among Group of 20 countries at 81st.

Famous for its annual meeting in the Swiss town of Davos that attracts members of the global elite such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel and rockstar Bono, WEF called for policies to address inequality. Measures are needed for income redistribution, investment in education and training, and social safety nets, as long as they dont hinder competitiveness.

It is critical that policies be put in place to improve conditions of those adversely affected by globalization within countries, according to the report. It is possible to be pro-growth and inclusive at the same time.

 2018 Bloomberg L.PThe favored candidate to be Brazil's next president, far-right politician Jair Bolsonaro, on Wednesday signed a commitment to keep abortion illegal if he wins power, backing a stance by the influential Catholic Church. The 63-year-old ex-paratrooper, a Catholic whose ultraconservative and law-and-order rhetoric has lifted him in the polls, signed the promise during a visit to see Brazilian Cardinal Orani Tempesta at Rio's archdiocese. The document also reaffirmed Bolsonaro's opposition to sex education material promoting acceptance of homosexuality in schools, and to decriminalizing drug use. Bolsonaro is the frontrunner for an October 28 run-off against leftist rival Fernando Haddad. "We are signing a commitment defending the family, defending the innocence of children in the schools, defending the freedom of religion, against abortion and the legalization of drugs," Bolsonaro said in a video produced and released by his campaign. He did not respond to questions from journalists who covered his visit. Abortion in Brazil is illegal except in cases of rape, risk to the mother's health, or serious deformation of a baby's brain. In the first round ballot two weeks ago, Bolsonaro won 46 percent of the vote to Haddad's 29 percent. Polls suggest Bolsonaro has 58-59 percent voter support going into the run-off. He has won backing through his prolific use of Twitter, Facebook and other social media, spurning media conferences and debates. Part of his absence was explained by a month-long convalescence he was forced into after being stabbed by a lone assailant while campaigning in September, but he has continued to address his followers mostly online. Bolsonaro also enjoys strong support from Brazil's burgeoning evangelical movement, which is attracted to his family-first, Christian-laced rhetoric. Brazil's last census, in 2010, registered 65 percent of the population as Catholic and 22 percent as evangelical, though the latter is believed to have strongly grown since. Haddad on Wednesday tried to gain traction among evangelicals, meeting pastors in Sao Paulo and defending his secular position. "A secular state recognizes all religions. It doesn't prioritize just one religion -- it has to welcome all of them," he said. Haddad also railed against "libelous" posts on social media claiming he tried to have sex education "gay kits" distributed in schools while he was education minister between 2005 and 2012.Brazil's two candidates vying for the presidency, far-right Jair Bolsonaro and leftist Fernando Haddad, have taken to Twitter to trade campaign blows in the absence so far of any televised debate ahead of an October 28 run-off election. In the exchange late Tuesday, Haddad tried to taunt Bolsonaro into engaging in TV debates, hoping to close a big lead enjoyed by the far-right candidate. "Tweeting and online lives are easy, Mr Congressman. Let's debate face-to-face, politely, in the sick bay if necessary," Haddad said on his Twitter account. The tweet was in response to one by Bolsonaro calling Haddad a "corrupt man's puppet," referring to his having replaced former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who was barred from running while serving a prison sentence for corruption. Six televised debates were scheduled between the October 7 first round -- which Bolsonaro won handily, with 46 percent of the vote to Haddad's 29 percent -- and the run-off October 28. But Bolsonaro skipped the earlier debates on the advice of doctors who said he had not sufficiently recovered from a stabbing while campaigning on September 6. Bolsonaro has said avoiding further debates might be a "strategic" choice for him. He already enjoys a big lead in the polls over Haddad and has millions of followers on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. - 'Waiting for you' - Haddad, a 55-year-old former mayor of Sao Paulo and education minister under Lula, believes he would have the upper hand in a debate with Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro, 63, is a veteran lawmaker who went to military school and was a captain during Brazil's military dictatorship that ended in 1985. Light on the issues, his campaign has been buoyed by pithy phrases and online attacks on Haddad, Lula and their leftist Workers Party. On Tuesday, Bolsonaro observed that Haddad had frequently visited Lula in prison. "Each week you go and see someone who is in prison for corruption and to get your orders. Watch out, given where new revelations are going you could be next," he tweeted. Haddad replied by posting an image of a television studio organized for debates with the message:" I'm waiting for you here, congressman." The last major voter survey, by the Ibope institute, showed Bolsonaro the big favorite with 59 percent support, against 41 percent for Haddad.EU leaders warned Wednesday there must be more progress in Brexit negotiations, despite hearing a personal plea by British Prime Minister Theresa May, who said she was open to a longer transition phase to unblock the talks. European leaders had hoped to hold a special summit in November to seal the divorce, but on Wednesday they refused to sign off on the plan, taking the bloc a step closer to the potentially catastrophic scenario of Britain crashing out in March without a deal. May had earlier addressed her fellow leaders, indicating that she could accept extending the post-Brexit transition phase to take the heat out the deadlocked issue of the Irish border, officials said. But she failed to respond to a call by EU President Donald Tusk for "concrete proposals" of her own to move the talks forward. When the other 27 European Union leaders met without her over dinner on Wednesday evening, they concluded that "not enough progress has been made" in the negotiations, an EU official said. The senior source said the leaders agreed talks should continue but, for now, they are "not planning to organise an extraordinary summit on Brexit in November." This could see a draft Brexit deal pushed back to a December summit, leaving little time for its ratification by the British and European parliaments. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said EU leaders had asked the bloc's executive "to work with even more vigour on a no deal scenario". - Nothing new - Expectations were low before this week's summit in Brussels, once dubbed a "moment of truth" for Brexit, after a breakdown in talks between the lead negotiators at the weekend. "I hadn't expected a breakthrough, and there wasn't a breakthrough," Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said after the dinner. "But I am still optimistic that we can find a solution for the Brexit issue in the coming weeks or months." Earlier, May had urged her fellow leaders to work with her to find a "creative way out of this dilemma" on Ireland, a British official said. "I remain confident of a good outcome. The last stage will need courage, trust and leadership on both sides," she said. Antonio Tajani, the president of the European Parliament, said May offered them "nothing substantially new" to discuss. - Brexit limbo - But he said she was "not against" the idea of extending the transition, a position confirmed by the EU official. Diplomats say EU negotiator Michel Barnier is willing to add a year to the already planned 21-month post Brexit transition period, when Britain's relationship with the bloc stays largely the same. But the idea is controversial among May's eurosceptic Conservative MPs, who fear it is simply a way of delaying Britain's exit. British newspapers led on the story on Thursday, with the tabloid Daily Mail headlining: "Another year in Brexit limbo?" Asked about the plan, a British official said there were no plans to propose a change to the transition. As he arrived for the Brussels meeting, Barnier had said "we need time, we need much more time" for talks, vowing to work "calmly and patiently" for a deal in the coming weeks. The idea of extending the transition would be to give more time to negotiate a deal on future relations and find a formula to defuse the Irish border question. Negotiations are stuck over the issue of a "backstop" to keep open the border between British Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland if and until a wider trade deal can be signed that avoids the need for frontier checks. Britain has proposed staying temporarily aligned to the EU's customs rules, but the bloc wants this to have no end date -- something her eurosceptic MPs will not accept. The EU is also insisting on its own "backstop", which would see Northern Ireland alone stay aligned with the bloc's customs union and single market -- something Britain will not accept.Nearly a century of marijuana prohibition came to an end Wednesday as Canada became the first major Western nation to legalize and regulate its sale and recreational use. Scores of customers braved the cold for hours outside Tweed, a pot boutique in St John's, Newfoundland that opened briefly at midnight, to buy their first grams of legal cannabis. "It's been my dream to be the first person to buy the first legal gram of cannabis in Canada, and here I finally am," said Ian Power, who arrived four hours stand outside the store. Power said he was happy to "make history" buy buying legal pot. "I'm elated. I'm so excited, I can't stop smiling. I'm not cold. It's freezing cold out, but I'm not cold," he said. The legalization has been embraced by pot enthusiasts and investors in a budding industry that has seen pot stocks soar on the Toronto and New York stock exchanges, but sharply questioned by some health professionals and opposition politicians. "We're not legalizing cannabis because we think it's good for our health. We're doing it because we know it's not good for our children," Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on the eve of the reform. "We know we need to do a better job to protect our children and to eliminate or massively reduce the profits that go to organized crime." The Cannabis Act, which fulfills a promise Trudeau made in the 2015 election campaign, makes Canada only the second nation after Uruguay to legalize the drug. Its implementation will be scrutinized and dissected by Canadians ahead of the next election in 2019, as well as other nations that the prime minister has said may follow suit if the measure proves a success. Trudeau himself admitted in 2013 to having smoked pot five or six times in his life, including at a dinner party with friends after being elected to parliament. He has also said that his late brother Michel was facing marijuana possession charges for a "tiny amount" of pot before his death in an avalanche in 1998, and that this influenced his decision to propose legalizing cannabis. But Trudeau's office told AFP he "does not plan on purchasing or consuming cannabis once it is legalized." In total, Statistics Canada says 5.4 million Canadians will buy cannabis from legal dispensaries in 2018 -- about 15 percent of the population. Around 4.9 million already smoke. "I'm going to have a lot more variety than the black market dealers, so you have a lot more choice at our store. The prices are very comparable," Thomas Clarke, owner of THC Distribution store, told public broadcaster CBC just prior to the big event. - A new industry is born - Under the new regulations, Canadians at least 18 or 19 years old (soon to be 21 in Quebec) will be allowed to buy up to 30 grams of cannabis, and grow up to four plants at home. A patchwork of private and public cannabis retail stores and online sales have been set up across the 13 provinces and territories, ramping up to 300 storefronts by year's end, the government predicts. Sales of derivatives like edibles will be legalized next year. To meet demand, hundreds of growers have been licensed, some taking over horticulture and floriculture greenhouses. This new industry has attracted billions in funding, as well as interest from alcohol and soft drink makers such as Constellation Brands and Coca-Cola, respectively, which have expressed an interest in developing cannabis infused drinks. Cannabis sales are forecast to boost economic growth by up to Can$1.1 billion and provide a Can$400 million tax revenue windfall for the government, according to Statistics Canada. Public health officials contend that smoking cannabis is as harmful as tobacco, but welcome what they call the opportunity that legalization affords for open dialogue. Some doctors, however, remain wary. Diane Kelsall, editor in chief of the Canadian Medical Association Journal, called legalization "a national, uncontrolled experiment in which the profits of cannabis producers and tax revenues are squarely pitched against the health of Canadians." Police, meanwhile, are scrambling to prepare for a predicted uptick in drug-impaired driving. It's unclear as yet if the new framework will succeed in undercutting the black market, as prices for illicit pot have plunged in the last year to an average of Can$6.79 per gram, and most sellers had planned to charge more. Bill Blair, a former police chief in Toronto who is Trudeau's pointman for pot legalization, remains optimistic. "For almost a century, criminal enterprises had complete control of this market, 100 percent of its production and distribution and they profited in the billions of dollars each year. I suspect they're not going to go gently into the night," he told AFP. "But the fact that some individuals want to cling to a prohibition model that has led to the highest rates of cannabis use of any country in the world is a little shocking to me," he said. According to a recent Abacus Data poll published on Monday, 70 percent of Canadians accept or support legalization.Finnish cult author Arto Paasilinna, best known for his 1975 whimsical novel "The Year of the Hare", has died age 76, his publisher said on Tuesday. One of Finland's most read authors, Paasilinna penned more than 35 books which were translated into dozens of languages. He died Monday in a nursing home in Espoo, near Helsinki, his Finnish publisher WSOY said in a statement. The former lumberjack turned journalist and novelist, originally from Finland's northern Lapland region, sold more than eight million books over a career spanning 50 years. His stories describe the unbelievable adventures of such characters as a senile engineer and his travel companion, an old woman constantly being harassed by her rascal of a nephew, and a world-weary journalist who has adopted a hare with a broken foot. His tragi-comical stories about life in the Great North, along with his keen take on Finnish society, at once bitter and humorous, seduced millions of readers around the world. Seen through Paasilinna's gleeful eyes, aspects of life like suicide, ageing, desperation and everyday dreariness paradoxically help paint joyful portraits of the human race. "As a writer I want to exaggerate things and it is easier to whip one's own people than to go and whip others," Paasilinna said in a 2005 interview with AFP. "Humans in general are a bit crazy, in a touching way, and Finns are even more so perhaps than others."Foreign fighters continue to flow into Syria to join the Islamic State group despite its forces being largely decimated, Pentagon Joint Chiefs chairman Joe Dunford said Tuesday. Even though the jihadist group's territory has shrunk to a fraction of what it once was, new followers arrive, mostly over the Turkish border, at a rate of about 100 a month, Dunford said. While that is down from a peak of about 1,500 a month three years ago, it shows that Islamic State's ability to attract followers remains potent, he said. "It's the flow of foreign fighters, the ability to move resources, and the ideology that allows these groups to operate," Dunford said, opening a conference on countering violent extremism. Dunford also said that the inflow adds to the mounting problem of how to handle hundreds of captured foreign fighters whose home countries will not take them back. He said the Syrian Democratic Forces are holding more than 700 Islamic State fighters from around 40 countries. "The progress of returning these fighters home for prosecution has been delayed by political considerations and inconsistent legal frameworks." Britain, for example, has refused to repatriate the two remaining men of the IS unit dubbed the "Beatles," which kidnapped, tortured and beheaded a number of foreigners including journalists. London stripped them of their citizenship and has said it does not want them back. The United States has repatriated one of its IS foreign fighters to stand trial, but has not divulged the fate of any others thought to be held in Syria or Iraq. Dunford said not dealing with the captured foreign fighters correctly will make it harder to eventually extinguish the attraction of the Islamic State ideology. A critical factor, he said, "is how we identify, prosecute, deradicalize and reintegrate foreign fighters." "We need to find a way to address this challenge and prevent the detainees from becoming the leaders of tomorrow's extremist organizations," Dunford said.BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany's Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said he would delay a decision on whether to go through with a planned visit to Saudi Arabia until Riyadh had given more clarity on the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Maas said the trip, which had been intended as part of a push to repair strained relations with the desert kingdom, made no sense in the context of concerns over the fate of Khashoggi, whom Turkish authorities believe was murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

"We had planned a visit in the context of the dialogue with Saudi Arabia. We will wait on that now," Maas told a Berlin news conference. "The Saudi side plans a statement (on the affair), and we will use that as a basis for deciding whether a trip makes sense at the current time."

(Reporting by Thomas Escritt, Editing by Riham Alkousaa)MUMBAI, Oct 17 (Reuters) - India's capital markets regulator has asked Fortis Healthcare to recover 4.03 billion rupees ($55 million) from its founder brothers and firms related to them, pending an investigation into loans made by the company.

Tycoon brothers Shivinder Singh and Malvinder Singh and eight firms related to them should jointly pay the sum with due interest to Fortis within three months, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) said in its order on Wednesday.

"A detailed investigation of the entire scheme employed in this case is necessary to find out the role of each entity in the alleged routing of funds," SEBI said.

SEBI will carry out a detailed investigation, but said it was issuing an interim order to protect the interests of Fortis Healthcare shareholders and prevent any further "deterioration" of company funds or assets.

It also barred the Singh brothers and the firms from selling any assets or from diverting any funds except for meeting daily expenses till such a probe was completed.

Reuters could not reach the Singh brothers for comment, while Fortis did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside regular business hours.

The eight firms and the Singh brothers, who have also been ordered not to associate themselves with any Fortis-related business, have 21 days to file a reply from the day they receive the order, SEBI said.

Cash-strapped Fortis, which operates about 30 private hospitals in India, accepted an investment offer from Malaysia's IHH Healthcare Bhd in July after an extended bidding war for control of the company.

It is unclear whether the SEBI order will affect the timing of the closing of that deal.

($1 = 73.5200 Indian rupees) (Reporting by Sankalp Phartiyal; Additional reporting by Tanvi Mehta; Editing by Adrian Croft)Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Wednesday sent a ritual offering to a controversial shrine honouring World War II criminals that infuriates Asian neighbours China and South Korea. Abe has not visited Yasukuni Shrine in person since December 2013 -- a trip that triggered a downturn in relations with Beijing -- and the premier is currently in Europe. However, he sent a sacred "masakaki" tree bearing his name at the start of a four-day festival, a shrine spokeswoman told AFP. There were no reports of members of Abe's cabinet visiting the shrine although some senior politicians also sent offerings. The shrine honours 2.5 million war dead but also top World War II criminals and has frequently been a source of sour relations with countries that suffered from Japan's military atrocities. Yasukuni has recently hit the headlines in Japan and internationally after its chief priest said he would resign after "highly inappropriate language" criticising the emperor was leaked to a magazine. In a recent issue, the Shukan Post weekly magazine quoted chief priest Kunio Kohori, 68, as saying at a closed-door meeting in June that "the emperor is trying to destroy Yasukuni Shrine". The more the emperor goes on memorial trips for the war dead, the more the shrine's position declines, he reportedly added. Emperor Akihito has never visited since his coronation in 1989, while his father Hirohito did not return to Yasukuni after war criminals were enshrined there in the mid-1970s. Akihito, who will abdicate next year, has throughout his reign hinted at pacifist views, which are sharply at odds with the aggressive expansionism Japan pursued under his father's rule. Though he has no political power, the emperor has annoyed Japanese rightwingers by acknowledging that his country inflicted "great suffering" in China, and expressing regret over Japan's brutal rule of the Korean peninsula.(PHOTO: Getty Images)

For years, he kept a close watch on his elderly parents to ensure that they kept to his standards of cleanliness.

When his parents disobeyed him, Foo Shun Xiang, 37, would discipline them by hitting or scolding them. His father, 68, and his mother, 65, lived in fear of their son as he would turn violent whenever he felt displeased.

Foos violent streak came to a head in January this year when he witnessed his father wipe his mouth and nose with the same piece of tissue and flew into a rage. He assaulted his father with a metal pole and caused him to bleed. When his mother intervened, Foo fractured her ribs by hitting her with the same pole.

On Tuesday (16 October), Foo, who was diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder in 2009, admitted in the State Courts to one count of voluntarily causing grievous hurt to his mother with an aluminium pole. One other count of causing hurt to his father with the same weapon will be taken into consideration when Foo is sentenced.

Both parents were present in court for Foos hearing.

The court heard that Foo is unemployed and seldom leaves the house. He receives a monthly allowance from his father, who is the familys sole breadwinner.

Due to his mental condition, Foo feared dirt and contamination. He would engage in compulsive behaviour such as repeated handwashing. Foo refused to regularly take his medication for his condition.

His behaviour extended to the close monitoring of his parents to ensure that they adhered to his cleaning rituals. He would, for example, tell his parents how to hold their cups and wash their hands. He also forbade them from slamming things on the table and placing things in a disorderly manner.

Between 2009 and 2018, Foo assaulted his parents on at least four occasions. However the incidents went unreported as Foo threatened to use violence on his parents if they were to lodge a report.

On the incident in January, Foo became infuriated with his father for using the same tissue to wipe himself as he had told his parents not to do so. The two went to the kitchen where Foo continued scolding his father. As his father had a stutter, he was unable to respond to his son quickly.

Story continues

Foo became more angered by his fathers slow response and began punching and kicking him. He pushed him to the ground, picked up a 1.2m long aluminium pole and used it to hit him. The assault continued for about five minutes even though the elder Foo was bleeding.

When his mother expressed shock at the attack, Foo directed his aggression towards her. He grabbed her forearms then punched and kicked all over her body. He pushed her to the ground and hit her torso repeatedly with the pole.

Foo only stopped the assault after the pole broke into two. He threw it away and told his parents to take a shower as they were covered in blood.

The next day, Foos mother complained of severe pain on her left ribcage. Foo told his parents to seek medical attention. However, he threatened and ordered them to lie that they were attacked by foreigners who were robbing them.

When Foos father met his doctor, he told him that he was robbed and assaulted by two strangers at East Coast Park. He was diagnosed with a laceration on his left ear,multiple cuts and abrasions over his left upper limbs, and bruises on his scalp.

Foos mother lied to medical staff that she was assaulted at East Coast Park by two foreign men who tried to rob her. She had three fractured ribs, a fractured big toe and bruises over her head and chest.

The nurse who attended to the elderly woman made a police report about the alleged robbery on 31 January.

The next day, a police officer went to Foos house to take his mothers statement. She maintained that she had been attacked by robbers.

On 2 February, however, the mother confessed that she had given false information to the hospital and police as she wanted to protect her son. She said that she did not have a choice as her son would hurt her and her husband if he knew that the police were investigating him.

Foo, who was assigned a lawyer under the Criminal Legal Aid Scheme, is expected to be sentenced on 23 October.

Other Singapore stories

Fire damages 5 motorcycles, 1 car outside Boon Lay Shopping Centre

Teen e-scooter rider who hit elderly man gets 15 months probationPapua New Guinea has reportedly bought three Bentley limousines to use at an Asia-Pacific summit next month, in a move set to rev-up further outrage after the purchase of 40 Maseratis for the same event. The Bentley Flying Spur luxury cars ordered for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Port Moresby cost more than Aus$320,000 ($228,000) each, the Australian newspaper reported. It said the cars were en route to the poverty-stricken Melanesian nation by sea, publishing an invoice purportedly detailing the purchase from a Malaysian company, South Pacific Ventures. Prime Minister Peter O'Neill is already under fire after splurging $6.4 million on the fleet of Maseratis to chauffeur dignitaries around Port Moresby, where half the population live in squatter settlements. Critics say the money could have been better spent dealing with chronic social problems in a developing nation where diseases such as polio and TB have recently re-emerged. Opposition lawmakers are threatening a national strike over the issue, saying it symbolised government corruption. "We are disgusted," opposition politician Bryan Kramer posted on social media Monday after meeting fellow MPs to discuss the issue. "We agreed that we are sick to death of seeing our people suffer while our own members of parliament... (collude) with overseas opportunists only to steal from our people." The strike was originally scheduled for this week but Kramer said it had been deferred to October 25 to avoid clashing with school exams. The PNG government says the luxury cars are needed for a prestige event like APEC and the cars would be sold on to the private sector after the summit finishes. It says buyers are already lined up, a claim disputed by the opposition.US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis toured a former Agent Orange storage site in southern Vietnam on Wednesday, revisiting one of the war's darkest chapters that lives on among a million Vietnamese with severe birth defects, cancers and disabilities linked to the toxic defoliant. Standing near a weedy field contaminated with dioxin, Mattis surveyed a map of the Bien Hoa airport outside Ho Chi Minh City, one of the main staging grounds for Agent Orange that was hastily cleared by soldiers near the war's end more than four decades ago. US forces sprayed 80 million litres (21 million gallons) of Agent Orange over South Vietnam between 1962 and 1971 in a desperate bid to flush out Viet Cong communist guerrillas by depriving them of tree cover and food. At Bien Hoa the spillover from the clearing operation is believed to have seeped beyond the base and into the ground water, rivers and the local food chain and is linked to severe mental and physical disabilities across generations of Vietnamese -- from enlarged heads to deformed limbs. Under a 10-year remediation effort led by development agency USAID, work is set to start next year on cleaning up Bien Hoa, one of the largest dioxin "hotspots" remaining in Vietnam. "We hope to have shovels in the ground next year sometime," said a USAID official who was not authorised to be quoted by name. Vast amounts of Agent Orange had been stored at Bien Hoa in large fuel containers during the war, and under a 1972 operation called Pacer Ivy the US military began pulling the chemical from Vietnam for storage and disposal outside the country. "In that operation of repackaging, there was a lot of spillage obviously and so that is what we are faced with," the official said. - 'Keeping our promise' - The pledge to clean up the site came under the administration of Barack Obama, and will cost some $390 million, officials said. Hanoi says up to three million Vietnamese people were exposed to Agent Orange, and that one million suffer grave health repercussions today, including at least 150,000 children with birth defects. An attempt by Vietnamese victims to obtain compensation from the United States had little success, and the US Supreme Court in 2009 declined to take up the case while neither the US government nor the chemical manufacturers have ever admitted liability. Mattis said visiting the site was part of a US commitment to make amends for parts of the bloody and bitter war that killed an estimated three million Vietnamese. "We had promised to help... so this is America keeping her promise to remediate some of the past," Mattis, whose older brother served in Vietnam during the war, told reporters this week. "I just want to get eyes on (the site) so when I go back and I talk to Congress, I can tell them my impression with actually having seen the site," Mattis said ahead of the trip. He spent only a few minutes at the site meeting with Vietnam military officials near a "hazardous material" warning sign. - Bury the hatchet - Ties between the former foes have warmed considerably since the end of the war and today Washington is one of Hanoi's closest political and military allies and trading partners. This is Mattis's second trip to Vietnam this year after a January trip to Hanoi, which was followed by a historic visit by a US aircraft carrier in March, the first to Vietnam's shores since the war in a symbolic burying of the hatchet for both sides. In addition to Bien Hoa, the US and Vietnamese have identified two other "dioxin hotspots" -- Danang and Phu Cat airbases. A project to clean up Danang has just been completed at a cost of $110 million. The Bien Hoa clean up operation is four times the size of the one in Danang, the USAID official said. Chuck Searcy, a US veteran who served in Vietnam 1967-68 and now lives in Hanoi, said he was happy Mattis's trip included a stop at Bien Hoa and hoped it would lead to more funding for the dioxin clean up. "His visit is important because it reflects a commitment on the part of the Department of Defense to be involved with this issue in a positive way," said Searcy, who works with Project RENEW which clears unexploded ordnance in Vietnam. "A lot of us have been waiting for that to happen for quite a long time, so this is encouraging," he told AFP.The chief doctor at an Australian offshore detention centre was removed Wednesday for breaching rules, her employer said, as Canberra sought to stem criticism of conditions at a deeply controversial immigration camp on Nauru. It is the second time a top doctor contracted by Australia to provide healthcare at a camp on the Pacific island of Nauru has abruptly left the post. It also comes after Medecins Sans Frontieres was ordered by Nauru to cease its mental health treatment earlier this month as the charity warned of a health crisis among child refugees held there. The circumstances surrounding the doctor's removal and deportation were unclear but national broadcaster ABC reported Narau may have suspected her of trying to alert media about the health of her patients. Naming the doctor as Nicole Montana, ABC said she was arrested by Nauru police late Tuesday after taking a photo of a child she was treating, a breach of rules at the camp. Her predecessor was abruptly deported after a dispute with the government over medical transfers. International Health and Medical Services, the company that employed the doctor, confirmed to AFP she was "stood down for a breach of Regional Processing Centre rules" but did not elaborate on what the transgression was. - Grim conditions - Australia sends asylum-seekers who try to reach the country by boat to remote Pacific facilities such as on Nauru and Papua New Guinea's Manus Island, although the latter camp was shuttered late last year after a local court ruling. Canberra has defended the harsh policy as being successful in ending the arrival of new boats. But the conditions in the camps have been slammed by rights groups amid reports of abuse, suicides and lengthy detention periods. A recent visit by AFP to the Nauru camp revealed deep desperation among detainees and families living with the unbearable cloud of suicide attempts by their wives and daughters. One inmate's 12-year-old daughter doused herself in petrol and threatened to set herself alight, after struggling to cope with spending half a decade and almost half her life in the camp. - Healthcare 'collapsing' - The plight of children in the centre came into sharp focus when Nauru kicked out MSF -- also known as Doctors Without Borders. The charity said many children were suffering "traumatic withdrawal syndrome" and were unable to eat, drink or talk. Nauru dismissed the respected medical charity as "political activists". The UN refugee agency UNHCR said Friday the health situation of the asylum-seekers and refugees was "collapsing". The international criticism comes amid growing domestic pressure on Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, a former hardline immigration minister, to move sick children to Australia. Three of his party's own parliamentarians are now publicly pushing him to evacuate the children and their families. Morrison signalled to media late Tuesday he was looking to boost efforts to resettle the families to a third country such as neighbouring New Zealand. Canberra previously repeatedly declined New Zealand's offer to take in some of the detainees. MSF says there are nearly 900 asylum-seekers in Nauru, including 115 children. They have all been on the island for more than five years. The Australian government refused to weigh in on Montana's sacking, saying it was "a matter for the government of Nauru" and her employer. "A replacement senior medical officer is in Nauru. There has been no impact to the continuity of care for transferees," an unnamed Department of Home Affairs spokesman said in a written statement.The Palestinians won backing Tuesday to lead the biggest bloc of developing countries at the United Nations, raising their profile at the world body despite opposition from the United States. The General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to grant the observer-state of Palestine temporary rights to act as chair of the Group of 77 plus China, a bloc that has grown to 134 countries at the United Nations. A resolution drafted by Egypt was adopted by a vote of 146 to 3 with 15 abstentions. The United States, Israel and Australia were the only three countries to oppose the measure in the 193-nation assembly. US Ambassador Nikki Haley branded the decision a "UN mistake," recalling that the "Palestinians are not a UN member state or any state at all" and should not be granted privileges reserved for full-fledged members. "Today's UN mistake undermines the prospects for peace by encouraging the illusion held by some Palestinian leaders that they can advance their goals without direct peace negotiations," said Haley in a statement. The result came as no surprise as the G77 had agreed last month to give the Palestinians the chair and could easily garner enough support in the General Assembly to win approval for the measure. The resolution gives the Palestinians, who take up the year-long chair in January, additional rights such as the authority to submit proposals on behalf of the G77 and request that they be put to the vote. The measure does not, however, change the status of the Palestinians, considered a non-member observer state at the United Nations without voting rights at the General Assembly. - 'Misguided' - Only UN member-states with full recognition should be entitled to speak and act on behalf of groups of countries, US Deputy Ambassador Jonathan Cohen told the assembly ahead of the vote. Calling the resolution "misguided," Cohen warned that the United States will "leave no doubt about where we stand" and will not recognize the Palestinians in their new UN role. "When the Palestinians speak as chair of the G77 in the General Assembly, we will remind our fellow member-states that the United States does not recognize that there is a Palestinian state and that no such state has been admitted as a UN member state," he said. Taking the floor, Palestinian ambassador Riyad Mansour pledged to "spare no effort" to defend the interests of the G77 and to work "constructively with all partners." The G77 and China are influential on budgetary issues at the assembly and have been effective in pushing their agenda as the biggest bloc. The vote came amid tensions between President Donald Trump's administration and the Palestinians over US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital and other decisions deemed pro-Israel. The Trump administration has cut aid to the Palestinians and funding to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, and is working on peace proposals that the Palestinians fear will be biased in favor of Israel. In 2012, the United States voted against the resolution that upgraded the Palestinians to UN non-member observer state, arguing there should be no international recognition for the Palestinians until progress is made in peace efforts with Israel.President Donald Trump on Wednesday denied covering up for ally Saudi Arabia in the suspected murder of a critical journalist and said that he expects to learn the truth about Jamal Khashoggi's fate within days. Trump's comments followed the publication in pro-government Turkish media of allegations purporting to confirm that Khashoggi was not only murdered by Saudi agents in their consulate in Istanbul, but tortured and dismembered. "No, not at all, I just want to find out what's happening," Trump told reporters in the White House when asked if his consistently cautious approach to the scandal amounts to a cover-up. "I'm not giving cover at all." The president said he would get a "full report" from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo -- whom he is to meet at 10:00 am (1400 GMT) on Thursday -- after the diplomat's return from meetings with Saudi and Turkish leaders, allowing him to assess what really happened. "We will probably know that by the end of the week," Trump said. The US president has been on the defensive ever since Khashoggi -- a US resident and Washington Post contributor who had been critical of powerful Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman -- vanished on October 2 after visiting the Istanbul consulate. The Post published a column from Khashoggi on Wednesday in which he wrote of the important role a free press could play in the Arab world -- a piece the newspaper admitted appears to be his last. According to the latest reports, the Saudi journalist was assassinated by a squad that included agents tied to Prince Mohammed, a son of King Salman and a lynchpin in the trend toward ever-tightening relations with Trump's White House. The controversy has blown a hole in Prince Mohammed's bid to promote himself as the modern face of Saudi Arabia and led to a spate of cancelations by titans of global finance and business at a major Riyadh investment conference scheduled next week. But Trump has downplayed the possibility of action against Saudi Arabia, which he has repeatedly praised as a major customer for the US weapons industry. At one point he suggested "rogue killers" could be to blame for Khashoggi's disappearance. Earlier Wednesday, he told Fox Business that the US relies on the kingdom to fight terrorism. Pompeo was also tight-lipped after meeting the Saudi leadership in Riyadh, telling journalists he did not want "to talk about any of the facts. They (Saudis) didn't want to either." Adding to the picture of Saudi influence potentially weighing on American decision-making about Khashoggi, US media reported that $100 million for Washington's stabilization efforts in Syria was deposited by the kingdom as Pompeo arrived in Riyadh. - Fresh paint in consulate? - Turkish police and forensic experts on Wednesday searched the residence of the Saudi consul in Istanbul and also searched the country's consulate for a second time. The consul, Mohammed al-Otaibi, left Istanbul for Riyadh on a scheduled flight Tuesday afternoon, with Ankara insisting he had not been expelled but left of his own choice. Turkish police had on Monday night carried out an eight-hour search at the consulate, taking away soil and DNA samples. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who also met with Pompeo, said there was evidence that some materials had been freshly painted. Several US media outlets said Monday that the Saudis are preparing a report that Khashoggi's death resulted from a botched interrogation, but there has yet to be any sign of this being published. Pro-government Turkish daily Yeni Safak reported it had heard audio recordings of Khashoggi being tortured during an interrogation, having his fingers cut off and then being decapitated. It said Otaibi can be heard on one tape saying during Khashoggi's torture: "Do this outside. You are going to get me in trouble." The daily reported that in another tape, an unknown individual tells Otaibi: "If you want to live when you return to Saudi Arabia, be quiet!" - Senators question Trump-Saudi ties - The New York Times reported Tuesday that a suspect identified by Turkey was a frequent companion of the prince's. Three other suspects are linked to his security detail and a fifth is a high-level forensic doctor, The Times said. Adding to embarrassment for the petro-state's royals, International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde became the latest to pull out of Prince Mohammed's much-trumpeted investment conference next week. An IMF spokesman said she had postponed her planned trip to the Middle East with a stop in Saudi Arabia. US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he will decide Thursday whether or not he will attend the conference. There was also new political pressure on Trump with nine senators from the opposition Democrats writing to express "significant concerns about conflicts of interest" between Trump and Saudi Arabia concerning deals done through his real estate empire. The letter cited decades of business deals and asked Trump to provide information regarding recent and future financial ties to Saudi Arabia. Trump defended himself on Monday, tweeting that "I have no financial interests in Saudi Arabia (or Russia, for that matter). Any suggestion that I have is just more FAKE NEWS (of which there is plenty)!"President Cyril Ramaphosa speaks before Finance Minister Tito Mboweni's swearing in ceremony at Tuynhuys in Cape Town, South Africa, October 9, 2018. REUTERS/Sumaya Hisham

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa on Wednesday appointed a judicial inquiry into the 2 trillion rand ($142 billion) state pension fund, a government gazette said, following corruption allegations.

The PIC is Africa's biggest pension fund and the biggest investor in South Africa's economy holding a large volume of bonds issued by government and state-owned firms.

The gazette notice said it will investigate "persistent and continued negative reports about alleged improprieties regarding investments" by the Public Investment Corporation (PIC), which manages assets on behalf of the government employees.

Ramaphosa said the inquiry should issue a final report by latest April next year.

In May, opposition parties called for an investigation into the pension fund's chief executive Dan Matjila, accusing him of misuse of funds and careless investment decisions.

Matjila has denied the allegations and was also backed by the Treasury, which oversees the PIC.

The PIC's spokesman could not immediately comment and referred any questions to the Treasury.

In 2017, Matjila was cleared of any wrongdoing by an internal audit committee that looked into the allegations.

But the collapse of VBS Mutual Bank early this year, where the fund has a 25 percent stake, and the resignations of two PIC employees linked to the fraud have raised new questions.

The PIC also has stakes in blue-chip companies across various sectors such as miner Anglo American Platinum, lender Barclays Africa and retailer Shoprite.

($1 = 14.0966 rand)

(Reporting by Mfuneko Toyana; Editing by James Macharia)A man suspected of the rape and murder of Bulgarian television journalist Viktoria Marinova was extradited from Germany to Bulgaria on Wednesday, officials said. "He was transferred (and is) on Bulgarian territory," a Bulgarian justice ministry spokeswoman told AFP. The plane reportedly carrying the 20-year-old suspect, who has been named as Severin Krasimirov, arrived at Sofia airport shortly before 7:00 pm (1600 GMT). Live media broadcasts showed judicial police vehicles leaving the tarmac shortly after. The body of 30-year-old television presenter Viktoria Marinova was found near a jogging path next to the Danube in the northern town of Ruse on October 6. Authorities said that she had died from blows to the head and suffocation and that she had also been raped. The case has shocked Bulgaria and drawn strong international condemnation. Although many commentators have suggested a connection between the crime and Marinova's work, investigators say they have seen no evidence to support this theory. Krasimirov was arrested in the German town of Stade, near the northern city of Hamburg, on October 9. Krasimirov told German investigators he had had an argument with the victim and punched her in the face, but denied raping her, according to a statement issued by the German regional court that handled his extradition. However Bulgaria's chief prosecutor Sotir Tsatsarov told the Nova TV channel on Tuesday that the evidence pointing at Krasimirov was "more than solid". From Sofia, Krasimirov will be transferred to police detention in Ruse, over 300 kilometres (186 miles) northeast of the capital. From there, he will be fingerprinted and will undergo DNA and psychiatric tests before being officially indicted. Tsatsarov has said that Krasimirov will be charged for rape and intentional murder perpetrated in an extremely vicious manner. If convicted, he risks a maximum sentence of life without parole.By Suleiman Al-Khalidi

AMMAN (Reuters) - The Syrian government has given approval for the United Nations to deliver aid next week to thousands of civilians stranded on the Jordanian-Syrian border and threatened with starvation, aid workers and camp officials said on Wednesday.

A siege this month by the Syrian army and a block on aid by Jordan has depleted food at the camp in the Rubkan area of southeast Syria. That has led to at least a dozen deaths in the past week among its more than 50,000 inhabitants, mainly women and children, residents and U.N. sources told Reuters.

Rukban lies inside a "deconfliction zone" set up by U.S. forces. Damascus says U.S. troops are occupying Syrian territory and providing a safe haven for rebels.

The United Nations office in Damascus confirmed that preparations were being made for a convoy next week to desperate camp residents.

"The overall humanitarian situation inside the Rukban camp is at a critical stage. The U.N. in Syria together with Syrian Red Arab Cresent (SARC) will reach the camp to provide life-saving humanitarian assistance in the coming few days." the U.N. Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Syria, Ali Al-Zatari, said in a statement.

Earlier local relief bodies in the camp said U.N. officials had contacted them to say they have received authorisation from Damascus to send an aid convoy on Oct. 25.

"The U.N. told us they would bring in aid ... they have promised many times in the past but every time they say we were not able to come because the (Syrian) regime did not allow us," said Oqba al Abdullah, a relief official in the camp.

"We hope this time it's true."

The U.N. children's agency UNICEF warned last week that without aid the lives of thousands of children in the camp were at risk.

U.N. officials have been pressing Moscow to get its ally Damascus to agree to the aid shipment, a senior U.N. source involved in the operation told Reuters.

Story continues

In the last three years, tens of thousands of people have fled to the camp from Islamic State-held parts of Syria being targeted by Russian and U.S.-led coalition air strikes.

The Syrian army has tightened its siege of the camp, which is also near the Iraqi border, preventing smugglers and traders from delivering food.[L8N1WR1SZ]

Jordan agreed earlier to allow a one-off aid shipment but has said since it should not be held responsible as the camp is not on its territory and all future provisions must come from U.N. stores inside Syria.

The "deconfliction zone" is designed to shield U.S. troops at the Tanf garrison and maintain for Washington a strategic foothold in an area close to a crucial supply route for Iranian weapons entering Syria from Iraq.

U.S.-led coalition warplanes have several times struck Iranian-backed militias allied to Damascus, in what Washington has described as self-defence.

Western diplomats believe the siege of the camp is part of a Russian-led effort to put pressure on Washington to get out of Tanf. U.S. Marines conducted rare military exercises in the area last month.

(Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi; Editing by David Stamp and Andrew Roche)When Jardine Mathesons former Hong Kong executive Geoffrey Jones was shopping for a new car two years ago, a special package by Axa on Teslas four-door sedan caught his eye.

The French insurer offered three years of coverage in a special programme called InsureMyTesla, for HK$12,300 (US$1,569) in total, about a third of the nearest competitors price to insure all-electric vehicles, at a rate thats even cheaper than policies for non-electric cars.

The HK$875,000 Model S also enjoyed a tax waiver, saving Jones another HK$625,000 on registration. Topping off the incentives, Tesla threw in an agreement to buy back the car after three years for HK$587,000.

The Model S, which boasts of going from standstill to 60 miles per hour (almost 100 kilometres per hour) in 2.5 seconds, is a beautiful car, powerful and comfortable, Jones said, adding that he was persuaded by the incentives package to trade his Mercedes-Benz E Class for the fully electric car, in solid black with grey leather interior.

Hong Kong has been one of the worlds fastest adopters of electric vehicles, as both government and owners have eschewed internal combustion engines to help reduce tailpipe emission in the citys urban landscape. Helped by a tax waiver on registrations from 1994 until March 2017, sales of electric cars surged in Hong Kong to 11,247 units at the end of August, from a mere 69 vehicles in April 2011, with Tesla claiming almost 90 per cent of that market share since entering the city in 2010.

Recognising the sales boom, insurers like Axa, Liberty Mutual Group and Target Insurance piled on to offer package deals to make electric cars more attractive. Axa, based in Paris, first tied up with Tesla in 2015.

Hong Kong has one of the lowest per capita ownership levels of private cars among Asian urban cities, with slightly more than half a million cars registered among 7 million residents, based on 2015 numbers  about half of Singapores average ownership, and a third of Taiwans.

Story continues

That makes auto insurance the least profitable among every class of general insurance in Hong Kong, with the segment reporting a net loss of HK$164.33 million in the first six months of this year, according to the Insurance Authoritys data.

On top of that, the Model S has the dubious honour of being the most expensive vehicle to insure, with the average annual insurance costing US$1,790, according to a 24/7 Wall St survey of 25 different makes and models sold in the United States.

Electric car industry demoralised by Hong Kong government policy after tax waiver capped So it wasnt long before Axa changed its offer. Last month, the insurer notified Jones that his policy  due for expiry in August 2019  would be terminated by December this year. The former executive had clocked up 994 kilometres (618 miles) in two years, with no accidents or claims on his policy.

Axa offered him a new policy at HK$12,300 per annum, effectively tripling his annual payment. Additionally, the insurer raised the policys excess  the top-up that the car owner needs to make to qualify for a compensation  to HK$130,000, from HK$8,000.

If I had known that the insurance would become so expensive, I would not have bought my Tesla in 2016, Jones said. Now the annual premium is three times the cost and the vehicle excess is 20 times as much as a Mercedes E Class. This is ridiculous.

Axas spokeswoman in Hong Kong said its termination of insurance policies for Tesla vehicles was based on a commercial decision, adding that the electric cars are expensive to insure, with the average windscreen claim at around HK$10,000, double the claim on other models.

Tesla does not fix the car, but replaces all the damaged parts, with the components having to be imported from the US, said Patrick Rozario, managing director of Moore Stephens Advisory Services in Hong Kong, who owns a six-seat Tesla Model X electric sports-utility vehicle, in midnight silver metallic. Once, I scratched my car in the garage, and received a HK$170,000 quotation from the official body shop.

For now, Axa is the only insurer to raise its premium charges. The insurer would refund all the premium in October, and certify that its termination was due in no part to the behaviour of the car owners, Axas spokeswoman said.

With regards to the change of the Tesla car insurance policy, we understand the inconvenience that may have caused to the customers and will do as much as we can to support the affected customers, she said, declining to say how many customers would be affected.

Jones wasnt the only Tesla owner caught by Axas policy change.

I received a letter from Axa that my insurance will be cancelled, said Rozario. I will need to get new insurance and I have assumed that the insurance cost will go up.

Like Jones, Rozario hadnt been given a reason for the cancellation, although he assumed that it was because its costly to repair a Tesla vehicle. He had claimed his HK$170,000 paint job off his Axa policy, he said.

Hong Kongs Insurance Authority has taken notice. The regulator has discussed with Axa, and has persuaded the insurer to give four additional months to allow customers to switch their coverage, according to a source close to the Insurance Authority.

The regulator is concerned about Axas motor insurance issue with Tesla, a spokeswoman said in response to the queries by the South China Morning Post.

If an insurer does decide to terminate a policy prematurely, it should give full explanation and make every effort to provide alterative solutions so that the interests of policy holders will not be unduly affected, the spokeswoman said. The Insurance Authority considers it imperative for insurers to convey clearly the scope and terms of coverage to the insured during the sales process. It is the inherent responsibility for insurers to ensure that products are underwritten and priced prudently.

Tesla, which teamed up with Axa globally in offering the insurance package, has now partnered with Liberty Mutual to offer a bridging policy to car owners who want to switch from Axa.

We have also been disappointed about the recent situation where Tesla owners were let down by AXA Hong Kong, a Tesla spokeswoman said.

Jones is one such customer. He refused to sign on with Axas new policy, but opted for Liberty Mutuals package for the same increased annual payment. But at least the excess on his new policy would be kept at HK$8,000, he said.

Axas policy change has also helped Target, the second-largest motor insurer in Hong Kong, catch up, as a large number of Tesla car owners are migrating their policies over.

Targets third-party insurance for Tesla and other electronic vehicle costs between HK$10,000 and HK$20,000 per annum, depending on the drivers record and the model of the insured vehicle, double the price range on non-electric vehicles.

For comprehensive car insurance, the price for electronic vehicles ranges between HK$40,000 and HK$50,000 per year, compared with about HK$10,000 for gasoline-powered cars.

The insurance risks are higher for electric cars such as Tesla, said Targets chairman Haywood Cheung. The repair cost is much higher, as the car maker does not just repair the parts but replace the whole thing, taking much longer time compared with the easier, quicker and cheaper repairs on conventional vehicles.

Tesla opens new Hong Kong electric charging station, the biggest in Asia

Still, the changing insurance policy should not deter car owners who are technologically savvy or environmentally concerned from embracing zero-emission vehicles, the Tesla spokeswoman said.

Insurance premiums are not a deterrent to buying electric vehicles, she said. In most markets that Tesla operates in, insuring electronic vehicles is comparable to insuring gasoline-powered cars. In some markets, insurance costs less for electric cars.

As the car maker reaches a scale big enough to make components more readily available, it can offer faster and better repairs and customer service, often at lower costs, she said.

Over time, insurers will pass these savings on to customers, she said.

For now, Rozario remains committed to his electric car.

I dont think I will return to vehicles with internal combustion engines, he said. There is really no charging cost, and the vehicle license fee is much lower than gasoline-powered vehicles. The car performs well, and its also more environmental friendly.

Jones, formerly of Jardine, wasnt quite as contented. The experience has put him off electric vehicles entirely, he said.

I have decided to give up my Tesla when the buy-back agreement allows me to sell the car back to the company next August, he said. I will go and buy a conventional, gasoline-powered car, which is easier to refill and has much more reasonable insurance cover.

This article Will Tesla lose its cool in Hong Kong? Axa triples insurance premiums first appeared on South China Morning Post

For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2018.

More from South China Morning Post:Thailand's infamous "jet-set monk" was convicted of raping an underage girl Wednesday, a court official said, in a case that has rocked an already scandal-mired Buddhist clergy. Wiraphon Sukphon, 39, earned his evocative moniker after footage emerged of him wearing designer sunglasses with a Louis Vuitton bag on a private jet. He was extradited back to Thailand from the US last year, accused of the rape and duping donors who had given him money to build what he said would be the world's largest emerald image of Buddha. The girl was under the age of 15 and Wiraphon is said to have later fathered a child with her. In Wednesday's ruling, which found him guilty of rape and separating the girl from her parents, the court said he had given the Buddhist faith a "bad reputation". "He used his monkhood, which Thai people respect," the court official told AFP. Wiraphon's 16-year custodial sentence punishment will be added to the 20-year prison term he received in August after being found guilty of multiple counts of fraud. The military junta that seized power in 2014 has taken a hardline against monks acting outside the law and authorities have considered introducing digitised ID cards that could track members of the community with criminal histories. Thailand is mostly Buddhist and the religion is woven into everyday life, but drug, sex and financial scandals have weighed on the Buddhist leadership and forced some high-profile collisions with law enforcement. In May the abbot of the tourist-heavy "Golden Mount" temple in Bangkok was arrested after $4 million was found in bank accounts in his name. Police are also investigating allegations of financial wrongdoing within the National Office of Buddhism. And early last year, soldiers raided the temple of the mega-rich Dhammakaya sect on the outskirts of Bangkok to detain its controversial abbot on accusations of massive fraud. He eluded capture and remains at large.WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will travel to Panama and Mexico this week to meet with top leaders and discuss "defending democracy in Venezuela and Nicaragua," among other regional issues, the U.S. Department of State said in a statement on Wednesday.

Pompeo will meet with Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela in Panama City on Thursday and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto on Friday, among other top officials, the department said, adding that immigration, narcotic drugs and terrorism will also be discussed.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Bernadette Baum)The United Nations envoy for Syria announced on Wednesday he will step down at the end of November after more than four years in the key post as UN efforts to end the seven-year war show no sign of a breakthrough. "I will myself be moving on as of the last week of November," Staffan de Mistura told the UN Security Council during a meeting on the crisis in Syria. The Italian-Swedish diplomat, who is the UN's third Syria envoy in six years, said he was leaving for "purely personal reasons," citing the need to give his family "a little bit of attention" after a long stint in the demanding post. De Mistura will be traveling to Damascus next week to push for the creation of a committee to agree on a post-war constitution for Syria that would pave the way to elections. That plan has been under discussion since January when it was announced at a conference organized by Russia, a key Syrian ally, but it has since been bogged down in bickering over the committee's composition. The Syria government is objecting to the UN-led effort to include civil society representatives, religious and tribal leaders, experts and women on the panel, the envoy said. De Mistura said he hoped the committee will be up and running in November, before he leaves. "I am not laying down the charge until the last hour of the last day of my mandate," he said. More than 360,000 people have died in Syria's war, which began in March 2011 as an uprising against President Bashar al-Assad but has morphed into a complex conflict with myriad armed groups, some of whom are foreign-backed. - Envoy number three - De Mistura was appointed UN envoy for Syria in July 2014 after veteran Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi resigned following the failure of peace talks in Geneva. Brahimi spent two years in the position, stepping in after former UN chief Kofi Annan quit just six months into the role. Annan had described the Syria envoy's job as "mission impossible." De Mistura's departure will complicate UN peace efforts at a time when Syrian forces have made significant territorial gains, prompting discussion about the terms of a political settlement to end the war. Western powers maintain that there will be no reconstruction aid to Syria before a final settlement is reached. During his tenure, De Mistura worked to keep UN-sponsored peace talks alive even as fighting on the ground, which has seen deadly chemical weapons attacks, killed off chances of a deal. Last year, Russia, Iran and Turkey set up the Astana process to advance diplomatic efforts in Syria, a move that effectively sidelined the UN-led process that De Mistura was shepherding in Geneva. Still, the 71-year-old diplomat, who is said to speak seven languages and favors pince-nez spectacles over conventional glasses, showed tenacity in the job. While there were no breakthroughs in talks in Geneva, he insisted that incremental progress was being made. Following his mission to Damascus, De Mistura will return to the Security Council in November for his final briefing. Among the names being floated as a possible successor are the UN's Middle East peace coordinator Nickolay Mladenov and the UN envoy for Iraq Jan Kubic, according to UN diplomats.The US Treasury Department slapped sanctions Tuesday on an Iranian paramilitary group along with a network of businesses that were providing it financing, as part of Washington's campaign of maximum economic pressure against Tehran. In announcing the sanctions, the Treasury said a network of more than 20 businesses known as the Bonyad Taavon Basij was financing the Basij Resistance Force, a component of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). It also accused the hardline militia of sending child soldiers to Syria in support of President Bashar al-Assad's regime. "The international community must understand that business entanglements with the Bonyad Taavon Basij network and IRGC front companies have real world humanitarian consequences," said Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. "This helps fuel the Iranian regime's violent ambitions across the Middle East." The Basij, a paramilitary force formed soon after the 1979 revolution, is one of the Iranian regime's primary enforcers of internal security with branches in every province and city of Iran, according to the US Treasury. "In addition to its involvement in violent crackdowns and serious human rights abuses in Iran, the Basij recruits and trains fighters... including Iranian children, who then deploy to Syria to support the brutal Assad regime," it said. It added that in addition to Iranians, the militia recruited Afghan immigrants to Iran through coercion, some of whom had fled to Europe as a result, as well as Pakistani nationals. "Children recruited by Basij have tragically fought and died on the battleground in Syria," a senior administration official told AFP. The Bonyad Taavon Basij is said to provide the Basij militia social welfare services, including housing and financial support, and manages economic activities by funding small companies. "Bonyad Taavon Basij has expanded its reach into Iran's economy by establishing several investment firms through its financial and investment offshoot Mehr Eqtesad Bank," the Treasury statement said. - 'Multibillion-dollar network' - Among the other companies singled out was Iran Tractor Manufacturing Company (ITMC), the largest tractor manufacturer in the Middle East and North Africa that predates the Iranian revolution. It generates millions of dollars in profit for the investment firms that represent the Basij. Also targeted was Iran's Zinc Mines Development Company, described as the country's "preeminent, multibillion-dollar zinc and lead mining and processing holding company." "What we've designated here today is a multibillion-dollar network that has had significant (links) in Europe and the Middle East," said a second senior administration official. Washington pulled out of a landmark 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers in May and is reimposing punishing sanctions on the Middle Eastern country, hoping to pressure Tehran into what President Donald Trump calls a "better deal." Full US sanctions are set to hit Iran in November and the country's economy is already taking a beating. But the European Union last month announced plans last month for a legal framework to preserve business with Tehran, infuriating Washington. "As the president has consistently said, he remains open to talks," US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in an interview set to appear in the November/December edition of Foreign Affairs. "We think a deal with the regime is possible," he added, saying this would take the form of a "new comprehensive agreement" that includes nuclear, ballistic, regional and human rights concerns.Washington on Tuesday repealed a measure meant to increase the hourly minimum wage of tipped restaurant workers, a plan which residents of the American capital approved in a June ballot. More than 55 percent of Washington voters said they were in favor of the Minimum Wage Amendment Act, or Initiative 77, which would require businesses to ultimately pay workers who rely on tips the same wage as everybody else. The measure would have ended the city's two-tier wage system and gradually pushed servers' incomes to at least $15 per hour in subsequent years. Employers of tipped workers are currently exempt from paying the standard minimum wage of $13.25 an hour in Washington, which has a thriving restaurant scene. For tipped workers, the minimum is currently $3.89 an hour. If employees don't earn enough in tips to meet the minimum, employers are required to make up the difference. Tipping is an American tradition which represents 15 to 20 percent of a customer's bill. City council voted eight to five against enacting Initiative 77, which was strongly opposed by some business owners and employees. Restaurant operators claimed the hike would require them to raise their menu prices, while some employees worried that their wages would actually fall after the law went into effect. Servers who already make more than the minimum wage through tips were concerned customers would end up tipping less. Mayor Muriel Bowser, who also opposed the measure, must now ratify the council's vote to definitively end Initiative 77. The organization Repeal#77 congratulated the council for voting to "protect the take home pay of tens of thousands of tipped workers and the viability of neighborhoods." But the National Employment Law Project, a workers' advocacy group which supported Initiative 77, said the council's vote disregarded the will of voters. "The DC Council chose instead to listen to big money donors over its constituents, taking a dangerous track at a time that local democracy is under attack across the country," the organization said in a statement. About 18 percent of Washington's registered voters cast ballots in the June elections at which Initiative 77 was approved.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.On Wednesday a senior Turkish official confirmed the existence of audio revealing that Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi was tortured and dismembered in a Saudi Arabian consulate. But its unclear whether even this development will prompt condemnation of the Saudi Arabian government by president Trump. As Trevor Noah pointed out on The Daily Show Tuesday night, Trump often answers uncomfortable questions by advancing wild, off-the-wall theories. In 2016, Trump suggested that a 400-pound man in a basement might have hacked the election and on Monday, after reports revealed the journalist entering the consulate but never leaving, Trump proposed that the murder could have been perpetrated by rogue killers. How does Trump always find a way to introduce random subjects into the most obvious crimes? asked Noah.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Originally Trumps unsubstantiated explanation was in line with the Saudi Arabian governments denials that they murdered Khashoggi, or that they even knew where the writer was. But on Tuesday, the Saudis tried out a different story: They claimed Khashoggi was captured inside their consulate and was accidentally killed during an interrogation. A flabbergasted Noah wanted to know how the same actors can deny any knowledge of an individuals whereabouts and then credibly claim a different exculpatory story for exactly where and how he was killed, but Daily Show correspondent Michael Kosta pointed out that, Countries lie to us all the time.

Kosta went on to describe how accepting Saudi lies helps advance Trumps economic agenda: I mean if we found out that our Middle Eastern bestie murdered a journalist, we might have to stop selling them billions of dollars in arms. But if we both decide to agree that he fell into a volcano inside the consulate, well then bring your punch card, Saudi Arabia, because its buy nine missiles get the tenth one free!No one looks their age in Wildlife, the new 1960s-set coming-of-age drama that marks Paul Danos directorial debut. Even taking into account the earlier ages at which past generations started families, it takes a few scenes to believe the boyish Jake Gyllenhaal and the cherub-cheeked Carey Mulligan as the parents of a teenager. But Wildlife soon turns that disjunction into a strength, as 14-year-old Joe (a sad-eyed Ed Oxenbould) is forced to adapt to his parents abandonment of their responsibilitiesfirst by his neer-do-well father Jerry, then in subtler but far more hurtful ways by his fed-up mother Jeanette. Joes home life isnt so much turned upside down as it is slowly wrenched apart, as each member of the Brinson family begins to assert their competing visions for the future.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Adapted from Richard Fords novel of the same name, Wildlife is a confident and compassionate first film. But with its protagonist mostly relegated to waiting and observing, its main raison detre is Mulligans masterful turn as a thirtysomething woman coldly testing her abilities to see what shes capable of, while terrified that she wont be able to provide a good life for her son. In the earliest scenes, Mulligans all spun sugarso sweet and fluffy and undemanding you almost forget the effort that goes into such a performance (by both the actress and the character).

When the unemployed Jerry signs up to fight the dangerous wildfires devastating the mountains above their small town in Montana, a high-risk job low in pay and status, Jeanette treats his temporary desertion like the conclusion of a chapter of her life. (We havent been intimate lately, she half-explains to her son.) Its intriguingly unclear whether Jeanette is more reckless or canny when she sets her sights on a wealthy, older, largely charmless divorcee (Bill Camp)the kind of man thats easy to seduce into bed but difficult to tempt into marriage. Her moods ever-shifting and her voice bouncing between octaves, Jeanette tries on different masks to see which one will get her what she wants, then loses patience when she isnt winning her game fast enough.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Wildlife takes its title from the animals that Joe imagines fleeing the raging fireshe, too, is a refugee from the domestic idyll that he saw burn up before his eyes. The script, by Dano and his partner Zoe Kazan, would have benefited from a firmer sense of the social milieu in which Jeanette decides to break every rule that stands in her way. Theres something feminist about Jeanettes one-sided ending of an unhappy marriage, of course, but the character is much more interesting for being an uncategorizable mystery, often to herself. Shes practical, except when shes impetuous. Her aspirations are simultaneously lofty and grubby. When she gets drunk in the older divorcees home, openly flirting with the businessman in a barely-there dress in front of her confused and quietly seething son, Jeanette is hard to empathize with, and harder still to judge.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Playing the films most unintentionally destructive force, Mulligan is as fluctuant as a flame, as Jeanette attempts to sew together the young beauty queen she had to stop being when she impulsively got hitched and the world-weary cynic who teaches her son that feeling sorry for the unfortunate is fundamentally pointless. But the films center of gravity is so tilted toward her that theres little of note in the scenes devoted to Jerry and Joe. (The reserved boys inertness is particularly frustrating, even if his helpless paralysis is altogether believable.) Gyllenhaal evinces some of that unpredictable propulsion, too, but the raw nerve Mulligan embodies is so transfixing that, while the films resolution is cogent and satisfying, its an inevitable letdown when it has to suture everything up.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Fortunately, Jeanettes fieriness is matched by the pastel majesty of the mountains towering over the town, and later, the apocalyptic terror of the inferno that converts proud trees into the standing dead. (Wildlife was partly shot in Montana and for non-residents might well be more transporting geographically than chronologically.) Danos stiff, painterly compositionssome recalling Andrew Wyeth in their austerity and faces turned away from the viewereventually give way to more naturalistic scenes showcasing Mulligans transformations and the push-pull of attraction and repulsion Joe increasingly feels toward his mother. He cant turn away, and neither can we.This piece is part of the Radical Issue, a special package from Outward, Slates home for coverage of LGBTQ life, thought, and culture. Read more here.

As an LGBTQ person, it was hard to watch Donald Trumps 2016 election without at least some worrythat one rainbow flag aside, he didnt seem like much of an ally. Many LGBTQ activists, aware of the influence of right-wing evangelical hate groups (such as Alliance Defending Freedom and Family Research Council) on Trump and his policies, viewed his elevation with acute mortal dread. They were right to worry: The Trump administration has been hostile to LGBTQ people, and transgender people in particular.

Advertisement

Brett Kavanaughs confirmation to the Supreme Court has redoubled those fears. Most LGBTQ people instinctively know that a hard-right shift by the courts will be bad, but only dedicated court watchers understand exactly how bad. The current composition of SCOTUS is likely, in a matter of years, to destabilize or outright undo four decades of LGBTQ civil rights progress. Most of the cases that could be responsible for this are already wending their way through the federal court system, chaperoned by Alliance Defending Freedom, or ADF.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

It is nearly certain, in my view, that marriage equality will be reduced to a state-dependent guarantee of a marriage certificate and a death certificate with both names on it and few, if any, of marriages other rights. Reparative therapy bans could be struck down as unconstitutional burdens on free speech. Nondiscrimination laws protecting LGBTQ people nationwide could be negated by constitutionally protected religious rights to discriminate. The de facto ban on transgender troops will be upheld.

Advertisement

The ADF is also pressing hard for the courts to find that transgender-inclusive policies in public accommodations like bathrooms and locker rooms create an inherently hostile environment, in violation of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and Title IX. The organizations goal appears to be to create a nationwide ban on transgender people in all gender-segregated facilities. With the current court, it is hard to envision a scenario where the ADF does not succeed.

And these are just the near-term scenarios. If Trump gets re-elected or a third conservative nominee is confirmed to the Supreme Court, it could get much worse. For example, the Family Research Council has been agitating for the administration to bring back dont ask, dont tell for lesbian and gay service members, which it could potentially do legally if the transgender ban is upheld. By invoking Justice Antonin Scalias language in his dissent in Lawrence v. Texas of morality being the basis for law, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has made veiled gestures to the ADF that seem to support reversing the case, which overturned sodomy laws in the U.S. in 2003. Currently, 12 states still have unenforceable sodomy laws on the books, and one in four Americans (presumably Trumps base) want homosexual sex to be illegal again.

Advertisement

Advertisement

LGBTQ people should organize like POWs and seek every opportunity to resist.

At the same time, theres the reality that gerrymandering and voter suppression has made LGBTQ progress nearly impossible in the two-thirds of the U.S. where Republicans have built themselves an unassailable legislative majority. The 26 states where Republicans control every branch of government are much more likely to pursue anti-LGBTQ legislation and policies, which will eventually be reviewed by an equally unfriendly SCOTUS.

As a result of all of this, LGBTQ civil rights will certainly stall, and likely erode, for the foreseeable future. And any damage will be that much harder to repair because of stare decisis (deference to previous court rulings). Most LGBTQ people understand this looming threat instinctively, but I worry we dont yet have the heart to acknowledge that were largely cut off from the traditional legislative and legal means of protection that have been the standard approach for nearly 40 years. We simply cannot win this fight with K Street lobbyists and lawyers, particularly when our own advocacy organizations arent necessarily on firm footing. The time for more radical tactics has likely come.

Advertisement

When a minority group is placed in extremis like this, when it does not have the ability to work within the power system to fight oppression, it must adopt legal, nonviolent strategies that work parallel to it. In essence, queer people must begin thinking like prisoners of war or resisters who have no inherent institutional power but do have the ability to alter the behavior of their captors through unified action.

Advertisement

The U.S. militarys Code of Conduct for POWs instructs them to organize and resist by all legal means available under the Geneva Conventions. So too should LGBTQ people organize and begin thinking like insurgents, taking every opportunity to resist, from malicious compliance and counter-oppressor messaging to protest and direct action. Luckily, the community has one advantage in this battle today: While the unrepresentative government is hostile to LGBTQ people, anti-LGBTQ antipathy among the public has dwindled greatly from its peak 30 years ago during the AIDS crisis. Now, LGBTQ people are generally accepted in many parts of the countrymore so than a deeply unpopular president and Republican Party. Any sort of resistance must make use of this advantage, both in terms of the bigger picture and in our day-to-day lives.

Advertisement

Advertisement

When it comes to queer direct action and resistance, many people will look to ACT UP as a model. Its a good one, but it didnt have the internet as a tool nor widespread public support to use to its advantage. Fortunately, cultural and technological changes since the late 1980s and early 90s offer even greater opportunity for effective resistance. The internet, with its ability to share information instantaneously, efficiently facilitates direct action. It allows a wider audience for both direct action events and sting operations and thus can have a greater effect on popular opinion. Stings are likely to become an even more important weapon in mobilizing the base and influencing the middle.

Advertisement

There are practical examples of each of these sorts of actions, some of which have been used (inconsistently) by the LGBTQ movement in the past. For example, a sting organized by LGBTQ activists was used to prove that Michele Bachmanns husband was running a reparative therapy clinic and taking Medicaid money for it. Another example is Sacha Baron Cohen getting a Republican legislator to use the N-word, which led to him being forced out of office. Given how conservative legislators and religious figures are more terrified of angering their extreme right base than the rest of America, luring them into saying and doing odious things is relatively easy, especially when they believe them.

Advertisement

James OKeefes highly edited (to the point of being fake and criminal) videos show the outsize influence stings can have on American politics. There is even more power in such videos when theyre done legally and accurately, exposing truth rather than creating a false impression out of whole cloth.

Online activism allows people to exert pressure from around the country with tangible effect. Businesses that refuse to serve LGBTQ people risk the serious threat of having their online ratings plummet, which, along with a reputation for anti-LGBTQ animus, can result in ruin. At the same time, search engine result manipulation (like what Dan Savage did by redefining Rick Santorums last name) can ensure that the first thing people see about a politician or business online is them behaving badly.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

There is also a case for trolling with a focus on impact litigation. The Satanic Temple has regularly gone to court arguing that various laws impinge on their religious beliefs. With conservatives dead set on taking away all government oversight of churches and radically expanding the legal understanding of religious freedom, it makes sense to create a queer-centric religion whose beliefs are very deliberately designed to create challenges to laws and court rulings on the basis of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. For example, how would you enforce an anti-sodomy law when the defendants church has tenets explicitly stating that queer sex is a mandatory religious sacrament to be performed at least weekly?

Such a move is essentially taking what the defense gives you. The opportunity to create a religion with the purpose of forcing conservative jurists into untenable positions is an absolute must.

Advertisement

Direct action also means getting in legislators faces and making them explain themselves. This recently happened with Sen. Jeff Flake and became a defining moment in the fight over Brett Kavanaugh. Similarly, Republican legislators have been heckled out of restaurants around D.C. While some argue that such supposedly uncivil behavior is counterproductive, the truth is that Republicans have rigged the system to escape all consequences of harming LGBTQ people, immigrants, Muslims, people of color, and others.

Advertisement

At this point in the failure of democracy we are witnessing, denying people a hot meal in peace when they have supported locking screaming, terrified toddlers in cages seems a trivial penalty. Thats the point of an insurgency: to do everything within your power to make the lives of your oppressors as unpleasant as (legally) possible. Visible, legal acts of resistance boost morale and can encourage others to find ways to contribute. They help you get by until someday, maybe, you win.

Read all of Outwards special issue on Radicalism. And queer your ears with a special radical-themed episode of the Outward podcast.Trumps sneering Pocahontas nickname for Elizabeth Warren is more than just a mind-bendingly racist accusation of dishonesty with regard to her claim of Native American heritage. Its another expression of Trumps fundamental misogyny. In Trumpworld logic, Warrenlike Stormy Daniels and Hillary Clinton and Christine Blasey Ford and any other woman who opposes Trumpism instead of making like The Handmaids Tales Aunt Lydia and working for itis running a con. Shes projecting a false self in order to extract something from the honest people around her. (In this frame, Warrens now widely-denounced decision to take a DNA test in the name of transparency can only serve to enhance her aura of duplicity.) Its unbelievable that this argument would work, when Trump himself lies so often and with so few consequences. But the logic of patriarchy ensures that it does.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

In their new book Why Does Patriarchy Persist?, Carol Gilligan and Naomi Snider argue that patriarchy, which they call an age-old structure that has been near universal, makes men responsible for their selves, while women are responsible for relationships. This, they argue, leads to misery all around; it harms men and women by forcing men to act as if they dont have or need relationships, and women to act as if they dont have or need a self.

Within this paradigm, the ideal of personal authenticity must be the sole province of men. Women who rise in the public sphere, necessarily promoting themselves, must always be doing it by manipulative or unnatural means. This concept helped me understand why men like Trump, speaking to those who believe what he believes, can always successfully represent women who oppose them as fakers and cheats. Men lie, too, of course, Megan Garber wrote last year in a short history of the idea that all women are dishonest. Yet in general, their lies have been treated as exceptions while womens have been treated as a rule.

Advertisement

In Trumps worldview, and that of his base, men like Brett Kavanaugh are the straight talkers, the righteously outraged, the most authentic, because they are the only ones who are supposed to have selves to defend. Those real, honorable men are not ever Democrats. As Jess Zimmerman argued on Slate recently, misogyny punishes Democrats, the party thats feminized in our culture due to its ostensible concern for the group over the individual, just as it does women. This is why personal authenticity is currently defined in partisan terms.

Advertisement

Gilligan and Snider write that patriarchy elevates some men over other men, and all men over women. When Trump accuses men of inauthenticity, they are people like Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal, whose exaggerations of his record during the war in Vietnam became a favorite Trump trope in speeches he made during the Kavanaugh hearings (Trumps Blumenthal nickname: Da Nang Dick). On Monday, Donald Trump, Jr. called Beto ORourke an Irish guy pretending to be Hispanic. And of course, Trump first made his name on the right back in 2010 by accusing Barack Obama of inauthenticity. It didnt matter that Obama eventually released his long-form birth certificate; to Trumps base, Trump, the white man, just felt more honest than Dem-femme Obama.

Advertisement

Advertisement

As with so many Trump pathologies, this kind of misogyny isnt particular to him and his true believers. Media perpetuates the authenticity is for men myth by falling into the hardhat trap, representing coal miners eating in midwestern diners as the real Americans. In mainstream popular culture, as Sam Adams argued recently in Slate, A Star is Born is built on the idea that rock and rollmale, brash, and unadornedis real music, while pop is the artifice that women artists fall into when they arent being properly steered by men.

Advertisement

To call a grown woman Pocahontas adds an extra twist. Americans have long ago erased the history of the 17th-century child named Amonute in favor of the legend of the tragically beautiful Indian princess, a story that (as historian Honor Sachs argued on Tuesday in the Washington Post) they have long used to advance the cause of white supremacy. By picking this nickname, Trump reminds us of a true and objectionable thingthe fact that white Americans have long loved to play Indian, and have taught their children to do the sameto pad an accusation of phoniness with an extra soupcon of mockery.

He doesnt know hes doing it, of course. He probably just likes the fact that the name makes Warren sound like a little girl obsessed with Disney, who demands a plastic feather headdress for Halloween. Per usual, Trump manages to put his finger on every bit of our cultures rottenness, without even trying.This piece is excerpted from Rectify: The Power of Restorative Justice After Wrongful Conviction by Lara Bazelon, published by Beacon Press.

Shannon Coleman will never forget the October day in 1991 when she found out that her great aunt, Louise Talley, had been brutally robbed, raped, and stabbed to death in her home. Talley, 77, lived alone in a small house on Nice Street in North Philadelphia. A widow with no children, Talley was close with her large extended family. She was a sweetheart, funny with that dry sense of humor, and she made the best pound cake with chocolate icing, Coleman says. I loved her.

Advertisement

Coleman, who was then 32 and recently engaged, sank down on the steps of her townhouse and wept when she heard about her aunts killing. The vicious, lethal violence inflicted on Talley left her sickened and bewildered, then furious.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Colemans mother, Grace Goggins-Joyner, delivered the news. One of the first black female officers hired by the Philadelphia Police Department in the 1960s, Goggins-Joyners job provided her family with a foothold in the middle class and a strong identification with the law enforcement community. Through her mother, Coleman stayed close to the investigation, learning that a 20-year-old black man named Anthony Wright had been arrested almost immediately and had signed a confession. Though Wright recanted that confession, claiming the interrogating officers threatened to beat and maim him, Coleman was absolutely convinced of his guilt. There was never a question in my mind, she says.

Advertisement

Coleman knew that the police sometimes used excessive forceshe remembers one of her mothers fellow officers saying, about a different suspect, We got him and we beat his assbut only because they were dealing with violent, guilty criminals. I could understand that. I was a part of that culture because it was entrenched in me as a child.

Talleys siblings, nieces, and nephews attended Wrights trial. They were disappointed that the jury spared him the death penalty but took solace in his conviction and the fact that he was sentenced to life without parole. Coleman prayed, she says, that he would burn in hell. Years passed, then decades.

Advertisement

In 2015, Rolling Stone published a stunning expose of Wrights case, reporting that DNA evidence retrieved from Talleys body matched a now-deceased crack addict named Ronnie Byrd. There was more: allegations of misconduct by the investigating Philadelphia police detectives Manuel Santiago, Martin Devlin, and Frank Jastrzembski, including the accusation that Jastrzembski had planted clothes with Talleys blood in Wrights bedroom. Reading the article, Coleman was beset by doubt. Several weeks later, she sat down with one of Wrights attorneys, Sam Silver, as he detailed the Innocence Projects decadelong fight to exonerate Wright, which had met with fierce resistance from prosecutors.

Advertisement

Advertisement

When she left, Coleman was reeling. Although the DNA evidence was enough to overturn Wrights conviction, thenPhiladelphia District Attorney R. Seth Williams was determined to retry him under a new theory. In 1993, prosecutors had told the jury that Wright acted alone. Twenty-five years later, they were prepared to argue that Wright and Byrdwho had no connection to one anotherhad committed crimes together, with Wright stabbing Talley repeatedly and Byrd raping her.

Coleman didnt believe this theory, and shed come to believe very strongly in Wrights innocence. I am not a person who takes no for an answer, Coleman says, so my thought was, I am getting him out. Coleman wrote to the mayor, the governor, and to church groups. She asked a friend she knew on the City Council for helpanything I could think of to get it stopped. She started a Change.org petition, writing, there has been no justice in this case. Instead, there has been another crime committedand it is against Anthony Wright. He has lost 25 years of his life. He was unable to see his son grow up or be at his mothers funeral. He has lost so much. There is no earthly reason why this man is still incarcerated. After collecting nearly 40,000 signatures in less than six weeks, she sent the petition to Williams. He ignored her.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

When those efforts failed, Coleman contacted Jennifer Selber, the chief of the district attorneys homicide unit. She began, I am asking that you please read this email. I know it is long, it took me all of yesterday to write it. I know you are a very busy person but this is extremely important. Coleman spoke of her revulsion at realizing that Wright had been framed for another mans crime. She continued, Anthony could have been my son or my nephewyoung, scared, naive, and trusting of police. It became apparent to me that I would not be able to live with myself if I do not do something to rectify this injustice.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Selber agreed to meet with Coleman, but she wouldnt drop the charges against Anthony Wright. As Coleman recounted it, Selber told her that although there were puzzling aspects of the case, these ambiguities were for a jury to sort out. (Selber, who went on to become the head of the criminal division of the Pennsylvania Attorney Generals Office, declined to be interviewed.) Coleman was aghast, writing in a follow-up email, as a prosecutor you have an ethical responsibility to only take to trial cases you believe beyond a reasonable doubt. You told me more than once during our conversation that you have doubt!

Wrights retrial went forward. Coleman could not get time off from work, but she left early on several afternoons to sit in the courtroom and watch. Throughout, she struggled to sleep at night. On Aug. 23, 2016, when she got a text saying that Wright had been acquitted, Coleman says, I stood up in my office and screamed. The deliberations had lasted five minutes. Afterward, the jury forewoman told reporters, Im angry. The evidence was there that he did not commit this crime. The city should have never brought this case.

Advertisement

Advertisement

A few days after Wright was released, he and Coleman met in Wrights lawyer Sam Silvers office. Coleman experienced a kind of vertigo: She was looking at a victim and feeling like a perpetrator. She wondered if the case would have been pursued as aggressively had her mother not been a police officer. She felt culpable because she had believed so readily in Wrights guilt. Now her entire worldview had changed.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Coleman wondered how she could explain the evolution in her thinking. Standing there, she felt awkward, unsure what to say or do. When Wright held out his hand for her to shake, she hesitated, then took a risk, Can I have a hug instead? Wright, who is nearly 6 feet tall and weighs more than 200 pounds, gave Coleman a big smile, then crushed her in an embrace.

Advertisement

On April 24, 2017, Coleman and Wright took the train to Harrisburg to testify in support of legislation to expand the rights of convicted prisoners to DNA testing. When it was Colemans turn, she spoke in measured tones that carried a thrum of barely suppressed outrage. When I found out what happened to Tony, it was a devastating, harrowing feeling for me to know that we didnt put him there, we didnt put him in prison, but we believed what we were fed and this man suffered for 25 years. It is just an awful thing to have taken part as a family memberto have taken part in the injustice that was done to him. She continued, and it upsets me even more to know that Ronnie Byrd was walking the streets, he was committing other crimes, he hurt other families, and we didnt get any justice for my aunt.

Advertisement

The criminal justice system is only as good as the people who work inside of it.

Shortly after his release, Wright had filed a lawsuit against the city of Philadelphia seeking damages for egregious misconduct by the police. It was settled in June for nearly $10 million. Larry Krasner, who replaced Williams as Philadelphias district attorney after running on a reform platform, called the decision to compensate Wright commendable.

Advertisement

In the process of litigating Wrights civil lawsuit, his lawyers uncovered evidence that Bridget Kirn, the lead prosecutor at the retrial, had stood by silently and allowed two of the original detectives, Santiago and Jastrzembski, to perjure themselves. Fired by Krasner in January, Kirn now stands accused of professional misconduct that could lead to her disbarment. (Williams, her former boss, is currently serving a five-year sentence in federal prison for bribery and corruption.)

Advertisement

How could this have happened?

The criminal justice system is only as good as the people who work inside of it. When police detectives decide that terrorizing suspects, lying, and planting evidence is acceptable and prosecutors put securing convictions above the truth, the system fails and the consequences are catastrophic. To all of them, it seemed, Wrights life was disposable. Maybe they told themselves he was guilty anyway. He wasnt. Maybe they told themselves they were acting in service of the victims. They werent.

Advertisement

In Wrights case, as in all wrongful conviction cases, the damage rippled outward, claiming multiple victims. The senselessness and the monstrosity of what Wright and his family suffered is not fathomable. But they are not alone in their pain. Coleman and her family were profoundly traumatized, reliving the horror of their loved ones murder alongside the dawning realization that they hadhowever unwittinglysanctioned a process that locked up an innocent man while the actual rapist and murderer went free, harming more people. The system Coleman was raised to believe in with such complete trust had been revealed as a grotesque sham.

Advertisement

Amazingly, Wright and Coleman have found solace in each other. They have become close friends, in constant communication, and speak together whenever they have an opportunity to press those in power for change, however incremental. Coleman said the restorative power of this relationshipmy love for Tony has released her from her own prison of guilt and shame as she tries to remake a horrible story into a healing one.

Goggins-Joyner died of cancer in 2004. Coleman tells me, I would like to think had my mother been alive, she would have accepted the truth. She adds, I got my sense of decency from her.

Copyright 2018 by Lara Bazelon. From Rectify: The Power of Restorative Justice After Wrongful Conviction by Lara Bazelon, published by Beacon Press. Reprinted with permission.SAN ANTONIORep. Beto ORourke made it about 13 minutes into the debate before he attempted to throw the aggressive punch at Sen. Ted Cruz that hed been expected to throw.

Sen. Cruz is not going to be honest with you, ORourke said, after Cruz suggested that the El Paso congressmans concern over climate change was really a plot to seize the power to control the economy.

Hes going to make up positions and votes that I never held or have never taken, ORourke said. Hes dishonest. Its why the president called him Lyin Ted, and its why the nickname stuck. Because its true.

Advertisement

Cruz laughed as ORourke said this. He laughed at just about every attack from ORourke all night, probably because he was ready for them. Just as ORourke had planned to call Cruz Lyin Ted, Cruz had a planned his response.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Its clear Congressman ORourkes pollsters have told him to come out on the attack, Cruz said, in response to a question about whether Exxon Mobil was correct in its view that policymakers should address the issue of climate change. So if he wants to insult me and call me a liar, thats fine. But as John Adams famously said, facts are stubborn things. Returning to the facts, Cruz expanded on his view that of course the climate is changing as it has been since the dawn of time.

Advertisement

Ted Cruz won the debate, the second and final of the much-watched campaign that was never all that close. Cruz won in the sense that ORourke needed to use the debate to change the trajectory of the race, and he couldnt. ORourke always starts at a handicap: He is running as a liberal Democrat in Texas, which, despite oft-repeated rumors of turning blue, remains a blood-red state. All Cruz has to do is use combinations of radical, liberal, socialist, illegal immigrant, and extremist, over and over, and leave ORourke to negotiate the proper way to address direct questions about securing the borders or paying for Medicare for all. (On the former, it means talking about his work on enhancing data collection at ports of entry; on the latter, suggesting that hell settle for a Medicare buy-in on the insurance exchanges instead of going for the straight stuff.)

Advertisement

Advertisement

Freezing numb in the adjacent, unheated warehouse of the television studio where the debate was held, I found myself lost in the variations of Cruzs keywords. On abortion, ORourke represents the extreme pro-abortion side of the chasm; he even advocates for abortions for illegal aliens (two-for-one, there). Worse yet: ORourke supports the same judges that Hillary Clinton supported. But are they even judges, or are they left-wing judicial activists?

Advertisement

Cruz is often stricken when listening to the Democratic challenger. Its striking, Cruz would say during one of his retorts, that ORourke wont dispute his extreme record on abortions that Cruz had just laid out. Its striking, Cruz said later, that ORourke says he supports the police, when his record suggest he despises our hardworking law enforcement officers. How Cruz managed to maintain his composure despite being repeatedly struck by the words from his Democratic opponent, I dont know.

Advertisement

Congressman ORourke supports the Bernie Sanders plan of socialized medicine, Cruz said, somewhere around the middle.

The only times Cruz seems to get thrown off his game are during the layups, when the moderator asks an easy question and a read of the room favors niceties instead of calculated scare-word combinations. In the previous debate, when asked to say something nice about his opponent, Cruz said that he respected ORourkes unwavering devotion to Bernie Sanderslike socialism. During a section in Tuesdays debate about the need for restoring civility to our political discussion, Cruz agreed that its an important priority. But when the moderator jumped in with a follow up: Dont interrupt me, Jason, Cruz shot back. Jason withdrew. Cruz was allowed to deliver his speech on the importance of civility, followed by ORourke, and back to Cruz for a 60-second rebuttal to ORourkes belief that civility is important, in which Cruz observed that its not civil to impeach President Donald Trump, which according to Cruz would be high on Sen. ORourkes docket, somewhere between seizing the means of production and rationing health care.

Advertisement

Advertisement

But I shouldnt mock: Cruz is leading ORourke consistently by five to 10 points in the many, many Texas polls that have come out in recent weeks, indicating that his strategy of casting ORourke as a far-left extremist in a center-right state is working. He stuck to it on Tuesday night, suffocating ORourke with so many allegations to respond to that he barely had the oxygen to tear Cruz apart.

Advertisement

By his closing statement, Cruz had successfully drawn his lines. If ORourke had his way, you wouldnt be able to open your eyes in Texas without seeing an illegal immigrant having a partial-birth abortion. The economy would be in ruins as Democrats, led by Chairman ORourke, seized control to turn the nation into a bankrupt welfare factoryfor illegal immigrants. Judges, with alarming word-per-minute speeds, would be typing radical left-wing regulations to ration health care and obliterate business. Border walls would come down, allowing the forces of Juarez to conquer El Paso and march to the east. Police? Forget about em. Banned.

Do we choose fear, Cruz concluded, or do we choose hope?

I believe in hope.In late September, Christine Blasey Ford testified under oath that she was 100 percent sure that Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in 1982. Later that day, Kavanaugh responded by swearing with equal certainty that he did not. How do we square these two contradictory statements? A case of mistaken identity provides a neat resolution: It allows us to believe them both. Ford is sincere and wrong, her memory warped by trauma and the passage of time. Yes, someone did try to rape her in high schoolit just wasnt Kavanaugh, who is sincere and correct in his assertion of innocence. Indeed, this was the exact argument made by many Senate Republicans, eager to thread a needle between the two contradictory testimonies and get Kavanaugh confirmed.

Advertisement

It worked to whatever extent it had to, given that Kavanaugh is now a Supreme Court justice. But believers in the theory of mistaken identity should reconsider because the error theyve made matters greatly to Fords story, and to how we understand and process sexual assault more broadly.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

It makes no sense to take an empirically proven cause of wrongful convictions in stranger rape cases and apply it to a teenagers attempt to force himself on a female acquaintance. Comparing these two radically different sexual attacks is the equivalent of comparing apples to sushi. The conflation of the particularized trauma experienced by sexual assault survivors also trivializes the fact that the majority of mistaken identifications happen in stranger rape cases where the assailant is black and the victim is white. Daniel Medwed, a law professor at Northeastern University and an expert on mistaken identifications, said he was flabbergasted when the theory was floated by credible people from across the political spectrum. To call it hogwash is giving too much credit to hogs, he said. Its just absurd.

Advertisement

One of us, Jennifer, is a survivor of both an attempted sexual assault by an acquaintance in high school and a rape at knifepoint by a stranger in college. Her recollection of both events helps to highlight their difference. In the summer of 1976, when Jennifer was 14, her friend invited her to spend the weekend with her family at the beach. One afternoon, after Jennifer went upstairs to her bedroom to change her sanitary napkin, her friends father came in unexpectedly. He walked toward her, telling her how pretty she was and backing her into a corner. Jennifer awkwardly pulled up her jeans, pushed him away, and was able to slip under his arms to run downstairs.

Fords story isnt Jennifers story of rape; its Jennifers story of that afternoon at the beach, of an attempted assault by a white man she knew from her social circle.

Some details are lost: the color of her friends fathers shirt that day, the day of the week, even the name of the beach. But Jennifer can tell you this: He was white, average height, with brown hair, and his name was Jack. On a good day, he bore a passing resemblance to a well-known movie star, and he was considered to be an upstanding member of the community. Years later, he became the mayor of the town where they lived. Though the incident happened more than 40 years ago, there is no chance that she is mistaking Jack for someone else. The attempted assault left an indelible mark on Jennifers life in part because of the terror that came from realizing that someone she knew and trusted could hurt her.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Fast forward to the summer of 1984, when Jennifer was 22 and a college student in North Carolina. She was awakened in the middle of the night to find a stranger in her bedroom. Holding a knife to her throat, he whispered, Shut up or I will kill you, and then he raped her. She knew two things: that physically she could not stop what was happening, and that if she survived, she would remember every detail of his face so that the police could find him.

Advertisement

Jennifer did survive, managing to escape to a nearby neighbors house. Asked to provide a description of the perpetrator by detectives, Jennifer was able to give many details: young, African American male, light-skinned, close-cropped hair, and thin mustache. A composite sketch was made, and a man named Ronald Cotton was arrested. Jennifer identified him. She was positive it was him. Cotton was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to die in prison. But 11 years later, DNA evidence proved that he was innocent.

Advertisement

Jennifer and Ronald told their story in the 2009 best-selling book Picking Cotton. Since the Kavanaugh-Ford hearings, Jennifer has fielded several media requests asking her to explain, based on her own experience of misidentification, how Ford could have been wrong. But there is no comparison to be made between the two cases.

Fords story isnt Jennifers story of rape; its Jennifers story of that afternoon at the beach, of an attempted assault by a white man she knew from her social circle. Ford had socialized with Kavanaugh in the past; his face, voice, and body were easily recognizable to her. Indeed, she had socialized with him on the day the alleged attack occurred. And both womens stories confirm the same thing: Victims remember who it is when they know the person who is trying to violate them.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Ford even painstakingly explained, based on her own academic research, why she was certain it was Kavanaugh. But her explanation, despite being grounded in science, did not quell doubts. On Sept. 30, Kellyanne Conway told CNNs Jake Tapper that Ford might have been misremembering who was responsible for the assault. Nicholas Kristof wrote in the New York Times: Liberals should remember a basic lesson of our flawed criminal justice system: Well-meaning eyewitnesses make mistakes all the time, and memory plays terrible tricks. On Oct. 5, prior to casting her crucial vote to confirm Kavanaugh, Republican Sen. Susan Collins stated that while it was possible that Ford was sexually assaulted that night or at some other time, there was simply too much doubt that her attacker was Kavanaugh to find in her favor.

Advertisement

That is bunk. Medwed points to several markers in the data that are associated with false identification: unconscious transference, fleeting encounters, darkness, weapon focus, cross-racial identification. None of the hallmarks of mistaken ID are present in her account, he said.

Its worth lingering over cross-racial misidentification, which was a factor in Jennifer Thompson and Ronald Cottons case and is not unique. Instead, it is all too common for black men to be wrongfully convicted of raping white women. Black men account for only 13 percent of the population, but 59 percent of prisoners who have been exonerated for sexual assault crimes are black, according to a 2017 report by the National Registry of Exonerations. The major cause for this huge racial disparity, the authors wrote, appears to be the high danger of mistaken eyewitness identification by white victims in violent crimes with black assailants.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

As Medwed enumerated, the chance that the victim will pick the wrong person increases when the crime occurs at night, the crime involves a weapon, and the attacker is outside the victims racial group. The likelihood of a mistaken identification grows higher still when police provide the victim with an array of mug shots and say that they have made an arrest. At that point, the victim believes that the perpetrator must be among the array of photographsits just a matter of finding him. In these cases, the mind engages in relative judgment, with the victim choosing the photograph that most closely resembles the stranger who committed the assault.

Advertisement

All of these factors played a role in the violent assault and faulty identification procedures leading up to arrest and wrongful conviction in Picking Cotton. None were present on the afternoon when Jennifer had to fend off her best friends father in 1976or at the small gathering at a home in suburban Maryland in 1982, where Ford says a drunken Kavanaugh (whom she saw at least in the presumably lit living room) groped her, attempted to remove her clothing, and covered her mouth when she tried to scream. Attempting to equate these two kinds of crimesrapes by strangers of another race and attempted assaults by known men of the same raceby claiming each is equally susceptible to the error of sincere but mistaken identification is wrong. It does a disservice to all survivors of sexual assaultthe victims and those who are ultimately exonerated.In the past several weeks, most forecasters have lowered Democrats odds of taking back the Senate. Many red-state Senate polls have shown Republican candidates improving their positions in the post-Kavanaugh confirmation period. Perhaps heightened partisanship is the obstacle that cant be overcome for Democrats who need to win in unfriendly territory. But this doesnt entirely explain Nevada, a state where the Republican incumbent, Dean Heller, appears to now have a slight lead against Rep. Jacky Rosen. Nevada is a state that Hillary Clinton won, and in a Democratic year, it should be a very tough slog there for Heller.

Advertisement

To talk about whats happening in the Nevada race, I spoke by phone with Jon Ralston, the editor of the Nevada Independent and an expert on the states politics. Our conversation, which has been edited and condensed for clarity, is below.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Isaac Chotiner: Where do you think the race currently stands, and why?

Jon Ralston: The Senate race is within the margin of error, one way or another. There are a couple reasons it is so close. One is that the Nevada electorate is as polarized as the national electorate, and so the names are less important than party identification. The other is that Dean Heller has done everything he can to try to lose the race, and the reason he is still in it is that Jacky Rosen is so unknown, and they have been able to create doubts about her because she is so unknown.

Advertisement

What has Heller done to try to lose the race?

He has had every position you can imagine on repealing Obamacare. He stood with the governor here and said he couldnt do it, and then Trump publicly threatened him in a video you have probably seen that went viral, and then he [votes] for repeal. Health care is a huge issue in the election. And they have created a senator spineless meme about his position, and I think it has really hurt him.

Given all this, and given how vulnerable people thought Heller was, and national enthusiasm for Democrats, isnt it surprising he isnt down?

First of all, present company excepted, of course, you national media types and your telescopic view think that Heller has been dead. I have heard this for months and months and months, mostly because he is the only Republican incumbent running in a state that Hillary Clinton won. And because he makes so many mistakes. But it just isnt that way. The race has been within the margin of error all year long and people need to remember Heller has never lost a race.

Advertisement

You national media types and your telescopic view think that Heller has been dead. But it just isnt that way.  Jon Ralston

Plus, many of these recent polls are not credible polls, Isaac, and Nevada is very difficult to poll. I dont think they mean much now, other than that one is ahead by a little. Its all about how you model the electorate. We will know a lot more when we have real voting numbers to go by starting Saturday, and we will know whether turnout is up or down. If it is way up from 2014 here, Democrats will do well and Heller is in trouble.

Advertisement

What do you think of the campaign Rosen has run?

She is never going to be confused with a dynamo, or Margaret Thatcher, in terms of her speaking ability or ability to rouse the faithful. But she is a very disciplined candidate, and I think her media campaign, with a few exceptions, has been very, very good at capitalizing on Hellers weaknesses. But this campaign is not about Jacky Rosen. Its about how [her campaign has] been able to amplify certain issues about Heller and create excitement about Donald Trump on the ballot by proxy.

Advertisement

Advertisement

How popular is Trump in the state?

Trumps numbers here are not as bad as they are elsewhere. The polling shows him a few points underwater but not dramatically, mirroring Hellers numbers actually. But Heller has totally changed on Trump. He was very close to a #NeverTrump guy in 2016 and is now counting on this being a totally base election. So now he has completely embraced Trump; they are having a love affair. Trump is coming this weekend to try and energize the faithful, especially in rural Nevada, where if the faithful [turnout] is really high it could skew the election.

Has the Hispanic vote not materialized for Rosen?

Its a great question, and maybe the key question for all the races in Nevada, starting at the top of the ticket. Hispanic turnout is a big deal for the Democrats and they have managed to really boost it in the last three presidential cycles. It helped the Democrats win. But it dropped precipitously in the past midterm, and they had a wipeout from top to bottom. I know the Rosen campaign is very aware of it, and Democrats I talk to say it is not going to be the same as 2014. They only have to get it up a few points to make a big difference, because Heller is likely to lose if they get a high propensity of Latino voters out to vote.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

There was all this talk about Harry Reids machine in the last several Nevada elections. What is the status of that machine now that he is not holding elective office?

The machine is still there; Reid is only tangentially there. He has some of his people still running it and they are very good. He still has his hand in things but to a much lesser extent. We wont know how well the machine is operating until early voting starts. But in terms of the first stage, which is registering voters, they have done a very good job. They have really boosted their numbers in Clark Countrythats the Democratic area of the statewhere they need to build a firewall. You get so many votes banked in Clark Country that Republicans cant make it up in the rest of the state. We will know after two or three days of early voting whether its working or not.

Jacky Rosens seat, NV-03, is competitive. Are you surprised?

I think it will be very close. These things can break late and the Democrats and the Republicans think it will be close. [Republican] Danny Tarkanian, who has been on every ballot for the last five or six cycles and never won a general election, came very close to beating Rosen in 2016. And that was a presidential year. I think the Democrats are pretty confident, but I dont think it is by any means a sure thing to them.For all the powerful abusers exposed and censured over the past 12 months, one of the biggest accomplishments of the #MeToo movement has been the reintroduction and reframing of past misconduct. Bill Clinton has been the subject of the most prominent of these retroactive reckonings, with feminists and progressives interrogating the Democratic Partys continued embrace of a man who has been credibly accused of sexual harassment and assault, and also, while president, treated an intern like a disposable genital wipe after engaging her in an extramarital romantic and sexual affair.

Advertisement

It hasnt been easy to find a productive way into Bill Clinton Reckoning 2.0, given his lack of official political power and the unwillingness of old-school Democrats to explicitly condemn him. Further complicating the endeavor is Hillary Clinton, a fraught symbol of feminisms accomplishments and failures and a painful reminder of the overt sexism Americans voted for in 2016. To exhume Hillarys role in Bills alleged decades-long exploitation of womenas the #MeToo movement must if it intends to fully confront the forces that supported a sleazeball and alleged rapist for decadesseems a nearly impossible task in a political climate that rewards unabashed liars with Supreme Court seats and proud misogynists with rising approval ratings.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

In social movements, however, the hardest tasks are often the most essential. The 2016 election season found Michelle Goldberg arguing in Slate that although Juanita Broaddricks rape allegations against Bill Clinton were credible, her claims that Hillary Clinton had silenced and threatened her were not. But Goldberg, like most feminists at that time, still ignored what Hillarys forever-endorsement of Bill revealed about her character and commitment to womens rights: The stakes were too high to direct fire at the wife of an alleged sexual abuser when another alleged sexual abuser was her presidential opponent. The act of questioning Hillarys decision to stand by and defend Bill wouldve evoked the humiliating slights conservatives have subjected her to for the past two decades: the Hillary Sucks But Not Like Monica paraphernalia, the portrayals of the former secretary of state as a ball-buster too frigid or dykey to properly satisfy a male partner. Its difficult to imagine a good-faith assessment of Hillary Clintons role in enabling Bill Clintons abuse when bad-faith attacks still dominate the conversation, as they did when Trump invited Bills accusers to a presidential debate. The line between holding a woman to task for the company she keeps, and blaming her for her husbands actions, was too fine to discern during an election cycle that had already blinded us with rage.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Today, with the #MeToo movement maturing and both Clintons speaking out about Bills affair with Lewinsky, that line is coming into focus. In an interview with CBS correspondent Tony Dokoupil, Hillary said that affair did not constitute an abuse of power because Lewinsky, who was in her early 20s at the time, was an adult. But let me ask you this, she added. Wheres the investigation of the current [president], against whom numerous allegations have been made, and which he dismisses, denies, and ridicules? Hillarys attempt to deflect criticism echoed Bills response to similar questions in June, when he said recent reassessments of his actions have come from progressives who are merely frustrated that theyve got all these serious allegations against the current occupant of the Oval Office and his voters dont seem to care.

Advertisement

Advertisement

The problem with the Clintons whataboutism circa 2018 is that, unlike the 2016 presidential election, this isnt a Clinton vs. Trump contest. Both Bill Clinton and Donald Trump can be too amoral for public office, and theres more than enough bottled-up anger in various womens movements to target both a problematic old fave and an imminent threat to democracy. Trumps colossal shortcomings as a leader and repulsiveness as a human being were enough to spare Bill two years ago. In 2018, its become clear that a go-along-to-get-along mentality will never keep sexual abusers out of top positions in government. With Trump in the White House and Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court, feminists have far less to lose.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Now that probable 2020 presidential contender Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand has said Bill Clinton should have resigned after his affair with Lewinsky, its looking like the mainstream Democratic Partyto say nothing of its burgeoning left wingmay finally be getting around to exiling Bill from its inner sanctum. And yet, any attempt to parse Hillary Clintons role in Bills evasion of punishment for his offenses inevitably devolves into a vortex of contradictions and co-existing truths. Hillary exhibited atrocious moral, political, and intellectual judgment by staying with Bill after every revelation of his alleged and admitted sexual misconduct.

Any attempt to parse Hillarys role in Bills evasion of punishment devolves into a vortex of contradictions and co-existing truths.

But also: It would have been unthinkable for the wife of a governor or president to leave her husband while he was in office, and then go on to build a public-facing career in a mans world. But also: By standing by Bill, Hillary did a grave disservice to Lewinsky, Broaddrick, Paula Jones, and by association, all women hoping for allies as they fought to keep sexual harassers and rapists out of the workplace. But also: How could anyone expect a moderate feminist to disavow a man she loved, who had made a fair bit of political progress for women, when so many other feminists, Gloria Steinem famously among them, did not? But also: The fact that one of the worlds most visible feminists has defended one of the worlds most visible accused abusers for 20 years and counting has undoubtedly delayed an already overdue reckoning with the abuses of men in power. But also: Hillary, too, has suffered for her husbands transgressions; to impose additional consequences on hereven rhetorical oneswhile Bill evades any meaningful accountability only reinforces the gendered double standards women in politics must already surmount.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

In the Trump era, weve landed on a word to describe the silent, smiling acquiescence of women close to the president. We say they are complicitwilling instruments of both the presidents anti-woman policy agenda and the broader male-supremacist ideology he promotes. For all the harm they caused poor women and families of color, Bill Clintons policies did not approach Trumpian levels of racism and punitive sexism. But on a personal level, Hillary Clinton performed much the same role in the Clinton administration as Melania and Ivanka Trump do today. It feels deeply unfeminist to ask Hillary to revisit her husbands sexual misdeeds and answer for her role in mitigating their impact on his status in public life. But if feminists intend to complete a full audit of Bill Clintons place in the history of men getting away with serial exploitation, we must do it anyway.Mitch McConnell says that Republicans will not take any serious steps to reduce the deficit, unless they can also share blame for unpopular entitlement cuts with Democrats.

He didnt use exactly those words during his Tuesday interview with Bloomberg. But the Senate Majority Leader came close, admitting that changes to programs like Medicare and Social Security might be impossible to achieve as long as Republicans controlled both houses of Congress and the White House. It was a quietly refreshing moment, in which McConnell effectively dropped the entire charade that Republicans are a party that prioritizes fiscal prudencemaking explicit what has long been obvious to anyone who has paid the faintest bit of attention to Washington over the past decades.

Advertisement

During the interview, McConnell was asked about this weeks Treasury Department report showing that the federal deficit grew by 17 percent during fiscal year 2018, to $779 billion. Rather than acknowledge the obvious reality that the massive tax cuts Republicans passed last year had made the budget picture worse,1 McConnell opted for the standard GOP dodge and cast blame on out-of-control federal spending. Its very disturbing, he said. And its driven by the three big entitlement programs that are very popularmeaning Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Theres been a bipartisan reluctance to tackle entitlement changes because of the popularity of those programs, he added. Hopefully at some point here well get serious about this. But we havent been yet.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Republicans have exercised total control over Washington since 2017, which should have given them an opportunity to make some changes to entitlement programs if they were so inclined. Thats complicated a bit by the fact Donald Trump promised not to touch Medicare or Social Security (with some big caveats). But McConnell didnt attempt to blame the president for his partys inaction. Instead, he simply suggested that Republicans were unlikely to ever tackle spending on their own. I think its pretty safe to say that entitlement changes, which is the real driver of the debt by any objective standard, may well be difficult if not impossible to achieve when you have unified government, the majority leader said.

Advertisement

To McConnells credit, this is a fair reading of recent history. Republicans, after all, only seem to care about the deficit when they are out of power. During the Bush years, the party was happily profligate. It passed massive tax cuts, funded a disastrous war of choice in the Middle East, and added a prescription drug benefit, then balked when Bush tried to privatize Social Security. Once Obama entered office, the GOP rediscovered its inner deficit hawk, elevating Paul Ryan as its spokesman for fiscal austerity, while insisting that the white backlash movement known as the Tea Party was really a sincere cry for entitlement reform. Of course, once Obama offered to make a grand bargain that would have cut spending while raising taxes, Republicans again rebelled, because they didnt want to increase Federal revenues. (McConnell elided over that inconvenient detail in his interview, insisting that the Obama years would have been the perfect time for entitlement reform, but that, Unfortunately, it was not achieved.) With Trump in power, Republicans came within a hairs breadth of gutting Medicaid under the guise of Obamacare repeal, but were foiled by John McCains thumbs down. Other than that, theyve been happy to pass tax cuts, increase defense spending, and push forward some reductions to food stamps, which would have a negligible budget impact while cutting off aid to needy Americans. Any even-handed observer would have to look at all this and conclude that Republicans mostly see the deficit as a political club with which they can opportunistically beat Democrats, rather than an actual existential concern.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

McConnell isnt quite going that far. Instead, hes simply admitting that Republicans dont have enough courage to put their own necks on the line for fiscal conservatism. Still, its worth dwelling on the political implications of his comments.

1) McConnell thinks the deficit is a longterm threat to the country.

2) He also says that it is driven almost entirely by entitlement spending. (This is absurd, given that we could raise taxes to pay for those entitlements, but lets grant it for arguments sake).

3) Finally, he admits that it will be difficult if not impossible for Republicans to take the supposedly essential step of reforming entitlements as long as they maintain uniform control of government.

Advertisement

The obvious conclusion to all this is that, if youre the sort of person who supports entitlement reform, you should vote for Democrats, since the cause is hopeless without them.

Thats not the point McConnell is trying to make, of course. Hes just a guy sitting in front of a journalist trying to excuse his partys hypocrisy about the debt. Its OK that Republicans attacked Obama over spending, then did nothing about it themselves, he says, because the debt will only be solved through bipartisan compromise (which, um, Republicans rejected as well). Meanwhile, hes also setting the stage for Republicans to demand entitlement cuts as part of any budget deal with Democrats, should they retake the House in Novemberdespite having failed to do them on their own in the past two years. It should go without saying that Nancy Pelosi and her caucus would be absolutely insane to agree (especially since theres no evidence that the deficit is actually threatening our economy in a meaningful way right now).

Advertisement

Advertisement

It may also be dangerous to take McConnell at his word. Despite their recent track record, it still seems like that Republicans would happily cut programs like Medicaid and Social Security Disability Insurance if they had large enough Senate majorities (again, they already came close on the former).

Advertisement

Still, Mitch McConnell has now stated for the record that Republicans may never try to address the debtsupposedly one of their top policy concernsunless Democrats can take some of the blame for it. Moderate squishes of the world, take note.With less than a month to go before the election, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi can just about taste it. In an interview last week with the editorial board of the San Francisco Chronicle, Pelosi shared her belief that Democrats will win the majority and that she will return to the speakership when they do. I will be speaker if we win, she said.

Despite how much she is demonized inside and out of the party, Pelosis belief, according to numerous House Democrats and staffers Ive spoken to in the past few weeks, is well founded. Though the size of the would-be Democratic majority will determine whether shell have to fight for it, Pelosi remains the strongest bet for speakership largely because there are no other strong bets out there. Yes, there are plotters lurking in the vipers nest that is the House Democratic Caucus. But theres just no plot.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

It can often appear that Pelosi is in trouble. Earlier this year, for instance, Pennsylvania Rep. Conor Lamb, then running in his special election, recognized he could make his life a lot easier by saying he wouldnt support Pelosi for speaker. Since then, dozens of additional candidates running in difficult districts have said the same, though the wiggle room within their denunciations correlates closely to how likely they are to win. If theyre running in, say, West Virginia coal country, the disdain for Pelosi is stronger. The likelier winners hedge with vague talk about new leadership. But none of those distancing themselves from Pelosi can coalesce behind an alternative who checks all of the boxes.

Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer has been next in line behind Pelosi for decades and would mount a speakers campaign were she unable to get the 218 votes on the floor, thereby kicking off an actual race for the job. Hoyer has put in the legwork. As the No. 2 Democrat, hes helped get members legislation on the calendar and stressed their priorities on the floor. Hes also been active on the trail, campaigning, according to his office, for 83 candidates and 38 incumbents this cycle across a full spectrum of districts. He would be an experienced hand in negotiations with the Trump administration.

Advertisement

Yes, there are plotters lurking in the vipers nest that is the House Democratic Caucus. But theres just no plot.

But its 2018 in Democratic politics, and there would be an optics problem for Hoyer. It wouldnt look great to replace a female speaker, whos raised nine figures for the party this cycle and would have just won the majority, on the mantra of generational change or fresh leadership with her slightly older, white male deputy, particularly if fed-up women are the voters delivering Democrats the majority.

The assistant Democratic leader and highest-ranking black American in the House, Rep. Jim Clyburn, would also explore a speakership bid. Hes the third member of the aging troika thats led House Democrats for the past decade, and though a Clyburn speakership too wouldnt exactly jibe with the idea of generational change, he would have the potential to make history as the first black speaker.

Advertisement

Advertisement

But Clyburn would have to get through Hoyer first, something he was unable to do in the whip election of 2010. There are also persistent complaints that Clyburn doesnt do enough for the party, or that members dont even know what he does. Further, theres a split within the Congressional Black Caucus. Those who are closest to Clyburn, like his mentee, Rep. Cedric Richmond, as well as Reps. Bennie Thompson and Marcia Fudge, have been pushing for a Clyburn speakership; some other, newer members would like to see generational change within the caucus too.

Advertisement

Who else, then?

The current No. 4 leader, New York Rep. Joe Crowley, is leaving in January, having been defeated by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in his New York primary. The next-highest-ranking Democrat is California Rep. Linda Sanchez, the vice chair of the caucus. Shes already running to replace Crowley as caucus chairman, though, and more importantly, shes viewed as a dead person walking after she publicly called for generational change at the top. Pelosi didnt appreciate that, and some of the CBC members didnt appreciate it either, viewing her comments as a slight toward Clyburn. With opposition from Rep. Barbara Leeso farSanchez is far from a shoe-in for chairman, let alone speaker.

Advertisement

Another speakership name thats come up is California Rep. Adam Schiff, whos built a following battling Rep. Devin Nunes on the House Intelligence Committee. But if Democrats are in the majority, would Schiff really want to give up his subpoena power over President Trump as chairman of that committee?

Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan could also mount another bid against Pelosi in a rematch of the long-shot campaign he launched two years ago. But Ryan has Iowa on the mind, and may not be interested. Should he change his mind, though, hell start with a handicap: If Pelosis allies in the chamber have the knives out for Linda Sanchez, they have machetes for Ryan.

Advertisement

Advertisement

More broadly: If its not Pelosi, the first image of the new majority would be an embarrassing scramble to find a new leader. I dont think very many Democrats want that. So instead, the wisest bet is still that Pelosi will ride the wave of good press shell receive after successfully returning her party to the majorityshould that happenback to the speakership. It might require some work, but she has tools at her disposal: placements on commissions and boards, control of the steering committee, and general committee assignments. Shell also have the ability to help members pay off their campaign debts and the wherewithal to remind them that she raised oodles of cash for their campaigns in the first place.

This power and position is why, when I recently asked a senior Democratic House aide what would happen if Democrats had a 10-seat majority and 11 members were on the record saying they wouldnt support Pelosis speakership, that aide answered simply, 10 is plenty to work with.The tax bill is part of a bigger theme that were going to call The Great American comeback, said Ohio Rep. Steve Stivers, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, at the committees planning retreat in February. If we stay focused on selling the tax reform package, I think were going to hold the House and things are going to be OK for us.

Republicans tried to stay focused. They talked about the tax cuts and touted economic growthAfter years of stagnation, our economy is finally on the rise. By just about any economic measure, the American people are better off now, said House Speaker Paul Ryan over the summer. But as of Tuesday, just three weeks before the midterm elections, Republicans are trailing Democrats by nearly 9 percentage points in the congressional generic ballot. FiveThirtyEight gives them a 1 in 5 chance of holding a majority in the House of Representatives. President Trump is still historically unpopular, moderate and independent voters are leaving the GOP in droves, and Democrats are highly motivated to vote.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

With the party behind and bereft of further accomplishments to show voters, Republicans have abandoned their script. Instead, theyve embraced the path set out by Trump in the 2016 presidential election: constant, unyielding demonization of their opponents.

Trump, of course, is leading the charge. If Democrats are willing to cause such destruction in the pursuit of power, just imagine the devastation they would cause if they obtained the power they so desperately want, he said last week at a rally in Kansas, attacking Americans who gathered at the U.S. Supreme Court building to protest the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh. You dont hand matches to an arsonist, and you dont hand power to an angry, left-wing mob, and thats what they have become.

Advertisement

Congressional Republicans are on the same page. They have encouraged mob rule, said Chuck Grassley, attacking Senate Democrats. Likewise, in an interview with NPR, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell cited the mob when he praised Republicans for confirming Kavanaugh. We stood up to the mob, and we also stood up for the presumption of innocence in this country, McConnell said.

Republicans in tight re-election fights have also begun slamming their opponents as terrorists and terrorist sympathizers. In California, Rep. Duncan Hunter has accused Democratic opponent Ammar Campa-Najjar as being a security risk, attempting to tie him to Islamists and radical Muslims trying to infiltrate the U.S. government. This is false, but Hunterunder federal investigation for misuse of campaign fundsis vulnerable and has made anti-Muslim bigotry a key part of his campaign.

Advertisement

Advertisement

In Virginia, where Republican Rep. Dave Brat faces Democrat Abigail Spanberger in a closely watched race for the states 7th District, a GOP super PAC aligned with Paul Ryan has run ads attacking Spanberger for her ties to a Muslim high school in Northern Virginia where she briefly taught English. In 2005, a graduate of that high school was sentenced to 30 years in prison for attempted terrorism. Theres no substance to the attack: Its guilt by association that, like Hunters charge, leans on anti-Muslim prejudice.

Advertisement

Whats striking about these attacks, and the charges of mob rule in particular, is how they seek to delegitimize Democrats and Democratic opposition. Its not just that Republican lawmakers disagree with their Democratic challengers positions, its that the latter are pawns for Americas enemies. Like Republicans in the wake of Obama, Democrats are channeling grass-roots energy in boisterousbut normalexpressions of political behavior. But to Trump and the Republican Party, this isnt democracy in action, its an illegitimate violation of the political order.

Advertisement

Whats striking about these attacks, and the charges of mob rule in particular, is how they seek to delegitimize Democrats and Democratic opposition.

You can understand President Trumps constant (and false) reference to paid protesters as a similar declaration of disbelief in civil society opposition. Real Americans, in the presidents view, arent protestingtheyre at his rallies, shouting down the free press.

Advertisement

None of this is new, strategywise. During the George W. Bush administration, Republicans routinely cast Democrats as weak on terror to the point of accusing them of sympathizing with terrorist aims. During Barack Obamas tenure in the White House, conservative activists cast liberals and liberal policy as existential threats to the republic. But in age of democratic backslidingwhere a president who praises dictators is actively hostile to democratic norms and representative institutions, and where his party is fighting to entrench rule by minoritythese attacks take on a more sinister light, particularly given their frequency and lack of any grounding in reality.

Republicans arent favored in November, but they could still win. And if the attacks on Democratic candidates and agitators are serious, and not just rhetoric, then they could have real consequences. Already, Trump is pursuing restrictions on protest at the White House. With his regular chants of state action against his Democratic rivalsLock Her Up!are we confident he wont try to actualize the latter? If he and his party faces down a blue wave and survives, we might be in deeper than we realize.Earlier this month, the Associated Press reported that one of the results of the Trump administrations family-separation program is going to be permanent legal separation in some cases. The AP reported that in the past, separated children in federal or state government care were adopted by American families, frequently without any input or participation from their deported parents. The speed with which children in state care can be permanently separated from their parents, however, isnt Donald Trumps doing, and it affects many more children than those caught up in this latest crackdown on undocumented immigrants. For 20 years, federal law has encouraged state child-protection agencies and courts to put hard time limits on family-reunification efforts. The result is that many parents who are good candidates to care for their children nevertheless end up with their legal rights terminated.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

This state of affairs has its roots in the child-protection systems of the 1970s and 80s. Back then, there was widespread criticism that states were letting children languish in impermanent foster placements, including group homes, and that biological parents who had committed serious abuse were given too many chances to get their children back. In 1997, when the federal government acted to create uniformity in state child-protection systems, the number of children in state custody had nearly doubled over the preceding 15 years, while adoptions had barely increased. That year, President Bill Clinton signed the Adoption and Safe Families Act, which created financial incentives for states to streamline the process for termination of parental rights. Since then, every state has adopted laws that create a timeline of roughly two years for cases where children are placed in state care.

Advertisement

As a lawyer who represents children and parents in child-protection proceedings, I can see the logic in the 1997 reforms: Some parents are simply too lost to addiction, long prison sentences, or intractable mental illness to be able to get their kids back. For children in such circumstances, sooner is definitely better.

But the legal deadlines also create perverse incentives. Courts and state agencies are pressured to terminate parents rights even if an adoptive family has not been identified and even if the parents might soon be ready to take their kids home. Meanwhile, black and Hispanic children, who make up a disproportionate share of children in state care, remain less likely to be adopted than white children. Further, recent research suggests that for older children, children with special needs, and others less likely to be adopted, the maintenance of biological relationships is more important than the relatively abstract permanence that comes from a quick end to court proceedings.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Our child-protection system is designed to show efficiency through superficial measures without a great concern for long-term outcomes.

Addiction provides the most common example of how these time limits can go wrong. Parents who have had their children removed because of alcohol or drug addiction routinely take between six months and a year to engage with counseling and begin to get clean. Its not uncommon for them to suffer at least one relapse. But judges frequently deem parents periods of sobriety immediately before trialeven for six or eight monthsinsufficient to prove long-term rehabilitation. And neither judges nor child-protection agencies are inclined to imperil federal grants to give a parent the opportunity to demonstrate a full year of clean living. I have seen more decisions than I can count that employ some version of this reasoning, from a 2016 case where the mother had been drug-free for six months: [The mothers] current sobriety is too fragile, too untested, and too unreliable to reasonably permit the inference that she has actually developed the internal resources that will ensure she will put the needs of [her children] above her own needs.

Advertisement

State child welfare agencies also face budget pressures that discourage them from pursuing reunification with suitable parents where the costs will be high because the parent is out of state or abroad. Even when a parent is separated from a child not by his own bad conduct but by logistical barriers, agencies simply shrug. In one case I handled, a baby was born in Connecticut and the father was in Nigeria and couldnt get a visa to come get his child. The child welfare agency refused to contact the State Department to explain why the father should be granted a visa and even declined to spend money to facilitate Skype contact between the father and his baby. Later, when it appeared that a visa would be granted, the trial judge refused to postpone a trial on termination of the fathers parental rights. In another case, a father was in Puerto Rico and had never met his child in Connecticut. The state agency offered to fly him up for a visit on a certain weekend, and when he said that he couldnt take that particular weekend off because he would lose his job, the agency did not offer any alternative date but instead argued that it showed he was not truly committed to caring for his daughter.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Our child-protection system is designed to show efficiency through superficial measures without a great concern for long-term outcomes. Deported parents are simply the most salient example of a much broader class of casespractically all of which involve poor families and families of colorwhere the costs and complications of reunification are prioritized over the best interests of families.

Recent thinking among child-protection lawyers and scholars has recognized that the pendulum may have swung too far from parents rights toward quick adoptions and that this isnt even good for many children. Studies show that when children are old enough to know their biological parents at the time theyre removed, they tend to want to maintain a relationship with them, even if theyre never reunified. Unfortunately, child welfare laws havent caught up to the state of experts understanding. Most states make adoption one of the most permanent legal processes on the books: Once it occurs, even a valid appeal of the termination of a biological parents rights cant reverse it. Likewise, most states dont allow child-protection judges to make post-adoption orders to maintain contact between children and their birth parents.

Advertisement

Advertisement

While a change at the federal level to relax the strict adoption timelines seems unlikely, states can and should work harder to reunify parents and children and to maintain contact between children and their birth parents even after parental rights have been terminated. Child welfare agencies also need well-funded, independent oversight, and parents and children need well-resourced lawyers to make sure that the agencies arent letting the pressure of federal timelines push them toward the cheapest or most obvious resolutions, instead of those that are actually best for families. A handful of high-profile cases, like the case of Felipe Montes in North Carolina, have shown that a parents deportation need not be an insurmountable barrier to reunification, but the local child-protection agency has to be willing to go outside its comfort zone and work with foreign governments and U.S. immigration authorities to make it happen. But for this to happen, state legislatorsand the voters who choose themmust recognize that supporting children requires good funding and responsible management for the local agencies that have the greatest impact on those peoples lives.President Trump told reporters Wednesday that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is doing his best to find out from Saudi Arabia what happened to missing journalist Jamal Khashoggi but made sure to point out that Saudi Arabia buys a lot of weapons from the U.S. and that hes not sure if theres really video or audio evidence of his murder in the Saudi consultate in Istanbul two weeks ago.

President Trump says he has asked for the audio of Jamal Khashoggis killing  "if it exists" https://t.co/dSVfoAdCz7 pic.twitter.com/eyNfrKYenG  CNN (@CNN) October 17, 2018

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Pompeo, Trump said, spent a lot of time with the Crown Prince, and hes going to have a full report.  I want to find out what happened and where is the fault.  We are going to have a long talk. (Pompeo said Saudi officials didnt want to talk about the facts of whether Khashoggi was alive or not and that he was waiting for the results of an investigation.)

Trumps view on the Khashoggi disappearance and increasingly detailed leaks from Turkey about his alleged brutal murder at the hands of Saudis close to the Crown Prince has been scattered. The president has veered from saying Khashoggi had probably been killed; to, after speaking with King Salman, speculating that rogue killers were responsible; to comparing Saudi Arabia to Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh (Here we go again with, you know, youre guilty until proven innocent)all the while repeating frequently that Saudi Arabia insists its not responsible ("[Bin Salman] said very strongly that he and his father knew nothing) and that the kingdom is scheduled to buy a lot of weaponry from the U.S.

Advertisement

When a reporter asked why Trump hasnt sent the FBI to Turkey to investigate, Trump pointed out, He wasnt a citizen of this country for one thing.

Advertisement

Meanwhile, Turkish officials and media outlets have reported that several of the 15 Saudis who traveled to Istanbul on the day of Khashoggis disappearance are close (sometimes literally) to Crown Prince bin Salman. A senior Turkish official told the New York Times that its government has audio of Khashoggis murder revealing that Saudis severed his fingers and later beheaded and dismembered him. Trump said about any possible audio evidence Wednesday, We have asked for it if it exists and We dont know if it exists yet, while admitting that it probably does.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Republicans on Capitol Hill have been a bit more aggressive but are still buying the Trump administrations current Wait until theres been a credible investigation line.

MCCONNELL says "I cant imagine there will be no response" to Khashoggi's death, but says a decision on response won't happen until @SecPompeo tells Congress the investig was credible.



"I want to hear what Mike has to say before I decide what I think we ought to do," he says.  Frank Thorp V (@frankthorp) October 17, 2018

Advertisement

AdvertisementGreetings, Future Tensers,

While voice-enabled assistants like Siri and Alexa have made the lives of millions of Americans a little easier, the software systems they run on are not great at accommodating a particular group of users: those with speech disabilities and impairments. This means that the 7.5 million people who have trouble using their voice and the more than 3 million people who stutter in the U.S. are largely being left out of the voice-assistant revolution. This lack of accessibility becomes even more glaring when you consider that many individuals with speech disabilities also have limited mobility and motor skills, meaning they might benefit more from such digital assistants. Moira Corcoran reports on the smaller tech companies and startups that have started to work on software thats more inclusive of all speech, and what larger firms like Amazon and Microsoft have to say about making more individualized and accessible technologies.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Elsewhere on Slate, weve been focusing on the politics of social media. April Glaser wrote about Facebooks latest purge of political spamthis time, from American-run accounts and profiles, not Russian ones. Heather Schwedel asks, how easy is it to keep your wedding guests off social media? (Spoiler: As Princess Eugenies request for her guests to avoid posting online about her wedding hilariously tells us, its fairly hopeless.) And Will Oremus describes the new gadgets coming out of Google and Facebookand how repeated lapses in security and privacy might cause consumers to think twice before buying.

Other things we read between watching episodes of Snapchat TV:

Watched: Aaron Mak explores how much Jamal Khashoggis Apple Watch could theoretically tell us about what happened when he disappeared inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.

Advertisement

Junk science: Sen. Elizabeth Warrens recent disclosure of her DNA ancestry test sets a dangerous precedent, as James Erwin explains.

Whos we? In the wake of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changes alarming report last week, Genevieve Guenther examines why writing things like We are emitting more carbon dioxide than ever obscures who has actually been most complicit in causing this global threat.

Advertisement

Like swatting flies: New legislation may grant sweeping powers for federal authorities to shoot down civilian drones. Faine Greenwood explains how the law might go too far in impeding journalism and other legitimate drone uses.

Walkie-talkies: Christina Bonnington reports on the next generation of smartphone technology that emphasizes voice interactions and artificial intelligence over more traditional app, camera, and processing-speed updates.

Microsofts renaissance man: Will Oremus covers the death of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, and what his varied accomplishments tell us about the tech and tech titans we have today.

Events:

Join Future Tense in D.C. on Thursday, Oct. 25, for a happy hour conversation exploring the legacy of the Spanish flu and whether, 100 years later, were ready for the next pandemic. You can RSVP here.

To Kanyes new iPhone passcode,

Anthony Nguyen

For Future Tense

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University.The last several years have revised how many Americans see the massive tech platforms that monopolize the time we spend online. Theres the Russian-abetted role played by social media during the 2016 election, whose aftermath has forced executives from Facebook, Twitter, and Google to repeatedly explain to Congress what they knew about Kremlin-linked content designed to widen divisions in American lifeand why they didnt do more to stop it. Theres our deepening understanding of how these companies targeted advertising systems can lead to discrimination by age, race, gender, and more. There are the very real privacy concerns they have forced us to confront, from the Cambridge Analytica scandal to the recent massive Facebook hack. Among some Republicans, theres the more dubious worry that the social-media platforms are plagued by anti-conservative bias. On both sides of the aisle, there appears to be a growing feeling that something must be done by Congress to regulate how these companies treat our information.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

One of the loudest voices in the Senate pushing for concrete action is Virginia Democrat Mark Warner. He is the vice-chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which continues to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 election. And he has begun to urge Congress to move beyond its high-profile hearings with tech leaders like Facebooks Mark Zuckerberg and Twitters Jack Dorsey and craft meaningful new regulations. In a recent interview for Slates tech podcast If Then, Warner discussed why Democrats and Republicans gave Silicon Valley a pass for so long, what kinds of privacy protections could realistically be approved by Congress, and how U.S. cybercapabilities are falling behind countries like China and Russia. Our interview has been edited for clarity.

Advertisement

Read or listen to our conversation below, or get the show via Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

April Glaser: Earlier this year, you released a white paper outlining various possibilities for how Congress might be able to do more to ensure that these tech companies arent making our elections awful and acting irresponsibly with our personal data. In your opinion, whats the most urgent issue with U.S. tech companies and social media platforms that can be addressed by Congress?

Advertisement

Mark Warner: Well, I think we need to move past where weve been the last 10 years, where people in business and in politics have been totally enamored by the social media companies and the tech companies. Amazon, Google, Facebook, Twittertheyve all been wonderfully successful stories. But I think starting in 2016, weve seen the kind of dark underbelly of social mediahow, in the case of our elections, Russians were able to come in and intervene in massive ways with fake information, with disinformation. That was the political contextwhat weve also seen has been manipulation around stock prices, around advertising clickthroughs. My background was in technology: I was in the wireless industry, co-founder of Nextel. I come with a little bit of knowledge. Many of my colleagues had very little knowledge. What Ive tried to do in this paper is to say, Here are 20 ideas, not all of them good, but I tried to break them into three buckets on how we might think about guardrails.

Advertisement

Advertisement

One bucket is around user authentication and data authentication. Should we have some right to know if someone represents themselves on the internet, if they are that real person, or should we have a right to know whether were being communicated to by a human versus a bot? Should we be able to know, for example, where a post might originate from? None of these will solve all issues, but there is that whole question around authentication.

Advertisement

The second bucket is around privacysomething I know, April, that youve been working on for some timeand everything from first-party consent to the whole slightly clunky GDPR approach to privacy protections.

The third bucket are questions around whether there are pro-competition tools, where some of these enterprises have become so large and so powerful that, actually, could there be market-based solutions that might provide some relief? For example, being an old telecom guy, it used to be really hard [for consumers] to move from one company to another until there was number portability. Should we increase data portability? If you had increased data portability, we could take all of your data that you have on Facebook and move to a new platform. How do you also guarantee interoperability? One of the issues I raised, for example, with [Facebook COO] Sheryl Sandberg was, wouldnt it be great if users could know not only how much data Facebook or Google or Twitter has on us by individual data points, but also how much that is worth on a monthly or quarterly basis for those companies? So bringing more transparency, both to data and pricing, might then provide, for example, areas for new competitors to come in that might end up either mediating between a user and a platform to provide different levels of security based upon a users wants.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Will Oremus: You talked about those three buckets, and there are a lot of good ideas in the paper. Where do we start, though? Which one do you think is most urgent, or which one can Congress actually achieve meaningful action on in the near-term future?

Warner: I think thats an open question. What I try to tell my friends in the tech community is we are one incident away from a massive overreaction. Let me give you my semi-worst-case prediction. Someone will do a major cyberhack, a la an Equifax or what weve seen recently with Facebook, in terms of personal informationbut instead of being 30 million users, say, 300 million userstake that personalized information, communicate with individuals with that personal data that will make folks open up the message or the post and then theyll see a deepfake video of images of a politician or a business leader or others. And then founders will come in and go too far. So I do hope the companies would work with us closer. Some of the low-hanging fruit is an areathis will not solve all problems by any meansbut just this notion that Twitter and Facebook said they were willing to move, to let individuals know whether they are being communicated with by a human being or a bot.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Now, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with being communicated with by a machine, but maybe at least having that data point would allow people to make judgments on how much they want to believe or not. I also think, and this gets more cumbersome, when we talk about massive amounts of data moving into the cloud, if somebody says theyre Will and posting from, you know, from the Valley, but the post is actually originating in St. Petersburg, Russia, maybe there ought to be a geo-indicator that would pop up again. You could validate or understand the post. You could still judge it, but you could at least know that it may not be originating from where the so-called user would indicate. Those are things that I think members can get their arms around that doesnt seem to be too intrusive.

Advertisement

Advertisement

A much more intrusive area, that folks could understand that this would have huge pushback and would be way too radical to start with, would be the whole question of being able to get rid of anonymity on the web and move toward identity validation. We have seen countries such as Estonia, which has had so much interference from Russia where the Estonian population basically made an agreement that they would validate by both biometrics and enhanced passcodes, identity validation. You might end up then with two webs. One that is still kind of the wild, wild west, one where there is identity validation. Because we are seeing a move, unfortunately, toward the Balkanization of the internet. And as more and more countries try to move toward maintaining local control over their users dataIndia, the most recent example, obviously, China more on the extreme.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Whats doable, Will, in the short term I think, is easier around human versus machine, maybe geocoding, maybe some of the areas around the idea of first-party consent, around issues of privacy. Im very interested in the pro-competitive areas, so that there is a way of recognizing government is pretty slow on the regulatory front. If there is a way do this on a more competitive model, that would probably take a little bit more work in terms of educating members.

Glaser: So, Senator, you say that you fear an overreaction, but it seems that now Congress really isnt doing much in terms of getting behind some of the policy options that youve outlined. There are bills that have been proposed and it doesnt seem that any have a lot of support. I am curious, though: How powerful are the tech lobbyists in influencing Congress here or causing Congress to drag their feet? I mean, whether its between lobbyists, public interest groups, and constituents, Im curious whos at the table with these conversations here.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Warner: Well, the conversations in a meaningful way have started literally in the last six to nine months. You know for a year to a year and a half after the 2016 elections, Facebook and Twitter kind of dragged their feet thinking that we would simply go away and Google, frankly, didnt even engage. And frankly, Google, still to their detriment, are refusing to engage in a meaningful way. So I think that it was only after, for example, the Cambridge Analytica hack it became clearat least Facebook started to realize that we werent going awayto policy makers and Americans were demanding an action. Look at the decreased use among millennials on Facebookalthough theyd simply be moving to Instagram and other Facebook properties, so its not like were moving to a more competitive landscape.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Its only been recently that [these companies] have fully engaged. I think theres been, among the Democrats, there was this kind of enamored feeling, particularly out of the Obama administration, toward the tech community at large. And I think among the Republicans, there was this natural inclination not to be for any kind of regulatory structure and thats combined with the fact that many of them, folks I work with, dont even understand how these technologies work as a basic business model, which has made this a bit of an education process in moving both partiesDemocrats to the point of saying, Hey, you gotta have some guardrailsthat doesnt mean youre anti-tech, and moving to the Republicans to say, Hey, just because were talking about privacy, because were talking about how we can increase more competition. Youve got to look at guardrails as well.

Advertisement

In an area like this where America has always taken the lead, our failure to take the lead has allowed, for example, the Europeans to move forward with GDPR. What I am starting to see is in kind of cousin areasanother place where I am very active is trying to make sure within the internet of things, next-generation connected devices, that we build-in basic security on the front end. That should have been a no-brainer. We still havent got that passed so now instead youre seeing, like, Japan starting to take the model of my legislation, bipartisan legislation, and start to use that for their own Internet of Things security rule-making. I think Americas failure to lead in a lot of these areas is going to come back and bite us.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Glaser: You say in your policy paper that there is no form of deterrence now against foreign manipulation on U.S. social media. Im curious if you have a sense of what an appropriate response from the U.S. would look like here.

Warner: Well, since the paper we are seeing government up its game. Let me speak to government first, and then talk about the companies. Part of this is government, and part of this is our structure. If Russia, with its hackers out of the IRA or out of its spy services are creating fake accounts and trying to interfere or hack into our election security, it is the responsibility of the CIA to follow that abroad or the NSA to try to have the cyberabilities to intercept those communications. Once somebody presses send, though, and that information then appears on your device here in America, all that responsibility is transferred over to the FBI and Department of Homeland Security. So this real wall we have, which I think worked for a long time between our domestic services and our foreign servicesIm not saying they need to be rethought, but it does make it more challenging in this realm of misinformation and disinformation.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Also, I would argue in the cyberrealm that weve not had a cyber doctrine since 9/11. We need them. This goes back. This is not just a problem with Trump. Its Obama, its Bush, and thats meant that near-peer adversaries like Russia and China have been able to either steal our intellectual property a la China or hack into the OPM a la China or interfere in our elections a la Russia with the IRA and the GRU. Weve been reluctant to use any of our tools to push back, so weve kind of been a punching bag. Now that gets us into the whole realm of offensive cybercapabilities would probably be a longer conversation than we would have today. But we need an articulated cyberdoctrine. Frankly, not just us, but the West at large should have some policies that say if you use certain cybertools and we can define which ones, you know that were going to have retribution, were really going to be willing to punch back, but thats one conversation.

Advertisement

Advertisement

On the companies part, they have also started to up their game and weve seen Facebook and Twitter take down accounts. Not as much action on Google. Weve seen Microsoft, for example, a couple of months ago, indicate both Iranian and other accounts they were taking down. They have upped their game some, but what weve seen from the most recent Facebook hack or the much more egregious Google hack that they sat on for six months before they even reported. This is still not a top priority for the companies.

Advertisement

Glaser: What are your thoughts on these companies trying to get their products into China and forgoing human rights protections that theyd adhere to in the U.S. and also potentially exposing their artificial intelligence work, which the U.S. military is interested in using as well, to the Chinese government? Is there a role for Congress to play in constraining how these companies move into China?

Advertisement

Warner: Absolutely. And I say this as somebody whose thinking has changed dramatically on China. Five years ago I thought there was ability to peacefully rise together. I still would hope for that, but I think that the reality of the threat that China poses, the fact that the Alibabas and Baidus and Tencents are in a sense almost agents of the state, as we see Huawei and ZTE and the telecom area try and dominate the 5G standards. I think it is remarkable that some of these American companies, purely for financial gain, are willing to sacrifice their principles and give up their crown jewels to try to get access to the Chinese market. So Im leading a bipartisan effort to really get some more of this information declassified, not only to warn the tech companies, but to warn others in terms of, buyer beware.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Not saying we dont do business with China, but Im saying we need a greater sense of protection and frankly, some of these companies, particularly companies that say they want to do no evilI dont know how they can square that when they would suddenly provide search engines where the Chinese government has enormous ability to spy and surveil its own people. I would hate to see an American company be part of that. So we need to do more disclosure to our American companies. We need to press them a little bit on, really, are you willing to kind of sacrifice all of your principles to get into this market and, again, I think we need to be willing to call out some of these Chinese tech companies who frankly are very much tools of the Chinese Communist Party. At least, if not directly, indirectly.

Advertisement

Oremus: Sen. Warner, lets say you have a constituent that comes to you and says, Look, I use Google, I use Facebook, Im really afraid about how theyre harvesting all my data. We had the Google Plus breach that at least exposed our personal data. We had the giant Facebook hack and the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Your constituent says, I use these services and Im afraid that I dont feel like I have a choice. Now when they testified to you in Congress, these companies said, Oh, of course people have choices. There are plenty of other social networks, theres search engines. Do you buy that answer and that is what you tell your constituent or is there something else?

Advertisement

Advertisement

Warner: No, I dont buy that answer. You cant opt out even if youre not on Facebook. You may have friends who are, who all have information about you. These are companies with as much power, if not more, than even the giant trusts, the railroad and chemical and shipping industries at the beginning of the 20th century. I think we are going to have to have this reckoning with them. But I have been concernedI dont want to undercut the American companies to have them replaced by Chinese companies that may even have more information and even less restraints. Thats why I go, for example, on the information piece, Im really intrigued with this idea of more transparency.

Advertisement

Advertisement

If a user really knew how much information Facebook has or Google has about that individual and if we actually had pricing transparency as wellbecause a lot of Americans believe, Oh my gosh, this is all free stuff. This isnt free. This is people harvesting information about each of us and they are monetizing it. If we had more transparency on that, that might inject more competition or might move us quicker on trying to put some guardrails. Again, I dont want to stop innovation, I dont want to slow it with undue regulation, but I frankly believe that this is a personal security threat. I believe that its a national security threat. I honestly believe, in a certain sense, looking at our $7 billion or $13 billion defense budget, we may be buying in this country the worlds best 20th century military in terms of tanks and trucks and rockets, whereas our near-peer adversaries like Russia and China are realizing cyber and misinformation and disinformation may be the tools of conflict in the 21st century. And Im not sure were fully prepared.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Glaser: What can Americans that are concerned about these issues do?

Warner: Id love to give you a clearer answer. Id say write or email your congressmen or senators, but for many of the members, maybe the young aide whos reading the post will understand it. Im not sure that some of our members will. I mean, one of the things weve done on the Intelligence Committee was we spent an awful lot of time trying to educate folks about how, in this case, the Russians were using these tools. And I was really proud when we had Jack Dorsey and Sheryl Sandbergyou know, nobody went off and started speculating about bias and algorithms. They got to the house and it was a very different matter. I think the questions were more serious, but boy, oh boy, we do need to continue to educate members, hopefully in a bipartisan way, so that we can get to the point of some guardrails.

I think continuing to have individuals contact their congresspeople and senators and say, particularly if they have concerns about the amount of information that these companies have about us. We have this huge concern that the government has all this information on us as individuals. I can assure you that if youre an active Facebook or active Google user, those companies have more information about your personal habits and what you do and where you shop and what youre interested in than the United States government has.Listen to If Then by clicking the arrow on the audio player below, or get the show via Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

Get More If Then Slate Plus members get extended, ad-free versions of our podcastsand much more. Sign up today. Join Slate Plus Subscribe to If Then Copy this link and add it in your podcast app. copy link copied! For detailed instructions, see our Slate Plus podcasts page.

On this weeks If Then, Will Oremus and April Glaser discuss the continuing saga that is Facebooks effort to fix itselfideally, without breaking everything else. On Friday, the company finally released more information about the huge hack that it announced last month, which affected nearly 30 million people. Theyll talk about what was stolen and why it matters.

Advertisement

Then, April and Will are joined by Sen. Mark Warner, from Virginia, the top democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, conducting its investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. This summer he released a policy paper proposing possible regulations for U.S. social media and technology companies. Our hosts talk to him about what worries him most about the largely unregulated tech industry that cant seem to keep our data private and stop muddying our elections. They also ask him what he thinks Congress can do to rein these companies in and why lawmakers havent been quick to act.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

10:44 - Interview with Sen. Mark Warner

31:40 - Dont Close My Tabs

Stories discussed on the show:

Advertisement

Slate: The Many Lives of Paul Allen

Slate: The Facebook Hack Could Haunt Its Victims for Years to Come

Slate: How to Tell Whether Your Account Was Hit by the Massive Facebook Hack

Slate: Facebook Purged a Ton of Political SpamFrom Americans, Not Russians

A white paper from Sen. Mark Warner: Potential Policy Proposals for Regulation of Social Media and Technology Firms

The Atlantic: Mark Warner Is Coming for Techs Too-Powerful

Dont Close My Tabs:

The New Yorker: The Growth of Sinclairs Conservative Media Empire

New York magazine: Here Is a List of Every Animal Humans Currently Monitor Using Facial Recognition Technology

Podcast production by Max Jacobs

If Then plugs:

You can get updates about whats coming up next by following us on Twitter @ifthenpod. You can follow Will @WillOremus and April @Aprilaser. If you have a question or comment, you can email us at ifthen@slate.com.

If Then is presented by Slate and Future Tense, a collaboration among Arizona State University, New America, and Slate. Future Tense explores the ways emerging technologies affect society, policy, and culture. To read more, follow us on Twitter and sign up for our weekly newsletter.Some selected Slovak soldiers are set to participate in the exercise to take place by the turn of October in Scandinavia and Italy.

Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled

In the upcoming weeks, Slovak soldiers are going to participate in NATOs largest military exercise, Defence Ministry spokeswoman Danka Capakova told the TASR newswire. She added that it will be the most extensive exercise of the Alliance since the end of the Cold War, with up to 45,000 soldiers.

Our soldiers, together with their colleagues from partner countries, will practice NATOs ability to plan and implement the contents of Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, from the tactical training of troops to command structures, Defence Minister Peter Gajdos said, as quoted by TASR. Such exercises are indispensable for the unity and interoperability of the Alliance.

The NATO exercise will be divided into two separate parts, TASR wrote on October 16, citing Capakova. Within the exercise of the staff (TRJ18 CPX), five Slovak soldiers in Italy will be involved in planning and coordinating intelligence activities, setting targets, logistics of air operations, use of air defence elements, as well as managing fire support, said the spokeswoman, adding that another four will be involved in the field part (TRJE18 LIVEX) in Norway, fulfilling specific tasks in relation to planning and managing ground and air operation, RCHBO (radiation, chemical and biological protection) activities, the protection of forces and medical support for the operation.

Impressive volume

Members of the Slovak Armed Forces will participate in the Trident Juncture 2018 exercise with soldiers of 31 NATO allied and partner countries. According to Capakova, approximately 150 airplanes, 70 ships and more than 10,000 vehicles will be used during the exercise, to be held from October 25 to November 23 in central and eastern Norway and surrounding areas, as well as Italy, the Sme daily wrote.The attack by the so far unknown perpetrators was targeted.

News: Receive favorite authors articles by email. Try the new feature and turn on the subscription.

Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled

The Foreign Ministry has become the target of a cyber-attack from abroad, the Sme daily wrote on October 17, citing the Military Intelligence Service at the Security Council session.

Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini reported the attack to the media, adding that it is impossible to specify right now who is behind the attack, and from which country they originate. Pellegrini also said Slovakia has to boost investments in this sphere and enhance international cooperation with countries that have more experience with similar cases.

The goal was to filter sensitive data

In cooperation with the Foreign Ministry, Military Intelligence works on counter-measures, while checking all government and state servers.

In the past days, the Foreign Ministry was hit by a huge cyber-attack from abroad, Pellegrini said, as quoted by Sme. Our experts from the military intelligence uncovered this attack due to the non-standard behaviour of computers. After a minute analysis, they found that it was not a common virus but a targeted cyber-attack. He added that the hackers were aimed at filtering sensitive data and then transferring them to servers abroad.

Pellegrini calls for investments

Slovakia will have to considerably increase expenses on security measures in cybernetics and launch cooperation at an international level.

It is inevitable to start cooperating internationally with people who investigate similar incidents in other countries, Pellegirni summed up. One of the priorities will also be the build-up of necessary infrastructure in cyber-defence, including expenses, since this is a sphere we cannot underestimate: any investments in this sphere will be taken on-board.25 years after the Czecho-Slovak breakup, people living in Czecho-Slovak marriages do not feel like they are living with a foreigner.

News: Receive favorite authors articles by email. Try the new feature and turn on the subscription.

Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled

Who do Slovaks marry the most among foreigners? Statistical data have a clear answer: the Czechs.

Dominika Soukupova is a Slovak who married a Czech man. They live in Prague and when asked if she thinks she has married a foreigner, she says definitely not.

I often joke that I would go no further than beyond Czech borders anymore, said Soukupova, explaining that she spent lots of time abroad and met people from many different cultures. But she does not consider differences in culture when it comes to Czechs.

But that is not always the case among people who view her marriage from the outside, depending where they are.

When we lived in Plzen where there are not so many Slovaks, we were considered a mixed couple, she said, adding that things were different in Prague since many Slovaks live in the Czech capital.

Czechs are no foreigners

People from Moravia (in the east of the Czech Republic) are used to Slovaks and do not consider them to be foreigners at all. The older generation, Soukupovas experience shows, always talk about Czechoslovakia, the Slovak language or where they have been and who they know in Slovakia.

In Slovakia, people switch to Czech and they look for similar and different words.

Formally, Czechs in Slovakia and Slovaks in the Czech Republic are foreigners, though very often they are not perceived that way, sociologist Michal Vasecka told The Slovak Spectator.

Slovaks operating in the Czech Republic speak Slovak without any hesitations and limits, much like in Slovakia. Both countries allow that even by law, Vasecka noted.The businessman suspected of ties to top politicians has been accused in the case of dubiously transferred flats in a famous housing complex in Bratislava.

News: Receive favorite authors articles by email. Try the new feature and turn on the subscription.

Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled

Police pressed charges related to tax and insurance evasion against controversial businessman Marian Kocner over the transfers of flats in the Five Star Residence complex in Bratislava. The news was reported by the private TV Markiza on October 17. The broadcaster received this information from the Bratislava Regional Prosecutors Office.

Kocner faces yet another indictment besides the forgery of promissory notes, on which he based his 70-million claim against TV Markiza.

In the most recent case, four other individuals face charges along with him over the 2011 transfer of flats, the TASR newswire wrote. One of them is, according to TV Markiza, his acquaintance and business partner, Jana Slachtova.

Police would not provide more details at this stage.

Earlier this month, one of the suspects in the double murder of journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancee, Martina Kusnirova, the suspected go-between Zoltan A., told the investigators that it was Marian Kocner who ordered the hit on Kuciak.

What is the businessman accused of

The charges of the people involved in the Five Star Residence case are not effective yet, as they have to be delivered to the defendants, who can then file a complaint within three days. A prosecutor can confirm or cancel the charges.

In 2016, Sme pointed to the dubious transfer of flats in the Five Stars Residence. Within the transaction dating back to 2011, Kocners company Real Studio sold for a symbolic one euro part of the Five Star Residence to his another company, Inkasny Servis. First, the investigation faded away silently, and was only re-opened after media and opposition pointed to it. MP Jozef Rajtar (opposition SaS) filed a criminal motion in the case.

It seems that the two companies plotted a scheme which may have brought around 3 million in unjustified VAT returns repaid by state, the Dennik N daily wrote.

Immediately after this transaction, Kocner got rid of the Real Studio company, and a Thai national became its legal representative. In the past, Kocner claimed, as quoted by Sme, that this was a common business deal, and that apart from the flats, he also bought for one euro some debts that had to be repaid.

Besides this case, Kocner has also been prosecuted in the case of forged promissory notes, worth 69 million, against the TV Markiza broadcaster; the unjustified VAT return from hotel transfers, amounting to 8.3 million; and the embezzlement of the Gatex company, worth 700,000.

The recent case

Building liens suggest that the transfers were in fact fictitious: the shell company CDI from London controlled by Slachtova had the building liens to the transferred companies. CDI also appears in Kocners case, involving the Glance House development where dozens of buyers lost their advance payments for the flats they never received.

Police suspect the alleged debts, which were said to be part of the transaction in the Five Star Residence, are fictitious.

In this case, developer Ladislav Basternak is also under investigation.

Kocners firm was the developer in the Five Star Residence case. After the businessman transferred them among his companies and received the VAT return from that, he sold them to various buyers for market price.

The building is unique because it does not stand on the plot owned by the flats owners, but is rather rented; once-head of the public-service Slovak radio, Jaroslav Reznik, gave them to Kocners company for lifelong use, according to Sme.A few short days ago we were given an extraordinary opportunity here at Sprudge. Leading members of the Brazilian coffee community, including coffee producers, cafe owners, journalists and activists, have authored an open letter stating their ardent opposition to the presidential candidacy of Jair Bolsonaro, a Brazilian politician commonly referred to as far-right, ultra-conservative, fascist, misogynist, and homophobic.

In consultation with our editorial advisory board, and in advance of the international coffee communitys upcoming travel to Brazil for Brazil International Coffee Week, weve decided to publish their letter in full. It includes a link to the communitys petition via Change.org (text in Portuguese).

Please note that it is Sprudges policy not to endorse any individual political candidate or party. The views represented in this open letter do not necessarily reflect the opinions of our owners, staff, editorial advisory board, or advertising partners. For additional context, the authors of the letter below recommend recent reporting from the BBC and John Olivers weekly news program on HBO, Last Week Tonight.

Coffee for Democracy

An Open Letter From Brazils Coffee Community

In times of turmoil we, professionals involved in the specialty coffee chain throughout Brazil, find ourselves with no other alternative than taking a stand and stating our commitment to democracy.

The specialty coffee chain, mostly made up of small- and medium-sized producers and companies, symbolizes a future that considers the environment al impact of food production, fair remuneration for producers, as well as respect and promotion of equality and social safety nets for coffee workers. Herein, we exercise the democratic right to oppose the proposals of the candidate Jair Bolsonaro, who in our understanding disseminates hatred and intolerance, going against the basic principles that we understand as pillars of our community. We would be overlooking if we did not stand by people of color and LGBTQ+, many of whom are members of our community as workers and/or customers, at a time when their lives are being threatened.

We know that we are not alone, both in Brazil and globally. In a recent episode, Sprudge was opposed to doing media coverage for an international event that would be based in a country with homophobic legislation. Part of such event was eventually transferred to Braz il.

To summarize, we believe:

 In the respect for the CLT (Consolidation of Labor Laws) and its acquired and strengthened labor rights.

 In equal conditions and rights for everyone, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race, and economic conditions.

 In a fair production chain, committed to sustainable development, respect for the environment, and guided by the principles of human dignity and appropriate salaries, thus ensuring better living conditions for all involved in the production of specialty coffee.

Finally, we have the belief that cafes are spaces for dialogue and debate of ideas, thus we need to preserve them. This becomes more difficult if the context in which the cafes are inserted is undemocratic and averse to dialogue. We know, from recent historic events, that authoritarian government projects do not tolerate the free circulation of ideas, one of the bases of democracy: the untouchable right to be opposition with freedom of expression.

With these principles in mind, we believe that the presidential candidate Professor Fernando Haddad is the only one with who we share a shared vision of the future.

Authoritarianism makes everyones cup bitter.

Some Coffee shops/roasteries that signed this letter are below. The full list can be seen at the Change.org petition.

Takk Cafe  Sao Paulo

Pura Caffeina  Sao Paulo

Oop  Belo Horizonte

King of the Fork  Sao Paulo

Objeto Encontrado  Brasilia

Casa Quilha  Brasilia

Cafe Secreto  Rio de Janeiro

Por um Punhado de Dolares  Sao Paulo

Yerba  Sao Paulo

Fora da Lei  Sao Paulo

4 Beans  Curitiba

HM Food Cafe  Sao Paulo

Futuro Refeitorio  Sao Paulo

Cafe Magri  Belo Horizonte

Los Baristas  Brasilia

Isabela Raposeiras

Felipe Croce

Sensory Coffee Roasters  Sao Paulo

Urbici  Fortaleza

Bikebrew  Brasilia

AHA!  Brasilia

Seu Patricio Cafe  Brasilia

Kaffa  Vitoria

Hey Coffee  Sao Paulo

Portal Coffea  Sao Paulo

More information and an up-to-date list of signees is available at Change.org.

All Brazil coverage on Sprudge.Right after the global launch, Huawei Malaysia has announced that the Huawei Mate 20, Mate 20 Pro and Mate 20X are coming to Malaysia as soon as 27 October 2018 for the Mate 20 and Mate 20 Pro. The Huawei Mate 20 will come in just black with 6GB RAM + 128GB storage for RM2799, while the Mate 20 Pro will come in black, twilight and emerald green with 6GB RAM + 128GB storage for RM3599. The early birds who purchase it will get a free SoundStone and Wireless Charger respectively.

The Mate 20X is scheduled to come to Malaysia on 11 November 2018. It will be available in phantom silver featuring 6GB RAM + 128GB storage for RM3199. There might be an 8GB RAM + 256GB storage version as well but Huawei is probably waiting to see how the response will be. The Huawei M-Pen will be sold separately (price unknown) but the Mate 20X will come with a free flip case and the M-Pen. In addition, if you pre-order either one of the Mate 20 series on matepreorder.3ex.com.my from 19-22 October 2018, you will get a free TalkBand B5 (worth RM699) and enjoy Mate VIP Rewards up to RM10,000. Its online shop will also host the pre-order sales as well.

Here's our hands-on video with the Huawei Mate 20 series

Huawei Mate 20 and Mate 20 Pro price and availability

Huawei Mate 20 X price and availability

Huawei Mate 20 series roadshow

No news on the Porsche Design Mate 20RS just yet, but if Huawei sticks to the traditional Mate Porsche Design price tag, we expect it to arrive in Malaysia for RM6999. No exact Malaysia release date for this one either, but we expect before the end of 2018 at least. Also, the sales launch event will be held in Pavilion (Kuala Lumpur), Queensbay Mall (Penang) and AEON Bandar Dato Onn (Johor Bahru). Stay tuned for more at TechNave.com.

For a refresher of the tech specs and features, check out the lists below.

Huawei Mate 20 tech specs and features

Kirin 980 processor (7nm SoC), Mali-G76, Dual Neural Processing Unit

4GB and 6GB of RAM

128GB storage (expandable memory available up to 256GB Nano Memory card)

6.53-inch FHD+ RGBW display

Triple rear camera - 16MP (main, ultra wide angle, f/2.2) + 12MP (wide angle, f/1.8) + 8MP (2x telephoto, 5x hybrid zoom, f/2.4)

24MP front camera (f/2.0, HDR)

Features fingerprint sensor (rear), AI scene recognition, AI Cinema Mode, AI Predictive Focus, SuperCharge technology, wireless easy projection

Supports Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band, Bluetooth 5.0, NFC, aptX HD, USB Type-C connectivity

EMUI 9 based on Android 9.0 Pie

4000mAh battery

Huawei Mate 20 Pro tech specs and features

Kirin 980 processor (7nm SoC), Mali-G76, Dual Neural Processing Unit

6GB of RAM

128GB storage (expandable memory available up to 256GB Nano Memory card)

6.39-inch OLED dual curved display in 2K resolution

Triple rear camera - 40MP (main,wide angle, f/1.8) + 20MP (ultra wide angle, f/2.2) + 8MP (3x telephoto, 5x hybrid zoom, f/2.4)

24MP front camera (f/2.0, HDR), 3D Face Unlock

Features In-Display Fingerprint Scanner, IP68 water and dust resistant grade

40W SuperCharge technology, 15W wireless charging, Wireless Reverse Charge

wireless easy projection, AI scene recognition, AI Cinema Mode, AI Predictive Focus, 3D Selfie

Supports Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band, Bluetooth 5.0, NFC, aptX HD, USB Type-C 3.1 (reversible) connectivity

EMUI 9 based on Android 9.0 Pie

4200mAh battery

Huawei Mate 20X tech specs and features

Kirin 980 processor (7nm SoC), Mali-G76, Dual Neural Processing Unit

6GB of RAM

128GB storage (expandable memory available up to 256GB Nano Memory card)

7.21-inch OLED FullView FHD+ display

Triple rear camera - 40MP (main, wide angle, f/1.8) + 20MP (ultra wide angle, f/2.2) + 8MP (3x telephoto, 5x hybrid zoom, f/2.4)

24MP front camera (f/2.0, HDR)

Features fingerprint sensor (rear), Graphene Cooling System, M Pen (accessory)

Dual stereo speaker (Dolby Atmos), SuperCharge technology, wireless easy projection

Supports Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band, Bluetooth 5.0, NFC, aptX HD, USB Type-C connectivity

EMUI 9 based on Android 9.0 Pie

5000mAh battery

Porsche Design Huawei Mate 20 RS tech specs and features

Kirin 980 processor (7nm SoC), Mali-G76, Dual Neural Processing Unit

8GB of RAM

256GB and 512GB storage (expandable memory available up to 256GB Nano Memory card)

6.39-inch OLED dual curved display in 2K resolution

Triple rear camera - 40MP (main, wide angle, f/1.8) + 20MP (ultra wide angle, f/2.2) + 8MP (3x telephoto, 5x hybrid zoom, f/2.4)

24MP front camera (f/2.0, HDR), 3D Face Unlock

Features In-Display Fingerprint Scanner, IP68 water and dust resistant grade

40W SuperCharge technology, 15W wireless charging, Wireless Reverse Charge

wireless easy projection, 3D Selfie

Supports Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band, Bluetooth 5.0, NFC, aptX HD, USB Type-C 3.1 (reversible) connectivity

EMUI 9 based on Android 9.0 Pie

4200mAh battery

Huawei also announced new Huawei MateBook laptops in the form of the MateBook X Pro and MateBook D as perfect devices to mate with the new Huawei Mate smartphones. Check out their release alongside the Huawei Watch GT and stay tuned to TechNave.com.On Sunday 14 October, Luxembourgish citizens went to the polls to vote for the next Chambre des Deputes and government for the next five years.

Voting is mandatory for Luxembourgish citizens, raising the turnout to 82.1 percent of the total number of 313,000 Luxembourgish citizens. This number excludes those over 75, who are not obliged to vote, and those under the age of 18.

An impressive turnout, certainly, except for the fact that, according to STATEC, Luxembourgers only make up 52.1% of Luxembourgs population.

My colleague Sarah Cames has already written about the benefits of mandatory voting, and in this opinion piece I will focus on a different aspect of suffrage in Luxembourg: I believe that non-citizens should be able to vote in general elections. This suggestion likely incites a sense of deja vu, especially given coverage of the current coalition governments legacy. After all, that very question was the main point in the constitutional referendum on 7 June 2015. The voters overwhelmingly voted against the proposal, which read as follows:

Do you approve of the idea that residents without Luxembourg nationality should have the right to optionally register on electoral lists in order to participate as voters in the elections to the Chamber of Deputies, on the double condition that they have resided at least ten years in Luxembourg and that they have previously participated in European or municipal elections in Luxembourg?

To the surprise of the government, 78.02% of the electorate rejected that proposal. As a reminder on the specific party positions, the government coalition parties all advocated voting yes to the proposal, while the CSV recommended voting against it and for voters to make an informed decision, and the ADR (surprise, surprise!) was staunchly against the suggestion.

We are at a point in Luxembourg where the population is nearly split 50/50 between non-Luxembourgers and Luxembourgers. This does need to be taken with a pinch of salt in light of the number of dual citizens who count as both Luxembourgish and non-Luxembourgish in statistics. This Donkelziffer may change the statistics listed above, but the fact remains that a significant portion of Luxembourgs residents cannot vote on the makeup of their government.

My argument for enfranchising aliens has two tenets: one, the political horizon in 2018 in Luxembourg is much different to that in 2015. Following the election reporting, it is clear that politics in Luxembourg is gaining traction amongst those who cannot vote. This is evidenced by the willingness of party leaders to be interviewed in English, despite the fact they are clearly more comfortable communicating in the language that their voter base is fluent in, Luxembourgish. There is also a clear interest in these kinds of interviews and information about politics in English. I cant speak for any other publications (and even the fact that there are multiple publications in English reporting on the elections speaks to a stronger interest), but on RTL Today, our articles about the elections, and especially the interviews garner a lot of interest. All this shows that those who speak English  granted, some of those could be Luxembourgers curious about coverage in English are interested in the countrys political landscape. Yet, they cant participate in general elections because they do not have the right to vote.

At this point, it is worth addressing that they could simply apply for and acquire Luxembourgish citizenship. That is true, but, and this is the second tenet of my argument, I dont think you need to have citizenship in a country to have the right to vote. This is an unpopular stance to have, as currently only New Zealand and Uruguay allow permanent residents to vote, under certain conditions. On the Wee 2050/Nee 2015 anti-alien suffrage grassroots website, one of the main arguments against allowing non-citizens to vote is the alleged threat to Luxembourgs sovereignty. I find these types of arguments frankly outdated. Nationalism had its uses in the 19th century and, perhaps more importantly (in my opinion, at least), in anti-colonial movements that led to independence in former colonies. In 2018? Not so much. I believe nationalism nowadays is in many cases used to justify hostility towards others.

Our world today is increasingly globalised and experiences a near constant exchange of ideas and people. Even the concept of citizenship itself can be questioned  philosopher James Tully questioned our current paradigm of citizenship and proposed the notion of diverse forms of citizenship. Tullys thesis is complicated, but the takeaway is that we should stop limiting our definitions of ourselves to our nation-states.

I believe you should be able to differentiate between your cultural identity/nationality and the place you make your home. You may cling on to your national identity for sentimental reasons, but be distanced from that country in many ways.

This issue has been debated in the European Parliament recently, as six member-states (Cyprus, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Malta, and the United Kingdom) of the EU systematically disenfranchise their citizens choosing to live abroad. Cecilia Wikstrom, who submitted the proposal, said this: The main justification for disenfranchisement, that citizens living abroad no longer have sufficient links with their home country, seems completely outdated in the globalised world of today. We are interconnected with each other. I would take Wikstroms argument and extend it towards suggesting that non-citizens should be able to vote in the country they have made their permanent residence. They may keep their other nationality as a means of tracking their heritage, but they pay tax in their domicile and contribute to society in many ways all while remaining unable to vote in parliamentary elections.

Non-citizens voting will not introduce concepts such as abolishing Luxembourgish as a language or making the Chambre des Deputes hold its debates in English rather than Luxembourgish. This is more where news outlets such as RTL Today come in: we translate and report on political issues for our audiences.

Luxembourg is international in so many ways without compromising its history and cultural heritage. And indeed, its increasingly international stature becomes part of its heritage. Finally, I believe there is an assumption inherent in suggesting non-citizens apply for Luxembourgish citizenship in order to vote. It is not particularly easy to learn a language as you get older. According to linguists, the optimal age to effectively learn a new language is 17 or 18. The Luxembourgish test is hardly the most difficult of tests, but it may not be sufficient for these new Luxembourgers to follow politics adequately.

Luxembourg is defined by its very multilingualism and political parties are certainly aware of the need to protect the linguistic status of Luxembourgish. In a world where talk of closing borders is increasingly prevalent, perhaps a move to openness could be powerful.

Nathalie Lodhi is a freelance translator for RTL Today and occasional journalist living in Edinburgh.Mountain Shadows in Wayanad is just the place for a dreamy vacationThe New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung has a long and distinguished history of being the first German newspaper in Texas.

The Herald, the community's English language paper, and the Zeitung, the German paper, merged in 1957. Collectively, they have served New Braunfels and Comal County since 1852.

THE ZEITUNG

Planning of the Neu-Braunfelser Zeitung began in 1851. In 1852, a mass meeting of interested New Braunfels residents elected Ferdinand Lindheimer as the newspaper's first editor from a list of three candidates. The money for payment of the equipment was subscribed publicly, and each subscriber received a certificate of partnership.

The first Zeitung issue was dated Nov. 12, 1852. By 1853, Lindheimer, a botanist who had no training in the newspaper business, became the sole owner.

The paper was unpopular for its pro-Confederacy position, as most residents were pro-union. At one point, an angry mob threw Lindheimer's printing press into the Comal River, but an undaunted Lindheimer fished out the press to continue publishing the newspaper.

Anselm Eiband succeeded Lindheimer as editor in the late 1870s and was known for his strong editorial positions.

Ernest Koebig, the third editor, installed a steam engine to run the press. Julius Halm and A. G. Startz became owners, with Ludolph LaFrentz the editor.

In the last decade of the 19th century, Capt. Julius Giesecke, McEver Church and Eugen Kailer organized the Zeitung Publishing Company.

Church sold his portion to Giesecke and in July 1899, G. F. Oheim bought out Kailer. Oheim served as editor until his death in 1947. His son, Frederic Oheim, became the sole owner until the paper's merger with the Herald in the late 1950s.

Roger Nuhn of New Braunfels is a former Zeitung and Herald-Zeitung editor who was hired by Frederich Oheim to convert the Zeitung to an English language paper.

Nuhn said a drop in German readership forced the paper to move to English.

"When I started, I was writing a column or two in English," he said. "Finally by the merger, (the Zeitung) was primarily an English paper with a small German section. We just didn't have the readership anymore in German."

Ben F. Nebergall, who started as a newspaper carrier, entered the partnership soon after G. F. Oheim's death. Nebergall died in 1948, after 60 years of service to the paper.

Nebergall's daughter, Lottie Miller, worked on the paper at the time of its 100th anniversary.

"I went into an entirely new field," she said. "(Reporting) gave me a touch with the town. The town, of course, was not near as big as it is now. There is no way (the Herald-Zeitung) could put out the same kind of paper.

"When we went bilingual, I started writing. It was very, very interesting. I did no writing until the two papers joined. Roger Nuhn was editor at the time. I liked it very much."

The Zeitung also printed the New Braunfels Herald-Chronicle every Sunday in the 1940s. Frederic Oheim was managing editor of that publication, and Nuhn was associate editor of the English section. The Comal County Chronicle eventually merged with the Canyon Lake Times Guardian in 1982.

On Aug. 21, 1952, the Zeitung celebrated its 100th anniversary, with headlines saying the newspaper still would be printed in German. In late 1958, however, the Zeitung ceased printing in German.

THE HERALD

The New Braunfels Herald printed its first issue circa 1890. The history of the Herald is less clear. However, it was the first English-language newspaper published in New Braunfels.

The first editor was Sharp Runnels Whitley Sr. Succeeding him were E. M. deAhna, A. C. Coers, Fred Tausch and D.O. Bell.

By 1908, Coers took over the reins as editor and proprietor. Tausch and A. R. Ludwig bought the newspaper in 1914, while Coers remained as editor.

The newspaper was under the leadership of Charles Scruggs at the time of its 50th anniversary in 1940. Scruggs bought the Herald in 1928, with his son Claude succeeding him as editor in 1957.

Marjorie Cook of New Braunfels began working for the Herald in 1945 and continued until after the two papers merged.

"I learned by doing," Cook said of her first journalism position.

Cook said many changes took place during her time at the Herald and the Herald-Zeitung.

"You were much more aware of the German influence then," Cook said. "And the German accent was strong among the adult population."

THE MERGER

The Herald and Zeitung merged in 1957. Nuhn said the paper was printed biweekly after that, with the Zeitung published on one day and the Herald published on another.

Finally, the papers merged completely in 1967 and were printed as the Herald-Zeitung. It then became the largest weekly in Texas with a circulation of 10,000, Nuhn said.

"It was much more popular (as the Herald-Zeitung)," Nuhn said. "We were running 52 pages (a week)."

Nuhn said the Herald-Zeitung was strictly a local paper.

"We were not interested in trying to compete with the big papers," he said. "We had trouble finding room for everything local in the paper."

Several of the locations of the Herald and the Zeitung offices are unknown. Some are believed to have been where Taqueria El Tapatio now stands on Seguin Avenue, on the second floor of the Coers house, in a little room where the Liebscher house on Coll Street was built and at 367 Main Plaza.

Also listed as a former office location was the Hoffmann Building on Seguin. Offices were at 186 Castell before the paper moved to its current location on Landa Street in the mid-1980s.

Nuhn said the Zeitung published in an old building where the Pizza Hut stands before moving in with the Herald on Castell Street shortly after the papers merged. The old Zeitung building now stands on Conservation Plaza.

"We had better printing where we moved (to Castell Street)," Nuhn said.

The Herald-Zeitung was sold to Taylor Communications in 1980 and became a five-day-a-week newspaper on Feb. 12, 1980. The Herald-Zeitung then was sold to Southern Newspapers on Feb. 20, 1984.

David Kramer was the general manager, according to a 1982 newspaper clipping. Claude Scruggs was the publisher. On Sept. 18, 1984, the Herald-Zeitung announced it would move from 186 Castell St. to 707 Landa St., the former home of Skate Skeller.

In the July 16, 1985, edition of the Herald-Zeitung, Kramer announced Susan Haire would be the new managing editor. Claude Scruggs retired as publisher in February 1986, after 50 years in the business.

On June 28, 1987, the Herald-Zeitung invited local residents to attend an open house at the new facility on Landa. By 1988, Kramer was editor and publisher and Wanda Lasater was managing editor.

David Sullens came to the Herald-Zeitung as editor and publisher in February 1991. Doug Toney followed Sullens in May 1996.

On May 4, 1998, the Herald-Zeitung was converted to a morning newspaper.

On Oct. 17, 1998, a devastating flood damaged the Herald-Zeitung facilities on 707 Landa. Six feet of water destroyed offices, equipment and archives and seriously damaged the eight-unit Community Goss press.

Toney and four other employees waded through waist-deep water to save a server and several computers. Composing foreman Henry Coello patched together a small network.

The newspaper was produced, and with the help of the Seguin Gazette-Enterprise, was published without missing an edition, although the Sunday edition, because of flooded highways and streets, could not be delivered until Monday.

The Herald-Zeitung rebuilt the offices at 707 Landa but moved the press and production operation to high ground. In January 2000, the press moved into its new location on Industrial Drive off Loop 337, with the newspaper operating out of both facilities.

In July 2000, the Herald-Zeitung added a Saturday edition, making it a six-day a week publication, printing Tuesday through Sunday. The circulation of the Sunday edition topped 10,000 in 2000.

In December 2011, the Herald-Zeitung relocated its business office to 549 Landa St, with the production facility remaining on Industrial Drive.

James Rainey replaced Toney upon his retirement in April 2012, with Neice Bell following as editor and publisher in October 2012. In July 2015, David Burck replaced Neice Bell as publisher after having served as the Herald-Zeitung's advertising director since January 2013. In November 2016, Burck was replaced by David Compton. Bell returned to lead the newspaper in October 2018.The administration of the south-central province of Khanh Hoa has suspended a multibillion-dollar resort project on a Nha Trang beach, dealing a blow to the provincial chairmans utopian dream of making the resort city more beautiful than the U.S. island of Hawaii.

Indias Dewan International Vietnam will no longer be allowed to implement the part covering more than 74 hectares along the Nha Trang beach of its Phoenix Beach project, Pham Van Chi, former head of the provinces Committee Party, said after a meeting on Tuesday.

The meeting was attended by many former leaders of Khanh Hoa, who discussed how the project would be treated following public protests that it would destroy the ecosystem of the famed beach city.

The Indian firm was licensed in October 2014 to carry out the project, consisting of many resort facilities and skyscrapers on the Nha Trang beach and on a land plot running south to Tran Phu Bridge.

The project is also expected to cover part of the surface of Nha Trang Bay, a national attraction that is supposed to be kept intact.

After the Tuesday meeting, Khanh Hoas leaders decided to only allow Dewan International Vietnam to carry out the project near the Tran Phu Bridge, Chi said.

No high-rises will be allowed to be built on the beach, where facilities serving the community will be constructed instead, he added.

An artist's impression of part of the Phoenix Beach project to be built on Nha Trang beach.

The Phoenix Beach project is worth VND26.25 trillion (US$1.25 billion), according to its investment license. But Dewan International Vietnam said on its website the total investment is as high as $2.63 billion.

The project, scheduled for completion in 2020, is included in an approved zoning for development east of Tran Phu  Pham Van Dong, two main streets in the resort city known for its beautiful beaches.

Dewan International Vietnam had erected signs claiming its sovereignty over the beach area earmarked for its Phoenix Beach project, but had to remove all of them late last week following an order from the provinces administration.

Khanh Hoa Chairman Nguyen Chien Thang said last week the Phoenix Beach project, as well as the scores of skyscrapers constructed on several streets in Nha Trang in recent years, will enable the beach city to become even more beautiful than Hawaii.

He said Nha Trang is a municipality, not an ecotourism area, and thus needs to be developed in a different way from what a shortsighted minority wants it to be.

An artist's impression of part of the Phoenix Beach project to be built near Tran Phu Bridge in Nha Trang.

However, Thang may also pull the plug on Phoenix Beach if Dewan International Vietnam fails to accumulate enough capital for the project as registered on time, according to a source close to Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper.

Thang has notified the company of the request via a dispatch, the source said, citing the administrations office.

According to its investment license, Dewan International Vietnam has a registered capital of VND2.1 billion ($100 million) and is required to find that sum by June 30, otherwise it will face a license revocation.

Dewan International Vietnam has yet to complete the capital contribution in accordance with the required progress, Vo Tan Thai, director of the investment department, told Tuoi Tre.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!Vietnam surpassed China as a supplier of footwear for Germany-based Adidas in 2017 in the multinational corporations years-long shift of sourcing, according to the latest figures from the Vietnam Leather, Footwear and Handbag Association (LEFASO).

In 2017, Vietnam made 44 percent of Adidas footwear volume while Chinese factories produced 19 percent, down from around 30 percent in 2012, LEFASO said.

Adidas has been shifting its sourcing from China to Vietnam over the past five years, and the Southeast Asian country has boasted a steady increase in orders placed by the company during the period, the association pointed out.

By September, Vietnams leather and shoe exports were estimated to have reached US$11.9 billion, representing a year-on-year rise of 10.5 percent.

The nation has become the second-largest footwear exporter to the United States, with around 404 million pairs of shoes shipped to that market by September, only behind China.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!Most Vietnamese consumers have embraced ride-hailing apps, and those who have not have quite surprising reasons not to do so, the Ministry of Industry and Trade said in the newly released 2018 Whitepaper on Vietnam E-commerce.

The report, conducted by the Vietnam E-commerce and Digital Economy Agency (iDEA), dedicates a section to analyzing the community's readiness when participating in a sharing economy - an economic model where peer-to-peer exchange is facilitated via community-based online services such as ride-hailing apps.

A whitepaper is an authoritative report or guide that informs readers concisely about a complex issue and presents the issuing body's philosophy on the matter.

Graphic: Tuoi Tre News

The iDEA asked 1,000 individuals nationwide for their opinions on ride-booking apps via hand filling surveys.

Eighty-one percent of the respondents, or 810 people, had at least one ride-hailing app installed on their smartphones, while 19 percent, or 190 individuals, had never used the service, according to the survey results.

Among the ride-hailing users, 60 percent commented that booking rides via an app was fast and convenient, while 33 percent rated the service as cheap, and seven percent chose the service out of safety reasons, as driver information is clearly declared in the app.

Graphic: Tuoi Tre News

On the other hand, 58 percent of the 190 respondents who had never gone on a ride booked via their smartphone pointed to safety as the primary factor that holds them back from using the service. The report did not clarify what the safety concern was about - whether it is unsafe to travel with strangers or to provide personal information to the app.

Another 25 percent of these respondents thought that the rate of the ride-hailing service was unreasonable, whereas 18 percent said the payment method was not suitable for them.

Respondents were allowed to choose more than one answer to explain why they are not keen on ride-hailing apps.

Graphic: Tuoi Tre News

Vietnams ride-hailing market is attracting newcomers to compete with Grab after the company`s acquisition of Ubers Southeast Asia operations in April.

According to experts, local companies such as FastGo developed by a Vietnamese start-up under NextTech Group  a group of companies involved in e-commerce, e-logistics, and fintech  and VATO, which claims to have received US$100 million from bus operator Phuong Trang, look promising to fill the void left by Uber while providing diverse options for passengers.

However, the fierce competition is seemingly a game between Southeast Asia's leading ride-hailing service Grab and its Indonesian rival Go-Jek, as the latter is now present in Vietnam's two major cities of Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi under the brand Go-Viet.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!Finally..

A topic worthy of prolonged philosophical discussion and deep reflection.

Beer!

Vietnam jumped into the top 50 beer guzzling countries in the world last year, knocking back over four billion liters, with nearly half of all adults sucking on the suds at one point or another.

Regionally, Vietnamese are the third-largest consumers of beer in Asia, behind only China and Japan.

That four billion liters sounds like a lot of beer, doesnt it? Since 2005 per capita consumption has doubled because the standard of living has increased so dramatically in Vietnam.

I had a feeling Vietnams beer performance would be impressive before digging into the numbers because I often see beer being bought by the case in beer bars here. No fooling around ordering onesy-twosy bottles or cans - or even a bucket of five - they go right for the entire case of 24 - straight down to business, no time wasted.

Speaking of business, thats one of the reasons why this love of beer surprises me. Most of the Vietnamese people I know are hustling to make a buck and get ahead - theyre short on beer-drinking time, or so I would have thought.

I dont usually give out stock tips, but any potential investor would be attracted by the golden future of beer in Vietnam, and there is no shortage of big international breweries moving into this space to get a piece of the action.

Admittedly Im an aficionado, going late afternoon every day to my favourite little local beer bar (quan) and meeting up with the gang. They holler at me in Vietnamese and I listen, and listen some more, then throw in broken sentences where I think appropriate. They squint and struggle to understand, correct my faulty pronunciation, and around and around it goes.

I dont understand much of what is said but that doesnt stop us. Ill catch on sooner or later - probably later. Plus, with sign language, school French, and English, the messages get through.

However, Im pleased to report that my beer Vietnamese is quite fluent. I can order bottles or cans, ask for ice and snacks with the best of them, and join the chorus of mot, hai, ba, YO!

But the topic of beer really wasnt at the top of my list of things to write about until I recently went to Thailand and it changed in an instant when I saw this:

When we do see such a clear statement of policy and procedure, in both the Thai and English languages, theyre serious about it.To my dismay the above sign was placed on the fridge door in a local Thai convenience store. Bear in mind that the Thais are generally not a very strict bunch so a lot of rules and regulations go unenforced.

I panicked for two reasons in that convenience store:

First, my phone had somehow jumped one hour ahead of the local time so I ended up accidentally rifling around in their fridge pulling beer out at the forbidden hour of 4:30 pm. Yikes! I swear I didnt want to drink the beer before 5, which is clearly not acceptable. I just wanted to buy it.

If customers cant purchase mid-afternoon it would seem that they cant drink either, unless they built up a stock during the morning schedule, which I had not. Either way, the staff sympathetically set me straight on the timing and I returned later to buy my beer within the indicated time window.

The other reason I was so surprised was because I recently heard that there is a draft law circulating in the Vietnamese government with similar regulations, which I had already dismissed as an evil, baseless rumour.

But now I fear something may be cooking in the Vietnamese government, much more than just a passing thought.

Weve all seen the precedents among the more developed countries in the region: They put new policies in place designed to improve quality of life, then other countries follow. Think Singapore, Malaysia, and now Thailand.

For example, Goods and Services Tax (GST), no smoking rules, increased highway tolls, fuels, annual license fees, and increases in the cost of tobacco and alcohol as well as laws regarding consumption.

And usually, what goes around also comes around, sooner or later.

Since I saw that sign in the Thai convenience store Ive taken the whole topic very much to heart.

It reminds me of England where I lived for a couple of years in the 1980s. They had archaic laws going back to war days forbidding sale or consumption outside core hours, which were similar to the Thai sign above: 11:00 am to 2:00 pm, then 5:00 pm until 10:00 or 11:00 pm depending on the city and area.

Those laws werent effective and have since been abolished. Instead of curbing consumption the net effect was people drank more, for the simple reason that they were rushed.

The more they rushed, the drunker they became until they ended up drinking much more than they normally would have.

I was always amazed at how clogged the streets of London were at 4:55 pm each day, only to find them practically empty a few minutes later when the pubs opened. Whenever I stepped into a boozer just after 5:00 pm it was already packed to the rafters!

I lived in Switzerland too, where it was not uncommon to see people chugging beer at 7:30 am when I went for my morning coffee. So there are two examples from Europe where customs are at opposite ends of the spectrum.

Fortunately, some of those in the Vietnamese government who are against this proposed law have cited the risk of power drinking as detailed above, so it may not go anywhere after all.

Besides, all this depends on the enforcement of such a law. Surely authorities couldnt go around every beer joint after 10:00 pm to make sure theyve stopped selling. Even if they did, I can imagine they would often bump into friends and join in the fun.

An amount of time would have to be allocated to finishing the last round after it would be served, including plenty of time for choruses of mot, hai, ba, YO! along the way.

Since practically every drink from a glass in Vietnam is preceded by the mot, hai, ba, YO! cheer it could take a long time to empty those last glasses.

If and when such a law is implemented, Ill try to summon extra energy and stay up late to observe the proceedings at the new closing times, which would be past my normal bed time!

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!Born in 1934, Cao Nhat Linh is the oldest student at Dong Do International University in Hanoi, studying for his first college degree.

Having grown up in a poor family, Linh had to hold off his desire to continue his studies to provide for his family and himself, according to the Vietnam News Agency.

Over the years, Linh has worked different jobs as a construction worker, bricklayer, and carpenter. Whatever job he was doing, Linh would always buy books to read and learn.

When he was a construction worker in 1956 in the northern mountainous province of Son La, he spent his nights reading and studying.

In 1968, Linh registered for a supplementary graduation examination in Hanoi, equivalent to a high school graduation test.

That exam was a passport to continuing my studies later on, the 84-year-old said.

When he entered his 70s, Linh saw his living conditions improve and had enough time to continue his studies.

As many say age is just a number, Linh did not let his age be an obstacle as he was determined to get himself a college degree.

Hence, when he was 80 he started studying for the national exam to enter college just like any other 18-year-old students.

In 2015 he started attending journalism classes at the Academy for Journalism and Communication.

Two years later, at 83, he tried his luck at Hanoi Law University but missed one point to be accepted.

This setback did not discourage him and he kept on studying.

Later that year, he tried his luck at the Hanoi-based Dong Do International University and got admitted as a full-time student.

I am fond of law and philosophy, Linh said.

When I knew I got admitted to Dong Do International University, I was delighted to know that the dream of my life was then fulfilled.

I had to wait for my whole life to have this chance so I truly appreciate studying, Linh said, overwhelmed with emotions.

Despite being in his mid-80s, he receives strong support from family and friends, even from his 88-year-old wife.

Studying with 19-year-olds

Every day the 84-year-old student cycles three kilometers to school to attend classes with his 19-year-old classmates.

Many would assume that the old man would have a hard time talking to his classmates, but Linh claims their youth energizes him.

The young are very smart, but I am still healthy and sane so I do not have any difficulty catching up with them, he said eagerly.

Moreover, they are very funny so talking to them daily makes me feel younger.

However, I think nowadays the youth are using their phones too much. They should limit the time spent on screens and focus on their studies so as to develop themselves, the country, and integrate on an international scale, Linh added.

In spite of his determination and positive attitude, the elderly student had to admit that age for him is an obstacle.

Linh is already 84 years old, but he still has another three years of college ahead of him as he is supposed to graduate in 2021.

Not only is the octogenarian passionate about studies, he also respects education.

As it is not really difficult to buy a fake degree in Vietnam, Linh said he could easily buy himself one, even the PhD.

But that would have been such a shameful act for a decent person, so I still go to school, he said.

Going to school expands my knowledge. Every day I acquire new information, which makes me utterly happy.

Not only is he a keen student, he is also the chair of a Chinese poem club in Bac Tu Liem District, Hanoi.

So far he has written around 3,000 poems.

Our family always supports my grandfathers studies, Cao Van Du, Linhs grandson, said when asked about his grandfather.

Attending school helps him be happier, healthier, saner, and turns him into a great example to others.Lieutenant Le Ba Sang, a 26-year-old aviation officer, remains one of the outstanding pilots of Regiment 935 of the Vietnam Air Force as he was one of the few in the course chosen to practice with real bombs and ammunition during his training.

Flying the Su-30MK2 is all military aviators dream, and Sang is no exception.

As it is an advanced attack aircraft, one needs experience and thorough understanding in order to fly it.

While many pilots remain unfamiliar with the aircraft despite their desire to enter its cockpit, Sang first flew the plane at the age of 23, when he was one of the youngest members of his unit.

Flight history

Despite being one of the ten youngest pilot trainees to fly the Su-30MK2, Sang has already accumulated over 400 hours of flight on three different planes, including trainer aircraft Yak-52, high-performance jet trainer aircraft L-39, and multi-role fighter aircraft Su-30MK2.

Sang is also one of the five most outstanding trainees who were allowed to practice with real bombs and bullets at the training school last March and May.

The weather on that day was not good, Sang recalled the first time when he practiced bombing with real weapons on the Su-30MK2.

After I released the bombs, officers on the ground said I hit the target.

When I landed, I received many congratulations from on-the-ground engineers.

It was such a good feeling that I cannot describe it.

The young pilot was ranked with recognition for the training.

Two months later, his school held a bombing and rocket shooting training session, and the young pilot was chosen again.

This time we were dropping bombs in the sea, while older aviators practiced with rockets, Sang said.

The young lieutenant has also received certificates of excellence from the military, adding to a long list of impressive achievements for an aviator who has even not finished his training course yet.

Dream to become a military aviator

Sang was born in the north-central province of Thanh Hoa, but he grew up in a house located near an airport in the south-central city of Nha Trang.

His father was an engineering teacher at the Air Force Officer Training School.

When Sang was in grades 2 and 3, his father took him on the cargo aircraft An-26 from Nha Trang to Thanh Hoa to celebrate the Lunar New Year.

The feeling of being up in the air looking down was very novel and exciting, he recalled.

Having grown up near the airport, Sang was well accustomed to the sound of planes.

Every time I saw the jet trainer aircraft L-29 and training aircraft Yak-52, I wished one day I could fly such a plane, Sang said.

After finishing high school, Sang was qualified to attend the Air Force Officer Training Center.

Back then I was only interested in flying, not as passionate as I am now, said the young aviator.

In order for a pilot to be able to practice flying an actual plane, he needs to score at least seven [out of ten] on theory tests.

The theory lessons cover a wide range of aviation knowledge on different types of aircraft, airport and flying regulations, safety guarantee, and navigation skills, among others.

After two years of studying in the classroom, Sang was qualified to practice with the trainer aircraft Yak-52 with an accompanying instructor.

April 11, 2013 was a special day for Sang, as it was the first day he steered a plane all by himself. Only two other trainees were eligible for individual practice.

When I was on the ground I was really worried but the moment I started the engine, anxiety was gone, Sang recalled.

My dad also came to see me flying for the first time, Sang said, adding he felt really proud and confident after safely landing the plane.

After finishing his practice with the trainer plane Yak-52, the outstanding trainee was chosen for jet trainer aircraft L-39 training.

After graduating from the Air Force Training School, Lieutenant Le Ba Sang was assigned to Regiment 935, where he was chosen to train with the Su-30MK2.

Flying a Su-30MK2 is a lot more difficult than with the Yak-52 and L-39, but because I had accumulated quite a lot of flying hours, it was easier for me to get used to the plane, Sang said.

As the Su-30MK2 is currently the best fighter jet of Vietnams military, flying it requires pilots to have a thorough understanding of both its technicalities and functions.

Since it was designed to protect the country, it is far-reaching and supplied with a lot of weapons, which aviators are required to be able to use, according to Sang.

Eager to learn

As the Su-30MK2 is a complicated aircraft that requires pilots to have an extensive understanding, Sang would not be able to fly it without his eagerness to learn.

Not only does the young lieutenant constantly expand his understanding, he also makes sure he understands everything perfectly.

After finishing the required classes, he would go around and ask more experienced aviation officers about anything he does not understand thoroughly.

It is apparent that he is passionate about his profession.

Even though evenings are usually time spent for relaxation, Sang spends it studying and researching.

When I am in the mood I would study until 10:00 or 11:00 pm, if not I would study for around half an hour.

To pilots, studying is a lifelong process instead of just a few years because it is a dangerous profession.

Even the tiniest mistakes can lead to fatal consequences, so having a proper understanding is very important, the young aviator said wisely while admitting he is still too young and has a lot to learn.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!Travel blogging is nothing strange to young people who love traversing places and sharing their experiences with the community.

But it requires more than just enjoyment for those who consider it a job, some popular Vietnamese travel bloggers tell Tuoi Tre News.

Quit job and start wandering

After three years working as an engineer, Dinh Vo Hoai Phuong realized that doing a job with repeated numbers and rough standards would only tire him.

He eventually made up his mind that this kind of occupation was not for him.

After quitting his job as an engineer, the young man from the southern province of Ben Tre founded a YouTube channel called Khoai Lang Thang / Food and Travel, where he shares videos capturing his food adventures in and outside the country.

Vietnamese travel blogger Dinh vo Hoai Phuong during a Mekong Delta trip in a photo he provided Tuoi Tre News

Phuong has so far attracted 380,500 subscribers to his channel, along with nearly 239,000 followers on his Facebook page Khoai Lang Thang.

Most of his YouTube videos reached thousands of views each, including one featuring his experiences with the southern regions rare specialties, which garnered more than 2.1 million views.

Using a rustic way of narration, Phuong led his viewers through his experience of tasting different mouth-watering foods at a variety of places he passed by.

Meanwhile, Pham Quang Tuan, founder of the travel blog cuongchan.com, also quit his full-time job twice to become a freelancer and concentrate on his trips as well as private travel projects.

Currently, Tuan works in digital media, and is willing to start a new trip whenever he has spare time.

Visiting Tuans blog, readers can easily find plenty of information about travel tips, visa application, hotel booking and more.

The man, from the central province of Quang Tri, also cherry-picked interesting destinations and activities from his trips for readers' reference.

Vietnamese travel blogger Pham Quang Tuan during his 2016 Bhutan trip in a picture he provided Tuoi Tre News

Another wanderer, Tran Viet Anh, founded his blog dulichbui24.com several years ago, with a simple goal of making it a place where he can share his experiences and make friends with people of similar interests.

As Anh started to receive his first advertising contracts, he realized this could be a way to afford his travel.

The longer he travels, the more burning his desire of pursuing this job grows.

Up to now, the young man from the northern city of Hai Phong has considered traveling and blogging his full-time job.

He cooperates with tour operators and accommodation companies to offer reviews on their services, a job from which he earns enough to afford his life and travel.

Not just a bed of roses

As their life looks full of freedom, travel bloggers have become role models that many people, especially the young, dream of.

However, experienced travel bloggers said there is no bed of roses.

According to Viet Anh, challenges are always part of his journey to pursue the job he loves.

Besides difficulties that arose during the trips, Anh also faced financial problems for a short time when he switched from his ordinary job to following travel blogging.

He also had to convince his family to support the path he has chosen.

I think people should not have a one-sided view on the benefit of working as a travel blogger," Anh told Tuoi Tre News.

We should see them as those who are pursuing the job they love, and that job could be cooking, baking, writing or others.

Vietnamese travel blogger Tran Viet Anh in a photo he provided Tuoi Tre News

Sharing his view, Pham Quang Tuan said all the beautiful things people see on his website, the inspiring pieces of writing, great photos or high-quality videos of his trips, did not come out of thin air.

These pieces of content require a painstaking working process with many different steps, Tuan said, giving out a general description of his job.

Phuong also said there is no road full of roses, and travel blogging is no exception.

Beside luggage, wed better well-equip ourselves with knowledge and health before every trip we make, Phuong added.

A female representative of the Vietnamese travel blogging community, Nguyen Hoang Nguyen, popularly known as Rosie Nguyen, said travel blogging has recently drawn much attention of young people but not everyone has a proper understanding of the job.

Rosie Nguyen is the author of the renowned backpacking travel guidebook Ta Balo Tren Dat A, or Backpacking in Asia, and has ten years of experience in traveling and blogging.

However, she does not consider it her job as she does not earn a living from it.

People often only see the benefits of this job, like we have chances to travel a lot while having free meals and staying at luxury places, she said.

There's no denying that this job brings us those privileges which are not easy to get, but thats just the tip of the iceberg, she added.

According to her, this job at the same time requires responsibility along with pressure, not only from clients but also from the public.

Pressure from the public is terrible, she insisted.

For instance, if you post something which is not correct, in other peoples experience, youll be criticized, she added.

Its not rare for bloggers who are not good at managing their words or photos to be boycotted.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!High expectations built up on a national magic festival over the weekend but it either failed to impress or disappointed the audience with not many captivating performances.

The 2018 National Magic Festival organized by the Vietnam Theater Artists Association in cooperation with its partner, the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Culture and Sports, opened in Ho Chi Minh City on Saturday and closed on Monday.

The third edition of the magic festival included 36 performances, of which about two-thirds were from art troupes in the host city.

The Vietnam Circus Federation was the only representative of the northern Vietnamese art troupes while the remaining participants come from seven other provinces.

Although it was expected to attract dozens of both veteran and young magicians, the two-day event failed to offer the audience something other than doves, walking sticks, flowers and handkerchiefs, which are usually seen in any magic shows that they have become boring.

Most of the magicians performing at the festival used old tricks such as turning a handful of handkerchiefs into a flock of doves, making a woman appear out of thin air on an empty chair covered by a large cloth, and cutting a person in half.

Some participants even came to the national event with meager performances that were not prepared with thorough ideas. Some even made obvious mistakes on the stage.

Several performances ended in the confusion and Thats it? of the audience.

Nguyen Viet Duy, a member of the Ho Chi Minh City Magic Club, told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper that he came to learn but was disappointed by the stunts at the festival.

I was pretty sad when seeing that several performances were not carefully prepared and the magicians were so inexperienced, Duy said.

I think that in the next editions, the festivals organizers should evaluate the performances in advance to ensure quality for such a national event, he suggested.

Many difficulties, no inventories

Among the limited number of magicians that were able to make a difference at the Ho Chi Minh City festival, Nguyen Viet Duy stunned the audience with an interactive magic performance.

Duy chose to communicate with the audience with his good English, taking the lead by inviting them to the stage and guiding them from one surprise to another.

According to Duy, one of the reasons why the magic performances were so disappointing is a lack of equipment.

In Vietnam, there are very few establishments that produce devices used in magic gigs, he said.

But theyre not professional and charge high prices so magicians have no choice but to rent [the equipment], Duy explained.

Yet the magicians then have little time to get used to the props before performing onstage, the Ho Chi Minh City Magic Clubs member added.

Thats why they stick to doves, flowers, umbrellas.

Echoing Duys opinion, Nguyen Van Cuong in the highland province of Lam Dong said that a performing device costs about VND50-70 million (US$2,150-3,010) while a veteran magician like him has to work in the circus field for 20 years to reach his current income range of VND30-40 million ($1,290-1,720) per month.

Cuong shared his understanding for young magicians with a VND5-7 million [$215-301] income struggling to invest in equipment to create more captivating performances.

Both Duy and Cuong, therefore, advised that magicians on a tight budget should focus on the storyline of their performances and make their style different in order to avoid boring the audience.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and his Belgian counterpart Charles Michel have consented to strengthen the two countries ties, especially in clean agriculture.

The two heads of government joined talks in Brussels on Tuesday within the framework of PM Phucs official visit to Belgium from October 16 to 19, the Vietnam News Agency reported.

Both sides agreed to bolster cooperation in agriculture, education and training, culture, transport, trade and investment, as well as discussed measures to expedite the signing of the Vietnam-EU Free Trade Agreement.

Belgium wants to work with Vietnam in agriculture, especially in the development of clean agriculture and procedures to ensure food safety, said PM Michel.

Many Belgian-invested projects in Vietnam have been successful, the leader stated, adding that Vietnam is making constant efforts to improve its investment environment.

Belgium supports Vietnams candidacy as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council for 2020-2021, he continued.

The two countries will work together for peace and security in the East Vietnam Sea, and raise voices to protest unilateral actions that damage peace and break international law.

Disputes should be addressed by peaceful measures, in accordance with international law, especially the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the leaders stressed.

Following their talks, the leaders witnessed the signing of some cooperation documents between agencies and businesses of the two countries, covering agriculture, food safety, seaports and other spheres.

PM Phuc is scheduled to attend the 12th Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) summit in Brussels on October 18 and 19.

The ASEM summit is expected to bring together heads of state or government of 51 European and Asian countries as well as representatives of the European Union.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!Ho Chi Minh City Party leader Nguyen Thien Nhan has discussed bilateral cooperation with United States Secretary of Defense James Mattis during their meeting in the southern Vietnamese metropolis.

Nhan, who is Secretary of the municipal Party Committee, hosted a reception for the U.S. official on Tuesday afternoon.

The meeting took place on the occasion of Secretary Mattis trip to Singapore to attend the fifth ASEAN Defense Minister Meeting Plus (ADMM-Plus), scheduled from October 18 to 20.

During the conversation, Nhan stressed that Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh City in particular always consider the U.S. one of the important partners.

Vietnam wishes to continue promoting the bilateral comprehensive partnership on the basis of respect for each others independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity, and political regime for the interests of the peoples, and for the maintenance of peace, stability, cooperation, and development, Nhan remarked.

He thanked the U.S. Secretary for his contributions to the detoxification projects at airports in the central city of Da Nang and Bien Hoa City, located in the southern province of Dong Nai.

Vietnam will work closely with the U.S. to continue such activities, along with the search for ex-servicemen missing in action during the war.

The Ho Chi Minh City leader also expressed gratitude toward the U.S. for supporting Vietnam in United Nations peacekeeping missions, as well as help in personnel training at Military Hospital 175 in the southern city.

U.S. firms now invest in 390 projects worth US$1.2 billion in Ho Chi Minh City, ranking 10th among foreign investors in the metropolis.

The U.S. remains the largest export market of the city, with two-way trade topping $8.2 billion in 2017.

Replying to his host, Secretary Mattis said the U.S.-Vietnam comprehensive partnership will bring benefits to both sides and contribute to peace and stability in the region.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!Vietnamese Minister of National Defense Ngo Xuan Lich has asked the United States to actively cooperate with Vietnam in a project to remove dioxins from a military airport in the southern province of Dong Nai.

Minister Lich made the suggestion during his meeting with U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis in Ho Chi Minh City on Wednesday afternoon.

Secretary Mattis paid a visit to the dioxin-contaminated zone at the Bien Hoa Airbase, located in the namesake city in Dong Nai, on the morning of the same day.

Dioxin is a highly toxic chemical compound which is known to cause serious problems with reproduction, development, and the immune system. A great deal of scientific research also links the chemical to hormone disruption and cancer.

The U.S. secretary previously joined talks with Secretary of the Ho Chi Minh City Party Committee Nguyen Thien Nhan on Tuesday, within the framework of his visit to the city on October 16 and 17.

A warning is erected at the dioxin-contaminated zone at the Bien Hoa Airbase in the southern province of Dong Nai. Photo: Tuoi Tre

According to the U.S. official, the visit, including his trip to the Bien Hoa Airbase, provides the basis for him to report to and convince the U.S. government to continue aiding Vietnams efforts to deal with war consequences, including the removal of dioxin/Agent Orange.

Lich praised the U.S.s efforts to help Vietnam remove dioxins in the past years, stressing that the Southeast Asian country will continue focusing on such activities.

He requested the U.S. to further collaborate with Vietnam to soon initiate and complete dioxin decontamination projects at the Bien Hoa Airbase, which the U.S. military used for storing herbicides in wartime.

Once the project is finished, land plots in the area will be utilized to contribute to economic development.

U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis and his delegation visit the Bien Hoa Airbase on October 17, 2018. Photo: Tuoi Tre

The first phase of the plan is expected to take ten years and cost about $390 million, which will be funded by the U.S. governments financial assistance and the corresponding fund of the Vietnamese government.

An official from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), who accompanied Secretary Mattis during his trip, said that the detoxification could begin in early 2019.

In September 2017, a project worth nearly $12 million was initiated to prepare for the elimination of dioxin contamination at the Bien Hoa Airbase.

It was funded by the central government and implemented by the Vietnam Peoples Air Force.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!Three out of four suspects have been arrested for stealing almost US$320,000 worth of gold from a private home in northern Vietnam last month, police said on Wednesday.

Officers confirmed that they had captured Pham Van Cuu, 32, Nguyen Quang Nguyen, 32, and Pham Ngoc Luyen, 22, on suspicion of property theft.

The three registered their residence in Dong Hung District, Thai Binh Province, police said.

Investigators believed that these people stole 200 taels of gold, worth $318,700, from a house in Ninh Binh Province one month ago.

A local resident, Dinh Quang M., had informed police of thieves burgling his house and breaking a safe to take away 200 taels of gold on September 17 night.

Ninh Binh police officers then put together a team to hunt for the suspects and found out a gang headed by Pham Van Cuu.

Police discovered that the gang used cars and motorbikes to travel to many provinces and cities, stalking private homes before breaking in and stealing property.

They apprehended the three suspects after tracking them for a while. A search of their house led to the confiscation of jewelry, cash and a gun together with three bullets.

Cuu, Nguyen, and Luyen admitted to police that they had stolen the 200 taels of gold from M.s home, adding that one more accessory, Nguyen Cong Hoan, is still at large.

Police officers are hunting for the other suspect.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!Tuoi Tre News comes back on October 17 after a three-month halt, and our readers seemto joyfully embrace the news.

I am very relieved to hear that Tuoi Tre News will soon be back online, said Australian Ray Kuschert, an English teacher who claimed to read Tuoi Tre News every day.

Online news is so important to foreigners living in Vietnam, he added.

I keep in touch with Tuoi Tre News every day because its one of the few news sources in Ho Chi Minh City that I can rely on, he added. I think Tuoi Tre News delivers a great service and am very happy with the stories.

It will be good to know I will again have up to date daily information that I can refer to.

Meanwhile, Filipino university lecturer John Bayarong also expressed his happiness hearing that Tuoi Tre News would be back after a three-month hiatus as he got most of his news from the website.

I would say that whenever I looked for news, it would always be a part of the search, he said.

I used a lot of Tuoi Tres articles as sample cases for my corporate communication classes at the Hoa Sen University, not only because they are written in English, but because the peg and the story treatment are quite different from the rest.

Bill Harany, from Canada, said he was glad that the newspaper would be providing local news again.

Im pleased and happy for Tuoi Tre, British Philip Genochio added a cheerful comment.

In mid-July, Tuoi Tre News announced a three-month shutdown for maintenance.

That was a disappointment to some readers who said it was not very easy for them to find an equal alternative news resource.

After all, for those of us who do not speak Vietnamese, there are very few options and none are equal in format and content, Fallon J Paul, from the U.S., said.

As hard as I searched, I could find nothing equal to Tuoi Tre.

Fallon J Paul, who said he has relied on Tuoi Tre News for ninety percent of his daily news, did send a message to show his support for the Tuoi Tre News team during the shutdown.

I sent a message of encouragement and support, he said.

I am convinced many felt as I did and I wanted Tuoi Tre News to know that we supported them. The response was upbeat and promising and gave me hope for Tuoi Tres fut . ure.

Filipino John Bayarong said the three sections that he likes - education, business and the section with features on Vietnamese culture - were quickly filled in by other English online newspapers, but inadequately.

However, Tuoi Tres section about foreigners (stories, tips, etc.) was something that none of the other online newspapers could offer or duplicate, he added.

Looking to the future

Readers also candidly spoke out what they expect to see on the site in the future.

I am expecting their service to pick up where it was three months ago and continue to bring the best local news and information to foreigners living in Ho Chi Minh City, Ray Kuschert said.

I would like to see more audio content to support their stories. Its great for learning English, he added.

British Philip Genochio wished Tuoi Tre News to publish stories and features that not just provide information but help bring important issues into the public realm for discussion and debate.

He also liked to see video clips with fewer graphics and more focus on the story on the site.

Meanwhile, Bill Harany, who is based in the southern province of Tra Vinh, hoped to see renewed energy and enthusiastic, investigative journalism.

I look forward to your mix of hard news and human interest, Fallon J Paul said.

I hope youll continue your format and presentation style, very easy to read and understand, he added. I hope you will remember that theres more to Vietnam than Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and Da Nang.

For his part, Filipino university lecturer John Bayarong pointed out the unique characteristics of Tuoi Tre News.

In a global setting, the features on local culture are really the unique contribution of Tuoi Tre News, he said

Given sufficient attention, it can be Tuoi Tres contribution to the world news and a financial tool for the newspaper.

Tuoi Tre News section about foreigners was also a unique selling point, according to him. The section's audience share is small because the target audience is foreigners, he said.

However, the audience would widen if the section also addresses locals who are interested to know more about foreigners and their point of view.

Bayarong continued to share what he would like to see on Tuoi Tre News, including more foreigners sharing their insights into the events happening and places to go in the country, alongside more in-depth and continuing coverage of interesting stories.

The taxi hailing app Grab versus Uber series was a prominent topic in my marketing and communication classes at the University of Economics and Finance, as well as PSB College because the students clearly understood Tuoi Tres English articles, the lecturer gave an example.

Aside from content, he suggested faster loading of the pages.

As both a communication specialist and a journalist, I know that speed (applied in all parts of the website) is the key to viewer attraction and most importantly, engagement and retention, he concluded.SBS premieres its next history factual series Ancient Invisible Cities on Sunday, as Michael Scott (not to be confused with The Office!) visits Cairo, Istanbul, and Athens.

This is a 3 part BBC series which premiered in the UK last month.

Michael Scott heads to Cairo, Istanbul, and Athens to uncover the forgotten, hard to reach, and invisible aspects of these extraordinary cities and in doing so, offers new perspectives on their dramatic and important histories.

See Michael descend deep under the Great Pyramid of Egypt, rock climb down a 1000 year old 90m well on Cairos citadel, discover a disused giant cistern inside the ancient hippodrome of Istanbul, abseil 16m underground to an ancient aqueduct in Athens, crawl through ancient mining caves at Laurion, and dive into the Aegean to see new underwater archaeology at Sounion.

Accompanied by ScanLabs, who produce mm accurate 3D laser scans of many of the locations he visits, see Michael as he also leaps into the world of Virtual Reality to explore what it feels like to be a Caryatid on the Erechtheion in Athens; what the Haghia Sophia looks like when standing on its immense dome roof; and how the mysterious chambers of the Great Pyramid in Egypt line up when viewed from deep underground.

Series One, Episode One: Cairo

Dr. Michael Scott uses the latest 3D scanning technology to reveal the historical secrets of Cairo and Ancient Egypt. He explores the first pyramid ever built at Saqqara, and finds out how it helped inspire the Great Pyramid of Giza. The 3D scans confirm just how accurately the Great Pyramid was designed and constructed. Michael also investigates the sphinx to try to determine which pharaoh it represents.

Sunday, 21 October at 7.30pm on SBS(Reuters) - The Vietnamese dissident known as "Mother Mushroom" was released from prison on Wednesday and left Vietnam on a flight to the United States, sources with direct knowledge of the matter said.

Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh, one of Vietnam's most prominent dissidents, was serving a 10-year sentence for anti-state propaganda.

"Mother Mushroom departed Vietnam today for the United States," one source told Reuters. "She is flying with her children and mother."

The U.S. State Department said it welcomed the decision by Vietnam to release Quynh and said she and her had family decided to travel to the United States, where they were expected to arrive later on Wednesday.

"In prior conversations Ms. Quynh and her family clearly stated to U.S. officials that she wanted to come to the United States if released from prison," a spokeswoman for the department said.

The Committee to Protect Journalists advocacy group quoted an email from a friend of Quynh's family as saying she was scheduled to arrive in Houston, Texas, on Thursday with her two children and mother and plans to live in exile in the U.S. city.

CPJ attached a photograph of a smiling Quynh and her two children aboard a plane, which it said was bound for the United States.

"We are greatly pleased that Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh is finally free, but strongly reiterate that she never should have been imprisoned in the first place," said Shawn Crispin, CPJ's senior Southeast Asia representative.

There was no immediate comment from Vietnam's Foreign Ministry.

News of the release came shortly after U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis left Vietnam. It was not known if the release had any connection with his visit. Mattis arrived there on Tuesday and left for Singapore on Wednesday.

A Pentagon spokesman did not immediately comment when asked about the timing of the release.

Despite sweeping economic reform in Vietnam, and increasing openness toward social change, Vietnam's ruling Communist Party does not tolerate criticism that it deems threatens its rule.

Story continues

A blogger and environmental activist, Quynh was among 13 women to receive an International Women of Courage Award last year. The awards were presented by U.S. first lady Melania Trump.

She was arrested for posting what police described as anti-state reports, including one about civilians dying in police custody.

Last year, she was jailed for 10 years for publishing propaganda against the state, following a surge in crackdowns on dissidents since 2016, when more conservative leaders cemented their power in top party positions.

Quynh is the second dissident released this year. A prominent human rights lawyer, Nguyen Van Dai, was released from prison in June and went to Germany.

The news should serve as a reminder of Vietnam's worsening record of jailing anyone who criticizes the regime, said Nicholas Bequelin, human rights group Amnesty International's regional director for east and southeast Asia.

"While Mother Mushroom is no longer imprisoned, the condition for her release was exile," he added, saying that more than 100 people were languishing in jail because they peacefully spoke their minds, whether in public, on blogs or on Facebook.

Human Rights Watch said Vietnam had adopted a strategy of political repression under which it arrests activists on "bogus" charges, jails them for long terms and then offers a "freedom for exile deal" and claims credit for the release.

"But no one should forget that Vietnam is still one of the most repressive states in Southeast Asia," the group said.

(Additional reporting by David Brunnstrom in Washington; Editing by Robert Birsel, Clarence Fernandez and Tom Brown)WASHINGTON (AP)  The Trump administration has again decided not to brand China a currency manipulator. But the U.S. is targeting China and five others for special monitoring for what the administration says are practices that are worsening America's trade deficit.

In a report issued Wednesday, the administration says no country meets the criteria to be labeled a currency manipulator. But the report says that six nations  China, Germany, India, Japan, South Korea and Switzerland  will remain on a watch list subjecting them to added U.S. pressure to lower trade surpluses.

The Treasury Department report says the administration will closely monitor the recent depreciation of Beijing's currency, which it said would likely worsen America's trade deficit with China.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said China's lack of transparency and the recent weakness of its currency were of particular concern to the administration.

"These pose major challenges to achieving fairer and more balanced trade and we will continue to monitor and review China's currency practices including through ongoing discussions with the People's Bank of China," Mnuchin said in a statement accompanying the report.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump vowed to name China a currency manipulator as soon as he took office. But so far, the administration has passed up four opportunities to do so in a report that the administration is required by law to deliver to Congress every six months.

Instead, the administration has accused Beijing of various trade infractions and imposed billions of dollars of tariffs on Chinese goods coming into the United States. China has retaliated, sparking a trade war between the world's two biggest economies.

The United States has imposed tariffs on about $250 billion in Chinese goods, and Beijing has responded by targeting about $110 billion in U.S. products.

The Trump administration contends that China is using predatory practices to challenge American technological dominance. These include hacking into U.S. companies' computers to steal trade secrets and forcing American firms to hand over technology to China in exchange for access to the Chinese market.

Story continues

America incurred a goods deficit of $375.9 billion with China last year, the largest imbalance with any nation. That represented nearly half of America's total global trade deficit in goods of $807.5 billion.

Trump has blamed the huge deficits for the loss of millions of manufacturing jobs and vowed to attack unfair trade practices and renegotiate trade deals on better terms for the United States.

While many economists believe the administration's approach will fail to lower America's huge trade deficits, some critics have faulted the administration for not being tougher by branding the country a currency manipulator.

"One of Trump's most emphatic campaign promises was to declare China a currency manipulator on Day One," said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch. "But Trump's Treasury secretary has chosen to rely on criteria created by previous administrations to ensure no action is taken."

No country has been labeled a currency manipulator by the United States since the Clinton administration tagged China in 1994. Such a designation subjects a country to negotiations in an effort to lower the trade gap.

If the U.S. is not satisfied with the trade concessions offered by the targeted country, it can impose punitive tariffs, although the offending country can appeal to the Geneva-based World Trade Organization.

The new report said America's trade deficit has continued to widen this year, partly reflecting stronger growth in the United States than many other nations, but also "persistent trade and investment barriers in many economies, along with sustained undervaluation of many currencies."

___

AP Economics Writer Paul Wiseman contributed to this report.Zaha is currently being assessed by Palace's medical staff: Getty Images

Crystal Palace were today assessing Wilfried Zaha, with fears growing he may face another spell on the sidelines with injury.

The forward was forced to return early from international duty with Ivory Coast after sustaining a thigh problem, similar to the one which ruled him out of Palaces home defeat by Southampton last month.

Zahas involvement in Palaces match at Everton on Sunday may now be in doubt, with Palace desperately hoping that the 25-year-old will not be out of action for a significant period given their record without him.

Palace have not prevailed in a match minus Zaha since they won 3-2 at Sunderland in September 2016.

Zaha has a good record of returning quickly to first-team action after injury problems but Palace must also be careful not to rush him back ahead of schedule.

Questioned about their poor record without Zaha, Palace manager Roy Hodgson said: I dont know what I can do until we play without Wilf and win.It is quite a roll-call. The list of business people who have dropped out of Saudi Arabia's Future Investment Initiative conference, in protest at the disappearance and suspected murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, would make a fine line-up at any finance summit.

Those no longer now attending the so-called 'Davos in the Desert' include John Flint, chief executive of HSBC; Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase (Swiss: JPM-USD.SW - news) ; Bill Winters, chief executive of Standard Chartered (BSE: 580001.BO - news) ; Stephen Schwarzman, chairman of Blackstone; David Schwimmer, the new chief executive of the London Stock Exchange (Other OTC: LDNXF - news) ; Tidjane Thiam, chief executive of Credit Suisse (IOB: 0QP5.IL - news) ; Larry Fink, chief executive of BlackRock; Jean Lemierre, chairman of BNP Paribas (LSE: 0HB5.L - news) and Frederic Oudea, chief executive of Societe Generale.

Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, said on Tuesday evening that she would not be attending.

A glittering line-up of finance superstars in other words, while those from outside the world of finance who have also decided no longer to participate include Bill Ford, chairman of Ford Motor Company (LSE: 0P4F.L - news) ; Dara Khosrowshahi, chief executive of Uber and Sir Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Group.

Media partners who have pulled out include the Financial Times, the New York Times and Bloomberg.

Yet it is by no means certain that the absence of these top financiers and business people will hamstring the event.

Steve Mnuchin, the US treasury secretary, is still scheduled to attend while so too are a number of leading European business personalities including Joe Kaeser, chief executive of Siemens; Patrice Caine, chief executive of Thales (LSE: 0IW5.L - news) and Jean-Bernard Levy, chief executive of EDF (Paris: FR0010242511 - news) .

The latter two are still scheduled to be joined at the event by their fellow countryman Bruno Le Maire, the French finance minister, while the programme on the event's official website still lists professional services firms including EY, PwC, Oliver Wyman, McKinsey and Boston Consulting Group as taking part in various seminars.

Story continues

Moreover, while some Europeans and Americans will now be staying away, it is clear that business leaders and blue-chip companies from the rest of the Middle East and from Asia will still be in Riyadh in strength.

Pulling out of the event, organised by Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund the Public Investment Fund (PIF), represents calculated risk.

:: Recording emerges of journalist's 'torture and murder'

As the Wall Street Journal has pointed out, the PIF's ambitious plans and Saudi Arabia's need to modernise its economy promises "a gusher of investment and deal-making too big to be ignored".

For that reason, it was notable that Mr Fink has said BlackRock (Sao Paolo: BLAK34.SA - news) , the world's biggest investment manager, won't "run away" from Saudi Arabia, even if the country's government does turn out to be culpable in Mr Khashoggi's death.

He told CNBC: "We do business in 80 different countries. There are many countries where we may disagree."

And that sums up the dilemma for many participants in the event.

Some companies, like HSBC, have long-standing businesses in the kingdom and it is far harder for them to disengage.

Uber is backed by the PIF. JP Morgan Chase was one of the advisers on the now-aborted IPO of Saudi Aramco, the state oil company, a flotation in which scores of banks, law firms and public relations companies from around the world were desperate to get involved.

Mr Fink, a regular visitor to the kingdom, felt he had no choice but to withdraw from the event because his participation was becoming a big issue for BlackRock's employees and clients.

But the truth is that it is far easier to stay away from a business conference than it is to disentangle long-standing, well-established and profitable business relationships.

Moreover, staying away risks jeopardising future business deals with Saudi Arabia, leaving the path clear for rivals to capitalise.

That is particularly the case for the big banks. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial (Other OTC: MBFJF - news) and Mizuho Financial (NYSE: MFG - news) , respectively Japan's first and third largest banks, will still be in Riyadh and will certainly hope to benefit from the absence of their US and European rivals.

That may be partly cultural - Japanese companies tend to come under less pressure from consumers and shareholders than their western counterparts - and it may also be pragmatic, as both banks are big investors in the $100bn Vision Fund set up by SoftBank (Swiss: SOFB.SW - news) , the Japanese investment group, in which the PIF is the biggest single backer.

Mitsubishi UFJ and Mizuho have also, among large foreign banks, been among the biggest fee earners in Saudi Arabia in recent years.

The Tokyo Stock Exchange, meanwhile, competed hard with the London Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange to host the secondary listing of Saudi Aramco.

Pulling out of 'Davos in the Desert' does not only raise the risk of losing future business with Saudi Arabia. It also risks antagonising the kingdom's allies.

Bahrain's foreign minister has already started a 'boycott Uber' campaign in protest at Mr Khosrowshahi's decision not to attend the event. Similar campaigns have been mooted in the United Arab Emirates.

So there is a lot at play here. Big corporates in the western world usually back down in the face of social media campaigns fairly quickly these days.

But getting them to unwind an entire position in a country, particularly one as potentially lucrative as Saudi Arabia, is much more complex and difficult even in an age of social media.

But the biggest concern for western companies, longer-term, may be this. Once upon a time, countries used to express unease at the behaviour of other countries via governmental channels. Now (Frankfurt: 11N.F - news) , it seems, business leaders must also act as unpaid adjuncts to the diplomatic service in addition to their day jobs.BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union on Wednesday called on Palestinian militants to stop rocket and mortar fire from Gaza towards Israel, saying attacks targeting civilians were "unacceptable".

"The rocket and mortar fire by Palestinian militants from Gaza towards Israel must stop immediately," the European Commission said in a statement. "Indiscriminate attacks against civilians are completely unacceptable. The first priority now is for de-escalation."

(Reporting by Alissa de Carbonnel @AdeCar; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg)Anti-corruption investigators on Tuesday raided the home and party headquarters of French far-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon, who broadcast the raids live from his mobile phone.

The raids, part of a long-running investigation into the alleged misuse of European Parliament funds to pay party employees, took place at the offices of La France Insoumise (France Unbowed) in central Paris and Melenchon's private residence.

Shouting Resistance!, hundreds of supporters gathered outside the party's headquarters to protest against the police action.

Police blocked Melenchon from entering the premises as the far-left firebrand threatened to break down the door if he was not allowed in.

"Who gave you these orders?" he demanded a police officer blocking the entrance. "I am a parliamentarian!"

Amid the scuffle Melenchon yelled, "I am the Republic."

"This is a politically motivated act, it's an act of political aggression," Melenchon said. Amid chaotic scenes outside the building, he slammed a coup de force by politicised police.

A source close to the raids, which targeted 15 locations and included another left-wing party, said they were being carried out by a specialist anti-corruption unit that focuses on financial and tax irregularities.

Two investigations are under way, one looking into the alleged misuse of European Parliament funds to pay party employees in France, and the other examining funding of Melenchon's French presidential campaign last year.

Several French parties have been targeted over their use of European Parliament funds, including Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally (formerly called the National Front) and the centrist Modem party.

Lawmakers elected to the European Parliament are allocated funds to cover expenses, including the running of their offices in Brussels and Strasbourg and assistants' salaries, but they cannot use the money to pay for party staff at home.

Story continues

Last week, a French judge stepped up the inquiry into Le Pen, with a source inside her party saying she was now being investigated for possible embezzlement of public funds, having previously been questioned over breach of trust.

They will not scare me

Melenchon, 67, frequently denounces President Emmanuel Macron for backing laws favouring the wealthy and right-wing voters.

A member of the European Parliament from 2009-17, he was eliminated in the first round of the presidential election last year, coming fourth. He said he had nothing to fear from the investigations.

"I've asked for all my campaign accounts to be re-examined," he said, draped in the red-white-and-blue sash of a member of the French lower house, the National Assembly.

"I'm not afraid of anyone. These people can invade my house, my party headquarters and my movement, but they will not scare me. We haven't stolen anything. We are honest," he added.

Responding to allegations that Tuesdays police raids were politically motivated, French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe emphasized that the independence of the judiciary is guaranteed by the French constitution.

"There's no individual instruction given to the prosecutor, Philippe said.

(FRANCE 24 with REUTERS)MONROVIA, Liberia (AP)  Liberia's government says it is investigating a charity founded by a young American woman after allegations that a local staffer raped several girls in its care.

The More Than Me organization says in a statement that founder Katie Meyler has taken a leave of absence until a separate, independent audit requested by the charity is complete. Meyler's work had been praised by Oprah Winfrey and others.

Liberians have expressed outrage after a report last week described the alleged sexual assaults at a branch of the charity in the capital, Monrovia.

A three-member committee of the charity's board of directors says that "we fell short, and we are determined to learn all that we can from this painful chapter." The board's chairman has resigned.

The charity's operations in Liberia continue.

See Also:FILE PHOTO: Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis speaks with the media before an enhanced honor cordon arrival of Greek Minister of Defense Panagiotis Kammenos at the Pentagon in Washington, U.S., October 9, 2018. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo

By Phil Stewart

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis will seek more resilient military ties during talks with his Chinese counterpart in Singapore slated for Thursday, a U.S. official said, as both militaries attempt to navigate mounting tensions.

Mattis saw first hand last month how growing Sino-U.S. friction could undermine military contacts when Beijing up-ended plans for an October meeting in China with Defence Minister Wei Fenghe, in apparent retaliation over U.S. sanctions.

A meeting with Wei now appears set to take place on the sidelines of a gathering of Asian defence ministers in Singapore.

Randall Schriver, a U.S. assistant secretary of defence who helps guide Pentagon policy in Asia, said making military-to-military ties with China less brittle would be crucial to helping reduce the chances of a devastating conflict.

"Two nuclear-armed powers with regional, if not global, interests - we need to make sure that when we step on one another's toes, it doesn't escalate into something that would be catastrophic," Schriver told reporters travelling with Mattis.

Schriver said he believed that sentiment was shared by China's military, noting that it recently requested Thursday's talks in Singapore after Beijing decided against a planned Mattis-Wei meeting in China.

"I think the fact that he's meeting with Minister Wei is some evidence that the Chinese are interested in keeping things normal and stable, as are we," said Schriver, assistant secretary of defence for Asian and Pacific security affairs.

He said Wei had a standing invitation to visit the United States.

MANAGING CRISES

Military-to-military ties have long been one of the more fragile parts of the overall U.S.-China relationship, with Beijing limiting contacts when tensions run high. That has been a source of major concern for years among U.S. officials, who fear an accidental collision or mishap could quickly escalate.

Story continues

"What we want in terms of stability are regular interactions at senior levels so we have a good understanding of one another's intentions, that we have confidence-building measures that will help us prevent an unintended accident or incident," Schriver said.

"And, should one occur, that we have the ability to manage that so it doesn't worsen."

China has been infuriated by the United States putting sanctions on China's military for buying weapons from Russia, and by what Beijing sees as stepped-up U.S. support for self-ruled Taiwan, claimed by China as its sacred territory.

In a recent reminder of the risks amid rising tensions, the Pentagon this month accused China of an unsafe and unprofessional manoeuvre in the South China Sea that brought a Chinese ship dangerously close to a U.S. Navy destroyer in international waters.

Mattis, speaking to reporters as he flew to Asia this week, rejected Chinese claims that the United States was acting aggressively and pointed the finger at Beijing.

"When the Chinese ships are putting bumpers over the side ... You don't do that when you're out in the middle of the ocean, unless you're intending to run into something," Mattis said.

But tensions between the United States and China have already extended well beyond naval manoeuvres and even the bitter trade war.

U.S. President Donald Trump last month accused China of seeking to meddle in Nov. 6 congressional elections, a charge almost immediately rejected by Beijing.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, in what was billed as a major policy address, renewed that and other accusations this month and added that Chinese security agencies had masterminded the "wholesale theft of American technology," including military blueprints.

The Pentagon's top concerns have been China's rapid military modernization and simultaneous creation of military outposts in the South China Sea, a strategic waterway vital for international trade. The Pentagon un-invited China to a multinational exercise earlier this year in protest.

Mattis, Schriver said, will renew to Wei U.S. positions on freedom of navigation in international waters, amid Chinese claims of "irrefutable" sovereignty in the South China Sea.

"I think our message will be: No single country can change international law and national norms. We'll fly, sail and operate where international law allows," Schriver said.Please call your State Representative and State Senator and tell them to vote against legislation repealing the Parental Notice of Abortion ...Walmart is paying nearly $65 million to over 100,000 past and present cashiers from all of their California locations. A lawsuit was filed against Walmart in California, claiming they violated state law by refusing to provide employees with seating during their shifts.

The case will go to trial later this year, but Walmart maintains it has not done anything wrong. A settlement has been reached and is now waiting for approval from a federal judge. Business Insider has said that Walmart will begin providing stools for their cashiers in California.

The suit comes as Walmart continues to face bad publicity, including a serious parking lot rage that landed a woman in jail.

If approved, the settlement will be the largest reached under California's Private Attorney General Act. According to the PAGA, workers have the ability to sue their employer on behalf of California. However, they are only entitled to a quarter of any money they win from the suit. The suit was one of the original suits to be filed under a regulation that requires seating for employees.

Walmart is crying foul over the lawsuit

A regulation was established in 1911, that was approved and applied to women in the retail industry. It continued to be expanded and tweaked over the last century.

Walmart has defended itself saying having stools at the registers would be a safety hazard and could make employees less productive. Walmart has said that cashier duties do not "reasonably permit seating," because cashiers often need to scan large items, bag items and may need to do work away from registers.

According to Patch, Walmart currently offers stools to cashiers that are disabled or have a medical condition, as well as to those who are pregnant.

Discuss this news on Eunomia

Walmart has allowed store managers the ability to provide stools to cashiers on a case-by-case basis. They previously faced a lawsuit in 2016 over discrimination.

Walmart is not the only one to face this type of lawsuit

Walmart and a whole lot of companies have faced lawsuits regarding proper seating. Bank of America was sued and ended up paying $15 million.

Other suits have been filed against companies including CVS, Kmart, AT&T, Home Depot and JPMorgan Chase.

Walmart continues to face a handful of suits. Last month, the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a suit against Walmart, alleging the company was forcing pregnant workers at a Wisconsin store to go on unpaid leave.

Former Walmart employee Nisha Brown filed the suit in the U.S. Superior Court of Alameda. She filed the suit on behalf of the 100,000 cashiers impacted and are eligible to receive payouts from the settlement. The case has been filed under Brown v. Walmart Inc. We will have to wait and see if this will have a ripple effect across all Walmart locations across the country.The famous Prince Harry and former "Suit" actress Meghan Markle got married on May 19, 2018, at Windsor Castle. Recently, the royal couple revealed that they were expecting their first child. According to The Express, the pregnancy news was confirmed by an announcement made by Kensington Palace.

Geriatric Pregnancy

Just as the Queen's pregnancy was classified as geriatric before the birth of Prince Andrew, so is Meghans. The 37 years old Duchess is 12 weeks pregnant. Interestingly, the down to earth Duchess and her husband, Prince Harry are expecting their royal baby and first child next spring.

The former "Suit" actress pregnancy is considered to be geriatric because she is over the age of 35.

According to gynaecologists, geriatric is just a label from the medical world used to classify women who are pregnant and over the age of 35. However, the stigma associated with this term geriatric has been removed by doctors. Instead, preferably described as advanced maternal age. The risks associated with geriatric pregnancy include labor complications, stillbirth, premature birth, hypertension in the mother, low birth weight, and many others.

According to BBC, the Duchess seems not to be alone as she is not the first to have a geriatric pregnancy in the Royal Family. The Queen gave birth to Prince Andrew at the age of 37.

The Duchess of Cambridge, Kate Middleton gave birth to Prince Louis at 36. Sophie gave birth to Lady Louise at 38 and James at 42. Zara gave birth to her daughter Lena at 37. Although the geriatric pregnancy  label has been dismissed as an offensive word, gynaecologists still encourage women to give birth at a younger age to avoid fertility issues.

Discuss this news on Eunomia

The bumper Pacific tour

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex began their first royal tour on Monday, October 15, 2018, as they received adorable gifts on their arrival in Sydney. They will also officially visit Fiji, Tonga, Australia, New Zealand, and other Commonwealth countries. Uk journalists in Australia got the royal baby news by phone.

This was revealed on Twitter by a royal expert known as Emily Nash. Due to the Zika virus in Fiji and Tonga, people are worried about the Duchess pregnancy tour and the possible effects of getting infected. However, the Kensington palace insists that the tour will continue as normal and none of the 70 planned engagements will be canceled. So far, the couple has received lots of congratulatory message from around the world.It was a dark and stormy night.

Okay not night, but late evening.

There was a massive storm raging. It uprooted trees, took down buildings and caused havoc.

Traffic was severely disrupted. Neighbors worried about their folks out there, praying for their safe return home.

Finally, around 6 pm, it subsided and settled down to rain.

At our place, all of us were present. And busy trying to decide whether pakora or bajji would be better with ginger chai.

A little while later, replete and a bit bored, we sat around.

Suddenly my Mom jumped up saying, hey Vidya, lets go out!

I looked at her wondering if shed lost her mind. Also I was reading a very interesting thriller.

But I knew better than to say no to her, and resigned myself to adventure, because her second name is OpenMinded and she is my travel inspiration.



We changed, and stepped out into the storm. Being with my Mom is an exhilarating experience, what with her rather sharp wit packaged in kindness. We hopped into the first bus that arrived, marveling that it had even turned up. We had a vague destination in mind, but this bus wasnt on that route.

What happened next was amazing. Because of the traffic diversions, the bus took the route we wanted to go on, and dropped us exactly outside the cinema we were headed to. When we emerged from the theater three hours later, the weather was quite clear and we returned home, feeling rather happy. What an enriching experience!



I learned the joy of travel from being with my Mom. Always willing to take off on impromptu trips whenever we could afford it  be it inside the city or the suburbs. I remember how we once walked ten kilometers on the Medak road in Hyderabad because we wanted to see where it went. That we landed up in some fields where we picked toor dal and hopped on a cart back home is another story. We cooked that dal and thought it was the best we tasted.

In between moving cities and colleges I had my share of unreserved bus and train journeys and sometimes spent time standing by the train door, wind blowing my hair, chatting with a like minded soul late into the night.

All these outings probably prompted me to choose a career that included intensive travel. I still remember these strangers and our conversations vividly.

I find travel magical mainly because of the diverse people I meet, the kindnesses I experience, and of course, with each trip, I find a little more of myself.

Truly, travel broadens the mind!

Like most people, I too have a travel wish list whose theme is  everywhere. Of course, it goes without saying I want to visit all my friends who are settled in various countries. I am fortunate to have a flexible work schedule and can take off on a whim.

I love what Ive seen so far.

I live for new experiences, discovering unknown destinations.

Because impromptu unplanned trips bring the best and most cherished memories.

Lets feel the thrill of that unplanned trip, exploring the world.

I cant help reminiscing about some of my happiest trips, an exercise in self exploration

Dharamsala to meet the Dalai Lama. Everyone who knew laughed at my confidence and my naivete at emailing him for a meeting. Yet, within the week there I was, being hugged by The Man himself.

Hundru falls in Ranchi on a whim  ended up spending the most glorious morning, treated to green tea with ginger and lemon by a total stranger who told me stories about his life as we watched the waterfalls.

Came home Friday night after work and at decided to take off on the next bus to Kanchipuram by myself simply because I had heard of a strange and unbelievable experience my colleague had during her visit. Where an auto driver took me under his wing, settled me into a nice hotel and took me sightseeing and then finally dropped me off at my destination from where i could take my bus out. Still remember the delicious food! And the movie I watched that night.

Took off to Karwar to visit the Power Plantan experience Ill never forget. The hospitality, the food sitting on a bench under an awning, just off the deep ravine watching the drizzle of the waterfall, the affectionate people, the crazy jeep ride. Surreal!

That moment when our bus practically parked at the edge of the deep ravine across from Cherrapunji Falls  for a minute I was pretty sure wed become part of the landscape, but the driver stopped just a few inches short, safely.

That lovely family of cooks who invited us in and fed us a tasty and hot meal after our visit to the Jwalaji temple in Himachal.

I could go on and on, but dear World, lets talk about our next trip.

I vote for a backpacking journey rather than spending hours over that itinerary. Lets take off with minimal packing with only our essentials and live like nomads.

Lets go where our fancy takes us.

Lets pretend we have a pair of wings.

Lets flip a coin.

Heads I win, Tails you lose.

Lets fly! Feel the breeze caress us as we glide across the sky, looking around, ahead and down, to stop at wherever takes our fancy.

Could be that artisan by the roadside weaving baskets, narrating stories to his granddaughter, or a promising road sign. Lets see that basket take shape, listen to some stories . . . and follow that road sign to a farm where that puzzled family greets us and then invites us to lunch.

Well set off again, as they watch, amazed, at our wings.

Dont be surprised if I suggest that we head towards Munnar, because someone shared photos of the Kurinji flower that blooms only once in twelve years. Lets go and explore the purple and blue mountains, breathe the air, drink tea by the roadside and revel in nature.

Pic credit: Kerala Tourism

Next stop, Gujarat, to see the Modhera Sun Temple. Then the Gir National Park to meet the queen of the jungle do the catwalk. Eat an authentic Gujarati thali at that restaurant and laze the afternoon away on the stone bench outside the Adalaj Stepwell.

Rajasthan could be next, as we explore the sands of time, soaking in the rich culture that is India. Maybe sing a song or two under the moonlight, after all we are on a date, right?

I would then love to wander northward, heading towards heaven on earth, because truly, my heart is currently in that State. We could go to Kangra and spend the day at the Masrur rock-cut stone temple, a marvelous piece of architecture.

By Akashdeep83  Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

As we enjoy this ancient site, I tell you I want to see the Buddhas of Bamiyan and of course you agree. We take off with renewed energy and hover over the mammoth statues, admiring them.

Since were flying, should we go to China next or elsewhere? I vote China  to see the Great Wall. And fair warning, I have a fetish for huge statues, so Ill stop to stare each time we come across one.

Now may we traverse across India again to get a glimpse of the Taj Mahal and renew our blind date vows?

Now surprise me as I close my eyes and put my trust in you, holding your hand. Lets see if you can read my mind!

The gentle pressure of your hand urges me to open my eyes and lo! Youve brought me to a place Ive only dreamed of visiting! Machu Picchu! Lets spend some time in Peru. Lets play with the children on the streets!

Onward to soar over Rio, Brazil and hug the statue of Christ, the Redeemer!

And then, Angkor Vat in Cambodia to explore this great monument. Id like to spend the night there, enjoying the silence, broken only by natures sounds, listening, letting the serene surroundings soothe us.

How about Egypt and the pyramids of Giza, next? I have always wanted to look the Sphinx in the eye and whisper in her ear. Ive got a secret for her!

It is time now to head towards Europe and roam around Rome, Spain and the French countryside. So romantic. Can we play hide and seek in the Coliseum?

Lets bask in Santorini, Greece.

And when weve had our fill of olives and gorgeous landscapes, lets fly past Stonehenge

I have always wanted to watch the whirling dervishes, so we must head to Istanbul, now. Lets not miss the incredible Cappadocia caves and Goreme, where I hear you can spend the night in a cave.

Lets make sure we visit The Galata Mevlevi Museum on a Sunday in time to see the whirling dervish show. Or even catch the show at the Hodjapasha Dance Theater  transformed from a 15th century Turkish bath. Ive heard that the sema ceremony is a spiritual journey of dervishes whirling for divine love.

How appropriate for our date!

And later, we can spend time in the stars, relaxing on the clouds, reading Rumis poetry and sipping elixir from one glass with two straws.

Beyond the rightness or wrongness of things there is a field, Ill meet you there.

I am sure Ill drift off into a deep sleep.

.to wake up in my own bed.



But believe me, I am ready whenever you call!

No itinerary, except the secret agenda in my head.

Just following our hearts.

I am in love with you, dear world, and your incredible secrets.

Sure I have my bucket list but the idea of a #theblindlist is infinitely more exciting.

Because when I #SayYesToTheWorld, I am essentially saying Yes to Myself.

So much to see, so much to explore and experience in this lifetime!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3g6dDFy3d8o

Whats your travel inspiration?

Do you travel to explore?

Would you #SayYesToTheWorld?

Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world

Namaste!

Thank you for visiting!

For a regular dose of happiness twice a month, subscribe via email

Email Address Leave this field empty if you're human:

Disclosure

Some of my posts may contain affiliate links to products or services Ive experienced and recommend. When you use these links to buy, I will earn a commission at no extra cost to you. I will donate this commission to charity. Thank you. 

Some of my posts may contain affiliate links to products or services Ive experienced and recommend. When you use these links to buy, I will earn a commission at no extra cost to you. I will donate this commission to charity. Thank you. 

Namaste!

Thank you for visiting!

For a regular dose of happiness twice a month, subscribe via email

Email Address Leave this field empty if you're human:

Disclosure

Some of my posts may contain affiliate links to products or services Ive experienced and recommend. When you use these links to buy, I will earn a commission at no extra cost to you. I will donate this commission to charity. Thank you. 

Some of my posts may contain affiliate links to products or services Ive experienced and recommend. When you use these links to buy, I will earn a commission at no extra cost to you. I will donate this commission to charity. Thank you. 

Dear World, I am Your Blind Date #SayYesToTheWorld #TheBlindList was last modified: byWednesday, Illinois Family Action rescinded its endorsement of Conservative Party's gubernatorial candidate Sam McCann after finding McCann sent out a mailing against one of the Illinois House's most conservative members - State Rep. Tom Morrison.

State Rep. Jeanne Ives told Illinois Review she would be sending a statement to her statewide mailing list condemning McCann's mailer and actions against Morrison.

Illinois Review obtained a copy of the mailer in which McCann skews Morrison as a "Rauner RINO" - when Morrison has consistently and publicly criticized Gov Rauner when he acted against conservative interests. UPDATE: IR is hearing that McCann was furious with Morrison for refusing to endorse him in the governor's race. Also, it is IR's understanding that no endorsement will be forthcoming from the state's conservatives on the governor's race.

The mailer that stirred the controversy:

More to come.The Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets will dedicate the engraving of the name of U.S. Navy Ensign Sarah Mitchell of the Class of 2017 on the Ut Prosim Pylon during a ceremony at 3:30 p.m. Nov. 9 at the War Memorial.

Mitchell, of Feasterville, Pennsylvania, died July 8 during a Naval training exercise in the Red Sea. She was 23 and leaves behind a large loving family and a fiance, Dave Collins, who is currently deployed with the Navy.

The ceremony is open to the public and all are welcome to attend. Mitchells is the 432nd name added to the Pylons and the first woman.

Cadets remember Mitchell as a hands-on and charismatic young leader who left a lasting impression on everyone who met her. During her senior year, she commanded the corps Alpha Company and served as a platoon commander for the universitys Naval ROTC.

When I came to Alpha Company as a sophomore, she insisted on sitting down to have a meal with every new member of the company, making a conscious effort to get to know us as individuals, said Cadet Daniel Grigg, a senior in Naval ROTC majoring in political science with a focus in national security and foreign affairs. This was characteristic of her sleeves-rolled-up, ownership-based approach to leadership, and it inspired all of those around her.

Mitchell graduated with a degree in biochemistry and minors in chemistry and leadership studies. She commissioned in May 2017 and reported to the guided-missile destroyer USS Jason Dunham as a surface warfare officer that June. The destroyer was on deployment to the Middle East from its home port of Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia.Yesterday, mailers from Sam McCanns campaign hit in the 55th House District calling State Representative Tom Morrison a Rauner-puppet. The mailers were funded by union-backed State Senator and Gubernatorial Candidate Sam McCann - who now should not receive a single vote from any pro-life voter after attacking Rep. Morrison.

These attacks on Morrison demand a response, as they are patently false. Tom Morrison is one of the few state legislators in Springfield who stands up for conservative values, and has stood up to Rauner on both fiscal and social issues, every time they are under attack in the Illinois House. He is one of the most reliable conservative votes in Springfield.

Is Sam McCann working for Mike Madigan? Is he hoping to receive favorable treatment under a Governor Pritzker? Is he so clueless that he doesnt realize how his platform is being used by the states vicious public sector unions? I dont know. And I dont really care.

These mailers against Morrison are lies. And they are disqualifying.

Some Illinois Conservatives looking for a candidate who represents their pro-life values had found hope McCanns candidacy. Illinois Conservatives have once again been betrayed.CANADA  The use and sale of recreational marijuana became legal Wednesday, making Canada the second nation behind Uruguay to legalize cannabis. The Cannabis Act, as it is called, was passed by the Canadian House of Common in Nov 2017 and then by its Senate in June 2018, and approved that month. Recreational cannabis became legal midnight October 17 and, according to news reports, there were shops and buyers ready and waiting.

Heathen Robert Rudachyk, who lives in Saskatchewan and has been involved in local government for years, told The Wild Hunt: It is long past time. Whether you choose to smoke it or not is and has always been a matter of personal choice. It speaks well that the federal government has seen fit to move to regulate this industry and once people realize their fears were for naught, we can relax the current restrictions.

According to a New York Times report, Rudachyks province has 51 private stores opening this week. and Alberta has 17. Quebec reportedly has 12 government-owned stores and British Columbia will also be opting to allow government run shops.

With legalization, which is being compared to the end of prohibition, are government regulations. Cannabis, for example, cannot be sold along with alcohol and tobacco products. The THC levels must be lower than of that found on the black market.

Buyers must be 18 years or older, and can hold or share up to 30 grams in public. People are also allowed to grow up to 4 plants in their home for personal use, but not sale.

Wednesday morning, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted, Profits out of the hands of criminals. Protection for our kids. Today # cannabis is legalized and regulated across Canada. The Cannabis Act was one of his campaign promises, and in June when it was approvied, he tweeted Our plan to legalize & regulate marijuana just passed the Senate. #PromiseKept.

There are now plans to develop legislation to pardon people who have been charged with simple possession or under 30 grams.

Not everyone is convinced that the legalization will be beneficial. Members of the medical communities are concerned about addiction and other negative health effects. Law enforcement officials have expressed concerns about a potential rise in intoxicated drivers. An October 14 article published in The Globe and Mail details the many ways that cannabis can cause, specifically focusing on preventing overdose and a trip to the hospital.

A survey done in August by researchers at Dalhousie University showed that, while 68% of Canadians do support the new law, 58.&% did express concerns about children and teens having easier access to cannabis once its legal.

Finally, other critics suggest that legalization is simply a route for the government to make more money. According to CNN, the sale of cannabis is expected to become a $4 billion dollar industry. And, Vice reports that the government is expected to take in over $675 million a year from the cannabis tax dollars.

We spoke with musician Witchdoctor Utu, who called the day unique and historic, but similarly expressed some reservations. Utu is the spokesperson for the popular Pagan band Dragon Ritual Drummers, and he lives in Ontario.

He told The Wild Hunt, This brings with it new police powers of search and seizure that previously did not exist in this country, as well as drug testing for certain careers that were also nonexistent, and anyone on any registry from medical to online purchases, their information can be shared with the U.S. Department Of Homeland Security, who has officially stated it can either scrutinize or add said people to a watch list to outright refuse entry into the U.S.

Travel across borders is one of the topics frequently being raised as Canada law went into effect. Officials are strongly warning people that, while cannabis is now legal in Canada, it is still illegal to carry it across international borders. This is an important point for the nations tourists, including the many people heading to upcoming Parliament of the Worlds Religions hosted in Toronto.

Cannabis, in any quantity, cannot be carried into or out of Canada, even if the traveler is going directly to a U.S. state in which recreational cannabis is legal, such as Washington, Colorado, or Maine.

Despite all the restrictions, warnings and concerns, the nation appears to mostly be celebrating with some calling Wednesday October 17 #weedday. It is being heralded as a marker of a progressive social shift and it is also being labeled a national experiment. Witchdoctor Utu said: Time will tell how this all works out for a country that already had some of the most lax marijuana laws on the planet.

As he noted, nobody knows at this point the full socio-economic ramifications of legalization. With Canada being a major playing in the global economy, the world is watching. In addition to the coming changes within Canada, many people are also watching to see if Canadas cannabis law puts new pressure on the U.S. toward the national legalization of recreational cannabis.Katy Waldman in The New Yorker:

In more than twenty years of running diversity-training and cultural-competency workshops for American companies, the academic and educator Robin DiAngelo has noticed that white people are sensationally, histrionically bad at discussing racism. Like waves on sand, their reactions form predictable patterns: they will insist that they were taught to treat everyone the same, that they are color-blind, that they dont care if you are pink, purple, or polka-dotted. They will point to friends and family members of color, a history of civil-rights activism, or a more salient issue, such as class or gender. They will shout and bluster. They will cry. In 2011, DiAngelo coined the term white fragility to describe the disbelieving defensiveness that white people exhibit when their ideas about race and racism are challengedand particularly when they feel implicated in white supremacy. Why, she wondered, did her feedback prompt such resistance, as if the mention of racism were more offensive than the fact or practice of it?

In a new book, White Fragility, DiAngelo attempts to explicate the phenomenon of white peoples paper-thin skin. She argues that our largely segregated society is set up to insulate whites from racial discomfort, so that they fall to pieces at the first application of stresssuch as, for instance, when someone suggests that flesh-toned may not be an appropriate name for a beige crayon.

More here.Kamila Shamsie in The Guardian:

History does not record whether there was any contact during the first world war between the men of the Indian army who were being treated in hospitals in Brighton for injuries sustained on the western front and the men of the British West Indies regiment training further along the Sussex coast in Seaford. If there was, theyd have had much to discuss, both in terms of the camaraderie between soldiers and the racial discrimination that followed these men who had volunteered to fight for the empire. Khudadad Khan of the Indian army, the first Indian to receive a Victoria Cross, might have had something to say about the scandal that erupted in 1915 when the Daily Mail ran a picture of him in hospital with a white nurse standing beside his bed. The following month, the army council issued a directive calling for the removal of all white nurses from three military hospitals where Indian soldiers were being treated. Perhaps the soldiers of the British West Indies regiment would have thought this a petty grievance compared with their own. Having signed up, they discovered they were not allowed to fight because black men could not be trusted with guns. Instead, they were relegated to labour battalions, often on the front lines.

During the first world war, 15,600 men served in the British West Indies regiment and more than a million in the Indian army across the eastern and western fronts. Until recently, their stories have been almost completely whitewashed from history. Among the organisations that have sought to put forward a more complete picture of the war during its centenary commemorations is HMDT Music, an award-winning arts education group. Over the last four years, its project Trench Brothers has involved 50 schools and 4,000 children aged nine to 11. They have learned about the war and its minority ethnic battalions through a series of activities that culminate in a musical theatre performance at each school, focusing on a particular soldier.

More here.Funny thing about hypochondria. If you have the disorder, you may be the last person to know. What you might experience is being told theres nothing wrong with you despite what feel like pretty worrisome symptoms  not to mention quite a bit of stress over the fact that no one seems to be taking them seriously. Your brain cant figure it out, so it searches and searches for the worst case scenario is how one sufferer describes her resulting anxiety after years of undefined ailments.

Of course, many older people worry that something might be wrong with their health despite reassurances from doctors. So what tilts someone away from valid concerns and into the realm of hypochondria? It becomes a real thing when it causes enough distress to interfere with everyday life and someones ability to function, says Kumar Dharmarajan, M.D., a geriatrician and chief scientific officer at Clover Health. That might include spending excessive amounts of time online researching symptoms or avoiding normal activities and social interactions.

Dharmarajan says that among the older population, such worry frequently centers on memory loss. We all have moments when we forget something, he says, but for folks with hypochondria, they might fear theyre developing dementia. Tests that come back negative dont convince them otherwise.

What used to technically be called hypochondriasis is now diagnosed as either illness anxiety disorder or somatic symptom disorder. Many patients suffering from these disorders dont receive an official diagnosis or treatment. Instead, they keep worrying, keep wondering, keep visiting doctors and getting tests, trying to find out what illness they might have. The anxiety, says Dharmarajan, can cause stress so severe that a patient may avoid people, places or activities altogether. And it might harm relationships with friends and family, and even cause financial distress from medical bills.Lamont Gallery undergoes renovations

The renovations were made possible by a donation from the Karl O. Lee estate.Copyright  2018 Albuquerque Journal

A relatively new contaminant that might be linked to cancer has been detected in groundwater on and around Cannon Air Force Base near Clovis, state environment department officials said Tuesday.

Concentrations of perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (known as PFAS) above the U.S. Environmental Protection Agencys advised limits  in some places up to 371 times above it  have been found in wells located on and off the base, according to a news release from the New Mexico Environment Department and New Mexico Department of Agriculture.

Cannon spokesman JP Rebello said in an email the Air Force Civil Engineer Center informed the base of the contamination in late August.

Two types of PFAS  known as PFOS and PFOA  were present in firefighting foams used at Cannon to extinguish petroleum-based fires, Rebello said.

The Air Force has replaced legacy firefighting foam at Cannon AFB with a new, more environmentally responsible formula that contains no PFOS and only trace amounts of PFOA, Rebello said. Cannon AFB completed the replacement of legacy (firefighting foam) in its fire vehicles with the replacement foam last year.

Rebello said base drinking water has not been affected.

According to the EPA, PFAS can also be found in nonstick products such as Teflon and household cleaning products.

They may be associated with an increased risk of cancer and accumulate in organisms that consume it.

Bruce Yurdin, NMED deputy secretary, said over the telephone on Tuesday that PFAS have been detected in some of the 19 private wells tested off the base so far, but the Clovis public water supply appears to be uncontaminated.

Some of the 19 off-base wells where PFAS were detected are used for drinking water for dairies.

Because this is an emerging issue across the nation with minimal available scientific data, the (New Mexico Department of Agriculture) has requested that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration immediately determine if any impacts on health exist, and if so, that the FDA establishes a regulatory threshold for PFAS in dairy products, the news release said.

The EPA has set a drinking water Human Health Advisory of 70 nanograms per liter for PFOS and PFOA.

According to the NMED, concentrations at some on-base wells base exceeded 26,000 nanograms per liter.

The concentrations in the off-base wells ranged from 25 to 1,600 nanograms per liter.

We have been in contact with the United States Air Force, Yurdin said. We fully intend to hold them accountable for this and we have asked them for several pieces of information and some additional testing, among other things.

Yurdin said while NMED is focusing on the situation at Cannon, it is speaking with the Air Force about the possibility of contamination at the states two other bases, Kirtland and Holloman Air Force Bases.

The Air Force announced in 2016 that it would spend $2 billion to clean up water contaminated with PFAS caused by its operations.How many are frustrated that loved ones continue to leave New Mexico for better prospects out of state because of a lagging education system, terrible crime and suffering quality of life?

I know I am.

Over the years, I have traveled to the Santa Fe Roundhouse to advocate for local businesses. More often than not, I walked away discouraged by the partisan politics that have taken over our government. I saw many elected officials playing a game at the taxpayers expense. They were fighting for who was right rather than what was right, resulting in New Mexico being on the wrong end of nearly every national list.

I was so disappointed in what I saw that I considered selling my company of 31 years, TLC Plumbing and Utility, and moving my family to another state where they could thrive.

After a moment of hesitation, I thought, You know what, absolutely not. I love New Mexico and I am not leaving.

Instead, I have committed myself to helping New Mexico be the best it can be so that my employees lives will improve and my grandkids will have a place where they can stay and enjoy a great quality of life.

In April 2017, I started working on Viante New Mexico, an accountability and transparency initiative to get hard-working New Mexicans educated on state politics. With the group, my hope is that elected officials stop focusing on disagreements and instead come together on common-ground solutions.

Viante provides information in the areas where we need the most improvement: education, crime and quality of life. Together, the board and I have worked hard to develop a comprehensive scorecard for our members so they are able to make informed decisions about legislators who are actively working to improve our state and those who are satisfied with the status quo. The scorecard considers how often ones elected official was in their seat during floor votes; if they are sponsoring common-ground legislation on education, crime and quality of life; and how they are voting on that same common ground legislation.

As a grass-roots, membership-supported nonprofit, we do not take contributions from businesses, organizations or other politically motivated groups. As such, members receive unbiased, nonpartisan information to hold state representatives and senators accountable for improving our state.

Viante is governed by a balanced and diverse board of directors, half are over the age of 40 and half are under 40. They represent a spectrum of backgrounds, industry and ideologies. Our inaugural board includes Jackie Baca, CEO of Bueno Foods; Jon Patten, co-founder of Dions; Gary Haman, executive with Vitalant; Tom Keleher, retired lawyer; Deena Crawley, marketing director at Dions; Josh Lujan of HUB International; Salvator Perdomo from Titan Development; Julian Sutter, an entrepreneur; Kelly Kern, a former teacher in rural New Mexico and now a stay-at-home mom; and finally, me.

The bottom line is that if one cares about education, crime and quality of life in the state, they must understand how elected officials are making decisions related to these issues. Theres no way to separate the two.

If individuals are waiting for circumstances to get worse in the state before becoming engaged, the moment is here. Viante has made information accessible to families, and it is only going to be impactful if citizens take it and get involved. They must go to the polls and get involved in the change they want to see.

Doing nothing is no longer an option. Please join me in creating a better place for our kids and grandkids. Lets turn our state around. Sign up for Viante New Mexico (and) find a way forward for our state.

Learn more at VianteNM.org.Its doubtful that a former American presidential candidate has ever formally endorsed incivility before, but Hillary Clinton is ever full of surprises.

In an interview on CNN, the erstwhile advocate of if they go low, we go high switched around to unapologetically call for going low.

You cannot be civil with a political party, she explained, that wants to destroy what you stand for, what you care about. She added that if Democrats retake a house of Congress, well, then, thats when civility can start again.

Clintons statement is yet more confirmation of the radical mood of the current Democratic Party, not just in blessing tactics that once would have been anathema to the mainstream, but questioning the legitimacy of core elements of our system. The partys base is just a few steps from beginning to give up on our common national life.

Civility is a rather fundamental thing to throw under the bus. It is the basis of our political life, assuring that disagreements are settled within certain bounds and dont escalate into blood feuds. This doesnt mean that there cant be intense arguments, harsh condemnations, passionate controversies and partisan donnybrooks. These are all endemic to a free society and very healthy things. It does mean that there are certain widely accepted guardrails.

Yet this is now thought to be a suckers game from the attorney-provocateur Michael Avenatti to the opinion outlets of the center-left. Vox ran a piece that argued, Civility is not an end on its own if the practices and beliefs it upholds are unjust.

In the Brett Kavanaugh debate, the normal pressure points of the democratic process  rallies and demonstrations, phone calls to congressional offices, online, print and TV advocacy  were deemed insufficient; senators had to be berated in the hallways, chased out of restaurants and harassed at their homes.

By the way, none of the people treated this way were Donald Trump, who does so much to create raw feelings with his routinely crude and inflammatory rhetoric. The targets were elected officeholders who serve in what is still the most distinguished legislative body in the nation, and routinely call each other friend and colleague.

Asked on CNN if the actions against her fellow senators went too far, Mazie Hirono stood by the harassment: I think it just means that there are a lot of people who are very, very much motivated about whats going on. There has even been resistance on the left and in the media to calling these groups of activists by their proper name, mobs, because it is considered too pejorative.

But when you angrily confront someone, especially as part of a group, it carries an inescapable whiff of physical intimidation. When you shout Ted and Heidi Cruz out of a Washington restaurant, you arent trying to convince them of anything, you are merely abusing them. When you yell at Senate hearings and floor votes, you arent influencing the process, but disrupting it.

Our system of government is increasingly held in low regard on the left. The 2016 election was somehow stolen, and the mechanism that gave Trump his victory, the Electoral College, is illegitimate. The Senate, which confirmed Kavanaugh and gives small, red states the same representation as large, blue states, is also illegitimate. Finally, the Supreme Court, now home to two Trump-appointed justices, is illegitimate as well. Thats a lot of illegitimacy, all stemming from one lost presidential election. Imagine if Democrats lose another? The fact is that if you believe an institution is legitimate only if you control it or it works in your favor, you never truly believed in its legitimacy to begin with.

Perhaps the Democratic fever will pass if the party gains some power again, as Clinton suggested in her remarks. But its notable enough that one of our major parties is showing signs of contemplating a divorce from our system as it currently exists.Eric Holder, who has never been elected for anything in his life, has some advice for his fellow Democrats. Revising Michelle Obamas mantra  when they go low, we go high  Holder says when they go low, we kick them. All through this great nation of ours, Republicans licked their chops. Someone should check to see if Holder is on the GOP payroll.

Holder, once Barack Obamas attorney general, did a wee retreat from his kick them statement, saying it was not, of course, a call for violence. Of course not. Holder is not stupid. Shortly after birth, it seems, he became a Superior Court judge, then he served as the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, and then as Deputy Attorney General during the Bill Clinton administration. In addition, that mysterious entity the storied New York Times columnist Russell Baker called The Great Mentioner has mentioned Holder as a possible presidential candidate. I thought I should mention that.

I should also mention that Michael Avenatti, so impatient with the Great Mentioner that hes mentioned himself, uttered a similar sentiment: When they go low, I say hit back harder. Even Hillary Clinton joined in. You cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for, she said. Actually, you can. You just dont have to be a patsy.

The trouble with these statements is that here and there are people who dont need encouragement to act uncivilly or even violently. Already, theres been an upsurge in confrontation that has made for ugly television. The confrontation two women had with Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz.  Look at me, one of them ordered  was difficult to watch and was used by pro-Brett Kavanaugh senators to their advantage. So, too, was the hounding of Sen. Ted Cruz in a Washington restaurant. I admit it takes some effort to feel sorry for Cruz, but even he is entitled to a sense of security.

You might disagree. But recent political history strongly suggests bad manners make for bad tactics. Ronald Reagan was elected governor of California twice by running against student demonstrators at the University of California, Berkeley. Reagan, who is invariably lauded as a gentleman, called the campus a haven for communist sympathizers, protestors and sex deviants. The demonstrations did little to change America, but they eventually made Reagan president of the United States.

Similarly, Richard Nixon used the anti-war demonstrations of the Vietnam era to pummel George McGovern. Nixon ran, both shamelessly and ironically, on a law-and-order platform that worked wonders with some of the same white working-class voters who now are in a swoon over Trump. The Democrats fondness for the marginalized  hardly an evil trait, by the way  ran into a rebuttal with Richard Scammon and Ben Wattenbergs important book, The Real Majority (1970). It argued not only that elections are won in the center, but that the party needed to look beyond economic issues and toward the social issues that disturb average Americans. Take that, Elizabeth Warren.

Nixons call for law and order was hardly innovative. Throughout the 20th century, right-wing movements made headway urging an end to left-wing demonstrations and coupling this with an attack on modernity  secularism, homosexuality and the usual list of prejudices. They all recognized that most voters feel uneasy with social change and absolutely abhor anything that portends violence or the lack of civility. It makes them feel unsafe and suggests, as does graffiti on a subway car, that worse will follow.

The urge to deal with Trump on his own terms is understandable but short-sighted. Not even Avenatti, who hardly lacks self-confidence and would surely suffer horribly if deprived of media attention, can match Trump when it comes to sheer narcissistic aggression. The presidents genius is reading his opponents tell  their inner weakness. He destroyed his GOP rivals with insults that were, really, encapsulations of what was perceived but not yet stated: Jeb Bushs passivity, Marco Rubios youth, and so on. As he showed on his reality show, The Apprentice, the president  like any predator  is adept at finding weakness and moving in for the kill. His show was a companion to Animal Planet.

Going low is not  going to restore Trump voters to sanity. It will, however, only further debase American politics and validate Trump. Politics is not beanbag  whatever that is  and a little larceny is not only permitted but required. But an uncivil society is a dangerous place with possibly horrendous consequences. Beware. The Civil War had nothing to do with manners, but its a warning nonetheless.

E-mail cohenr@washpost.com. (c) 2018, Washington Post Writers Group.Early voting for the Nov. 6 general election at dozens of sites throughout New Mexico begins Saturday. The Journal is endorsing candidates in contested statewide races and races in the Albuquerque metro area, as well as giving recommendations on the bond issues and amendments on the ballot. Today we start with the two proposed amendments to the state Constitution:

Amendment No. 1  Yes. It proposes a

mending Article 6 of the Constitution of New Mexico to give the Legislature authority to provide for appellate jurisdiction by statute.

Voters should give this amendment a green light because it could reduce caseloads for overburdened district court judges while eliminating an unnecessary layer of appeal and saving litigants and taxpayers money. And its backed by the judiciary and the vast majority of lawmakers.

Constitutional Amendment No. 1 would eliminate an existing requirement that appeals from Metropolitan, magistrate, probate and other lower courts go directly to state District Court. The amendment would give state lawmakers the authority to determine, through legislation, where appeals of lower court cases  such matters as drunken driving and domestic violence  should be filed.

Currently any appeals from Albuquerques Metropolitan Court must be filed in Second Judicial District Court instead of going directly to the state Court of Appeals. This doesnt make sense. Metro Court is a court of record  meaning that its proceedings are recorded and preserved for the possibility of appeal; all Metro Court Judges have law degrees; and Second Judicial District Court has a heavy caseload and relieving the court of these appeals would free it up to focus on other matters.

Lawmakers would need to be deliberate in how they implement their new authority from this amendment. While it makes sense for Metro Court decisions to be appealed directly to the Court of Appeals, it doesnt make sense to do the same thing with magistrates because theyre not courts of record and magistrate judges are not necessarily lawyers. Also, the state Court of Appeals will need a significant infusion of resources to take on all Metro Court appeals.

The Journal recommends yes on Amendment No. 1.

Amendment No. 2  Yes. It proposes a mending Article 5 of the Constitution of New Mexico to create an independent state ethics commission with jurisdiction to investigate, adjudicate and issue advisory opinions concerning civil violations of laws governing ethics, standards of conduct and reporting requirements as provided by law.

Former state Sen. Phil Griego, from rural San Miguel County, is serving a prison sentence after being convicted of fraud, bribery and pocketing money from his campaign account. Ex-Secretary of State Dianna Duran resigned in disgrace and pleaded guilty in 2015 to using campaign funds to cover a gambling habit.

Former state Senate leader Manny Aragon served more than four years in federal prison for his part in an Albuquerque courthouse kickback scheme. And former state treasurers Robert Vigil and Michael Montoya were also sentenced to federal prison for corruption. Theres been no shortage of corruption scandals in New Mexico in recent years, but not all of the bad behavior was wrapped up with convictions and the state officials shipped off to prison cells for their misdeeds. Its time for New Mexicans to rise up and say enough  and voting for Amendment No. 2, which would create an independent ethics commission in our state, is a way to do that. This commission would have subpoena power and the ability to get to the bottom of allegations against state officials, legislative employees, lobbyists and government contractors. New Mexico is one of only six states without an ethics commission.

Thats unacceptable. This amendment would enshrine the ethics commission in the state constitution, which would mean powerful politicians who are up to no good wouldnt be able to kill it without going to voters. The amendment only creates a framework for the seven-member commission; details would need to be worked out by state lawmakers.

An independent ethics commission would bolster public confidence in state government and replace a fragmented system for handling ethics complaints, in which jurisdiction depends on whos being accused and investigations often take place in secret. Its time for voters to demand ethical behavior from state officials and put a system in place holding them accountable when they fail to live up to that standard.

The Journal recommends yes on Amendment No. 2.

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.Copyright  2018 Albuquerque Journal

Longtime Court of Appeals Judge Michael Vigil is challenging incumbent Justice Gary Clingman, who was appointed earlier this year, in this years only Supreme Court race.

Clingman is a Republican from Hobbs who had served for more than 20 years as a judge in the 5th Judicial District before Gov. Susana Martinez appointed him to the states highest court in April. Vigil is an Albuquerque Democrat who has spent 15 years on the Court of Appeals.

The Judicial Nominating Commission recommended both men for consideration to fill this years vacancy created by the retirement of Justice Edward Chavez, and Martinez named Clingman. Vigil had also been on the recommendation list in 2015 after Justice Richard Bossons retirement, but Judith Nakamura, a Republican, was appointed, and she narrowly won a subsequent election against Vigil for that seat.

Vigil is making another attempt and says that if hes elected he hopes to improve and clarify the rules for preventive detention as well as sentencing requirements.

My unique combined experience of trying cases and establishing precedents on appeal in numerous areas of the law has helped me to better serve the people of New Mexico on the Court of Appeals, and now, on the Supreme Court, Vigil wrote in a questionnaire.

Clingman says the court provides leadership to the states judiciary.

This leadership role must be used to improve the lives of all New Mexicans, Clingman wrote in a questionnaire. I have experience, education and geographic diversity. My record proves that I have the work ethic, desire and ability to provide that leadership.

An exciting time

Vigil is a graduate of Santa Fe High School and earned a bachelors degree from the College of Santa Fe before attending the Georgetown University Law Center. He later joined the National Guard, and he was among those dispatched to the State Penitentiary riot in 1980.

He began his law career as a staff attorney for the Court of Appeals and later worked as a trial attorney, handling civil, criminal and more than 50 appellate cases.

He was appointed to the Court of Appeals by Gov. Bill Richardson in 2003 and elected in 2004 and is now the longest-serving judge on that court. Vigil spent two years as the chief judge and has heard more than 3,000 cases and written more than 1,000 legal opinions.

His campaign is publicly financed, and he gave himself $5,000 in seed money on top of the $180,000 in public financing. He has spent about $147,000.

Vigil says he became a judge because he wanted to make New Mexico a better place to live.

I think its an exciting time, he said. People are focused on courts now, which they usually arent.  I want to let people know that I will fiercely and without fear protect their rights, no matter who they are or where they come from.

According to a questionnaire he filled out for the Journal, he was arrested twice for DWI in the 1980s, but both cases were dismissed. He also filed for bankruptcy about 40 years ago.

Representing rural

Clingman graduated from Moore High School in Oklahoma in 1970 and went to work in the oil fields before joining the Odessa, Texas, police force. He worked at four law enforcement agencies within 10 years, and in 1979 was fired from the Odessa Police Department for the mishandling of a prisoner, according to reports by The Odessa American. (See accompanying story.)

Clingman went on to attend law school at Texas Tech. He worked at a legal aid firm and clerked for criminal defense lawyers in order to support his young family.

After graduation, Clingman joined Maddox Law Firm in Hobbs and worked there for 12 years, trying criminal and civil cases in both state and federal court.

He was appointed 5th Judicial District judge in 1997 and served as chief judge from 2006 to 2013. He has worked as a member of the National Judicial College faculty, teaching courses on a range of topics.

Clingman points out that he is the sole justice from an outlying part of the state. His colleagues are from Santa Fe and Albuquerque, and he says he would provide some needed geographic diversity.

The laws are the same for all New Mexicans, and they should be. However, how theyre interpreted can have a very different impact in one part of the state vis-a-vis another part, or the rural areas as opposed to the metropolitan areas, Clingman said.

Clingman opted for traditional fundraising through private donations rather than applying for public financing of his campaign. He has received around $174,000 in campaign contributions and has spent about $52,000. Contributors to his campaign include multiple oil and gas companies, as well as Republican state legislators, including Sen. Stuart Ingle and Reps. Larry Scott and Cathrynn Brown.

The Supreme Court is set for a shake-up at the end of the year, when Justices Charles Daniels and Petra Maes will retire. The new governor will appoint their replacements.ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.  It was rough.

In a televised debate late Tuesday, New Mexicos two gubernatorial candidates accused each other of distortions, questioned each others honesty and slammed each others record in office.

Democrat Michelle Lujan Grisham linked her Republican opponent, Steve Pearce, to Donald Trump and failed Republican leadership at the federal, state and local level.

Pearce, in turn, said Lujan Grisham would return New Mexico to the cronyism of former Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat who served from 2003 to 2010.

It was the second televised debate between the two candidates  aired live by KOB, with questions prepared in town hall meetings organized by a nonpartisan group, New Mexico First. Both candidates are giving up seats in the U.S. House to run for governor this year.

The tone Tuesday was far more harsh than in previous debates and forums featuring both candidates.

In her closing statement, Lujan Grisham accused Pearce of misleading voters about her record and his. She said Pearces voting history in Congress shows he is much more conservative than he presents himself on the campaign trail.

Tonight, my opponent misled viewers about his lifelong record, Lujan Grisham said.

Pearce said Lujan Grisham is the one concealing her record. He cited her tenure as the state Health Department secretary, a job from which she resigned in 2007.

If she cant run a department, Pearce asked, how in the world can she run the state?

Lujan Grisham said she was proud of her tenure as a Cabinet secretary, and she noted that she had served under both Democratic and Republican governors for 18 years  a sign of her strength as an administrator.

He spent his entire campaign and the debate tonight attacking me, Lujan Grisham said. These false allegations and debunked theories are just nonsense.

But she was on the offensive, too. In her opening statement, she said Pearces ideas for the state were straight out of Donald Trumps failed playbook.

Pearce, in his first statements, said the state faces a choice that could lead it back to the Richardson era of corruption and cronyism.

In 2009, Richardson withdrew his nomination for U.S. commerce secretary amid a grand jury investigation that didnt result in indictments.

The two gubernatorial candidates clashed on the issues, too, on Tuesday, including how to address economic development, immigration and proposals to legalize marijuana.

Lujan Grisham said that she supports legalizing the recreational use of marijuana for adults, but that it must be done in a way that addresses workplace intoxication and driving under the influence, keeps it away from children and meets other requirements.

Legalization could help raise $200 million a year in tax revenue, she said.

That would be a place to jump-start our behavioral health system, Lujan Grisham said.

Pearce argued that legalization would make it harder for parents to keep drugs away from their children and for addicts to get the help they need.

How in the world are going to do that if we legalize one more drug? Pearce asked.

Both candidates said they had supported immigration legislation in Congress.

Pearce said he is totally opposed to the sanctuary policy of some cities, but that he values the contributions of immigrants who come to the United States looking for a better life for themselves and their families.

Lujan Grisham said that she had supported bipartisan legislation in Congress to address immigration and that she had stood up to Trump to oppose the zero-tolerance policy separating children from their parents at the border.

They debated infrastructure, too.

Pearce floated the idea of toll roads for oil companies that need better access in southeastern New Mexico. It could raise money without costing New Mexicans, who could use parallel roads, he said.

Lujan Grisham opposed that idea but said her push as a Bernalillo County commissioner for local funding for the now-completed overhaul of the Paseo del Norte interchange at Intestate 25 was a sign of her willingness to prioritize road improvements.

On the economy, Pearce said New Mexico is hostile to business, with an onerous tax code and permitting process that drives companies away.

Lujan Grisham said she would push for expansion of high-speed internet to support business development and would champion the states potential, with tailored plans for individual sectors of the economy.

The candidates are campaigning to succeed Republican Gov. Susana Martinez, who is wrapping up eight years in office and couldnt run again because of term limits.

Lujan Grisham had a lead of 7 percentage points over Pearce in a Journal Poll conducted Sept. 7-13. The scientific survey was done by Research & Polling Inc.

Tuesdays debate can be seen at KOB.com. Tessa Mentus and Steve Soliz of KOB served as moderators.

The candidates third televised debate is set for next Wednesday, sponsored by KOAT-TV and the Journal.

GOP offers makeup insult

As Tuesdays debate ended, the state Republican Party mocked Lujan Grishams physical appearance, asking on Twitter if shed used Richard Nixons makeup artist from the 1960 debate? She looked just like him!

The message was sent from the partys verified Twitter account and not signed by any staffer in particular.

Lujan Grishams makeup didnt look unusual Tuesday.

Members of her campaign called the tweet despicable and sexist and said the Republican Party should apologize.

A spokesman for the party said the tweet was referring to Lujan Grishams debate performance.ISTANBUL  Turkish crime-scene investigators searched the home of the Saudi consul general in Istanbul on Wednesday in the disappearance of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi, and a pro-government newspaper published a gruesome account of the journalists alleged slaying.

As Saudi Arabias green national flag flapped overhead, forensics teams entered the residence, only 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) from the consulate where Khashoggi vanished Oct. 2 while trying to pick up paperwork to get married. It was the second-such extraordinary search of a site considered under international law to be sovereign Saudi territory after investigators spent hours in the consulate earlier this week.

The account published in the Yeni Safak newspaper alleged that Saudi officials cut off Khashoggis fingers and then decapitated him at the consulate as his fiancee waited outside.

Hours later, The Washington Post published a column by Khashoggi it said it received after he was reported missing, in which he pointed to the muted international response to ongoing abuses against journalists by governments in the Middle East.

As a result, Arab governments have been given free rein to continue silencing the media at an increasing rate, Khashoggi wrote. He added: The Arab world is facing its own version of an Iron Curtain, imposed not by external actors but through domestic forces vying for power.

The searches and the leaks in Turkish media have ensured the worlds attention remains focused on what happened to Khashoggi, who went into a self-imposed exile in the U.S. over the rise of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. It also put further strains on the relationship between the kingdom, the worlds largest oil exporter, and its main security guarantor, the United States, as tensions with Iran and elsewhere in the Middle East remain high.

Flying back home after a visit to both Saudi Arabia and Turkey, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo remained positive about an ongoing Saudi probe into Khashoggis disappearance, but he stressed that answers are needed.

Sooners better than later for everyone, Pompeo said.

The search of the consuls residence came 15 days after Khashoggis disappearance  and after police apparently thought they would be able to conduct the search on Tuesday. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Saudi officials had halted the earlier search, claiming that Consul General Mohammed al-Otaibis family was still there.

Crime-scene technicians wore white coveralls, gloves and shoe covers entering the residence. It wasnt immediately clear what they hoped to find there, although surveillance video had showed diplomatic cars moving between the consulate and the residence nearly two hours after Khashoggi walked into the diplomatic post.

Turkeys private DHA news agency, without citing a source, said police wanted to inspect a water well in the garden of the residence.

Investigators also re-entered the consulate Wednesday night.

A high-level Turkish official previously told The Associated Press that police found certain evidence of Khashoggis slaying at the consulate, without elaborating. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing.

The report by the newspaper Yeni Safak cited what it described as an audio recording of Khashoggis slaying. It described the recording as offering evidence that a Saudi team immediately accosted the 60-year-old journalist after he entered the consulate.

Al-Otaibi could be heard on the tape, telling those allegedly torturing Khashoggi: Do this outside; youre going to get me in trouble, the newspaper reported.

One of the Saudis reportedly replied: Shut up if you want to live when you return to (Saudi) Arabia.

Security services in Turkey have used pro-government media to leak details of Khashoggis case, adding to the pressure on the kingdom. President Donald Trump, who initially came out hard on the Saudis over the disappearance but since has backed off, said Wednesday that the U.S. wanted Turkey to turn over any audio or video recording it had of Khashoggis alleged killing if it exists.

Saudi officials have not responded to repeated requests for comment from the AP in recent days, including Wednesday. Al-Otaibi left Turkey on Tuesday, Turkish state media reported.

Trumps previous warnings over the case drew an angry response Sunday from Saudi Arabia and its state-linked media, including a suggestion that Riyadh could wield its oil production as a weapon. The U.S. president wants King Salman and OPEC to boost production to drive down high oil prices, caused in part by the coming re-imposition of oil sanctions on Iran in November.

Pompeo, wrapping up a trip to Saudi Arabia and Turkey to discuss the crisis over the missing journalist, made a point to stress areas where the kingdom and America cooperate.

We have lots of important relationships  financial relationships between U.S. and Saudi companies, governmental relationships,  the efforts to reduce the risk to the United States of America from the worlds largest state sponsor of terror, Iran, he said. We just need to make sure that we are mindful of that when we approach decisions that the United States government will take when we learn all the facts associated with whatever may have taken place.

However, Pompeo said there were clear lines that America would not stand to see crossed.

If a country engages in activity that is unlawful its unacceptable, he said. No one is going to defend activity of that nature. We just need to simply say what happened.

Prominent U.S. newspapers have reported, citing anonymous sources, that Saudi officials may soon acknowledge Khashoggis slaying at the consulate but blame it on a botched intelligence operation. That could, like Trumps softening comments, seek to give the kingdom a way out of the global firestorm of criticism over Khashoggis fate.

However, no major decisions in Saudi Arabia are made outside of the ultraconservative kingdoms ruling Al Saud family.

___

Fraser reported from Ankara, Turkey, and Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Press writers Matthew Lee and Zeke Miller in Washington contributed.Copyright  2018 Albuquerque Journal

Long before he was a state Supreme Court justice, Gary Clingman was fired from a police department in a West Texas oil town over the arrest and handling of a black man.

The Odessa American newspaper reported in 1979 that Odessa police officer Clingman was fired and fellow officer John Blanco was suspended for 21 days without pay for the mishandling of a prisoner during an Oct. 17, 1979, arrest. A jailer, who couldnt be reached for comment on Tuesday, received a five-day unpaid suspension.

Clingman, who was a longtime judge in New Mexicos 5th Judicial District, was appointed by Gov. Susana Martinez earlier this year to fill a vacant seat on the states highest court. Now running as the Republican candidate for the seat in the Nov. 6 election, Clingman faces Democrat Michael Vigil, who sits on the state Court of Appeals.

Clingman in an interview acknowledged the firing, and said he jumped in when his partner got into two fights with the suspect. He said he was fired because he was the senior officer on scene; he unsuccessfully appealed his termination to city administrators.

That was a very long time ago, and I went on with my law enforcement career, subsequently went on to law school and have an unblemished record beyond that point, Clingman said. And prior to that point.

The man arrested, Sylvester Talbert, told the Journal he was falsely arrested, and beaten by both officers and a jail guard.

Few records were available about the firing or the arrest, other than the news stories in the Odessa American.

The paper reported that Talbert, 27, had been arrested by two Odessa police officers outside a hospital on Oct. 17, 1979, and charged with assaulting a police officer. One story reported that Talbert allegedly struck Blanco on the face.

Officers questioned Talbert near the entrance to the hospital after the mans presence alarmed several nurses leaving the hospital, the story stated.

In the Journal interview, Clingman said he and his partner were responding to reports of a suspicious person, and we arrested a guy and things got out of hand.

Talbert, when reached by the Journal, said he was falsely arrested after waiting for his wife, a nurse at the hospital, to get off work. Talbert said the officers demanded his identification, which he hadnt brought because he was out for a nighttime jog.

Clingman said he was standing about 10 feet away as his partner exchanged words with the man and a fight broke out.

I went to the aid of my partner, Clingman said. We arrested this fellow, and he resisted arrest, theres no question.

Later, as Talbert was being booked into jail, Clingman told the Journal that his partner and the man got into a second fight.

I jumped in, and we got him put in jail, Clingman said.

News reports show that a formal complaint was filed about the incident. Talbert told the Journal he lost teeth and suffered injuries including a broken wrist. He said the charges against him were dropped and he received an apology from then-Police Chief Jack Tomlin.

Clingman told the Journal he didnt believe he had mishandled the man, and didnt know whether he was injured.

The way it basically came down, I was the senior officer, and I paid the price, Clingman said of his firing. I was responsible for the conduct of my partner.

Soon afterward, he got a job with the sheriffs department in a neighboring county, and months later, he started a two-year stint as a deputy in his home county.

When asked whether he had revealed his firing when seeking public office, he said he filled out the applications truthfully. His application for the Supreme Court vacancy includes his work history, but does not ask his reason for leaving any of his previous jobs.

Meanwhile, Blanco, who rose to be deputy chief of the department, died in 2013. Tomlin, the police chief who fired Clingman, died in 2008.

Former Odessa city manager Kerry Sweatt, who upheld the termination, told the Journal on Tuesday he did not remember the specific case, but that it was rare for a police officer to be fired by the city.GREELEY, Colo.  A Colorado judge has declared a mistrial in the case against a deputy accused of kicking a suspect off a roof northeast of Denver.

The Tribune reports a Weld County jury was unable to a reach a verdict last week on the second-degree assault charge against 34-year-old James Cook.

The Adams County deputy was accused of excessive force after Cook followed Alejandro Martinez to a roof in March 2017. Martinez ended up on the ground with a broken pelvis.

A Weld County deputy later filed a complaint against Cook.

Cook testified last week that he slipped on some debris and inadvertently kicked Martinez, causing him to fall off the roof.

The Weld County District Attorneys Office says a decision has not been made on if the case will be retried.

___

Information from: The Tribune of Greeley, Co, http://greeleytribune.comALBUQUERQUE, N.M.  A federal judge has rejected a former New Mexico priests request to be released from jail as he awaits trial.

The judges decision Tuesday in Albuquerque comes after attorneys for 80-year-old Arthur J. Perrault sought his release to a halfway house. They argued that Perrault suffers from health issues and should not remain detained.

Perrault was taken into U.S. custody last month in Morocco.

He is facing charges of criminal aggravated sexual abuse and abusive sexual contact. The charges stem from assaults that federal authorities say happened decades ago at Kirtland Airforce Base and Santa Fe National Cemetery.

He has pleaded not guilty.

Perrault had been a chaplain at the Albuquerque base, and a priest at a local parish.

He vanished from New Mexico in 1992. Authorities located him in Morocco last year.WASHINGTON  The United States announced Wednesday that it is preparing to pull out of an international postal treaty that allows China to ship packages to America at discounted rates. The move would escalate a trade dispute with China.

President Donald Trump argues that the 144-year-old Universal Post Union benefits China and other countries at the expense of U.S. businesses  making it cheaper to ship packages from Beijing to New York than from San Francisco to the U.S. East coast, which particularly benefits Chinese manufacturers. The officials say the treaty is used by shippers of the narcotic fentanyl to the U.S. from China.

The U.S. is willing to renegotiate the treaty over the next year but will leave the union if no agreement can be reached, the officials said.

Bishar Hussein, director of the Universal Postal Union, said he regrets the U.S. decision and will seek a meeting with American officials.

The move was welcomed by the U.S National Association of Manufacturers, which called the exiting postal pact outdated in the age of e-commerce and at a time of Chinese manufacturing dominance.

Manufacturers and manufacturing workers in the United States will greatly benefit from a modernized and far more fair arrangement with China, Jay Timmons, president of the manufacturers association, said in a statement.

The U.S. and China are already locked in a trade war. The United States has imposed tariffs on about $250 billion in Chinese goods, and Beijing has responded by targeting about $110 billion in U.S. products.

The worlds two biggest economies are clashing over U.S. allegations that China is using predatory practices to challenge American technological dominance. These include hacking into U.S. companies computers to steal trade secrets and forcing American firms to hand over technology to China in exchange for access to the Chinese market.

Trump has made a point of cutting Americas international ties. His first week in office he pulled the United States out of a trade pact with 11 Pacific Rim countries. He also has left UNESCO and the United Nations Human Rights Council and pulled U.S. funding for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

___

AP writer Matthew Lee contributed to this report.A lot more scientists and engineers from Los Alamos National Laboratory and New Mexico Tech could be mingling on each others campuses under a new agreement to be signed Thursday in Socorro.

The new accord allows for joint appointments for faculty and staff at both institutions, providing unprecedented access to one anothers research and facilities.

Until now, NM Tech personnel could only operate at LANL as visitors, highly restricting their access. Under the new agreement, their status will be updated to directly operate as lab staff, said NM Tech President Stephen G. Wells.

Likewise, LANL staff members can now gain appointments in NM Tech departments, granting them direct access to university research and allowing them to teach and work with students and faculty.

Its the first such joint-appointment arrangement between LANL and a New Mexico university, Wells said.

Im very excited about this monumental agreement and the impact it will have for both institutions and the state of New Mexico, Wells said in a statement. This five-year agreement provides an opportunity for Tech students to work more closely with LANLs elite researchers and foster homegrown innovation and economic development for New Mexico.

In the past, collaborative work has often been a cumbersome process, said Carlos Romero, associate vice president for research at NM Tech.

Now we have a formal process in place for our faculty and staff to flow back and forth between both institutions, Romero said.

Apart from the advantages for staff, such free flow of personnel will benefit students by providing more opportunities to work directly with LANL scientists and engineers, Wells said.

To have premier LANL scientists here as faculty is fantastic, Wells told the Journal. It could help us attract and retain students from more places who want to take advantage of those opportunities.

Wells and LANL Director Terry C. Wallace will sign the agreement Thursday in a ceremony at the New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources on the university campus.Jessica Sanders came to Berrendo Middle School in Roswell Wednesday as a sixth- and seventh-grade science teacher, but before the day ended she would add another title to her resume: 2019 New Mexico Teacher of the Year.

Public Education Department Secretary-designate Christopher Ruszkowski made the surprise announcement at the middle school in front of her students.

In addition to taking home a bouquet of flowers and her teacher of the year award, Sanders also received her ceremonial, large $10,000 check for the Excellence in Teaching Awards as she was rated exemplary through the state teacher evaluation system. A real check is to follow.

Sanders, a teacher of 12 years, has taught at Berrendo for three years and is also the president-elect of New Mexico Science Teachers Association.

Shes no stranger to accolades having been named the New Mexico Science Teacher of the Year in November 2017. And last year she was a Golden Apple winner.

There will be no finer ambassador for our profession than Mrs. Sanders, Ruszkowski said in a statement. She exemplifies the best of our profession  a true teacher-leader with commitment to high expectations, accountability and results, professional development and training, science and the humanities. She is driven by student data and her devotion and love for the whole child.

The New Mexico Teacher of the Year award is in its 55th year. All 89 school districts and their charters are able to nominate a candidate. The winner is picked based on classroom performance and an application.

According to PED, the Teacher of the Year represents New Mexico in the National Teacher of the Year competition and acts as a spokesperson for New Mexicos teaching profession.

Sanders will head to California early next year to Google headquarters for the 2019 Teacher of the Year Induction Meeting.

We welcome suggestions for the daily Bright Spot. Send to newsroom@abqjournal.com.SHASTA COUNTY, Calif. - A volunteer firefighter in Igo is suing his former employer after he said he was fired for taking time off to fight the Carr Fire.

In the lawsuit, John Allen claims he was unjustly fired from his day job because he missed too much time from work.

Allen has worked as a volunteer firefighter in Igo for about eight years.

During the day, he installed Dish Network satellite dishes for a company called Linkus Enterprises based out of Fresno.

But he was fired after returning from the Carr Fire.

His company said it's because he was wasn't meeting company standards, but Allen suspects he was being retaliated against for missing too much time from work.

We are covered under the California labor code which protects us much like a military personnel where we can't be retaliated against, discriminated against, Allen said. You can't take our job from us because we're doing our duty serving our community.

According to California labor code 230.3(a):

An employer shall not discharge or in any manner discriminate against an employee for taking time off to perform emergency duty as a volunteer firefighter, a reserve peace officer, or emergency rescue personnel.

It also states that any employees suspended or discharged is entitled to reinstatement and lost wages if the employer is found to be in violation of the law.

But this isn't the first time he's had a conflict with his employer about his firefighting duties.

Allen says during the La Verne fire, he was fired then quickly reinstated after a Facebook post about his firing quickly went viral.

My next working day back, I was called into the office and told you need to decide if you're a volunteer firefighter or if you're an employee of Linkus, Allen said.

Allen says this shouldn't happen to anyone who's trying to serve their community, and more than anything he just wants an apology and to make sure what happened to him doesn't happen to anyone else.

You know, life and property are more important than the job that I was doing at the time with Linkus, Allen said. And I love Linkus, I love what I did. I like meeting new people, but this is more important.

We left voicemails for Allen's former supervisor Matt Baver who was mentioned in the lawsuit as well as the Linkus HR department in Fresno, but neither returned our calls.The following article has been authored by Abdulla Basha, Co-founder, Social Frontier

Mr Abdulla Basha is the Co-founder of Social Frontier, a content marketing platform that helps business campaigns to work flawlessly. He is a Marketing AD Technology Internet Entrepreneur with a track record of successfully building new businesses and great places to work. He started his career as an Engineering Officer at AET in the year 2008.

The overall growth of a brand does not depend only on advertising. Brand building is more about bringing your customers back for more because they just love your products and services. The art of winning customers and retaining them is something that takes your business to great heights. In the B2B segment, since the customer pool is smaller than the B2C ecosystem, losing even a single customer can wreak havoc on the business. Apart from having an effective marketing strategy in place, winning customer loyalty is also a key generator of revenue for most B2B ventures. Research suggests that a mere 5% increase in the rate of customer retention can bring in more than 25% profits to a business. Another research reveals that only 29% of global B2B customers are truly engaged to a brand emotionally while the remaining two-thirds were always on the look out for something better in the market. In recent times, customer loyalty and retention are also increasingly dependent on how a business can study, influence and guide customer behavior. Here are some ways your digital marketing campaigns can be tweaked to do more than just the basics.

Employ the Multichannel Approach

Consumer expectations are changing every day in this era of the Internet and information explosion. Todays B2B customer is hyper-connected and not restricted to only a laptop or a PC in a traditional office environment. Marketing communication seeping through a cross-channel environment must be perfectly seamless and the content smartly designed for short-attention spans. While some people may want continued notifications and updates over email, others may not want their inbox to be spammed. Thus, it is essential to keep customer communication preferences in mind. Opt for a channel that is most crowded with like-minded customers. Experts suggest that it is best to put your focus on the communication channel that lets you build a trustworthy and intimate relationship with your existing clients.

Be dynamic in your offerings

Smart businesses never assume customer behavior to be constant. Evolve your products and services to meet changing customer expectations. Lift customer experience one step higher by gauging what your clients want from you, why they are engaging with you and how they want it to be in the future. In order to keep your relationship dynamic, businesses have to fine-tune their marketing strategy to pick up continuous signals from customers. Give regard to customer sentiments and capture them in a structured manner. Be open to feedback and give them a platform to raise their opinions and concerns.

Make your research holistic

Before building your content and strategizing your digital campaign, every business must do its own research, based on its offerings and customer orientation. It enables you to paint a clear profile of your loyal customer base and allows you to find ways of adding value to the content. Churn out both qualitative as well as a quantitative overview from your data to get the complete picture before starting out on a marketing journey. Often insights and expertise from a third party can generate invaluable inputs. Tracking customer web behavior and their online footprint is a great way of getting insight into the customer purchasing patterns, preferences, and expectations. Employ key metrics that enable building customer loyalty. These include a number of visits, repeat growth, reduction in churn and tracking email campaigns. Technology allows B2B marketers to analyze all these metrics and more to measure the ROI of customer loyalty campaigns.

Build a community

A loyal customer is often the most powerful marketer of a brand. He not only maintains the emotional and professional bond but also generates more leads for your business by advocating for you. By building an online community you encourage your existing customers to reach out to a large audience on social media on your behalf, besides giving them something to engage in and explore.

In conclusion

Using digital marketing effectively to build a customer-centric business model is a very effective way to retain and gain customers. Some of the top most connected businesses around the world saw their revenues multiply overnight using this model. Digital campaigns are tailored to meet success only with the right strategic foundation and customer insight. Therefore, it is essential to building a thorough framework before setting off on your digital journey.CNBC-TV18s most-awaited marquee property, The India Business Leaders Awards will be conducting a jury meet along with an informative and insightful panel discussion today at Trident BKC, Mumbai, 2:30 pm.

The panel discussion will be focused on THE BATTLE FOR GROWTH, moderated by CNBC-TV18s Managing Editor Shereen Bhan with prominent industry veterans and jury members Uday Kotak (Jury Chairperson)  Chairman & MD of Kotak Mahindra Bank, Zarin Daruwala - Standard Chartered CEO, Rajnish Kumar  Chairman, SBI,Vani Kola - Managing Director, Kalaari Capital, Nimesh Kampani - Chairman, JM Financial Group, Sanjay Nayar  CEO, KKR India, Kalpana Morparia  CEO, JP Morgan India, Harsh Mariwala  Founder & Chairman, Marico, and Rajiv Memani - Chairman & Regional Managing Partner, E&Y, India.

The winners will be determined based on their outstanding leadership qualities, their path breaking accomplishments and their contribution towards economic growth and establishing profitable, sustainable and socially-conscious businesses in their industry.

Sharing her opinion on the occasion, Shereen Bhan, Managing Editor and Anchor of CNBC-TV18 says, India Business Leaders Awards is CNBC-TV18s most prestigious annual property. Every year, our exemplary jury members take up this challenging task of short-listing the winners from an eminent list of nominees. IBLA has recognised business leaders who have created value, shareholder wealth, and created profitable brands. This year too we look forward to honour some outstanding performers and felicitate them at IBLA 2019.

The awards will be scheduled sometime around January 2019, felicitating true visionaries who have devoted their expertise to the industry leading them to success.Naturell India, manufacturer of Indias top selling protein bars & snacks Max Protein & Rite Bite, has appointed PointNine Lintas as its omni-channel agency. PointNine Lintas will provide a full-stack of services that includes designing the creative campaign, media buying, performance marketing, social media management and shopper marketing.

Commenting on the win, Vikas Mehta, CEO, PointNine Lintas said, Naturell is an exciting young enterprise, run by grown-ups. It has a great lineup of products in a category whose time has come. As their full service agency, we have the opportunity to act like a true partner and create business impact through the entire marketing mix, and not just some silos. We are grateful for the trust Vijay and team has shown in our abilities and are committed to helping them succeed in the market place.

Vijay Uttarwar, Founder & CEO Naturell India commented, When we were looking for an agency, we were looking for a team who would be an equal partner in our ambition. We felt that PointNines single-minded focus on ROMI (Return on Marketing Investment) and their strategic bent for business effectiveness works well for a growth-focused organization like ours. As a protein foods company, were breaking new ground in changing the attitude of India towards nutrition and creating interventions on the food clock. With their full span of omni-channel marketing capabilities  the team at PointNine Lintas was best suited to partner us on this journey.

To create a digitally led go-to-market approach for Naturells brands, the agency has deployed a multi-disciplinary team led by its digital division, LinTeractive. Sumanta Ganguly, National Director (Digital Marketing & Transformation) has been named the omni-channel lead on the business.

Speaking about PointNine Lintas approach, Ganguly said, Today, health conversations are happening online while actual transactions and experiences take place in the offline world. Developing a category of protein products and tracking conversions online & offline is exactly the kind of performance marketing we are geared to deliver as an agency.

Naturell (India) Pvt. Ltd. is a visionary healthy lifestyle company. Naturells vision is to provide the finest nature-based products that will help consumers adopt a healthier lifestyle.Sakal Media Group has signed an exclusive agreement with Amazon.in, which will help the Group expand their readership base through the world. Subscription-based purchase can be made exclusively through Amazon.in and also Sakal Publications website.

The regional languages press in India has an age-old tradition of publishing special issues during the festive season. Leading Marathi publishers have brought out Divali Ank for over a century and Sakal has been an important leader of this tradition. Sakal Publications publishes a total of 19 Diwali issues across Maharashtra, which include 6 major offerings  Shabdadeep, Saptahik Sakal, Agrowon, Tanishka, Premier and Sarkarnama.

Commenting on the partnership, Pradeep Dwivedi, CEO, Sakal Media Group, said, Digital media is a large driver of change. And through this festival period, we are exploring how the emerging potential of e-commerce can be utilised to expand the reach of Diwali Ank, which has been traditionally limited to our readers that we can reach through traditional channels. Through this exclusive deal with a giant like Amazon, we will be able to reach out to Marathi readers across India and the world. The idea is also about disseminating good people stories and this opens scope to look at podcasts and other digital formats which we would like to explore.

Emphasising from the reach point of view for advertisers, Dwivedi added, The advertisers and the media buying agencies recognise the kind of evolved relationship we have with our readers in Maharashtra and beyond. This partnership on our offerings further widens our reach and opens up doors to promote products and the brands in wider geographies.Adirondack history is naturally rife with river-related storieswildly successful fishing trips, damaging floods, wilderness exploration, and dam construction. Rivers were the lifeblood of development: settlements sprang up along waterways, where partial diversion of streams provided the wheel-turning power necessary to many industries. But freshets were so common and destructive that dams were introduced as flood-control measures, and then for hydropower as the electrification of society unfolded.

Recognizing the great financial potential of providing electricity to industries and the masses, power companies sought to develop dozens of potential reservoir sites. Among the arguments they used to justify building dam after dam was public safety. Ironically, the construction of a hydro dam was marred by one of the worst tragedies in Adirondack history.

The project was built on the Hudson River at Spier Falls, roughly seven miles southwest of Glens Falls, at a site named after William Spier, one of the citys wealthy and prominent businessmen. In spring 1901, the Hudson River Electric Company was organized to construct dams on the Hudson in Saratoga, Warren, and Washington Counties, and expand onto other waterways, with the goal of furnishing electricity to at least ten counties from Albany north to the Canadian border.

The new companys first endeavor, a huge dike at Spier Falls, was destined to become one of the biggest dams in the country (upon completion, it was tabbed the fourth largest). Overall, said Encyclopedia Americana, the wall was 1,800 feet long and 100 feet high. According to Engineering Record (June 1903), the walls highest section, measured from the river bed, was 154 feet. The 10 penstocks (water-carrying pipes) were 12 feet in diameter. The company purchased 1.5 million bricks from the Glens Falls Brick Company for building the powerhouse, which featured a wheel pit measuring 21.5 by 297 feet. To contain the wheel pit room meant the powerhouse had to be gargantuan, which it was: 71 feet wide and 392 feet long. To deliver the electricity to customers, the company purchased a million pounds of wire. One of the cableways carrying a 10-ton payload was the longest of its kind in the world, spanning 2,140 feet. The massive generator installed in January 1903 weighed 36 tons. Everything about the Spier Dam project was enormousincluding, unfortunately, the death toll during construction.

Back then, losing men on physical-labor jobs occurred at an alarming rate, and a great number of victims were recent arrivals from other countries. While its true that immigrants built America, its also true that many of them died trying. When work at Spier Falls began, new arrivals in the country totaled about a million a year. Some came here permanently, while many made the trip several times to earn money and return home. Jobs were easy to find on mining, railroad, and all manner of construction crews.

Large groups of workers from a particular country were often employed under the padrone system. Since the majority of visitors or newcomers spoke only their native language, one or two men among them proficient in Englishthey were known as padronesrepresented the group, which might be Italian, Polish, or any other nationality. Because of confusion among American workers trying to pronounce and spell a mix of foreign names, many companies assigned identity numbers to each individual, which simplified the payroll process. Checks or cash were turned over to the padrone, who, unlike company officials, knew all the workers by name and was considered best-suited to handle the distribution of pay.

But the padrone system had severe shortcomings, including woefully inadequate job training. Verbal instructions provided to the padrone were often token to begin with, and in many cases were minimally relayed to the workers or not shared at all. Safety was something learned through a combination of watching, doing, and common sense. The result was a plethora of unsafe practices leading to an inordinate number of immigrant deaths and maimings.

At Spier Falls, most of the work was performed by large crews of Italian workers, both skilled and unskilled laborers. Records are incomplete, but on July 11, 1900, a month after construction began, two of those men were lost to drowning when they slipped off a log while attempting to form a boom.

In late April 1901, with the Hudson swollen from heavy rain and melting snow, 100 feet of the coffer dam (the boxed-off area in the river where workers toiled, 900 feet long and 90 feet high) was wiped out, breaking a derricks guy ropes and sending two Glens Falls men into the water, one of whom drowned. Four months later, in late August, the collapse of another derrick killed a member of the Italian crew. Nine days after that, a point-blank dynamite explosion in a granite quarry blew both arms off Forest Bowman, known to all as French Joe. He succumbed two days later.

In February 1902, an Italian worker died when a steep bank of loose earth collapsed, and at the end of March, another of his workmates was killed by falling debris. In late August, a masonry inspector from Glens Falls was struck and killed by a train. In early November, seven Italian workers were riding high in the air in a cableway tram bucket when it accidentally struck the dam, dumping two of the occupants, just 16 and 17 years old, to their deaths on the rocks below.

The variety of situations that ended in fatalities demonstrate that the construction company followed the same management plan as railroads and mines: for the most part, employees were left to their own devices and held responsible for their own well-being. That way, companies were seldom found culpable or financially responsible for worker deaths or injuries.

Aside from losing several employees, the dams construction phase ran into only one major roadblock. When the wall stretched from the north bank nearly half-way across the Hudson, an immense depression measuring about 150 by 350 feet was discovered in the riverbed. Engineers determined that the huge dip, gouged out by eons of water-driven rubble action, could not be spanned by the dam wall. They eventually arrived at only one workable solution: filling it with cement and building on top of it.

It was a tedious, physically demanding, time-consuming job, best handled by methods employed in iron mining to remove solid rock walls. Rows of steel bars were driven into the rock, and when the bars were removed, each hole received five sticks of dynamite. Every blast produced large amounts of muckrocks anywhere from fist-sized to several hundred poundsthat was removed via pick (to loosen clumps and break boulders), shovel, elbow grease, and tram cars.

The dams operational target, fall 1902, was moved back to spring 1903, allowing time for the additional work to be completed. The delay, as well see, was costly, and not only in financial terms.

Next week, the conclusion: a catastrophe of major proportions.

Photos: Spier Falls Dam (Review of Reviews, 1903); Spier Falls construction scene (Engineer Record, circa 1902); Spier Dam powerhouse (NYS Archives, Conservation Dept.)Would you like to receive breaking news notifications from The Post and Courier?

Sign up to receive news and updates from this site directly to your desktop.

Breaking News Columbia Breaking News Greenville Breaking News Myrtle Beach Breaking News Aiken Breaking News N Augusta Breaking News

Click on the bell icon to manage your notifications at any time.

Success! Please click the 'Allow' button in the 'Show Notifcations' alert in your browser if one is available. Thank you for signing up!

Please enable notifications in your browser and reload the page.LUXOR, Egypt  Photos of a recent wedding at the ancient Karnak Temple Complex, built over 4,000 years ago, have caused an uproar in Egypt. The debate comes amid renewed efforts by the countrys tourism and antiquities authorities to open more of the countrys archaeological and historical venues to private use to generate funds.

The photos of the event at the Pharaonic temple in the southern city of Luxor circulated on social media Oct. 4, attracting condemnation and incredulity. This is a historical temple  one of the oldest in the world. It is not a wedding hall, tweeted writer Yasmine al-Khateib Oct. 7.

Tharwat Ajami, adviser to the Luxor Chamber of Tourism, demanded a probe into the Ministry of Antiquities approval for the wedding attended by 300 people, calling it "unacceptable." In an Oct. 5 press release, Ajami stated that historical venues cannot be turned into wedding halls so that the Ministry of Antiquities can make money.

The ministry defended itself by declaring that it had authorized a dinner, not a wedding reception. In an Oct. 6 statement, the ministry said that the organizer had obtained permission for a dinner and that the ministry had charged a fine and halted future business with the company.

In Egypt, public and private companies can rent out historical places for events, though regulations define strict rules on how they can be used. The Ministry of Antiques holds the contracting party responsible for any damage to the venue and the antiques there. It insists that the planned activities, which must be shared with the ministry in advance, respect public order and morals.

It is not the first time an event in the Karnak Temple Complex has angered Egyptians. In October 2016, Egyptian trance music duo Aly and Fila held a concert there, leading some Egyptians to lament that the temple had been turned into a nightclub.

But the ministry, which has complained of its insufficient budget on many occasions, is keen to use historical venues to generate cash. In 2016, its Supreme Council of Antiquities set rental fees for public and private events such as wedding ceremonies as well as photography and filming rates at historic sites. The conditions and prices vary according to the event, the site and on whether the photographer is Egyptian or non-Egyptian.

Ahmed Idris, a member of the Egyptian Parliaments tourism committee, told Al-Monitor, There is nothing that prevents wedding ceremonies in archaeological venues, provided that they take place [outside sensitive areas] and in accordance with the ministrys rules and conditions, so that the archaeological and historic sites would not be damaged. He pointed out, Events are a form of publicity for tourism in Egypt. This is particularly true when international celebrities attend them.

He added that a new bill is in the pipeline to make the rules clearer. Parliament will receive a proposal to amend the list of rules that regulate social and public events at historical sites. Based on that, historical sites will not be limited to tourists visits but open [for public events], which will increase tourism investment opportunities.

The Ministries of Tourism and Antiquities are examining various ways to benefit further from ancient palaces and buildings. Tourism Minister Rania Mashat told the press Oct. 7, There are plenty of palaces that are architectural and archaeological masterpieces and can be used to boost tourism. Some of these palaces can be turned into boutique hotels."

Alaa al-Ghumri, a former member of Egypt's travel agents association, told Al-Monitor, Egypts ancient palaces have [a long history and impressive architecture] that can be utilized if they were to be turned into hotels. Their architectural and artistic designs will attract a particular type of tourists, meaning luxury travelers seeking upscale accommodations.

He indicated that getting these upper-bracket tourists depends on high-quality rehabilitation and restoration of these ancient palaces into hotels, as well as good pricing, management and advertisement. The hotels should use their famous clientele in their advertisements abroad, he said.

Ghumri stressed that such historical hotels require specialized management that understands how to exploit their historic and archaeological value. The Egyptian government needs to launch an international tender to attract investors who are capable of managing such hotels, he added.

Idris shares Ghumri's perspective. He told Al-Monitor, The idea of using ancient palaces as hotels is an international practice. Such hotels cater to a specific clientele, and Egypt needs to and start advertising them abroad. He said, Companies specialized in the management of historic hotels need to manage these hotels under the Ministry of Antiquities supervision, so that the hotels archaeological and historic character could be preserved. These companies should be given a contract with the ministry that would allow them to [run the hotels] in exchange for a percentage of the profits.

He went on, The hotels financial revenues should be use in the publicity, maintenance and rehabilitation of all of the Egyptian monuments.

Mokhtar el-Kasabani, a professor of Islamic archaeology at Cairo University, told Al-Monitor, Ancient hotels fetch premium prices as they have a historic and archaeological value, thus generating high economic returns. There are plenty dating back to the 19th century that can be turned into hotels and tourist attractions.

Speaking to Al-Monitor, Mohamed Abdel Aziz, director of the government-run Historic Cairo Restoration Project, said, There are 58 palaces registered with the Ministry of Antiquities, including 55 state-owned palaces. Some of them are being restored and rehabilitated to be classified as tourism establishments, such as the Baron Empain Palace, the Amir Taz Palace and El-Shinawi Palace.

He went on, The Ministry of Antiquities started turning some ancient inns into historical hotels a while ago, such as Wakala al-Sultan Qaytbay, built under the Mamluk era in Cairo's Al-Gamaleya. If the two ministries decide, following the examination of [other] restored buildings, to turn a number of the palaces under consideration into hotels, it will be the first time such a thing has happened under the ministrys supervision.

Egypt already has several internationally renowned palaces-turned-hotels, such as the Gezirah Palace that became the Cairo Marriott Hotel, the Sofitel Legend Old Cataract Aswan Hotel and El-Salamlek Palace Hotel in Alexandria. Aziz pointed out that these palaces were made into hotels before the ministry registered them as antiquities and thus are not under the ministrys jurisdiction.Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., raised eyebrows this week when the stalwart Saudi supporter told Fox News that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has got to go. Now French newspaper Le Figaro is reporting that at least seven representatives of the clans that make up the royal family are meeting in utmost discretion to chart a course out of the diplomatic mess created by the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi from the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.

Gulf experts surveyed by Al-Monitor agreed that anything is possible as the opaque royal family weighs the financial and political cost of leaving in charge the brash 33-year-old Prince Mohammed, who is often referred to by his initials MBS.

At this point were in uncharted waters, said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer and a regular contributor to Al-Monitors Gulf Pulse. Almost anything could happen, and its also possible that MBS could bluff his way through this whole thing and come out the other side.

Why it matters: The crown prince branded himself as the reformist face of the kingdom as it seeks to transition away from oil wealth to a knowledge-based economy. Now, with allegations flying that he ordered Khashoggis brutal murder, hes become the target of international ire and the embodiment of barbarity.

The crown prince has made powerful foes with his iron fist tactics to squash dissent at home, including the detention of members of the House of Saud at the Ritz-Carlton last year. To reduce the pressure, Riedel suggested Prince Mohammed could move to have King Salman take him off the throne-in-waiting  at least for now.

He has gone to great lengths to increase the climate of fear, Riedel said. He could be assassinated. He knows that, and hes taking extreme measures to prevent it.

King Salman could also redistribute power, said Hussein Ibish, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, to strip MBS of his control over Saudi Arabias armed forces, or diffuse authority to other royals with new commissions or agencies steered by the reigning monarch.

People talk about MBS as if hes the de facto ruler of Saudi, and hes not, Ibish said. The kings old, hes ceded a lot of day-to-day authority, but I dont think theres any doubt that when the king puts his foot down, he gets his way.

Riyadh reshuffle? Saudi watchers tell Al-Monitor diplomatic correspondent Laura Rozen that they were particularly intrigued by a report by Washington Post columnist David Ignatius today suggesting that the Saudi investigation may identify an MBS ally, Saudi deputy intelligence chief Ahmad al-Asiri, as a ringleader in the alleged assassination.

If the Saudis go after Asiri, who has been in MBS circle for a long time, perhaps they are at least somewhat serious about accountability, a former senior US official told Al-Monitor. If they go after others, they may just be trying to use the crisis to re-position or promote MBS allies.

The international  and particularly US  reaction may also play a role. While President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo appear eager to move past the Khashoggi affair, furious lawmakers in Congress may yet get their way if they can extract enough pain in the form of frozen arms sales, for example.

I thought [Graham] was sending a message to Trump that MBS has embarrassed us, said Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, a fellow at Rice Universitys Baker Institute. Weve backed him all the way, and this is how he treated us. It was very clear and very strong.

Other experts see Saudi elites lashing back at Washington for interfering in Riyadhs crackdown on dissent as it attempts ambitious social and economic reforms.

This new consensus within the family is to protect MBS for the future, said one Washington-based expert who requested anonymity. They see theres an immense amount of intervention in their transformation and they want to stop it.

Whats next: While MBS might not immediately add or jettison advisers, the apparent departure of the Saudi ambassador to the US, Khalid bin Salman, first reported by CBS News, could allow for another movement in the leadership. The ambassador, also referred to by his initials KBS, is a younger brother of MBS.

Look for signs of potential promotion, said the anonymous Washington expert. If KBS doesnt come back, they need to put in an ambassador with deep roots.

One thing that could upset the crown princes power is the death or departure of his father King Salman, who is 82 years old.

MBS hasnt gotten where he is because hes smart. Hes gotten there because hes ruthless and his daddy has promoted him, Riedel said. What happens if daddy goes? Then the knives are out.

Know more: Al-Monitor is closely monitoring the impact of Khashoggis disappearance in Washington and across the region. Read our full coverage here.

- Jack DetschBAGHDAD  There are no easy options for Iraqi graduates who want to continue their education with post-graduate studies. If they have good grades, they may try to obtain one of the few free spots at a public university in the country. If their grades are not good enough to take that path, they could try to find a private university in Iraq to attend or opt to study abroad, which could be cheaper. Given this situation, a growing number of post-graduate students are choosing to leave Iraq, bound for neighboring countries or India, where numerous post-graduate programs are taught in English.

I am studying English literature at the Osmania University in the Indian city of Hyderabad, which is recognized by the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Maytham Abdel Rizk, a masters degree student who left Iraq in 2016, told Al-Monitor. I chose India because they speak English there, and it is easy to communicate with people. I study there at my own expense. The annual tuition fee at Osmania University is $1,000, and the university has a good ranking, and it is organized, unlike most universities in Iraq.

Abdel Rizk further noted, India has thousands of Iraqi master's and PhD students. The number used to be even higher, but their number decreased after the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education decided to stop recognizing the diploma of some Indian universities.

In 2011, Iraq published a list of universities abroad whose diplomas it would recognize. Universities considered but not included on the list were pegged as suffering from poor academics.

Ali Hamdan al-Saadi has chosen to pursue a master's in mathematics at Ferdowsi University, in Mashhad, Iran. The relatively low fees attracted him. Even at Iran's renowned University of Tabriz, yearly fees toward a master's degree only cost $1,000, while that for doctoral studies is $1,500. This is a small amount compared to the cost of private Iraqi universities, where the minimum fee is about $5,000 a year.

Admission is almost free in Iranian universities, Saadi told Al-Monitor. Universities admit students with average scores on the condition that they learn Persian. The tuition fees range from $600 to $2,000 per year, and Iraq recognizes the certificates of many Iranian public and private universities.

Saifuddin Ezz, who chose to pursue post-graduate studies at Turkeys Middle East Technical University (METU), said studies for a masters degree in architectural engineering costs him $1,200 per year and that a four-year PhD program costs $2,400 per year. Classes are taught in English at METU, but all Turkish universities require students to pass a Turkish course. The required Turkish-language course is $800, Ezz said. University annual tuition fees vary from one university to another, but do not exceed $4,500 a year.

In the case of Turkey, Iraq's list of acceptable universities only includes public institutions. Ezz remarked that he had tried for four years to study for a post-graduate degree in Iraq, but he could not get into a university because his grades were not high enough.

Higher education has been one of the casualties of Iraq's long years of war, with several public campuses and university facilities destroyed, and many universities only now getting on their feet. This means that there is limited space for post-graduate studies. The other option is going to private universities, but there are few post-graduate programs and those are expensive.

In the face of growing demand for placement, the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research has been trying to increase the number of seats available. On Aug. 28, the ministry announced that it would begin accepting applications from universities to create new post-graduate programs at private universities so that as many people as possible can study, given the large number of applicants at public universities. This would allow private universities to offer more post-graduate studies for the year 2019-2020 and theoretically beyond.

Some students of course opt for universities in Iraq whose diplomas are not recognized by the ministry. These students hope that their university's diploma will someday be recognized by Iraq or that they will later be able to continue their education abroad at a university that accepts it.

The total number of post-graduate students in Iraq was 10,000 until 2016, Haidar al-Abboudi, head of the Information Office at the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, told Al-Monitor. The ministry decided in 2017 to increase admissions, and this number jumped to 14,000 admitted students.

Abboudi also pointed out that the ministry has put conditions on those who want to study abroad with government scholarships. In such cases, Abboudi said, The [required] GPA [grade point average] varies according to the major, but the minimum average must be 80%.

Since 2003, an increasing number of students have been applying to study abroad at their own expense, creating a niche for companies assisting with submitting proper and complete admissions applications. Abboudi said that the ministry does not have official stats on the number of Iraqi students abroad, as many of them do not have a file at the ministry. Most of them enroll in universities through unlicensed offices.

Salah al-Fatlawi, director general of the Department of Scholarships at the ministry, told Al-Monitor that students who complete their studies outside Iraq still need the ministry to recognize their diplomas and certificates, otherwise they are mere paper. They would be wasting their time and money otherwise, Fatlawi said.

Obtaining a diploma, including one that is officially recognized, far from guarantees employment. According to the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, around 1,200 higher education graduates were unemployed in 2017. That number doubled in 2018.At the start of the Knessets winter session, which began Oct. 15, Zionist Camp Chair Avi Gabbay had two targets: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yesh Atid Chairman Yair Lapid. The former is his natural rival as head of the right-wing bloc and the leader of the government Gabbay hopes to replace. The latter is his colleague in the center-left bloc who believes that he is the person most capable of unseating the current prime minister. Of Gabbay's attacks on this two targets, those against Lapid are the more interesting and the more important.

Gabbay used his speech at an Oct. 15 meeting of the Zionist Camp faction to target Lapid for preventing the faction from toppling Netanyahu's government by supporting the proposed conscription law. He accused Lapid of selling the equal sharing of the burden [of compulsory military service] for a seat in the next government and acting like a bullet-proof vest for Netanyahus government. If Netanyahu were unable to prevent the conscription of ultra-Orthodox youths, the ultra-Orthodox parties in his ruling coalition would desert him, thus triggering new elections that Netanyahu's Likud appears poised to win.

Gabbays attacks on Lapid were unjustly buried by the intense atmosphere surrounding the start of the Knessets winter session. There were endless interviews and all sorts of populist declarations, as one might expect on the eve of a new election cycle. A situation in which the Zionist Camp chair attacks the head of a sister party only serves Netanyahu by making it impossible for the center-left to craft a solid alternative to his right-wing government. That said, Gabbay was forced to do so for the sake of his own political survival.

Gabbay's party is performing terribly in the polls, and people are plotting behind his back to replace him. By attacking Lapid, Gabbay hopes to win back seats that had turned to other parties. As far as he is concerned, going on the attack is the easy way to expand his voter base.

The troubled state of the alternative to a Netanyahu government seemed even more disconcerting in light of a speech delivered by opposition chair Tzipi Livni. It was certainly an excellent speech. Livni remained focused as she offered a political and ideological alternative to Netanyahus right-wing government. She spoke about the urgent need to get the peace process moving again and the lack of any real plan to resolve the problem of Gaza. The issue with Livni, however, is that she may be the leader of the opposition in the Knesset, but she is not the leader of the Zionist Camp, so she is not Netanyahus true rival.

While Livni's position is an anomaly, it is a legal necessity. Gabbay cannot serve as leader of the opposition, because he is not a member of the Knesset. Under these circumstances, it is difficult for the leading opposition party to generate public awareness of a real rival to Netanyahu. This is why any real substance was found lacking in Livnis call at the end of her speech to all parties who share the same path. We are obliged to stand together as a bloc and rewrite our path, she said. We will come together as one big bloc, and we will give people hope. Many good people will join us, and then we will win.

While Livni didnt mention any names, she was obviously referring to Lapid and perhaps to Benny Gantz, the former Israel Defense Forces chief of staff who is reportedly planning to run as part of a new center-left party. Gantz, without taking any official steps or uttering a word, is already projected as winning as many as 13 seats. While he draws much of his support from other center-left parties, some also comes from the Likud.

Livnis call for unity has no actual operative substance. It simply isnt feasible. The last thing that Lapid will do is join forces with the Zionist Camp. He has done everything he can to distance himself from the left. With no consolidation of forces, and with a center-left bloc plagued by internecine fighting, it is impossible to present a real alternative to the Netanyahu government, which revolves around a single leader who heads a large and powerful party.

Given the circumstances at the opening of the Knesset, the center-left camp in its current constellation appears to be nowhere close to consolidating its forces. The Zionist Camp and Yesh Atid are targeting the same electorate, and it looks like Gantz will soon join them in a frenzied race for the same voters.

There is also no shortage of absurd situations in the coalition. While most coalition party leaders would like to postpone elections for as long as possible, the prime minister himself wants to bring down the government. According to all recent polls, Netanyahu's party would win by a significant margin if elections were held today. Netanyahu, however, has his own personal concerns about survival, revolving around the legal timetable pertaining to criminal investigations into his activities. He apparently wants to launch his campaign before the Attorney Generals Office decides whether to indict him.

Given news from the ultra-Orthodox parties on Oct. 14 that a compromise seemed likely on the conscription legislation, the leaders of the coalition parties rushed to announce that there was now no reason to call early elections. The proposed law, whose passage Netanyahu thought would be his excuse for early elections, took a sharp turn once the ultra-Orthodox expressed their willingness to compromise. Anyone looking for excuse to call elections should keep looking, said Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman in a barb directed at the prime minister.

Meanwhile, the chairman of HaBayit HaYehudi, Education Minister Naftali Bennett, told a meeting of his faction that elections should be held as scheduled, in November 2019, and that the issue of the conscription law could be resolved. Bennett, Liberman, the ultra-Orthodox and Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon, whose parties constitute the coalition, are all in the same boat: They all want more time before the next election, albeit for different reasons. Nevertheless, it seems unlikely that they will be able to force that on Netanyahu. They also believe that Netanyahu will form the next government, and they all hope to be a part of it.

Netanyahu has essentially already launched his campaign, during his speech at the opening session. His remarks included a paean to his achievements in economics, security and foreign policy during his last decade in power. He noted his excellent relationship with US President Donald Trump and kept to form by ridiculing the bitter left and blaming Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for the absence of a peace process.

He did not, however, say a single word about Gaza, even though Israel's southern front seems headed for war. In fact, there was another incident along the border just that morning. This conspicuous omission was not by chance. Netanyahu prefers to paint a picture of a pastoral existence, or as he put it, This was a wonderful decade, and not just economically either.

The question now is what happens first: new elections or a war in Gaza? Netanyahu has already proved that he has no interest in fighting, certainly not during an election campaign. Two days after the opening of the winter session, Hamas showed that it is not concerned about Netanyahus political calculations. A rocket fired from Gaza that hit a home in Beersheba on Oct. 17 reinforced that the prime minister cannot control every factor. This means that Gaza could be added to the mix as Netanyahu calculates what it takes to survive and whether to dismantle the government.The rocket that hit a home in Beersheba on the night of Oct. 17 fell only seconds after the mother of the family had fled with her three children to a protected room in the basement. The rocket also landed on Israels security officials as a complete surprise. An additional rocket was fired northward that night; it fell into the ocean, opposite a large city in the Gush Dan metropolitan area. The authorities did not disclose the exact place.

The incident evokes memories of the summer of 2014, when Israeli intel kept telling the political echelon that Hamas isnt interested in an escalation or another round of fighting. Now, too, the intelligence assessment is that Hamas is not interested  but the reality on the ground indicates otherwise.

Anyone who fires a precise, heavy rocket at Beersheba and another one to the north is someone who wants to ignite the whole area, an Israeli cabinet member told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. We listen to intelligence reports and we know that these are well-based assessments. Still, what happened last night is very strange, and it will be Hamas who will be held responsible.

By the afternoon, the Israel Defense Forces had cobbled together a theory that Hamas had no desire to fire those rockets. However, only Hamas and Islamic Jihad own rockets with those ranges. Therefore, the IDF placed the complete responsibility on Hamas Gaza head Yahya Sinwar and political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh, and Israels air force delivered a round of air strikes at 20 targets in the Strip.

This event has already been labeled by Israeli intelligence sources the strange case of the late-night rocket because it happened in the very middle of talks conducted by Hamas in Gaza with a giant delegation of Egyptian intelligence, in an effort to save the arrangement with Israel. Hamas knows that firing on Gush Dan and Beersheba is a call for war, a highly placed military figure told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. Hamas doesnt want war now, but it could be that there are individuals in the group who want to complicate the situation and conduct sabotage from within.

A great sense of confusion and embarrassment prevailed in Israel on Wednesday morning. The event took place in the midst of a public attack of right-wing Knesset members on the IDF and its chief of staff, Gadi Eizenkot. Their allegations were serious. One of the people heading the attack was former coalition chairman David Bitan, who accused the IDF of espousing an ineffectual policy in Gaza, losing Israels deterrence capabilities and taking no action in the face of the wave of violence on the border fence. In other words, only the IDF and the chief of staff are to blame, not the political echelon that is supposed to make the decisions and certainly not Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who holds overall responsibility.

Bitans statements seem to be Netanyahus way of playing both ends against the middle. He restrains his cabinet ministers and keeps quiet about Gaza, but then sends so-called rebellious Knesset members to incite the public against the chief of staff and the IDF, hoping that theyll be the ones to feel the criticism. This is exactly what Netanyahu did in the 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict.

Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman has lost all patience. For several days already, he has been spreading the word that the time has come to inflict a serious blow on Hamas in Gaza. In a conversation with Al-Monitor, Liberman emphasized, This time we have to deliver a strong blow with all our strength, even at the price of an overall conflagration. The fact that Hamas stormed the fence violently on the very same day that we brought trucks full of diesel fuel into Gaza proves that anyone who thought that there was a chance for an arrangement with Hamas erred.

Liberman is trying to create the impression that he opposed an arrangement from the beginning and always felt that there was no chance. While there is some truth in his argument, there is also politics as well. His cabinet counterpart, HaBayit HaYehudi chairman Naftali Bennett, is making mincemeat of Liberman among his electoral base on the right. Liberman, forced into the position of the responsible adult who must respect the assessments of Israels intelligence and security branches, painedly watches Bennett doing his political tricks. Liberman seemed to have reached the end of his rope this week. On Oct. 16, he was still in the minority in the cabinet. The majority, under Netanyahus leadership, still wanted to give efforts for an arrangement a chance. On the morning of Oct. 17, after the house in Beersheba was destroyed and an entire family was saved by a miracle, things looked completely different.

The question is: What now? Netanyahu is in trouble with his right-wing base. He is still deliberating whether to push up the elections and take advantage of his presently comfortable political position and his peak ratings. However, the prime minister is also coping with tribulations that threaten his electoral base: in other words, Liberman. Liberman, as defense minister, has not really taken off mainly due to criticism of the IDFs weakness vis-a-vis Gaza fence protesters. While there are no cabinet members who think that the IDF should invade Gaza and conquer the Strip, there are quite a few members who feel that the IDF must deliver a very harsh blow to Hamas (while maximizing the IDFs aerial abilities), in order to regain its deterrence power and bring quiet back to the Gaza Envelope. The problem is that such a blow could easily spark a round of fighting that becomes many times more violent and even ignites the West Bank. (A warning against such a scenario was sent by the chief of staff to his cabinet last month). The problem is that Netanyahu does not want to hear any of this during an election year.

The Israeli cabinet is supposed to convene this evening. The hope is that Hamas prank will be deciphered by then, as well as the firing of the two rockets. Sinwars position is no less precarious; he has done nothing to deliver the goods to the Strip's residents, who are chafing and groaning under their disintegrating infrastructure, all-time unemployment high and deteriorating living standards. In the midst of all this are the Egyptians and Qataris who are trying, in different ways, to extinguish the Gaza fire. The problem is that its being fed with endless fuel.The Rachid Karami International Fair opened to the public last month, as part of a monthlong exhibition of contemporary art in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli. The fairs tragic history  which includes the interruption of its building by civil war  and the architectural venue's artistic importance were central to the exhibition's themes of collapse and historical cycles.

Cycles of Collapsing Progress, an exhibition organized by the Beirut Museum of Art and STUDIOCUR/ART, a Paris-based nonprofit, runs at the fair from Sept. 22 through Oct. 23. The show features some 20 works, ranging from sculpture to video art, addressing the cyclical nature of time and destruction. The Tripoli Citadel serves as a satellite space, also exhibiting works and hosting various activities.

The abandoned fair itself exemplifies the themes of collapse and time, curator and founder of STUDIOCUR/ART, Katrina el-Helou, explained to al-Monitor. The art and the space, we [needed] to create a synergy between these two things. The exhibition is about a general reflection on historical cycles.  The fair symbolizes the history of Lebanon, an unfinished dream, [one that is currently] collapsing as well.

The Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer designed the fair in 1962. Niemeyer was a forerunner of modern architecture and the creative mind behind such iconic buildings as the United Nations Headquarters in New York and those of Brasilia, designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its modernist architecture. The fair was Niemeyers largest project outside Brazil.

The Lebanese government, under President Fouad Chehab, commissioned the fair during a spate of nation-building infrastructure projects. According to the original concept, the fair was to serve as a center of trade, culture and leisure, incorporating some 15 daring and experimental architectural structures.

Upon arriving in Lebanon, Niemeyer explained to the daily LOrientLe Jour that the fair would be a museum of the modern object and include a number of technological feats, such as a floating stage in the theater controlled by a hydraulics system, and novel venues, such as a combination helicopter pad and space museum.

Niemeyers ambitious goals never came to fruition, however, as the onset of the Lebanese civil war in 1975 left the International Fair incomplete and abandoned. The fair, named after Lebanon's 10-time prime minister, was scheduled to be finished in 1976. By the time time the war intervened, Niemeyer had managed to finish most of the project, including a theater, an exhibition hall, a space museum and a pavilion.

At various times during the war, the fair, in strategically important Tripoli, 53 miles from Beirut, was occupied and fought over by Syrian, Palestinian and Lebanese Sunni forces. The site, with its dilapidated modern architecture and tragic history, emits a melancholy aura, both because of its unfinished structures and remains of the war.

Roy Samaha, a Lebanese artist exhibiting at the event, told Al-Monitor, The location itself, it represents a symbol of failure, this utopic dream that never happened  a poetic failure  a Greek tragedy.

Samaha produced a short film for the exhibition that explores the connection between solar cycles and political movements. He describes it as a reading of history from a more universal perspective. This perspective reflects the exhibition's theme of cyclical collapse as the sun goes through a calm period and an agitated period.

Some artists have taken the opportunity to make use of Niemeyers work. Zad Moultaka, a French-Lebanese musician and artist, set up a sound installation inside the chipped, concrete dome of the fairs experimental theater. Blurring the line between the natural and the man-made, Moultaka hung ropes, vine-like in appearance, from jagged steel bars descending from the roof. He also played an unnerving musical composition consisting of mixed synthetic and organic sounds.

The [theater] seemed like a womb, in a natural state, so my first idea was to record my own heart. [In the theater] you hear my heart and techno-beat crackles, which I recorded from my hair, Moultaka explained to Al-Monitor, highlighting the installation's mix of nature and modernity.

Adapting Niemeyers work comes with incredible responsibility and pressure. Moultaka overcame the daunting legacy of adding to Niemeyer's work by ignoring the architect's cultural impact and focusing only on the art itself. He explained, You have to forget the social aspect of his work [and] only be in his energy and the incredible imagination of this architect.GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip  Just days after fuel tankers began delivering much-needed diesel oil to the Gaza Strip on Oct. 9, Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman halted the shipments in retaliation for Gazans' protests on the border with Israel.

Liberman tweeted Oct. 13, "As long as the events continue on the border and fire balloons continue to be launched toward Israel, no fuel shall be transferred to Gaza. The protests continued, however, and on Oct. 16, an Israel Defense Forces plane fired on Palestinians allegedly launching the balloons. No casualties were reported.

Liberman's action was widely rejected by Israeli Security Cabinet members, who voiced concern that it would only aggravate the security situation on the border.

The tankers that were allowed to cross the border were carrying the first shipments of $60 million worth of oil Qatar purchased from Israel's Paz Oil Co. to help alleviate the desperate conditions in the Gaza Strip. The fuel would help provide residents with eight hours of electricity a day, instead of the current four, for six months.

The shipments were arranged under an agreement between Qatar and the United Nations. The deal bypassed Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas, who has been imposing severe sanctions on Gaza for years. Abbas' Fatah party controls the West Bank territory and would like to control the Gaza Strip as well; the rival Hamas movement currently administers the latter.

Even before Liberman suspended the shipments, the PA was already trying to prevent fuel from reaching the Gaza Strip, threatening to stop dealing with Paz Oil if it proceeded with the agreement. This prompted the Israeli government to call on small companies to transfer fuel to the Kerem Shalom crossing in the southern Gaza Strip.

In 2006, the PA signed a two-year agreement with Paz Oil to transfer fuel to the Palestinian territories at a cost to be deducted from the Palestinian taxes paid to Israel on a monthly basis. The agreement is renewed every two years.

An official at the Gaza power plant told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity that, in addition to the fuel deal being made without the PAs consent, the PA is mostly annoyed because its treasury won't receive taxes it would have otherwise collected. The PA imposes a tax of 56% on each liter of fuel purchased by Palestinian citizens. Over the first eight months of 2018, the PA collected fuel taxes of approximately 1.65 billion shekels ($458.3 million).

Each of the trucks entering Gaza carried some 35,000 liters (about 9,250 gallons) of fuel.

Stephane Dujarric, the spokesman for the UN secretary-general, said in a statement Oct. 9 that once the supply is resumed, the number of fuel tankers provided by Qatar would gradually grow to 15 a day. But Al-Monitor learned from a worker at the Kerem Shalom crossing that from Oct. 9-12, only 11 tankers total passed through the crossing.

The Gaza Strip has faced an electricity crisis since Israel bombed its only power plant in 2006. While Gaza needs 500-600 megawatts per day to provide 16 hours of electricity to residents, the Gaza Electricity Distribution Corp. is only providing 143 megawatts per day. Israel provides 120 megawatts of that amount at a cost covered by the PA, while 23 megawatts are provided by the one generator currently operating at the Gaza power plant. This generator is powered by Egyptian fuel under a 2007 agreement Cairo reached with Hamas. As a result, citizens get an average of only four hours of electricity per day.

The Gaza power plant official told Al-Monitor the amount of fuel transported so far isn't enough to run two generators. The source said the plant needs 300,000 liters per day to be able to run two of its four generators and is waiting for the remaining quantities that were announced.

Abdallah Abdallah, a member of Fatahs Revolutionary Council and chair of the Political Committee of the Palestinian Legislative Council, told Al-Monitor that the United States pressured an Arab country (meaning Qatar) to provide fuel to the Gaza Strip to punish the PA for its political positions. During his Sept. 27 speech before the UN General Assembly, Abbas rejected the United States as a lone broker in negotiations between the Palestinians and the Israelis. PA officials say the United States is biased toward Israel and doesn't act as a neutral mediator in the peace negotiations.

According to Abdallah, Abbas told Qatari Ambassador Mohammed al-Emadi during a Sept. 13 meeting in Ramallah that he rejected any steps to deliver aid to the Gaza Strip without the PAs consent.

Abdallah further said that the PA will block any plans it believes will interfere with the Palestinian cause and will be announcing decisive steps during the Palestinian Central Council meeting scheduled for Oct. 28.

Of note, Qatar's Foreign Ministry said Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani on Oct. 10 pledged a $150 million package of emergency aid to the people of the Gaza Strip through the Qatar Development Fund, the government body responsible for distributing the country's foreign aid. The statement didn't say whether that amount includes the $60 million of oil.

Hamas leader Hammad al-Raqab told Al-Monitor, Supplying Gaza with fuel without the consent of the PA was a result of the PAs positions and sanctions against the Gaza Strip and its threats to take further measures at the end of this month.

He said Hamas can't remain silent about Abbas measures to stifle the Gaza Strip, and added that in October, a senior Hamas delegation is scheduled to travel to Turkey and Qatar, among other countries, to find solutions to the worsening humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip.

Unemployment has reached 70% among young people in Gaza, and half of the total population there lives in poverty. Gazans hope that regional and international parties will provide further humanitarian assistance capable of alleviating their dire situation.WASHINGTON  Facing mounting criticism for appearing smiling and eager to maintain business-as-usual relations with his Saudi hosts yesterday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo insisted today that he has confidence in a Saudi investigation of the suspected murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, but conceded that the US administration does not want to see US-Saudi relations suffer depending on what they find.

Look, we had very direct conversations about this, the seriousness of this, how serious President Trump is taking this, how seriously the United States will take this, Pompeo told reporters traveling with him on a refueling stop in Brussels today after briefly stopping in Turkey for meetings with Turkish officials. But, as for responses that the United States will take, we need to know the facts before we can begin to formulate what the appropriate response for this would be.

I do think it's important that everyone keep in their mind that we have lots of important relationships  financial relationships between US and Saudi companies, governmental relationships, things we work on together all across the world  efforts to reduce the risk to the United States of America from the world's largest state sponsor of terror, Iran," Pompeo continued. "The Saudis have been great partners in working alongside us on those issues.

Pompeo was photographed looking upbeat and convivial with Saudi King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (often known by his initials MBS) at his long meetings in Riyadh yesterday, which he called incredibly successful. He stayed overnight in the Saudi capital, yet he never left the airport in Ankara. He spent roughly 40 minutes meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, followed by a meeting with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu. Neither Pompeo nor his Turkish hosts spoke to reporters after their meetings, and Pompeos plane departed Ankara only three hours after landing.

Just a few hours after Pompeo departed Turkey, the New York Times, citing a Turkish official and Turkish pro-government newspaper Yeni Safak, published a gruesome account of an alleged audio tape of Khashoggis torture and killing at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2. The alleged audio recording described the Saudi consul general asking the Saudi security team not to target Khashoggi in the consulate, fearing he would get in trouble, and a member of the team responding to the diplomat by telling him to shut up.

Pompeo, speaking to journalists in Brussels, declined to say if he had heard the audio recording, if one exists, but State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert later told journalists that he had not.

US President Donald Trump said today the United States has asked for any such audio recording the Turks might have of what happened to Khashoggi, and wagered it probably does exist.

"Yes, we have asked for it  if it exists," Trump told journalists at an Oval Office pool spray today. It probably does.

We will probably know [what happened] by the end of the week, Trump added.

Saudi watchers told Al-Monitor that they were intrigued by a report by Washington Post columnist David Ignatius today suggesting that the Saudi investigation may identify an MBS ally, Saudi deputy intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Ahmad al-Asiri, as a ringleader in the plot that killed Khashoggi. Asiri previously served as a spokesman for the Saudi-led military coalition targeting Yemen  essentially as a spokesman for the crown prince, who also serves as Saudi defense minister. MBS promoted Asiri to deputy intelligence chief last year.

Asiri has a history of being a bit of an aggressive guy, a friend of the crown prince, a regional source, speaking not for attribution, told Al-Monitor. But he did badly as a spokesman for the coalition, and was kicked upstairs.  As deputy head of intelligence, he would have the authority to interrogate Khashoggi.  Did he ask permission for a rendition? Saying it could be done, and it went south? Clearly, whatever the guy did  was incompetent.

If the Saudis go after Asiri, who has been in MBS circle for a long time, perhaps they are at least somewhat serious about accountability, a former senior US official, speaking not for attribution, told Al-Monitor. If they go after others, they may just be trying to use the crisis to re-position or promote MBS allies.

Meanwhile, Bruce Riedel, a former National Security Council and CIA officer who is a columnist for Al-Monitor's Gulf Pulse, said that "the administration is desperately trying to keep their Iran policy on track, which is threatened by the Istanbul caper."

"The rogue cover-up story has already disintegrated," Riedel told Al-Monitor.

While the Trump administration has signaled its wariness about any fallout from the Khashoggi case leading to any rupture in US-Saudi relations, pressure is more likely to come from Congress.

As US sanctions on Irans oil and gas exports go into effect next month, the Trump administration is particularly desperate to avoid the Saudis refusing to pump more oil, which it fears could raise gas prices on voters and threaten Trumps potential re-election chances.

The Trump administration appears to believe that they are going to get a very healthy chunk of Iranian petroleum products off the market [when US oil sanctions on Iran go into effect] on Nov. 5, the former senior US official said. So they are terrified of driving up prices significantly. Thus, the administration feels that they cannot alienate the Saudis. If the Saudis are unwilling to pump more [oil], it could damage President Trumps re-election chances. The drivers here include the collision of high-priority foreign policy goals (primarily Iran) and presidential electoral politics.

The fallout from Khashoggis murder could very well, however, affect already growing congressional misgivings about US support for the Saudi/UAE military campaign in Yemen.

Congressional skepticism about the Yemen war and this development will collide and could combine to form a perfect storm against the Saudis, the former senior US official said. I dont think Congress will approve new arms sales for a while.

The Senators who wrote the administration about Khashoggis murder knew that they were triggering the Magnitsky Act and the full ramifications of the sanctions on those determined responsible, the former senior US official said. They were not kidding around.US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the countrys foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, in Ankara today to discuss the latest developments on dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The Washington Post columnists disappearance on Oct. 2 has escalated into a behind-the-scenes power play, with Ankara apparently pushing for unrevealed concessions from the kingdom.

There were no details released following Pompeos talks with the Turkish leaders. They followed meetings in Riyadh with Saudi King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is thought to have issued the orders for Khashoggi to be either abducted or killed.

Pompeos tour coincided with the disclosure of further lurid snippets as to how Khashoggi was said to have been tortured, killed and dismembered in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2.

The pro-government Yeni Safak newspaper said it had access to the audio recordings of Saudi Consul General Mohammed al-Otaibi telling the killers, Do this thing outside. You are going to get me into trouble, to which one of the men purportedly responded, If you want to stay alive, shut up.

Otaibi left Istanbul yesterday and Turkish investigators began searching his residence, where Khashoggis remains may be buried after allegedly being carried out of the consulate by individuals belonging to a 15-member Saudi hit squad Turkish officials claim was commissioned to murder him.

Yeni Safak columnist and former press adviser to Erdogan Kemal Ozturk, citing unnamed security sources, claimed today that police were searching for Khashoggis corpse in Istanbuls largest green space, the Belgrade Forest, which like the Saudi Consulate is on the European side of the city. However, the possibility that his corpse vaporized between the consulate and the consul generals residence, where some of the alleged Saudi assassins reportedly went, is gaining ground, Ozturk wrote, musing, This could have been done with barrels full of acid or some other way.

Turkish officials have yet to formally disclose any of the evidence they have steadily leaked mainly to the Western media in an apparent effort to corner the Saudis. Both the king and his anointed heir continue to deny all responsibility for Khashoggis disappearance. US President Donald Trump, whose son-in-law Jared Kushner is believed to enjoy close relations with the crown prince, has echoed the denials.

Ozturk suggested that Turkey, with its unprecedented leverage over the Saudis, would agree to a formula that would see the much despised crown prince stripped of his title. Though Ozturk didnt spell it out, such an arrangement effectively would translate into allowing the affair to be buried with a few rogue officials, as Trump put it, being pinned with the blame.

The crown prince, touted as a radical reformer for his decision to let women drive and drive to modernize the desert kingdoms oil-dependent economy, is at odds with Turkey over the latters support for the Muslim Brotherhood and its military alliance with Saudi Arabias big bugbear, Qatar.

Saudi Arabia has stoked Turkish ire with its support for the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, who are at the vanguard of the US-led campaign against the Islamic State in Syria. On Tuesday the kingdom transferred $100 million toward the US-led coalitions stabilization efforts in areas liberated from IS. The Turkish financial daily Dunya called the move Saudi assistance for the YPG/PKK.

The Kurdish component known as the Peoples Protection Units (YPG) is closely linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has been at war against the Turkish military since 1984. Erdogan and Cavusoglu used their face time with Pompeo today to renew demands that the United States axe its partnership with the YPG terrorists and to oust them from the contested town of Manbij, according to sources familiar with the substance of the talks.

Nicholas Heras, a Middle East security fellow at the Center for a New American Security, believes Saudi support for stabilization efforts in the US-protected zone are critical. Saudi Arabia is poised to play a large role in the US zone of control in northern and eastern Syria and will go beyond simply donating a large sum of money to the stabilization effort. Heras continued in emailed comments to Al-Monitor, Already, the Saudis are preparing to be involved in supporting critical infrastructure such as health care and to form security and intelligence relationships with Arab tribes throughout this zone.

The broader Saudi-US goal is to roll back Iranian influence in Syria. While Arab tribes may cooperate, the YPG maintains tactical ties with Iran dictated by the harsh facts of geography, much in the same way the Iraqi Kurds do. It is therefore loath to draw Iranian ire by becoming the United States stalking horse in the region, however much Turkey believes that is precisely what it is.Speculations over increased Russian military presence in Libya entailed a new round of debate over Russias goals in the Middle East North Africa region. As Al-Monitor reported last week, the report by the British tabloid The Sun also triggered controversies within Russia over whether going into Libya is in the countrys best national interests. Moreover, the rumors run in conflict with previous public statements made by Russian officials at all levels. So it really is important to have the facts straight.

In recent months, government structures controlled by the Chamber of Representatives and patronized by the Libyan National Army from Tobruk had requested that Russia provide them with additional financial aid, which the state administration needs to operate state agencies on the territories under its authority. Considering that Tripoli and Tobruk administrations are involved in a constant confrontation, the Chamber of Representatives barely manages to meet the basic daily needs of the population in the areas it controls and maintain the administrative structures. One of these urgent problems is a cash deficit. The quantity of cash circulating among individuals and companies (both private and state-owned) is limited, and further money issuance is impossible as the Central Bank and the Mint of Libya are based in Tripoli. Russia has already provided such aid, acknowledging the legitimacy of the Chamber of Representatives and its status as the sole legislative institution of Libya. However, the support is strictly non-military; it is supposed to relieve the suffering of civilians in the war-torn country. This is the reason Russia has increased food supplies to the country in recent years  to help the nation resist economic setbacks and their negative impacts on the population.

In spite of the ongoing crisis, several Russian companies either continue to work in Libya or are just returning there now. Some of them indeed rely on private security services to ensure the safety of their staff and property as much as numerous foreign nongovernmental organizations and enterprises do. Some of the mercenary security officers are native Russian speakers and current or former citizens of post-Soviet nations. This is a type of private business that  regardless of being risky  provides large incomes. The security officers represent and protect the interests of their clients, the list of which does not include the Russian government. Moreover, even Russian diplomats do not use the services of private security and military companies to ensure their safety while visiting Libya. In this respect, it should be reminded that the staff of the Russian Embassy in Libya left the country in 2013 to re-establish a downsized presence in Tunisia. Thus, one should distinguish Russian professional soldiers who are absent in Libya and private security guards who speak Russian but work for particular individuals and do not officially represent their countries.

Although the embargo on military supplies to Libya imposed Feb. 26, 2011, by the UN Security Council still exists, weaponry and equipment constantly enter the country in quantities sufficient for local fighting. This flow includes, among others, weapons from ex-Soviet countries and Eastern Europe as a whole  mostly outdated models from the Soviet era or their equivalents supplied to Libya by private dealers and paid for by interested sponsors such as Libyan diaspora entrepreneurs and charity foundation keepers from Europe and Gulf states. As these deals involve Russian-speaking nationals of Eastern European countries, they can be seen as agents of Russian influence, which is far from the truth. In reality, the businesspeople of this kind gather around every long-term armed conflict of the modern-day world, completely lacking political bias toward any side of the confrontation in Libya and merely looking for a financial benefit.

Since 2015, when Russia launched its operations in Syria, various media have repeatedly claimed that Tobruk, controlled by the National Army both in military and information aspects, is a major hub through which the weapon trade with Khalifa Hifters troops continues in spite of the international embargo. The donor countries supposedly included France, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Russia. When Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov had been forced to stay in Tobruks well-equipped port suitable for large military ships, various media made and promptly spread a conclusion about Moscows plans to return to Libya and create a multifunctional military base or a temporary post for its navy  like it did in the Syrian city of Tartus.

Hifters office has also indirectly supported the rumors, turning his visit to Admiral Kuznetsov into breaking news. Interpreting it as a sign of trust from the Russian side, his people used this event as a propaganda instrument to vilify the Hifter's opponents. But this ultimately misinterpreted the actions and motives of Moscow.

The rumors about the Russian military base in Libya have been circulating for two years and have not been factually proven. These rumors create conditions for journalists and experts to make far-fetched hypotheses about Russian military facilities appearing not only in Tobruk but also in Benghazi. Given the size of the city and the way information flows there, it is hard to keep events of such scale clandestine. Had Russia deployed troops there, locals would have noticed and reported it a long time ago. Yet none of the numerous freelance journalists working in this area of Libya and hunting for sensationalized news have been able to present any evidence of a base.

Military presence does not fall under the scope of interests and principles of Russian policy in North Africa and particularly in Libya. The principle of equidistance with Tripoli and Tobruk as two somewhat legitimate centers of state administration and authority was drawn out by the Russian government in 2014-2015 and has not since been abandoned. Only while following it diligently can Russia achieve its sole strategic goal in Libya, which is to support peace and stability efforts in the country in order to restore its status as a responsible economic partner; create the conditions for Russian companies to function inside its territory for the benefit of both sides and take Russia and OPECs side in the conflict over fair oil prices  Libyas main export commodity in which Moscow is also interested.

The conference in Palermo  which was organized by Italy's Foreign Ministry to restart the inclusive dialogue on the Libyan conflict after the UN-brokered peace process signed in Skhirat, Morocco, had failed  will become the most significant political event centered around Libya in the near future. The negotiations are supposed to attract the representatives of all parties to the conflict, which have a substantial influence on the prospects of the country, as well as foreign delegates from nations interested in the stabilization and consistent improvement of the situation.

In the last few months, the newly formed Italian government led by Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has gone to great lengths to gather as many delegates as possible and draw out a constructive negotiation agenda. Russian representatives were also invited to the conference, with both Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Energy Minister Alexander Novak attending.

This initiative is quite appealing to Russia. France  which has been proposing an alternative project for a Libyan resolution for several years and competing with Italy in this field  and Great Britain, on the other hand, have different opinions. The United Kingdom, in particular, feels that many groups in the countrys political elite object to Russias involvement in such summits and generally disapprove of cooperation between Russia and the Mediterranean nations to jointly address regional crises. This position is more dictated by the problems in Russian-British relations than by a genuine desire to adequately solve the Libyan crisis, even though previous attempts to do so have been failing throughout 2018.

The Libyan resolution currently needs innovative, alternative approaches, and Russia can be helpful in this regard. As a country that has stayed outside the conflict during the last few years, it is thus able to become an appealing agent of change providing benefits for anyone interested in the actual reconciliation in Libya.TUNIS  Tunisias parliament voted to criminalize racial discrimination on Oct. 9 in what supporters are calling a historic step in the protection of minority rights in the country.

Today, minorities and non-Tunisians who might face discrimination in our country are protected by the law, said Rania Belhaj Romdhane, a member of Mnemty (My Dream), an anti-racism organization that advocated for the legislation. It is a very important step.

Messaoud Romdhani, head of the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights, agreed in regard to the law's significance. After the vote, he was reported as saying, This is a very important turning point in the history of Tunisia, equivalent to the abolition of slavery.

Under the laws provisions, those convicted of using racist language could be imprisoned for one month or fined $350, while those guilty of inciting hatred, making racist threats, spreading and advocating racism or belonging to an organization that supports discrimination could face one to three years in prison or a $1,050 fine. Even steeper fines can be levied against institutions and associations found to have engaged in discriminatory practices.

The legislation puts Tunisia, often hailed as the catalyst and biggest success story of the Arab Spring, once again at the forefront of progressive change in the region.

Throughout its history, Tunisia has often led the way on social issues, among them racial equality and womens rights. In 1846, it became one of the first countries to formally abolish slavery. (The practice continued until 1890). Under the autocratic rule of former President Habib Bourguiba, it introduced landmark reforms protecting womens rights, a legacy on which Tunisia's current president, Beji Caid Essebsi, has sought to build.

Tunisia also prides itself on its diverse and tolerant character. Living at the crossroads of the Maghreb, Europe and the Levant, Tunisians are an ethnically diverse people  a mix of Arab, Berber, European and Phoenician roots along with others  bringing together a range of cultural influences. A small community of Jews has also lived alongside their Muslim neighbors for centuries, mostly on the southeastern island of Djerba. They now number around 2,000, less than 0.1% of the overall population.

Despite Tunisias diverse background and open outlook, racism  particularly directed at the countrys significant black population  remains deeply ingrained throughout the country, activists say. Those of darker skin tones are frequently subjected to racial slurs, social stigma, discrimination and even violence.

You see racism on the streets on a daily basis  when you get mocked, when you get bullied, when you are called names, asserted Belhaj Romdhane, a black woman who said she regularly encounters such behavior. When I was a child, I was always called names, even by my teachers, who were supposed to be role models.  This made me always feel scared of being judged.

Fadwa Gmiden, from Gabes, told Al-Monitor that life as a black Tunisian has come with its struggles. Sometimes Im not sure which is harder: being a woman or being black, Gmiden said. It requires double the effort to be accepted. There is always this Youre not Tunisian enough.

Since the 2011 revolution, civil society groups have pressured the government to pass legislation specifically geared at protecting racial and ethnic minorities, but at first, there was little political will, said Belhaj Romdhane. That changed in 2016 following a series of racially motivated assaults that prompted a wave of protests and a national conversation about racism. In one highly publicized case in December of that year, three Congolese students were attacked with a knife in central Tunis, landing one of them in intensive care.

Responding to the incident, Prime Minister Youssef Chahed called on parliament to ratify the draft law criminalizing racial discrimination as a matter of urgency. Today, nearly two years later, Belhaj Romdhane and other activists are proud that the law they long worked to enact has finally been passed. That done, however, they recognize that the road ahead for ensuring equality is a long one.

For years, weve held many protests, weve held many sit-ins, including behind the doors of parliament. Weve organized a lot of marches on the streets, and weve held many cultural events and campaigns to raise awareness, said Belhaj Romdhane. Without the presence of civil society, none of this would have happened.

She added, Today, we are very hopeful. We are very excited, and we are very proud of our country, but this is only the beginning. We cant say that racism or discrimination will stop immediately because of a law. This is only the key to opening the door.

Along those same lines, Romdhani remarked, It's a giant step, but there's still a lot of work to be done to make this law a reality in a society where there is racism against the 10% of black Tunisians and sub-Saharan Africans who suffer from insults and sometimes violent attacks.

According to Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research Salim Khalbous, Tunisias black minority is estimated to account for 10-15% of the overall population, and there are some 6,500 foreign African students, mostly from the sub-Sahara, currently living in the country.

Gmiden, asked whether she was optimistic about the new law, stated, In Tunisia, we have good legislation for many things that are not yet put into practice.  We need a cultural shift in order for this law to be successful.

The Tunisian Press Agency has reported that to help educate the public and to fulfill the spirit of the law, a new body, the National Commission against Racial Discrimination, will be tasked with overseeing strategies and public policies and conducting public awareness campaigns on the issue. Proponents of the law said that efforts to raise awareness, especially among the countrys younger generations, are critical to effecting change.

Today, many Tunisians, most of them with good intentions and good faith, say that we have no problem with racism, but the first act to tackle the issue of racism is to recognize it, said Mehdia Ben Gharbia, Tunisias former human rights minister, after passage of the new law, which he helped bring forward.

Racism is a universal illness that you can find everywhere said Belhaj Romdhane. We just need to talk about it, because denial is always a problem. We want this country to become fully democratic, so that it can be an example for other countries in the region, a country that leads on human rights, that leads on diversity and that accepts all people.President Erdogan has renewed his call for a referendum to determine if Turkey will continue with its European Union (EU) membership talks or end them once and for all.

Addressing the TRT World Forum in Istanbul on Oct. 4., Erdogan said the EU has kept Turkey waiting for membership since 1963.

He said countries that had not fulfilled the EUs Copenhagen Criteria on democracy and human rights had been fully admitted as members in the meantime in a show of leniency that was not provided to Turkey.

Indicating that there is nothing to show that Ankaras membership path was open today, Erdogan called on the EU to come clean and declare whether it wants Turkey as a member.

Underlining that the EU was holding back from doing this too, Erdogan said, Our duty then is to go to 81 million [Turks] and ask them.  As the leader of my party, my friend and I will bring the subject to the table, and the minute we say OK [to a referendum], we will take the required step instantly.

This has in fact been a hobby horse for Erdogan for some time now. He even called on Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2013 to help Turkey join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization so that Ankara could end its bid to join the EU.

Although Erdogan has called for an EU referendum in the past, he has not acted on this to date, leading many to assume that he is only engaging in political rhetoric.

Given the right alignment of factors in Turkey and Europe, though, Erdogans repeated calls for a referendum could turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy, especially since he has been courting nationalist quarters as much as religious ones to shore up his domestic support base.

Dumping the EU would mean little for these quarters, which  like Erdogan  have traditionally looked on Europe with resentment and suspicion. High EU standards on democracy and human rights  which are, technically speaking, prerequisites for membership  have also been seen by these quarters as traps designed to undermine state authority in Turkey.

Erdogan's referendum call is also at odds with some members of his administration. For instance, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu underlined in an interview with the Greek Ta Nea newspaper in September that EU membership remains a strategic choice for Ankara.

We see our future in the EU, Cavusoglu said.

Some of Erdogans former associates in the Justice and Development Party (AKP), like former President Abdullah Gul, have supported Ankaras EU membership bid because this has played a role played in pushing through reforms in Turkey.

For Erdogan, however, pushing for EU membership has never been part of his populist political platform. His anti-Western rhetoric, on the other hand, has brought him votes and great support from expatriate Turks in Europe.

Erdogan is a believer in the majoritarian approach to democracy as opposed to a pluralistic one, and he supports strong control over the country by the executive branch. He is aware that he would lose much of the political power he wields today under the EUs democratic criteria.

Many believe it is his anti-democratic steps at home that pose as much of an obstruction to progress in Ankaras EU membership talks as negative views about Turkey in Europe do.

Disingenuous as it may appear, Erdogan has nevertheless paid lip service to the notion that Turkey wants to continue with its EU vocation if it gets a fair deal from Europe. His policies, however, rarely point to a politician who is committed to securing EU membership.

In maintaining his current line on the EU, Erdogan relies on the culturally and religiously driven reluctance by key European countries like France and Germany to accept Turkey into the EU, even if Ankara fulfills all of the requirements for membership.

Burhanettin Duran, the general coordinator for the Ankara-based and government-funded Political, Economic and Social Research Foundation (SETA), believes Erdogans call for a referendum is his way of forcing the EU to recalibrate its strategic calculations regarding Turkey.

Duran argued in an article for the pro-government Sabah daily that Europes new policy on Turkey is based on ending tensions with Ankara and developing bilateral ties in order to continue cooperation on vital issues like trade and migration and thus keep Turkey tethered to the EU without admitting it as a member.

I believe that Erdogans [referendum] message is the result of his opposition to this policy, Duran wrote, going on to maintain that the existing situation with the EU cannot be sustained indefinitely.

Recent surveys in Turkey indicate that while there is still over 40% support for EU membership, the majority of Turks believe that Turkey will not get a fair deal from Europe.

This is why a referendum on Turkeys EU membership bid is not likely to cost Erdogan much domestic support and might even be useful at a time when Turkey is heading for crucial local elections in March 2019.

Remarks by German politician Manfred Weber  who is currently vying for the job of president of the EU Commission  in which he stresses that he will end Turkeys membership talks if elected also provide grist to Erdogans mill.

None of this means, of course, that Erdogan is turning his back on Europe. He appears more interested in shoring up bilateral ties with key European countries today than with pursuing EU membership.

His recent high-profile state visit to Berlin shows that key European countries are not unreceptive to his overtures in this regard.

There is also a technical cooperation infrastructure between Ankara and Brussels on vital issues like migration, terrorism and economic cooperation that has been built up over decades. This is unlikely to be dismantled if Turkey decides to end its EU membership talks.

Many also believe that ending Turkeys membership bid will not mean that European companies lose interest in Turkey, even though they admit this could initially cause some economic turbulence.

Those who support this argument point to the economic opportunities the United Kingdom has been chasing in Turkey in recent months as it plans its post- Brexit future.

There are also those who believe that if Erdogan had been a Reformist leader, he would have had a much stronger hand against European politicians who are opposed to Turkeys EU membership.

Retired Turkish Ambassador Oguz Demiralp lays a big portion of the blame for the current state of Turkish-EU ties on Ankara.

We cut down on the work necessary for attaining EU standards. We regressed in terms of democracy, the rule of law, and human rights, Demiralp wrote for the news portal T24 in a commentary on Erdogans call for an EU referendum.

If we had made headway instead with regard to EU standards, which is also necessary for ourselves, then our hand would have been stronger against the EU, he added.

Demiralp argued that European leaders would not have been able to obstruct Turkeys EU path as they do today had Erdogan been keen on democratic reforms.

In order to bolster this argument, those who think like Demiralp recall that influential European leaders opposed to seeing Turkey in Europe, like former French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing, could not prevent the opening of formal membership talks with Ankara in October 2005 because Turkey appeared to be making headway in terms of reforms at the time.

Sedat Ergin, a seasoned foreign policy expert who writes for the daily Hurriyet, believes that ending Ankaras EU bid could have dire consequences for Turkeys ties with the West.

Ergin noted in his column that if Erdogan opts for a referendum, he is also likely to support ending EU membership talks.

A possible result of the scenario in which [Erdogan] takes a position against full membership could be the serious loss of ground in Turkeys Western perspective and the river bed being diverted to a different course, Ergin wrote.

This, however, may be a moot point at this state, since Erdogan has not refrained from the kind of brinkmanship that has already undermined Turkeys ties with the West.Alabama House Speaker Mac McCutcheon has set up a new Legislative Advisory Committee on School Safety and Security that held an organizational meeting on Tuesday.

Its the latest in a series of moves by public officials to try to improve school safety and prevent tragedies such as the shooting that claimed 17 lives in Parkland, Fla., earlier this year.

Alabama lawmakers proposed a number of bills in response to that tragedy during their session earlier this year. McCutcheon said he wanted the committee in place before the next session in March, when school safety is expected to again be a key issue.

The committee includes representatives from education, law enforcement and mental health care, as well as legislators.

Legislators think from a political agenda, McCutcheon said. Its the nature of what we do. And I thought, wouldnt it be good going into this next quadrennium if we had a panel of people who could bring expertise to the table from different fields to help us vet and evaluate these pieces of legislation.

Rep. Terri Collins, R-Decatur, who chairs the Education Policy Committee in the House, will chair the new advisory panel. Collins led a similar committee in 2016. Collins said the next meeting of the new panel would probably be in February.

The committee could then review pre-filed legislation and education budget recommendations before the legislative session starts in March.

The committee today heard an update on Gov. Kay Iveys school safety initiative.

Other members include Rep. Alan Baker, R-Brewton; Rep. Rex Reynolds, R-Huntsville; Rep. Rod Scott, D-Fairfield; Lee County Sheriff Jay Jones; Alabama Department of Mental Health Legislative Affairs Director Holley Caraway; School Superintendents Association of Alabama Executive Director Ryan Hollingsworth; Council for Leaders in Alabama Schools Executive Director Vic Wilson; Alabama Homeland Security Director Shirrell Roberts; Alabama Department of Education Administrator Greg DeJarnett; Lee County Deputy Sheriff Pamela Revells; Alabama Department of Mental Health Commissioner Lynn Beshear, and Elmore County Public Schools Counseling Coordinator Emilie Johnson.Alabama high school students who graduated in 2018 and took the ACT college entrance exam, on the whole, had pretty much the same results as students who took the exam four years earlier, according to The Condition of College and Career Readiness 2018, released Wednesday by ACT.

Alabama Superintendent Eric Mackey said, We were certainly hoping for some increases but were overall not too disappointed because our numbers are tracking with the national numbers. State officials are digging in, he said, to determine what more should be done to support students in math, science and reading, so they can do their best on the ACT.

Test results include all students who graduated in 2018, whether public, private or home-schooled. Historical estimates show that around 90 percent of all graduates attend public schools.

There has been little change to both the composite score and the percentage of students meeting one or more of the four subject-area benchmarks since all 11th-graders in Alabamas public schools started taking the ACT during the 2015 school year.

Statewide, the composite score for the class of 2018 was 19.1, the same as it was in 2015 and 2016 and down one-tenth of a point from 2017s 19.2.

Nationally, 55 percent of graduates took the test, and the composite score was 20.8, the same as it was in 2016, but down two-tenths of a point from 2015s and 2017s 21-point score.

The highest score possible on the ACT is 36, and only 40 of the 58,177 Alabama students who took the test hit that target.

Trends in college readiness, another way of looking at ACT scores, are worrisome at the national level, according to a press release from ACT. Readiness in math fell to its lowest level, 40 percent, since 2004, and readiness in English is also at its lowest level, down to 60 percent.

College readiness figures are based on the percentage of students reaching the benchmark score in each of four subject areas: math (22), English (18), reading (22), and science (23).

In Alabama, the percentage of students reaching each benchmark remained relatively unchanged since 2015. Click here to read the full Alabama results.

The graph below shows how Alabama compares with national percentages in the 2018 results.

The 2018 ACT college readiness benchmarks.

Mackey said there are a few bright spots in the data for Alabama. Our STEM readiness is up, he said. STEM is an acronym for the combined fields of science, technology, engineering and math. In 2018, 11 percent of graduates met the benchmark for readiness in STEM, up from 10 percent three years earlier. Nationwide, 20 percent of students reached the STEM benchmark.

And we have more students saying they want to go into STEM fields than weve ever had, he said. In Alabama, 49 percent of test-takers said they wanted to pursue STEM fields, compared to 45 percent nationally.

Alabama is one of only 19 states that test 100 percent of graduates, something Mackey said has been good for high school graduates here.

The opportunity that we give every student to take the ACT is something we should not step backwards on, he said, adding that some students have found they have an aptitude for college that might not have known if they hadnt taken the test.

The state of Alabama pays for students to take the ACT as 11th graders, and some students take the test more than once, Mackey said. Students who take it a second time," he said, "typically do better.

Fee waivers are available for students in families meeting income eligibility requirements. A student can get up to two fee waivers, meaning a student in an eligible family could take the ACT up to three times for free.

High ACT scores can mean real money for students at most state universities where financial scholarships can be awarded based on a combination of ACT results and high school GPA.

For example, at Auburn University, an Alabama resident with an ACT score of 28 and high school GPA of 3.5 could earn a scholarship worth $32,000 over their four-year career. Out-of-state students with an ACT of 29 and a 3.5 GPA can receive $72,000 over four years.

ACT scores are required at all public four-year colleges and universities but are optional at nine private four-year colleges and universities in Alabama, according to the FairTest.org website.

The ACT report includes to which schools students choose to send their scores. The top five schools in Alabama were Auburn University, University of Alabama, University of Alabama In Birmingham, Troy University, and University of South Alabama.

The top three out-of-state schools where students sent scores were Mississippi State University, University of Mississippi, and University Southern Mississippi.

At the national level, some colleges and universities have become test-optional, meaning the institution uses something other than the college-admissions test to determine whether a student will be accepted to the college.

Birmingham-Southern College made news when it dropped ACT scores as a requirement for entry. Students can choose to submit a test-optional application instead. High school transcripts are required, as is an interview and letter of recommendation.

Alabamas two-year community colleges offer students the option of taking a placement test in math and English if they do not have an ACT score or if the score is lower than the requirement to be enrolled in college-level math and English courses.

The ACT is a part of Alabamas federal accountability plan under the Every Student Succeeds Act. Alabama is one of only a few states using the ACT as the measure of high school accountability for federal accountability. Tenth-grade students take the preACT to provide the academic growth measure required during the high school span of grades.

The nonpartisan education policy group Achieve released a report earlier this year questioning whether the ACT college-entrance exam should be used for state accountability purposes, finding it is a weak match to the common core state standards in math and English language arts. The common core state standards comprise the bulk of most states academic standards in those two subjects.

ACT results are also part of a schools and districts report card grade, making that alignment to what is being taught even more important.

Because of the questions around alignment, Mackey said, representatives from the states that are currently using the ACT for federal accountability are meeting next month to discuss what might need to be done and whether anything needs to change. ACT officials will also attend the meeting, he said.

Mackey said the upcoming review of the math and English courses of study over the next two years will give education officials an opportunity to rework what is being taught at a particular grade level.

Those changes will have an impact in the long-term, Mackey said, but, The ACT is a cumulative knowledge and aptitude test, Mackey said. You dont make overnight changes and all of a sudden affect your ACT scores.Alabamians next month will get to decide whether to add anti-abortion language to the state constitution, potentially paving the way for abortion restrictions if Roe v. Wade is overturned.

The new amendment would add anti-abortion language, recognizing the rights of the unborn, and deny protections to those seeking an abortion.

The amendment states it is the public policy of this state to recognize and support the sanctity of unborn life and the rights of unborn children, including the right to life. It also affirms that nothing in Alabamas state constitution protects a right to abortion or requires funding of an abortion.

While nothing would change unless Roe v Wade is overturned, opponents say it could limit access to womens healthcare in the future.

Amendment 2 paves the way to ban abortion regardless of if the person is a victim of rape or incest, or if the life of the women is in danger, Katie Glenn, Alabama state director of Planned Parenthood said. And if theres one thing we know about Alabama politicians is that time and time and again they will do whatever is in their power to limit access to safe and legal abortion and this is no exception.

Planned Parenthood has donated almost $800,000 to Alabama for Healthy Families to campaign against Amendment 2.

Terry Lathan, chair of the Alabama Republican Party, said the amendment is a simple statement that asks if the majority of the people of Alabama support life for the unborn.

The pro choice folks at Planned Parenthood are trying to scare everybody to death, Lathan said. If youre a pro choice person per say, or more moderate or liberal, they are absolutely lying to them by doing that. It does not take away the right of an abortion at this moment because Roe v. Wade is in place."

Rep. Matt Fridy, R-Montevallo, is responsible for the amendments language and passage in the legislature. We want to make sure that at a state level, if Roe v. Wade is overturned, that the Alabama Constitution cannot be used as a mechanism by which to claim that there is a right to abortion, Matt Fridy told Fox News.

Alabama in one of three states voting on abortion-related restrictions, along with West Virginia and Oregon. According to researchers at the Guttermacher Institute, 37 states introduced 308 new abortion restrictions in the first quarter of 2018.

In Alabama, abortion procedures are banned after 20 weeks, unless the womans life is in danger or her physical health is severely compromised. There are three places to get abortions in Alabama.

The most recent attempt of Alabama attempting to restrict abortion access came in August after a federal appeals court blocked Alabama from banning the most common method of second-trimester abortion, dilation and evacuation.

The proponents of the amendment will have you believe that it will have no real world effects, but thats just not realistic, Glenn said. If they had been interested in putting exceptions in this legislation, they would have, and they didnt. And the idea that they would then go back and retroactively carve out protections for womens access to healthcare is basically unthinkable.

This story was updated on Oct. 18, 2018 at 9:00 a.m. to reflect the number of places to get an abortion in Alabama. The story previously stated there were nine places to get an abortion. There are three.The Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles cancelled parole hearings for the rest of this week after Gov. Kay Ivey placed a moratorium on early paroles and sharply criticized the board for considering early releases of violent offenders.

Board spokesman Darrell Morgan said today the board wanted to make sure none of the cases scheduled for hearings this week fell under the 75-day moratorium. Morgan said hearings are expected to resume next week.

Early parole hearings are those held before an inmate has served the minimum time to be eligible for initial parole consideration.

For the most violent offenses, such as murder, rape, and robbery, thats a minimum of 85 percent of the sentence or 15 years, whichever is less.

For some other offenses, the minimum is one-third of the sentence or 10 years, whichever is less.

But the board can make exceptions to those minimums and grant early parole.

Prosecutors and victims advocates say the board has been giving violent offenders early parole consideration at an alarming rate. One inmate released early is accused of killing three people in Guntersville in July.

Sen. Cam Ward, R-Alabaster, sponsor of a criminal justice reform bill passed in 2015 to reduce prison overcrowding, said today nothing in that legislation called for early paroles for violent offenders. He said lawmakers might have to address the issue next year.

I think were going to have to look at curbing some of the discretion of that board when it comes to violent offenders, Ward said.

Ivey and Attorney General Steve Marshall met with the three-member parole board on Monday. After the meeting, Ivey issued an executive order imposing the moratorium on early paroles and requiring the board to come up with a corrective action plan within 30 days. That plan, after review by the governor and attorney general, must be implemented within 75 days, when the moratorium expires.

In the executive order, Ivey said the board has docketed for early parole consideration hundreds of violent offenders, including offenders sentenced to multiple, consecutive life sentences for the most serious offenses, without any apparent reasonable justification under the law.

Marshall said he expects to see changes at the parole board.

Ward called the situation a true mess.

Theyre making decisions that dont even follow their own guidelines over there, Ward said.

The board issued a statement earlier this month saying it had no data showing an increase in early parole consideration for violent offenders.

The three parole board members are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Senate.

In addition to issuing the moratorium Monday, Ivey named board member Lyn Head as chairman, replacing Cliff Walker, who remains on the board.

Ward said he supported Iveys actions.

Prison reform has always been what can we do about nonviolent offenders so we can keep the most dangerous people locked up, Ward said. So by doing what theyre doing it goes totally contradictory to what we were trying to pass in those laws in 2015.

Alabama House Speaker Mac McCutcheon, R-Monrovia, said today its too soon to talk about possible legislation concerning the parole board but said he has heard concerns from prosecutors and believes Ivey and Marshall are on the right track in seeking changes.

Janette Grantham, state director of the victims advocacy group VOCAL, said victims' families arrived this morning at the boards offices expecting to attend scheduled hearings that did not fall under the governors moratorium. Instead, Grantham said they found a locked door and a sign that said hearings were cancelled until further notice.

Grantham said it was disappointing that families did not get word that all the hearings were cancelled.

It takes a lot for a victim and even for a family of an inmate to get their mind right and to make a plan to take off from work and all that to go to a parole hearing," Grantham said.

Parole board spokesman Morgan said there was a significant effort to notify families of the cancellation by telephone. Morgan said he also tried to get the word out through media interviews today.

Grantham said she first noticed a docket with an unusual number of early paroles for violent offenders in May 2017. Then the case of Jimmy Lee Spencer this year raised concerns to a new level. Spencer had a long criminal record and was serving a life sentence but was released on parole in January. He is charged with capital murder in the deaths of three people in Guntersville in July, including a 7-year-old boy.

VOCAL took its concerns to Ivey. Before Grantham was able to meet with the governor, she said she saw hearing notifications indicating that close to 100 inmates, all women, were scheduled for early parole hearings this week.

She promised us she would look into it and that resulted in the meeting (with the parole board) Monday," Grantham said. "I assume by what her statement is that she did not get good answers.

Ivey said she was disappointed in the responses to her questions she heard from the parole board on Monday.

I think the governor made a very strong statement," Grantham said. "Im very thankful to her for having the courage to step forward and do something about this. Im speaking for victims but this is making the whole state unsafe because we know that people that are paroled before their time, the things that they can do.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which represents inmates in a federal lawsuit over mental health care and medical care in Alabama prisons, said the moratorium was not a good decision.

Its disappointing but not surprising that Governor Ivey bowed to pressure and made a knee jerk political decision in this matter, Lisa Graybill, deputy legal director of the SPLC said in a statement. The governors colleagues in the Alabama Legislature studied the issue of parole extensively when they passed 2015s criminal justice reforms that included updating the factors for parole eligibility. Alabamas incarceration rate is the third highest in the country in part because we keep people in prison too long. Parole is not a second opportunity for district attorneys to retry and resentence Alabamians; it is set up to offer people a second chance to become productive members of the community.A north Alabama burglary suspect was taken into custody after bathing, washing clothes, clipping his toenails and cooking in a strangers house, authorities said.

Limestone County investigators said Tyler Keefe Love made himself at home in a womans house on the 25000 block of Davis Avenue on Tuesday. The woman wasnt home at the time but returned to find Love in her house, said sheriffs spokesman Stephen Young.

What are you doing in my home? the woman shouted at Love, according to the sheriffs office.

Love replied, Washing clothes, Grandmama, according to investigators.

Limestone County deputies and Ardmore police went to the home after the woman called for help. Police detained Love at the scene, Young said.

investigators found evidence that Love had spent a good deal of time inside the victims home, Young said in a news release.

Deputies said evidence showed that Love had washed his clothes, taken a bath, clipped his toenails and searched through the womans cabinets, drawers and jewelry boxes.

Love had also cooked a sandwich with a fresh onion, eggs, ham, butter, mayonnaise, and cheese that he found in the victims house, Young said. But he didnt get a chance to eat it before he was arrested.

Young said deputies believe Love was under the influence of narcotics.

Love is held in the Limestone County jail on a felony burglary charge. Bail is set at $10,000.

Five days before he picked up the new charge, Love had been released from jail on a $2,500 bond in a marijuana possession case, court records show.

Love also had been held on a probation violation charge in connection with a 2017 burglary case, court papers state. He was sentenced to spend 12 months on a community corrections program followed by two years of probation.Armed looters are targeting homes and businesses that remain without electricity after being ravaged by Hurricane Michael a week ago.

Sheriff's Maj. Jimmy Stanford said deputies have arrested about 10 looters each night since Florida's Bay County took a direct hit from the strong Category 4 storm last Wednesday. In some parts of the county, residents have spray-painted signs warning that "looters will be shot."

Callaway resident Victoria Smith told the News Herald that thieves came into her townhome while she and her four children were sleeping with the front door open to allow a breeze inside.

"I must've been so exhausted from everything in the past days I didn't even hear them come in," Smith said. "They just snatched my purse out of my hands and ran. ... It was all we had."

Often the looters have been armed, Stanford said.

"Most of our officers lost their homes, have been working 16- to 18-hour shifts with no sleep, no shower, and now they're encountering armed individuals," he said. "It's a stressful time for everyone in Bay County."

The storm killed at least 16 people in Florida, most of them in the coastal county that took a direct hit from the storm, state emergency authorities said Tuesday. That's in addition to at least 10 deaths elsewhere across the South.

The scope of the storm's fury became clearer after nearly a week of missing-persons reports and desperate searches of the Florida Panhandle neighborhoods devastated by the most powerful hurricane to hit the continental U.S. in nearly 50 years.

The Florida Department of Emergency Management's count of 16 dead was twice the number previously tallied by The Associated Press, and included 12 deaths in Bay County, where the hurricane slammed ashore with 155 mph (250 kph) winds and a catastrophic storm surge last Wednesday.

Bay County includes Mexico Beach, the ground-zero town of 1,000 people that was nearly obliterated, as well as Tyndall Air Force Base, Panama City and Lynn Haven, all of which were heavily damaged.

Florida emergency authorities gave no details on how the victims died.

The AP's tally also includes 10 deaths in Virginia, Georgia and North Carolina.

Mexico Beach Mayor Al Cathey said two deaths were confirmed in his town, a man and a woman who did not evacuate and whose homes were destroyed.

Only one person remained missing in Mexico Beach, Cathey said, adding that authorities were almost certain that that person evacuated before Michael and simply hasn't been contacted.

"We're holding steady at two and don't expect that number to rise," the mayor said.

Nearly 137,000 Florida customers remain without power in an 11-county region that stretches from the Gulf of Mexico to the Georgia border, according to information compiled by state emergency management officials.

One glimmer of hope: Cellphone service has begun returning to the stricken zone.

Cathey had a one-word exclamation when his Verizon phone started working for the first time in nearly a week: "Hallelujah!"

Verizon service also resumed in Panama City, where residents haven't been able to contact loved ones or call for help. The telecommunications giant later announced it would give a three-month credit to every Verizon customer in Bay and Gulf counties.

Gov. Rick Scott had been criticizing phone companies over what he called a slow restoration of service.

Sitting outside in the sweltering heat in the Panama City area as she fanned herself with a flyswatter, Christy Tanksley said the sudden improvement in cell service was a huge relief.

"A lot of people didn't even know we had evacuated and come back," said Tanksley, whose phone uses the Verizon network.

I turned my phone on this morning and it started going crazy, she said. There were all kinds of messages, Facebook notifications, emails and emergency alerts.This is an opinion column.

Where I grew up, theres a saying they have for folks who look like Walt Maddox in his first and latest campaign ad.

That guy doesnt look out of his eyes just right.

Is it superficial?

Absolutely.

Is it unfair to judge someone based on their appearance?

No doubt about it. But this is politics.

Maddox needed a home run. Instead, when his campaign ad dropped earlier this month, the one-time-hope of the Alabama Democratic Party stared blankly into the camera like a bodysnatcher trying to convince voters he isnt like all the other Democrats they know.

Im 45 years old 

Hi, 45. Im 41!

Im pro-life.

So is Kay Ivey.

Pro-Second Amendment 

Which Constitutional Amendments isnt he for?

I will make you two promises, he said. I will never put my party ahead of the people, and I will never lie to you.

Thats the best hes got? I promise I wont lie?

Altogether, the campaign spot looks like something a state house candidate would put together on their phone.

Maddox is going to lose.

Maybe he was always going to lose. But Maddoxs team could have tried. If they ever were going to win, they had to execute a flawless campaign.

This isnt it.

Instead, Maddox came out of the gate only four weeks before the election with what political scientists call a name ID ad  and an awful name ID ad, at that. Ads like these are how candidates are supposed to introduce themselves to the voters at the beginning of a campaign, not how they make a closing argument near the end.

Its way too late.

Maddox wants desperately for Alabama to know who he is, when he should have pointed out a more important truth: Alabama doesnt know who Kay Ivey is, either.

Sadly, well probably learn the hard way, again, just as we did with Bentley.

Already the drips and drabs are falling.

On Tuesday, former Alabama Law Enforcement Secretary Spencer Collier went public with some of what he knows about Ivey. Speaking to the Alabama Political Reporter, Collier said Ivey had suffered a series of transient ischemic attacks (sometimes called TIAs or mini-strokes) while at an event in Colorado in 2015.

Iveys office has previously said the governor suffered from altitude sickness in Colorado and that shes in good health.

More crucially, Collier said that Iveys staff instructed her protection detail against telling anyone about her health problem there. After one of her troopers ran the information up the chain of command  as he was supposed to  Ivey herself asked that her trooper be reassigned, Collier said.

In a competitive election season, this might be the fabled October Surprise, swinging sentiment at the last minute.

But not here.

Not now.

To win, Maddox had to hammer Ivey on bigger issues months ago.

Like, whatever happened to the Prepaid Affordable College Tuition program that went broke on Iveys watch as state treasurer?

Or her claim that she cleaned up Montgomery, even as the feds are still arresting state lawmakers from Iveys party, including state Representatives Ed Henry, Randy Davis and Jack Williams.

Or that Alabama is anywhere other than at or near the bottom of most objective measurements of quality of life.

Voters needed more from Maddox. They needed from him something Ivey couldnt offer. They needed something more than a blank stare and an empty promise.

They needed to see competence.

They needed to see vision.

Kyle Whitmire is the state political columnist for the Alabama Media Group.

Want access to the best analysis and in-depth reporting about Alabama each week? Sign up for the weekly Reckon Report newsletter and follow Reckon on Facebook and Twitter.This is an opinion column.

I credit Hub Harrington with healing my blindness. He didnt lay on hands. He didnt operate. He just did his job and the scales fell from my eyes.

I can see! I can see!

I can see that justice should not be a get-rich-quick scheme, that squeezing poor defendants beyond their ability to pay, and shackling them to a court system more interested in profit than rights, is fundamentally unAmerican.

Harrington, a now-retired judge from Shelby County, ruled in a Harpersville case involving blatant misuse of the justice system to churn profits for the city and for a private probation company. He put it in words Alabama could understand. It was a debtors prison, he wrote in his 2012 ruling. It snubbed almost every safeguard afforded by the U.S. Constitution and stood as an obstacle to life, liberty and the pursuit of that stuff we claim to stand for.

It looked, for a minute, like Alabama saw the light. And the darkness that comes from turning cops and courts into bill collectors.

But were still in the dark. Still criminalizing people for their inability to pay and treating our own citizens differently  as a matter of policy  when theyre broke.

A report last week by the Alabama Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, the UAB Treatment Alternatives for Safer Communities and several other groups laid it all out. Again.

Maybe it can do for others what Harrington did for me.

The findings were stark. Alabamas courts do not prevent or deter crime. They encourage it.

Courts are paying the bills because politicians are too scared to properly fund government. They force the justice system to come up with its own money. So of course the cost is passed along to offenders.

Cops and courts become dependent on the money to operate. Cities need criminals to run in the black. Police are incentivized not just to write tickets but to prosecute.

Every time a $35 bail bond fee is issued, for instance, three fourths of the money goes straight back to law enforcement.

But thats not all. Of the millions in court costs and fines levied each year, most is sent to state and local general funds and other agencies that come to rely on it.

This is not justice. Its business. With a badge.

Of course if you get a ticket and have money to pay its no big deal. You move on and call it the cost of a mistake. But if you dont have cash to pay youre strung along paying high fines and fees to a creditor who can put you in jail.

The authors of the report interviewed 980 Alabamians who were caught up in that system. Most said they gave up food or rent or medical care or child support to pay off those fines, and 40 percent  four out of 10  admitted committing more crimes to pay it off.

They commit crimes to pay fines. And 20 percent of those whose only other crimes were traffic offenses said they committed more serious offenses to pay their traffic tickets. Were talking bad checks, selling drugs, robbery.

In the name of justice.

We cannot even fathom the damage it does. It makes people fear and distrust police officers, who are put in a terrible position.

It criminalizes people who arent criminals, clogs the courts and takes time from real policing. The report cites a national study that shows courts relying heavily on court debt solved crimes at a lower rate.

This is not justice. It is the opposite of it, disguised by a badge and a robe and a gavel.

Its time, Alabama, to see the light.

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.A 24-year-old Birmingham man has been charged in the Sunday night shooting death of a man killed while he was dropping his children off at a Smithfield apartment.

Birmingham police obtained a capital murder warrant against Talvin Willoughby. Sgt. Johnny Williams said Willoughby surrendered to lawmen.

Willoughby is charged in the shooting death of 22-year-old Kerry McClure. McClure died about 1 a.m. Sunday at UAB Hospital, just over six hours after the shooting in the 200 block of 9th Court North.

West Precinct officers were dispatched to the alley between two apartment buildings there on a report of a man shot in the head. Investigators said McClure went to the Smithfield apartment to drop off his children. At some point, he and the suspect began arguing with each other.

The suspect then got into his vehicle, started driving off and fired multiple shots, at least one of them striking McClure.

Willoughby was booked into the Jefferson County Jail late Tuesday afternoon. He is being held without bond.A missing murder weapon that led to a dismissal of charges against the suspect in a Brighton killing has been found.

Cadarrien Jawaun McLemore, 21, was charged with murder for the 2015 shooting death of 23-year-old Kevin Hatter. McLemore was set to face trial last month but his attorney asked the court to dismiss the case citing the lost gun and shell casings and Jefferson County Bessemer Division Circuit Judge David Carpenter granted that request.

There can be little evidence more critical and material in a murder case than the gun and shell casings that were collected at the scene of the shooting and in the investigation of the case, attorney John Robbins wrote in his dismissal request. The defendant submits that the Brighton Police Department's failure to preserve such critical and material evidence has denied him his constitutional right of due process to a fair trial.

Brighton Police Chief Larry Woods on Wednesday said the evidence in the case against McLemore was found this week, still in its sealed evidence packaging. It made my day, Woods told AL.com. Its probably the happiest day Ive had in a long time.

The shooting happened in the 1200 block of 47th Street in Brighton about 6 p.m. on April 8, 2015. Robbins said previously Hatter and another man were supposed to have a fist fight on the night of the shooting-- but the other man put his gun down, and Hatter didn't. Hatter shot the other man in a leg.

Then all hell broke loose, Robbins has previously said. He said McLemore didnt have a gun and did not fire one. He wasnt even involved.

Affidavits filed in the case by Brighton police stated that witnesses saw McLemore and the three others fire shots at Hatter.

Woods just took over as chief in Brighton several months ago. He said when he came into office, Jefferson County Bessemer Cutoff District Attorney Lynneice Washington met with him and several other top law enforcement officials to emphasize her priority on solving cold cases.

Woods said they picked one case to zero in on initially and realized they couldnt immediately find the evidence in that case. There was no filing system, he said.

Instead, evidence was packed floor-to-ceiling in a room. Piece by piece, the chief moved the evidence into unused jail cells to which he has the only key. With lumber donated by Jefferson County Sheriff Mike Hale, he built storage shelves to hold evidence and began the laborious task of organizing the departments evidence.

Just this week, Woods said, he not only found the gun in the Hatter case, but seven other weapons in cases that are set to go to trial soon.

The chief said his officers were not made aware that the trial against McLemore was coming up in September and therefore did not have time to try to locate the murder weapon.

The judge dismissed the case against McLemore without prejudice, which means charges can be filed against him in the case. District Attorney Washington said she is delighted the weapon was found, and her office will now restart the process by putting the case on a grand jury for indictment consideration.

Any life and any death is important to me, Washington said. Families have been concerned and theyre due to have some kind of closure.Shelby County Sheriffs Capt. Clay Hammac was named one of law enforcements Top 40 under 40.

Hammac, the commander of the Shelby County Drug Enforcement Task Force, was formally recognized in Orlando by the International Association of Chiefs of Police. Sheriffs officials said Hammac was selected from a candidate pool of more than 32,000 law enforcement officers from 152 different countries.

Each year the association recognizes the top 40 law enforcement officers from across the globe, under the age of 40, for their devotion to service, compassion to others, and sacrificial leadership. The event was concluded by remarks from President Trump, recognizing the sacrifices made from all law enforcement and their families.

Sheriff John Samaniego nominated Hammac for the award, point out his faith-based work outside of law enforcement, and a number of his career achievements, such as testifying before the U.S. Congressional Financial Services Committee. The nomination included letters of reference from others who identified his quiet compassion toward others, and selfless devotion to the spirit of service.

Capt. Hammac is so deserving of this award, Samaniego said. He exemplifies the professionalism and hard work of our employees who work tirelessly to serve Shelby County.

The other 39 recipients are from Spain, Australia, China, Mexico, Israel, Pakistan, The United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, Canada, Columbia, and 22 U.S. states.

There are so many others who are well-deserving of this award, Hammac said, and to be recognized by my peers and my command staff is an incredible honor that leaves me speechless.A juvenile is in custody and a second suspect still sought following a Tuesday-afternoon shooting in Sumiton that left a 17-year-old girl dead.

Sumiton police responded at 3:18 p.m. to the Exxon gas station on Highway 78. Once on the scene, they found a man who had sustained a gunshot wound to the arm. In the course of investigating that incident, they were led to a home on nearby Earley Street.

At the Earley Street residence, police found the teen girl -- later identified as Jamie Kernop -- inside the home. She had been shot and was pronounced dead on the scene. Another victim was found near the home. He was transported to UAB Hospital in Birmingham. His condition was not immediately available.

Police Chief T.J. Burnett said investigators believe all three were shot at the Earley Street house. The two male victims were able to escape through a window.

Kernop was the girlfriend to one of the other victims. Her body was taken to the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences in Huntsville for autopsy.

The chief said police are actively searching for a second suspect. They have not yet released a possible motive in the triple shooting.

As most of you know, we had a tragic shooting occur yesterday that resulted in the death of one person and serious injury to two others. Since the first call came in yesterday around 3pm, every officer we have has been working nonstop to find the people responsible for what happened. As of late last night we have one suspect, a white juvenile male, in custody. His name will not be release due to his status as a juvenile. We are currently looking for Deaster Gardner as our other suspect, the department posted on Facebook.

Deaster Gardner

"In regards to public safety after yesterdays incident, at no point did the suspects pose a threat to any schools, businesses, or private residences because the information we received during our cursory investigation lead us to believe the suspects left the area headed towards Birmingham on Highway 78. We had no physical description of either subject, and because all three victims were our main witnesses, it was difficult to nail down exactly who we were looking for. Rather than put unsubstantiated information out to the public, we chose to hold off until we knew EXACTLY who we were looking for. If any real threat had been posed to our community, we would have posted it immediately just like we do anytime there is an incident close to one of the schools, but we will not be in the businesses of putting information out to the public that we cant stand behind.

We are working diligently to bring this situation to an end, but lets all keep in mind that a 17 year old girl is yet another victim of senseless violence. Providing her and her family with the justice they deserve is our departments main focus right now and any help from the community is welcomed and much appreciated. Anyone with any information regarding Deaster Gardner or his whereabouts is encouraged to call our department at 648-3261 any time. Thank you all and keep our officers and the victims families in your prayers as we all deal with this tragedy.Gov. Kay Ivey has released a new letter from her personal physician in response to claims from the state's former top cop that she suffered stroke-like symptoms in 2015.

In a letter provided to AL.com, Dr. Brian Elrod said he was aware of the hospitalization that occurred while then-Lt. Gov. Ivey was attending the Aerospace State Association Annual Meeting in Colorado.

"She was discharged from the hospital on April 19 (2015) and I saw her in my office on April 20. During my examination I saw no evidence of a transient ischemic attack and learned that the extensive work-up done at the Denver hospital, including an MRI, a carotid ultrasound and labs were all negative.

"I cannot comment on what condition may have led to her hospitalization in April 2015 but her health since then has remained good with no indication of an increased cardiovascular risk," he added.

Elrod's comments come after an Alabama Political Reporter interview with Spencer Collier in which the former Alabama Law Enforcement Agency Secretary said Ivey's staff misled the public after she suffered a series of mini-strokes while on a state trip. Ivey, who is seeking her first full term in office after taking over for ousted governor Robert Bentley, has previously denied having a stroke. At the time, Ivey's office attributed her illness to altitude sickness, a condition that occurs when a person's body does not adjust to the lower air pressure and oxygen levels in the air at high altitudes.

Symptoms can include dizziness, fatigue, headache, shortness of breath and a loss of energy.

Collier claims Lt. Gov. covered up incident

Collier confirmed to AL.com that he was told Ivey was originally taken to the hospital for "stroke-like" symptoms and that Ivey's security detail was instructed by Chief of Staff Steve Pelham not to tell anyone. Shortly after the health incident, the state trooper involved was transferred. Collier said the transfer came after a private meeting where he was "instructed personally by then Lt. Gov. Ivey that she wanted him removed from her security detail that day" and "basically accused him (the unnamed trooper) of trying to hack into her email."

"I allowed the trooper to select his next assignment and personally met with him to explain what was going on. I informed the trooper of the allegations that (Ivey) made against him but also informed him that I did not believe it," Collier said. "(Ivey) didn't want an internal investigation. However, I would have ordered an investigation regardless if I felt her allegations were credible."

Collier said he informed then-governor Bentley of the incident. Collier is currently suing Bentley for wrongful termination over claims he was fired after revealing the details of an affair that eventually led to Bentley's resignation and plea bargain on charges of ethics and campaign finance violations.

Collier said he was willing to take a lie detector tests and challenged Ivey and Pelham, who still serves as her chief of staff, to do the same. He said he has not been contacted by the campaign of Tuscaloosa Mayor Walt Maddox, the Democratic nominee for governor who faces Ivey in the Nov. 6 general election.

Ivey responds

Ivey's campaign released a statement along with the letter from her long-time doctor.

"The letter I released by my doctor confirms what I've said all along which is that I'm in good health. It's sad that Mayor Maddox's campaign is trying to push this issue three weeks out from election day, but I assume he's desperate since his liberal record is out of touch with Alabama," Ivey said.

Maddox has not commented directly on the story, however, campaign chair Chip Hill shared the APR story on Twitter, as did staffer Tim Nunnally.

If you're in law enforcement, how do you vote for Ivey? Because this trooper followed protocol and didn't participate in her dumb coverup, she had him demoted and sent to a DL office in Houston County. Awful. Just playing with people's lives. https://t.co/3Dvz6HzsjJ #alpolitics  Josh Moon (@Josh_Moon) October 16, 2018

Collier's comments aren't the first time Ivey's health has been an issue in the campaign. In May, her campaign issued a letter from Dr. Elrod after her three Republican challengers released their own health information. At the time, Ivey, who turned 74 Monday, called the matter a "publicity stunt."

"For those who are genuinely interested, my health is doing great. I'm in good health and I give thanks to God almighty for it," she said.The number of Americans who think Donald Trump will win a second term in office is growing.

A new CNN poll showed 46 percent of likely voters believe Trump will be victorious in 2020. That figure is up 6 percentage points from March. Forty-seven percent said they don't think Trump can win a second term, down 7 percentage points from when the same question was asked seven months ago.

The president's reelection numbers are up among men and independents (8 points each) and those who said they are enthusiastic about voting in this year's midterm elections (9 points). Seventy-four percent of Republicans said they'd like to see the president renominated for a second term.

Trump's figures place him in better standing than former presidents Barack Obama (44 percent said he would win a second term) and Bill Clinton (24 percent) at the same points in their first terms.

At 33 percent, former vice president Joe Biden was the top choice for potential Democratic nominees. He was followed by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (13 percent); California Senator Kamala Harris (9 percent); and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren (8 percent).

The CNN poll was conducted by SSRS from Oct. 4-7 with a random national sample of 1,009 adults. There is a margin of error of 3.8 percentage points.Five national and local advocacy organizations sent a letter on Tuesday to Alabama's three U.S. attorneys asking them to investigate potential misuse of jail food funds by sheriffs across the state.

The letter, which was signed by the American Conservative Union Foundation, FreedomWorks, Southern Center for Human Rights, Alabama Appleseed Center for Law and Justice and Adelante Alabama Worker Center, calls for federal authorities to ensure sheriffs are held accountable if they have improperly pocketed taxpayer money.

"It appears that some sheriffs have placed personal profit above their sworn duty to meet the basic needs of those in their care," Frank Knaack, executive director of Alabama Appleseed, says in the letter. "We are deeply concerned that those charged with enforcing our laws are instead breaking them. No one is above the law - this includes Alabama's sheriffs."

The letter outlines a range of concerns that the advocacy organizations have about how county sheriffs manage public funds they receive to feed inmates in the county jails they oversee. It emphasizes what the five groups say is a need for a federal investigation into the longstanding practice of Alabama sheriffs keeping thousands of dollars worth of inmate-feeding money.

"Sheriffs with federal detention contracts who pocket money provided for feeding prisoners have abused the trust of the taxpayers - both in Alabama and across America - out of whose paychecks these dollars came," the letter states.

"We respectfully urge you to investigate and, as appropriate, prosecute sheriffs with federal detention contracts who have converted jail food funds to their personal use."

The letter was also forwarded to a number of top federal officials including U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, FBI Director Christopher Wray and Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz.

The five signatories argue in the letter that some sheriffs - particularly the ones with contracts to house and feed federal inmates in their respective county jails - "may be engaging in financial misconduct" by mishandling jail food funds.

Some sheriffs argue the practice is legal under a Depression-era law that they believe allows them to personally keep "excess" jail food money. But the five groups disagree with that reading of the law, according to the letter.

"Diverting funds provided to feed prisoners is not only unethical, it is likely illegal," David Safavian, general counsel for the American Conservative Union, said in the letter. "A fundamental requirement of federal contractors is to use the money for the purposes for which it was given. In this case, the avarice of some Alabama sheriffs doesn't pass the smell test. The stench should be investigated by those charged with protecting America's taxpayers."

The new call for a federal investigation comes as sheriffs weather intense public scrutiny over how they handle funds provided by federal, state and local agencies to feed inmates that they house in county jails.

The letter cited reporting published in March by AL.com that exposed that Etowah County Sheriff Todd Entrekin personally kept more than $750,000 worth of inmate-feeding funds and purchased a $740,000 beach house in Orange Beach.

"We understand that one such sheriff, Todd Entrekin, whose case has recently garnered considerable media attention, may have recently come under investigation by the Department of Homeland Security's Office of the Inspector General," the letter states. "The problem, however, appears to extend well beyond Etowah County."

It also cited a July AL.com report that quoted former kitchen workers in Etowah County's jail who said that the food served there was sub-par, insufficient and sometimes rotten or spoiled.

"The people in these sheriffs' custody are human beings, not abstract profit margins," Jessica Vosburgh, executive and legal director of Adelante Alabama, said in the letter. "As long as their jailers see each person behind bars as an opportunity to reap additional profits with impunity, the incentives to cut corners in ways that threaten these individuals' basic safety will abound. Taxpayers will ultimately foot the bill with our wallets, and detained persons with their health, their wellbeing, and sometimes even their lives."

In January, the Southern Center for Human Rights and Alabama Appleseed - which both signed the letter sent Tuesday - filed suit against 49 Alabama sheriffs who declined to provide financial records showing if they personally kept any jail food money for personal use. They argued in the suit that such records are public and that their disclosure is essential to ensure that the sheriffs are not abusing their positions by improperly benefiting from taxpayer funds.

"The law is clear, and Governor [Kay] Ivey has made clear: jail food funds are public funds, and should be used exclusively for feeding incarcerated people," Aaron Littman, staff attorney at the Southern Center for Human Rights, said in the letter. "Because these sheriffs have refused to disclose to the public how much taxpayer money they have taken, further investigation is urgently required to determine whether they are violating federal criminal and contracting law."U.S. Rep. Bradley Byrne, R-Fairhope, will hold three town hall meetings in late October in southwest Alabama.

The schedule:

Monday, Oct. 22 -- Lillian Community Club, 34148 Widell Ave., 11:30 a.m.

Thursday, Oct. 25 -- Saraland City Hall, 937 U.S. 43 S., 3 p.m.

Monday, Oct. 29 -- Bayou La Batre City Hall, 13785 S. Wintzell Ave., 11 a.m.

Byrne conducted a string of town halls in late summer and called it his "Better Off Now" tour, arguing people were better off than before thanks to Republican initiatives in Washington.

He hasn't announced a theme for the upcoming halls. His recent announcements include praise for the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and celebration of grants supporting school safety.Mobile Police Department named Wednesday the suspect involved in a deadly hit and run, carjacking that resulted in the death of a Mobile teacher.



Baly Hobson, 25, was named by Mobile Police Chief Lawrence Battiste at a press conference Wednesday afternoon as the suspect involved in the incident the previous day.

Police were initially called to a domestic dispute involving Hobson at a Walmart on Schillinger Road. Hobson is alleged to have been guiding his girlfriend around the store by knifepoint, according to Mobile Police Department.

Hobson fled the store's parking lot in his girlfriend's car after police were called to investigate his unusual behavior. He later drove directly into a vehicle being driven by Charlotte Skoda, a longtime teacher at the Faith Academy school in West Mobile. Skoda was killed at the scene, according to law enforcement.



Hobson then stole the vehicle of a passerby that stopped to help. He was arrested five miles away at a Dollar General on Three Notch Road.



Baly was out on probation for four offences committed in June. Those include assault and disorderly conduct charges. He pled guilty during a hearing in early August.



Also noted on Baly's record was that he was on bail as a fugitive from justice, namely that he was wanted in Florida for striking an officer on Aug. 8 this year, the same day he was granted probation.When donors contribute to political campaigns, they expect their money to be spent on consultants, advertisements and literature.

Yet U.S. Rep. Gary Palmer, R-Hoover, used $42 of his nearly $1 million campaign war chest to pay for a baby gift to one of his donors and more than $1,000 on a home security system, according to campaign finance records. U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Saks, spent $1,004 on Christmas cards and $250 on a funeral donation in lieu of flowers. U.S. Rep. Robert Aderholt spent $3,289 on Christmas cards and hundreds more on floral arrangements for funerals and a retirement. U.S. Rep. Bradley Byrne, R-Fairhope, bought $2,360 on Christmas tree ornaments from the House gift shop and another $3,200 was shelled out by his campaign for security equipment. U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Birmingham, paid her $25 dues to the Jefferson County Executive Committee from her campaign account, and $3,500 more as a donation to the nonprofit organization Reading is Fundamental.

While these expenditures may raise eyebrows, they are perfectly legal in the eyes of the Federal Election Commission, the agency that oversees campaign finance laws.

FEC rules bar federal elected officials and candidates from using campaign money for personal use, such as a mortgage, gym membership, Iron Bowl tickets or car loan for a vehicle not used for campaign activity.

But there are other items that may appear to be for personal use, such as the home security systems purchased by Palmer and Byrne with campaign funds, that are acceptable.

In July 2017, the FEC issued an advisory opinion allowing all federal elected officials to dip into their campaign accounts to pay for home security systems and upgrades. Before the opinion, the agency allowed a few individual members of Congress to use their campaign accounts in this fashion on a case-by-case basis, such as then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, the Arizona Democrat that was nearly assassinated when she held an outdoor constituent event in January 2011.

Installing (or upgrading) and monitoring residential security systems are permissible uses of campaign funds since they are ordinary and necessary expenses incurred in connection with the duties of the individual as a holder of federal office, the FEC determined. The spending does not fall under the  personal use prohibitions since the payments would not have occurred had the member not been a federal officeholder or candidate, and the residential security upgrades would not have existed irrespective of their duties as federal officeholders or candidates.

While campaign finance rules bar candidates from dipping into their accounts to buy their spouse an anniversary gift or write a $10,000 birthday check to a generous donor, they are allowed to mark special occasions by giving gifts of nominal value, such as the $42 that Palmer spent on baby clothes.

Asked why the Hoover congressman chose to pay for the gift out of his campaign account instead of personal funds, a Palmer spokesman said: These donors are longtime friends of the campaign, so when we found out they were going to be blessed with their first child --through adoption --, which was just approved at the time, the campaign provided them a small gift for their new baby boy.

Certain dues, such as gym or health club memberships, paid for with campaign funds are illegal. But campaign funds may be used for membership dues in an organization that may have political interests, meaning Sewells use of campaign cash to pay her $25 dues to the Jefferson County Executive Committee is kosher.

Charitable donations are also allowed as long as the elected official or candidate does not personally benefit from the contribution. The congresswomans $3,500 donation to Reading is Fundamental is legal under FEC rules.

Sewell could not immediately be reached for comment on why she didnt use personal funds to pay her dues.There are 91 North Koreans in the Netherlands but many are not accepted as refugees and fear deportation to South Korea.

The names of the North Korean defectors have been changed in this article to protect their identities.

Gilze en Rijen and Musselkanaal, The Netherlands  Kyung-Ae Choi*, a North Korean woman in her early fifties, first arrived in Europe on a fake Chinese passport, in 2012.

It had been given to her by a Chinese broker who arranged flights for her and her three children to France.

I couldnt understand what the writing [on signs] meant, but it all looked like English to me. Thats when I realised that I was in Europe, she told Al Jazeera, at a reception centre in the Netherlands.

She had seen written English before in a North Korean film, People and a Hero, which she had watched in secondary school.

From Paris, guided by the Chinese broker, Choi took several trains and buses to a reception centre in Ter Apel, a Dutch village in the northwest.

I was as cheerful as a kid, she said of her first train ride in Europe, describing an unprecedented sense of freedom.

She is currently living at a reception centre in Gilze en Rijen, in the countrys south.

North Korea considers the US and South Korea as enemies, while its view on Europe is more neutral. Jihyun Park, outreach officer at Connect to North Korea

Choi crossed the North Korean border to China in 1998.

North Korea has a 1,400km border with China, a border barrier  the 250km Demilitarized Zone  with South Korea, and a 17km terrestrial/22km maritime border with Russia.

It is safer to cross into China than South Korea, so most of the 30,000 or so North Korean defectors living in South Korea travelled via China.

Most defectors from North Korea are eventually offered South Korean citizenship, leading to some European countries deporting asylum seekers there.

But right activists protest against this, saying North Koreans complain of discrimination in South Korea, which is ill equipped to handle so many refugees.

There are currently 91 North Koreans in the Netherlands, 25 of whom are refugees, according to official statistics.

The view from the Gilze en Rijen reception centre [Je Seung Lee/Al Jazeera]

Because she is undocumented, Choi is unable to work.

At the centre, her family lives in two small rooms and receives 112 euros ($130) a week for living expenses. Her children attend a local school.

Each month, Choi is obliged to meet the Repatriation and the Departure Service (DT&V), an organisation under the Dutch Ministry of Justice and Security in charge of expediting the departure of foreign nationals who are not entitled to remain.

I really feel like I want to die [after each meeting]. I have even thought about leaving the kids behind and killing myself, said Choi, explaining that she suffers from stress, insomnia, and depression.

They give me food, a place to sleep and even my own house if I am granted permanent residency. Where else in the world would do the same? Eun-Hyang Kim*, 80-year-old North Korean exile

The Supreme Court has denied her permanent residency application twice. She is now making a third attempt, but fears another rejection.

Chois husband was caught by Chinese authorities. While she is not certain of his whereabouts, she assumes he is back to North Korea.

China considers North Koreans as illegal economic migrants, not refugees, and usually sends them back.

They tell me to provide evidence on why my husband and family back in North Korea will be sent to prison camps if I move to South Korea. But this is something that you cannot prove with a piece of paper, Choi said.

I want to stay in the Netherlands, not for myself but for the future of my children and for the lives of all of my family back home.

Family members of defectors are often punished in North Korea with imprisonment or forced labour.

Why North Koreans seek safety in Europe

Jihyun Park, outreach officer at Connect to North Korea, an NGO in the UK that campaigns for the rights of North Korean defectors worldwide, said many prefer to go to Europe instead of the US or South Korea.

North Korean people think that it would be safer to go to Europe, for not only themselves but for their families back in North Korea as well, said Park, who is also a defector.

North Korea considers the US and South Korea as enemies, while its view on Europe is more neutral.

North Korea has 13 embassies across Europe  including in Germany, Britain and Italy, but not the Netherlands.

There are none in the US and South Korea.

Reaching Europe is a carefully arranged process that often involves a broker introduced by a local Korean church in China.

A lot of Korean churches in China shelter and feed North Korean defectors who live terrible lives in China, said Park.

Elsewhere in Europe, the UK is home to one of the largest North Korean communities.

Some 1,300 North Koreans have sought asylum in the UK since 2003, but only 544 have been accepted as refugees.

The Home Office considers many North Koreans secondary migrants, and not genuine asylum seekers, because they have rights in South Korea.

The topic of North Korean refugees and their struggle to remain in Europe is often overlooked, said Park.

Occasionally, Ban-suk

made it easier for me to make friends quickly.]

Ban-suk Jung* is Chois oldest son.

The 18-year-old was born in China, where he had a difficult upbringing and was unable to attend school regularly.

I feel much more relaxed [in the Netherlands], I am free to make my own choices and can choose not to do things I dont want to do, Jung told Al Jazeera.

Some people get surprised when I tell them I am from North Korea. But most people are friendly and understanding. Occasionally some people make jokes about the nuclear missiles in North Korea, but the popularity of K-pop [music] made it easier for me to make friends quickly.

The teenager said he feels trapped, however, living in a reception centre.

I dont have a dream. It is hard to dream when you dont know what you can do or where you will be. Right now, all I can think about is getting the permanent residency, and then I will be able to think about what I want to do and plan my future.

In addition to persecution, Park, the activist, said economic difficulties motivate people to attempt to leave North Korea.

More than 10 million people, or 40 percent of the population, are believed to be in need of humanitarian assistance, according to the United Nations.

Overview of the Musselkanaal reception centre [Je Seung Lee/Al Jazeera]

Eun-Hyang Kim* arrived in the Netherlands in November 2012.

The 80-year-old lives at a reception centre in Musselkanaal, a village in the Dutch province of Groningen, about 10km from Germany.

Kim first left North Korea by crossing the Yalu river to China.

There, she worked in Harbin as a caretaker at a local Joseonjok church for five years before travelling to the Netherlands.

When she flew from Beijing to Paris, she suffered from airsickness. It was the first time she had ever been on a plane.

When she landed, her Chinese broker took her to a reception centre in Ter Apel, where she checked herself in as a North Korean refugee seeking asylum.

She moved to a centre in Musselkanaal, in the north, on September 11, 2017.

She has her own studio room, with a bathroom, kitchen and single bed. There is one window and a small TV.

Kim takes the bus to spend her weekly 58-euro allowance at a local market for food and other basic necessities.

Despite still being considered an undocumented migrant, she receives free healthcare on account of her age.

They give me food, a place to sleep and even my own house if I am granted permanent residency, said Kim. Where else in the world would do the same?

As the daughter of an executed political criminal, Kim said she wanted to protect her son from being sent to a prison camp.

In order to do this, she fled alone, leaving her son behind.

In Korean culture, the fathers bloodline is considered more important and since her sons maternal grandfather was the criminal, Kim believed he would be safer if she wasnt in the country.

Kim said she sometimes wakes up in the middle of the night thinking about her son and granddaughters.

I am 80 years old, how long will I live?

Just dont tell me to go to South Korea. It pains me every day that I cannot live with my son, but as a mother, I would rather die here alone than go to South Korea and put my son in grave danger.History rarely repeats itself, but it often rhymes. Seen from Italy, the spectacle of far-right, pro-dictatorship Jair Bolsonaro winning the first round of Brazils presidential race rings very familiar bells.

In the 1920s, Italian fascism was initially resisted, and then supported, by economic elites. At first, a shunned and rowdy group, fascists were soon enough embraced by a self-interested establishment as the best defence against rising labour demands. National-socialism, the economic model crafted in Italy and perfected in Germany, combined a modicum of social concessions with iron-fisted protection for private property and industrial interests. This provided a blueprint that would be copied in dictatorships the world over.

In 2016, a famously all-white, all-men soft coup in one of the worlds most diverse countries put to rest years of left-wing government in Brazil and brought to the fore the neoliberal boys of Michel Temer. Soon enough, Brazils socialist symbol, Lula de Silva, was imprisoned on charges tenuous at best and spurious at worst.

Two years later the result is Jair Bolsonaro, a nationalist populist strongman who combines popular support  what Temer desperately lacked  with support from a white economic establishment lured by his promises of social conservatism and extreme economic liberalism.

If Italian history helps to understand what is going on in Brazil, it is contemporary Italian politics that shows it as no Latin American oddity. Indeed, the recently elected Italian government  a coalition of the far-right League and the populist Five Star  seems to provide an almost perfect blueprint for a new global model: national-populism.

There are three main characteristics to such a model. The first is social protection. The first action of the new Italian government was meeting with representatives of one of the most exploited social groups: delivery workers in the gig economy. The next step was to pass a tightening of the labour law that was sold as the end of precarity. The third was to pass minimum income legislation sold as the abolishment of poverty.

Of course, nothing substantial has been done for gig economy workers, the labour law barely scraped the surface of the problem and the minimum income law was scaled back to a forced-labour programme that is among the harshest in Europe. But this is all about symbols. And after three decades of uninterrupted neoliberal hegemony symbols matter a great deal.

The second characteristic is nationalism. Surely, you might ask, the electorate will see through the fake socialism? This is where scapegoating comes in. The government has produced a witch-hunt that has led to repeated racist attacks across the country, the arrest of pro-refugee mayor Mimmo Lucano, and constant blaming of migrants for the countrys ills. And where migrants are not enough, there is the constant blame-game with the European Union. The government cant do all that it promised? Too many migrants and too much EU.

The third characteristic is neoliberalism. The first budget law of the new government provides for a highly regressive flat tax  benefitting the richest  and large-scale impunity for tax dodgers. Observers expect the law to increase, rather than decrease, income inequalities. And while the remnants of the liberal establishment cry out against the governments excessive budget deficit, the countrys many small and medium enterprises are lured and fall in line: beginning with the president of Italys union of industrialists.

National-populism brings together elements of fake social care, exacerbated nationalism and a compensatory pro-business approach. The model calls for a new grand bargain where social-sounding gestures accompany regressive taxation, while nationalism directs social anger away from an unjust economic system and towards the foreigner.

Panem et circenses  bread and circus  is how this model was called two thousand years earlier in ancient Rome. Give the people loaves of bread and a nationalist circus, and the economic elites can accumulate wealth with impunity. Today, the model rings a bell from Washington, DC, to New Delhi, from Manila to Brasilia.

The Italian experiment will change global politics, says former Trump aide Steve Bannon. The reasoning is clear. At a moment of global rebellion against the elites, any attempt to defend a system in crisis and maintain an untenable status quo  read Hillary Clinton, Angela Merkel or Emmanuel Macron  will only exacerbate the backlash and potentially lead to socialist demands gaining currency, as represented by Bernie Sanders in the US.

National-populism provides the magic stick to keep the revolting masses happy, the social body pacified, and capital accumulation continued. Exactly 10 years after the global economic crisis of 2008, nationalism comes to the rescue of neoliberalism.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance.Afghan army boosts security efforts after election attacks

The government is struggling to securing polling stations for Saturdays parliamentary elections after Taliban bombings targeting candidates and the polling stations.Abdul Jabar Qahraman is the 10th candidate to be killed ahead of parliamentary polls boycotted by the Taliban.

An Afghan election candidate is among four people killed by a bomb planted under his chair in the southern province of Helmand days before the parliamentary elections, officials said.

Abdul Jabar Qahraman, who was preparing to contest Saturdays elections, was killed in his office on Wednesday in the city of Lashkar Gah, a senior government official said.

Omar Zwak, a spokesman for the Helmand governor, said another seven people were wounded in the attack claimed by the Taliban armed group, which is boycotting the crucial elections.

We are investigating the incident, Zwak said.

The Taliban, in a statement released earlier in the day, warned teachers and students not to participate in the parliamentary elections due on October 20, and not to allow schools to be used as polling centres.

People who are trying to help in holding this process successfully by providing security should be targeted and no stone should be left unturned for the prevention and failure [of the election], Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in the statement.

Qahraman is the 10th candidate to be killed in the past two months. Another two have been abducted and four others were wounded in attacks.

More than 30 people have been killed in election-related violence over the past several weeks. The election for the 250-member parliament has been delayed by nearly three years.

Afghan has a presidential form of government but the parliament plays a crucial role in passing bills and ratifying international treaties.

Dozens of Afghan police were killed or wounded in heavy fighting in northern and central provinces overnight on Tuesday.

Helmand, bordering Pakistan, has long been one of the strongholds of the Taliban group, which has been waging an armed rebellion since they were removed from power in Afghanistan by US-led forces in 2001.New Zealand offered to take 150 people in 2013, but Australia fears it would give refugees backdoor entry to country.

Australias prime minister has signalled he might accept New Zealands long-standing offer to resettle 150 refugees detained on remote Pacific islands, as long as laws are changed to ban them from ever travelling to Australia.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Wednesday he was willing to brief non-government senators on a travel ban bill. There is no support for that bill at present, Morrison told reporters.

The opposition Labor Party has argued that a lifetime ban on the refugees ever visiting Australia on a tourist or business visa is unnecessary and against Australias interests.

New Zealand citizens are allowed to live and work in Australia for life, a unique status the government fears banished refugees would use as a backdoor into Australia.

Mounting pressure

The conservative government is under mounting pressure to relax a five-year-old policy that detains asylum seekers who try to get to Australia by boat on Nauru and Manus islands and bans them from ever settling in Australia.





While the policy appears to have ended people-smuggling, there is mounting concern over the fate of hundreds of people, including children, confined to the Nauru detention centre and in Manus, which is reserved for single men and is part of Papua New Guinea.

The UN refugee agency urged the government last week to bring the asylum seekers to Australia amid a collapsing health situation. Three government lawmakers have also appealed to Morrison to accept families with children from Nauru so they can receive adequate medical care.

Morrisons policy shift could also be influenced by a crucial by-election in a progressive Sydney electorate on Saturday with the governments single-seat majority in the lower house at stake.

The United States has agreed to resettle up to 1,250 refugees from the islands, but only 462 had found new homes in the US in the past 14 months, according to Refugee Action Coalition spokesman Ian Rintoul. A plane carrying 17 men from Papua New Guinea to the US left on Tuesday.

There are 1,337 refugees and asylum seekers on the islands, according to a government statement released on Wednesday.Canada becomes second and largest country in the world to legalise the recreational use of the drug.

Montreal, Canada  Hugo Senecal wanted to be the first.

Thats why he got in line at 3:45am to buy recreational cannabis  legally.

Its a symbolic move. Cannabis is legal here in Canada, so I wanted to be the first one to make the first legal purchase in Montreal  and I think Im going to be the one, said Senecal, 39, who has a medical marijuana license.

On Wednesday, Canada became the second and largest country in the world to legalise cannabis for recreational purposes. Uruguay was the first.

Canadas move came after months of preparations and legislative wrangling.

Its an awesome day in Canada right now. Its like Christmas and New Years and my birthday, all in one day, Senecal told Al Jazeera, sitting in a foldable chair outside one of three stores selling recreational cannabis in the city.

About 90 minutes before the store opened, 60 or so people were lined up on the pavement in the heart of downtown Montreal. The line curled around the block as people waited to get into the store, which sits next door to a pharmacy.

Hugo Senecal was first in line at a store in Montreal [Jillian Kestler-DAmours/Al Jazeera]

A green banner hung above the door, inscribed with the name of the government-run cannabis agency, the Quebec Cannabis Society (SQDC, according to its French acronym), and a large glass window gave passersby a peek inside.

The phrase, For responsible consumption, was painted on a wall behind the cash registers.

Inside, people can use touch screens to browse different strains of cannabis that are for sale, get information from government-trained clerks, and then place their order with a cashier, who then goes to fetch the products, local media reported earlier this week.

Each item comes with a government seal  the word cannabis above a red Maple leaf  and people can also make their purchases online, or at more than 100 stores the Associated Press reported would be open across the country.

More than 100 cannabis stores opened across the country on Wednesday, the Associated Press reported [Jillian Kestler-DAmours/Al Jazeera]

Thomas MacDonald, 22, said he came to the downtown Montreal store mainly out of curiosity. Originally from Boston, but now living in Montreal, MacDonald said he hoped the US would follow Canadas lead and legalise the recreational consumption of cannabis.

I think this is a really awesome solution to a lot of problems and I think the US should follow, he told Al Jazeera, pointing to the way low-level drug crimes clog up the US justice system while also disproportionately impacting people of colour.

He said the mood was one of excitement, tinged with some apprehension. I think no one really knows what happens today, he said.

Canadians support legalisation

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau campaigned in 2015 on a promise to legalise cannabis. Since he was elected, he has defended legalisation as a way to get cannabis out of the hands of youth and push organised crime out of the industry.

{articleGUID}

But its also a way for the Canadian government to earn tax revenues  and the cannabis business is booming, generating interest from investors the world over.

Most Canadians appear on board with legalisation, too. On Monday, polling firm Abacus Data reported that 70 percent of Canadians  across all parts of the country and political affiliations  support or can accept legalisation.

Thats due to the fact that a good number of people have tried the product and/or know people who use cannabis, that using cannabis is no worse than using alcohol, and that the regulatory approach taken to date seems to be judged positively, the agency said.

In August, Statistics Canada reported that 16 percent of Canadians above age 15 used cannabis in the previous three months.

Canada is the second country, after Uruguay, to legalise recreational cannabis use [Chris Roussakis/AFP]

The ins and outs of legal cannabis vary by province, with each legislature setting its own rules for where marijuana can be sold and consumed, the price and type of cannabis products that will be available, and minimum age requirements.

In Ontario, Canadas most populous province, residents can carry up to 30 grams of cannabis and keep up to four plants in their homes.

However, Ontarians are only currently allowed to buy the product online, after the provinces Conservative government introduced legislation that would change the policies adopted by its predecessor on where cannabis will be sold.

In Quebec, people will be able to possess up to 30 grams, as well, and buy it in licensed stores and online, but its illegal to grow your own marijuana at home. Quebecs newly elected, right-wing government also says it plans to raise the legal age to buy cannabis from 18 to 21.

In most other provinces, it will be legal to buy cannabis at 18 or 19 years old.

In New Brunswick, on Canadas east coast, the governments licensed cannabis stores have even put together a step-by-step guide for how to roll a perfect joint.

Questions remain

As Canadas legal cannabis policies continue to roll out over the next months and years, people across the country will be paying close attention. Several major questions remain unanswered, as well.

{articleGUID}

Will licensed retailers have enough cannabis to satisfy demand, and will their staff have been adequately trained to answer consumers queries? Can police fairly make sure people dont smoke and drive? Will the prices set at provincial stores be competitive enough to really cut into the black market?

Bill Blair, the minister of Border Security and Organized Crime Reduction and Torontos former chief of police, said on Sunday that regulations around the sale of cannabis edibles would be brought forward in the next 12 months.

People have also raised concerns about whether buying cannabis legally in Canada could get them banned from entering the United States, where it remains illegal at the federal level. On Tuesday, US Customs and Border control reiterated that those caught at the border with Canada with marijuana would be subject to arrest.

Each item comes with a government seal, the word cannabis above a red Maple leaf [Martin Ouellet-Diotte/AFP]

A campaign to push Ottawa to grant amnesty to people convicted of marijuana-possession charges has also gained steam in the lead-up to legalisation.

On Wednesday morning, the federal government announced it would introduce legislation to grant pardons to Canadians convicted of simple cannabis possession charges and who have completed their sentences.

We intend to keep the application process as simple as it can be, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale told reporters.

Akwasi Owusu-Bempah, an assistant sociology professor at the University of Toronto who supports the amnesty campaign, told Al Jazeera before the announcement that cannabis law enforcement has historically had a disproportionate impact on Canadas indigenous, racialised and marginalised populations.

Although cannabis use is widespread in Canada the burden of a criminal record for minor cannabis possession has fallen onto these groups, he said in an email.

Life will go on

Earlier this week, the Canadian Medical Association Journal described legalisation as a national, uncontrolled experiment that pits the profits of cannabis producers and tax revenues  against the health of Canadians.

It said Ottawa should amend its marijuana legislation should cannabis consumption increase as a result of legalisation.

But ultimately, life will go on much like it did before, said The Globe and Mail newspapers health columnist, Andre Picard, on the eve of legalisation.

Cannabis is not the devils weed. Nor is it a magic elixir. Come Wednesday, the country will not go mad as stoners take over the streets, nor will we achieve doobie-inspired world peace and universal love, Picard wrote.

Like alcohol, cannabis is used responsibly by most people  and will continue to be, he wrote.Police investigated for more than a year whether Temer took bribes to issue a decree benefitting certain companies.

Brazils federal police asked the Supreme Court to indict President Michel Temer and confiscate his assets and those of close associates over alleged corruption.

Federal Police on Tuesday asked the Prosecutor Generals office to charge Temer and 10 others, including his daughter, with corruption, money-laundering and racketeering.

Police investigated for more than a year whether Temer  who has been in power since May 2016  took bribes to issue a decree in May 2017 to benefit companies in the port sector.

The Prosecutors Office must now decide whether to file a criminal complaint against the president, request further investigation, or order the case closed.

Supreme Court Justice Lugs Roberto Barroso, who is overseeing the case, said on Tuesday he would wait to see the findings of Brazils Public Prosecutors Office before deciding on how to proceed.

For the Supreme Court to investigate and possibly prosecute the president, according to the Constitution, it must get Congress green light.

Lawmakers have rejected trials in two previous corruption charges levelled at Temer. He took office in 2016 after President Dilma Rousseff was impeached.

The Planalto presidential palace, contacted by AFP news agency, said the president would not speak about the police report.

Temers lawyer said he had not yet been given access to it. Since the investigation began, Temer has denied that his decree on port management was linked to bribes.

The new accusation comes less than two weeks before the second round of Brazils presidential election. Ultra-conservative Jair Bolsonaro is leading in polls against leftist Fernando Haddad.

Temer, 78, is wrapping up his term as one of the most unpopular Brazilian presidents in decades. He has a five percent approval rating.More than 100 legal marijuana shops to open across the country on Wednesday as government throws out pot convictions.

Canada became the second and largest country with a legal national cannabis marketplace on Wednesday.

Tom Clarke, an illegal pot dealer for three decades, was among the first to make a legal sale in Canada when his store opened at midnight (02:30 GMT) in Portugal Cove, Newfoundland.

I am living my dream. Teenage Tom Clarke is loving what I am doing with my life right now, he told The Associated Press.

Canada follows only Uruguay in legalising recreational cannabis nationwide.

At least 111 legal pot shops are planning to open across the nation of 37 million people on the first day, according to an AP survey of the provinces. That is a small slice of what ultimately will be a much larger marketplace.

No stores will open in Ontario, which includes Toronto. The most populous province is working on its regulations and doesnt expect stores until next spring.

Canadians everywhere will be able to order marijuana products through websites run by provinces or private retailers and have it delivered to their homes by mail.

Pardon me?

There was more good news for pot aficionados: Hours before retail outlets opened, a federal official told AP Canada will pardon all those with convictions for possessing up to 30 grams of marijuana, the now-legal threshold.

A formal announcement was planned for later Wednesday. The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly ahead of the announcement, said those who want to take advantage of the pardons will have to apply.

{articleGUID}

Canada has had legal medical marijuana since 2001 and amid excitement over the arrival of legal recreational cannabis many in the industry spent the last days of prohibition on tasks familiar to any retail business  completing displays, holding mock openings and training employees to use sales-tracking software.

Its been hectic, said Roseanne Dampier, who joined her husband  both former welders  in opening Alternative Greens, a licensed store in Edmonton, Alberta.

We have been extremely busy just trying to be able to meet that deadline.

Years in the making

Canadas federal government, led by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, spent about two years planning for legalisation, fueled by a desire to bring dealers like Clarke out of the black market and into a regulated system.

Canadas national approach has allowed for unfettered industry banking, inter-province shipments of cannabis and billions of dollars in investment  a sharp contrast with national prohibition in the United States. Nine US states have legalised recreational use of cannabis and more than 30 have approved medical marijuana.

Now that our neighbour to the north is opening its legal cannabis market, the longer we delay, the longer we miss out on potentially significant economic opportunities for Oregon and other states across the country, US Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon said in a statement.

US Customs and Border Protection invited Canadian media to a conference call on Tuesday so officials could reiterate that marijuana remains illegal under US federal law and that those who are caught at the border with marijuana are subject to arrest and prosecution.

{articleGUID}

A patchwork of regulations has spread in Canada as each province takes its own approach within the framework set out by the federal government. Some are operating government-run stores, some are allowing private retailers, some both.

Alberta and Quebec have set the minimum age for purchase at 18, while others have made it 19.

The provinces also have been able to decide for themselves how much to mark up the marijuana beyond the 10 percent or $1 per gram imposed by the federal government, and whether to allow residents to grow up to four plants at home.

Growing pains expected

Trevor Fencott, chief executive of Fire and Flower, said his company has 15 Alberta stores staffed and ready to sell marijuana, but the province has supplied only enough product to open three of them on Wednesday.

Were aware of some of the kinks or growing pains that come with creating an industry out of whole cloth in 24 months, Fencott said.

Brenda Tobin and her son Trevor plan to open their pot shop in Labrador City in Newfoundland and Labrador at 4:20pm., a reference to 420, slang for the consumption of cannabis. Tobin, a longtime convenience store owner, said they will be cutting a ribbon and cake.

We are just ecstatic, she said.

{articleGUID}

She doesnt expect to make much money off the pot itself, noting Newfoundlands eight percent cap on retail pot profits. She hopes to make money from pipes, bongs and marijuana paraphernalia.

Theres no money in the product itself, she said. You got to sell $250,000 worth of product in order to make $20,000. Thats not even paying someones salary.

Ontario wont have any stores open until April, after the new conservative government scrapped a plan for state-owned stores in favour of privately run shops. British Columbia on the Pacific Coast will have just one store open on Wednesday, but many more are expected to open in the coming months. Quebec will have 12 open.

Its a historic day, a real first, said Alain Brunet, project manager for the Quebecs government corporation overseeing the stores. The first G7 country to legalise cannabis coast-to-coast, and the second country in the world, after Uruguay.Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh, known by her pen name Mother Mushroom, has left Vietnam and is on way to the US.

Authorities in Vietnam have released dissident blogger Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh, also known by the pseudonym Mother Mushroom.

Quynh, 39, was freed from jail on Wednesday and put on a plane to the United States where her mother and children live.

Quynh was sent to the US earlier today, a Vietnamese government official confirmed to AFP news agency, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Quynh, one of Vietnams most well-known activists, whose recognisable pen name Me Nam comes from her daughters nickname mushroom, was jailed in June 2017.

She is an outspoken critic of Vietnams one-party state and gained notoriety with her writing about the environment, politics and deaths in police custody.

Quynh became a cause celebre and received an International Woman of Courage Award in 2017, presented to her in absentia by US First Lady Melania Trump.

She was arrested in October 2016 after visiting a fellow activist in prison but remained she remained steadfast in her opposition to the communist government even from jail.

{articleGUID}

Her arrest led to angry responses from the US, the European Union, the United Nations and human rights organisations.

The overly broad, ill-defined scope of this law makes it all too easy to quash any kind of dissenting views and to arbitrarily detain individuals who dare to criticize government policies, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Raad Al Hussein said in 2016.

We urge Vietnamese authorities to stop harassing independent bloggers, who represent the only alternative voice to the countrys otherwise state-controlled media, and allow all journalists to report without fear of reprisal such as trumped up anti-state charges, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said at the time.

While the Vietnamese authorities have not given a reason for the release of Quynh, it coincided with a visit to Vietnam by US Secretary of Defence Jim Mattis. Mattis is on his second trip to Vietnam this year after visiting Hanoi in January.

Quynh is the second Vietnamese dissident released this year. A prominent human rights lawyer, Nguyen Van Dai, was released from prison in June and went to Germany.Lara Alqasem, who has been detained for 15 days, awaits a final verdict on her appeal over her alleged support for BDS.

Israels top court has heard the appeal of an American student who has been detained at the countrys international airport for the past two weeks over her alleged support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Lara Alqasem appeared in court on Wednesday, but will remain in detention until the court delivers a final ruling later this week, her lawyer Yotam Ben-Hillel, confirmed to Al Jazeera.

The court was really on her side, Ben-Hillel told Al Jazeera shortly after the hearing in Tel Aviv.





They said that the fact that she was not involved in BDS groups  works in her favour.

Alqasem, who is of Palestinian descent, has been held at Israels Ben Gurion Airport  despite having a valid visa  for more than two weeks since arriving from the United States to begin a masters degree in human rights at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The 22-year-old is from the Fort Lauderdale suburb of Southwest Ranches, Florida, and was a former president of the University of Florida chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine.

Her defence also states that she is not a boycott supporter, illustrated by her choice to study at an Israeli university.

Todays hearing will address the question of whether Ms Alqasem is a BDS activist or simply an intellectually curious student who has found herself the target of politicised thought-policing, Alqasems

second lawyer, Leora Bechor said in a statement ahead of the hearing.

Keep fighting

The BDS movement started in 2005, after a call issued by Palestinian civil society groups for people of conscience around the world to help end Israels abuses against Palestinians by cutting off cultural, academic and economic ties with the state.

Alqasems detention is the longest anyone has been held in a boycott-related case. She has been held in not so good conditions, in a closed area with little access to a telephone, no internet and a bed that was infested with bedbugs, according to her lawyers.

The Hebrew University has called on the authorities to allow her in to study and has supported her appeal.

Israel enacted a law last year banning any foreigner who knowingly issues a public call for boycotting Israel from entering the country. It also identified 20 activist groups from around the world whose members can be denied entry upon arrival.





Ben-Hillel said the defence team argued that the law, which denies the entry of a wide variety of people into Israel, is wrong and harms a lot of basic rights.

In this case, however, they did not challenge the law itself, for which a petition has been submitted to the Supreme Court and is scheduled to be reviewed in March 2019.

We challenged how they interpreted the law, Ben-Hillel said.

Last week, Gilad Erdan, a senior Israeli minister who oversees the governments efforts to counter the Palestinian-led boycott movement, said that Israel has the right to protect itself and decide who enters its borders.

He said he would be open to changing his position on the detention if Alqasem personally denounces the boycott of Israel.

But to Alqasem, the appeals process was a means to fight against what she perceives as unjust, instead of accepting deportation.

She wanted to keep fighting, Ben-Hillel, who spoke to Alqasem earlier this week, said. This is important for her.

Israel has come under heavy criticism for its handling of Alqasems case.Wirapol Sukphol has been sentenced to 16 years in prison for abducting and raping a 13-year-old girl.

A Thai court on Wednesday sentenced a former Buddhist monk known for his lavish lifestyle to 16 years in prison for raping a 13-year-old girl, whom he also impregnated.

Wirapol Sukphol, formerly known by his monastic name of Luang Pu Nenkham, was sentenced in August to 114 years in prison after a court found him guilty of fraud, money laundering and computer crimes.

He will only serve 20 years on those charges because that is the maximum for someone found guilty of multiple counts of the same offence.

He was seen in a YouTube video in 2013 holding wads of cash on a private jet. The same year, he was accused of having sex with an underage girl and was expelled from the monkhood.

He fled to the United States and was extradited back to Thailand last year.

He raped a 13-year-old child and abducted her from her grandmother, but he denied it, Thanyanit Nitikrainon, a legal officer from the office of the attorney general who attended the court hearing, told Reuters.

The court found him guilty of both offences, sentencing him to eight years for each.

The victim, now 32, said she was satisfied with Wednesdays sentencing.

She said she would present the ruling to the Sisaket Juvenile and Family Court, where she has filed a lawsuit against Wirapol requesting 40 million baht ($1.2m) in child support in a case the court had put on hold pending Wednesdays ruling.

Wirapols high-profile cases have highlighted a series of sex and money scandals that have rocked Thailands Buddhist institution in recent years, resulting in calls for reforms of religious institutions.

The military government that came to power after a 2014 coup has stepped up efforts to clean up Buddhism by arresting monks involved in corruption and scrutinising temple finances.Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered in Saudi Arabias consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018.

Journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul a year ago by a team of agents from the kingdom. His dismembered body has not been found.

The Saudi writer, who was a columnist for the Washington Post newspaper, had entered the building to obtain documentation certifying he had divorced his ex-wife so that he could re-marry.

Turkish intelligence agencies have concluded that he was killed in a premeditated murder, while the CIA has reportedly found that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman likely ordered the killing, but Riyadh has consistently denied that the crown prince was involved.

Saudi Arabia has put 11 suspects on trial in the kingdom and has sought the death penalty for five of the accused, but human rights experts have called for an independent, international judicial process for the case.

Heres a timeline of events surrounding Khashoggis death:

June 2017

Khashoggi leaves Saudi Arabia for Washington, DC, where he hopes to continue writing amid a crackdown on dissent in his native Saudi Arabia.

As we speak today, there [are] Saudi intellectuals and journalists. Now, nobody will dare to speak and criticise the reforms [initiated by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman], the famed critic told Al Jazeeras UpFront in March.

{articleGUID}

Lets talk about something other than women driving. The NEOM project, the futuristic city that he [the crown prince] plans to invest half a trillion dollars in. What if it goes wrong? It could bankrupt the country.

May 2018

The journalist meets Hatice Cengiz, a 36-year-old Turkish PhD student to whom he is soon engaged.

September 28, 2018

Khashoggi pays a first visit to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to obtain a document attesting he had divorced his ex-wife, a requirement under Turkish law, in order that he be able to marry Cengiz.

October 2, 2018

Accompanied by Cengiz  who waited outside the consulate  Khashoggi is recorded by surveillance cameras entering the building at 13:14pm (10:14 GMT).

Cengiz is instructed to contact Yasin Aktay, a close aide to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in case anything goes wrong.

Three hours pass before Cengiz asks consulate staff about Khashoggi, at which point she is told he had already left the building through the back door.





Wednesday, October 3, 2018

Saudi authorities issue a statement confirming Khashoggis disappearance but insist he had left the building.

Mr Khashoggi visited the consulate to request paperwork related to his marital status and exited shortly thereafter, the statement read.

A spokesperson for the Turkish presidency, however, says that Khashoggi did not leave the consulate

Thursday, October 4, 2018

Turkeys foreign ministry summoned Saudi Arabias ambassador to Ankara over the disappearance of Khashoggi.

The ambassador, however, denied knowing anything about Khashoggis disappearance, adding that he would inform authorities once he obtained further information.

{articleGUID}

Friday, October 5, 2018

Mohammed bin Salman says that Khashoggi is not inside the consulate, adding that he is not against a Turkish investigation taking place and searching the mission.

My understanding is he entered and he got out after a few minutes or one hour. Im not sure. We are investigating this through the foreign ministry to see exactly what happened at that time, the crown prince said in an interview to Bloomberg.





Saturday, October 6, 2018

Reuters journalists tour the six-storey consulate in northern Istanbul where Khashoggi was last seen.

Saudi consul Mohammaed Al-Otaibi says that while the consulate was equipped with cameras, these did not record any footage the day of Khashoggis disappearance.

A government source says Turkish police believe Khashoggi was murdered inside the consulate.

Sunday, October 7, 2018

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says he remains hopeful about the fate of Khashoggi amid reports that the critic may have been killed.

Erdogan says video footage of the entrances to the consulate would be reviewed as well as the monitoring of all inbound and outbound flights.

Yasin Aktay, Erdogans adviser, tells Reuters he believes Khashoggi was killed inside the consulate.

Aktay added that a 15-man hit squad was most certainly involved in the matter.





Monday, October 8, 2018

Erdogan says the burden of proof falls on the Saudis, while US President Donald Trump says he is concerned about reports of Khashoggis disappearance.

Tuesday, October 9, 2018

The Washington Post  for whom Khashoggi wrote columns  reports that US intelligence had intercepted communications of Saudi officials planning to abduct the prominent journalist.

Saudi Arabia agrees to let Turkish authorities search the consulate.

Wednesday, October 10, 2018

Turkish media publish images of an alleged 15-member Saudi assassination squad and video of suspicious movements at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul following Khashoggis disappearance.

Another Turkish media channel airs surveillance video of Khashoggi walking into the Saudi consulate

Thursday, October 11, 2018

The identities of at least eight of the alleged 15-member Saudi assassination squad that Turkish authorities believe carried out Khashoggis assassination are made public.

Ankara and Riyadh say they will form a joint group to look into Khashoggis disappearance.

Friday, October 12, 2018

Officials tell Turkish and US media recordings exist of Khashoggis final moments inside the Saudi consulate.

Saudi Arabias Minister of Interior Abdulaziz bin Saud bin Naif bin Abdulaziz denies allegations regarding the disappearance and alleged murder of Khashoggi, calling them lies to target the Kingdom.

Monday, October 15, 2018

Turkish authorities enter the Saudi consulate and later say they have found evidence that supports suspicions Khashoggi was killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

Trump says killing of Khashoggi might be the work of rogue killers.

Wednesday, October 17, 2018

Turkish investigators enter the home of the Saudi consul in their search for Jamal Khashoggi.

Thursday, October 18, 2018

Turkish media report that Khashoggi was killed within minutes of entering the embassy

US President Trump says it certainly looks as though Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi is dead.

Saturday, October 20, 2018

Saudi Arabia confirms Jamal Khashoggi was killed inside the Saudi consulate on October 2. Following the confirmation, 18 nationals are arrested for their involvement and five officials are sacked.

A Saudi Arabian officials tells Reuters news agency that the team of 15 Saudis who were sent to confront Khashoggi on October 2 killed him in a chokehold after overstepping their orders.

Monday, October 22, 2018

Reuters news agency reports that Saud al-Qahtani, a former royal court media adviser and top aide to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, orchestrated Khashoggis killing at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul

CNN airs footage of an apparent Jamal Khashoggi body double who was brought to Istanbul by the Saudi team.

Tuesday, October 23, 2018

President Erdogan accuses Saudi Arabia of planning the killing days before his murder on October 2, calling for answers regarding who ordered the killing.

Saturday, November 10, 2018

Turkey says it has shared audio recordings of the murder with a number of governments, including the United States.

We gave the tapes. We gave them to Saudi Arabia, to the United States, Germans, French and British, all of them. They have listened to all the conversations in them, Erdogan said.

Turkish investigators end their search for Khashoggis body.

Thursday, November 15, 2018

Saudi Arabia indicts eleven people it deems responsible for the murder of Khashoggi. The Saudi prosecutor also says it will seek the death penalty for five of them who gave the orders and oversaw the execution of the murder.

Saturday, November 17, 2018

The CIA intelligence agency reportedly concludes that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul.

Sunday, November 18, 2018

US President Donald Trump says he will not listen to the audio tapes of the Khashoggi murder.

In an interview with Fox News, Trump says we have the tape, I dont want to hear the tape, no reason for me to hear the tape.

Monday, November 19, 2018

Saudi Arabias Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir says that claims that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered Khashoggis killing were false.

Tuesday, November 20, 2018

White House stresses importance of Saudi-US relationship in official statement.

That being said, we may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr. Jamal Khashoggi. In any case, our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the statement says.

16 December, 2018

UN chief Antonio Guterres calls for a credible investigation into Khashoggis murder.

It is absolutely essential to have a credible investigation and to have the punishment of those that were guilty, Guterres says.

3 January, 2019

The murder trial of 11 suspects begins in Saudi Arabia, with the accused attending the hearing along with their lawyers.The attorney general demands the death penalty for five of the men.

5 January, 2019

UN human rights office says Saudi trial is not sufficient, with spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani reiterating the offices call for an independent investigation with international involvement.

28 January, 2019

A UN team led by Agnes Callamard, special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, begins an investigation into the murder. The team visits the Saudi consulate in Istanbul during a week-long stay in the city.

The investigators will try to find out the nature and extent of the responsibilities of states and individuals in relation to Khashoggis killing, Callamard said.

19 June, 2019

Callamard issues report on the murder, saying Mohammed bin Salman should be investigated over the killing.

Callamard says Khashoggis death constituted an extrajudicial killing for which the State of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is responsible.

Saudi authorities dismiss the findings in the report and claim conclusions are unfounded.

10 July, 2019

Special rapporteur Agnes Callamard and Hatice Cengiz warn that democratic values worldwide would be at risk should Saudi Arabia escape accountability for Khashoggis murder.

10 September, 2019

Turkish media release transcripts of audio recorded during murder, detailing the conversations between the journalist and members of the 15-man hit squad moments before his assassination.

30 September, 2019

Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman denies ordering killing of Khashoggi in interview with US media, but said he ultimately bears full responsibility for what happened because he is the countrys leader.Bien Hoa is one of Vietnams largest remaining dioxin hotspots with a US-funded clean-up due to start in 2019.

US defence chief James Mattis on Wednesday visited the former Bien Hoa storage depot for Agent Orange, a toxic defoliant widely used during the Vietnam War, ahead of a clean-up programme to start next year.

Bien Hoa, outside Ho Chi Minh City, is one of the largest remaining dioxin hotspots in the Southeast Asian nation. The US has pledged to clean up the site at a cost of some $390m and work is expected to start next year as part of a 10-year remediation effort led by development agency USAID.

US forces sprayed 80 million litres of the chemical over South Vietnam between 1962 and 1971 to try and deprive communist fighters of tree cover and food. Vietnams government says as many as three million Vietnamese were exposed to the dioxin, which is linked to severe birth defects, cancers and disabilities.

Some one million continue to suffer today, including at least 150,000 children.





Mattis said his visit to the site was aimed at making amends for some parts of the war.

We had promised to help  so this is America keeping her promise to remediate some of the past, Mattis, whose older brother served in Vietnam during the war, told reporters this week.

I just want to get eyes on [the site] so when I go back and I talk to Congress, I can tell them my impression with actually having seen the site, Mattis said ahead of the trip.

Spillage from the hasty clearing operation that took place in Bien Hoa at the end of the war is believed to have seeped beyond the base and into the groundwater, rivers and the local food chain.

An attempt by Vietnamese victims to secure compensation from the United States over Agent Orange has had little success. The US Supreme Court in 2009 declined to take up the case, while neither the US government nor the chemical manufacturers have ever admitted liability.

Mattis is on his second trip to Vietnam this year after visiting Hanoi in January.

In addition to Bien Hoa, the US and Vietnamese have identified two other dioxin hotspots at the airbases in Danang and Phu Cat. The project to clean up Danang has just been completed at a cost of $110m.In November, 35 Senate seats are up for grabs as Democrats hope to take back a majority in Congress.

With American voters preparing to head to the ballot box on November 6, Democrats see key opportunities, in several states, to take back the majority in the US Senate and House of Representatives.

All 435 seats in the House of Representatives will be decided during the midterm elections, but only 35 of 100 Senate seats are up for grabs. The Democrats chances in the House appear to be much better than in the Senate, where several key races will be an uphill battle for the party.

Each of the 50 US states has two Senators in Congress. Senators serve staggered six-year terms, and for bills to become laws, they must pass through both chambers of Congress, the Senate and the House of Representatives.

For Democrats, taking back the Senate would allow them to block Trumps Supreme Court nominations, disrupt his immigration agenda and stymy efforts to dismantle the Obama-era Affordable Care Act.

But Republicans currently hold a 51-49 majority in the Senate, and Democrats prospects for winning a majority are slim.

Here are some of the races you need to watch:

Arizona: Kyrsten Sinema v Martha McSally

Situated on the US-Mexico border, Arizona is witnessing a political battle brewing around immigration. The state is home to a large percentage of Latinos, some 31 percent of its total population, and Republicans have doubled down in their support of President Trumps broad crackdown on immigration.

Republican Jeff Flake announced he would not seek re-election last year, leaving his seat open. For Republicans, the opportunity emerged to put a pro-Trump candidate in his place, and for Democrats, the opportunity to take the seat.

Martha McSally won the Republican primary after a heated election, and Republicans hope she can win the open Senate seat left behind. But Democratic challenger Kyrsten Sinema was leading by at least three points in a number of recent polls, with other opinion polls putting the pair neck and neck.

US Senate candidates: Martha McSally debates Kyrsten Sinema [Matt York/AP Photo]

Prediction website, FiveThirtyEight, says the race is currently leaning Democrat, with Sinema having a 61.1 percent chance of winning.

The Arizona race could have far-reaching consequences for the future of immigration, gun control and healthcare, among other key issues in the upcoming midterms.

Texas: Ted Cruz v Beto ORourke

In Texas, a traditionally Republican state, three-time congressman Beto ORourke has captured national attention by challenging incumbent Republican Senator Ted Cruz.

While most polls put Cruz ahead of ORourke by at least three percentage points, according to FiveThirtyEight, a Quinnipiac University survey found that 97 percent of black voters favour ORourke.

Beto ORourke debates Ted Cruz on October 16 [Tom Reel/San Antonio Express-News/AP Photo]

The second-most populous state in the country, Texas has not seen a Democrat win a statewide vote since 1994. But ORourke has so far bested Cruz in fundraising by a longshot, pulling in more than $24m in donations.

And, like in many states, immigration has taken a central role in their campaigns, with ORourke proclaiming support for a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants and Cruz reiterating his support for Trumps border wall.

{articleGUID}

Although Cruz and Trump were at odds during the Republican primaries that eventually saw the latter win, Cruz has repositioned himself in the Trump camp. And Trump has thrown his weight behind Cruz, saying on Twitter: Ted has my complete and total Endorsement. His opponent is a disaster for Texas.

Nevada: Dean Heller v Jacky Rosen

For Democrats to break the Republican majority in the Senate, they need to win Nevada, where incumbent Republican Senator Dean Heller is facing off against Democratic contender Jacky Rosen.

During the 2016 presidential elections, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton bested Trump in Nevada, where Democrats enjoy 60,000 more registered voters than their Republican counterparts. With a swelling Latino population, Rosen hopes to flip Nevada in the Democrats favour.

Formerly the president of her synagogue and a first-term congresswoman, Rosen has focused on immigration and healthcare.

Heller was also an outspoken supporter of newly minted Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, whose confirmation hearings were marred by controversy over sexual assault allegations against the judge, which he denied. At one point he called the controversy a hiccup.

Rosen accused Heller of ignoring the voices of women in Nevada. Rosen has advocated for abortion rights, stricter gun control measures and the DREAM Act, which would have provided a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children.

FiveThirtyEight, as well as other projection sites, consider this race a toss-up but Heller has a very small lead in most polls.

Tennessee: Marsha Blackburn v Phil Bredesen

Tennessee may be a long shot for Democrats, but their potential victory in the solidly Republican state is crucial for regaining a majority in the Senate.

With Tennessee going to Trump by 26 points in 2016 and the president enjoying a 54 percent approval rating in the state, the Democrats face an uphill battle with former Democratic Governor Phil Bredesens bid to take the vacant seat left behind by Bob Corker, a Republican Trump critic who recently announced his retirement.

Phil Bredesen debates Marsha Blackburn on October 10 [Mark Humphrey/AP Photo]

{articleGUID}

Blackburn has aligned herself with Trumps brand of Republicanism, rallying against the Obama-era Affordable Care Act and accusing Bredesen of supporting single-payer healthcare. As governor, Bredesen introduced public spending cuts that resulted in some 200,000 Tennesseans losing their spots on TennCare, the state Medicaid programme.

Most recent polling puts Blackburn ahead by at least four percentage points. FiveThirtyEight says this race will likely go Republican, with the party having an 80.4 percent chance of winning

West Virginia: Joe Manchin v Patrick Morrisey

Although Trump won West Virginia by 40 points in 2016, incumbent Democrat Senator Joe Manchin remains popular in the state, enjoying a 46-percent support rating, according to a recent poll by Gray Television.

Meanwhile, Republican challenger State Attorney General Patrick Morrisey received 38 percent in the same poll.

But President Trump, who boasts of a 62 percent approval rating in West Virginia, has thrown his support behind Morrisey, holding several campaign rallies for the Republican hopeful. FiveThirtyEight predicts that Democrats have an 87.2 percent chance of retaining Manchins Senate seat, but an upset victory could spoil the partys hopes of taking back the Senate.

Attempting to capitalise on his broad support in the state, Trump has described Morrisey as spectacular and turned West Virginia into a battleground over the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings even as Manchin became the only Democrat to throw his support behind the judge.

We see this horrible, horrible, radical group of Democrats. You see whats happening right now, Trump told thousands of supporters at a recent rally in West Virginia.

And theyre determined to take back power by any means necessary. You see the meanness, the nastiness. They dont care who they hurt, who they have to run over to get power.

Indiana: Joe Donnelly v Mike Braun

US Senator Joe Donnelly, who is facing off against Republican challenger Mike Braun in Indiana, is considered one of the most vulnerable Democrats in the midterm elections.

Indiana is one of five states Trump won by double digits in 2016, and outside groups have poured more than $45m into races in the state since May, according to local media reports.

Several recent polls have shown Braun leading Donnelly by more than three points.

With Braun accusing his opponent of being part of the Democratic Party establishment, Donnelly has attempted to fashion himself as an outlier who often votes with the right-wing of the Republican Party.

The radical left wants to eliminate ICE, stated a recent Donnelly ad. I support ICE and funding President Trumps border wall.

Missouri: Claire McCaskill v Josh Hawley

In Missouri, where Trump won by 19 points two years ago, 65-year-old Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill has weathered controversial attack ads, secret filming as part of a right-wing sting operation and accusations of being a DC insider.

Her opponent, 38-year-old Josh Hawley, enjoys Trumps backing and is neck-and-neck with McCaskill in the polls. The race has turned ugly in recent weeks.

Paid for by the right-wing Stars and Stripes Forever PAC, a pro-Hawley ad drew controversy for claiming that Christians, Jews and Muslims do not worship the same god.

The ad concluded, Vote no on Claire McCaskill and her Democrat agenda. Vote yes for our children.

In October, McCaskills campaign revealed that it was infiltrated by Project Veritas, a far-right NGO known for targeting liberals and leftists in undercover operations.

The videos showed a man grilling the Democratic incumbent on her positions on gun control, Trumps plan to build a wall on the US-Mexico border and other hot-button issues.

FiveThirtyEight puts McCaskills chances of besting Hawley at four in seven.

North Dakota: Heidi Heitkamp v Kevin Cramer

In North Dakota, Democratic incumbent Senator Heidi Heitkamp has been losing ground to Republican Congressman Kevin Cramer.

Cramer has railed against Heitkamps vote against the confirmation of controversial Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and her opposition to Trump in a state where the Republican president won handily in 2016.

You vote against Brett Kavanaugh when 64 percent of your constituents want you to vote for Brett Kavanaugh? Cramer asked rhetorically in a debate recently.

The two have barbed over the Obama-era Affordable Care Act, which Cramer wants to axe and Heitkamp supports, as well as Trumps recent introduction of tariffs on imported Chinese goods.

Chinas reply  also billions of dollars of tariffs on US products  hit North Dakota soybean farmers hard, according to local media reports.

FiveThirtyEight predicts that Cramer has a nearly 74.9 percent chance of ousting Heitkamp.Caravan continues through Guatemala to the US after Trump warns hell cut aid to Honduras if migrants arent stopped.

Esquipulas, Guatemala  Honduran activists blamed Donald Trump and the United States for the situation forcing thousands to flee Honduras after the US president warned he may cut aid to the country if a migrant caravan isnt stopped.

The United States has strongly informed the President of Honduras that if the large Caravan of people heading to the U.S. is not stopped and brought back to Honduras, no more money or aid will be given to Honduras, effectively immediately! Trump tweeted Tuesday morning.

The comment came more than three days after 1,000 people set out from San Pedro en route to the US. The caravan, which has now grown to more than 2,000 people, was blocked by Guatemalan police at the border on Monday but was then permitted to enter Guatemala from Honduras.

Hondurans have the right of free movement within the C4 region of Central America, including Guatemala, using basic identification. The Honduran government has no jurisdiction in Guatemala.

{articleGUID}

Honduran human rights activist Dunia Montoya, who accompanied the caravan to the Guatemalan border and whose husband, Bartolo Fuentes, was detained in Guatemala after crossing with the group, said Trumps tweet seems like a further abusive comment on the situation in the country.

[Trump] is responsible for the situation in Honduras. The Trump government validated an illegitimate government, she told Al Jazeera.

Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez, currently in Colombia, has not made an official statement in response to the tweet.

But the Honduran Secretariat of Foreign Affairs issued a statement Tuesday afternoon, saying the government urges Hondurans participating in this irregular movement to not let themselves be used by a movement that clearly seems to be political and that seeks to disturb the governability, stability and peace of our countries.

Hondurass unstable democracy

Honduran democracy has been unstable over the past decade. In 2009, elected president Manuel Zelaya was overthrown and illegally expatriated by the military, though civilian rule continued.

President Hernandez took office in 2014 following a stint as president of congress. His National Party had consolidated majority control of all three branches of government.

Despite the constitutional prohibition on reelection and its use as a justification for the 2009 coup, Hernandez sought reelection following a contentious and irregular Supreme Court ruling essentially declaring part of the constitution to be unconstitutional.

Honduran migrants, part of a caravan trying to reach the US, run after crossing the border between Honduras and Guatemala [Jorge Cabrera/Reuters]

Zelayas LIBRE party that grew out of popular resistance to the 2009 coup formed an opposition alliance and its candidate Salvador Nasralla was winning the presidency, according to the initial results of general elections held last November. But then Hernandez suddenly surged into the lead amid widespread reports of fraud and irregularities.

Weeks of protests and blockades ensued, and more than two dozen opposition protesters were shot and killed by state security forces, according to Honduran and international human rights organisations.

{articleGUID}

Hernandez was declared the winner in mid-December, and US recognition of his victory consolidated what was widely viewed as election fraud.

What is happening in Honduras is the accumulation of the consequences of legitimising a fraudulent government. They provoked this mass migration from Honduras, said Montoya.

Now they threaten not to give money to Honduras, but the truth is that does not alarm the people who are fleeing because that aid never makes it way into their hands, she said.

US pressures Guatemala

On her husbands arrest in Guatemala, Montoya was unable to confirm the details at the time of publication. Fuentes is a former LIBRE party congressman and a longtime social movement and migrant rights activist. Nineteen years ago, he helped found an association in his hometown of El Progreso, in northwestern Honduras, for relatives of immigrants who had disappeared during their journeys to the US.

Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales is also facing open pressure from the Trump administration to halt the caravan and turn it around.

US Vice President Mike Pence called Morales Tuesday and urged him to cooperate with the US to curb immigration.

Honduran migrants, part of a caravan trying to reach the US, arrive at the border between Honduras and Guatemala [Jorge Cabrera/Reuters]

Jorge Santos, the executive director of UDEFEGUA, a Guatemalan non-governmental human rights organisation, accused the Guatemalan government of taking action against the migrant caravan to serve US interests.

Neither the Guatemalan police nor the army should intervene, said Santos.

Guatemalas interior ministry was not immediately available for comment.

Lets go

Largely on foot at this point, the caravan continues its journey towards the US, though it will likely be days before participants reach Guatemala City. The group left Esquipulas Tuesday morning to try to head another 50km up the road to Chiquimula.

The Honduran national anthem rang out in the plaza outside the Cathedral Basilica, as the last hundreds of migrant caravan participants prepared to leave the city.

{articleGUID}

The Basilica in Esquipulas is home to a revered wooden Black Christ image and is a site of religious pilgrimages and excursions from around Guatemala and beyond. Tuesday morning it was the site of a different kind of pilgrimage.

As they prepared to leave Esquipulas on foot, Honduran migrant caravan participants followed up the national anthem with cries of, Lets Go! and the occasional Fuera JOH!, in reference to Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez.

Hundreds more are attempting to catch up and join the caravan, and many set out from Honduras for Guatemala Tuesday. According to local news reports and footage Tuesday afternoon, Honduran security forces blocked their exit from the country.Execution of Zainab Ansaris assailant takes number of state-sanctioned killings to nearly 500 since late 2014.

Islamabad, Pakistan  Pakistan has executed a man convicted of raping and murdering a six-year-old girl in the eastern district of Kasur, jail authorities and the girls family have said.

Imran Ali was hanged at the Kot Lakhpat jail in the eastern city of Lahore early on Wednesday, jail officials told Al Jazeera. They spoke on condition of anonymity, as they were not authorised to speak to the media.

Ali, 24, was executed in the presence of Muhammad Amin Ansari, the father of six-year-old Zainab Ansari, whose brutal rape and murder in January sparked a widescale manhunt.

He walked by himself to the gallows and stood there comfortably, Muzammil Ansari, Zainabs cousin, told Al Jazeera by telephone.

They put the noose around his head, he did not resist. He did not ask for any forgiveness from us.

{articleGUID}

Zainabs body was found in a rubbish heap in Kasur on January 9, sparking nationwide outrage and protests. In Kasur, riots broke out, police clashing with angry protesters demanding justice be done in the case.

Police arrested Ali two weeks later, after closed-circuit television footage showed Zainab being led down a narrow lane in her neighbourhood. Police said that DNA tests also linked Ali to at least six other cases of rape and murder.

In February, a trial court convicted Ali for the kidnapping and murder of Zainab, handing down a death sentence on four counts, including kidnapping, rape and murder.

He was later sentenced to death for the rape and murder of four other children in Kasur.

Public hanging request denied

On Tuesday, the Lahore High Court rejected an appeal by Muhammad Amin Ansari, the victims father, for Ali to be hanged publicly, saying it was not the prerogative of the court to make that judgment.

The provincial government had denied an earlier, similar request by Ansari, as it did not conform to Pakistani law.

Ansaris family said they made the demand in order to deter potential criminals.

To the parents of other daughters, I would say just this: this request we had made for a public hanging, the objective was so that the whole world could see it, and it would have a good effect, Zainabs father, Muhammad, told reporters gathered outside the jail shortly after the execution on Wednesday.

But even now, given how much the electronic media has highlighted this, because of this families and children have all gained a lot of awareness and become a lot more conscious [] about how they should bring them and take them to school and other places, Ansari added.

Muzammil Ansari, Zainabs cousin, said she was not just our daughter, but a daughter of the nation.

{articleGUID}

Our daughters gone, she will never come back. But we wanted to save the other daughters of the nation, by creating fear in the hearts of those who do such horrible things, he added.

For years, Pakistan maintained a moratorium on executions, which it lifted in late 2014 after an attack on a school in the northwestern city of Peshawar killed more than 130 schoolchildren.

Since then, the state has executed at least 497 people, with a death row population of more than 4,687. Rights groups say the use of the death penalty in Pakistan is problematic, given numerous fair trial concerns in an overloaded criminal justice system.

The eastern district of Kasur had earlier come to prominence in 2015 when police arrested a gang of paedophiles in the district. The gang had allegedly been involved in the sexually assaulting and filming more than 280 young boys.

Years later, family members of the abused children told Al Jazeera they are still awaiting justice.

Asad Hashim is Al Jazeeras digital correspondent in Pakistan. He tweets @AsadHashim.Days after Andrew Brunsons release, US secretary of state says Washington will decide on the sanctions shortly.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said that Washington may lift sanctions imposed on Turkey during the dispute over its detention of a US pastor.

Pompeos remarks came on Wednesday after his talks with Turkeys President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara on an unscheduled trip linked to the probe into the disappearance and alleged killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Well have a decision on that shortly but some of the sanctions that were put in place were directly connected to Pastor Brunson and theres a logic to now removing those as well, Pompeo told reporters as his plane refuelled in Brussels, Belgium.

In Ankara, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, who also met Pompeo on Wednesday, did not address the issue of the Brunson-related sanctions directly, but declared that any such US measures were nonsense.

We agree that in our relations, there should be no sanctions like this and other issues, he said. As long as there are sanctions, relations can go nowhere.

Frayed ties

US President Donald Trumps administration imposed sanctions targeting Turkish Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gul and Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu in response to Turkeys arrest and prosecution of US pastor Andrew Brunson on terror charges.

In all, Brunson was held for two years and was convicted and sentenced earlier this month of espionage and aiding terror groups, only to be quickly released on the basis of good behaviour and time served.

Cavusoglu, centre, met Pompeo, right, in Ankara on Wednesday [Cem Ozdel/Anadolu]

Trump hailed the release, which has been seen as an opening for Ankara and Washington to restore frayed ties.

Lira crisis

The introduction of the sanctions in August prompted a currency crisis in Turkey. The Turkish lira has fallen about 35 percent this year, but there are some signs of recovery.

Brunsons release has helped push the lira to its firmest in two months. And after Pompeos remarks on Wednesday, the currency stood at 5.55 against the US dollar, a gain in value of more than two percent.

{articleGUID}

Also on Wednesday, the lawyer for Brunson said he had appealed to a Turkish court against his clients sentence.

The verdict was appealed because it contravened the law and procedures, a copy of the application seen by Reuters showed.

The prosecutor in the case also challenged the verdict, citing the same reason, a copy of that application showed.

Both documents showed that detailed appeals will be prepared once they receive the court verdict in writing.Hailed as the start of Saudis economic reform, the Future Investment Initiative is now tainted by the Khashoggi case.

It was hailed as the start of Saudi Arabias revamping of its oil-based economy, but a week before its opening the second edition of the kingdoms prestigious economic Future Investment Initiative (FII) conference has turned into a PR disaster for the country.

More than 10 of the largest and most prominent attendees have said they will no longer go to the summit following the disappearance and alleged murder of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi.

Nicknamed Davos in the Desert after the world economic forum in the Swiss city of Davos, the elite get-together is a brainchild of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and aims to forward the de facto rulers plans to diversify Saudis economy by 2030.

However, with the disappearance and alleged murder of Khashoggi, a host of companies  ranging from tech companies Google and Uber, to banking giants JP Morgan Chase, Credit Suisse and HSBC, to media organisations such as CNN, The New York Times and Financial Times  have said they will not attend the FII this year.

All companies cited worries about the kingdoms alleged involvement in the disappearance of Khashoggi on October 2 after he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul  and never reemerged.

The Financial Times will not be partnering with the FII conference in Riyadh while the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi remains unexplained.  Finola McDonnell (@FinolaMcD) October 12, 2018

{articleGUID}

CNN has withdrawn its participation in the Saudi Future Investment Initiative Conference.  CNN Communications (@CNNPR) October 12, 2018

But Luciano Zaccara, research coordinator at Qatar Universitys Gulf Studies Center, said it remains to be seen if the cancellations will have any long-term effect and if companies are not just pulling out for public relations reasons

This is a key summit and with the spotlight on Saudi Arabia; being there would be controversial for all these companies, Zaccara told Al Jazeera.

Im not sure long-term, but at least in the short or mid-term, we will see some consequences [for Saudi Arabia], he added.

According to Jocelyn Mitchell, assistant professor of American and Gulf politics at Northwestern University, corporations have a responsibility to act when it comes to human rights abuses.





While PR plays a role in these decisions  and certainly the Saudi brand has become more toxic over the past couple of years, with its questionable decisions on the Yemen humanitarian disaster, the blockades against Qatar and Canada, and the repression of its own citizens, especially female activists  these actions show that businesses are willing to put their bottom lines on the line to advocate for basic human rights of freedom of speech and dissent, she said.

American attendance

Mitchell said companies opting out of the corporate extravaganza are risking monetary consequences  in the form of losing investment funds and opportunities in the Saudi economy.

This is not an easy choice for these corporations. But beyond the seriousness of the alleged crime, the corporate reaction also points to the fears that instability is the underlying reason for these actions by Saudi Arabia  and unstable bets are not good ones, she said.

{articleGUID}

US Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin has said he will attend but will be monitoring the situation.

All eyes will be on Mnuchin for any indication of the Trump administrations next move.

If Secretary Mnuchin withdraws from this conference, it would signify that the US president is taking the disappearance and possible murder of this journalist seriously, and imposition of sanctions may follow, said Mitchell.

But his attendance, on the other hand, would signify that President Trumps interest in the bottom line  in the form of the oft-repeated billion-dollar arms deal between the US and Saudi  is winning out over the US leading on global human rights.

Shunning Saudi

Zaccara said more companies that care about human rights need to step up  or out.

I hope that having more and more companies pulling out [of the event] will show that this [case] is something that cannot be disregarded and that international organisations and governments should make more serious statements on it, Zaccara said.

Some withdrawing firms rely heavily on Saudi investments for the future growth of their companies.

Uber, one of the companies that pulled out of the FII, received a $3.5bn investment from Saudi Arabia in 2016, and the managing director of Saudi Arabias Public Investment Fund, Yasir al-Rumayyan, sits on the Uber board of directors.

Saudis sovereign wealth fund also announced plans to invest $1bn in Richard Bransons Virgin Group, who said in a blog post his companies would no longer continue their talks with Saudi investors.

The same is true for Blackstone, an American financial services company, which signed a $40bn memorandum with the Kingdom.

CEOs of all three companies withdrew from FII conference this week, with Branson saying if the reports about Khashoggis death were true it would clearly change the ability of any of us in the West to do business with the Saudi government.

{articleGUID}

According to Zaccara, it is especially important to see what these companies do once the dust from the Khashoggi disappearance has settled.

The Saudi government has not taken any retaliation until now because they know that they cannot push the limits or force the companies to come because they need to save face, Zaccara said.

After the summit [Saudi Arabias] position will be, Now what are you going to do? Do you want to calm down and accept my version [of events]? And then all these companies will have to make a decision.

When that happens, the bottom line might become the most important aspect, putting human rights abuses on the backburner again.State of emergency declared in parts of the southern US state after heavy rain causes flash floods, cresting rivers.

Floodwaters in parts of central Texas prompted evacuations as some areas were hit by more than 300mm on Tuesday. A state of emergency has been declared across 18 counties.

Witness videos obtained by Reuters showed heavy rain swelling the San Gabriel River in nearby Georgetown and overflowing into a park. Flooding was also seen upstream in Kingsland, Texas, where a bridge collapsed.

At least one person has died from the flooding. Local authorities warned residents to evacuate promptly on Tuesday due to strong currents threatening homes and businesses in the area.

Meanwhile, forecasters told residents along the Llano River in central Texas to seek higher ground after more than 250mm of rain fell in only 36 hours.

The National Weather Service warned that the river at Llano, about 105km northwest of Austin, rose to near-record levels on Tuesday morning.

In 24 hours, the river rose to 12 metres, some 10m higher than the day before, and around 5.5 metres above major flood stage. The record crest level is 12.6 metres set in June 1935.

A flash flood warning was put into effect, and forecasters described it as a very dangerous situation. It is not expected to drop below major flood stage until later on Wednesday.

Last week, four people were swept away in floodwaters along the South Llano River in Junction. The bodies of three were recovered and one person remains missing.Countries want to hear from UN fact-finding mission after report that accused Myanmars top generals of genocide.

The United States and eight other countries requested that a UN fact-finding mission that accused Myanmars military of atrocities against the Rohingya minority brief the UN Security Council on its findings.

The move comes as global pressure mounts on Myanmar to act on accountability after a military crackdown in the western state of Rakhine last year drove some 700,000 of the largely stateless minority over the border into Bangladesh.

The nine countries said a briefing by the missions chairperson would allow the council to receive further information on this situation and its implications for international peace and security.

The request is likely to run into opposition from China, which has friendly ties with Myanmars military and has sought to shield it from UN Security Council action.

In a letter to the council, Myanmars Ambassador Hau Do Suan said his government strongly objects to the request to hear from the fact-finding mission.





In a report released last month, the UN fact-finding mission said that Myanmars top generals  including Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing  must be investigated and prosecuted for genocide in Rakhine.

They urged the council to refer the case to the International Criminal Court in The Hague or create an ad hoc international criminal tribunal, such as the one that was established on the former Yugoslavia.

Myanmar has rejected accusations that its military committed atrocities in the crackdown.

Britain, France, Peru, Sweden, Ivory Coast, the Netherlands, Poland and Kuwait joined the US in requesting the meeting be held this month. Nine votes are required at the 15-member council to approve an agenda item and vetoes do not apply.

One-sided

In his letter, Myanmars ambassador repeated the countrys complaints that the UN report was one-sided, based on narratives and not on hard evidence.

Putting accountability above all else without regard to other positive developments is a dangerous attempt that will face utter failure, he warned in the letter.

Myanmar says the violence in Rakhine was triggered by Rohingya rebels who attacked border posts in August 2017.

But the fact-finding mission said there were reasonable grounds to believe the atrocities were committed with the intention of destroying the Rohingya, warranting the charges of genocide.

The report found the militarys tactics had been consistently and grossly disproportionate to actual security threats, adding that estimates of some 10,000 people killed in the crackdown were likely too conservative.Student gunman kills 19 and wounds dozens more at vocational school in Kerch before killing himself, say authorities.

A student has attacked a vocational college in the Russian-annexed peninsula, Crimea, killing at least 19 people before killing himself, according to authorities.

Russias Investigative Committee said CCTV footage showed 18-year-old student Vladislav Roslyakov entering Kerch Polytechnic College with a rifle on Wednesday and firing at students.

Sergei Astrankin, the director of emergency medicine for Crimea, was cited by Russian state television as saying the death toll stood at 19, excluding the killer.

The incident in Kerch, a city of 147,000 people, was initially reported as a gas explosion and a possible terrorist attack. But the committee later said it was a case of mass murder.

Dozens of people were also injured in the attack.

Anastasia Yenshina, a 15-year-old student at the college, said she was in a toilet on the ground floor of the building with some friends when she heard the sound of an explosion.

I came out and there was dust and smoke, I couldnt understand, Id been deafened, she told the Reuters news agency.

Everyone started running  I saw a girl lying there. There was a child who was being helped to walk because he could not move on his own. The wall was covered in blood.





Everyone was scared. People were crying.

Tragic event

Olga Grebennikova, director of the vocational college, told KerchNet TV that men armed with automatic rifles burst into the college and killed everyone they saw.

Grebennikova, who said she had left the grounds shortly before the attack occurred, said students and staff were among victims.

The local Crimean government announced three days of mourning following the incident and the Kremlin announced it would investigate the attack.

Russian President Vladimir Putin deplored the attack as a tragic event and offered condolences to the victims families at a news conference in Sochi.

Russia annexed the peninsula in March 2014, after a referendum in which the population of Crimea chose to become part of Russia.

The annexation followed the overthrow of pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich after weeks of protests that descended into a violent conflict.

Later pro-Russian separatists took over parts of Donbass in southeastern Ukraine.

Since then, fighting in that region has killed more than 13,000 people, including about 3,000 civilians.

The so-called Minsk agreements  brokered by Germany and France and signed by Russia and Ukraine in 2015  have slowed the conflict, but sporadic fighting continues.

Over the past few years, Russian security agencies have arrested several Ukrainians accused of plotting terror attacks in Crimea, but no attacks have occurred.Envoy vows to step up effort to get agreement on committee to draft Syrias constitution before he resigns next month.

The UN special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, has announced he will step down at the end of November after more than four years in the key post.

The Italian Swedish diplomat, who became the UNs third Syria envoy in July 2014, told the UN Security Council on Wednesday he was leaving for purely personal reasons.

I am not laying down the charge until the last hour of the last day of my mandate, he said.

De Mistura said he will be making an intensive effort to get agreement on a committee to draft a new constitution for war-torn Syria before he resigns next month.

Objections by the Syrian government are still holding up the launch of that committee, he said.

His departure will complicate UN peace efforts at a time when the Syrian government is continuing to make territorial gains, opening up prospects for a political settlement to end the war.





Among the names being floated as a possible successor are the UNs Middle East Peace Coordinator Nickolay Mladenov and the UN Envoy for Iraq Jan Kubic, the AFP news agency reported, citing UN diplomats.

Mission impossible

De Mistura was appointed UN envoy for Syria after veteran Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi resigned following the failure of peace talks in Geneva in 2014.

Brahimi spent two years in the position, stepping in after former UN chief Kofi Annan quit just six months into the role.

Annan had described the Syria envoys job as mission impossible.

More than 360,000 people have died in the war in Syria, which began in March 2011 as an uprising against President Bashar al-Assad but has since morphed into a complex war with myriad armed groups, some of which have foreign backing.

During his tenure, De Mistura worked to keep UN-sponsored peace talks alive even as fighting on the ground killed off chances of a deal.

We will continue asking until we are red in the face, blue in the face for both sides  to stop shelling each others area, de Mistura told reporters about a ceasefire effort earlier this year.

Last year, Russia, Iran and Turkey set up the Astana process to advance diplomatic efforts in Syria, a move that effectively sidelined the UN-led process that De Mistura was shepherding in Geneva.

Still, the 71-year-old diplomat showed tenacity in the job.

{articleGUID}

While there were no breakthroughs in peace talks in Geneva, he insisted that incremental progress was being made.

He was consumed in recent weeks with preventing a bloodbath in Idlib, the last rebel-held region in Syria, engaging in conversations with stakeholders from Russia, Iran, Turkey and Syria.

In his efforts to put an end to Syrias seven years of violence, de Mistura navigated between world powers Russia and the US, regional players  Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Iran  as well as the feuding factions within Syria.

His latest push for a committee to agree on a new constitution and power-sharing arrangements for Syria could pave the way for reconstruction aid and refugee return.

On Wednesday, he reiterated that there is agreement on 50-member government and opposition delegations  but the government objects to the 50-member delegation the UN put together representing Syrian experts, civil society, independents, tribal leaders and women.

De Mistura said will go to Damascus next week to discuss the committees formation.Taliban attacks threaten Afghan parliamentary elections

Fighters have ramped up attacks on military personnel and they are warning polling stations will be targeted.Vertical farming removes traditional farming constraints

We take you inside the world of vertical farming: Growing crops without soil or pesticides in a whole new way.After a new outbreak of the Zika virus in India, the World Health Organization wants to improve its detection.

At least 80 people in India have been infected with the Zika virus, which is potentially dangerous for pregnant women and their fetuses.

According to the Indian government, nearly two dozen of those infected are pregnant women. Zika can sometimes cause babies to develop microcephaly, a brain defect where an infants head is smaller than normal.

To prevent further spread of the virus, 330 special teams have been spraying and fumigating houses in the western state of Rajasthan.

India, where the Aedes aegypti mosquito  which carries Zika and other viruses  is widely prevalent, reported its first Zika cases in January 2017 in Rajasthans neighbouring Gujarat province.

Awareness is key in controlling vector-borne diseases. No stone should be left unturned to reach out to the people, Indian Health Minister J P Nadda said in a statement.

In total, more than 1.5m people worldwide have been infected by the disease globally, most of them in South America.

Currently, there is no cure for the virus, and the World Health Organization (WHO) does not expect one to be released until 2020 at the earliest.

On top of that, detecting Zika infections is really hard for a number of reasons.

What is Zika exactly and why is it hard to detect?

When the Zika epidemic was at its height in the Americas two years ago, diagnostics makers began working feverishly to create diagnostic tests for a virus that few had heard of.

{articleGUID}

Those efforts have now largely stalled, as public concern has waned, health experts say, and development of inexpensive tests that can quickly detect Zika infections and distinguish them from similar mosquito-borne diseases remains elusive.

A lack of testing capacity has hampered efforts to track Zika in Angola, where a largely unreported cluster of microcephaly cases has been linked to the virus and left mothers vulnerable to an illness that can cause severe birth defects in developing fetuses.

Between February 2017 and May 2018, at least 72 babies with microcephaly were born in the country, an extraordinarily high number compared to earlier years, leading the WHO to link the high number to a Zika outbreak in early 2017.

Why is it hard to test for Zika?

The best and easiest way to detect a Zika infection is to test for the virus while a person is still symptomatic.

This is done through molecular tests which look for genetic material from the virus. Such tests have a very short window and must be done during the 7 to 14 days when the virus is active.

Given that Zika typically causes only mild illness, or no symptoms at all, many people who have been infected miss this critical window.

After the acute infection passes, doctors use so-called serology tests, which sample blood or plasma for antibodies produced in response to the virus.

The drawback with these tests is that Zika is very similar to dengue and other viruses in the same family that are also endemic to tropical regions. Antibodies made in response to these infections can cross-react, producing false positive results.

Because of the potential for cross-reactivity, positive serology results are tested again with a more sensitive, confirmatory test called a plaque reduction neutralization test or PRNT.

Such tests are labour-intensive and only performed by select public health laboratories.

Why is it important to detect Zika?

Dr Eve Lackritz, who leads the Zika Task Force at the WHO, says promoting better diagnostics is a top priority to help track the spread of the virus and develop vaccines.

WHO convened a meeting on diagnostics in Geneva last week with global public health officials, test makers and funding agencies.

This is not the time to step away, Lackritz said in an interview with Reuters news agency. We will see growing populations of susceptible people who can get infected.

{articleGUID}

Better tests are needed to check women, especially those who are asymptomatic, during pregnancy, she said. That would include tests to distinguish Zika from other, similar viruses.

Another need is for quick, inexpensive tests that could be used easily in a doctors office in developing countries.

Where are we now?

Nearly two dozen manufacturers responded to WHOs call in 2016 to develop Zika tests. By 2017, the US Food and Drug Administration had granted special emergency use approval to 19 diagnostic tests.

The designation allowed several companies to sell their tests without a full review of their effectiveness.

They got to a certain point, but didnt get actual regulatory approval, said Maurine Murtagh, a former director of diagnostic services for the Clinton Health Access Initiative. The absence of a large outbreak and waning support from funding agencies has removed a lot of the incentive for companies to press on, she said.

Chembio, maker of one of the rapid Zika tests to receive FDA emergency use authorization, is moving forward with plans to seek full US regulatory approval.

{articleGUID}

Health authorities in Europe and Brazil have approved a different version of the companys test.

Chief Executive John Sperzel said that while governments will fund the development and purchase of vaccines in a public health emergency, diagnostics companies rarely see such support. Chembio was one of a handful of companies to get a US grant to work on Zika.

Thats an issue Lackritz is trying to address.

People need to understand there needs to be market forces to get companies to discover diagnostics, she said.By 2022, Latinos will be largest ethnic group in Texas, the second most populous state in the country, study predicts.

As Americans prepare to head to the ballot box for midterm elections on November 6, a new study found that young Latinos are set to become one of the most important voting blocs in the traditionally conservative state of Texas.

Published by the Jolt Initiative, a Texas-based nonprofit, the report concludes that Latinos, who make up nearly 40 percent of the states population, are largely underrepresented in state politics owing to low voter turnout, a lack of trust in politicians and other barriers to electoral participation.

Titled We Are Texas: An Analysis of Young Latino Voters in the Lone Star State, the report predicts that Latinos will constitute the states largest ethnic group by 2022. Around half a million Latino non-citizens in Texas qualify for US citizenship.

With some of the lowest voter registration and participation rates in the country, Texas faces real barriers to building a healthy and strong democracy, it states, explaining that the strength of our democracy will be determined in large part by engaging young Latinos.

The reports findings come at a time when the administration of President Donald Trump has increased its crackdown on immigrants across the US.

During the 2016 presidential elections, Trump bested his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, by nine percentage points in Texas, the second largest US state by both size and population.

But now, with midterms weeks away, Texas is home to several heated races, including incumbent Republican Senator Ted Cruzs race against Democratic challenger Beto ORourke, who has campaigned on immigration reform that prioritises a fair path to citizenship for millions of immigrants in the country.

{articleGUID}

The Jolt Initiatives report, based on surveys with 1,016 Latinos, show a strong preference among respondents for the Democratic Party. It notes that 32 percent of Latino interviewees prefer the Democrats, while only 13 percent support the Republicans.

Among the most important electoral issues for young Latinos, according to the study, are healthcare for all, a legal pathway to citizenship for immigrants and racial equality.

With nearly 11 million Latinos in Texas, the state is facing a democratic crisis, the report adds.

Immigration crackdown

Two years ago, Trump campaigned on promises to crack down on immigration to the US, vowing to build a wall on the US-Mexico border and increase deportations.

Since coming to power, the president has faced backlash for his immigration programme, much of it stemming from his administrations zero tolerance policy.

After public outcry over the separation of immigrant children and their parents, the Trump administration rolled back the practice. But before it was upended, the practice led to the separation of some 2,600 children from their parents. Hundreds of children remain separated from their families.

In a West Texas tent city, the number of detained immigrants has swelled by 10 times since June, when the facility opened in the border city of Tornillo.

{articleGUID}

Of the 3,800 beds in the facility, at least 1,465 are occupied by children between the ages of 13 and 17, according to statistics from the US Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services.

Republicans and Democrats have both seized on immigration as an issue to mobilise voters to head to the polls next month.

In House, Senate and governorship races, more than $124m has been spent on more than 280,000 immigration-related ads, according to a CNN analysis of data provided by Kantar Media/CMAG.

The midterm elections will decide all 435 seats in the House of Representatives, 35 seats in the Senate and 39 state and territorial governorships.UNs migration agency has identified 99 cases of human trafficking since September last year.

Rohingya refugee girls are being sold into forced labour to raise money for desperate families in overcrowded camps in Bangladesh, according to the United Nations migration agency.

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said it had identified 99 cases of human trafficking during the year since September 2017, although it cautioned that the actual number was likely far greater.

Of the victims, 35 were girls and 31 were women, the IOM said in a report this week. Thirty-one of the girls ended up in forced labour as did 26 of the women.

The stories we commonly hear are of vulnerable people being approached by traffickers with false promises of work and a better life, said IOM spokeswoman Dina Parmer, adding some refugees were unaware of the risks.

Others may be aware it is dangerous, but feel their situation is so desperate that they are willing to take extreme measures, perhaps sacrificing one family member for the sake of the rest of the family, she said in a statement.

The rest of the trafficking survivors comprised of 25 adult men and eight boys who were forced into labour. Five women and four girls ended up in situations of sexual exploitation.





The Bangladeshi charity Young Power in Social Action (YPSA) is raising awareness among refugees of the dangers of trafficking and has been collecting reports from Rohingya community leaders, as well as local and international groups.

More than 1,000 have been identified as victims of human trafficking, said Jishu Barua of the YPSA.

More than 900,000 Rohingya, an ethnic and religious Muslim minority in Myanmar, live in Bangladeshs Coxs Bazar district, the vast majority in camps, according to the UN.

About 700,000 of them arrived in Bangladesh last year following a bloody military offensive launched by the Myanmar army.

The UN, the US and human rights groups have said civilians were targeted in the crackdown. In a report released last month, the UN fact-finding mission said that Myanmars top generals  including Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing  must be investigated and prosecuted for genocide in Rakhine State.

Myanmar has denied most of the allegations.

Bangladesh bars refugees from leaving the camps or holding jobs other than participating in small-scale cash-for-work programmes run by humanitarian agencies, IOM noted.

{articleGUID}

They are desperate to get out of the camps to make some money, Barua told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone from Coxs Bazar.

Traffickers prey on that desperation, offering transportation and work opportunities, according to IOM.

Among the cases IOM documented, one woman was forced to work extremely long hours for very little pay in the fish processing industry, while girls and young women were used as domestic maids.Although customers may have pulled back from ordering in the third quarter, that pullback is temporary and customers will stillWhen you were a child, did you ever try walking down the upward side of an escalator at a mall? It can be dangerous and often results in bringing you back to where you started.

Howard Husock's recent "How to Build a Housing Ladder: Lessons from, and for, Silicon Valley" (Oct. 3, 2018) is an analogous backward attempt to solve the Silicon Valley affordable housing crisis.

Husock's solution is to build new "middle housing" (2 to 9 units) in areas where there is a lack of developable land:

As part of mixed commercial-residential developments

Elevated above parking lots in air rights projects

Converting open space in office parks

Small multi-family housing projects on "greenfield" (unzoned) land

From 1979 to 1985, I implemented every one of Husock's above policy prescriptions with negligible results when I worked for the L.A. County Community Development Block Grant program:

A study for a 1,000-unit multi-family housing air rights project proposed to be built over a bus yard in West Hollywood (never built).

Funding a land write-down for a 100-unit Section 202 high-rise senior housing project on commercial-zoned land adjacent to a shopping center in West L.A.

Soliciting a design-build contract for a 12-unit energy-efficient multi-family housing project on infill land in East Los Angeles.

Relocating and rehabilitating new freeway construction removal houses to vacant sites for affordable housing.

From 1985 to 2014, I played a role at a utility district in selling surplus land for housing development on "greenfield" (raw, unzoned land) sites.

Similarly, HUD CDBG policies have yielded insignificant results in the Palo Alto Peninsula as unaffordability and homelessness have only increased.

CDBG Housing Funding Drawdown Failure

CDBG is a federal HUD flexible revenue-sharing program that can be used at the local level for housing and infrastructure improvements in lower-income target areas. The drawdown rate for CDBG funding for housing for California is the worst in the country at $4.83 unexpended for every $1 allocated (or 17% expended.)

In my experience, CDBG functions much as Steven Malanga of the Manhattan Institute states:

Local officials quickly betrayed the CDBG's ostensible antipoverty mission, using the grants to supply patronage jobs and set up nonprofits run by their allies[.] ... [A] Brookings Institution report noted that communities viewed the federal largesse as "free money." One federal investigation found that nearly one-third of the operatives in Boston mayor Kevin White's political machine worked for the city as CDBG coordinators. ("Let's Kill the CDBG", City Journal, Autumn 2017)

Depreciation Creates Affordable Housing

The term "housing ladder" used by Husock is a misnomer.

The term refers to buying a cheap home in an older area and building up equity and then selling and moving up to a tier of higher-priced housing as family income increases (i.e., moving up the ladder). Cheaper rental housing does not provide an upward ladder of social mobility from home equity loans, renovation, or appreciation.

Moreover, the housing ladder concept should not be confused with the term "neighborhood filtration." Older housing "filters" down to first-time buyers.

In other words, all affordable housing by definition is older housing. Only in California is there a policy that lower-income households are entitled to brand-new luxury housing by inclusionary housing policies and building new apartments with redevelopment funds.

Redevelopment as Demolisher of Affordable Housing

Further compounding this problem is the rampant redevelopment found in California, where older housing districts are demolished for brand new, greater property tax-generating commercial retail and hotel development. But affordable housing units don't even nearly keep up with demolitions. Only 20% of the increased property taxes generated goes toward low-income replacement housing.

In 2011, Gov. Brown abolished redevelopment agencies during the 2009-2012 budget crisis. In 2017, Assembly Bill 1568 restored redevelopment for affordable housing using sales and use taxes in addition to property taxes.

The political right objected to redevelopment mainly because of the use of eminent domain for private purposes. The left objected because it would supposedly reduce low-income housing and, along with it, political patronage jobs.

Neither objected to the goal of redevelopment in the first place: getting rid of "urban blight" and, along with it, market-produced housing affordability. And older homes that weren't in a redevelopment district were eligible for CDBG low-interest rehabilitation loans and outright grants, again to reduce "blight."

Redevelopment and CDBG function to build back up the property tax base lost from California Proposition 13 by effectively making older (affordable) housing stock unofficially a nonconforming use of property. Prop. 13 reduced the base property tax rate from 4% to 1%. Redevelopment is a sort of reverse Prop. 13.

A 1999 report, "Banking on Blight," indicates that a large proportion of the land area of cities in California comprises designated redevelopment project areas, notably the city of Long Beach with 54% or 26 square miles. A glance at a map of the redevelopment project areas in the cities of San Jose in Silicon Valley and working-class Oakland shows a similar magnitude of the extent of redevelopment.

Urban Sprawl Reduced to Crawl

With the demolition of thousands of "blighted," older but affordable housing units in urban California by redevelopment, the only other housing option for first-time buyers is to find market affordable housing at the urban fringe, but California's social engineers deterred even this.

In 2008, Gov. Schwarzenegger signed Senate Bill 375  "Redesigning Communities to Reduce Greenhouse Gases," as an anti-urban sprawl policy. S.B. 375 would divert new development to cities as opposed to the urban fringe purportedly to reduce carbon footprints and promote "smart growth."

Affordable Housing as a Social Problem

Thomas Sowell has aptly stated that "someone once defined a social problem as a situation in which the real world differs from the theories of intellectuals." In the case of housing affordability, this would apply to both the right's and the left's solutions to the affordable housing crisis in California.

Ergo, if you want affordable housing, eliminate redevelopment and anti-urban sprawl transportation and housing policies and zero out the federal CDBG program, as Trump advocates.For sports fans, ESPN's hugely popular Sportscenter TV show is a roundup of the day's highlights, updates, and scores from major sporting events. The show's "Play of the Day" segment gives viewers a chance to see video replays of entertaining, exceptional, or deciding moments from those events.

In the spirit of Sportcenter's "Play of the Day," let's recap one of the key moments from the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings. You might have missed it the first time, you might not initially have grasped its significance, or you might just want to relive it again for sheer entertainment value.

The "Play of the Day" ensued when Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley responded to Vermont senator Bernie Sanders's September 29 letter calling for the FBI to further investigate Kavanaugh's testimony on his high school and college drinking habits (among other items) after the previously agreed to additional week's FBI investigation had already begun.

Democrats were looking for a way  any way  to run out the clock on Judge Kavanaugh until after the midterm elections, when they hoped they could end his chances for confirmation. Senator Sanders feigned sincerity in light of his Senate "advise and consent" responsibilities of presidential nominations and wrote, "The Senate should not constrain the FBI to one week, and must allow time for a full investigation." Never mentioned were the six previous FBI background checks containing no mention of a sexual assault.

The Kavanaugh "box score" was easy enough to read to know who won: a "1-nil," "W" in the win column for President Trump and the Senate Republicans, behind support from a 50-48 confirmation vote. But it was Senator Grassley's colorful response to Sanders's letter laying bare Democrats' true motivations behind Senator Sanders's request that is worth the second look.

In his response, the 85-year-old Grassley delivered a sharply sarcastic rebuttal, first thanking Sanders for his concerns in the "eleventh hour" while suggesting that his inquiry must mean he would now seriously and objectively consider Kavanaugh for the high court.

The letter went on: "as you know, on July 10, 2018, you stated '[we] must mobilize the American people to defeat Judge Kavanaugh.' This happened less than 24 hours after Judge Kavanaugh's nomination was announced." He continued, "As you also know, all senators have had access to 307 judicial opinions Judge Kavanaugh wrote during his twelve years on the bench, over 500,000 pages of documents, over 40 hours of live testimony, and answers to more written questions than every prior Supreme Court nominee combined." Grassley would remind Sanders that despite access to this mountain of information and materials, Sanders "made a decision on this nomination in less than 24 hours."

Grassley's blunt reference to Sanders's near instantaneous opposition to Kavanaugh was illustrative of other Senate Democrats' behavior. In particular, New York's senators, Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, wasted no time that very same July day to call for rejection of President Trump's Supreme Court nominee and to also abdicate their Senate responsibility to provide advice and consent on presidential appointments. "I will oppose Judge Kavanaugh's nomination, and I hope a bipartisan majority will ultimately do the same," Schumer said on the Senate floor, hardly 12 hours after the president introduced his nominee.

From the left wing of Senate Democrats, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts further demanded that Schumer stop his confirmation, which, in their opinion, would tip the court's balance to the right for years to come.

Despite their near-instant rejection of Judge Kavanaugh's nomination, Senate Democrats further pressed for the release of documents related to his record of public service and demand unspecified amounts of time to review them.

The volume of Kavanaugh's records ultimately dwarfed those of two previously confirmed justices, Neil Gorsuch and Elena Kagan. Senators reviewed about 182,000 pages of documents on Gorsuch and about 170,000 pages on Kagan. In total, committee members ended up receiving more material from Kavanaugh's legal record than the past five Supreme Court nominees combined. Kavanaugh himself appended more than 17,000 pages from his speeches and articles to his Judiciary Committee questionnaire.

Down the stretch, increasingly desperate Democratic attempts to delay or derail Judge Kavanaugh's appointment took further, sometimes odd, twists. Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, himself a lawyer, insisted that Judge Kavanaugh was "responsible to prove he is innocent" and forgo our most basic legal standard of "innocent until proven guilty." Senate Democrats embraced a further ploy to derail the nomination when more than a dozen Democrats said the Senate Judiciary Committee should delay Kavanaugh's confirmation hearings in light of Michael Cohen's guilty plea, in which the attorney implicated his former client, President Trump. In political snits, Massachusetts's Senator Ed Markey and Hawaii's Senator Mazie Hirono canceled their meetings with Judge Kavanaugh, rationalizing that President Trump "does not deserve the courtesy" as an "unindicted co-conspirator in a criminal matter."

Senator Grassley's splendid letter laying bare Senate Democrats' true political motivations to delay, disrupt, or outright derail Judge Kavanaugh's confirmation earned him the "Play of the Day."

Colonel Chris J. Krisinger, USAF (ret.) was born and raised in the Midwest. During his Air Force career, Colonel Krisinger served in policy advisory positions at the Pentagon and twice at the Department of State. He was also a national defense fellow at Harvard University.After spending a year digging into the Democrats' covered up I.T. scandal in Congress, I happen to know there is a lot here that Americans aren't being allowed to know. If all this group of I.T. administrators from Pakistan did in Congress doesn't get out, then much of our freedom, which is wrapped up in this story, will be impacted.

The cover-up has been so effective that this isn't happening. Imran Awan, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.)'s I.T. aide, got off without jail time or restitution on only bank fraud charges. Congress got off without paying the price for possible corruption and for allowing a spy ring to run free in Congress. We can't even be sure that Congress has made the necessary reforms to stop another spy ring from infiltrating and spying on Congress and thereby using stolen data to blackmail a congressman, influence a vote, or just know where members of Congress stand on various pieces of legislation, all of which can impact us.

Emails and other data also could be used by a foreign intelligence service, such as Pakistan's ISI, to see where our representatives stand on funding being allocated to a given country or on other issues  and, according to sources, that is exactly what likely occurred in this case.

Some sources, most notably current I.T. aides who work for congressmen, have told me that security protocols have been tightened and that they don't think other I.T. aides will be able to get in the door again without first passing background checks. Nevertheless, Capitol Police won't confirm this or even answer if the laptop they'd found and held as evidence  the one Wasserman Schultz threatened the chief of Capitol Police with "consequences" over if it wasn't returned promptly  has now been given back to Wasserman Schultz.

The government has conveniently managed this cover-up to protect itself.

Just imagine what might come out if the 44 House members who'd employed Imran Awan or one of his associates had to testify in public hearings  something Republican House leadership opted not to have.

What might come out if a real investigation took place and if charges were filed for the computer equipment missing from congressional offices  some of which was found in at least one home Awan rented? What if an ethics investigation did take place to find out why Wasserman Schultz kept paying Awan even after he'd been booted off the House network for giving false data (an image of a fake server) to Capitol Police?

Might we find out if some of these members of Congress used the slush fund to pay off staffers who'd accused them of sexual harassment? Might we find even worse things?

To keep all they're hiding from coming out, the investigations done by the FBI, Capitol Police, and the House inspector general were largely smothered and then covered up with a sweetheart plea deal agreement that very provably is based on misinformation.

Anyone who reads the FBI affidavit used to indict Imran Awan can plainly see that even a prosecutor working on his first case wouldn't have had any trouble getting a conviction for the bank fraud charges. Yet the Department of Justice opted to plead the crimes down to one count of making one false statement on a home equity loan application.

The plea deal agreement even stipulated that Awan "will not be charged" for any other nonviolent crime he had already disclosed to the DoJ  just what he disclosed, the DoJ won't say.

Just like that, the DoJ tried to make this case go away.

Oddly, this plea deal agreement says "the Government has found no evidence that your client [Imran Awan] illegally removed House data from the House network or from House Members' offices, stole the House Democratic Caucus Server, stole or destroyed House information technology equipment, or improperly accessed or transferred government information, including classified or sensitive information."

There is a lot of evidence showing otherwise. Some of the missing House devices were found in a garage by a tenant of Imran's (Andre Taggart). Also, $120,000's worth of equipment had been written off from Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.)'s office. Even a House I.G. report shows that the Awans were copying and illegally accessing data from the congressmen they worked for.

When this plea deal agreement was explained in court, I sat flabbergasted.

When I asked DoJ prosecutor J.P. Cooney why the government made this odd deal when it clearly had Imran cold on the bank fraud charge, especially given that it didn't get anything in return, he just smiled and waved me away, as if it was all a big joke.

The court scene didn't just smell like a cover-up by the establishment; it reeked of corruption in Congress and the DoJ. This is clearly a political deal arranged to protect the establishment from further embarrassment and reform.

Real court scenes (when he pleaded guilty, Imran Awan waived his right to a trial by jury), possible depositions of House staffers and members of Congress, and the investigations that would take place if the DoJ did pursue additional charges would have necessarily dug into a lot of things the Washington establishment would rather not deal with publicly. It also would have forced investigators to follow the trail to Pakistan  something the U.S. intelligence community would rather avoid.

The deal also gave the many mainstream media members who had downplayed and ignored this case (a few sources told me they'd brought detailed information to the Washington Post but that the Post ignored the information) cover and a reason to thumb their noses at the few media members who'd done serious work on this case.

It is unclear how this deal was struck inside the DoJ. Cooney, who managed the plea deal hearing, had just been put on this case a few days before. The previous DoJ attorney, Michael Marando, wasn't even in the courtroom.

If President Trump really does want to drain the swamp  and he has tweeted about this case many times and even called Imran Awan the "Pakistani mystery man"  then his administration should demand an investigation by the Office of Inspector General into how this plea deal was made. The I.G. should also look into what actually happened in Congress.

After all, former CIA analysts, including Clare Lopez, who is now vice president for research and analysis at the Center for Security Policy, told me this has all the signs of a spy ring backed by Pakistan's ISI.

Awan certainly did behave as a spy.

"Some of the I.T. administrators who've taken over the congressional offices Imran Awan did I.T. for told me the iPhones officially assigned to House staffers had Imran Awan's email address listed as the phones' Apple IDs," a current House I.T. aide told me. "The only reason I can think of for why he would do that is this would have given him the ability to see everything these staffers were doing."

This isn't how House I.T. administrators  or even those who work for private companies  behave. This is how a spy behaves.

After the Awans were booted off the House computer network, an I.T. aide said, "The offices the Awans worked in were trashed. There were no records of the member's computer equipment  this is against House rules  and many of the security protocols weren't up to date. New I.T. administrators had to start from scratch."

This is only a taste of all that was allowed to happen in Congress and how it can affect, and possibly already has affected, our freedom and the democratic process.

The only way to really fix the problems that allowed this spy ring to operate in the halls of Congress is to demand a nonpartisan investigation.

Frank Miniter is the author of Spies in Congress: Inside the Democrats' cover-up cyber scandal.Turkey wants to become the dominant power in the Middle East. Its current regime, led by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), is both an Islamist political movement and a movement that seeks to reconstitute the Ottoman Empire  the last, real Islamic caliphate  that collapsed at the end of the First World War. In order to accomplish this herculean task, President Erdogan has had to make decisive moves that have pushed Turkey out of the West's orbit (Turkey has long been a key member of the NATO alliance) and has moved Turkey closer to Russia, China, and Iran.

While not entirely divorced from the West, Turkey can no longer be counted on to retain its previous pro-Western outlook. That is why the recent U.S.-Saudi row over the potential murder of Washington Post contributor Saudi-born Jamal Khashoggi, by a Saudi intelligence "hit team" operating in Istanbul, Turkey is so beneficial for the Turkish government. Finally, after years of deteriorating relations with the United States, Turkey is no longer Washington's most difficult "ally" in the Muslim world.

That honor now falls to the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The Real Jamal Khashoggi

What we know about Khashoggi is that he was not a journalist as the Western press continues claiming. In fact, Khashoggi was a member of the Islamist group known as the Muslim Brotherhood. This group began its bloody reign of terror back in 1923 as an Islamist opposition group to British colonial rule over Egypt. It soon became the progenitor for other, even more violent jihadist groups, such as al-Qaeda. (In fact, the current head of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was a proud member of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt who was imprisoned for his role in attempting to overthrow the secular Egyptian government in the 1970s.) The Muslim Brotherhood was ultimately the greatest beneficiary of the ill fated Arab Spring in Egypt, with one of its members, Mohammed Morsi, becoming Egyptian president for a short time.

In Saudi Arabia, a country that has a checkered history of both fighting and supporting jihadist terror groups, the new leader of the country, a young, Western-educated man named Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS), has embarked on an ambitious reform agenda for his country. The campaign has many rosy-sounding elements: cultural liberalization (things like allowing women to drive) and economic diversification. (MBS supports a plan to make Saudi Arabia's economy reliant on many different industries rather than only oil.)

Like all things in the Middle East, there is a darker side to the reform. Since Saudi Arabia is home to some of the most conservative sects of Sunni Islam, MBS has had to institute a harsh program of political repression directed against elements of the Saudi leadership that are both opposed to his rule and known supporters of jihadist elements. The reason is simple: Saudi Arabia is attempting to move much closer to the United States (and, by extension, Israel) in order to build an effective alliance meant to contain the potentially nuclear-armed Iran.

For Turkey, this is a grave threat. The closer to the United States Saudi Arabia (and the other Sunni Arab states) gets, the more powerful it is made relative to Turkey. The more powerful Saudi Arabia becomes, the less likely it will be that Erdogan can realize his dreams of reconstituting the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East.

Turkey Builds Its New Ottoman Empire

The West still does not know what, exactly, happened to poor Jamal Khashoggi. Everyone knows he disappeared while visiting the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. His wife (and Turkish intelligence) suspects he was murdered. Turkish officials have released images of a known Saudi "hit team" entering Turkey and heading over to the consulate around the same time that Khashoggi was inside.

Western media sources have relied far too heavily on information provided by sources affiliated with the Turkish government. In the wake of the claims made against Saudi Arabia, American leaders of both parties  including President Trump himself  have vowed retribution against Saudi Arabia if evidence surfaces corroborating the claims made against Saudi Arabia. If that happens, the entire Trump foreign policy for the Greater Middle East falls apart.

Without a reliable axis of resistance in the Sunni Arab world against Iran, the Iranians will continue to run roughshod over the region. Meanwhile, as the Sunni Arab countries weaken without the United States, Turkey will be able to intervene and exert influence over the region, re-establishing itself as a regional heavyweight.

To become the new Ottoman Empire, Turkey has played a devious game in the region. In recent years, Turkey's government has all but abandoned its attempt to join the European Union; Erdogan has decimated whatever nascent form of secular democracy was arising in Turkey when he assumed power; Turkey has moved closer to Russia, Iran, and China over the last few years; Ankara and Washington have feuded over whether an independent Kurdish state should be created to the south of Turkey; and Turkey has both supported jihadist terror groups and protected the rogue regime in Iran.

Turkey also supported various jihadist groups against American-backed secular strongmen, such as Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, Libya's Moammar Gaddafi, and (until recently) Syria's Bashar Assad. In the case of Syria, however, once it was clear that the United States would not support the overthrow of Assad (and that both Russia and Iran had committed significant resources to ensuring Assad's survival), Turkey switched sides and entered into a pact with the Russo-Iranian alliance against the jihadist elements Turkey had previously supported in Syria. Today, should the Russo-Iranian alliance succeed in keeping Assad in power in Syria, Turkey hopes to benefit from the construction of a major natural gas pipeline taking Iranian natural gas through Syria and into Europe through Turkish ports.

Meanwhile, Turkey has become a major conduit for China's Belt-and-Road Initiative, which seeks to transform the whole of Eurasia (and Africa) into a Chinese-dominated sphere of influence. All of this would weaken the United States' ability to influence Eurasia while China and Russia increase their bid for greater access  and influence  over the greater Middle East.

Western Media Must Be Suspicious of Their Sources

Western media outlets must be suspicious of any information coming from Turkey about the Khashoggi disappearance. After all, Turkey (as well as Russia, Iran, and China) benefits from the sustained media campaign against Saudi Arabia (since it disconnects Riyadh from Washington). It also weakens the United States in the region.

Americans must also be dubious of Turkey's recent release of American pastor Andrew Brunson  coincidentally timed to occur in the midst of the Khashoggi murder mystery. This move brought Turkey closer to the United States. And, coupled with the spate of information dumps from Turkey about Saudi Arabia's potential involvement in the Khashoggi disappearance, it has effectively damaged the budding U.S.-Saudi alliance against Iran.

Therefore, Turkey benefits the most from these developments  as do its partners in Iran, Russia, and China.For folks on the right, Elizabeth Warren's proffered "proof" of American Indian ethnicity is both laughable and puzzling. Her proof is nothing of the kind, and she's seemingly reopened herself to merciless mockery by conservatives. On Monday, Tucker Carlson came up with at least a half-dozen silly pseudo-titles for Warren, from the well known fauxcahontas to leader of the #MeSioux movement. But Warren is playing a different game, one to the Democrat base, and using the time-tested Clinton playbook to do it. Whether it still works remains to be seen.

The best Warren's hired expert could do was estimate that she had a single American Indian ancestor six to ten generations back. This is not very good, and she'd be foolish to crow about it. Logically, this means that Trump and her critics were right, and she's a fraud. Warren is about 1.5% American Indian, tops, as are most typical white people in this country. At worst (as she sees it), she's way whiter, well into Aryan Sisterhood territory.

Of course, logic plays no role on the left, and Warren knows it.

F irst off, she correctly counted on the mainstream media reporting quite favorably on the discovery of her distant ancestor. Contrary to Tucker Carlson's jibes, Lester Holt on NBC reported the development as vindication for Warren, and reporters accosting President Trump put questions to him in the same manner, falsely implying he lost a bet.

Warren has a broader strategy. Perhaps she's attempting to channel the Nez Perce chieftain Joseph, a clever and subtle strategist, who frustrated his enemies again and again until finally announcing that he would "fight no more forever." If so, Warren's doing a bad job. Warren lacks Joseph's honor or subtlety, and at this point, at least, a fight is exactly what she wants.

Deliberate or not, Warren's approach seems to track more closely to another older white woman also lacking in American Indian DNA, but not chutzpah, by the name of Hillary. Maybe Warren ought to check for Ashkenazi DNA.

Like Hillary, Warren is taking the approach that attacking Trump is a no-lose proposition for a Democrat  a rather obvious point, but one she is taking the lead on. And as a woman, much like Hillary, she is willing to cast aside ideas of equality and fall back on her position as a member of the fairer sex when counterattacked.

So when it was leaked that Trump's chief of staff, General John Kelly, criticized Warren in a private email as rude and obstreperous, she publicly took it as a proof of her toughness and then claimed that Kelly's comments were sexist. The mainstream media at least pretended to marvel at her political jiu-jitsu, in turning a potential negative into a positive (at least for Democrats)  in other words, claiming Hillary's harpy badge and wearing it proudly.

The American Indian ridiculousness is part of the same strategy. It simply rekindled a feud with Trump, which is what Warren wants. It doesn't matter that he's right and she appears delusional. Democrats don't care if their leaders are a bit bent. In fact, they might prefer it. What the base wants is to see Democrats fighting Trump. Warren is giving them a fight.

Warren is also protecting herself from future Democratic challengers with another Clintonian move, by quickly putting negatives in the past.

Warren knows that in the long run, the #MeSioux movement is a loser for her. In the Democratic primaries, Warren will face challengers who really do have nonwhite DNA, people like Cory Booker and Kamala Harris, who might find it profitable to attack Warren's obvious lack of authenticity. Remember, the Dems are all about "authenticity," which accounts for the rise of Alexandria "my grandpa lived in the Bronx" Ocasio-Cortez. So the idea is to get it out of the way now, a year or two before she's got to confront her opponents face to face.

Suppose, during a Democratic debate, Booker accuses Warren of deceptively claiming American Indian ancestry to take advantage of Harvard's diversity hiring practices. That's not a very authentic thing for a good progressive Democrat to do. What's Warren going to say?

She'll look at Booker with her best disdainful Hillary-like glare and say, "That's all in the past  are we really going to rehash that again?" Or maybe she'll try some version of Hillary's famous "What difference does it make?" comment. Or she'll accuse Booker of joining Team Trump.

The point of doing this exercise now is for Warren to her get problem out in the open early, use it to attack Trump, and hope Trump's counterstrikes will insulate her from Democratic criticism later. She wants the issue beat to death in 2018, so she can dismiss it as old news in 2020.

Will it work? Only Wakan Tanka the Great Spirit knows.There's not much of a chance of the Democrats taking control on the Senate in November. It looks favorable for Republicans to add to their majority by three seats or maybe more. My concern is in 2020. That's when 33 seats will be up for grabs. Of them, 21 are Republican, and only 11 are held by Democrats. This does not include the Mississippi and Minnesota seats, which are held by Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith and Democrat Tina Smith, respectively. Both of these senators hold these seats due to vacancies and are up in 2018 and again in 2020 for a full six-year term.

In addition to the large number of seats to defend, age does not favor Republicans in 2020, either. Of the 11 Democratic seats up in 2020, five are held by incumbents who will be at least 70 years old at the time of the election and thus worth watching for retirement signs: Sens. Dick Durbin of Illinois, who will be 75; Ed Markey of Massachusetts, 74; Jack Reed of Rhode Island, 70; Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, 73; and Tom Udall of New Mexico, 72.

Of the 21 Republican seats up in 2020, seven are held by senators who will be 70 or older at the time of that election: Sen. David Perdue of Georgia will be 70; Sen. Michael Enzi of Wyoming, 76; Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, 78; and Sen. James Risch of Idaho, 77. Three will be octogenarians: Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee will be 80, while Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas will be 84, and Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma will be 85.

Here is one last depressing fact. In 2022, twenty-two GOP seats are up to just 11 Democrat ones.

Nothing is preordained, and the future is not guaranteed to anyone. So it would be foolish to make any predictions of the makeup of the Senate after the 2020 election, not to mention 2022.

Still, it would be less than prudent to ignore the headwinds that are coming and consider how best to prepare. Three things stand out to even a layman.

First, the GOP must address the age problem. Republicans need to start thinking now, if they haven't done so already, about how best to position young candidates to replace the geriatrics on the team. Some Republican elder statesmen can be reasoned with; others will have to be pushed.

Second, the Republicans must make hay while the sun shines. Right now, they have the wind to their backs regarding the Senate. The GOP needs to put the pedal to the metal and increase its majority as much as possible. No seat is insignificant, nor is any election.

Third and most importantly, the GOP needs to coalesce behind President Trump, the sooner the better. With ankle-biters like John McCain, Jeff Flake, and Bob Corker out of the Senate, this should be easier to accomplish.

Trump is the key. He's the one who can expose the mainstream media as shills for the Democrats, thus discrediting much of the media's propaganda effort. And Trump is the man who can form a coalition of the working class, which will include, as we're starting to see, many blacks and Hispanics. This could leave the Democrats mainly with a diminished minority base, kooky feminists, hardcore leftists, radical environmentalists, alienated union bosses, and the elite of the coasts. Simply put, the Republicans cannot prevail without Trump.Register to vote, get a $50 discount off your city fines?

A Georgia city is offering its citizens just that, if they register to vote.

A local political site described how this was supposed to go:

A metro Atlanta city offered residents who registered to vote or confirmed their voter status a $50 discount from citations, raising questions about whether the plan violated state law that bans giving money or gifts in exchange for registering voters. The City of South Fulton advertised the discount ahead of the voter registration deadline, and city solicitor LaDawn Jones said it was an example of the city's "innovative" criminal justice system.

They don't do it as California does, in other words, where the one-party establishment registers you to vote whether you asked for it or not.

They just do it conventional Democrat-style, which is to offer the goodies  which, arguably, according to the mayor of Atlanta, look like bribes.

As if that's the optimal population to incentivize into the voter pool.

The state's interest isn't all that clear, except for the little reference from Jones that she was looking to register voters who rarely vote.

Democrats have launched a broad effort to sign up new voters and encourage others who rarely cast ballots to vote in November.

Does this sound like a Democratic Party operation or what? Cui bono?

If it's not a naked bid by Democrats to capture the convict vote, what else could it be? What would the state have to gain by registering people who don't want to register without a $50 voucher in hand?

The report is mixed as to whether the fine discount goes to merely traffic court miscreants or true criminal justice system convicts. But the picture of Democrats offering a cash incentive suggests but that local ruling Democrats are convinced that their party will benefit from the convict vote.There's a lot at stake in the upcoming election for all Americans, minorities like me included.

The Trump economy has expanded economic growth, broadening opportunities for investors, minority communities, small businesses, and corporations. Business sentiment is up, profits have risen, and wages have increased. The American people's confidence has been restored.

Despite the recent market corrections, which are normal and expected, we are still ahead in the year to date by 4-5% in the major indexes. The economy is clearly in terrific shape, and people are making money.

President Trump's policies have been a good thing for all in American society, whites and non-whites included.

This period of economic expansion  which has brought the U.S. unemployment rate down to 3.7%  must be allowed to continue. This unique time has seen unemployment for different minority communities fall to levels not seen in decades.

Additionally, blue-collar workers have been hired at the highest rate in over 30 years.

Support for President Trump's business-friendly policies mustn't let up. We can't have them derailed in next month's election.

The biggest threat to our continued economic growth and momentum is efforts by Congress to stymie or overturn President Trump's tax cut.

This period of economic growth that President Trump and the Republicans thankfully kicked off can last several more years. It must be protected from efforts to disrupt the GOP's business-friendly policies, which have uplifted so many, including non-white communities.

The reduction in tax rates for individuals and small businesses needs to be kept intact. President Trump's long overdue and welcome deregulation  which has freed businesses from Obama-era strangleholds and allowed small businesses to flourish  ought to be protected from Democrat efforts to rescind them.

The president's pro-energy policies have made a difference as well, resulting in an energy boom.

Incentives have changed, and blue-collar workers and small business-owners have been empowered.

Many of our friends on the left do not want to recognize that the Trump economy has been good for so many in our society: investors, blue-collar workers, small business-owners, American multinationals, minorities. Now that the economy is back on its feet and prospering, we must push back against ideological efforts to sink the GOP's pro-growth measures.

Rather than blindly accepting talking points from party establishment figures, minority communities need to take into consideration how the conditions for them and their families have improved under the Trump economy. There's nothing wrong with taking a look with fresh eyes at your personal situation and judging for yourself how your prospects have progressed during this period of rising opportunity and prosperity.

The past two years have brought economic growth, which has in turn raised increased revenues and brought more people back into the American workforce. President Trump's policies have set our economy on a sustainable, prosperous path, helping people of color, whites, and others.

After a lot of hard work, we have a good thing going with our economy. We are firing on all cylinders. Our involvement as citizens is needed to maintain this momentum. Let's get out and vote on November 6.

Raised in Singapore and Japan, Yumiko Blaschko is a member of the New Majority Orange County as well as a senior associate of the McMonigle Group in Corona Del Mar, California.

Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr.The passing of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen at age 65 from cancer is a sad thing, given his enormous talents and revolutionary impact on the things of our daily lives.

I'm pretty sure I met Allen once, back in 1987, when I was a student in San Francisco, working as a researcher and receptionist for the Netherlands Foreign Investment Agency, always making it my business to serve the visiting CEOs and corporate presidents good coffee and Dutch cookies as the establishment of subsidiaries and European hubs was discussed. If I met him, it was to serve him cookies, and I think I did because I remember how funny the name of his company was. Microsoft, what is this, little pillows? Why would you name a whole company after that? As you may imagine, although I was focused on the doings of the tech industry, I was actually terrified of actual tech. I was still goggling at the marvels of the fax machine. I was still handling 12-inch Philips disks and very proud I programmed in no stray typos or periods to mess up the database printouts. I prayed the tech boom would be ... a fad.

Well, it wasn't. It was the biggest extension of the industrial revolution ever seen, the exponential expansion of technology into every aspect of our lives, something even I have belatedly embraced and appreciated.

And it was people like Allen who led this revolution, seeing far into where it might lead, and taking the road. His Microsoft co-founder, Bill Gates, expressed his gratitude movingly:

Paul foresaw that computers would change the world, Gates recalled in a memorial statement on Monday. Even in high school, before any of us knew what a personal computer was, he was predicting that computer chips would get super-powerful and would eventually give rise to a whole new industry. That insight of his was the cornerstone of everything we did together.

It's a far from complete road of course, and one can only hope these marvels of the free society Allen flourished in will go further.

What's saddest about this whole thing is that it hasn't. Because for all of Allen's $20 billion fortune, even an amount like that was insufficient to save the man's life, and he did go early. Such brilliance, snuffed out by the hideous and weakly understood mutation of cells. Nobody - and no tech marvels, either - could stop that cancer. The fleetingness of life affects even billionaires, and that is poignant.

He lived a good life. He offended no one, he never made stupid public statements, his family says he was a loving and kind member and friend. Rest in peace, a giant, and great revolutionary who made a gargantuan difference.

Image credit: Miles Harris, via Wikimedia Commons // CC BY-SA 3.0In Puerto Rico, municipal offices not far from San Juan's mayor were raided by dozens of FBI agents yesterday, with lawmen looking for evidence of fixed contracts and falsified documents. An FBI spokesman told the Washington Examiner the operation was "pretty big" and the tips came from disgusted insiders.

According to the Examiner:

Agents were seen entering the Municipal Tower with dozens of empty boxes. The federal agents deployed to the third, fourth, 14th, and 15th floors of the 16-floor building, Osorio said. They were looking for any paper and electronic documents related to "corruption" inside the city administration's purchasing and contracting departments.

This, in light of the island's bankruptcy, wasted hurricane aid, and other evidence of fiscal mismanagement, is telling.

San Juan's obnoxious mayor, Carmen Yulin Cruz Soto, whose office wasn't raided but who runs the Centro de Gobierno municipal operation as the city's top official, is the lefty mayor who tried to make so much political hay against President Trump during Hurricane Maria by accusing Trump's his relief effort of being intentionally incompetent and racist. Speaking to the cameras, Cruz said:

We are dying here and I cannot fathom the thought that the greatest nation in the world cannot figure out logistics for a small island of 100 miles by 35 miles long[.] ... People are drinking off a creek. So I am done being polite. I am done being politically correct. I am mad as hell[.] ... So I am asking the members of the press, to send a mayday call all over the world. We are dying here[.] ... And if it doesn't stop, and if we don't get the food and the water into people's hands, what we are going to see is something close to a genocide.

It was a page drawn straight out of the Democratic Party's playbook  a bid to paint the Hurricane Maria aid effort as President Trump's "Katrina." The Democrats have a lot of playbook moves they try to play over and over again  the Kavanaugh show, the kids at the border  and Katrina is one of their favorites.

As she yelled and made political hay for the Democrats, the aid sat in the docks undelivered, and the news stories are still dribbling out about Cruz's own incompetence and uncooperativeness in the delivery of aid.

According to Wikipedia, citing press reports, this is how she acted:

Speaking on Fox News, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) director Brock Long responded to Cruz's remarks saying that unity of command was the main thing needed for the relief effort to be successful, and suggested the mayor needed to go to the joint field office and "get plugged in". Angel Perez Otero, mayor of Guaynabo, a neighboring city to San Juan, stated that his experience with that agency had been very good and criticized Cruz for not participating in meetings with them and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Responding to her statements, President Trump tweeted, "The mayor of San Juan, who was very complimentary only a few days ago, has now been told by Democrats that you must be nasty to Trump. Such poor leadership ability by the mayor of San Juan and others in Puerto Rico who are not able to get their workers to help."

In short, obstinate, obnoxious, incompetent, and unhelpful.

Now the city government's office has been raided for fraud and corruption in that "pretty big" operation, and Cruz is singing a different tune. Instead of yelling, she's talking cooperating. She's, as the FBI would colloquially say, "being good." According to the Examiner:

Cruz issued a statement on Twitter Tuesday morning saying all parties should cooperate with one another. "At this time, members of the FBI are intervening in the Municipal Tower of SJ. My instructions as always are of total collaboration," Cruz wrote, according to an unofficial translation. "I have no more information right now. We all have a duty to work together to clarify this situation." "If someone has done something wrong, they must be subjected to due process and face the consequences of their actions," she added.

Why the disparity? Why the nicey-nice and the rule of law, after all that hullaballoo earlier?

Two things could be happening here. Either she realizes she made an ass of herself during Hurricane Maria and now recognizes the importance of cooperating with federal authorities or, for those less inclined to be sympathetic, she's sounding those cooperative notes because she doesn't want too much attention to her own activities, too much trouble, much as President Trump suggested in his warnings about corruption in his tweets, and she knows she could easily get some, perhaps be implicated in the raids.

She's lying low right now and sounding dulcet, no doubt on political calculations. One wonders what big thing she might as a result be seeing coming down the pike.

Photo credit: CNN screen grab, public domain.That was quick.

President Trump's vow to cut off all aid to Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador if they don't stop a 3,000-strong caravan of illegal immigrants from entering the U.S. has gotten the attention of at least some of those countries' elites, who are moving to stop the caravan. According to Reuters:

WASHINGTON/ESQUIPULAS, Guatemala (Reuters)  The organizer of a migrant caravan from Honduras was detained in Guatemala on Tuesday as the U.S. government threatened to withdraw aid from both countries and El Salvador if the flow of migrants north to the United States was not stopped.

Apparently, they believe him. Someone must have been on the phone with the Palestinian Authority.

An incurious press has declined to report on who is financing the caravan or its leader who got detained, or why those migrants in the photos have such new-looking clothes, for that matter, but in the past, such caravans were bankrolled by George Soros-financed front groups and actually called the "Soros Express."

La Tribuna, a Honduran publication, has the detained leader's photo and photos of his organized caravan, identifying him as a Honduran ex-politician and journalist named Bartolo Fuentes, who's obviously got an impressive political eye, organizing the caravan to reach the United States just in time for a showdown at the midterms. Both he and Soros would know of the political hay to be made from a caravan: the left made lots of it early this summer with a previous caravan, the one that featured crying toddlers  and Hondurans illegally entering the U.S. with middle fingers flashing at the Tijuana border. Odds are, he's also a lefty and at odds with his current Honduran government, seeking the applause of the descamisados in his own bid for political influence by offering free trips to the U.S., delivering his bags of beans by having gringo pay. That, weighed with the prospect of an aid cutoff to Honduras and Guatemala, at least, pretty well told at least the Honduran and Guatemalan governments it was time to put a stop to the act.

La Tribuna writes that yes, the Guatemalan authorities' detention was indeed linked to President Trump's warning:

"La expulsion de Bartolo acontece en momentos en los que el gobierno de Donald Trump amenaza al gobierno de Honduras que, si no detiene la caravana, suspendera las ayudas", anadio la comunicadora.

Is aid important? Apparently, it was, because these guys acted fast. Yet, historically, it's not as easy as it looks. Number one: There is never that much of it to matter most of the time. Two: Much of the time, the aid actually goes to U.S. contractors. Three: The aid is oftentimes a good thing for us, given that much of it goes to cops to fight cartels. Most Americans don't have a problem with that.

In the case of Honduras and Guatemala, a look at the size of the U.S. aid at stake pretty well negates those caveats.

The three nations of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, a region known as the "northern triangle" famous for its shipping of illegals, pretty well does take enough U.S. aid to matter: nearly half a billion dollars, according to USAID.

The $495 million it gets (the figure is from 2016, but close enough to use) is split, with $287 million going to Guatemala, $127 million going to Honduras, and $74 million going to El Salvador. The low amount in the latter's case, which is a richer country because of its free trade and use of the U.S. dollar as its currency (and because the government was so corrupt, according to an Obama administration source), might explain why El Salvador isn't responding to Trump's warning, but the other two states are.

They're the largest U.S. aid recipients by far in Latin America, according to the linked aid map. And contrary to lefty propaganda, very little of it goes to their militaries. A large chunk of it, at least in Guatemala's case, goes to U.S. leftist groups the U.S. partners with for welfare distribution, such as Catholic Relief Services. One wonders what their role is in encouraging illegal migration, given the enthusiasm of aid NGOs in general for the practice.

Note that these countries were also some of the very few that were supportive of the U.S. in the United Nations for moving its embassy to Jerusalem, and Honduras suggested that it would also move its embassy to Jerusalem in subsequent reports. Honduras, by the way, has gone out of its way to say it never encourages illegal immigration  at least it did so with the last caravan.

So yes, the aid matters. And President Trump never ordered those countries' nationals home after their temporary stays were completed. He did order El Salvador's out, and they're holding on by a recent court stay from a U.S. leftist judge.

Call it what you want; it's an effective use of leverage by Trump to achieve rule of law in the U.S. as he promised, and with Guatemala's and Honduras' actions, there are signs it's getting results.For the first time since the 2008 recession, the U.S. sits atop the rankings of the World Economic Forum's most "ideal" economies.

What the organization refers to as the "Fourth Industrial Revolution" is well underway, and the WEF has developed some innovative criteria to rank the economies of nations.

Politico:

Under the new framework for competitiveness, released Tuesday, the U.S. achieved the closest to the "competitiveness frontier," or "ideal state," with a score of 85.6. Singapore (83.5), Germany (82.8), Switzerland (82.6) and Japan (82.5) rounded out the top five in the rankings, which assessed 140 countries. The report uses new methodology to capture the dynamics of the global economy in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, characterized by a combination of artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, idea generation and other factors. The new tools map the competitiveness landscape through 98 indicators, using a scale from 0 to 100, which are organized into 12 pillars that note how close an economy is to an "ideal state" or "frontier" of competitiveness. The pillars are infrastructure, institutions, the adoption of information and communications technology, macroeconomic stability, health, skills, product market, labor market, financial system, market size, business dynamism and innovation capability. "Embracing the Fourth Industrial Revolution has become a defining factor for competitiveness," said Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum. "With this report, the World Economic Forum proposes an approach to assess how well countries are performing against this new criterion. I foresee a new global divide between countries who understand innovative transformations and those that don't. Only those economies that recognize the importance of the Fourth Industrial Revolution will be able to expand opportunities for their people."

It isn't just Trump's policies that have unleashed the American economy. In fact, the regulatory reform that the administration has proposed is still largely in the courts or in the process of being approved by the various departments.

What is driving U.S. economic growth is the perception that the government is no longer an impediment to business expansion. The tax cuts helped, of course, but beyond taxes, there is tremendous optimism that's fueling innovation, entrepreneurship, and a belief in a bright future.

Contrast this attitude with the economic atmosphere of the previous eight years. In their eagerness to "transform" America, Obama bureaucrats put economic freedom and growth on the back burner. It was more important to them to make the American economy serve social purposes rather than economic ones.

The result was predictable: sluggish growth, an ever expanding regulatory state, and fear and loathing in the business community.

The difference is incredible:

The weakest pillar across the spectrum is innovation capability and mastering the process, "from idea generation to product commercialization." 103 countries scored less than 50 in this area. Germany and the U.S. lead this index.

It might be a little premature to label what's happening to the U.S. economy as a "revolution." There are the problems of trillion-dollar budget deficits and ever growing public debt. And the political climate means that most of Trump's successes can be reversed if Democrats take office.

But as it stands now, the U.S. once again leads in innovation and development  key indices that could translate into political success for Trump's party at the polls.The media and other Democrats are extremely concerned about missing Jamal Khashoggi, as they should be, and they believe that the Saudis murdered him.

I am just curious why they had so little concern about other people who have been killed and why there is so much coverage about Khashoggi in comparison.

On Dec. 14, 2010, border guard Brian Terry was murdered with an AK-47 provided by the Obama administration.

President Obama and his attorney general, Eric Holder, improperly withheld information from Congress for years, showing they had little empathy at all for Terry, while journalists throughout the country and other Democrats generally didn't care. Remember this?

A federal judge on Tuesday ruled President Obama cannot use executive privilege to keep records on the "Fast and Furious" gun-tracking program from Congress. U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson ordered the administration to release documents that it has been attempting to withhold by asserting executive privilege. The ruling also requires the administration to release to Congress all "segregable portions" of records they are withholding that are considered "attorney-client privileged material, attorney work product, private information, law enforcement sensitive material, or foreign policy sensitive material."

On Sept. 11, 2012, four Americans were under attack in Libya and calling for help. Instead of lifting a finger to help, Obama and his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, concocted a lie about a video and even sent out then-United Nations ambassador Susan Rice to lie to several networks. They did all of this to protect their political power before the election. They even lied to the families of those who died. I recall little empathy from the media or Democrats for the families of those who died. Instead, they supported Obama and Hillary, no matter what they did or said.

Obama and his later secretary of state, John Kerry, proudly gave hundreds of billions of dollars to Iran, which is responsible for many deaths throughout the world and which still pledges death to Israel and death to America. Yet the media and Democrats as a whole supported this deal.

Obama's White House spin doctor, Ben Rhodes, also admitted that the Obama administration used the media to spread lies about the Iran deal. Remember this?

One of President Obama's top national security advisers led journalists to believe a misleading timeline of U.S. negotiations with Iran over a nuclear agreement and relied on inexperienced reporters to create an "echo chamber" that helped sway public opinion to seal the deal, according to a lengthy magazine profile.

Throughout Obama's eight years, most of the media were just willing to repeat whatever they were told instead of actually asking questions. That made the manipulation and propaganda-spreading extremely easy.

Obama also stopped the Justice Department's investigation into a major drug-running operation by the terrorist group Hezb'allah to appease Iran. See here:

The former US president's team was said to have put "roadblocks" in place to slow the investigation amid fears it would undermine negotiations with the regime. The claims were made in an article by Politico, the politics website, and relate back to when Mr Obama was in the White House. The allegations are linked to Project Cassandra, a campaign launched in 2008 by the Drug Enforcement Administration against Hezbollah. It was said to have detailed how the Iranian-backed terror group morphed from a political and military organisation into an "international crime syndicate". In particular agents were said to be investigating an alleged $1 billion-a-year funding stream from drugs, weapons trafficking, money laundering and other crimes.

What a tradeoff. How many thousands of people may have died because of overdoses? The media and other Democrats seemed to have little interest in this and continued to pretend Obama never interfered with the "independent" Justice Department.

Then, in San Francisco, Kate Steinle died on July 1, 2015 at the hands of a criminal illegal alien who had been deported multiple times. Since this didn't fit the Democrats agenda, her life just wasn't important. Her killer walked off scot-free. Democrats said nothing.

On July 10, 2016, Seth Rich, who worked with the DNC, was murdered in the middle of the campaign. Somehow, the Washington Post, the DNC, the Justice Department, Democrats, and the rest of the media didn't have much interest in solving the case. Aren't they concerned that the Russians did it?

Journalists, in conjunction with other Democrats, have repeatedly shown they don't really care about people who die when they don't fit in with an agenda.

The reason why there is so much emphasis on Khashoggi is that they believe that it will harm Trump and help Democrats in the election. That is the goal of journalists every day. They should just admit that lives don't matter if they happen to harm Democrats or their agenda.In short: The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada is turning to the Canadian judicial system for help in determining how it can regulate Google in regards to user privacy, i.e. whether its able to do so within the scope of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act. In an announcement made earlier this month, the OPC revealed it contacted the Federal Court in order to request a ruling on how PIPEDA applies to Internet search engines, though given the dominance of Google Search in the country, that primarily concerns Alphabets subsidiary.

While Canada doesnt have a conventional right-to-be-forgotten law, the OPCs official stance on the matter is that PIPEDA allows for that basic principle to be enforced, providing individuals with the ability to request their information be purged from public records of private organizations. One notable exception to that rule is the fact that the regulation specifically waives privacy concerns in the context of journalistic reporting, as well as general artistic purposes. The OPC is unsure how that would apply to Google seeing how compiling media reports and news articles is a significant component of the Search service. To that end, the federal agency is seeking the Federal Courts input so that it can develop a long-term PIPEDA enforcement strategy as it relates to the issue of information de-indexing requests made by Canadians in the country and even abroad.

The crux of the issue is whether Google can be asked to remove peoples real names and select websites given in response to name queries from Search results and fined if it refuses to do so. The OPC did not ask for the judicial systems aid preemptively as its citing a recent case that saw a Canadian individual allege the company is violating his PIPEDA-given right to be forgotten. The plaintiff argues Google Search disclosed a serious medical condition and his sexual orientation, directly causing harm to his person.

Advertisement

The Mountain View, California-based tech giant said applying PIPEDA in this particular case would be unconstitutional, and the OPC believes the law is in need of an additional interpretation for the purposes of clarity, claiming both sides provide valid arguments given the vague nature of some PIPEDA provisions. The court is now being asked to determine whether Google reveals personal information as part of its commercial activities in a way that doesnt allow it to be exempt from PIPEDA in spite of its journalistic or literary activities prompting such actions.

Background: Google had issues with right-to-be-forgotten laws in the past, most notably in the European Union where the company lost a major, precedent-setting case this April. A number of recent surveys suggest an overwhelming majority of Americans support the idea of such legislation being enacted in the United States, neither the GOP nor the DNC included that effort into their latest political platforms. Regardless, digital privacy is now part of the public discourse in the U.S., in part due to Facebooks Cambridge Analytica scandal from earlier this year, but also because of other issues such as the newly revealed Google+ vulnerability that not only exposed data of hundreds of thousands of users but was also the subject of a corporate cover-up.

Due to that state of affairs, calls for additional privacy regulation in the U.S. are now gaining traction and Canada already signaled its paying attention to how the situation is developing. Google itself repeatedly said its taking the privacy of its users in a maximally serious manner but critics argue the company never would have grown to its current size if it always had to prioritize consumer privacy. While Canada is currently flirting with the idea of a codified right to be forgotten, the European Union, Japan, South Korea, and even China already embraced that concept over the last several years.

Advertisement

Impact: Regardless of the Federal Courts ruling and whether it even honors the OPCs request, there are no guarantees that Google will actually find itself under significant additional scrutiny from Canadas privacy watchdog. While the regulator said its in need of a court ruling before it examines similar cases alleging PIPEDA violations on Googles part, examples from other countries show that only a small portion of individuals ever seek to exercise their right to be forgotten, even in scenarios wherein their ability to do so is much more clearly codified, making their road to litigation more straightforward.

Nonetheless, the move is yet another indication that Googles privacy practices are gaining more public attention all over the world and will likely affect its business strategy much more significantly moving forward. Between the General Data Protection Regulation in the European Union and the California Consumer Privacy Act, both of which were enacted just several months back, Google is facing an increasing amount of regulatory scrutiny and questions about the ethics of its practices continue to emerge. Coupled with the recent Google+ privacy debacle that exposed data of approximately half a million users to hundreds of app developers over a period of around three years, calls for stricter privacy regulations in the United States are likely to intensify as well, particularly those prompted by Googles gaffes.

Finally, while the OPC may not have a large volume of Google de-indexing requests to examine in the near future, Commissioner Daniel Therrien clearly signaled he disagrees with the companys argument that such demands are unconstitutional and wants to see digital information handled with much more care moving forward. Ultimately, the ruling may lead to media censorship and affect the very concept of freedom of expression, right-to-be-forgotten opponents argue. While thats also a significant part of Googles legal defense in the case, Canadas own constitution already limits this freedom to a degree, making it dubious whether the Federal Court will side with the Internet juggernaut. Regardless of how the episode ends up being concluded, one thing is certain  the outcome of the case will largely decide the fate of the right-to-be-forgotten movement in Canada and the media industry is still vehemently against it seeing how being prevented from using peoples real names can affect the integrity of reporting.In short: Consumers and the industry as a whole are still confusing data security with privacy, according to Eric Schrock, Chief Technology Officer of data management and virtualization company Delphix. In an interview with AndroidHeadlines, the industry veteran reflected on the recent Google+ privacy debacle and criticized Alphabets subsidiary for subpar practices that potentially compromised hundreds of thousands of users, while also maintaining that episode and similar incidents are a consequence of a larger issue and cant be solely attributed to bugs, an inevitable occurrence in software development.

On the subject of privacy and security, Mr. Schrock suggested the general confusion of the two terms may be related to them both being relatively new additions to the public discourse, though theyre still significantly different. Security is a question of access, the CTO said, adding how some related mechanisms include two-factor authentication, encryption, threat analysis solutions, and anything else that prevents unauthorized parties from accessing data theyre not supposed to. Mr. Schrock described privacy as a far more nuanced, complex topic that often comes down to the question of how sensitive the data any particular entity is handling is, and how significant would the implications of it leaking possibly be.

While undoubtedly related, trying to improve privacy by enhancing security or vice versa may not be the best course of action, especially for major Internet juggernauts, the executive opinionated. Data is extremely critical to so much innovation in the world, Mr. Schrock said, adding that simply locking it down can be detrimental to many fields in the long term. However, as apps become more data-intensive and intelligent, with their knowledge base requirements growing frequently and rapidly, the tech industry as a whole needs to start implementing privacy-friendly mechanisms into their products from the get-go, he said. To that end, Googles Project Strobe which unveiled the aforementioned Google+ vulnerability was a worthwhile endeavor, the CTO believes. Google essentially said hey, lets understand the nuance of data compliance, which is a really hard problem, Mr. Schrock said, asserting that the company still should have thought about such issues years ago.

Advertisement

Background: Google initially responded to criticism about its lack of transparency regarding data management practices by providing consumers with more control over their profiles, allowing them to find out what the company knows about them, which third parties are accessing that data and via which apps, and allowing them to manually delete such information. However, a major lack of transparency is precisely what marked the latest Google+ episode that saw the company discover a vulnerability in its People API set this March which exposed data of roughly 500,000 users. Hundreds of app developers were able to exploit it but as to the question of whether any of them did so  Google has no idea. Granted, its official probe into the matter found no evidence of the vulnerability being abused but what Google disclosed in an extremely coy manner is that the vulnerability was live since 2015 and it only keeps two-week logs of People APIs usage activity. In other words, its evidence pool was limited to less than one percent of the timeframe during which the vulnerability existed.

The companys official statement was that the policy of keeping surprisingly short logs is a purely privacy-driven decision, a notion Mr. Schrock said hes not buying. Its clear those logs havent been designed with security auditing in mind, the executive said. Google also decided against disclosing the vulnerability for over half a year, having only acknowledged it after the Wall Street Journal reported about it earlier this month. It immediately injected a variety of other announcements into the news cycle, including its decision to kill off the consumer version of Google+. Coupled with the fact that the disclosure was made less than 24 hours prior to the announcement of the firms new hardware such as the Pixel 3 smartphones, the news of the privacy gaffe went under the radar relative to how it would have been treated at any other point in the year, particularly if the announcement was made at the time of the vulnerabilitys discovery  which was in the midst of Facebooks Cambridge Analytica scandal.

Some U.S. Senators are now demanding information about the cover-up, whereas Googles first response to the situation was to wind down Google+ over the next ten months, lock down some Android API permissions, and generally limit third-party access to data across its platforms. As Mr. Schrock explained it, thats a band-aid solution that will hurt innovation and wont address the real issue  the fact that Googles services havent been built with privacy in mind from the ground up. Similar criticism was aimed at Facebook earlier this year when the social media juggernauts first response to the Cambridge Analytica episode was to limit third-party access to user data without changing how the underlying network works. Some industry watchers recently speculated the Google+ discontinuation may actually be just a prelude to a new social media platform Google intends to build which would address many of those concerns directly, though the company gave no indication of that being the case.

Advertisement

Impact: The confusion about data security and digital privacy is likely to continue in the near future until the two terms become a more frequently encountered feature of the public discourse. In the meantime, some states such as California have already enacted their own digital information management laws and the idea of a federal legislative effort regulating the manner in which tech giants handle consumer data is now gaining bipartisan momentum, hence being likely to continue doing so regardless of the outcome of this years mid-terms taking place in early November.

Whether Google manages to navigate this latest debacle unscathed remains to be seen, though that scenario is looking less realistic by the day, especially as it currently isnt near the top of the governments list of favorite domestic companies due to a variety of issues, including the controversial Project Dragonfly that even attracted criticism from Vice President Mike Pence earlier this month. Whatever happens, Google+ will soon be no more but its still unclear whether the episode will improve the transparency of the companys vulnerability reporting, as the new gaffe clearly illustrated Google is still lacking in that department.In short: Google Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai downplayed the influence employee activism has on Alphabets subsidiary and the business decisions it makes. While speaking at a San Francisco event dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the Wired magazine earlier this week, the industry veteran said Google values the opinions voiced by its workforce but considers them just one of many factors affecting its decision-making process. We dont run the company by holding referendums, the 46-year-old asserted.

His statement came in response to a question about Googles recent decision to drop out of competition for a Pentagon cloud computing contract estimated to be worth around $10 billion. The move, announced last week, was framed as having been made due to the sensitive nature of the contract that may not align with Googles AI principles. Regardless, Google has full intention to work with U.S. Military again, Mr. Pichai said, adding that the firm greatly respects American armed forces and everything they do to keep the country safe. The comments are believed to have been at least partially aimed at lowering the tensions between the Mountain View, California-based tech giant and Washington as both the Trump administration and GOP-controlled Congress so far didnt prove to be Googles biggest supporters and have criticized the firm on numerous occasions over a variety of issues, including its decision to pull from controversial Project Maven earlier this year.

Background: This March, thousands of employees signed a petition protesting against Googles involvement in Project Maven, an initiative seeking to weaponize artificial intelligence in collaboration with the U.S. Defense Department, and about a dozen of them quit over the matter. Google eventually opted not to renew its project contract, with some legislators describing that decision as disappointing. The timing of the move was inopportune as it came just as Google came under additional scrutiny due to its continued collaboration with Chinese tech giants such as Huawei that the U.S. administration still considers a national security threat. Around the same time, Google faced criticism for failing to send any one of its top officials to attend an election security hearing.

Advertisement

All of those issues compounded, deteriorating Googles relationship with both Capitol Hill and the White House. President Trump criticized Alphabets subsidiary on numerous occasions this summer, alleging the company is biased against right-leaning worldviews and is silencing conservative voices across the World Wide Web. While the head of the state threatened with investigations, the government has yet to act on those statements. Google vehemently denied any suggestion of developing biased solutions, repeatedly arguing that its services were designed to be maximally useful regardless of ones political stances.

Shortly following Project Maven protests at Google, the company published a list of AI principles that it vowed to honor moving forward. Among other things, the technology juggernaut vowed not to pursue any kind of AI solutions that are likely to cause harm to any individuals or groups, weapons included. However, Dr. Jack Poulson, former Google Senior Research Scientist, cast doubt over the legitimacy of those principles last month, claiming that simultaneously with the publication of Googles new ethics code, the company was pursuing Project Dragonfly, a polarizing initiative seeking to relaunch Google Search in China, albeit in a censored state. In a letter sent to U.S. Senators in late September, Dr. Poulson argued Project Dragonfly contradicted the AI principles as Google was drafting them and its existence wasnt planned to be publicly revealed anytime soon.

Despite facing significant pressure from both sides of the political aisle in the country, as well as its own employees, Google continues ahead with the idea of launching a censored version of Search for China. Top company executives  including Mr. Pichai  said the firm isnt close to organizing a return of Search to the Far Eastern country but didnt deny the ambition to eventually do so. Dr. Poulson described Project Dragonfly as an initiative whose goal is for Google to capitulate to Beijing. The company pulled Search from China in 2010 to protest the Communist administrations censorship. Eight years later, as its flagship services face growth stagnation, Google appears to be more willing to embrace the idea of competing in China. In a late August letter sent to several senators, Mr. Pichai argued Google never truly left China, citing hundreds of millions of Android users in the country, as well as the local presence of some of its apps such as Google Translate. He concluded that Google will approach any growth project in a sensible manner, striving to invest only in initiatives aligned with its ethical standards, albeit without providing any concrete details on the matter.

Advertisement

Washington is still turning on the pressure over Googles China ambitions, with the latest criticism coming from one of its top officials  Vice President Mike Pence. While speaking at the Hudson Institute in Washington in early October, the VP called for Google to immediately end Project Dragonfly and stop supporting a government that poses a massive national security risk to the U.S. Google didnt respond to the 59-year-old directly.

Impact: Mr. Pichais latest comments suggest Google will still try to walk the thin line between being an ally of Washington and investing significant resources in China and projects targeting consumers in the Far Eastern country. Regardless, the companys cloud ambitions will take a significant hit given recent developments and the fact that Amazons cloud division already enjoys a higher security rating from the U.S. government and will most likely be awarded the lucrative $10 billion contract now that Google dropped out of the race.

The Alphabet-owned company will hence have to look for intense growth opportunities elsewhere while faced with both government pressure and employee activism, as well as scrutiny from human rights and privacy advocates. The latter groups have been particularly active over the course of the last several days due to the Google+ privacy debacle that left data of some 500,000 users exposed over a period between 2015 and March of this year. Combined with the multi-billion-dollar fines the European Commission recently issued to it for antitrust behavior, Google has an extremely complicated road to navigate moving forward.In short: Google started making some concrete moves aimed at complying with the antitrust order the European Commission issued this summer, alleging the American technology giant abused the dominant position of its Android operating system in order to promote its mobile apps and services at the expense of rivaling solutions. While the Alphabet-owned firm recently filed a complaint against the decision, its now begrudgingly making some changes in order to prevent what the EC deems anti-competitive behavior in the future.

Starting from October 29, original equipment manufacturers interested in forking Android can now do so without ceding their ability to pre-load such gadgets with Google-made apps like Chrome and the Play Store itself. The so-called Android forks wont be prevented from accessing any of those apps within the European Economic Area, though Google wont be actively developing its software for such platforms, meaning their performance may still be inconsistent. Google is also separating its Chrome and Search licenses from the main Android one for much the same reasons and will also be licensing application suite packs separately from the operating system. While the latter will remain free, original equipment manufacturers who will want to well devices with Google-developed Android apps in the EU will now have to pay license fees to do so. The change only affects smartphones and tablets, whereas Android TV and other platforms based on the OS will still use the freemium model given how they werent the subject of the ECs antitrust ruling.

Hiroshi Lockheimer, Google Senior Vice President of Platforms & Ecosystems, said the development is not in line with the companys vision for the future of Android in no uncertain terms. The pre-installation of Google Search and Chrome together with our other apps helped us fund the development and free distribution of Android, the industry veteran wrote in a Tuesday blog post. Android itself will remain an open-source project thats free to use, both in the EU and other parts of the world, Mr. Lockheimer vowed. The newly announced changes wont affect Android smartphones and tablets released prior to October 29.

Advertisement

Background: The ECs competition watchdog hit Google with the largest fine ever issued on the Old Continent for antitrust behavior this July, ordering it to pay the equivalent of over $5 billion for abusing the dominance of its OS in order to benefit its app business. The timing of Googles Tuesday announcement meant to outline the companys first compliance efforts isnt accidental either as the EC gave it 90 days to start doing so or face additional fines, with that deadline being set to run out tomorrow, October 18.

The Android antitrust fine came just over a year after Google already set a record for the largest EC-imposed competition fine, having been sanctioned with the equivalent of $2.7 billion for abusing the popularity of its Search engine in order to promote its shopping service. Much like with the Android case, Google appealed the ruling and begrudgingly started implementing compliance changes, arguing the interconnected nature of its services is meant to benefit consumers and not hurt its rivals. A number of high-profile companies such as Yelp previously dismissed that notion as misleading and frivolous, welcoming the ECs ruling.

This summer, Mr. Lockheimer and many other Google executives argued Android has been envisioned to promote competition from day one, pointing to consistent innovation and aggressive prices of Android devices as proof of that strategy working. However, that point is largely moot because the EC never claimed Google stifled device innovation but competition in the app market. By most estimates, Android accounts for close to 90-percent of the global mobile market share. Google said it never prevented OEMs from pre-installing rivaling apps on devices, maintaining that its license bundles allowed Android to remain free and open-sourced for over a decade. The company also attempted arguing it doesnt have a mobile monopoly due to iOS but didnt get far with that point seeing how Apple doesnt license its OS to other manufacturers and holds a relatively minor share of the global smartphone market with its iPhones, especially outside of the United States.

Advertisement

Impact: While no immediate effects of Googles changes will be experienced by consumers, the new changes are significant due to their implications for the future of the Android ecosystem as a whole. E.g. theres now nothing stopping Amazon from pre-loading the Google Play Store and other staple Android apps on its Kindle devices sold in the European Union despite the fact theyre running a heavily modified version of the omnipresent OS. However, only the largest OEMs may be able to take advantage of this fact given how Google-developed Android apps will now actually cost money for anyone looking to pre-load them on their devices in Europe.

At the same time, some of the major manufacturers such as Samsung and Huawei may actually be among the first to ditch the majority of Google apps from their products sold in the EU given how they already have already invested massive resources in developing alternatives for the thereof and they might opt to use every tool at their disposal in order to promote them more aggressively now that theyre able to circumvent a significant part of Googles mobile portfolio. The effects of the new development should hence be felt as early as this years holiday season and some major 2019 releases such as the Galaxy S10 will likely lack a lot of Google apps out of the box, requiring consumers to download them from the Play Store or other sources themselves if they want to use them.

As for Google itself, the companys appeal is likely to take years to be resolved. E.g. Intel is still fighting its $1.2 billion fine issued by EU regulators over anti-competitive behavior in 2009 and Alphabets subsidiary will surely be looking to exhaust all of its legal options before paying anything as well. At the same time, the competition watchdog on the Old Continent is currently also looking into the companys potential abuse of its advertising networks dominance, with that probe being set to be concluded in the coming months. Most industry watchers agree the investigation will lead to a third fine, leaving Google with a massive legal headache. Regardless of the current developments, Googles anti-competitive practices already achieved their desired goal, with the company currently dominating a wide variety of mobile app genres such as Internet search, navigation, and email.In short: Lenovo is working on a foldable Android tablet that it intends to commercialize in the near future, South Korean ETNews reports, citing industry sources familiar with the matter. The devices screen is said to be 13 inches in size and manufactured by LG Display. The exact degree of curvature supported by the screen of the unconventional gadget remains unclear, with insiders only stating the panel will be of the OLED variety, as is the case with all other known projects revolving around foldable consumer electronics.

Lenovo is aiming to release the unique device in the second half of 2019 and will initially debut it in China, though the firm is likely to bring it to the West as well. Even if the slate doesnt end up being a massive commercial success, its unconventional form factor should serve as an eye-catching advertisement for Lenovos device portfolio. LG Display should start manufacturing the panels meant to be used by the Lenovo-made gadget by early next year, with a trial production run being likely to begin no later than late winter.

The still-unnamed product wont be capable of operating as a smartphone, even though its expected to run Android. Due to the size of its panel, the device was envisioned as an evolution of the tablet form factor that may support some notebook functionalities when folded under a 90-degree angle, i.e. have a portion of its screen act as a virtual keyboard. By using a larger foldable panel than what Samsung and Huawei are currently said to be working on, Lenovo may be able to deliver a more durable device, insiders are now speculating.

Advertisement

LG Displays technology has also been pitched to Dell, as well as its sister company LG Electronics, sources claim. While the former is still understood to be approaching the concept of bendable consumer electronics in a careful manner, the latter already confirmed its working on the idea and is likely to utilize LG Displays foldable panels in the near future.

Background: Lenovo has an established track record with tablet and ultrabook innovation, primarily due to the R&D efforts associated with its Yoga Book lineup that saw the company experiment with capacitive keyboards and unique 2-in-1 designs, pairing it both with Googles Android and Microsofts Windows. Should the firm truly opt to commercialize an all-screen slate that can be bent in half, its likely to introduce it under the same brand. LG Display itself has been developing foldable modules for several years now but has yet to commercialize any such creations and its still unclear whether the companys current setup would even allow for immediate mass production with reliable yield rates, something that Samsung Display is said to have been struggling for years.

LG Electronics recently confirmed its working on foldable handsets but said it almost certainly wont be the first to release such offerings. Instead of trying to win such a niche race, the technology juggernaut is adamant to deliver the most interesting foldable phone in the world, a company official told AndroidHeadlines earlier this month. Before LG delivers its first bendable gadget, Samsung is expected to do the same, as is Huawei. LGs South Korean rival has been working on bendable display panels for over half a decade now and its flexible Super AMOLED modules used on the curved-screen Galaxy S and Galaxy Note-series models are the understood to be the first (consumer-grade) step toward that goal. LG already released similar products under the LG Flex line but put them on hold following limited commercial success several years back.

Advertisement

Whereas Samsung may debut its first foldable phone as early as next month and release it in the first quarter of 2019, Huawei is currently said to be collaborating with Chinese manufacturer BOE on a similar device and could introduce it around the same time. Other OEMs such as Motorola, OPPO, Vivo, and Xiaomi have been pursuing foldable handset projects as well, according to patent documentation reviewed by AndroidHeadlines. The majority of the mobile field agrees that the unconventional form factor could end up being the future of mainstream smartphones but the question of how to implement such technologies most effectively is where industry opinions differ. Whereas Samsung is looking to use bendable screens to evolve the concept of flip phones, Huawei is pursuing a booklet-like design, whereas Lenovo is now said to have opted for an entirely different route.

Impact: Given how much its mobile unit has been struggling over the course of the last several years, the Chinese OEM has little choice but to continue investing in R&D and attempt to differentiate its products from what its rivals are offering if it hopes to return to the black in the foreseeable future. Foldable devices are one option to do so, as is 5G, another tech avenue the company already confirmed its exploring.

While a bendable-screen slate would likely be a unique offering, especially if Lenovo manages to release it by the second half of 2019 when foldable-display devices will still be a rarity, the commercial potential of such a gadget may still be slim even if the OEM opts for an aggressive price tag; according to most industry trackers, the global tablet market continues to shrink, with Apple and Huawei being the only two companies that managed to improve or at least maintain their performance in the segment over the last year. While tablet innovation stagnated in recent times, the continued market decline has more to do with the fact that smartphones are getting bigger and more versatile, making such (now only slightly) larger devices less useful, some analysts believe.

Advertisement

Ultimately, Lenovo is facing an uphill battle with marketing its foldable tablet regardless of how innovative the device ends up being, but with Motorola currently being the only bright spot in its struggling mobile division, the company cant afford to play it safe with consumer electronics in the near future and will either attempt differentiating itself through innovation or continue to post tens of millions of dollars in quarterly losses in the segment (seeing how it repeatedly said it isnt quitting the mobile market).In short: Google has announced new partnerships with Nike, Best Buy, and Sephora that will see those retailers products added to its Google Express shopping service. That means that users will be able to access the shopping platform via mobile app, web browser, or via Googles Assistant-enabled platforms to buy products from any of the three companies, with benefits like fast shipping and Google Purchase Protection. However, for the time being, only products from Best Buy and Sephora are available with plans to add Nike later this month.

Background: Google express is essentially an all-in-one shopping service that brings products from a multitude of stores and brands under a single platform for the convenience of consumers. Launched in 2013, there arent any monthly fees or similar charges to worry about and since the service ships items to buyers from as close as possible, shipping ordinarily only takes between one and three days. That delivery is free after a predetermined minimum amount is spent, usually between $25 and $35, although some stores do arrange their own deliveries and have different ship times and price requirements. Currently, Google Express offers products from hundreds of retailers, including several big box stores like as Walmart, Frys Electronics, and Lowes. Shopping Actions are a large part of that, allowing users to shop via Google Assistant integration on their smartphone, Google Home devices, or other Assistant-enabled gadgets.

As with previous additions to Google Express, the search giants Shopping Actions will be available for all three stores but there are some differences between. Those are chiefly based on aspects of the brands. For example, shipping times will differ based on location and some brands bring added perks, such as the membership benefits afforded to Sephora

clients. More succinctly, users who participate in Sephoras loyalty program will be able to earn Beauty Insider points and have access to overnight delivery to almost any location within the US through Google Express. So consumers wont be losing the advantages of being a member and will instead have the same benefits they would shopping directly through the store, mobile app, or website. Meanwhile, Best Buy shoppers will be able to use voice actions to store hours or the status of an order thats already been placed via Google Express and voice actions, in addition to being able to place a new order.

Advertisement

Impact: These latest Google Express partners add tens of thousands of new products to the shopping service just in time for the holiday shopping season. However, the addition of Nike takes matters a bit further still and may hold some implications for the future of the service. While several shoe outlets like Shoes.com and Payless are already part of the program, the addition of Nike actually marks the first time a shoe brand has been added directly to Shopping Actions. That will allow Google Express to effectively act as the middleman in transactions taking place between customers and Nike itself. For Nike, that gives the company a wider audience for direct sales without sacrificing the ability to provide NikePlus membership benefits to loyal customers. For Google, the partnership could pave the way for further direct brand inclusions if everything goes smoothly for the sneaker manufacturerIn Short: OnePlus co-founder and CEO, Pete Lau, has confirmed that the OnePlus 3, 3T, 5, and 5T users will have to wait in order to get their taste of Android 9 Pie. In addition to that, he also said that Android 9 Pie will come pre-installed on the OnePlus 6T, which is to be expected, considering that it landed on the OnePlus 6 a while back. Pete Lau did, however, want to assure users who use the OnePlus 3, 3T, 5, or 5T that the update is coming, but that it will take the company a bit of time to push it out to those devices. Pete Lau said that the companys engineers will need more time in order to fully prepare Android 9 Pie for those four devices, as the company wants to avoid any unnecessary bugs, and everything of the sort. The companys co-founder did also mention that the OnePlus 6T will go on sale in China on November 5, while it will become available globally on November 6. Needless to say, Chinas version of the device and the global unit will not be the same, as they will ship with a different software on top. That is more or less everything that Pete Lau shared, for now.

Background: OnePlus has been talking about the OnePlus 6T for quite some time now. The company had already confirmed quite a few details about the device, as we do know that the phone will ship without a 3.5mm headphone jack, and that it will sport an in-display fingerprint scanner. The removal of a 3.5mm headphone jack did not sit well with OnePlus consumers, as many of them were displeased with the companys move, but it remains to be seen if that will affect the OnePlus 6T sales. The company has also confirmed that the phone will ship with an in-display fingerprint scanner of an optical kind, so it remains to be seen what will OnePlus implementation look like, but that fingerprint scanner will hardly be faster than the capacitive unit included on the back of the OnePlus 6. The OnePlus 6s fingerprint scanner is regarded to be one of the fastest out there, and OnePlus has hopefully managed to implement this optical in-display fingerprint scanner in a satisfying manner, otherwise it will be a failure on their part.

OnePlus had recently announced that a brand new UI will ship on the OnePlus 6T, and were presuming that the company is talking about a new OxygenOS UI. OnePlus did not share any more details regarding that, though, so it remains to be seen how will the UI look like. OnePlus did say that it has optimized its gesture-based navigation for the OnePlus 6T, and that it will be more functional than ever. On top of that, the company is adding a new gesture to its navigation, you will be able to swiftly swipe from the bottom of the display (center part), to the upper-right part in order to quickly switch between two last apps you used. On top of that, a quick action for calling up Google Assistant will be added as well, you will be able to hold the power key for 0.5 seconds in order to fire up Google Assistant.

Advertisement

The OnePlus 6T will resemble the OnePlus 6 quite a bit, the phone will be made out of metal and glass, and its back side will look the same as the one on the OnePlus 6, aside from the fact a fingerprint scanner will not be placed there. The front side of the OnePlus 6T will look more appealing as the devices display notch will be considerably smaller than the one on the OnePlus 6. The OnePlus 6T will sport the so-called waterdrop notch that weve already seen on the OPPO R17 and some other devices. The phones front-facing camera will be included there, and also the phones earpiece which will sit in the upper portion of that notch. The OnePlus 6T will ship with the same processor as the OnePlus 6, while it will sport the same RAM options as its predecessor, quite probably. The devices battery will be larger, though, as its expected to come with a 3,700mAh unit, but its display will also be larger than the one on the OnePlus 6, as the OnePlus 6T is expected to come with a 6.4-inch fullHD+ OLED panel. The device will have an improved dual camera on the back, which is also something OnePlus mentioned, though we do not know if the company plans to include new sensors altogether, or did it talk about software-related changes only. On top of everything it is worth noting that the phones cases surfaced yesterday, so feel free to check out what will OnePlus offer, though the OnePlus 6Ts cases seem to be the same as the ones offered for the OnePlus 6, at least for the most part. It is worth noting that this is just a leak, of course, the company still did not confirm what sort of cases can we expect for the device, and it will not do that until the phone becomes official.

Impact: As many of you already know, the OnePlus 6T will be announced on October 30 in New York, and as you can see, we already have quite a few info about the device. The phones price tag did not surface just yet, but it is expected to be more expensive than the OnePlus 6 was / is. The OnePlus 6Ts base model may end up costing around $560, or something of the sort, though thats just a guess at this point. The company will surely reveal more info before the device gets announced, though, as were still about two weeks away from the event, not to mention that new rumors and leaks will probably surface as well. As far as the Android 9 Pie update for the OnePlus 3, 3T, 5, and 5T is concerned, Pete Lau did not give out any indication as to when can we expect it to arrive, so its possible that it may not land for those four devices until early 2019, though thats just a wild guess, were still two and a half months away from 2019, so its possible that the company will push it out in either November or December, well see.OnePlus is expected to announce its second flagship smartphone for 2018, the OnePlus 6T, by the end of this month and the handset has been subjected to a series of leaks revealing most of its details in recent weeks. A new report surfaced today claiming to have the pricing info of the upcoming high-end smartphone, along with its expected RAM and storage variants. As per the report, the OnePlus product will ship in three memory configurations  6GB of RAM with 128GB of flash memory, 8GB of RAM with 256GB of storage space, and 8GB of RAM with 256GB of memory. Notably, the base variant will reportedly have its 64GB storage module replaced with a higher capacity 128GB one, making it the go-to variant for those looking for more built-in memory without having to go for the higher-priced variants, especially since OnePlus devices dont feature microSD card slots.

Talking about the pricing, the OnePlus 6T is said to be the companys priciest smartphone till date. The Chinese OEM usually ups its device prices by a few dollars with its every subsequent launch, and the upcoming 6T will not be an exception. The leak suggests that the base model of the high-end phone will cost Rs. 37,999, or $516 approximately. Price will increase to Rs. 40,999 (~$556) for the next tier offering 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, while the top-end model with 256GB of storage will cost Rs. 44,999 (~$611). In comparison, the current OnePlus flagship was announced in India last May at a starting price of Rs. 34,999 (~$475) with the mid-tier and top-end variants costing Rs. 39,999 (~$543) and Rs. 43,999 (~$597), respectively.

The color options for the OnePlus 6T, on the other hand, are expected to stay unchanged, as per the report. The handsets glass back will ship with either a glossy or a matte black finish, depending on the storage variant. Mirror Black will be the only option for the base variant while the 256GB variant will be offered only in Midnight Black. The mid-tier model will be available in both the finishes, the report claims. Like its been the case with previous OnePlus flagships, the company may release the OnePlus 6T in more color options at a later stage. The upcoming handset will be an evolutionary upgrade over the OnePlus 6 and has been confirmed to include an under-display fingerprint scanner besides ditching the 3.5mm audio jack. The OnePlus 6T is scheduled to go official at an event in New York on October 30 with shipments starting from November 6.In Short: Xiaomi has confirmed the launch date for its new flagship, the Mi MIX 3, and in addition to that, the company also confirmed some aspects of the upcoming device. The Xiaomi Mi MIX 3 will be announced on October 25 in China, while the company has confirmed that the phone will support 5G out of the box, even though 5G is still not available, and it will not be until some point next year. On top of all that, the company has also confirmed, via one of its social media teasers, that a variant of the phone with 10GB of RAM will also be available, as the company is expected to release the Mi MIX 3 variants with less RAM as well.

Background: The Xiaomi Mi MIX 3 is expected to become the worlds first 10GB RAM smartphone, as the variant of the OPPO Find X with 10GB of RAM got certified, but it never became official. The company is also expected to announce an 8GB RAM variant of the Mi MIX 3, and quite possibly a 6GB RAM model as well, who knows. The Mi MIX 3 will also become the very first smartphone to support 5G out o the box, and we do have a really good idea as to what the phone will look like as well, as the companys Director of Product Management and global spokesperson, Donovan Sung, shared an image of a mysterious Xiaomi device at the end of August. Even though Mr. Sung did not specifically mention the Mi MIX 3 name, its quite obvious that we were looking at the Mi MIX 3 back then. As you can see in an image above, the devices bezels will be basically non-existent, its bottom chin will be one of the thinnest around, same goes for its top bezel. The phone will be made out of metal and glass / ceramic, and it will sport a sliding mechanism. The phones front-facing camera(s) will be hidden away until you fire up the front-facing camera mode in the camera app, while the devices rear-facing cameras will be available at all times.

Impact: The Xiaomi Mi MIX 3 will be one of the best-looking devices out there, at least if you consider lack of bezels a benchmark for good looks on smartphones. The device will sport a large display, though were not sure what size will it be, while you can also expect to see Qualcomms Snapdragon 845 64-bit octa-core processor included in this phone. The fact that it will ship with 5G support will not matter for months, but its a great feature for marketing, same can be said for 10GB of RAM as well, as youll hardly use all 10 at the same time, though the same can be said for phones with 8GB of RAM as well. The Mi MIX 3 is expected to include a large battery, and ship with Android 9 Pie, with Xiaomis MIUI 10 skin on top of it. In any case, the Mi MIX 3s arrival is right around the corner, all will be revealed on October 25, as details are still quite scarce.Posted on: September 27, 2018 2:49 PM

[ACNS, by Julanne Clarke-Morris] Anglicans attending a joint World Council of Churches (WCC) and Vatican conference in Rome have spoken out on the need to counter xenophobia and racism towards refugees and migrants. Anglican experts were called to the World Conference on Xenophobia, Racism and Populist Nationalism in the Context of Global Migration, which took place in Rome from 18 to 20 September, co-sponsored by Vatican Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development and the WCC, with the support of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.

Dr Agnes Aboum from the Anglican Church in Kenya, who was at the conference in her role as Moderator of WCC Central Committee, was joined by 200 global and regional experts on refugee and migrant issues as well as ecumenical, religious and civil society change-makers. She said the conference recognised the gravity of unchecked xenophobic rhetoric and hate-inspired violence around the globe.

The problem of populist nationalism inciting negative and violent responses to refugees and migrants appears in some way, everywhere, she said. It threatens communities both in countries of reception and countries of origin.

According to Dr Aboum, the Anglican Communion must heed the message of this weeks conference and take action to counter racism and xenophobia in the countries of the Communion, as well as focusing on activities that can hold Anglicans together to counter the problem from all sides.

At an audience with Pope Francis at the Vatican on the final day of the conference, the pontiff commended the conference as a welcome sign of renewed cooperation between churches on issues of justice and human wellbeing and encouraged more such collaborations in the future.

Faced with the spread of new forms of xenophobia and racism, leaders of all religions also have an important mission: to spread among their faithful the principles and ethical values inscribed by God in the heart of man known as the natural law, he said to the assembled conference at the Vatican reception on 20 September.

The three-day programme in Rome brought together refugee voices and experts from legal, policymaking and pastoral fields from across the globe.

Representatives of United Nations bodies spoke on the state of refugee and migrants rights, highlighting the social impact of major movements in Africa and the Middle East, as well as the political responses to refugees in Europe. Speakers included representatives from UNICEF, the UN Alliance of Civilizations, and the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights. Inter-governmental bodies such the African Union and Council of Europe also contributed their perspectives on both causes and ways to mitigate anti-immigrant attacks.

Presenters set out to identify and shift the attitudes and political circumstances that lead to populist nationalism and xenophobia, including inequality within nations, and emphasised the power of civil society, the media, academia, religious and ecumenical leadership to advocate for peace and equality between nationals and immigrants.

The UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Minorities, Professor Fernand Varennes told the conference that bigotry and xenophobia against refugees and migrants are not yet the new normal  but it look not far over the horizon. He noted a worrying increase in nation states that do not even pay lip service to international human rights law, but instead show open contempt for the rights of migrants.

Prof Varennes encouraged the worlds churches to monitor and advocate for the inalienable rights of migrants, asylum seekers and refugees as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which celebrates its 70th anniversary in 2018, and in the recently agreed Global Compacts for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration and on Refugees. He called on churches to hold states to account whenever politicians push policies that disrespect human rights and urged churches to reinforce and build on the commitments already made by their governments.

Church of England experts at the conference included USPGs theological adviser on global relations, Dr Evie Vernon OBrien, who also represented the Pan African Womens Ecumenical Empowerment Network, and Richard Reddie from Christian Aid.

Evie Vernon OBrien believes the churches in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales need to keep issues of racial justice high on their agenda. These issues are very current in the UK, with rising signs of populist nationalism, and also Islamophobia, she said. We can see a lot of scaremongering, and cases where churches have not only failed to act against racism, but bought into that racism themselves.

None of the scaremongering tactics can be proven with evidence, so we are dealing with a matter of perception. Stokers of fears against migrants which picture them as takers and locals as losing out, are based on lies.

Richard Reddie highlighted the conferences emphasis on scripture which can be used as either a basis for insider versus outsider mentality, or to emphasise Jesus command to welcome the stranger. He added that for the Church of England, the claim that migrants make a contribution to their receiving communities comes very close to home.

In almost every place where the Church of England is growing, it is growing thanks to Black and immigrant Anglicans, he said.

Traci Blackmon from the United Church of Christ USA named the foundations of anti-black and brown racism in current US anti-immigrant policies, which she said are congruent with the US history of racism that is both systematic and systemic.

When President Trump closed the refugee programme it was not designed to stop border crossing from the north. It was focused on the south, where migrants are most likely to be poor and non-white skin, she told the conference.

Blackmon went on to name the importance of racist and anti-immigrant political hate speech to build conditions which enable longer-term residents of nations to justify harsh and unjust treatment of newcomers: Propaganda is essential to lead people to act inhumanely. It is always easier to oppress people that we detest.

Dr Peniel Rajkumar, a priest from the Church of South India and interfaith scholar who serves as WCC Programme Executive for Interreligious Dialogue and Cooperation, invited experts from different religious traditions the conference. Speakers from Hindu, Muslim, and Buddhist traditions pointed to core doctrines from their traditions that can lead the faithful away from fear of the stranger.

Katsutoshi Mizumo from Japan spoke on the Buddhist call to compassion; Prof Anantanand Rambachan elaborated the Hindu belief in the presence of God in all persons regardless of age, gender or ethnicity; and Dr Aref Nayed described Islam as a migratory religion where all people are strangers seeking to be led by God in Gods way, adding that all Muslims who abuse migrants, abuse Islam.

Religious communities, including Saint Egidio, Focolare and Taize spoke on their work with refugees and migrants, giving insights into the personal stories of individual refugees and their struggles to come to terms with the new cultural world they find themselves in when arriving in Europe. Several speakers raised the issue of racism as one of the building blocks of colonisation and the large-scale disenfranchisement of indigenous peoples, coming through particularly strongly in regional reporting from the continents of Africa, Asia, the Pacific and the Americas.

Finally, media practitioners from the World Association of Christian Communication and church and secular media experts from six global regions presented ways to utilise media platforms to counter the narratives of fear underpinning xenophobic thought and action.Posted on: October 17, 2018 4:00 PM

The House of Bishops of the Igreja Episcopal Anglicana do Brasil (IEAB)  the Episcopal Anglican Church of Brazil  is urging the countrys Christians to read your Bible in a profound and prayerful way as the nation prepares for the run-off presidential election. The first round of the election, on 7 October, saw far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro from the Social Liberal Party fall short of an overall majority, polling 46.03 per cent. Bolsonaro, who is recovering after being stabbed while campaigning in Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais, will now face a run-off on 28 October against second-placed candidate Fernando Haddad of the Workers Party. He polled 29.28 per cent of the votes.

The man who stabbed Bolsonaro, 40-year-old Adelio Bispo de Oliveira, reportedly claimed that he had been ordered by God to carry out the attack. His lawyer, Pedro Possa, told Bloomberg news network that Oliveira had said he acted due to political and religious reasons, against Bolsonaros prejudices. He acted without anyone elses participation nor on anyones order.

In their statement, signed by eight diocesan bishops  including the Primate, Bishop Naudal Alves Gomes  and seven emeritus bishops, the leaders of the IEAB say: Dear Christians in this country, we challenge you to read your Bible in a profound and prayerful way, confronting messages that are clearly opposed to the Gospel of Christ, avoiding the use of Gods name in vain, rejecting anti-Christian and anti-democratic proposals who seem to come directly from God.

The choice we are going to make might have effects that will last more than four years of government. All signs point to increased violence and discrimination, creating a serious risk to freedom, justice and peace. May we make our choice guided by these three principles. Only in this way we will embrace our Anglican and Christian identity, only then we will show our commitment to democracy. Let us pray together.

Through their statement, the bishops say that they are publicly calling on all people who take part [in]f our church and Brazilian society for a serious reflection on the elections. We are living in a time when aggressive, intolerant behaviour and the dissemination of false news violently violate non-negotiable principles of the Christian faith, they say. Followers of Jesus cannot ignore how much, our Lord Jesus Christ, exalted those who are just, who are peacemakers, and who are persecuted for righteousness sake (Matthew 5: 9). For true religion is the practice of love, kindness and the establishment of justice for all people (cf. Jeremiah 9:23, Micah 6:8 and James 1:9).

They continue: The point is not that there is conflict in society. All human societies, at all times and in all places, have been through some sort of conflict. Conflict expresses, in simple terms, disagreement with injustices, with violation of rights, with economic oppression, and with discrimination.

What worries us as shepherds is the encouragement of conflict by denying dialogue and public debates, by hatred of those who think differently, and by using lies as a weapon to demonise people and projects.

The Episcopal Anglican Church of Brazil is part of the Anglican Communion, which is found in more than 150 countries around the world and, through its theological reflection and public positions, has established itself unashamedly for human rights and on the side of public institutions which ensure them, through concrete actions to promote justice and peace.

Our communion of churches respects and even embraces dissent, a plurality of views on our faith, and respects social and political choices its members take. We are a church that strives to build a path of equality and peaceful co-existence, amid doctrinal, ethical and social differences among people. It worries us when our brothers and sisters ignore such call which flows out of their own faith tradition, and fail to correctly discern a way forward.

We cannot agree with the use of language that harasses, curses, shames and disrespects people as a way of confronting political and ideological differences. We cannot condone the use of language that glorifies and incites violence as a way to solve social, political or economic problems; which expresses clear disagreement with globally accepted standards of social protection and which does not guarantee the rights of the poor, women and minorities.

The moment our country is going through requires us to know how to recognise the tree by its fruits. It also demands us not to forget, in a country where Christians are a majority, the consequences of teaching what they believe to be the legacy of tradition or the biblical truth, knowing that, without knowledge, people may fall and be led astray. Without wise and just leadership, the disintegration society and the collapse of our future might come. Without truth, there is no way to build peace and foster justice.

We recognise that both churches and Brazilian society are divided, but we call for discernment, through reflection and prayer, and for harmonious co-existence of the majorities and minorities, by building public policies that address Brazilian problems in a climate of absolute and unconditional respect for democratic institutions.

We call on our people to seriously evaluate candidates programs and not to minimise or ignore the signs of our times, such as: people being beaten or harassed because of their manner of life or activism, international public opinion alarmed by Brazils directions, intellectuals and social activists who inform us about our reality and the daily life of local communities and national and international networks of social action and religious leaders who admonish us that, by choosing Jesus as the model, we must bear fruit in terms of solidarity, healing, care and transformation for the common good.

In addition to the presidential election run-off, a second-round of voting will take place on 28 October for gubernatorial elections to at which Governors and Vice Governors of a number of states and federal districts will be decided.Alongside the launch of the new twice-weekly services to Macau, the carrier has also introduced transpacific freighter services, providing direct flights over the Pacific from Macau to North America, resulting in reduced flight times and faster services for customers.

China and the Americas are key markets for Qatar Airways Cargo, with many of the major industrial and manufacturing centres in the Guangdong province of China located on the West/Macau side of the Pearl River Delta. Electronics, garments and e-commerce goods are the major commodities exported out of Macau, while imports into Macau consists primarily of consumer goods. The transpacific flights also increase capacity to and from North America, further benefiting customers.

Qatar Airways chief officer cargo, Guillaume Halleux, said: We have launched our newest freighter destination, Macau, just in time for the holiday season when air freight demand is high and the market is strong. The new services will connect manufacturing industries and exporters from the region to North America directly and quickly, without requiring a stopover at our hub in Doha. The launch of these services demonstrates our commitment to our customers in helping their businesses grow, while also enabling us to expand our presence in these key regions.Passengers travelling on ultra-long-haul or long-haul flights in First Class and Business Class will receive a luxurious BRICS amenity bag created exclusively for Qatar Airways by the stylish Italian luggage brand, in a carefully chosen shade of pink called Rose Pompadour. This years amenity kits have been lined with a bespoke fabric featuring the famous pink ribbon, now synonymous with Breast Cancer Awareness.

Each bag contains exclusive products from Italys Castello Monte Vibiano Vecchio, the environmentally friendly olive oil company. The skin care range includes lip balm, hydrating facial mist, and anti-ageing moisturiser in Business Class, with added Night Recovery Cream for First Class kits. Pink socks, eyeshades and ear plugs complete the range, with the addition of a BRICS signature luggage tag for First Class.

Passengers travelling on all ultra long-haul flights and long-haul night flights in Economy Class will also, for the first time this year, receive a special edition pink ribbon amenity bag.

Qatar Airways senior vice president marketing and corporate communications, Salam Al Shawa, said: Qatar Airways is very proud to support Breast Cancer Awareness Month once again this year by providing these specially-designed, limited edition amenity kits during the month of October. These unique kits, designed for male and female passengers alike, demonstrate our ongoing commitment to raising awareness of breast cancer, and show our support for those affected by it. As an airline, we are inspired by the tremendous effort that has gone into fighting this disease, and are especially pleased to be able to offer these kits to our Economy Class passengers travelling on all ultra long-haul and long-haul night flights, ensuring that the message reaches as many people as possible.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.Baker McKenzie is to open another services hub following the success of similar operations in Manilla and Belfast.

The new centre will be in Tampa, Florida, and will create around 300 jobs to provide expert advice on areas including Legal Services, Finance, IT, Knowledge Management, Operations, Business Development, Marketing and Communications, and Talent.

With centres in Asia, Europe, and North America, the firm says it will be able to provide the best follow the sun support for its clients worldwide.Lord Peter Goldsmith QC, who chairs the firms European and Asian litigation, said that Hughes is a great fit with the firms global litigation team, which he said is one of the key strengths of the firm.

He has been advising the regions biggest financial institutions for many years, and has been at the forefront of developing white collar and regulatory defence practices as they have evolved in Asia, he said.

Hong Kong-based partner Mark Johnson said that the firms clients in Asia, particularly those in the financial services sector, are working in an increasingly complex regulatory and enforcement environment.

Adding a lawyer of Gareths calibre to our team gives further senior experience to the practice, helping us to strengthen our practice at a time when our clients most need it, Johnson said.An insurance brokering giant has expanded in Australia with the help of Lander & Rogers.

The national law firm acted for Arthur J. Gallagher on its acquisition of Super Advice for an undisclosed sum. Halsey Legal acted for Super Advice on the deal.

The acquisition of one of the largest employee benefit consultant and corporate advisory groups in Australia comes after the NYSE-listed multinational bought Brisbane-based Complete Financial Balance last year in a deal that Lander & Rogers also advised on.Dawson tells NBC affiliate Lex18 that the car went missing when he was at work: apparently, someone stole his keys from the break room and got away with the car. He gave up hope of ever seeing it again, so he was surprised when he got a call weeks later saying police had recovered it.However, it was hardly the car he knew.It was spray-painted from bumper to bumper. The hubcaps were taken off. All the stuff was stolen out from inside of it, so it was a totally different car when we got to it, Dawson tells the media outlet.He knew he could afford neither the extensive repairs or a new car. He posted about his mishap on social media because he wanted to vent, but to his luck, his story found its way to Daryl Lyons, the owner of a local detail shop called Detail Lex.Ive been in college, so I know what that feeling is like when youre trying to figure out, How am I going to do this? How am I going to do this? How am I going to pay for that? And hes a really good kid, and I just wanted to help him, Lyons says.The entire crew worked on the car for weeks in a row, making sure they got the Nissan to the condition it was before thieves ruined it.Naturally, Dawson is grateful for such a kind gesture, especially since he wasnt charged a dime for it. And while Lyons might get a ton of free publicity for what he did, his gesture is enough to restore any skeptics faith in humanity, if only temporarily.As Saudi Arabia went on the defensive last week about Jamal Khashoggis alleged murder, Ankara seized the chance to repair relations with Washington by releasing U.S. pastor Andrew Brunson. We feel much different about Turkey today than we did yesterday, President Trump told reporters on Saturday, expressing his hope of having a very, very good relationship.

The big picture: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has long wanted Turkey to supplant Saudi Arabia as the dominant power in the Middle East. The Khashoggi affair has presented a unique opportunity to undermine Saudi influence, potentially creating a regional power void for Turkey to fill.

Background: The emergence of Turkey as a rival Middle East power traces back to the Arab Spring, when the Turks supported Egypts Muslim Brotherhood government and the Saudis bitterly opposed it. Erdogan is an Islamist; many like-minded political parties in the region look to him for leadership, and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) has accused him of trying to reinstate the Islamic Caliphate of the Ottoman Empire.

MBS spent the past year  and millions of dollars  positioning himself as a golden boy in Washington, just as Erdogan and Trump came to blows over the jailed American pastor, resulting in crippling sanctions and a nadir in U.S.-Turkey relations.

For Erdogan, Khashoggis death couldnt have happened at a better moment. The day after, Erdogan gave a speech in which his ambition for regional leadership was on full display. The gruesome details of Khashoggis murder trickled out, punctuating the claims of Turkish officials and their allies that the Saudi-Emirati-U.S. alliance was morally bankrupt.

Between the lines: The Trump administrations approach to the region has also fueled Turkeys rise, transforming the war against ISIS into a confrontation with regional rival Iran and blessing the Saudi-Emirati siege of U.S. ally Qatar. In response, Turkey sent troops to protect Qatar and is coordinating with Iran in the Syrian conflict, solidifying a new axis of influence. With Saudi Arabia on the ropes over Khashoggi, Erdogan has more opportunities to ramp up his influence in Washington and the Arab world.

The bottom line: Ironically, it is Erdogan, a strongman who hates the media almost as much as Trump, who could find himself the biggest beneficiary of Western outrage over a journalists murder.

Lawrence Pintak is a professor at Washington State University, a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, and the author of The New Arab Journalist."A big reason for President Trump's accommodating stance toward Saudi rulers in the apparent killing of Jamal Khashoggi is rooted in a simple dynamic: Trump needs them.

The big picture: Rice University energy scholar Jim Krane has a helpful Forbes commentary on the "crude realpolitik" behind Trump's openness to the kingdom's denials of responsibility. It stems from the president's need for more Saudi barrels on the market to offset the effects of his Iran sanctions.

"[T]he decision to soft-pedal the Saudis plays well with the Trump administrations worldview, where international norms mean little; even less when cheap Election Day gasoline is on the line," writes Krane.

Threat level: In a note this morning, a Verisk Maplecroft analyst looks more broadly at the Saudi posture, including their implicit threat a few days ago to wield oil as a weapon in response to potential punishment over Khashoggi.

"[T]he thinly veiled threat to drive up oil prices if the U.S., UK or France impose sanctions has raised the threshold for anyone considering punitive measures against Saudi Arabia," writes Torbjorn Soltvedt.

While oil production cuts are unlikely and would be "far up the escalation ladder," Soltvedt notes that in the event of a diplomatic crisis, the Saudis could take less dramatic steps like canceling arms deals or reducing intelligence sharing.

The bottom line: The Saudis' defiant responses have raised the stakes of punitive action over Khashoggi, and Trump's posture thus far suggests it's working. "By affirming King Salmans denial of any knowledge of the matter an immediate escalation has been avoided," Soltvedt writes.

P.S.: One frame for looking at who's bailing on the Saudi's upcoming Future Investment Initiative (FII) conference  dubbed "Davos in the desert"  is to see how much risk is involved in the decision.Patriarch Bartholomew I, the Istanbul-based leader of more than 300 million Eastern Orthodox believers, last week moved to grant the Ukrainian church independence from Russia for the first time in 300 years. That led to the biggest split in the church in centuries.

Why it matters: This is a spiritual matter with distinctly worldly implications  after all, just four years ago Russia annexed Crimea and backed an insurgency that continues to grind on in Ukraines east. Many Ukrainians view the independence of the Ukrainian church through the lens of their countrys ongoing struggle against Russian influence.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has seized on the issue as a way to boost his dismal approval ratings ahead of next years presidential election. Over the weekend, he hailed the decision not only as a prayer answered, but as an issue of national security and as a critical component of the European future he imagines for his country.

Meanwhile the Kremlin, and the closely aligned Russian Orthodox Church, are furious.

For one thing, independence for the Ukrainian church could cost the Russian church about a third of its parishes there.

But more broadly, Moscow sees itself not only as a defender of Orthodox believers everywhere, it views the lands of Ukraine with special zeal as the cradle of the Russian Orthodox faith. In fact, thats one of the reasons Putin ordered the Russian invasion in 2014.

The issue is so critical for Russia, in fact, that Putin summoned a security council meeting about it over the weekend. And Russias Orthodox leaders have now explicitly rejected Patriarch Bartholomews decision, in a move that could spell Christianitys biggest schism in 1,000 years.

What to watch: Ominously, the Russian government has also claimed the right to intervene in Ukraine to protect the interests of the Orthodox church there, in terms surely meant as a warning to Ukrainians both in office and in church. Keep a close eye on this in the coming weeks, as tensions could flare sharply on the ground.

Sign up for Signal, a thrice-weekly newsletter from GZERO Media, a Eurasia Group company, and follow @saosasha on Twitter.Dan and Axios World editor David Lawler discuss the latest on Jamal Khashoggi, including why the 'wait-and-see' window might be closing for the Saudis, the White House and U.S. companies.

"This is all going to come to a head a week from today in Riyadh, when the Saudis still apparently plan to hold their giant future Investment Initiative conference. Lots of big business folks have already pulled out, but many others havent, and the White House still plans to send Treasury Sec. Steven Mnuchin. Almost everyone still going claims to be 'monitoring' the situation, but theyre going to have to make very tough choices if there isnt conclusive evidence either implicating or exonerating MBS in the next seven days."

Go deeper: Davos in the Desert's biggest name keeps quietBrazil appears poised to elect Jair Bolsonaro  a longtime backbencher who has spoken fondly of military rule and was best known until recently for his penchant for racist, sexist and homophobic comments  as its next president.

The big picture: Bolsonaros campaign has been fueled by anger over crime, corruption and a sputtering economy. But the fury isnt contained to Brazil.

Venezuelas economic, political and humanitarian crisis has generated an exodus of some 4 million people. The migrant crisis rivals Syrias, and its placing a huge burden on the countrys neighbors. So dire is the situation inside Venezuela, meanwhile, that foreign military intervention is being discussed in earnest.

economic, political and humanitarian crisis has generated an exodus of some 4 million people. The migrant crisis rivals Syrias, and its placing a huge burden on the countrys neighbors. So dire is the situation inside Venezuela, meanwhile, that foreign military intervention is being discussed in earnest. Colombia has taken in at least 2 million Venezuelans, exacerbating a tense political situation there. A peace deal polarized the electorate, Coca production is at an all-time high and Ivan Duque, the countrys new president, has his work cut out for him.

has taken in at least 2 million Venezuelans, exacerbating a tense political situation there. A peace deal polarized the electorate, Coca production is at an all-time high and Ivan Duque, the countrys new president, has his work cut out for him. Argentina is attempting to claw its way out of a currency crisis. A recession looms and that has undercut the popularity of President Mauricio Macri, a centrist. His predecessor and political rival, though, might be headed to prison.

What to watch: As we've seen from the massive corruption scandals that have reached across borders and affected much of the continent over the past few years, South Americas politics are deeply intertwined. Things tend to unfold in waves. Right now, theyre heading in the wrong direction.

Sign up for my bi-weekly World newsletter by clicking here.President Trump's signature issue is back in the spotlight less than three weeks before Election Day, with surging arrests at the border and a high-profile caravan on the way from Honduras.

Why it matters: The Trump administration's severe measures to deter border crossings don't appear to be working.

Roughly 4,000 Honduran migrants are now in Guatemala, heading north, NBC News reports.

"Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will travel to Mexico to meet with his counterparts on Friday, where plans to stop the caravan will be a 'prominent' topic of discussion," they report.

Trump has personally threatened aid to Honduras if they don't stop the caravan, which is no longer within its borders.

Between the lines: "Border Patrol agents arrested 16,658 family members in September, the highest one-month total on record and an 80 percent increase from July," the Washington Post reports.

If accurate, that's more than a 50% jump from last year, which was already an outlier.

"In September, U.S. Border Patrol agents apprehended more than 41,400 undocumented immigrants, up from 37,544 in August," NBC News reports.

The big picture: Even if Trump reinstated a form of family separation in an attempt to deter migrants, they would overwhelm Health and Human Services. The agency already struggles to house and care for more than 13,000 migrant children.

P.S. Nancy Pelosi yesterday: It happens to be like a manhood issue for the president, building a wall, and Im not interested in that..."

We cant allow him to say were not interested in protecting the border... That isnt the only way to protect the border. In fact, its probably the worst way to protect the border.

The bottom line: After two very abnormal years in politics, the stakes from November look increasingly familiar ... taxes, health care and immigration.

Go deeper: Trump's kids crisis gets worsePrime Minister Nikol Pashinian made clear on Wednesday that his Civil Contract party will not form an alliance with any other political group ahead of Armenias forthcoming parliamentary elections.

Pashinian said it could only team up with individuals supporting his and his governments political agenda.

Civil Contract already fielded such non-partisan candidates, most of them young civic activists, in the September 23 municipal elections in Yerevan. Their My Step bloc won over 80 percent of the vote. Pashinians team should also do very well in the general elections expected in December.

We will participate [in the December elections] on our own  or in the My Step format, Pashinian told RFE/RLs Armenian service (Azatutyun.am).

He specifically ruled out an electoral alliance with the Republic and Bright Armenia parties making up, together with Civil Contract, the Yelk bloc.

Yelk was set up in the run-up to Armenias last parliamentary elections held in April 2017. It won 9 of the 105 seats in the current National Assembly.

Republic and Bright Armenia refused to back Pashinian when he launched in April this year street protests that eventually toppled the countrys longtime leader, Serzh Sarkisian. They voiced support for the Pashinian-led campaign only after it rapidly gained momentum.

Lena Nazarian, a senior Civil Contract member, echoed Pashinians statements. We will not form alliances with other parties, Nazarian told RFE/RLs Armenian service.

We want to again form an alliance with individual citizens, she said, adding that they must be professionals having experience, knowledge and skills needed in the parliament.

Pashinian tendered his and his cabinets resignation late on Tuesday in an effort to ensure that the snap polls are held in the first half of December. Sarkisians Republican Party and other parliamentary forces have pledged not to try to scuttle his plans.China has donated 200 new ambulances to Armenia as part of its continuing economic assistance to the South Caucasus country.

The vehicles fitted with modern medical equipment were officially handed over to the Armenian side on Wednesday at a ceremony attended by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, Health Minister Arsen Torosian and other senior Armenian officials. Two-thirds of them are due to be distributed to public ambulance services outside Yerevan.

Torosian stressed the significance of the $13 million donation, saying that 65 of those vehicles are intensive care ambulances that will enable Armenian doctors to save more lives when providing first medical assistance.

Chinas ambassador in Yerevan, Tian Erlong, said Chinese specialists have trained about 350 Armenian doctors, nurses and ambulance drivers to use the new equipment.

China already donated 88 ambulances to Armenia in 2011. Its plans to provide more such vehicles and medical equipment were first announced by the former Armenian government last year.

Chinese government aid to Armenia has totaled at least $50 million since 2012. It includes 250 Chinese-manufactured buses donated to Yerevans public transportation system six years ago.

Tian attributed this selfless aid to what he called centuries-old friendship of our peoples. I am confident that China and Armenia will continue to cooperate in various areas and that Chinese-Armenian ties will be continuous and strong, the envoy said at the ceremony.

Political relations between the two nations have been cordial ever since Armenia gained independence in 1991. Chinese President Xi Jinping and his then Armenian counterpart Serzh Sarkisian reported mutual understanding on issues relating to pivotal interests and concerns of the two countries after talks in Beijing in 2015.

The current Armenian government seems keen to maintain the warm rapport with Beijing. Pashinian said China and Armenia share many common interests when he attended the inauguration in August of a new school in Yerevan where hundreds of Armenian children study the Chinese language.

The Chinese government spent over $12 million on building and equipping the school. Intensive language courses there are taught by Chinese teachers.

China further underscored its interest in Armenia last year when it started building a new and much bigger building for its embassy in Yerevan. The vast embassy compound is due to be completed by the end of 2019. It will reportedly be the second largest Chinese diplomatic mission in the former Soviet Union.

China has been Armenias second largest trading partner for the last several years. According to official Armenian statistics, Chinese-Armenian trade soared by nearly 50 percent, to $342 million, in the first half of this year.The brother of Armenias embattled former Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamian was released from pre-trial custody on Wednesday two months after being charged with illegal arms possession.

The National Security Service (NSS) arrested Henrik Abrahamian on August 8 after raiding a former industrial plant in his native village of Mkhchian and finding three machine guns, seven Kalashnikov assault rifles and other firearms stashed there.

The NSS and the Special Investigative Service (SIS) said at the time that they are trying to determine whether the weapons were used against opposition protesters in Yerevan in the wake of a disputed 2008 presidential election. The SIS chief, Sasun Khachatrian, admitted late last week that they have found no evidence of that.

An Armenian court then agreed to Henrik Abrahamian on bail. Both he and his once influential brother deny any connection to the confiscated weapons.

In early September, Hovik Abrahamian was charged with abuse of power and illegal entrepreneurial activity. Another law-enforcement agency, the Investigative Committee, claimed that in 2008 he forced a businessman to give up a majority stake in a mining company. Investigators refrained from arresting him.

Abrahamian, who served as prime minister from 2014-2016, denied the charges as politically motivated, saying that the new Armenian authorities are cracking down on dissent.

Abrahamian, 60, held high-ranking state posts and developed extensive business interests during former Presidents Robert Kocharians and Serzh Sarkisians tenures. He managed Sarkisians 2008 and 2013 presidential election campaigns.

Abrahamian fell out with Sarkisian a few months after being sacked by the latter in September 2016. He left Sarkisians Republican Party (HHK) in January 2017.By Trend

Over the past 24 hours, Armenian armed forces have 30 times violated the ceasefire along the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said Oct. 17.

Armenian armed forces were using heavy machine guns.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzBy Sara Israfilbayova

Three cargo trips are carried out between Turkey, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan weekly via the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway.

Presently Turkey exports construction materials, detergents, food and agricultural products via the BTK to Azerbaijan, Georgia, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia, and imports mainly grain, iron and zinc, Minister of Transport and Infrastructure of Turkey Mehmet Cahit Turhan told Trend.

The minister also noted that since the start of operation of the BTK railway, 100,000 tons of cargo has been transported in 102 container trains.

Turhan went on to say that with the BTK railway, construction of one of the important sections of the Middle Corridor in Turkey was completed, adding that BTK became a part of the work to revive the Silk Road, which is not only a transport and economic project, but also a political, cultural and social one.

Speaking of the Silk Road he noted that it is the longest transport and trade corridor in the world, further saying that with the total length of 18,000 kilometers it covers more than 60 countries.

With the start of operation of the BTK railway, Turkey was able to create a transport corridor between Europe and Asia. At the same time, with the completion of this project, the Turkish State Railways (TCDD Tasimacilik AS), a part of our ministry, became a member of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route Association since February 15, 2018, he concluded.

On October 30, a solemn ceremony on the occasion of the opening of the BTK railway was held at the Baku International Sea Trade Port. Two trains from Kazakhstan to Turkish Mersin have already been sent via this route. The first train, consisting of 30 containers, on November 4, delivered 600 tons of wheat to the Turkish city of Mersin. The second freight train left Kazakhstan on November 27. The train has already reached Georgia.

The BTK railway was constructed on the basis of the Azerbaijan-Georgia-Turkey intergovernmental agreement. The main purpose of the project was to improve economic relations between the three countries and attract foreign direct investment by connecting Europe and Asia.

In fact, the BTK railway route is the shortest way to deliver cargo from the Russian regions located in the Volga, Ural and Siberian Federal Districts to the Mediterranean ports of Turkey, and further to the countries of Africa and the Middle East.

The project implementation began in 2007 and construction began in 2008. The line is intended to transport one million passengers and 6.5 million tons of freight at the first stage. This capacity will then reach 3 million passengers and 17 million tons of cargo.

---

Sara Israfilbayova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Sara_999Is

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzBy Abdul Kerimkhanov

The preliminary agreements on cooperation between the business circles of Mongolia and Azerbaijan have been reached, the Director of Neuron Technologies company Ismail Alekberov told Trend.

He stated that about 20 local export companies have taken part in a business forum organized as part of an export mission.

The Azerbaijani delegation was led by Deputy Minister of Economy Niyazi Safarov, who held meetings with the head of state and with the ministers of Mongolia.

The business negotiations are continuing. The meetings held can be called fruitful. The proposed IT solutions have aroused great interest of the Mongolian colleagues. We can definitely say that the digital transformation process in this country is in its infancy. In Mongolia, many projects are expected to be implemented in the area of construction of e-government. It is possible that we will be able to apply the Azerbaijani model of the ASAN Service in this country," said Alekberov.

In addition, the head of the Neuron Technologies company said, the implementation of such major projects as "e-education", "e-health" and "e-agriculture" is also expected in Mongolia.

"Mongolia is a developing country in Central Asia and the Far East. The country pays special attention to the agricultural sector. Despite the fact that the countrys area is about 1.6 million square kilometers, the population of Mongolia slightly exceeds three million people. A lot of infrastructure projects are being implemented in Mongolia, and many countries are interested in being present in this market," Alekberov added.

He noted that Azerbaijan and Mongolia have established quite fruitful contacts and the meetings held within the framework of the export mission will only serve to strengthen cooperation between the two countries.

The day before, we held B2B meetings, a business forum, met with state authorities of Mongolia. The Neuron Technologies company offered its solutions in specific areas, in particular for agricultural sectors. For example, there are more than 60 million heads of cattle and small cattle in Mongolia. We proposed to introduce an animal identification system - Personal Identification System of Animals, which aroused the interest of our colleagues. In addition, we also offer solutions for the education sector, and the cooperation issues were discussed with the leadership of the IT association of Mongolia and with large IT companies of this country. We have been offered specific projects that will be implemented jointly," Alekberov said.

The export mission to Mongolia was organized through the Azerbaijan Export & Investment Promotion Foundation (AZPROMO). During the visit of the mission to Ulan Bator, an Azerbaijan-Mongolia business forum was held. The meetings with officials of this country, as well as the B2B meetings between representatives of business entities of the two countries took place.

The parties discussed issues of expanding cooperation between entrepreneurs of Azerbaijan and Mongolia, the possibility of exporting Azerbaijani products to this country.

The export missions play an important role in expanding non-oil exports and promoting the domestic made products. To date, Azerbaijan Export and Investment Promotion Foundation (AZPROMO) has organized 13 export missions to 10 foreign countries-Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Qatar, Kazakhstan, Hungary, China, Russia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia.

Exhibitions, organized by the state bring excellent results. National entrepreneurs took part in different international exhibitions-Gulfood 2017, Prowein, ANUGA, Worldfood Moscow 2017 and the International Exhibition of Wines and Alcoholic Beverages in Hong Kong to promote the brand.

This year the number of export missions that can be organized with the participation of Azerbaijani entrepreneurs in one calendar year has been increased from 10 to 25. Also, the number of international fairs and exhibitions, where a national stand can be presented with the participation of Azerbaijani businessmen was increased from five to ten.

Diplomatic relations between Azerbaijan and Mongolia were established in 1992. Relations and cooperation between two countries are expanding not only at the bilateral, but also at the international and regional levels.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzBy Sara Israfilbayova

A presentation of Azerbaijani wines was held at the Madrid Rioxa Center on October 17.

Addressing the event, President of the Madrid Rioxa Center, Jose Antonio Ruperez Cano, noted that Azerbaijani wines have excellent taste and quality, and thats why its not by chance that a joint presentation of Azerbaijani wines and Rioja wines is held.

In turn, Azerbaijani Ambassador of Azerbaijan in Spain, Anar Maharramov, said that winemaking in Azerbaijan, which has an ancient tradition, is one of the priority agricultural areas of the country.

It was noted that as a result of the State Program for the Development of Wine in Azerbaijan in 2018-2025, development of viticulture in the country was widespread, sales and promotion of wines under a national brand were successfully implemented, and the wine houses of Azerbaijan opened in other countries.

Viticulture in Azerbaijan has an ancient history. The proof of this is that during the archaeological excavations conducted in Aghstafa region of Azerbaijan in 1962, grape seeds were found. Archaeological finds in Uzerliktepe, Kultepe and Gazakh evidence to the ancient culture of winemaking, which is going back to the end of the III millennium BC.

In the 1980s the State Committee for Viticulture of Azerbaijan occupied the first place in the USSR, outstripping the oil industry.

Winemaking is one of the profitable and historical spheres of the agro-industry. About 210 wineries operated in Azerbaijan in the 1980s, while over 151,000 workers and specialists worked in the winemaking system.

On the territory of Azerbaijan, both white and red wines are produced. In particular, most wines are produced at the Khachmaz factory. Hence the best white, red and pink wines are exported to Russia, Ukraine, the Baltic States, Poland, France, Spain, Turkey and China.

Among the most famous varieties used in wine production are Kishmish, Bendi, Gamashara, Gizili, Marandi, White Shani, Aligote, Sauvignon, Muscat, Pinot, Riesling and others. In total, the state grows more than 450 varieties of grapevine.

Today, the country plans to open wine houses in different countries, and the first one opened in Urumqi, China on September 2.

Azerbaijan Wine House will support the export of national products, expand the volume and geography of exports, and promote the Made in Azerbaijan brand in Chinese market.

The main export destinations for Azerbaijani wine are Russia (85 percent), China (seven percent), Europe, Belarus and Kyrgyzstan.

---

Sara Israfilbayova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Sara_999Is

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzBy Trend

The position of Azerbaijan in the Global Competitiveness Report 2018 of the World Economic Forum (WEF), prepared according to a new methodology, is the result of successful economic reforms carried out in the country, Doctor of Economics Muslim Ibrahimov told Trend Oct. 17.

"The rating has undergone major changes. The main changes involved describing the status of the country, its competitiveness and business environment in the context of global changes and challenges. However, in this case it is clear that there is a certain picture of how the country builds its institutional environment today. This includes, first of all, social policy, establishing business environment, and in general, the status of the socio-economic system," he said.

"Of course, it is very pleasing that all those actions that were carried out by Government of Azerbaijan in the course of time, ultimately did their positive part. The position taken by the country in this rating causes nothing but optimism," Ibrahimov said.

He noted that one of the features of the updated rating is that all the indicators in it are closely related to each other.

Each indicator provides some correlation to another indicator. I would say that all indicators that are included in this rating are primarily based on a new approach - this is an inclusive economic growth, when a country creates an environment that is resistant to global shocks. The country is ready to tackle issues that, in principle, were caused by problems in the global economy," says Ibrahimov.

"Speaking of inclusive economic growth, we can say that due to the fact that Azerbaijan implements the Strategic Road Maps for the national economy and the main sectors of the economy and economic growth is at the forefront, to some extent we even outpaced the events. Of course, those indicators that are being evaluated today are also indicated in the road maps. Azerbaijan continues the policy of sustainable economic development and a solid base has been created in the country to continue economic reforms," the expert noted.

Some 68 new indicators were included in the seriously changed methodology of the Global Competitiveness Report of the WEF, and 84 (74 percent) of 114 indicators were excluded. Thus, 70 percent of the 98 indicators are completely new. Azerbaijan is estimated by new methodology for the first time. The country together with Turkey, Serbia, Georgia, South Africa and Croatia entered the list of top seventy countries.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzBy Abdul Kerimkhanov

The Week of the Italian Language has started in Baku on October 16 and will last till October 21, the Italian Embassy in Azerbaijan said.

A series of events will be held in Baku as part of the Italian Language Week. A round table on the theme "Traveling on the net ... To Italy!" will be held at the Azerbaijan University of Tourism and Management on October 16 at 4 p.m.

On October 19, a conference and discussion of changes in the Italian language in the modern globalized world will be held at the Azerbaijan University of Languages with the participation of Azerbaijani and Italian professors and students.

The topic of the Week this year is Italian and the web, social networks for the Italian Language. This issue is relevant and covers the relationship between the Italian language and the Internet, new information technologies and social communications.

The Italian Language Week is an international project aimed at promoting the language of modern culture and art. Every year, on the third week of October, events are organized around the world, including conferences, exhibitions, concerts, meetings, etc.

The previous week of the Italian language was held last year in Minsk and was devoted to the topic of Italian language in films.

The initiative was launched in 2001 through the joint action of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and the Accademia della Crusca, which was subsequently joined by the Swiss Confederation, where Italian is one of the country's official languages.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzBy Narmina Mammadova

The Second International Tea Festival, organized by the Azerbaijani Association of National Cookery and the Center for National Cookery, will be held on International Chefs Day in Baku, event organizers told Trend Life.

The event will be held at Sheraton Baku Airport Hotel on October 20 at 11 a.m.

The tea traditions of Azerbaijan, Japan, Turkey, China, India, Russia, Uzbekistan and other countries will be presented at the festival.

Annually, cooks from all over the world celebrate International Chefs Day on October 20. The date was established in 2004 at the initiative of the World Association of Culinary Communities. This organization has 8 million members - representatives of the chef profession from different countries.

The event has been celebrated for 14 years in the world and 12 in Azerbaijan.

The celebration of International Chefs Day has become widespread in more than 70 countries. In addition to directly culinary specialists, employees of travel companies, owners of catering enterprises take part in organizing festive events. Various culinary competitions are held, festivals, tastings with cooking culinary delights and other events are organized on this day.

The first International Tea Festival was held in Baku on October 20, 2015. Representatives of Azerbaijan, Turkey, Indonesia, Japan, Iran, Uzbekistan, India, China, Tajikistan took part in it. The guests of the festival had the opportunity to take part in a tea ceremony, enjoy various sorts of tea, as well as try national dishes and sweets of participating countries.

Azerbaijani tea culture has a time-honored history, since this beverage is an integral part of peoples daily life in the country. Azerbaijan is among the leading countries in terms of tea consumption per capita.

Azerbaijan is also the largest tea producer among the CIS countries. This applies not only to black tea varieties, but also to green ones. For the first time, small tea plantations yielded crops at the end of the 19th century in the South Caucasus region of Azerbaijan, but the development of local tea growing started only in 1932.

In the country, tea is mainly grown in the Lankaran-Astara region. This is an area of some 5,330 sq. km. and includes Astara, Lankaran, Masalli, Lerik, Yardimli and Jalilabad regions. Tea is grown in the first four of these regions. About 91 percent of tea production in Azerbaijan falls to the share of Lankaran.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzBy Laman Ismayilova

The Embassy of Switzerland is pleased to invite you to the presentation of the Swiss movie "The Divine Order".

The film will be screened at Yarat Contemporary Art Space on October 25.

"The Divine Order" (Die gottliche Ordnung) is a comedy-drama film from 2017 and the winner of the Audience Award for the best narrative film at the Tribeca Film Festival (2017).

Perhaps not everyone knows that Switzerland - despite its century-old legacy of direct democracy - was one of the last countries in the world to introduce female suffrage. It was only in 1971 when Swiss men allowed women in a popular vote to have the right to vote and be elected to Parliament at federal level.

Film director Petra Volpe brings this long-kept "secret" of Swiss Democracy to the big screen in a very funny and entertaining way. The movie is set in Switzerland in 1970 and tells the story of the transformation of a housewife Nora into a change- maker in her small conservative Swiss town. Despite obstacles and backlashes, Nora becomes a hero as she overthrows the status quo together with antiquated views of that time.

Ambassador Philipp Stalder and representatives of the Swiss Embassy will discuss the movie with event participants over some refreshments, which will be served at the same venue right after the screening.

Admission is free. The screening starts at 19:30.

Original language is Swiss German with subtitles in English.

Addresss: Baku, Bayil district, National Flag Square

---

Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzBy Trend

The occupant Armenia, which is experiencing an economic and political crisis, is unable to hold a serious international event, so it was no big surprise for anyone that Yerevan, in order to hide its predatory essence, would turn the Francophonie summit into a cheap political show, Azerbaijani MP, Vice-President of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Azay Guliyev, told Trend Oct. 16.

He was commenting on the Francophonie summit held in Yerevan October 11-12.

Therefore, such events, except for festivities and dances of a group of people, are not remembered by anything, he said. The Francophonie summit held in Armenia was of no serious importance either in its essence or in terms of respecting the international community. However, the significance of this event was diminished not only by its holding in Armenia, but also the words of Michaelle Jean, who for many years headed this organization, which she called a moribund organization, which has no precedent in the international arena when secretary general speaks about her organization in this way.

Imagine that the organizations secretary general calls the structure a moribund organization, that is, meaningless and unnecessary, he noted. I think no comments are needed, and this proposal alone, that the secretary general tweeted, can be considered the most accurate and correct assessment of the essence of the Francophonie summit in Armenia. One may ask: why do we consider it necessary to pay attention to such a meaningless event? The answer is simple. Thats because Armenia, using this event, again tried to deceive the international community and provide falsified information about the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Undoubtedly, these attempts and steps should not and will not remain unanswered.

The MP noted that when hosting such events, Armenia has a number of goals.

Firstly, with the help of such events, Armenia is trying to get out of self-isolation, to collect benefits and donations from foreign countries, he said. Secondly, based on its two-faced nature, Armenia is trying to differently present and justify the continuation of the aggression policy against Azerbaijan, and thus is zealous in order to gain international support in resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in its favor. The fact that the Nagorno-Karabakh region was represented by the Armenian pavilion at the event also proceeded from this essence. Finally, having held this event, Armenia was trying to demonstrate that it allegedly respects the humanistic values and is committed to them. That is, Armenia, as always, acted hypocritically.

But its attempts failed again, Guliyev added. Armenia has not achieved anything and cannot achieve at least because practically all the countries participating in the summit know very well Armenias true colours and aggressive nature."

Most of 58 member-states of the organization and 24 countries with observer status in various international organizations supported the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, recognized Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven adjacent districts as an integral part of Azerbaijan, voted and signed the appeals and resolutions addressed to Armenia on the withdrawal of its armed forces from these territories, he said.

"If you noticed, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan tried to provoke French President Emmanuel Macron and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, to get their support related to Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, but none of them went to these provocations, he said. They did not want to spoil relations with Azerbaijan and even did not make a statement on the conflict. This is a fiasco for Armenia. The only soothing for Pashinyan was that both individuals danced for a few minutes to the stolen Azerbaijani music."

Guliyev stressed that one of the main goals of the Francophonie summit is to promote the principles of humanism, peace, human rights and freedoms in the world.

"From this point of view, the very fact of the holding of the Francophonie summit in Armenia is full of paradoxes and contradictions, he said. The holding of the Francophonie summit propagandizing humanism, peace and human rights in Armenia, notorious in the world as a mono-ethnic and racist country, which deported representatives of all other nations, in particular Azerbaijanis, occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijani territories, made 1.200 million of our compatriots refugees and internally displaced people, carried out a policy of ethnic cleansing against our fellow citizens, which was accused of numerous crimes against humanity and finally which committed the most brutal crime of the 20th century - the Khojaly genocide is an insult to humanistic values.

Therefore, the Armenian Francophonie is nonsense not only from the point of view of humiliation of humanistic values, but also respect for the modern system of international relations, human rights and freedoms," Guliyev added.

In conclusion, Guliyev stressed historical words by Secretary General Michaelle Jean about the International Organisation of the Francophonie.

Pinning hopes with such dead organizations, Armenia will never be able to correct its ruined international image, get out of the self-isolation and legitimize the ongoing aggressive policy, Guliyev said.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzBy Trend

Armenia will have to make compromises with Azerbaijan for resolving the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, US Ambassador Richard Mills said in an interview with the Armenian website EVN Report.

Although the diplomat is hoping that the transition in Armenia will generate more discussion on what Armenias options are and what Armenia is prepared to accept, Mills says he is been struck by how little discussion there was in Armenia about what would have been or is an acceptable solution and compromise.

Mills said that he was surprised when he first got there and found out that most Armenians he met adamantly opposed returning the occupied territories as part of a negotiation settlement.

He noted that return of land was one of the core principles of the Madrid Principles.

The reality is that any settlement is going to require the return of some portion of the occupied territories, he added.

In 1997-1998, then President of Armenia Levon Ter-Petrosyan proposed a plan to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, implying the demilitarization of the occupied territories and the return of a number of settlements to Azerbaijan.

As a result, Prime Minister Robert Kocharyan, Minister of Internal Affairs and National Security Serzh Sargsyan and Minister of Defense Vazgen Sargsyan, dissatisfied with such a plan, actually forced him to resign before the completion of his term of office - February 3, 1998.

This led to 20 years of the Karabakh clan rule in Yerevan, which showed no intention to compromise and was incapable of conducting constructive negotiations.

Nikol Pashinyan, who became prime minister of Armenia as a result of a velvet revolution, who was sometimes considered a protege of Ter-Petrosyan, stayed in people's memory in 2015 by his statement about the need to return the occupied districts around Nagorno-Karabakh.

Since the moment of coming to power, Pashinyan changed the rhetoric and has already started to talk about the "need for representatives of the separatist regime to participate in the talks".

But in his recent interview with France 24, he stated that Armenia has not raised and does not raise the issue of changing the negotiation process on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

"The negotiation process must continue in the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairmanship format," Pashinyan said.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzBy Trend

The Russian Foreign Ministry has commented on the recent illegal visit of Anna Hakobyan, a spouse of acting Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, to the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan together with a group of women from Russia.

The organizers of this campaign didnt appeal to the Russian Foreign Ministry, therefore it is difficult for us to objectively judge the campaigns conception, the Russian Foreign Ministry told Trend Oct. 17.

The understanding and support of all parties to the conflict are important for the success of such events, the ministry said.

Azerbaijan will raise an issue before the Russian Foreign Ministry about the initiative of Anna Hakobyan to organize an illegal visit of Russias women to Azerbaijans occupied territories, Leyla Abdullayeva, spokesperson of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry, told Trend earlier.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzBy Abdul Kerimkhanov

Space research will be a priority for Azerkosmos OJSC in the future, Rashad Nabiyev, chairman of the company, stated at an event organized on the occasion of awarding the winners of the CanSat Azerbaijan contest on October 16.

The main goal of the company since its creation is the return on investment and the payment of dividends.

Our responsibilities include the solution of a number of tasks, among which the most important is to conduct future space research, develop high-tech products and prepare professional industry personnel. From this point of view, the CanSat Azerbaijan competition plays a particularly important role, said Nabiyev.

He said that the students for the entire period of the competition were able to master the skills of creating satellite platforms, satellite payload, programming tasks, received detailed theoretical and practical knowledge.

They were able to prove that they can work in a team and make the right decisions in a critical situation. It is these qualities that employers today are paying attention to, along with students' technical knowledge, also interested in how quickly they can learn and master new areas," Nabiyev noted.

Azercosmos Open Joint-Stock Company (OJSC), the first satellite operator in the South Caucasus, was established in order to ensure the development, launch, commissioning and maintenance of the telecommunications satellite by Presidential Decree No. 885 dated May 3, 2010.

Having a highly qualified staff and technical capabilities, Azercosmos has become one of the leading ICT sectors in the country and throughout the region. The company's resources allow it to create new value-added technologies for use on the basis of modern infrastructure and the use of satellite-based services in areas not covered by surface communication networks.

"Azercosmos" OJSC has been awarded with the ISO 9001: 2008 Certificate of Compliance by Bureau Veritas in January 2013 and ISO 27001 - Information Security Standard Certificate in 2017.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzBy Trend

Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov and his Uzbek counterpart Shavkat Mirziyoyev in a phone conversation noted solid potential for building up interaction in the economy, the Turkmen government said in a message.

The sides stressed that the two neighboring countries reached a qualitatively new level of relations.

This is evidenced by the important agreements aimed at achieving concrete results, as well as the bilateral Strategic Partnership Agreement, signed last year in Ashgabat, the message said.

At the same time, the parties noted solid potential for increasing interaction in such sectors of the economy as transportation and communications, as well as agriculture.

Berdimuhamedov noted that the Uzbek agricultural equipment demonstrated good performance in the soil and climatic conditions of Turkmenistan, and the country intends to continue purchasing the equipment, the Turkmenistan State News Agency reported.

The parties also exchanged views on topical issues of the regional and global agenda.

Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, which have impressive reserves of hydrocarbon resources, favor diversification of energy flows.

The implementation of the Turkmenistan-Uzbekistan-Kazakhstan-China Gas Pipeline project, which was put into operation in 2009, is a good example of this.

Recently, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov invited businessmen of Uzbekistan to participate in the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline project. Construction of the Turkmen section of the pipeline started in December 2015.

Uzbekistan was also invited to start developing oil and gas fields on the Turkmen shelf of the Caspian Sea.

Ashgabat is ready to intensify cooperation in a project on supply of electricity from Central to South Asia through the Turkmenistan-Uzbekistan-Tajikistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan route.

At this stage, the two countries are also discussing a project to establish the Uzbekistan-Turkmenistan-Iran-Oman transport route. It will significantly increase international transit traffic and provide a new corridor to world markets.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzBy Trend

President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev has held a meeting on the accelerated development of the chemical industry, attraction of foreign investment and modern technologies to the industry.

Uzbekistans subsoil contains almost all elements of the periodic table. However, despite the rich reserves of hydrocarbons, the domestic chemical industry specializes mainly in the production of mineral fertilizers for agriculture.

The production of complex polymers, catalysts, reagents and synthetic fibers necessary for the construction materials, pharmaceutical, textile, engineering and other industries has not been established.

As a result, chemical products worth $1.5 billion are imported annually. Phosphorus and potash fertilizers produced in the country cover only a third of the demand for them.

Capacities for the production of complex mineral fertilizers are outdated by 60-70 percent, which leads to waste of energy resources, an increase in the cost of chemical products.

Since last year, 17 investment projects worth $ 3.1 billion have been launched in order to meet the need for mineral fertilizers. In addition, 17 more projects worth $4.2 billion will be implemented in order to diversify the chemical industry until 2025.

The upcoming measures to eliminate shortcomings in the industry and to further develop the chemical industry have been discussed at the meeting. As noted, the development of the industry requires the commissioning of new modern production facilities.

Today, the need for nitrogen fertilizers in Uzbekistan is met by 73 percent, in phosphate fertilizers - by 20 percent. The average wear level of nitrogen fertilizer production facilities is 64 percent, while the average wear level of phosphate fertilizer production facilities is 77 percent.

In order to improve the situation in this sphere, it is planned to implement 9 projects worth $2.8 billion in the next five years, as a result of which the production of mineral fertilizers and sulphate acid will double. The demand for nitrogen and potash fertilizers will be fully met, the level of satisfaction of demand for phosphate fertilizers will increase several times.

However, currently, only 14 percent of natural gas is deeply processed, in particular 5 percent of gas is processed in the chemical industry. The production of chemical products from silicon, kaolin and gypsum remains unaddressed.

According to the available data, there is a demand abroad for non-fertilizer products manufactured in Uzbekistan, mainly polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene in the amount of over $ 100 billion.

In this regard, in order to diversify the varieties of products of the chemical industry, it is planned to implement 15 projects for the production of organic substances and 8 projects for the production of inorganic substances.

At the meeting, the responsible persons have been charged with the development of a "roadmap" for the implementation of the set tasks with further continuous monitoring of its implementation.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzBy Trend

Armenias Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has resigned for conducting snap parliamentary election in December, Armenian media reported.

Pashinyan announced his resignation in a televised address to the Armenian people.



Earlier he told France 24 that an election is expected to be held December 9-10.

For it I must step down by October 16, Pashinyan said.



Under the Constitution of Armenia, the parliamentary factions are entitled to nominate prime minister candidates within seven days after the incumbent tenders his resignation or the post remains vacant otherwise.

In case of a failure to elect a chief to cabinet, the National Assembly conducts a new voting allowing only the candidate enjoying no less than a third of the parliaments support to vie for the top government office. If no candidate is elected with a general majority of votes, the National Assembly is dissolved.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzBy Abdul Kerimkhanov

The cost of the first nuclear power plant on the Tudakul reservoir was estimated at $ 11 billion.

President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev approved an agreement with Russia on construction of the nuclear power plant (NPP) on October 16. The plant will be similar to NPP, which is being built in the Belarusian Ostrovets.

As expected, Russian President Vladimir Putin will arrive in Uzbekistan on October 18-19 and personally take part in the opening ceremony of the NPP construction site.

The nuclear power plant will be located not far from the artificial reservoir Tudakul, 25 km north-east of Bukhara. There are large industrial zones of Bukhara and Navoi close to the NPP.

The Russian Rosatom plans to build a complex of two power units, with the launch of the first power unit being planned in 2028. The capacity of the nuclear power plant according to the plan will be 2,300 megawatts, which should cover up to 20 percent of Uzbekistans electricity needs. The project is expensive: Kremlin estimates the cost atthe level of $ 11 billion.

However, the calculations of the Uzbek authorities show, the nuclear power plant will save up to 4 billion cubic meters of natural gas, which today produces electricity.

Environmentalists have concerns about the use of nuclear energy in Uzbekistan and recommend the country's authorities to use a safe alternative to NPPs - a solar power plant. The republic is located in the subtropics, and it has vast territories on which to install panels.

In other countries of Central Asia, nuclear power plants were used only in Kazakhstan. In 19731999, a 350 MW fast-neutron reactor operated in Aktau. Now there are no nuclear power plants in Kazakhstan, but there are agreements on the construction of at least two nuclear power plants between Astana and Moscow: in Kurchatov in the East Kazakhstan region and in Ulken in the Almaty region on the shores of Lake Balkhash.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzBy Abdul Kerimkhanov

Tourism is developing in Azerbaijan at an unprecedented rate. The attention of the state to this area creates the basis for the implementation of important projects both in regions and the capital.

The construction of tourism facilities, hotels and leisure centers meeting the most modern world standards, along with Azerbaijans rich history, delicious traditional cuisine and natural hospitality attract people from all around the world.

Germany leads among the European countries in the number of tourists coming to Azerbaijan, expert in tourism, CEO of Amore Travel Baku Aynur Guseynova said in an interview with Azernews.

It is an undeniable fact that Arab tourists are leading the list of the most prominent tourists among our tourists recently. It is possible to add tourists from Russia, Pakistan, India, Kazakhstan and Iran to this list, she said.

Guseynova listed Icherisheher, Gobustan, Atashgah Valley as most popular places for sightseeing among foreign visitors.

In summer, the demand for beaches is also high. Gabala and Guba are in the forefront of our countrys regions, the CEO added, commenting on tourists favorite destinations.

She further said that Khinalig and Goygol may surprise foreigners who have already traveled the world far and wide. Recently, Azerbaijan has implemented a number of measures for the development of tourism sector in the country. Thus, the high inflow of tourists into the country is not surprising.

As many as 1,325 million tourists from 189 countries visited Azerbaijan in January to June 2018.

In comparison with the same period last year, the increase amounted to 10.2 percent.

Russian tourists lead in the list of incoming tourists with 30.5 percent share. As many as 21.1 percent account for citizens of Georgia, 11.1 percent - Iran, 10.8 percent - Turkey, 3.6 percent - UAE, 2.1 percent - Iraq, 2 percent - Ukraine, 18.7 percent - other countries and 0.1 percent - stateless persons.

Statistics on Arabic countries is even more impressive. Tourists from such countries as Kuwait (5.1 times), Saudi Arabia (3.5 times), Bahrain (2.6 times), Qatar (2.1 times), Oman - (1.6 times) registered a significant growth in the number of foreign visitors than in the same period last year. Moreover, the increase among tourists from Iraq amounted to 44.3 percent, and the UAE to 8.8 percent.

The number of tourists from Iran decreased by 18.8 percent. In general, during the first half of 2018, 276,600 people arrived in Azerbaijan from the countries of the Persian Gulf.

This year 53,500 Europeans visited Azerbaijan. And the number of guests from the CIS amounted to 478,300 people.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz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.A 36-year-old black man who struggled with mental illness and died after being tased by San Mateo County sheriffs deputies was the victim of excessive force, according to family members who on Tuesday called for a transparent and thorough investigation.

On Oct. 3, a sheriffs deputy came upon Chinedu Okobi, of Pacifica, running in and out of traffic on the 1300 block of El Camino Real in Millbrae, authorities said. Okobi allegedly refused to cooperate and the deputy called for help.

San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said two deputies tased Okobi to get him under control and handcuff him, which is when Okobi went into cardiac arrest. He was transported to Mills-Peninsula Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.

In a memorial Tuesday at the San Francisco Christian Center, Okobis family, friends and classmates remarked about his love of writing, poetry and sports. His siblings recalled fond memories of their baby brother, who had chubby cheeks and a big smile. Statements about Okobis passion for being a father book-ended observations on police brutality and racism.

His name has now joined an unfortunately long list of names, said Michael McBride, pastor of The Way Christian Center in Berkeley, alluding to other unarmed black people who have been killed by police.

In a news conference following the memorial, the family appeared with civil rights attorney John Burris and called on the district attorneys office to release more information, including all videos of the incident from dashboard cameras and witnesses cell phones.

All I know is, a young mans dead and he was in custody of the police, Burris said. He was unarmed, not engaged in any serious crime.

Burris has also represented the families of Mario Woods, Oscar Grant and Rodney King in civil lawsuits against police departments.

Okobis family said he struggled with mental health issues and questioned how police responded to him during a time of crisis.

This was a heavy-handed approach against someone who very likely was laboring under mental health conditions, Burris said. They may have not known that up front, but observations shouldve alerted them that something was going on.

Burris called for a moratorium on the use of Tasers in San Mateo County until the Sheriffs Office and all police departments within county boundaries can prove deputies and officers have been properly trained.

This is the third incident this year in San Mateo County that resulted in a suspects death after being tased.

In January, 34-year-old Warren Ragudo of Daly City died after an officer tased him while two other officers pressed their weight upon him. In August, 55-year-old Ramsey Saad became unconscious and later died after being tased by a Redwood City police officer.

Wagstaffe is still investigating the Saad case and found no criminal wrongdoing in the Ragudo case.

The district attorney expects the investigation into Okobis death to take eight to 10 weeks. In that time, the district attorney said, he will review interviews with each of the five deputies involved, an autopsy report and cell phone and dashboard camera video, and he will interview anyone who witnessed the incident to determine if criminal charges are warranted.

An autopsy report has not yet been completed.

Thats a crucial thing for us  why did this man die? Wagstaffe said. If I were to determine that there was excessive use of force, that would be a violation of law and there are a number of statutes that deal with that.

Ashley McBride is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: ashley.mcbride@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ashleynmcbWASHINGTON  Suffice it to say that Horseface and porn actress Stormy Daniels arent what Republicans want to talk about three weeks from the midterm elections  or ever. A record number of women are running, most of them Democrats, in the first balloting of the #MeToo era.

President Trumps tweet about Daniels came after a federal judge dismissed the adult film actress defamation lawsuit against the president. Trump tweeted: Great, now I can go after Horseface and her 3rd rate lawyer.

Add Horseface to a long list of Trumps unflattering references to women, including: Fat, ugly, disgusting, that dog, a 10, no longer a 10, a slob, Miss Piggy, Miss Housekeeping, wacky and crazy.

He has unloaded on former aide Omarosa Manigault Newman, praising White House Chief of Staff John Kelly for quickly firing that dog!

He mocked GOP rival Carly Fiorinas appearance. Look at that face, he said of Fiorina, according to Rolling Stone in 2015. Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?

He said 1996 Miss Universe Alicia Machado had gained a massive amount of weight and it was a real problem. Trump did not deny Machados charge that Trump called her Miss Piggy and Miss Housekeeping.

By now, Trumps infamous talk about women is embedded in American political lore. But through the campaign and his presidency, theres been little evidence that Trumps habit has done damage among his most passionate supporters.

One question in the 2018 midterms is whether Democratic voters will be particularly likely to cast ballots this year. In Gallups latest tracking poll, 34 percent of women say they approve of Trump, which is about where its been throughout his presidency. Republican women are still overwhelmingly likely to support him.

Being asked to respond to Trumps words is one of the least-favorite pastimes of members of his party. Asked about horseface, they tried to stay as bland as possible.

Theres no place for that kind of language, said House Speaker Paul Ryan on CBS This Morning.

I wish the president hadnt done it, said Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said on CNN. Ive made my feelings known, to the president, that tweeting a little less wouldnt cause brain damage. I mean you dont have to express every one of your thoughts.

Women are typically far more likely than men to support Democratic candidates, and this year is no exception. In a recent poll by the Washington Post and ABC News, 59 percent of women said they would be voting for Democratic House candidates, while just 46 percent of men said the same.

On the turnout question, the Post/ABC poll found that women under 40 were significantly more likely than they were in 2014 to say they were certain to vote.

Laurie Kellman is an Associated Press writer.By 2021, Beaumont police officer salaries will increase by 10.5 percent, under terms of a labor contract approved Tuesday. Thats on top of the 3 percent raise given to all city staff in early September.

RELATED: Beaumont city employees get raise in FY2019 budget

The deal with the Beaumont Police Officers Association also increases the amount of personal time an officer can carry from year to year and accrue before year's end. Beaumont City Council approved the contract in a unanimous vote.

I do believe this new agreement is a win-win, city manager Kyle Hayes said.

Hayes said the series of pay raises  3 percent in 2019, 3.5 percent in 2020 and 4 percent in 2021  will help ensure officers are paid the most when compared to those in other midsize Texas cities. He said this helps attract the best officers.

When we can afford it, we want to, he said. Were in a good position to attract the best and brightest in law enforcement. Thats our goal.

The council and police chief also spent more than an hour discussing the police departments practices and touting its successes.

During a presentation to the council, police Chief James Singletary said when his assistant chiefs attend trainings, they often find their home department is at the forefront of policing.

Singletary touted programs to build relationships with youth and adults, including Coffee with a Cop and Police Explorers, a leadership program for youth ages 14 to 21.

The department is also working on implementing a mental-health peace officer position. The officer will accompany a mental-health professional to scenes when mental health is a factor.

RELATED: Lawsuit claims Beaumont police covered for violent cop

The upbeat conversation with council members came on the heels of a federal wrongful-death lawsuit over the alleged conduct of an off-duty officer.

The lawsuit describes a police department custom of using excessive force that was a moving force behind the death of 23-year-old Chaz York in 2016. It alleges the officer who shot York did not receive discipline for earlier violent incidents.

It is a statement by the city that its peace officers can use excessive force without regard to the rights of the citizens and without fear of retribution in any form, whether in discipline or discharge, the lawsuit says.

Hayes would not comment on specific allegations, but he said he disagrees with the assertion that the departments culture in part allowed the death.

Ninety-nine percent of the officers do an excellent job every day, Hayes said. Youre going to have a few that break the rules. But its very few. When officers in the past have violated policy, (the chiefs) taken action. I dont see a culture problem at all.

kaitlin.bain@beaumontenterprise.com

twitter.com/KaitlinBainA 39-year-old Beaumont woman pleaded guilty to accepting bribes while working at the Bureau of Prisons, U.S. Attorney Joseph D. Brown announced Wednesday afternoon.

Charleas Artesha Wilkerson was charged with accepting a bribe as a public official, the U.S. Attorney's office said. She pleaded guilty Wednesday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Keith F. Giblin.The Minnesota Department of Human Services is notifying 21,000 individuals about a potential compromise of their personal information after it discovered an authorized third party gained access to two email accounts on two separate occasions, according to KSTP.

The department sent affected individuals  all of whom had interacted with the department between October 2010 and July 2018  a notice dated Oct. 9. Most of the affected individuals had interacted with Minnesota's State Medical Review Team, which determines disability status as required under various programs.

Department officials told KSTP that the accounts may have been accessed after two employees clicked on a link they received in a phishing email.

In a statement posted on its website, the department said, "We currently have no evidence that this information was actually clicked, viewed, downloaded or misused."

It is unclear what specific personal information was compromised, but the department notified HHS' Office for Civil Rights, which requires entities to report breaches of more than 500 individuals' protected health information.Epic will pay up to $10.3 million to help cover the total cost of a $21 million substation and high-voltage power line in Verona to help meet its growing energy needs, according to the Wisconsin State Journal.

American Transmission Co. said a 138-kilovolt line and substation are needed as backup for Epic's Verona, Wis., campus in case the primary connection fails. An ATC spokesperson told the Wisconsin State Journal that the company's future growth and subsequent energy needs could exceed the current line's capacity.

Epic's current peak energy demand is 15.5 megawatts, but as it continues to expand, the EHR giant expects it to nearly double by 2028. That would place Epic among the state's largest electric customers, Todd Stuart, executive director of the Wisconsin Industrial Energy Group, told the publication.

The remaining $11 million for the project would be funded with fees paid by the nearly 5 million energy users in the ATC service territory, which includes the eastern two-thirds of Wisconsin and Michigan's Upper Peninsula. ATC filed an application for the $21 million project with Wisconsin utility regulators on Oct. 15.

Epic has 2.2 megawatts of on-site solar panels, and it owns a wind farm in the nearby city of Waunakee, Wis., that can generate up to 9.6 megawatts of power. However, the massive campus still needs to connect to the power grid to run its computer servers and support its more than 9,500 on-site employees.To accommodate patient volume growth, MultiCare Good Samaritan Hospital in Puyallup, Wash., added 80 beds to its facility, according to The News Tribune.

The beds were added to the two top floors of Good Samaritan Hospital's Dally Tower. The seventh floor will house 40 new beds in its postsurgical care unit. The eighth floor will have 40 beds in a progressive care unit, where patients go after staying in the intensive care unit before they are well enough to return home.

"These new beds will help us keep up with the demand from the community to take care of the patients that need this care so badly," Lescia Myers, RN, clinical care director at Good Samaritan, told The News Tribune.

Construction of the hospital's Dally Tower was completed in 2011. The two top floors were left vacant until the hospital needed more beds.Atlanta-based Grady Health System is asking two Georgia counties to pony up an extra $21 million toward an expansion project with a cost estimate that's risen from $203 million to $231.3 million, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. The two counties already have committed $90 million to the project.

Grady, which serves poor residents, plans to build a surgical center and expand a center devoted to HIV and AIDS treatment. Fulton and DeKalb Counties are contributing to the development, scheduled for completion in mid-2021, since they jointly control the Atlanta hospital and network of clinics. The funding is generally divided on a 2:1 ratio  Fulton to DeKalb  to reflect that patient mix.

To meet Grady's request for another $21 million combined, the Fulton Board of Commissioners would need to increase funding from $60 million to $74.2 million, and DeKalb commissioners would need to bring their $30 million contribution to $37.1 million, according to the report.

The AJC spoke to an official from each county, both of whom indicated they are in favor of granting the health system's request, but they said the decision rests with their governing bodies.

So far, Grady has submitted a letter of intent for the development project but hasn't applied for a certificate of need.

Shannon Sale, senior vice president and chief of strategy with Grady, told the AJC the system needs to expand as soon as possible to accommodate more voluntary surgeries in the hospital. Once the expansion is complete, the main hospital also will have room for 40 to 50 more beds.Jersey City (N.J.) Medical Center has reached an agreement with Jersey City after the city appealed the hospital's tax-exempt status, The Jersey Journal reported.

Five things to know:

1. The agreement is part of a legal settlement between the parties. Under the agreement, the hospital will pay $550,000 annually to the city from 2018 until 2023, and the city will drop its appeal of the hospital's tax-exempt status, according to the report. The medical center also agreed to drop its counterchallenge.

2. The medical center is part of West Orange, N.J.-based RWJBarnabas Health. It is on a 15-acre campus that includes the Wilzig Hospital, the Provident Bank Ambulatory Center and the medical office building. According to the report, the assessed value of the medical center's main campus is $126 million. Based on comments from City attorney Nick Strasser, the hospital would owe $800,000 in property taxes in 2018 if it weren't tax-exempt.

3. One agreement in the legal settlement requires the medical center to pay $300,000 in "voluntary" property taxes annually, The Jersey Journal reported. The annual payments are retroactive to 2016 and end in 2023. The city, in turn, will stop challenging the hospital's tax-exempt status.

4. Another agreement requires the medical center to make "healthcare collaboration" payments to the city annually, according to the report. The payments will be $1 million for 2016 and 2017 and then $250,000 annually from 2018 until 2023.

5. The report notes the city could still challenge the hospital's tax-exempt status after 2023.

Access the full report here.

More articles on healthcare finance:

Complex Massachusetts insurance reimbursement system hikes costs, impedes price transparency, report finds

10 hospitals seeking CFOs

RCM tip of the day: Invest in peopleNew Hyde Park, N.Y.-based Northwell Health seeks to raise about $530 million for improvements and initiatives, Newsday reported.

The system wants to raise the money over the next five years for such improvements as the expansion North Shore University Hospital and Southside Hospital, according to the report. It would also use the money to establish initiatives in Manhattan and Long Island.

Brian Lally, the system's senior vice president and chief development officer, told Newsday Northwell has raised $460 million since the system's inception of a $1 billion fundraising campaign in 2016. The $530 million campaign is part of that overall fundraising effort.

The $460 million was used for improvements and new buildings, including the $46 million Imbert Cancer Center, which opened in 2016 in Bay Shore, N.Y., according to the report.

As part of the new $530 million fundraising goal, Northwell Health plans to build a surgical pavilion in Manhasset, and a five-story employee parking garage and a pavilion for private patient rooms in Bay Shore, Newsday reported. It also hopes to add an operating suite at Cohen Children's Medical Center in New Hyde Park.

More articles on healthcare finance:

Complex Massachusetts insurance reimbursement system hikes costs, impedes price transparency, report finds

10 hospitals seeking CFOs

RCM tip of the day: Invest in peopleObie Moore, a 73-year-old retired army sergeant exposed to Agent Orange while serving in the Vietnam War, was forced to partially cover the costs of a kidney transplant at a hospital in Atlanta after the Department of Veterans Affairs refused to perform and cover the transplant, according to Fox 5 Atlanta.

Here are four things to know:

1. Mr. Moore started dialysis in the 1950s and was put on the VA's kidney transplant list in 2015. However, the VA removed him from the list after learning he needed a heart stent. Mr. Moore said the agency told him it would put him back on the list once he was off blood thinners for a year and passed a stress test.

2. Instead, the VA sent a letter to Mr. Moore indicating "he was no longer a candidate for the waitlist, due to heart issues," according to Fox 5 Atlanta.

3. Mr. Moore took his medical records to Atlanta-based Piedmont Hospital, where he received a new kidney in July. Medicare paid for 80 percent of his transplant bills, leaving Mr. Moore with the remaining 20 percent, or about $50,000. If he underwent the procedure at his local VA hospital, the surgery would've been completely covered.

4. The VA said in a written statement to Fox 5 Atlanta it bases "independent decisions regarding the eligibility of any individual candidate" on National Organ transplant policy.

"We referred the patient to the transplant program, which is our normal process," the VA said in the statement. "The patient elected to see a provider of his own choice due to his disagreement."

More articles on healthcare finance:

Moody's affirms 'Ba3' rating on MaineGeneral Medical Center

Moody's affirms 'A1' rating on Vidant Health

Hospitals slow in cost-cutting efforts, survey findsPauls Valley (Okla.) Regional Medical Center employees met with the city manager Oct. 15 to discuss next steps after officials opted to shutter the facility last week, Oklahoma's News 4 reports.

The hospital authority voted Oct. 12 to shutter the facility after previous fundraising attempts failed. Officials said the hospital did not have any funding left to maintain operations.

"We couldn't pay bills. We couldn't meet the demands anymore. That's where we're at. There's no money to pay. I mean there is no money," Pauls Valley City Manager James Frizell told employees during a meeting Oct. 15.

Employees said during the meeting that their taxes and insurance premiums have not been paid for months, despite the deductions on their recent paychecks. Several employees reportedly discussed filing a class-action lawsuit against the hospital, according to the report.

Alliance Health Partners Oklahoma in Tulsa sought to step in and save the hospital in July. The company's CEO Frank Avignone started a GoFundMe page in September to raise $2 million for the facility. However, officials only raised $3,840.

During the meeting, Mr. Avignone called on the state attorney general to investigate the situation, according to the report. He also noted a recent patient death that may be partially attributed to the hospital's abrupt closure.



"They were not able to raise EMS, and they had to go to Purcell," Mr. Avignone said, according to KTEN. "By the time they did get to Purcell hospital, the patient had unfortunately expired."

Mr. Avignone said Oct. 15 unless another operator can contribute roughly $5 million to maintain operations, the hospital will likely remain closed, according to the Tulsa World.

To access the full report, click here.Healthcare workers in California will present employee-signed petitions to Kaiser Permanente executives Oct. 18 in Pasadena, Calif., the Service Employees International UnionUnited Healthcare Workers West announced.

The union  which represents more than 55,000 workers at California facilities owned by Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser Permanente  said the petition calls on Kaiser Permanente executives to not outsource jobs and negotiate with employees.

"The company claims it's all about helping the community thrive [but is] putting profits ahead of what's good for patients and our communities," said Sheri Salazar, an appointment clerk at Kaiser Woodland Hills (Calif.).

Healthcare workers also plan to protest against outsourcing jobs Oct. 18 at Kaiser corporate offices in Oakland.

The union claims Kaiser has plans to outsource various positions, including pharmacy warehouse workers and couriers in in Oakland and Livermore, Calif., pharmacy warehouse workers in Downey, Calif., and couriers in Southern California.

John Nelson, Kaiser Permanentes vice president of communications, called the unions claims unfortunate.

"SEIU-UHW's leaders are mischaracterizing Kaiser Permanente's strong commitment to labor to pursue their cynical bargaining tactics. Kaiser Permanente is growing and adding great jobs of all kinds. We're proud of the support we offer our employees," he told Becker's.

More articles on human capital and risk:

Michigan Medicine nurses approve contract with pay raises of 3 to 4%

Battle heats up between Stanford Health Care, union over hospital charge initiative

Tenet hospital in Michigan accused of unfair labor practicesOvercrowding at New York City-based Montefiore Medical Center  one of the state's busiest emergency rooms  has forced caregivers to treat patients through "hallway admissions," several nurses and patients at the hospital told the New York Daily News.

Kate Pugh, RN, a Montefiore ER nurse for five years, told the publication that on the busiest days, she typically treats up to 15 patients in the ER at one time.

"These are sick people," Ms. Pugh said. "Basically you're just running around putting out fires instead of giving quality care. This is not an easy fix. We just don't have space."

City Councilman Ritchie Torres sent a letter to the New York City Department of Investigation in August, urging the agency to "probe Montefiore's practice of placing Medicaid recipients in crowded hallways that neglect[s] patient care," the report states. However, the prompt failed to change patient care techniques at the hospital.

Overcrowding has become such an issue at the hospital that some staff have begun referring to it as "hallway admissions," which typically involves stacking equipment along the corridors. Doing so creates additional safety risks for patients and staff as they maneuver around the equipment, the report states.

In a statement to the New York Daily News, Montefiore Medical Center said: "Even though other emergency departments in our community are less busy and have available hospital beds, people come to Montefiore because we provide high-quality, compassionate and comprehensive care. To increase capacity during peak periods we utilize all available space and all patients are assigned a nurse, full care team, and receive comprehensive medical care. We are committed to working with elected officials, Bronx medical providers, and local partners to reduce reliance on emergency departments for non-emergency care and increase access to ambulatory care in the community."

To access the full report, click here.Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson is suing three major pharmaceutical companies that make insulin in the U.S.  Sanofi-Aventis, Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly  for the alleged price-gouging of people with diabetes who need the lifesaving drug. This is the first state to take legal action over the issue.

The lawsuit claims drugmakers fraudulently set "artificially high" list prices for their drugs and negotiated steep rebates with pharmacy benefit managers. This practice allegedly made the drugmakers' insulin more profitable for PBMs and in turn made the middlemen more inclined to place the drug on their formularies, or list of approved drugs under a health plan.

As a result of the practice, Ms. Swanson claims, the list prices the drug companies set were so far removed from the net prices that they failed to reflect the true cost of insulin and were deceptive and misleading.

While insured patients often pay a much lower rate than the list price, uninsured patients or those with high-deductible insurance plans ended up paying the artificial list price, the lawsuit contends.

"Insulin is a life-or-death drug for people with diabetes. Many people can't afford the price hikes but can't afford to stop taking the medication either," said Ms. Swanson.

Although the medications haven't fundamentally changed, the list prices of various insulin products have tripled since 2002, causing significant concerns about affordability.

In response to the lawsuit, Novo Nordisk defended itself, saying its "business practices are consistent with legal and regulatory requirements."

Eli Lilly pledged to "vigorously" fight the legal action, saying it believes "the claims are without merit."

Read the full news release here.After a CMS survey put Birmingham, Ala.-based Brookwood Baptist Medical Center at risk of losing its Medicare contract over patient safety issues in July, CMS says it is no longer in danger of losing funding, according to WBRC.

Brookwood Baptist is part of Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare. CMS' survey found the hospital's psychiatric unit staff used inappropriate restraint methods on several occasions, with one patient suffering cardiac arrest after being restrained face down. Hospital workers were unable to resuscitate the patient.

The hospital submitted a plan of correction to CMS in August.

"Brookwood Baptist Medical center is now in compliance with all of the Medical Conditions of Participation cited as result of a survey conducted on July 12, 2018, and a follow up survey conducted on Aug. 9, 2018," a CMS spokesperson said. "We continue to work with the state survey agency and the hospital to monitor its progress."

The state is expected to complete a follow-up survey on or before Oct. 20.Sterling (Colo.) Regional MedCenter's rehabilitation department recently acquired a gravity-altering machine, developed by a NASA engineer, that can help an array of patients in their recovery processes, according to the South Platte Sentinel.

Here are five things to know:

1. The Alter G via400 Anti-Gravity Treadmill was initially developed for astronauts to add weight while exercising. However, the machine's creator reversed this mechanism to instead limit weight for individuals recovering from injuries.

2. The treadmill can aid in the recovery process for patients with foot conditions, lower back problems, orthopedic conditions or neurologic conditions like multiple sclerosis. Patients recovering from a surgery may also find the treadmill beneficial.

"The beauty of [the machine] is really the breadth of patients we can use it with," Nicholas Moore, Senior Rehab Manager at Sterling Regional MedCenter told the South Platte Sentinel.

3. The treadmill supports anyone weighing 85 to 400 pounds. The machine's unweighing technology can take a patient down to 20 percent of their body weight on the lower half of their body.

4. The machine helps orthopedic patients increase mobility soon after surgery, which helps promote healing and "normal movement patterns," Mr. Moore told South Platte Sentinel. For neurologic patients, the machine offers a safe exercise environment and can help their neuro-muscular system work better. Patients also receive video feedback to help control their feet movements via a video camera built into the machine.

5. Sterling Regional MedCenter was the last Phoenix-based Banner Health facility in Colorado to install the treadmill. Mr. Moore said he worked with hospital leadership to make a case for why they needed the machine for their patient population.

"They really want to help us acquire tools that help us serve a larger population," Mr. Moore told South Platte Sentinel. "Not only will this help improve our outcomes, but it also helps us reach a larger group of people for whom exercise is a barrier."

More articles on clinical leadership and infection control:

3 ways hospitals can promote safe injection practices

Congo reports 24 Ebola deaths in 1 week

Weight loss among obese patients presurgery not linked to lower perioperative mortalityThe Democratic Republic of Congo's Health Ministry on Oct. 15 confirmed 33 new Ebola cases, which occurred between Oct. 8-14 and resulted in 24 deaths, according to Reuters.

Here are four things to know:

1. The Congo's violent climate is hindering Ebola containment efforts, and health officials are concerned the outbreak could spread to Congo's neighboring countries of Uganda and Rwanda.

2. The World Health Organization will hold an emergency meeting Oct. 17 to discuss whether the outbreak

3. Dr. Peter Salama, WHO deputy director-general of emergency preparedness and response, said he expects the current Ebola outbreak to last three to four months.

4. In total, health officials have identified 216 Ebola cases since July, including 139 deaths. Officials have confirmed all but about 35 cases.

More articles on clinical leadership and infection control:

Weight loss among obese patients presurgery not linked to lower perioperative mortality

Source of 127 polio-like illness is still a mystery, CDC says

Patients likely to suffer when EHR systems can't talk to each other, researcher saysOsage Beach, Mo.-based Lake Regional Hospital welcomed Fassil Mesfin, MD, PhD, according to Lake Expo.

Here are three key points:

1. Dr. Mesfin specializes in single-level lumbar microdiscectomies and laminectomies as well as single-level anterior cervical discectomies and fusion.

2. A board-certified neurosurgeon, Dr. Mesfin is also affiliated with Columbia-based University of Missouri Health Care, where he serves as director of the complex spine and spine oncology program.

3. Dr. Mesfin treats patients with spinal cord injuries, spinal stenosis, lumbar stenosis and spinal malformations.This week I am leading a delegation of organisations from Northern Ireland, including councils, businesses, universities and colleges, to the city of Dalian in the Chinese Province of Liaoning for the fourth UK-China Regional Leaders Summit.

Northern Ireland's relationship with China is an important one. It's about much more than just doing one-off business deals. It is about developing an enduring partnership to collaborate on many areas that will deliver positive outcomes for all our communities.

Our links with China have strengthened since we opened our Northern Ireland Bureau in Beijing in 2014 and the Chinese government opened a Consulate in Belfast the same year.

We were privileged to host the NI-China Summit last year - an unprecedented opportunity for over 100 senior Chinese government, business and academic leaders to visit and see what we have to offer. This summit was hugely successful and led to several partnerships being developed. Since then, our NI Bureau in China has been working hard to develop those relationships and negotiate new deals.

It's as a direct result of hosting those high profile Chinese leaders last year that we secured an invitation to be a part of the Summit in Liaoning. Northern Ireland has a formal partnership with Liaoning province to cooperate on areas such as trade, investment, research and education.

With a population of more than 43 million, we are small in comparison to Liaoning province, but I believe we have as much to contribute to that partnership as we get from it.

We've a lot to offer those looking to come here as a place to visit and do business.

But we can also add much value when it comes to sharing knowledge and working together to address challenges, to encourage our companies to do business together, to support access to new markets, to train our young people in jobs for the future and to have our universities collaborate on research. Trade is, of course, important in our relationship with China.

And it's growing. In fact, we've seen a growth of around 11% in our exports to China over the last year which are valued at around 174m. This provides a firm foundation for even more exciting opportunities to develop those business links in the future.

China is a great example of a country that has immeasurably improved its economy through engaging with the rest of the world. In the same way, we want to promote Northern Ireland as an exciting, outward looking region and improve our international reputation as we know this will support the creation of sustainable jobs, increasing economic prosperity and creating a better society for all.

There may be some 8,500km between Belfast and Dalian, but through visits like this one, we can seize opportunities to work closely together for the benefit of our people.Northern Ireland hotels need more promotion if demand is to keep up with a rise in supply as a "stormy" year beckons, according to a report released today.

The Northern Ireland Hotels Federation said a "shudder" was going through the industry, which comprises 141 hotels and 9,177 bedrooms.

In Belfast, 1,170 rooms were added over the past year, thanks to new construction of six new venues, including the Hampton by Hilton and the Grand Central, and extensions to two existing hotels.

The federation said the market was going through a "stutter" with occupancy and room rates going down.

"It is important to note that demand for hotel rooms has grown over the last year, but it hasn't kept pace with the increase in supply," it added.

A separate report by PwC put the cost of an overnight stay in a Belfast hotel at 80.

The federation predicted a significant fall in demand next year and 2020, with demand unlikely to catch up with supply until 2022.

On day two of industry event Hospitality Exchange, federation chief executive Janice Gault said: "Market snapshots indicate a stormy 2019 with volatility in the market. Overall analysis shows a reduction in occupancy levels and a decline in rate."

She said Northern Ireland needed a new tourism selling point - suggesting something like Failte Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way promotion, but for the north west and west coast.

"Demand is growing, but this needs to be accelerated with a number of interventions, including increased promotion, a bigger marketing budget and a proposition of scale for Northern Ireland along the lines of the Wild Atlantic Way," she added.

"Measures like this will allow the market to adapt to and absorb new supply. There has been a seismic change and a response of equal measure is required to create new business."

Ms Gault said challenges for the sector included skills and staff, as well as Brexit, which had led to "considerable uncertainty".

"Added to this are the issues around tax, in particular VAT, access constraints and capacity at key attractions," she said.

"You can see why the market is experiencing a shudder as we come to the end of an era of exceptional trading."

And while 2019 would be quiet in comparison to the flurry of openings in 2018, it was "far from dormant", the federation said.

There are to be new openings in Londonderry and Newry and Mourne, while ventures on the north coast are now "dependent on what has become a protracted planning process".

But Ms Gault said that despite some problems, the hotel sector "has strong prospects".

However, drawing in more visitors was paramount.

"We need to increase the size of the tourism cake to ensure that each hotel gets a good slice of business," she said.

"Having spent in the region of 500m, the hotel sector is keen to see a return on this investment and a realisation of the industry's potential."

A full briefing on the forecast takes place this morning at a business breakfast at Hospitality Exchange, which is taking place at the Crowne Plaza, Belfast.

Industry STR Global figures for June revealed that occupancy rates in Belfast were down by around 4% after 1,170 new rooms were added.An artists impression of the new health facility planned for Lisburn

An artists impression of the new health facility planned for Lisburn

An artists impression of the new health facility planned for Lisburn

A Northern Ireland company and UK developer associated with a Japanese firm have won a 40m contract for a new healthcare centre in Lisburn that will create 250 new jobs.

Real estate developer Kajima UK told the Belfast Telegraph that it was hoping to pick up more contracts in Northern Ireland  and is already preferred bidder on a care centre in Newry.

Kajima UK announced it would work on the new primary and community care centre in Lisburn as part of a consortium, GPG OHare, with other parties including Newry-based OHare & McGovern.

Kajima UK is linked to Japanese construction giant Kajima.

The centre at Lagan Valley Hospital will bring together eight GP practices and other services. It replaces an existing health centre at Linenhall Street.

Work is due to start next year, with the building opening in 2021. Its construction is expected to create 250 jobs.

The centre will be jointly funded by GPG OHare and Norddeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale (NORD/LB).

GPG OHare was picked for the project by the South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust.

It is expected that the trust will lease the centre from the developer, with the option to buy when the lease expires.

Graham Asset Management, part of Hillsborough-based Graham group, will provide the facilities management requirements for the new facility over the contract term.

Kajima UK said the Lisburn deal was its first in Northern Ireland, but added: We definitely want to do more work in Northern Ireland in both healthcare and social care and are always looking out for suitable opportunities.

We are also preferred bidder on the Newry Community Care and Treatment Centre, and are working away at trying to get that deal to financial close. We expect this to be sometime in quarter one 2019.

The centre will also have outpatient and diagnostic services, and specialisms including childrens services and adult mental health.

Hugh McCaughey, chief executive of the South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust, said the centre would deliver on its model of care, Where we bring services closer to the patients home.

We are confident this new development will transform how care is provided in Lisburn and the surrounding area, he added.

By moving services from an acute hospital base to a community-centred setting, with greater integration, we hope to ultimately achieve better outcomes for our patients.

Jitesh Patel, project director at Kajima Partnerships, said: This is a landmark development in healthcare provision and one which reflects our commitment to delivering outstanding facilities tailored to meet the specific needs of the community.Northern Ireland's unemployment rate has risen slightly to reach 4.3%, according to the latest figures.

A labour market report from the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (Nisra) showed the rate of joblessness from June to August was down from 4.7% on a year ago.

But the rate was up from 3.4% over the quarter before, although Nisra said it still compared favourably with 5.9% recorded two years ago.

The local long-term unemployment problem was more severe than in the UK as a whole, with around half of the total unemployed for a year or more, compared to 25% in the UK.

At 2,889, the number of redundancies over the past 12 months was 50% higher than in the previous year.

The province also has the UK's worst economic inactivity rate at 27.5%, with around 322,000 people neither in work nor looking for work, due to factors including illness and retirement.

The figures also showed that in September, the number of people claiming out-of-work benefits, including some claimants of universal credit, was 28,100 - a fall of 100 on August's revised figure.

Tina McKenzie, the policy chair of the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) in Northern Ireland, said: "While unemployment has slightly increased this quarter to 4.3%, it is still low by historic standards and employers are reporting difficulty in filling vacancies."

She insisted businesses would need flexibility post-Brexit so that they could employ workers from the EU if they were having difficulty filling vacancies.

"Last week, the FSB joined with other business organisations in calling on the Government to ensure migration policy is flexible and that business owners can hire the EU workers they need to grow their business."

Richard Ramsey, Ulster Bank chief economist, said the unemployment rate had risen steadily since an all-time low of 3.1% in early 2018.

The numbers covered in the unemployment rate had gone up by 7,000 over the last quarter to reach 38,000 - the biggest jump in six years.

After increasing to 4.3% from 3.5% six months ago, joblessness here was above the UK's 4% rate for the first time in a year.

Mr Ramsey added that the employment rate had reached a seven-month low of 69.2%, and he agreed a lack of workers could become a problem post-Brexit.

"EU nationals are a major part of Northern Ireland's workforce. Stronger economic growth and higher wage opportunities in the Eurozone have seen a significant number of these non-Irish EU nationals head to Germany and Poland, for example," he added.

"Given Brexit and the UK's desire to restrict migrant labour, the challenge for the Northern Ireland economy is increasingly going to be job replacement (and retention) rather than job creation."Interviews can be extremely nerve-wracking affairs, especially if you're in the running for your dream job, so doing everything you can to boost your confidence is a good idea - and that includes your outfit.

"A job interview begins with first impressions, and your clothes and grooming are a key part of this," says Amber Butchart, a fashion historian and expert who has appeared on the BBC's Great British Sewing Bee.

Butchart is working with careers app Debut on the 'Dress to Impress for 10' campaign, which starts on Wednesday and involves more than 650 charity shops. Representing 42 different charities, each shop will curate a selection of workwear staples priced at 5 each in order to help jobseekers find affordable interview clothing.

"Overall, it's really important to wear something you feel comfortable, confident and smart in," Butchart says. "Your clothes can affect your body language and the way you project yourself to future employers, so it's of utmost importance that you feel like the best version of yourself."

Follow the fashion expert's advice and you can achieve just that. Here, she shares her top tips for sartorial success...

Research the company's dress policy

"This will not only allow you to turn up to the interview properly attired, but will show you've taken time and consideration before you've even arrived."

Don't be afraid to wear colour

"...but not too much. A shock of colour can help to make you stand out and make a bold statement, but avoid clashing prints or colours unless your interview is for a job in the arts or creative industries. (While I am a huge fan of clashing colours and prints, I'm aware not everyone shares my passion!)"

A suit isn't essential

"Smart separates can be better than an ill-fitting or poorly-made suit, so don't be beholden to the idea that a suit is an essential.

"However, a well-fitting suit in a contemporary cut is always a winner, so don't be put off by worries that you might look too formal."

If in doubt, dress up

"Remember that the interview is how you're selling yourself, so it's not unusual to dress slightly more formally than you would for the position itself.

"Avoid jeans and T-shirts, unless you are really sure that the company has a relaxed attitude to dress, or actively encourages casual dressing (for example, the tech industry). Even in these cases, it might not be appropriate for an interview."

Choose your shoes carefully

"Shoes are important, but there's no need to spend a fortune to look appropriate. Avoid open-toed shoes (flip-flops are absolutely out), but white, low-rise sneakers (think Adidas Stan Smiths) have become something of a fashion classic in recent years, and can add a fresh, contemporary element to your professional look.

"Don't feel you have to wear high heels to an interview, but if they make you feel confident, wear them with pride!"

Be presentable

"The details matter: make sure your socks match and your clothes aren't creased, otherwise this could reflect poorly on your organisational skills.

"Everyone should avoid clothing that is too tight or too baggy or too sheer. You want to feel comfortable, presentable and professional."Theresa May said she believes everybody around the table wants to get a deal (Stefan Rousseau/PA)

Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May arrives at the European Council in Brussels on October 17, 2018. (Photo by EMMANUEL DUNAND / AFP)EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP/Getty Images

Theresa May has said she believes a deal on the UKs orderly withdrawal from the EU remains achievable, despite the deadlock in negotiations ahead of a crunch Brussels summit.

The Prime Minister was due to address leaders of the 27 remaining EU states before they discuss Brexit in her absence at the European Council on Wednesday evening.

But leaders were openly saying that there would be no breakthrough at the summit, which was long billed as the moment of truth when a deal must be done to give time for ratification by the date of Brexit on March 29 2019.

Arriving in Brussels, Mrs May insisted there had been very good progress since last months meeting in Salzburg, when she was humiliatingly told that her Chequers plan for Brexit would not work.

But she acknowledged that differences remain over the key issue of the backstop arrangement to keep the Irish border open in the absence of a broader trade deal.

Expand Close Theresa May arrives in Brussels to brief the remaining 27 EU leaders (European Commission Audiovisual Services) / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Theresa May arrives in Brussels to brief the remaining 27 EU leaders (European Commission Audiovisual Services)

We have solved most of the issues in the withdrawal agreement, said Mrs May.

There is still the question of the Northern Irish backstop.

But I believe everybody around the table wants to get a deal. By working intensively and closely, we can achieve that deal.

I believe a deal is achievable and now is the time to make it happen.

Before travelling to Brussels, Mrs May vowed to protect the precious Union of the United Kingdom as she answered questions in the House of Commons.

However, during exchanges at Prime Ministers Questions, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said the Tories were too weak and divided to negotiate effectively with Brussels.

We will not accept any proposals which would effectively break up the United KingdomTheresa May

Mrs May told MPs: We will not accept any proposals which would effectively break up the United Kingdom.

Earlier, Irelands deputy prime minister Simon Coveney confirmed the EUs chief negotiator Michel Barnier was prepared to extend the 21-month transition period after Britain leaves the bloc to allow time to negotiate an alternative arrangement.

What Michel Barnier has indicated very clearly is that the EU side, certainly, is willing to allow more time in the transition period to agree an alternative solution to a backstop, Mr Coveney told BBC Radio 4s Today programme.

However, there was little enthusiasm for the idea in London, with Government sources insisting Downing Street was not looking for an extension to transition arrangements.

And Mrs May did not respond when asked whether she would welcome an additional years transition.

The meeting in Brussels was supposed to be the occasion when the leaders of the EU 27 member states gave the green light for a special summit in November to finalise the terms of Britains withdrawal.

However, European Council president Donald Tusk has warned that without new concrete proposals from the British to break the logjam over the Irish border backstop, further progress on a deal may be impossible.

In a speech to the German parliament before travelling to Brussels, Chancellor Angela Merkel said that the possibility of a Brexit deal was still there, but added that Berlin was making plans for a no-deal withdrawal.

And in Paris, Emmanuel Macrons government published details of legislation to authorise preparations for a no-deal Brexit, which could see the restoration of customs checks and health inspections for animals at French ports, and even a requirement for Britons to seek visas for stays of three months or more.

Ahead of this evenings meeting, Mrs May was having bilateral meetings with Mr Macron as well as European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker, Mr Tusk and Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar.

Expand Close Mrs May was greeted to Brussels with a kiss from European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker (European Commisison Audiovisual Services) / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Mrs May was greeted to Brussels with a kiss from European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker (European Commisison Audiovisual Services)

Ahead of her visit to Brussels, Mrs May was able to secure the backing of her Cabinet, at least for now, amid reports that some Brexiteer ministers had been prepared to quit if she gave too much ground to Brussels.

However, there was anger among Tory Brexiteers after The Daily Telegraph reported that Chancellor Philip Hammond warned the UK could still have to pay the EU up to 36 billion of the 39 billion divorce bill to settle its outstanding liabilities, in the event of a no-deal break.Donald Tusk has urged Theresa May to come forward with more details on her Brexit plans (Leon Neal/PA)

Prime Minister Theresa May is under huge pressure in both Brussels and Westminster to come up with a new plan to resolve the Irish border ahead of tonight's crunch meeting of European leaders on Brexit.

She faces a tough reception at the European Council meeting amid demands from president Donald Tusk to bring "creative" proposals to break the impasse over the future of the Irish border.

Read More

In London, Mrs May has had hardline Eurosceptics in the Conservative Party threatening to force a no confidence vote in her leadership if ministers didn't persuade her to drop her Chequers Brexit plan.

And in Belfast, DUP leader Arlene Foster, who has also been under pressure on other issues, dismissed suggestions that she didn't enjoy the confidence of her party.

Mrs May will address the other 27 EU national leaders at a summit before they sit down to dinner without her.

Officials said they expected the EU leaders to tell her they have little more to offer since talks stalled on Sunday and they will step up preparations for Britain to drop out of the bloc with no deal.

The EU leaders will decide at dinner on whether to firm up a tentative plan to hold a special Brexit summit in mid-November.

But Mr Tusk said they would need to believe that a deal was nearly done - and without some new move from Mrs May today, that belief seems unlikely to come this week.

The key sticking point is the so-called backstop to avoid a hard border in Ireland even in the case of Britain crashing out of the EU without a deal.

Last night Mr Tusk warned that the risk of a "no deal" dumping Britain out of the bloc and into legal limbo and border chaos on March 29 was now greater than ever. He put the onus on Mrs May to bring a "creative" solution to break the impasse over the border and said she needed to put forward "concrete proposals" if she wanted to avoid no deal.

EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier said more time is needed to reach an agreement.

The BBC reported that Mrs May told a Cabinet meeting yesterday that she can't agree to any deal that would create a new border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK. She also said she couldn't accept an agreement that locked the UK into some form of customs union with the EU indefinitely.

Downing Street told the BBC that none of the ministers threatened to quit at the Cabinet meeting yesterday and insisted Mrs May had strong support.

Mrs May also faces the challenge of securing a deal that placates the DUP whose support she relies on to make up the numbers in the House of Commons. The DUP is vehemently opposed to any backstop that would see Northern Ireland treated differently to the rest of the UK.

Asked by the BBC if she and the party could trust the Prime Minister, DUP leader Arlene Foster said they just wanted a "sensible" Brexit deal.

"It's not a case of trust. It's a case of elucidating what our position is," she said.

"I firmly believe Theresa May is a unionist and her instincts are very good in relation of the Union. All we are saying is she should listen to her instincts and not be pulled away from those instincts."

The Fermanagh MLA was asked if her party would vote for the budget at the end of the month. She said the situation was "very fluid" adding: "We shouldn't jump ahead of ourselves. We are waiting to see the text that comes forward."

There has also been rumours of a potential challenge to Mrs Foster's leadership. However, the former First Minister dismissed those reports, saying she was "confident" of the support of her party. "There is no truth in that," she said.

Speaking in the Dail ahead of his departure for Brussels, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said the gaps between the UK and EU positions are "significant" and time is running out for a Brexit deal to be in place by the time the UK leaves at the end of next March.

Mr Varadkar insisted that he still believes a "positive outcome" is possible and that a no-deal scenario is "unlikely".

But he also said the Irish Government has been stepping up preparations for that possibility.

And following talks with Michel Barnier in Brussels, Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney made clear that Dublin would not accept a time-limited backstop. Mr Coveney said: "We cannot sign up to - and I don't believe Michel Barnier would ever ask European countries to sign up to - a backstop for Ireland that isn't there unless and until something better is agreed.

"If you set a date in the future when a backstop falls, then it is not a backstop at all, unless something is there to replace it which has been negotiated and agreed."

Asked whether he expected a special Brexit summit to be called for November, the Tanaiste said: "I expect what will be needed is an acceptance that more time is needed for negotiating teams to re-engage.

"I think there is going to have to be a signal from the negotiating teams that a new summit is necessary before it will be called."

Ulster Unionist leader Robin Swann MLA yesterday rejected comments by the Taoiseach, who was reported to have told Virgin Media: "What's on the table now is a special status for Northern Ireland which could be an advantageous position".

Mr Swann said: "Despite numerous meetings with his government, despite the principle of consent being embedded at the heart of the Belfast Agreement and despite my colleagues and I cautioning them to be mindful of the rhetoric they use, it is clear that the Irish Government see these Brexit negotiations as an opportunity to attempt to weaken or change Northern Ireland's current status as an integral part of the United Kingdom.

"His comments will be interpreted by unionists as an attack on the sovereignty of Northern Ireland."

In the Dail, Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald TD said Mrs May's time limited backstop "means, in reality, no backstop at all". "I met with the British Prime Minister yesterday and put that to her bluntly," she said.Anna Burns on stage at the Guildhall in London (Frank Augstein/PA)

Man Booker Prize winner Anna Burns has said she did not set out to write a political novel.

The first ever Northern Irish winner of the prestigious award said that the issues of gender and sexual coercion in prize-winning book Milkman are the result of inspiration, not conviction.

Belfast-born Burns, 56, said her story of an 18-year-olds struggles with male encroachment and the pressures of the public on the private life are not linked to Me Too.

The novelist has, however, said she is happy for the work to be taken as an inspiration by those involved in the movement.

She said: I was being told to create the girl. It was not a conscious thing.

I started writing it in 2014. People bring themselves to the writing. I'm happy for it to be taken that way. But this was just what I had to writeAnna Burns

I saw the girl walking along the street reading Ivanhoe in what looked to me like Belfast.

I started writing it in 2014. People bring themselves to the writing. Im happy for it to be taken that way. But this was just what I had to write.

Burns said writing has not been a lucrative career for her, and that the 50,000 prize she has been awarded will go towards paying off her debts.

She revealed she has been forced to move many times in her career as writing has not paid the bills.

The award will not pay for a pool, but will help her to live off her writing.

Burns said: I struggled a lot financially. Its partly how I write. There is a lot of waiting.

I had to move a lot because I couldnt afford it.

Burns said she does not compromise on her style, and will always wait to create what she needs to.

The writer was awarded the Man Booker at an award ceremony at the Guildhall in London.Anna Burns receiving the prize from the Duchess of Cornwall at the Guildhall in London last night

Anna Burns has become the first Northern Irish winner of the Man Booker Prize for her experimental tale of sexual coercion, Milkman.

The story of an 18-year-old girls encounters with sex, sectarianism and social coercion in an unnamed province has seen the north Belfast author become the first UK-born winner since Hilary Mantel in 2012.

Welcomed as a novel that will help people think about Me Too, it has also been praised for a unique first-person voice rich in the conversational language of Northern Ireland and its handling of universal problems facing women and outsiders.

Speaking after her win, Burns told BBC News why she had chosen not to give her characters names, instead using descriptions such as Middle Sister.

The book just didnt work with names, she said.

I think its something to do with, theres a lack of safety of being straightforward in the book and declaring who you are, but really, if I put in names it lost power, it lost atmosphere.

Burns said her real-life experience of growing up in Belfast did have a huge influence on the book, writing about an entire society affected by long-term violence, living under intense pressure, and how that becomes normality.

Former first minister Arlene Foster said: Congratulations to Anna Burns on this historic achievement for a Northern Ireland author. Im delighted that her literary genius has been recognised. This will also help to inspire the next generation of writers.

Amongst all the things that hold us back, there are so many examples where this small country excels whether in sport, life sciences or engineering.

I am incredibly proud of our people. They are and always have been our greatest asset.

Damian Smyth, Head of Literature at the Arts Council, said: Milkman is an extraordinary book and is rightly acclaimed as a breathtakingly original novel which is a thrill to read.

Of course, while the Man Booker win recognises Anna Burnss exceptional gifts, it also draws attention yet again to all the good writing Northern Ireland produces.

Happily, the huge goodwill towards this writer and her great novel which we saw on social media when her win was announced, is a sign of how much good writing is valued in our culture.

Judges have said they did not consider the current prominence of Northern Ireland or the gender equality debate in their deliberations, nor was the accessibility of the book to average readers on the Tube.

Milkman has been hailed as a book that will last by the chairman of the panel of judges, philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah, who said it was as useful for thinking about fractured societies in Lebanon and Syria as it was for the current gender debate in the West.

Appiah said at a ceremony at the Guildhall in London: It speaks to the future. I think its going to last. I think this will help people to think about Me Too.

Burns fourth novel uses a first-person voice rich in the conversational language of Northern Ireland, although the setting is never made explicit in the work.

Lack of paragraphing adds a challenge for the reader. Questioned on whether the work was too challenging for the average reader, Appiah defended the choice saying: I have never thought that being readable on the Tube was an important feature of a novel.A man who downed 15 drinks and then set fire to an Orange Hall in Co Donegal, causing around 315,000 of damage, has been jailed for two years.

Damien Murray and another man, Eamonn McGill, appeared at a special sitting of Letterkenny Circuit Court for sentencing.

The court was told that fire ripped through Convoy Orange Hall on October 3, 2014.

As well as completely gutting the building, hundreds of years of history and irreplaceable artefacts were destroyed in the blaze.

On the same night, the front door of Convoy Presbyterian Church, some 600 yards from the Orange Hall, was kicked in.

A major Garda investigation led gardai to interview Murray, now 36, and McGill, now 34.

Murray, a father-of-four, admitted using a lighter to set the Orange Hall on fire.

McGill, a father-of-two, was only charged with criminal damage to the church door. Gardai matched an Adidas trainer taken from his partner's house in Strabane to a footprint on the door.

The court heard that a total of 358,587 (315,062) in damage was caused to the Orange Hall but that insurance had paid out 220,000 (193,296) of this cost. The hall has been refurbished.

Barrister for Murray, John Smith, said his client suffered an alcohol addiction and was a victim of post-traumatic stress disorder after his family were held captive when he was a boy.

Barrister for McGill, Peter Nolan, said his client was prepared to pay 1,700 (1,493) to the Presbyterian community to compensate for the damage.

Judge Sean O Donnabhain sentenced McGill, of Machmeendstown, Convoy but who now lives in Strabane, Co Tyrone to two years in prison, but suspended the term for two years.

He also ordered McGill to pay 2,000 to the Donegal Hospice, a charity nominated by members of the Presbyterian community.

Judge O Donnabhain considered five years in prison was merited, but because Murray made an early plea and was unlikely to reoffend, he was reducing the sentence to two years, with three suspended.Police and the family of missing man Robert Holmes are becoming increasingly concerned for his wellbeing.

The 42-year-old was last seen in the Lakeview Avenue of Newtownabbey on Wednesday.

He is described as being 6ft tall, slim build with dirty fair hair, blue eyes and has facial stubble. He is believed to have been wearing a dark waterproof coat, grey/black hooded top and a green monkey hat.

We are appealing for Robert to make contact with police or his family, or if anyone knows of his whereabouts, has sighted him or has any information please contact Newtownabbey on 101 quoting reference number 557 17/10/19.A police raid on a family home as part of a suspected 150,000 drugs seizure in west Belfast was like something out of the crime movie Goodfellas, a High Court judge said on Wednesday (stock picture)

A police raid on a family home as part of a suspected 150,000 drugs seizure in west Belfast was like something out of the crime movie Goodfellas, a High Court judge said on Wednesday.

Mr Justice McAlinden expressed shock at the alleged scene of cocaine found all over the living room floor of the Mount Eagles Grove property in the Dunmurry area.

Prosecutors claimed Joanne Cassidy was in a nearby kitchen "entertaining" while her husband James was mid-transaction when officers carried out a rapid entry last week.

Drugs with an estimated street value of 60,000 were recovered from the house, along with 20,000 cash in a designer bag found upstairs, the court heard.

Searches at the nearby home of another man led to the seizure of a further consignment of cocaine potentially worth 90,000.

Police also found another 18,500 inside the van of a fourth accused detained at the scene.

Details emerged as bail was granted to 42-year-old Joanne Cassidy.

She denies charges of conspiracy to possess class A controlled drug with intent to supply and possession of criminal property.

Ruling that she can be released, Mr Justice McAlinden said: "The alleged offending here is of a very, very serious magnitude - blocks of cocaine in a living room being exchanged between members of a criminal conspiracy.

"It's more to do with Goodfellas and what one sees on television than one would imagine in a residential development in Dunmurry. But that is the modern world we live in."

A Crown lawyer claimed the suspected cocaine was dropped when the Cassidys' Mount Eagles Grove home was raided on October 11.

Digital scales were recovered from the property, along with an alleged deal book and a ladies overnight bag containing the cash.

The operation, which involved the use of a police helicopter, also led to the seizure of the couple's Range Rover and Audi A4 vehicles, the court was told.

Joanne Cassidy had been in the kitchen with a friend when officers entered, and insisted she knew nothing about the drugs or the cash.

According to the prosecution, however, there is evidence the husband and wife led a luxury lifestyle beyond their means - including foreign holidays and thousands of pounds spent on a designer kitchen.

Joanne Cassidy claims she earns 100 a week from a nail and beauty treatment business run from a shed at the back of their home, the Crown lawyer added.

He argued: "These people are involved in clear organised crime, and have been doing so for a long time undetected."

Defence barrister Sean Devine countered that Joanne Cassidy is adamant she will not be forensically linked to either the drugs or money seized.

He told the court that just because his client shared the property she is not automatically responsible for everything that occurred in it.

"She was in another room, ordering a food takeaway with her friend," Mr Devine said.

Based on the presumption of innocence and Cassidy's role as the mother of two children still at school, the judge granted bail on conditions including a ban on contacting any co-accused.

He also pointed out: "If these charges are made out, it's utterly appalling and it's shocking to hear that such deals are being done in residential areas in Belfast."The Ulster Unionists say that a 1bn investment package for the Belfast City Region is dependent on the Chancellor agreeing to 450m being approved in this budget

Belfast could lose out on 450m if the DUP votes down the budget, the Ulster Unionists have claimed.

They say that a 1bn investment package for the Belfast City Region is dependent on the Chancellor agreeing to 450m being approved in this budget.

UUP councillor Stephen Nicholl has said that it would be the height of hypocrisy for DUP councillors to travel to London to lobby for more money for a Belfast city deal from a budget which their Westminster representatives intend to vote against.

A city deal is an agreement between the Government and a city which gives it certain powers, as well as the freedom to take charge and take responsibility for bigger decisions that affect their catchment.

Currently there are discussions with Westminster to secure city deals for both Belfast and Londonderry which are understood to be at an advanced stage and are thought to be under favourable consideration.

However the Ulster Unionists are now suggesting the DUP could jeopardise hundreds of millions of pounds that could come to Northern Ireland through the city deals.

Mr Nicholl said: "The DUP are currently indicating they may vote against the forthcoming budget which will have significant impacts across a wide range of social and economic issues.

"Increased funding for welfare, for health and education is seen as vital to address the many social issues remaining from years of austerity and financial cuts.

"Of particular concern is the potential impact on funding for the Belfast city deal. A 1bn investment package for the Belfast City Region is dependent on the Chancellor agreeing to 450m being approved in this budget.

"Councillors from the Belfast City region along with council officers and business representatives are due to be in Westminster on October 23 and 24 to lobby for this investment.

"It would be the height of hypocrisy if DUP councillors were to travel to London to lobby for more money from a budget their representatives in Westminster intend to vote against."

The DUP had not responded to a request for comment by the time of going to press.Anthony Harbinson, chair of the Tackling Paramilitarism Programme Board, at the launch in Girdwood Community Hub in Belfast

Some of the images from a new series of graphic TV ads which have aired for the first time as part of a campaign seeking to challenge the 35% of people who support paramilitary-style attacks

Some of the images from a new series of graphic TV ads which have aired for the first time as part of a campaign seeking to challenge the 35% of people who support paramilitary-style attacks

Some of the images from a new series of graphic TV ads which have aired for the first time as part of a campaign seeking to challenge the 35% of people who support paramilitary-style attacks

A new series of graphic TV ads have aired for the first time as part of a campaign seeking to challenge the 35% of people who support paramilitary-style attacks.

The adverts, which show a desperate mother driving her terrified son to an appointment with masked gunmen, were shown on UTV and Channel 4 after the watershed last night.

Read More

Debra Whyte from the Executive's Tackling Paramilitarism Programme said the 417 paramilitary style attacks carried out over the last five years demonstrates the need for such a "hard hitting" approach, aimed at exposing the hypocrisy of the "social shrug".

"We want people to really think about the devastating impact and get to a place where this is seen as unacceptable and where victims are given sympathy."

Radio and cinema versions of the ads - which depict four differing perspectives of the same brutal attack - will also be rolled out as part of a bid to hammer home the key message of the Ending The Harm campaign: 'Paramilitaries Don't Protect You, They Control You'.

PSNI statistics show that republican groups were responsible for 21 of the 22 shootings carried out last year, whereas loyalists were behind 50 of the 65 paramilitary-style assaults.

But a group of professionals taking part in a panel discussion at the Girdwood Community Hub yesterday warned that all attacks can have equally devastating consequences for victims.

Paul Smith, co-founder of the Stop Attacks Forum, said tackling social attitudes is essential in ending the coercive control paramilitary groups wield over society, after a Government survey revealed that over a third of people expressed "tacit support" for punishment attacks.

"We have turned a blind eye to this for too long," he said.

"I have spoken to teachers and youth workers who have told me privately they are okay with these kind of attacks," he said.

But he added that it wasn't right.

Mr Smith also warned of the "astronomical costs" of failing to deal with paramilitarism and claimed high numbers of people who only feel safe behind bars are deliberately getting sent to jail.

"It is absolutely shameful that people are put in that situation," he added.

NI Children's Commissioner Koulla Yiasouma suspects the same phenomenon is happening in youth prisons.

"According to the most recent stats, 76% of young offenders moving through our youth prisons are Catholic - only 16% are Protestant," she said.

"We can only surmise that high numbers of Catholic children are trying to stay behind bars because they feel safer in custody."

The Department of Health's Chief Social Work Officer, Sean Holland, said the state is failing to protect children and vulnerable adults from "abuse".

Detective Chief Superintendent Raymond Murray defended the PSNI's 2% conviction record against those who perpetrate paramilitary style attacks, which was slammed as "appalling" by west Belfast priest Fr Martin Magill.

Mr Murray insisted that going after suspects for other criminality is a better use of resources and has resulted in the significant seizure of finances and assets.

"We have also jailed individuals for membership of organisations and serious assaults against fellow paramilitary members," he added.

Mr Murray also issued a warning to people who incite paramilitary gangs to carry out punishment attacks.

"There is no such thing as a free lunch," he said.

"Do you really think they won't come knocking on your door in a few weeks?

"These people will use you as mercilessly as they deal out these beatings on the street."A man has appeared in court accused of grooming and inciting a schoolgirl into sexual activity.

John Patrick Clarke (42), of Claremont Street in Belfast, also faces counts of offering to supply cannabis and attempting to pervert the course of justice.

Belfast Magistrates Court heard Clarke is accused of a total of six offences, which his lawyer confirmed his client denies.

The charges include inciting a child under 16 to engage in a sexual activity, and causing her to look at an image for the purpose of obtaining sexual gratification.

Further alleged offences involve sexual communications with a child, attempting to meet her following grooming, and offering to supply a Class B drug.

Clarke is then accused of attempting to ask another person to contact the injured party with an instruction, intending to pervert the course of justice.

All the alleged offences were committed in July and August.

Defence solicitor Feargal MacElhatton said his client "vehemently" denies the charges.Northern Irish women in London protesting against possible imposition of changes to abortion laws from Westminster (Dominic Lipinski/PA)

Almost two-thirds of people in Northern Ireland want local politicians to make the decisions on the regions abortion laws, a new poll has suggested.

The results were released by anti-abortion group Both Lives Matter as it stepped up its campaign against moves to legislate on the contentious restrictions at Westminster.

Both Lives Matter said the latest poll, conducted by ComRes, demonstrated that people in Northern Ireland did not want law changes imposed upon them from London.

The group said the poll found that 64% of those surveyed wanted decisions about abortion taken by locally elected politicians. Breaking down the data, two out of three women (66%) backed local decisions. In the age group 18 to 34  both men and women  70% supported that position.

Abortions in Northern Ireland are illegal in all but exceptional medical and mental health circumstances.

The Government has so far resisted pressure to step in to legislate for reform in the wake of a recent Supreme Court judgment that found the current legal framework incompatible with human rights laws.

We urge British MPs to respect the people of Northern Ireland and our elected representativesDawn McAvoy, from Both Lives Matter

In June, a majority of Supreme Court judges said the ban on terminations in cases of rape, incest or fatal fetal abnormality needed radical reconsideration.

Given there are no ministers at Stormont due to the powersharing impasse, pro-choice campaigners have demanded that the laws are changed at Westminster.

Next week a private members bill will be tabled at Westminster by Labour MP Diana Johnson aiming to remove sections of the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act that make abortion a criminal offence in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The 1967 Abortion Act in England and Wales provided for exemptions to the 1861 Act, enabling legal abortions.

ComRes polled 1,013 Northern Ireland adults online between October 8 and 15.

Dawn McAvoy from Both Lives Matter, which launched the poll at an event in Westminster, criticised Ms Johnsons parliamentary bid.

This polling clearly shows that this is not what the people of Northern Ireland, and in particular women, want, she said.

100,000 people in Northern Ireland are alive today because Northern Ireland did not accept the same abortion law that was introduced into Britain in 1967.

We urge British MPs to respect the people of Northern Ireland and our elected representatives. We want to encourage MPs to respect devolution in Northern Ireland by voting against Diana Johnson MPs Ten Minute Rule Bill on October 23.

The Women and Equalities Committee at Westminster recently announced an inquiry that will examine whether the Government has a responsibility to reform abortion laws in the region or whether the contentious issue should only be one for devolved ministers to determine.Police have hit out at "twisted ideologies" after arresting a man in Lurgan on charges related to dissident republicanism

Police have hit out at "twisted ideologies" after arresting a man in Lurgan on charges related to dissident republicanism.

The 34-year-old was arrested under the Terrorism Act on Wednesday by detectives from the PSNI's Terrorism Investigation Unit on suspicion of membership of a prescribed organisation and other dissident republican activities.

Police believe the man is in possession of information likely to be of use for terrorism.

He has been taken to Musgrave Serious Crime Suite for questioning, and a number of mobile phones, electronic tablets and a memory stick were also seized.

Speaking about the arrest, Detective Inspector Adrian Brown said: As part of our investigations into ongoing dissident republican activity we have arrested a man earlier today. We will continue to disrupt the activities of those who wish to terrorise the community with their twisted ideologies so that people can live without fear.A police sergeant has been cleared of the May 2014 manslaughter of 28-year-old Belfast man David McGowan who died in detention.

A prosecution QC told Judge David McFarland that having taken instructions, he was offering no further evidnece in the four-week Belfast Crown Court trial of Sergeant Brian McKenna.

As a consequence the Recorder of Belfast, who apologised to the jury of seven men and five women over delays, in what he described, as a complex case, directed them to return verdicts of 'not guilty'.

Sergeant McKenna, whose address was given as care of PSNI's Barrack Street station in Lisburn, had always denied the manslaughter of Mr McGowan, and misconduct in public office.

The charges arose out of what Judge McFarland said, had been a "thorough" Police Ombudsman's investigation, into the detention of Mr McGown, arrested along with his girlfriend Kirsty Pinkerton outside an east Belfast flat on the evening of May 29, 2014.

A post mortem later revealed Mr McGown died of 'upper airway obstruction due to inhilation of gastric contents, due to toxic effects of alcohol and drugs'. The court also heard that a Tramadol tablet was recovered from his trachea.

Other prescription drugs, Diazepam, were also found on an apparently intoxicated Mr McGowan, also seen and heard on CCTV taken from the Lisburn custody suite. At one stage he was heard complaining that police had broken his foot and he wanted a doctor.

Mr McGowan, who also told a civilian detention officer he had taken 'between 30 and 40 tablets', also 'had a lot of white stuff in his mouth". He was later examined by a doctor, who ordered that he be observed and roused every 30 minutes.

Concerns were then raised about his breathing, and it was noticed Mr McGowan had been sick. The doctor was called again, and found Mr McGowan lying on his back with vomit around his mouth.

Although the doctor conducted both mouth to mouth and CPR, and an ambulance called at 1.07am and Mr McGowan was pronounced dead at 1.47am.

While Sergeant McKenna has now been cleared of the charges against him, the civilian detention officer, Mr Alexander McAllister, on duty with him, awaits sentence on the charge of misconduct in public office.

A charge of manslaughter charge against the guard, who gave evidence during the trial, was allowed to 'remain on the books' by an earlier court following a guilty plea to misconduct. His case will be mentioned on Friday of this week when a possible date for sentencing will be fixed.A Sinn Fein MLA has hit back at criticism for allegedly accusing teachers in Londonderry of scaremongering over funding cuts.

Last Friday, Foyle MLA Karen Mullan sent a letter to principals, in response to a letter the principals had sent to parents.

The letter to parents outlined a lack of support and funding available and the potential it had to threaten the quality of service being delivered in schools - pointing the the reduction in the amount available for each child.

Last month schools in Northern Ireland were told they would be required to live within their shrinking budgets, with spending on pre-school, primary and secondary education per pupil 46% higher in Scotland, 18% higher in England and 31% higher in Wales.

A response letter from the Sinn Fein MLA to the concerned principals was posted to Twitter by journalist Leona O'Neill.

All primary school kids in #Derry got letters home last week from principals saying their schools are in crisis. They know, they work there. Now a @sinnfeinireland MLA has written to those principals to tell them to stop bloody scaremongering. I can't even....it's breathtaking pic.twitter.com/3mU9SZAZLV  Leona O'Neill (@LeonaONeill1) October 16, 2018

"I like parents and school principals am fully supportive of the request for greater funding to go to education," writes Mrs Mullan.

"There has been no lack of political support from myself or my party colleagues when it comes to arguing for greater financial support for education."

Mrs Mullan goes over a number of funding challenges, and Northern Ireland's position in relation to the rest of the UK.

In the final paragraph on the first page she writes: "While I recognise some schools are facing significant pressures it is important to point out that not all schools are experiencing the issues highlighted in the letter. Such broad and sweeping assertions have the potential to cause unnecessary stress and anxiety for parents."

Responding to the letter, SDLP MLA Daniel McCrossan said: "How dare Sinn Fein accuse our teachers of scaremongering?

"So Sinn Fein think they know better than our teachers and principals who are trying to run schools with huge cuts to budgets, often spending from their own pockets, in deteriorating conditions!

"Redundancies at an all time high no capacity for recruitment, not to mention the huge issues with schools maintenance!

"When was the last time Sinn Fein even visited a school?"

Karen Mullan responded by tweeting out the letter with an additional paragraph included on the second page.

In the tweet she writes: "At no stage did I tell anyone to stop scaremongering I reiterated my wholehearted support for schools facing sustained ToryDUP cuts & pointed out the most effective solution."

On the second page of the letter, it reads: "I and my colleagues will continue to make the case for greater resources for public services and particularly for education. I would appreciate if you could respond and give me a detailed breakdown on the issues that are impacting on teaching and learning in your school and I will make contact with DE and the Education Authority on your behalf."The mother of a man killed in a gun attack in south Belfast has recalled the moment she was told her son had been shot dead.

Stephen Carson lost his life after he was shot in the downstairs bathroom of his Walmer Street home in the Ormeau area in February 2016.

Three cousins from west Belfast are currently standing trial charged with murdering the 28-year-old.

David 'Dee' James Francis Smith (35) from Monagh Drive; Michael 'Spud' Lawrence Smith (39), also from Monagh Drive; and Francis Gerard Patrick Smith (42) from Glenmurray Court have all been charged with, and deny, murdering Mr Carson.

Michael Smyth has also been charged with, and denies, possessing a firearm with intent to commit murder, while Francis Smith also denies possessing both a firearm, and ammunition, in suspicious circumstances.

The Crown say the motive for Mr Carson's death was linked to an incident in the Turf Lodge area of the city dating back to 2010, when the deceased and two other men were involved in a violent altercation during which Michael Smith was seriously wounded.

From the witness box at Belfast Crown Court, Mr Carson's mother confirmed that she believed 'the Smiths' were behind her son's death.

The Belfast woman told the court and jury that following the 2010 altercation, she left the area.

She accused members of the Smith family of intimidating her from her Turf Lodge home, and when asked what she experienced, she said: "I couldn't even go over to the shops without someone having a go."

When asked what was said, the woman replied: "Shouting after me, that my son was a scumbag. Just harassment, basically."

Mr Carson's mother also claimed that after leaving the area, she was sitting in her partner's car outside the shops in Turf Lodge when she was approached by Dee Smith. She told the court: "I wasn't long moved out. Dee Smith came right over to the car and laughed in my face.

"I said to him 'I suppose you're proud of yourself' and he said 'no, not yet. I still have to get yours and Joe'."

Asked what happened at this point, the Belfast woman said: "I was a wee bit scared. I rolled the window up and he just ran on laughing at me."

When David Smith's barrister took to his feet, he said to her "the incident at the car window didn't happen, did it?" to which she replied "it did".

The deceased's mother was quizzed about a comment she made in the hospital the night her son died.

She then recalled how she was told in a phonecall about the fatal gun attack from her son's partner.

The woman said: "She just said to me Stephen had been shot. I thought maybe he had been kneecapped because he was always in trouble.

"I said to her 'did they shoot him in the knees?' and she said 'no, they shot him in the head. He is dead'."

She agreed that at the hospital she said 'they said they would get him and they did' and confirmed that she meant the Smiths, but said she couldn't remember whether or not her son's partner heard this comment.

And when asked if she showed her son's partner an image of David Smith on Facebook before the partner gave a statement to police, the woman said "no".

Earlier, the jury heard from a senior scientific officer, who said that after conducting a series of tests, she concluded the shotgun found in Francis Smith's flat was the weapon which discharged the fatal shot.

The jury also heard that an expert defence witness will be called to give evidence at a later stage in the trial who will disagree with her findings.

The case continues.The boss of a Belfast modelling agency has said that a 21-year-old model who died suddenly on Monday was a "lovely young girl" who "had her whole life ahead of her".

Tributes have been paid to Mairead O'Neill, who was from the Markets area of Belfast and had worked for top local agency CMPR Models for five years.

Read More

In addition to modelling at several Belfast Fashion Week events, Mairead had worked at a Carl Frampton fight at the SSE Arena and had founded her own make-up business.

The death is the second tragedy to strike Mairead's family after her mother Karen Pelan passed away from bowel cancer just 10 months ago.

Police said that they had attended the scene of a sudden death of a woman in the south Belfast area on Monday, and are not treating the death as suspicious.

A GoFundMe page which was set up to help the young woman's family cover her funeral costs had raised almost 7,000 in less than 24 hours at the time of going to press.

CMPR Models founder and director Cathy Martin described Mairead as a "vivacious" but "fragile" young woman who was "hurting" after her mother's death.

"She was a lovely young girl, she had her whole life ahead of her," she told the Belfast Telegraph. "She was one of our models at the agency and had worked for us since she was about 16. She had loads of potential.

"She was hurting from her mum's death, her mum had passed away due to bowel cancer, and she had always been a great anchor for Mairead.

"She was quite vivacious but also quite fragile, just a young girl, a classic mix of all the emotions which a 21-year-old girl has."

Cathy said that Mairead's fellow models had been left stunned by the news of her passing.

"We have a private group account and the girls are very shocked and they are exchanging lovely messages and stories about Mairead," she said. "They are trying to support each other at this difficult time.

"I told them that it's really important that if they want to reach out to me that they could."

Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close Mairead O'Neill Mairead O'Neill Mairead O'Neill / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Mairead O'Neill

In addition to her modelling career, Cathy said that Mairead had also been a student and had worked in retail.

And having received several messages commenting on Mairead's beauty, Cathy was keen to highlight that "looks have absolutely zero" to do with mental health.

"It doesn't matter if she was beautiful - beautiful people can be sad, they can be depressed," she said.

"I have had so many people message me to say that she was so beautiful, but mental health issues don't leave you alone just because you're beautiful.

"It goes beyond the modelling industry.

"Mental health issues have no boundaries, whether you are a model, an actor or a member of the public.

"It's important that people do really speak to the people around them.

"You really need to be proactive in reaching out to friends.

"My thoughts and prayers are with Mairead's family."

Shortly after news of Mairead's death broke, her late mother's friend Julie Rooney set up a GoFundMe page in order to help the grieving family meet the funeral costs.

Extending her sympathies to Mairead's brother Brendan and sister Bronagh, Julie wrote: "As it's the mouth of Christmas and I know people are struggling financially as it is, every little helps.

"These kids have no means of affording a funeral, and the last thing they need is a funeral bill on top of their doubly painful heartbreak.

"I'm hoping that with people's help we can make it a tiny bit easier."

Appealing for support, Julie said that the situation was "extra hard for two siblings that are already grieving and missing the rock of their family".

"They have went from a family of four to a family of two in just 10 short months," she added. "RIP beautiful girl."

Details of Mairead's funeral had not been released at the time of going to press.The PSNI yesterday confirmed that the man had passed away at the weekend (stock picture)

Two people have died after collisions on Northern Irelands roads.

A cyclist from Co Londonderry injured in a collision with a car in Dunmurry last Sunday passed away from his injuries yesterday.

Timmy Little (45), from Limavady, was airlifted to the Royal Victoria Hospital after the accident on the Glenside Road shortly before 8.30am.

The driver of the car involved, a 23-year-old, has been arrested on suspicion of a number of driving offences.

Police confirmed Mr Little passed away at the Royal Victoria Hospital yesterday.

Meanwhile, a man has died from his injuries in hospital after he was involved in a four-car crash in Lisburn last month.

The crash happened on the Hillhall Road on Friday, September 28 at around 1.15pm.

The man was rushed to hospital.

The PSNI yesterday confirmed that the man had passed away at the weekend.

Police have appealed for witnesses to either incident to contact them on 101.Tickets to see Dutch Eurodance group the Vengaboys are among a haul of cash and items taken during a suspected crime spree in Banbridge.

Police are investigating a series of three incidents which took place on Sunday evening into the early hours of Monday morning, examining the possibility of a link between the incidents.

The first happened sometime between 4pm and 6.30pm at The Banville House Hotel, located on the Lurgan Road.

A staff member was assaulted, before a jacket belonging to a staff member and a safe being taken from behind the reception area.

The safe contained cash and a large number of tickets to the Vengaboys.

A man then caused damage to the doors of the hotel before driving away in a Honda.

Shortly after midnight a window was smashed at an accountants office in Church Square during an attempted break-in.

A man and a woman were seen running across the street and into the grounds of a church, and a silver Honda Civic was found nearby, with the registration 01-D-37970.

A police spokesperson said the car smelt like it "had serious issues with the clutch".

Shortly before 3am the third incident happened at a house in Bannview Heights, where a female householder woke up to find a man coming up her stairs.

A police spokesperson said: "She was shoved into a wall, causing her injuries. Her son then bravely defended his mother, managing to fight the man off, who made his escape through a down stairs window.

"During the struggle, the male suspect may have fallen and sustained some injuries. He is described as being around 62 tall, of large build."

The PSNI has asked the public to be on the look out for the following:

Any Honda vehicles seen acting suspiciously around homes or premises in the Banbridge or surrounding areas over the course of the evening.

A male and female seen running or acting suspiciously out the Lurgan Road.

Anyone with dash cam footage of anywhere between The Banville and Banbridge town during that time.

Anyone who saw a male with facial injuries anywhere near the Lurgan Road, Banbridge, around 3am.

Anyone who sees or is offered Vengaboys tickets advertised for sale not on official sites. *Please note- if you take these, you could be handling stolen goods.*

Anyone with information about any of these things is asked to contact police on the non-emergency number 101, using the reference 112 with the date 15/10/2018.DUP MP Gregory Campbell said that while Sinn Fein continue their boycotts of the Assembly and Westminster spending their time in "costumes" for anti-Brexit "performances," his party will work to keep trade moving across the border after the split from the EU.

Sinn Fein branded the DUP's relationship with the Conservatives as "toxic to the peace process" in a letter to Secretary of State Karen Bradley.

Read More

MLA Mairtin O Muilleoir and MPs Paul Maskey, Michelle Gildernew joined around 20 Sinn Fein protesters to delivere the message to the Northern Ireland Office at Stormont on Wednesday.

Mr O Muilleoir, MLA for South Belfast, said: We are making a point that is evident to all sensible people here to mitigate against the excesses of the extreme Brexiteers that the marriage between the DUP and the Tories is toxic to the people of the north."

Were asking Mrs May to look above and beyond that relationship and alliance she has with the DUP and instead make a decision which is in line with what she said previously - to remain in the customs union, remain in the single market for the all-Ireland economy, but also protect the agreement, peace and reconciliation.

Demonstrators walked from the statue of Unionist politician Edward Carson to the Northern Ireland Office, as similar protests took place at the front gates of Queens University and St Marys University College at noon.

Three protesters wore Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg masks while holding placards stating "Protect the Good Friday Agreement" and "No Border, No Brexit."

Deaglan McConville - who has just completed a masters degree in human rights - said Brexit was voted for by the people of England and they were "pulling us out of the European Union against the will of the people here".

In doing so I cant see anything that the British government is proposing that doesnt impose a hard border in Ireland and for the people of Ireland.

He added: Its unacceptable, its not what we want and its not what we voted for. We never wanted a border, so thats my main concern.

DUP MP Gregory Campbell accused Sinn Fein of spending more time on costumes for their "performance" than checking facts.

Sinn Fein continue boycotting the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Executive and the House of Commons but instead spend their time erecting posters and handing in letters of protest to the Secretary of State.

Unfortunately, Mairtin OMuilleoir and his colleagues seem to have spent more time on their costumes for todays performance than on checking facts in their letter.

"We will continue to focus on ensuring that trade can continue across the border but also that our local businesses are not pushed out of the single market which matters, the UK single market.

Paul Maskey, MP for Belfast West, Fermanagh and South Tyrone MP Michelle Gildernew, and party president Mary Lou McDonald met Prime Minister Theresa May and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in Westminster on Monday.

They demanded a referendum on the future of Northern Irelands relationship with the EU if there was no Brexit deal - to avoid a hard border with the Republic.In December 1983, a republican bomb containing Semtex imported from Libya exploded at the Harrods department store (PA)

A woman whose police inspector father died in the IRAs Harrods bombing has accused the Libyan government of turning its back on victims.

It followed a pan-Arab call to protect the countrys frozen funds and assets in the UK.

In December 1983, a republican bomb containing Semtex imported from the North African state exploded at the Harrods department store in central London, killing three police officers and three members of the public.

Among those to die were Inspector Stephen Dodd, 34, of the Met.

His daughter Susanne Dodd said: How can the Libyan Government promise to help us and now change their minds?

Im devastated, as we helped the Libyans during their struggle for freedom and now they have turned their backs on us.

The UK and now the Libyan government do not care about us. Im heartbroken.

My poor dad and all the victims should have been worth more than this.

The Arab Parliament is designed to give citizens of the Arab world a voice.

It consists of four representatives from each member state of the Arab League, either elected or chosen from their respective national parliament.

At a recent meeting in Cairo it reportedly called on the UN to protect Libyas frozen funds and assets in the UK.

Ulster Unionist peer Sir Reg Empey is piloting a private members bill through Parliament which seeks to secure money from assets linked to the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

He wants the UK Government to put pressure on the Libyan authorities to co-operate.

Ms Dodd added: I hope this compensation bill goes through as this would make a moral stand and send a symbolic message to all those that support terrorism throughout the world that eventually you will be held to account.

Sir Reg said the UK could exercise its veto at the UN Security Council.

He added: The Government has been running away from this over many years and the Arab Parliament should be encouraging negotiation.

He said former foreign secretary Boris Johnson had been about to appoint a special envoy to Libya before his resignation.

It would be abhorrent if the Libyans did not fulfil their promise to those who have been left severely disabled and bereavedDocklands Victims Association president Jonathan Ganesh

Ihsan Bashir, whose brother Inam Bashir died in an IRA attack in the London Docklands in February 1996, said the UK had weakened the bereaved families position because ministers considered compensation from Libya to be a private matter.

He added: Thanks to our Government we have now become a laughing stock.

President of the Docklands Victims Association (DVA) Jonathan Ganesh said the Libyan Government should be talking to the UK rather than expressing unwillingness to help.

Im sorry but I feel the Libyan government should remember their promise to help all those Gaddafi/IRA victims.

It would be abhorrent if the Libyans did not fulfil their promise to those who have been left severely disabled and bereaved.

A Foreign Office spokeswoman said: The Government wishes to see a just solution for all victims of Gaddafi-sponsored IRA terrorism, and takes this issue extremely seriously.

The Libyan government has a responsibility to deal with the legacy of the Gaddafi regime, as part of a broad process of national and international reconciliation and justice.

While we do not support Lord Empeys Private Members Bill, we are clear that it is a manifestation of the strong public and Parliamentary feeling in the UK that the Libyan government must engage on this matter.

The FCO is looking at a range of options with other Government departments on what more the UK Government could do to support victims of Gaddafi-sponsored IRA terrorism.Leo Varadkar was speaking ahead of a bilateral meeting with Theresa May in Brussels (Brian Lawless/PA)

Irelands premier has said that the key issue of agreeing the backstop deal is not only an issue of substance, but an issue of trust.

Leo Varadkar reiterated Irelands position on the backstop, which he said must be legally operable and would prevent a hard border emerging between Northern Ireland and the Republic.

The Taoiseach was speaking ahead of a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Theresa May in Brussels.

Both leaders spoke by telephone earlier this week, however there were no indications they are closer to resolving the outstanding Irish border issue.

Mr Varadkar said that he welcomes fresh thinking, but added that time is running out.

We have always been abundantly clear about what our objectives are and they have been the same since the referendum happened, and that is that there should be a withdrawal agreement that allows us for an orderly exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union, he added.

The Taoiseach travelled to Brussels on Wednesday ahead of a working dinner with the leaders of EU 27 in which they will discuss the ongoing Brexit negotiations.

Speaking about the Irish border issue, Mr Varadkar added: We cant have an expiry date, it can only be temporary unless and until we have an alternative agreement that also ensures us that there will be no hard border on the island of Ireland.

This is not just an issue of substance, its also an issue of trustLeo Varadkar

Thats what we agreed in writing with the European Union and the United Kingdom back in March so this is not just an issue of substance, its also an issue of trust.

He also signalled his support for extending the UKs Brexit transition period, saying that he welcomed any proposal that would help bring about a solution.

Following reports that EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier was open to pushing the implementation period back to end in December 2021, Mr Varadkar said that negotiating a new economic and security relationship between the EU and the UK within two years would be a real challenge.

Certainly were willing to listen to any proposals that might help to bring us to a solution.

I really need to say though that any extension to the transition period couldnt be a substitute to the backstop, it would still need to have that.

And perhaps that would give people greater confidence that it would never need to be invoked.

Last week, Irelands opposition leader Micheal Martin wrote to Mr Varadkar suggesting they commit to maintaining the government in the current form until a Brexit deal is ratified.

He wants his party Fianna Fail and Fine Gael to commit to no election before Brexit is ratified by Westminster on January 21.

Mr Varadkar, however, said he had a difficulty with the suggestion, adding that no Irish government should ever fall on the basis of a vote that happens in the British parliament or any foreign parliament.

I think that could potentially play into the hands of hardline Brexiteers or people that would oppose a deal that Prime Minister May might put to parliament, he added.

Imagine a situation whereby those opposing a deal would be able to say, as a result of a vote in the House of Commons, not only would that deal be defeated, it would also bring down the Irish Government, so Im not sure if Deputy Martin really thought that through.

Im sure his intentions were very decent, but he probably didnt think that through strategically.

He denied he was planning an election, adding that he has already set out his position to Mr Martin.

Ive put forward my suggestion to Fianna Fail on August 31 that we agree that there be no election until the summer of 2020, and I set out in detail what I believe the Government could achieve for the people of Ireland between now and then, he said.Theresa May has indicated she is ready to consider extending the UKs transition out of the EU for an additional year to the end of 2021.

If agreed, the change would mean the UK remaining within the single market and customs union and subject to EU rules and regulations for almost three years after the official date of Brexit in March 2019 and more than five years after the referendum vote to leave.

Mrs May was fighting to preserve the possibility of a deal with Brussels on the UKs withdrawal, after negotiations foundered last weekend on the intractable issue of the Irish border.

She addressed leaders of the 27 remaining EU member states in Brussels ahead of a dinner at which they discussed Brexit in her absence.

The president of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani, who also spoke, said: Both sides mentioned the idea of an extension of the transition period as one possibility which is on the table and would have to be looked into.

A senior EU official later said Mrs May had indicated she was ready to consider a longer transition period.

Expand Close Theresa May arrives in Brussels to brief the remaining 27 EU leaders (European Commission Audiovisual Services) AP/PA Images / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Theresa May arrives in Brussels to brief the remaining 27 EU leaders (European Commission Audiovisual Services)

Mrs May initially suggested an implementation period of around two years after Brexit, to give the UKs authorities and companies time to prepare for the new arrangements.

But she later accepted a 21-month transition offered by the EU, ending on the last day of December 2020.

It emerged on Wednesday that the EUs chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier was ready to discuss a further years extension to allow time to find a solution to keep the Irish border open.

UK officials stressed that the Prime Minister was not proposing any extension to the period already agreed.

Any further proposed extension is likely to be fiercely opposed by Eurosceptics, who warn the UK would become a vassal state of Brussels, bound by its rules but unable to influence them.

Expand Close Mrs May was greeted to Brussels with a kiss from European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker (European Commisison Audiovisual Services) / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Mrs May was greeted to Brussels with a kiss from European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker (European Commisison Audiovisual Services)

And it is likely to involve a demand from Brussels for a further years contributions towards EU budgets, which could cost the UK as much as 9 billion.

Before travelling to Brussels, Mrs May vowed to protect the precious Union of the United Kingdom as she answered questions in the House of Commons.

We will not accept any proposals which would effectively break up the United KingdomTheresa May

However, during exchanges at Prime Ministers Questions, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said the Tories were too weak and divided to negotiate effectively with Brussels.

Mrs May told MPs: We will not accept any proposals which would effectively break up the United Kingdom.

The meeting in Brussels was supposed to be the occasion when the leaders of the EU 27 member states gave the green light for a special summit in November to finalise the terms of Britains withdrawal.

However, European Council president Donald Tusk has warned that without new concrete proposals from the British to break the logjam over the Irish border backstop, further progress on a deal may be impossible.

In a speech to the German parliament before travelling to Brussels, Chancellor Angela Merkel said that the possibility of a Brexit deal was still there, but added that Berlin was making plans for a no-deal withdrawal.

And in Paris, Emmanuel Macrons government published details of legislation to authorise preparations for a no-deal Brexit, which could see the restoration of customs checks and health inspections for animals at French ports, and even a requirement for Britons to seek visas for stays of three months or more.Derry-born Irish presidential hopeful Peter Casey has become mired in controversy after saying Travellers are "basically people camping in someone else's land".

The remarks were made during an interview on The Floating Voter podcast on Independent.ie, in which Mr Casey launched a lengthy attack on the Travelling community, arguing: "They are not paying their fair share of taxes in society."

His remarks have been widely condemned, including by Traveller representative group Pavee Point, which has described them as "ill-informed, grossly insulting and offensive".

Mr Casey was raised in Derry and attended Nazareth House Primary School and St Columb's College.

He is the CEO and Chairman hf global recruitment firm Claddagh Resources.

History was made last year when the Dail gave formal recognition to Travellers as a distinct ethnic group within the State.

However, Mr Casey said: "That's a load of nonsense. They are not from Romany or whatever."

When challenged about his views, Mr Casey doubled down, saying the arrival of Travellers in an area "devastates the prices of the houses".

"Let's call a spade a spade. Your house price doesn't start going through the roof as soon as you get two dozen Travellers moving in down the street from you," he said.

He cited an ongoing dispute in Tipperary where six homes are empty in a 1.7m development because families living on an unauthorised site nearby want stables for horses.

"I'm sorry, there's something seriously wrong with society when we're at that stage," Mr Casey said.

His comments were last night described by Pavee Point as "ill-informed, grossly insulting and offensive".

David Joyce, a member of the Travelling community and the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, told the Irish Independent: "He should withdraw from the campaign. He's shown he's not fit to represent all the people of Ireland. This man is a racist. He is scapegoating my community."

Mr Joyce, who is also a solicitor, added: "I don't think any presidential campaign in the past has ever stooped to this level of blatant racism."

He said the candidate's views were "founded on ignorance, prejudice and pure racism".

"The notion that we all live in caravans and pull up on people's land is rubbish," he said.

Martin Collins, co-director of Pavee Point Traveller and Roma Centre, said: "These comments put his presidential campaign on the same level as a local election where people play the nimby card to gain votes, as we have seen so often in the past.

Expand Close Martin Collins, co-director of Pavee Point Traveller and Roma Centre, has criticised the comments. / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Martin Collins, co-director of Pavee Point Traveller and Roma Centre, has criticised the comments.

"This potentially can feed into racist stereotypes and it is reckless and irresponsible and certainly not befitting anyone standing to be president for all the people of Ireland."

Mr Collins said Mr Casey's input had helped to "belittle the lived experience of Travellers in terms of racism and exclusion".

The interview was described as "very concerning" by Shane O'Curry, director of the European Network Against Racism, which has 87 member organisations in Ireland.

"I am shocked at the ignorance of his comments. They show that Peter Casey is as ignorant as he is inept at politicking," he said.

"His comments about Traveller ethnicity fly in the face of academic consensus and what Travellers say themselves.

"It betrays a gross misunderstanding of what it is to be an ethnic minority, as well as a gross misunderstanding of what life is like in Ireland for ethnic minorities.

"The purpose of recognising Traveller ethnicity is to renegotiate the relationship between society and Travellers so that we can value Travellers' contribution to society more.

"Peter Casey's comments have a devastating effect. Let's not forget that when politicians have made comments like those before they have resulted in violence and intimidation against Travellers."Aras an Uachtarain, home of the Irish President in Phoenix Park, Dublin (Niall Carson/PA)

A candidate to become the next Irish president faces calls to withdraw after he said Travellers are simply people camping on someone elses land.

Businessman Peter Casey claimed Irelands recognition of them as members of an ethnic minority was a load of nonsense.

He is one of six candidates vying for the largely ceremonial office in this months election but was accused of behaving recklessly and irresponsibly.

Expand Close Presidential candidate Peter Casey (Niall Carson/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Presidential candidate Peter Casey (Niall Carson/PA)

Martin Collins, co-director of the Pavee Point Traveller & Roma Centre, said: Our president needs to be inclusive of all citizens and I would not have any confidence that he would be inclusive.

These comments put Mr Caseys presidential campaign on the same level as a local election where people play the Nimby (not in my back yard) card to gain votes, as we have seen so often in the past.

Mr Collins urged him to withdraw and added: In the unlikely event that Mr Casey was elected as President it is obvious Travellers would not be welcome at Aras an Uachtarain, which is sad in the light of the new era of recognition and inclusion in Ireland.

Mr Casey said he sympathised with residents living near Traveller camps.

He told an Irish Independent media group political podcast: Do you think they are sitting here going, this is great for my property value now that Ive got three dozen caravans down the road? It is just wrong.

Somebody needs to sit up and say this is nonsense. Here we are are giving them luxurious houses and theyre turning them down because theyve no stables.

"It was a very important step to recognise Traveller ethnicity, Travellers experience so many inequalities. I have spoken to young male Travellers whose suicide rate is six times of the average population" Michael D Higgins on @morningireland #aras18  Michael D Higgins (@MichaelDHiggins) October 17, 2018

Incumbent Michael D Higgins is favourite to win the race for the presidency when the country goes to the polls in just over a weeks time.

He told Irish broadcaster RTE that Travellers comprised an ethnic minority which experienced discrimination, adding: I find these views appalling.

He said they lived an average of 10 years less than the general population, and young Traveller men were six times more likely to take their own lives.

This is not the first time controversy has ignited over their place in Irish society.

A fire at a halting site in south Dublin in 2015 killed 10 members of the community.

There was an outpouring of sympathy but some attempts to move survivors to another site failed because of opposition from residents.

Just in the door after a great day on the #Aras18 trail. Started off in @RTERadio1 before visiting @ICHHDublin. Then onto canvass Grafton/Moore Street before heading out to do the Six O'Clock show. Looking forward to getting back at it tomorrow! #LiadhForPresident #ANewIreland pic.twitter.com/02BlI7d1M2  Liadh Ni Riada (@LiadhNiRiada) October 16, 2018

Sinn Fein candidate Liadh Ni Riada said stereotyping of any ethnic group was unacceptable.Peter Casey has said Travellers are simply people living on other peoples land. He is one of six candidates in next weeks Irish presidential election (Niall Carson/PA).

A candidate to become the next Irish president has said Travellers are simply people camping on someone elses land.

Businessman Peter Casey said Irelands recognition of them as members of an ethnic minority was a load of nonsense.

He is one of six candidates vying for the largely ceremonial office in this months election.

Mr Casey said he sympathised with residents living near Traveller camps.

He told an Irish Independent media group political podcast: Do you think they are sitting here going, this is great for my property value now that Ive got three dozen caravans down the road? It is just wrong.

Somebody needs to sit up and say this is nonsense. Here we are are giving them luxurious houses and theyre turning them down because theyve no stables.

"It was a very important step to recognise Traveller ethnicity, Travellers experience so many inequalities. I have spoken to young male Travellers whose suicide rate is six times of the average population" Michael D Higgins on @morningireland #aras18  Michael D Higgins (@MichaelDHiggins) October 17, 2018

Incumbent Michael D Higgins is favourite to win the race for the presidency when the country goes to the polls in just over a weeks time.

He told Irish broadcaster RTE that Travellers comprised an ethnic minority which experienced discrimination, adding: I find these views appalling.

He said they lived an average of 10 years less than the general population, and young Traveller men were six times more likely to take their own lives.

This is not the first time controversy has ignited over their place in Irish society.

A fire at a halting site in south Dublin in 2015 killed 10 members of the community.

There was an outpouring of sympathy but some attempts to move survivors to another site failed because of opposition from residents.

Pavee Point Traveller and Roma Centre is a Dublin-based support organisation.

Co-director Martin Collins said Mr Casey should withdraw from the election due to his ill-informed, insulting and offensive comments.

Our president needs to be inclusive of all citizens and I would not have any confidence that he would be inclusive.

These comments put Mr Caseys presidential campaign on the same level as a local election where people play the Nimby card to gain votes, as we have seen so often in the past.

Just in the door after a great day on the #Aras18 trail. Started off in @RTERadio1 before visiting @ICHHDublin. Then onto canvass Grafton/Moore Street before heading out to do the Six O'Clock show. Looking forward to getting back at it tomorrow! #LiadhForPresident #ANewIreland pic.twitter.com/02BlI7d1M2  Liadh Ni Riada (@LiadhNiRiada) October 16, 2018

Sinn Fein candidate Liadh Ni Riada said stereotyping of any ethnic group was unacceptable.

The Travelling community are an integral and historic element of the Irish nation who have faced discrimination and marginalisation at the hands of the state and local authorities for many decades.

They have been demonised and vilified by elements of the media who see Travellers as a handy scapegoat when discussing social problems.Shadow chancellor John McDonnell has told how he longs for a united Ireland, but insisted he recognises the democratic will of the people.

The long-standing Republican dismissed suggestions his dream would be realised as a result of the Irish backstop row that has stalled Brexit talks.

Mr McDonnell went on to joke that he would put his application in for the Protestant Orange Order however, if the next election led to a hung parliament.

The Democratic Unionist Partys ten MPs currently prop up Theresa Mays minority administration.

At a lunch with journalists in Westminster, he said: Im a Republican. I long for a united Ireland, but I recognise democracy.

Ireland will not be united on the basis of some contortions around the issue of the relationship with the EU.

It will only be reunited on the basis of the popular support of the Irish people, and thats what I respect.

Nothing in these discussions should in any way cause any damage to the Good Friday Agreement and its implementation.

He added: There will be some curious relationships that come out of a general election.

I can get my application for the Orange Order and order my bowler hat and sash for the marching season. You never know.

Mr McDonnell apologised in 2015 for previously saying the IRA should be honoured for its role in bringing the British Government to the negotiating table.

The shadow chancellor said Labour could be in government within months and claimed a general election was increasingly likely because Conservative MPs hate each other more than they hate us.

We are ready for that and we are prepared for that, staffed up, budgeted up, prepared, planned up all ready for it whenever it happens, he said.

He added that if there was balanced broadcast coverage, I think we will pick up the necessary points to take us into government.

Mr McDonnell compared Mrs Mays Brexit approach to Neville Chamberlains appeasement of Hitler.

Mr McDonnell said he expected the EUs chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier to make an offer to the UK for fear of Boris and others.

It will be a fudge and it will be a delay and no matter how much Theresa May dresses herself up as Churchill when she comes back it will be Neville Chamberlain, he said.

It will be a Neville Chamberlain moment  peace in our time.

He said Labour would support a deal that protected jobs and the economy.

If it doesnt, we will vote against it and call for a general election, he added.

If there isnt a general election we will have the fallback position, well look to see whether theres another option there and it might well be a peoples vote of some sort.

Mr McDonnell urged the Government to plough money into childrens services in the upcoming budget saying there was a 2 billion funding gap otherwise that must be filled or the most vulnerable youngsters would be at risk.The UK Government must break up its toxic marriage with the DUP if livelihoods in Northern Ireland are to be saved post-Brexit, Sinn Fein has warned.

Accusing their erstwhile partners in powersharing of pursuing a reckless, narrow agenda over the contentious border backstop issue, senior party members called on Theresa May to keep her word.

Sinn Fein activists held a small demonstration in the grounds of Stormont on Wednesday before handing in a letter outlining their concerns at the offices of Northern Ireland Secretary Karen Bradley. Three campaigners donned Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg face masks.

Sinn Fein Assembly member Mairtin O Muilleoir said DUP efforts to thwart Mrs May striking a deal that would ensure a freeflowing trade and regulatory border should be resisted.

The DUP is opposed to any backstop agreement that would result in increased checks on goods and produce moving between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

A few unexpected participants attending todays anti-Brexit rally at Stormont... pic.twitter.com/6buyNQlAi7  David Young (@DavidYoungPA) October 17, 2018

Referring to the Conservatives confidence and supply pact with the DUP, Mr O Muilleoir said: We are asking Mrs May the British Prime Minister to look above and beyond that relationship and alliance she has with the DUP and instead make a decision which is in line with what she promised previously and also in the interests of all the people here.

That is that we remain in the customs union and we remain in the single market to all extents for the all-Ireland economy, but also that it protects the Good Friday Agreement and the advances we have made for peace and reconciliation.

Expand Close Sinn Fein MLA Mairtin O Muilleoir urged the UK government to break its links with the DUP (David Young/PA) / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Sinn Fein MLA Mairtin O Muilleoir urged the UK government to break its links with the DUP (David Young/PA)

He later added: Maybe it is unusual for an Irish republican to be saying that to the British Prime Minister but  keep your word.

You committed last December to the backstop, you agreed to avoid a hard border in Ireland and the alternative is really calamitous.

Asked on suggestions that the EU might offer an extension to the transition period afforded the UK after Brexit as a negotiation concession, the Sinn Fein MLA said it was evidence of the flexibility Europe was willing to show to secure a deal.Chris Osborne, Ulster Farmers Union senior policy officer, was questioned by members of the inquiry

The Ulster Farmers' Union (UFU) has defended its failure to spot abuse of the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) sooner.

Two senior members of the agricultural union appeared before the public inquiry into the botched green energy scheme yesterday.

Chris Osborne, the UFU's senior policy officer, and Wesley Aston, its chief executive, were both challenged about how they failed to see the RHI scheme's flaws, and a controversial call by the UFU to reintroduce the top rate of payments.

In September 2011, Mr Osborne attended a Department for Enterprise (Deti) presentation on renewable energy.

He noted at the time that introducing RHI in Northern Ireland would create a danger of over-incentivisation.

The union favoured an upfront payment model instead of the rolling subsidy Deti would pick.

It also opposed choosing energy regulator Ofgem to administer RHI in Northern Ireland, preferring a local provider.

Despite these objections, Mr Osborne wrote a newspaper article a year later advising that RHI would be "an excellent opportunity" for farmers.

At the time, the UFU knew the scheme lacked a cost control known as tiering, which was used in the Great Britain scheme.

It also realised RHI would be attractive to intensive heat users, such as farmers in the poultry industry.

Asked why the lack of tiering didn't cause alarm, Mr Osborne said Deti and farmers on the ground weren't raising such concerns with the UFU.

Junior counsel for the inquiry, Donal Lunny, questioned how realistic an expectation it would be to expect farmers to complain they were being paid too much.

Inquiry chair Sir Patrick Coghlin said that he found it hard to believe a senior policy officer with the UFU didn't know how lucrative the scheme was.

Mr Osborne admitted he was "surprised" when he finally realised that in the summer of 2015.

At that time, Deti officials made the decision to cut RHI subsidies in the autumn.

The UFU called for a slight delay to this, in consideration to farmers who had already made plans to install boilers.

Deti officials told Mr Osborne, however, that they needed to take drastic action to save public money.

Mr Osborne said the UFU chose to keep supporting members who had invested in RHI boilers.

Recently, the UFU also called for the original subsidies on offer to be reinstated.

Asked how this was a responsible position for the union, Mr Osborne said voting any other way would be like "turkeys voting for Christmas".

Mr Aston later faced questions about emails he sent to DUP adviser Dr Andrew Crawford about RHI in January last year.

They showed the extent of contact between Deti officials and the UFU in the summer of 2015.

Mr Aston said he had nothing to hide regarding the emails, but he didn't realise they would be leaked to the media.

He told the panel it didn't occur to him the DUP might use them to shift attention towards Deti officials.

Mr Lunny pressed Mr Aston if the UFU regretted pressing for a delay of the cuts to the scheme in 2015.

Mr Aston said he regretted the outcome, the large spike in applications and waste to public money, but he repeated the point that UFU members entered the scheme in good faith.

"We feel aggrieved as farmers that what should have been a good scheme has ended up tarnishing our industry," he said.

"We have 23,000 farmers out there and most of them didn't even know about the scheme."Rich Loizou, who was been jailed for 15 months (Anna Vickerstaff/PA)

Senior judges will hear an appeal against the jail terms handed to three fracking protesters for causing a public nuisance.

Soil scientist Simon Blevins, 26, from Sheffield, and teacher Richard Roberts, 36, of London, were both jailed for 16 months, while piano restorer Rich Loizou, 31, from Devon, was given 15 months.

They climbed on to lorries outside energy firm Cuadrillas fracking site in Preston New Road, Little Plumpton, Lancashire, in a protest last July which lasted almost 100 hours.

Expand Close Simon Blevins (Lancashire Constabulary/PA) Press Association Images / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Simon Blevins (Lancashire Constabulary/PA)

The three activists were jailed in September after being convicted of public nuisance following a trial at Preston Crown Court.

They will challenge their sentences before three judges at the Court of Appeal in London on Wednesday.

Supporters said they will gather outside the court for a silent demonstration before the hearing.

Expand Close Richard Roberts (Lancashire Constabulary/PA) Press Association Images / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Richard Roberts (Lancashire Constabulary/PA)

At the sentencing on September 26, Judge Robert Latham said he could not suspend the jail terms despite accepting the impact of incarceration and the good they did in the community.

He told Preston Crown Court: I do find they provide a risk of reoffending.

Each of them remains motivated by unswerving confidence that they are right. Even at their trial they felt justified by their actions.

Given the disruption caused in this case, only immediate custody can achieve sufficient punishment.

Expand Close Rich Loizou (Lancashire Constabulary/PA) Press Association Images / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Rich Loizou (Lancashire Constabulary/PA)

A fourth defendant, Julian Brock, 47, from Torquay, was sentenced to 12 months in custody, suspended for 18 months, after he admitted public nuisance.

Mr Brock is not challenging his sentence.

Last week Cuadrilla was given the go-ahead to start work at the site following a failed High Court bid by campaigners to block fracking due to safety concerns.

The trios appeal will be heard by Lord Chief Justice Lord Burnett and two other leading judges.Speaker John Bercow was told the "fish rots from the head" as MPs lined up to call for him to quit after an independent probe laid bare the bullying culture in the Commons.

Mr Bercow announced that he wants complaints about bullying, harassment and sexual misconduct in the Commons to be investigated by an outside body.

But he is facing intense pressure to stand down over his leadership on the issue, as well as allegations he bullied officials - claims he strongly denies.

Mr Bercow was expected to quit next summer after steering Brexit legislation through the Commons.

A spokeswoman for the Speaker's Office said: "The Speaker has made no announcement about his leaving date. He was elected by the House in 2017 for the course of the parliament. In the event he has anything to say on his future plans, he will make an announcement to the House first."

High Court judge Dame Laura Cox lifted the lid on a toxic environment in Westminster, that included staff having their bottoms and breasts touched in an atmosphere fuelled by alcohol.

Her report found a culture of "deference, subservience, acquiescence and silence" had allowed the mistreatment of staff in the House of Commons to thrive.

In the report, Dame Laura said it was "difficult to envisage" how the reforms needed could be delivered under the current senior House administration.

During a Commons debate on the report, during which Mr Bercow remained in the chair, MPs said it was time for him to quit.

Anne Main, Tory MP for St Albans, said: "It's the old adage that the fish rots from the head, and the leadership failings that have been highlighted in this report are extremely worrying. The important thing is nobody need fear to be able to call into account those however senior they are if they have failings.

"If this report has identified senior leadership failings... no one should be involved in this process who has been potentially linked to being part of the problem in this process."A top health official has admitted concerns over medicine supplies after Brexit are keeping him awake at night.

Sir Chris Wormald told MPs he also lost sleep about the impact quitting the European Union would have on the NHS workforce as well as future arrangements about treating patients on their travels.

The issues were the same regardless of whether a deal had been struck, the Department of Healths permanent secretary said.

Asked about his main concerns, he told the Brexit committee: Those three are securing the supply of medicines, workforce questions and reciprocal health care arrangements with the EU 27.

We are confident that we are putting in place all the correct mitigations but, an incredibly complex supply chain, it of course remains very challengingSir Chris Wormald

Those are the three things that keep me awake on this subject.

Sir Chris told the committee most health issues havent been hugely contentious.

Most of our issues are practical ones, he added.

Sir Chris sidestepped questions over whether he was confident supplies of essential medicines would be maintained in the event of no deal, saying he never issued guarantees.

He said buffer stocks were being organised but there would be other decisions that needed to be made along the way.

We are confident that we are putting in place all the correct mitigations but, an incredibly complex supply chain, it of course remains very challenging.

Expand Close Lorries parked up on the M20 motorway (John Stillwell/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Lorries parked up on the M20 motorway (John Stillwell/PA)

I should say its quite challenging in normal circumstances. There are always medicines that we are worried about at any given time.

Sir Chris was setting out the preparations being made for Brexit along with other top civil servants.

Bernadette Kelly, permanent secretary at the Department for Transport, told MPs advanced plans for dealing with queuing lorries were being put in place on the M20, M26 and at Manston Airport in Kent.

Asked if contracts had been signed for portable toilets for lorry drivers held up on motorways in the south east, she told MPs necessary arrangements were being made.

Ms Kelly also told the committee she expected air passengers would be able to fly to and from the UK in the extremely unlikely event that no deal was reached.Jeremy Corbyn called for an international investigation into the abominable treatment of Jamal Khashoggi (Jane Barlow/PA)

Jeremy Corbyn has called for the suspension of arms sales to Saudi Arabia after dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi was allegedly murdered in its Istanbul consulate.

The Washington Post columnist, who was a critic of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has been missing for more than two weeks after he entered the Gulf kingdoms consulate.

Turkish officials said police searching the consulate found evidence the journalist was killed there, while brutal accounts surfaced of his alleged slaying as he tried to pick up paperwork to get married.

Expand Close Turkish police officers at Saudi Arabias consulate in Istanbul on Monday (Emrah Gurel/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Turkish police officers at Saudi Arabias consulate in Istanbul on Monday (Emrah Gurel/AP)

The Labour leader on Wednesday called for an international investigation into the abominable treatment of Mr Khashoggi.

The issues that have come to light of the death in Istanbul of a Saudi national who was visiting the embassy call into question the close relationship with Saudi Arabia of so many Western countries, he told US broadcaster CNN.

Our immediate call is for the suspension of all arms supplies to Saudi Arabia.

Saudis behaviour in Yemen, where it has been accused of war crimes during the civil war, must also be challenged, Mr Corbyn added.

His comments came after Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt and his G7 counterparts said they are very troubled by the writers disappearance and called for those responsible to be held accountable.

On Wednesday, Turkish investigators searched the home of the Saudi consul general in Istanbul, which is a short distance from the consulate where Mr Khashoggi disappeared as his fiancee waited outside on October 2.

Expand Close The Saudi Arabia consuls residence in Istanbul (Emrah Gurel/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp The Saudi Arabia consuls residence in Istanbul (Emrah Gurel/AP)

An account in Turkeys pro-government Yeni Safak newspaper alleged Saudi officials cut off his fingers and decapitated him.

Riyadh is a key ally for the West and US President Donald Trump has said it is being treated as guilty until proven innocent.

US secretary of state Mike Pompeo visited Turkey for talks following a meeting with the Saudi king and the crown prince.

Mr Trump has suggested that rogue killers could have been involved in the case but such a move without sanction from the Saudi regime is believed by many to be highly unlikely.Members of the public are being asked to give their views on plans to introduce a tourist tax in Edinburgh.

The public consultation, which opened on Wednesday, particularly seeks contributions from residents and visitors to the Scottish capital, as well as businesses, investors and the hospitality and tourism industry.

Edinburgh City Council is looking at bringing in a transient visitor levy (TVL) with draft proposals suggesting those visiting the city pay 2 a night, or 2% extra on the overall cost of their room, year round, capped at seven nights.

Research suggests this could bring between 11 million and 13 million annually to the city, funds the council proposes using to pay for the impact of booming tourist numbers on public services such as street cleaning.

Around 1.6 million overseas visitors visit Edinburgh a year, more than any other UK city outside London, 2014-2016 figures from Visit Britain indicate.

If the plan is successful, Edinburgh could become the first place in the UK to introduce the levy, following in the footsteps of cities such as Paris and Barcelona.

Respondents to the online consultation are being asked to give their views on the details of the proposed tax and what the money raised should be spent on.

Should #Edinburgh introduce a transient visitor levy? Our consultation on our proposals launches today https://t.co/4OJzo64ZP8 pic.twitter.com/wAM75E3HU4  The City of Edinburgh Council (@Edinburgh_CC) October 17, 2018

Earlier this month, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced plans for a government consultation on tourist tax.

Current government policy does not support a tax but Ms Sturgeon said all sides would be listened to.

Any plans to introduce the levy in Edinburgh would need the support of the Scottish Government to proceed.

Edinburgh City Council leader Adam McVey said: The First Ministers announcement was welcome in that their work will provide a national context for our proposals, adding to the detailed engagement we have already carried out as well as the citywide public consultation we are embarking upon today.

We have always acknowledged the need for legislation in taking this forward but we as a council have also maintained the need to develop our own plans to make sure its not just any TVL but the right TVL for Edinburgh, taking account of our local circumstances.

Our plans have been developed through engagement with the industry and we see this consultation, alongside the Scottish Governments, as a way of further co-producing a scheme that works best for the city and our stakeholders.

We are very much listening to everyone involved around what they believe is a fair, simple and workable policy.

The council consultation will last for eight weeks.The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are greeted by schoolchildren as they arrive at Dubbo City Regional Airport (Dominic Lipinski/PA)

Five-year-old Luke Vincent got up close and personal with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex as they landed in Dubbo for the second day of their overseas tour.

The Buninyong Public School pupil was among the 150-strong welcoming party for the royal visit to the New South Wales city, 190 miles from Sydney.

Harry and Meghan also met Royal Flying Doctor Service volunteers and unveiled a new plane to mark the services 90 years.

But it was Luke who stole the show, going in for a hug with Harry and rubbing the 34-year-olds beard, before Meghan also offered a hug.

Expand Close The Duke and Duchess of Sussex arrive in Dubbo (Dominic Lipinski/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp The Duke and Duchess of Sussex arrive in Dubbo (Dominic Lipinski/PA)

School principal Anne Van Darrel said the youngster was mesmerised with Harrys facial hair.

She said: He got a hug from Meghan and then Harry bent down to speak to him and Luke didnt give him any choice!

Lukes favourite person in the world is Santa Claus, who has a beard. So he rubbed Harrys beard.

Its been a wonderful experience for these little country kids to meet people theyve only ever seen on TV.

Expand Close The Duchess of Sussex poses for a photo with members of the public at the naming and unveiling of a new Royal Flying Doctor Service aircraft (Dominic Lipinski/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp The Duchess of Sussex poses for a photo with members of the public at the naming and unveiling of a new Royal Flying Doctor Service aircraft (Dominic Lipinski/PA)

Kensington Palace said the Duke was keen to visit regional Australia during the tour, the couples first outside the UK and Ireland.

During their day visit to Dubbo, the parents-to-be also met the Woodley family, who have been at their farm since 1887.

Their area of New South Wales has been experiencing the most prolonged period of drought since records began in 1900.

Scott, 57, and Elaine, 56, said they had greatly appreciated the couples visit, although had been somewhat shell-shocked at being chosen.

Mr Woodley said: They were very interested to hear what we have been coping with the last few years.

We can cope with a few months of drought but this has been two years and the hay has already been affected for next year.

They seemed to understand exactly what we have been going through.

Daughter Laura, 23, described the royal visit as a bit surreal, adding: It was an honour and a privilege.

The family said Meghan had made a cake for them, which they said was incredibly nice of her.The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are visiting Australia (Kirsty Wigglesworth/PA)

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex will celebrate 90 years of the Royal Flying Doctor Service during the second day of their tour Down Under.

After a day of crowds and koalas, Harry and Meghan are travelling to the New South Wales city of Dubbo, 190 miles outside Sydney.

Kensington Palace said the duke was keen to visit regional Australia during the tour, the couples first outside the UK and Ireland.

Expand Close Harry and Meghan with Australias Governor General Sir Peter Cosgrove and his wife Lady Cosgrove (Phil Noble/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Harry and Meghan with Australias Governor General Sir Peter Cosgrove and his wife Lady Cosgrove (Phil Noble/PA)

During their day visit to Dubbo, the mother and father-to-be will also meet a local farmer to discuss the drought which has struck the region.

They will then head to a picnic and barbecue for members of the public at a park.The Foreign Secretary has voiced his concern at the suspected murder of a Saudi journalist but his power to act may be hamstrung by the UKs trade relationship with the Gulf state.

Jeremy Hunt and the other G7 nations said on Wednesday they were very troubled by the fate of the missing Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

Expand Close PA Graphics Press Association Images / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp PA Graphics

The measured statement came two weeks after he vanished from the Saudi embassy in Istanbul, but while some have called on the UK to impose sanctions, the lucrative trading relationship between the UK and Saudi Arabia, particularly arms exports, might make direct action unappealing.

In 2017, Saudi accounted for 1% of total UK exports, a total of 6.2 billion goods and services were exported to its shores.

In the same year, Saudi Arabia supplied 0.4% of UK imports, worth a total of 2.8 billion.

Figures from the Office of National Statistics showed that last year the UK exported machinery and transport equipment to Saudi Arabia worth 2.3 billion.

Expand Close The Prince of Wales attended a bilateral meeting with King Salman (Arthur Edwards/The Sun/PA) PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp The Prince of Wales attended a bilateral meeting with King Salman (Arthur Edwards/The Sun/PA)

The figure is the 11th highest total among the UKs non-EU trading partners, just behind Australia at 2.4 billion.

Machinery and transport was by far the most valuable type of UK export to Saudi Arabia in 2017, well ahead of goods like chemicals at 515 million, materials at 268 million and food and livestock at 197 million.

By contrast, the UK imported fuel from Saudi Arabia worth 1.3 billion in 2017, making Saudi the seventh biggest supplier of fuel from outside the EU, just behind Algeria at 1.4 billion.

Expand Close (PA Graphics) Press Association Images / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp (PA Graphics)

The most recent figures reveal Saudi is the UKs 25th biggest trading partner for exports and the 38th most important trading partner for imports.

A parliamentary research briefing dated May 2018 revealed that, in 2016, 49% of UK arms and defence equipment exports went to the Middle East.

Expand Close The Queen greets Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (Dominic Lipinski/PA) PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp The Queen greets Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (Dominic Lipinski/PA)

It said around 1.1 billion of licences were granted for export to Saudi Arabia, of which 98% were for licences deemed to be for military use.

The report said that there had been a clear upward trend in the volume of arms transfers to Saudi Arabia from 2008 onward from nations all over the world, most notably the United States.

It said: The estimated volume of transfers to Saudi Arabia in 2017 was the largest in the last 20 years.

Despite its poor track record on human rights and accusations of war crimes for its involvement in the ongoing civil war in Yemen, the UK has taken steps to strengthen ties with Saudi Arabia and its ruling family.

In March this year Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was treated to a three-day visit including lunch with the Queen and dinner with the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Cambridge.

Shortly afterwards, the Department for International Development announced it was launching a new partnership with Saudi Fund for Development, a government aid agency, to fund development projects in East Africa.

Expand Close The British Ambassadors residence in Riyadh (John Stillwell/PA) PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp The British Ambassadors residence in Riyadh (John Stillwell/PA)

International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt said at the time: We are sharing the best of British expertise, and our collective efforts will help create jobs and livelihoods to support the poorest people to stand on their own two feet.

This in turn will help to boost global prosperity which is in all our interests.

The Foreign Secretary previously called for a complete and detailed response and a from Saudi Arabia and a credible investigation into the whereabouts of Mr Khashoggi.

Expand Close Archive picture of former King Khalid of Saudi Arabia with then prime minister Margaret Thatcher (PA) PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Archive picture of former King Khalid of Saudi Arabia with then prime minister Margaret Thatcher (PA)

The restrained language contrasts that of the Turkish authorities, who allege Mr Khashoggi was killed on the premises because of his criticism of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Last week, the Sabah newspaper, which is close to Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, revealed the identities of what it called a mysterious 15-member assassination squad who were allegedly involved in the disappearance.

Former foreign secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind called for Britain and its allies to impose sanctions on Saudi Arabia for Mr Khashoggis disappearance.Srinagar, October 17: Tens of thousands of people on Wednesday participated in the funeral prayers of three youth martyred by Indian troops in Fateh Kadal area of Srinagar.

Reports said that thousands of people marched with bodies of Mehrajuddin Bangroo, Faiz Mushtaq Waza and Rayees Sofi to martyrs graveyard in Eidgah area of the city.

The mourners were chanting pro-freedom, pro-Pakistan and anti-India slogans while carrying the bodies of youth that passed through different areas of the old city before reaching martyrs graveyard Eidgah for burial.Theresa May has risked enraging Brexiteers by indicating she is ready to consider extending Britains transition out of the EU for a further year to the end of 2021.

The Prime Minister told a crunch European Council summit in Brussels that she was ready to consider the extension floated by EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier to give time to resolve the intractable problem of the Irish border.

If agreed, the change would mean the UK remaining within the single market and customs union and subject to EU rules and regulations for almost three years after the official date of Brexit in March 2019 and more than five years after the referendum vote to Leave.

Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage said that it would delay full withdrawal almost until the general election scheduled for May 2022 and may mean we never leave at all.

Expand Close Theresa May arrives in Brussels to brief the remaining 27 EU leaders (European Commission Audiovisual Services) / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Theresa May arrives in Brussels to brief the remaining 27 EU leaders (European Commission Audiovisual Services)

After her Chequers plan for Brexit was humiliatingly rejected at the last EU summit in Salzburg last month and efforts to seal a last-minute deal foundered last weekend over the EUs demand for a backstop to avoid a hard border in Ireland, Mrs May was fighting to keep the door open for an agreement to deliver an orderly withdrawal.

Addressing leaders of the 27 remaining EU member states in Brussels, she stressed that significant progress had been made in many areas of the negotiations and urged them to find a creative way out of the current dilemma.

We have shown we can do difficult deals together constructively, the PM said. I remain confident of a good outcome.

And she told them: The last stage will need courage, trust and leadership on both sides.

Following her 20-minute speech, Mrs May left to eat at the UK ambassadors residence in the Belgian capital, leaving the EU leaders to discuss Brexit in her absence over a dinner of turbot cooked in wheat beer.

The president of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani, who also spoke, said: Both sides mentioned the idea of an extension of the transition period as one possibility which is on the table and would have to be looked into.

A senior EU official later said Mrs May had indicated she was ready to consider a longer transition period.

Mrs Mays acceptance of an extension to the transition period will take us to the next general election which may mean we never leave at all.  Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) October 17, 2018

Mrs May initially suggested an implementation period of around two years after Brexit, to give the UKs authorities and companies time to prepare for the new arrangements.

But she later accepted a 21-month transition offered by the EU, ending on the last day of December 2020.

It emerged on Wednesday that Mr Barnier was ready to discuss a further years extension to allow time to find a solution to keep the Irish border open.

UK officials stressed that the Prime Minister was not proposing any extension to the period already agreed.

Any further extension is likely to be fiercely opposed by Eurosceptics, who warn the UK would become a vassal state of Brussels, bound by its rules but unable to influence them.

And it is certain to involve a demand from Brussels for a further years contributions towards EU budgets, which could cost the UK as much as 9 billion.

This weeks summit has long been billed as the moment of truth when agreement was needed to allow time for ratification before Brexit day in March.

Expand Close Mrs May was greeted to Brussels with a kiss from European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker (European Commisison Audiovisual Services) / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Mrs May was greeted to Brussels with a kiss from European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker (European Commisison Audiovisual Services)

But Mr Barnier made clear no breakthrough was now expected, saying that much more time was needed to bridge differences between the two sides, and promising to continue the work in the next weeks calmly and patiently.

Mrs May did not come forward with the new concrete proposals on the border issue which European Council president Donald Tusk has said are needed to break the deadlock.

A number of EU leaders voiced their willingness to work for an orderly UK withdrawal. But several also noted that their countries were beginning preparations for a possible no-deal Brexit.

We have shown we can do difficult deals together constructively. I remain confident of a good outcomeTheresa May

In a speech to the German parliament before travelling to Brussels, Chancellor Angela Merkel said that the possibility of a Brexit deal was still there, but added that Berlin was making plans for a no-deal withdrawal.

And in Paris, Emmanuel Macrons government published details of legislation to authorise preparations for a no-deal Brexit, which could see the restoration of customs checks and health inspections for animals at French ports, and even a requirement for Britons to seek visas for stays of three months or more.

Mr Macron, who held separate talks with Mrs May ahead of the three-hour dinner, said it was time to accelerate talks.

But Lithuanian president Dalia Grybauskaite said there would be no breakthrough this week because Mrs May lacked a strong mandate from her party and parliament.

Britain needed to decide finally what they want and to rally behind the Prime Minister all together, not split, she said, adding: Today we do not know what they want. They do not know themselves what they want. It is a problem.An aerial view of the Port of Felixstowe in Suffolk, as the US announces it will pursue a trade deal with the UK (Steve Parsons/PA)

The US administration has formally confirmed it intends to pursue a trade deal with the UK as soon as it is ready after leaving the EU.

Donald Trumps trade representative Robert Lighthizer notified Congress of plans to open negotiations with the UK, as well as with the EU and Japan.

Talks with the EU and Japan are intended to begin as soon as practicable, and certainly within 90 days, but the US-UK negotiations will have to wait until after the date of Brexit on March 29 next year.

Expand Close US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer wrote to the president pro tempore of the Senate Orrin Hatch to inform him of the planned trade negotiations / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer wrote to the president pro tempore of the Senate Orrin Hatch to inform him of the planned trade negotiations

A bilateral trade deal with the US is regarded by many supporters of EU withdrawal as the jewel in the crown of Brexit.

Any discussions are certain to spark intense controversy over the potential involvement of American corporations in the NHS as well as expected US demands for access to UK markets for GM crops, hormone-enhanced beef and chlorine-washed chicken.

Mr Trumps Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has warned continued UK adherence to EU environmental, workplace and animal welfare standards following Brexit could present landmines in the way of a deal.

In letters to senior members of Congress, Mr Lighthizer said: I am pleased to notify Congress that the president intends to initiate negotiations on a trade agreement with the United Kingdom.

We intend to initiate negotiations with the United Kingdom as soon as it is ready after it exits the European Union on March 29 2019.

Mr Lighthizer said an ambitious US-UK deal could further expand the two countries deep trade and investment relationship by removing existing goods and services tariff, and non-tariff trade barriers, and by developing cutting-edge obligations for emerging sectors where US and UK innovators and entrepreneurs are most competitive.

Expand Close International Trade Secretary Liam Fox set up a trade working group with the US to pave the way for talks (Stefan Rousseau/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp International Trade Secretary Liam Fox set up a trade working group with the US to pave the way for talks (Stefan Rousseau/PA)

Although the UK cannot formally open negotiations until after it has left the EU, Mr Lighthizer and International Trade Secretary Liam Fox launched a working group in July 2017 to pave the way for eventual talks immediately after Brexit.

Mr Lighthizer said the US administration was committed to concluding these negotiations with timely and substantive results for US consumers, businesses, farmers, ranchers and workers, consistent with US priorities and the negotiations objectives established by Congress in statute.

A UK Government spokesman said: The UK welcomes the US administrations confirmation that it intends to begin negotiations for a Free Trade Agreement with the UK once we have left the EU.

The UK-US Trade and Investment Working Group has been exploring ways to boost trade and investment ties, including laying the groundwork for a future Free Trade Agreement, and the talks have been positive.

The Government is taking steps to ensure we are ready to begin negotiations including through consulting the British public on their views on what a Free Trade Agreement should look like.Canada is now the largest country with a legal national marijuana marketplace as sales began early on Wednesday in Newfoundland.

Hours before a handful of retail outlets opened in the countrys easternmost province, a federal official told AP that Canada will pardon all those with convictions for possessing up to 30 grams of marijuana, the now-legal threshold.

Expand Close (PA Graphics) Press Association Images / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp (PA Graphics)

A formal announcement was planned for later on Wednesday. The official said those who want to take advantage of the pardons will have to apply.

Sales figures on the first morning suggested considerable demand for cannabis products across the country.

Shopify is powering many of the provincial online stores and said it had recorded than 100 cannabis orders per minute.

Ontario premier Doug Ford said the provinces government-run online store processed 38,000 orders by mid-morning.

The New Brunswick provincial online sales outlet Cannabis NB reported an average of 700 live users each hour viewing its website and several hundred purchases in its first few hours of operation.

Canada has had legal medical marijuana since 2001 and Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus government has spent two years working toward expanding that to include so-called recreational marijuana.

The goal is to better reflect societys changing opinion about marijuana and bring black market operators into a regulated system.

Uruguay was first was the first country to legalise marijuana.

Expand Close Canopy Growth boss Bruce Linton, left to right, poses with the receipt for the first legal cannabis for recreation use sold in Canada (Paul Daly/The Canadian Press via AP) AP / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Canopy Growth boss Bruce Linton, left to right, poses with the receipt for the first legal cannabis for recreation use sold in Canada (Paul Daly/The Canadian Press via AP)

Tom Clarke, an illegal cannabis dealer for three decades, was among the first to make a legal sale in Canada when his store opened at midnight local time in Portugal Cove, Newfoundland.

His is among at least 111 legal marijuana shops expected to open across the nation of 37 million people on Wednesday, with many more to come, according to an AP survey of the provinces.

Canadians also can order marijuana products through websites run by provinces or private retailers and have it delivered to their homes by mail.

Alberta and Quebec have set the minimum age for purchase at 18, while others have made it 19.

No stores will open in Ontario, which includes Toronto. The most populous province is working on its regulations and does not expect stores until next spring.

Ryan Bose, 48, a Lyft driver in Toronto, said it is about time.

Alcohol took my grandfather and it took his youngest son, and weed has taken no one from me ever, he said.

Expand Close Tweed in St Johns Newfoundland (Paul Daly/The Canadian Press via AP) AP / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Tweed in St Johns Newfoundland (Paul Daly/The Canadian Press via AP)

A patchwork of regulations has spread in Canada as each province takes its own approach within the framework set out by the federal government. Some are operating government-run stores, some are allowing private retailers, some both.

Canadas national approach has allowed for unfettered industry banking, inter-province shipments of cannabis and billions of dollars in investment  a sharp contrast with national prohibition in the United States.

Nine US states have legalised recreational use of cannabis, and more than 30 have approved medical marijuana.

California, the largest legal market in the US, earlier this month became the first state with a law mandating expungement of criminal convictions for marijuana-related offences that no longer are illegal.

Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon said it is time for the US government to follow Canadas lead.

Now that our neighbour to the north is opening its legal cannabis market, the longer we delay, the longer we miss out on potentially significant economic opportunities for Oregon and other states across the country, he said in a statement.

US Customs and Border Protection invited Canadian media to a conference call on Tuesday so officials could reiterate that marijuana remains illegal under US federal law and that those who are caught at the border with marijuana are subject to arrest and prosecution.

As Canada welcomes legalisation, supply shortages could develop, as happened in some US states when legalisation arrived.

Trevor Fencott, chief executive of Fire and Flower, said his company has 15 Alberta stores staffed and ready to sell marijuana, but the province has supplied only enough product to open three of them on Wednesday.

Were aware of some of the kinks or growing pains that come with creating an industry out of whole cloth in 24 months, Mr Fencott said.

Brenda Tobin and her son Trevor plan to open their shop in Labrador City in Newfoundland and Labrador at 4.20pm on Wednesday  420 is slang for the consumption of cannabis.

Ms Tobin, a longtime convenience store owner, said they will be cutting a ribbon and cake.

We are just ecstatic, she said.A Thai court has sentenced a former Buddhist monk known for his jet-set lifestyle to 16 years in prison for raping a young teenage girl who he also impregnated.

Wirapol Sukphol became infamous when he appeared in a 2013 YouTube video in his monks robe aboard a private jet, wearing aviator sunglasses with a Louis Vuitton bag by his side.

He was defrocked amid accusations that he had sexual relations with women  a major violation of the precepts guiding monks behaviour  and had impregnated one. He fled to the US, where he was arrested in 2016 and extradited last year.

On Wednesday, Ratchada Criminal Court in Bangkok handed Wirapol two eight-year prison terms, one for violating a minor under 15 and another for rape.

Wirapol is already serving a lengthy prison sentence. In August, the same court sentenced him to 114 years in connection with funds he fraudulently raised from followers.

He was found guilty of fraud, money laundering and violation of the computer crime act for taking money he had solicited for Buddhist statuary and temple improvements and spending it on cars and luxury goods.

Legal technicalities capped the 114-year sentence at 20 years, meaning he will now serve 36 years.

Wednesdays court ruling said prosecutors charged that Wirapol abducted a 14-year-old girl and sexually assaulted her from January 2000 to the middle of 2001, during which time she became pregnant.

The victim, now 32, said she was satisfied with the sentencing. She said she would present the ruling to Sisaket Juvenile and Family Court, where she has filed a lawsuit against Wirapol requesting 40 million baht (936,000) in child support in a case the court had put on hold pending Wednesdays ruling.

She said Wirapol had initially provided her 10,000 baht (234) per month to take care of their child but he gradually stopped the payments.

According to Thailands Department of Special Investigation, Wirapol at one point had accumulated assets estimated at 1 billion baht (23 million). During a shopping spree from 2009 to 2011, he bought 22 Mercedes Benz cars worth 95 million baht (2.2 million), the department said.

An earlier civil court ruling ordered the confiscation of 43.5 million baht (1 million) from Wirapol.US secretary of state Mike Pompeo meets with the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (AP)

Police searching the Saudi consulate have found evidence that Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi was killed there, a high-level Turkish official said.

The revelation came as Americas top diplomat landed in Turkey to discuss the probe into the writers disappearance.

The Turkish officials comment has intensified pressure on Saudi Arabia to explain what happened to Mr Khashoggi, who vanished on October 2 while visiting the consulate to pick up paperwork he needed in order to get married.

Expand Close Mr Khashoggi is thought to have been murdered inside the consulate (AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Mr Khashoggi is thought to have been murdered inside the consulate (AP)

US secretary of state Mike Pompeo told journalists before leaving Riyadh that Saudi leaders, including King Salman and his son, the 33-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, made no exceptions on who they would hold accountable.

Mr Pompeo said: They made a commitment to hold anyone connected to any wrongdoing that may be found accountable for that, whether they are a senior officer or official.

However, no major decision is made outside of the ultra-conservative kingdoms ruling Al Saud family.

Mr Khashoggi also fled the country last year amid the rise of Prince Mohammed, whom he wrote critically about in The Washington Post.

A strongly pro-government Turkish newspaper published a gruesome recounting of the alleged murder of Mr Khashoggi inside the consulate.

Yeni Safak cited what it described as an audio recording of the killing, which it said showed the Washington Post columnist was tortured.

The newspaper said Saudi Consul General Mohammed al-Otaibi could be heard on the tape, telling those allegedly torturing Mr Khashoggi: Do this outside; youre going to get me in trouble.

The newspaper said one of the Saudis torturing Mr Khashoggi replied: Shut up if you want to live when you return to (Saudi) Arabia.

Expand Close Inquiries are continuing into the disappearance (AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Inquiries are continuing into the disappearance (AP)

Meanwhile, US president Donald Trump, who earlier warned of severe punishment if the kingdom was found culpable for Mr Khashoggis appearance, criticised the global condemnation against the kingdom and compared it to the allegations of sexual assault levelled against US supreme court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearing.

Mr Trump said: Here we go again with youre guilty until proven innocent.

That attitude does not appear to be shared with US congress, as one prominent Republican senator said he believed that the crown prince, widely known as MBS, had Mr Khashoggi murdered.

This guy has got to go, said Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, speaking on Fox television.

Saudi Arabia, if youre listening: There are a lot of good people you can choose, but MBS has tainted your country and tainted himself.

US attorney general Jeff Sessions said serious evaluation was being given to whether US law enforcement officials would aid in the investigation over Mr Khashoggis disappearance.

Expand Close A Turkish official has said police found evidence Mr Khashoggi was killed at the Saudi consulate (AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp A Turkish official has said police found evidence Mr Khashoggi was killed at the Saudi consulate (AP)

Saudi officials have called Turkish allegations that a team of 15 Saudi agents killed Khashoggi baseless, but US media reports suggested that the kingdom may acknowledge the writer was killed at the consulate, perhaps as part of a botched interrogation.

Washington Post publisher and CEO Fred Ryan said the Saudi government owes the Khashoggi family and the world a full and honest explanation of everything that happened to him, noting that Tuesday marked two weeks since the disappearance of the 59-year-old journalist.

The Saudi government can no longer remain silent, and it is essential that our own government and others push harder for the truth, Mr Ryan added.

The high-level Turkish official told the AP that police found certain evidence of Mr Khashoggis killing at the consulate, without elaborating.

Police plan a second search at the Saudi consul generals home, as well as some of the countrys diplomatic vehicles, Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said. Leaked surveillance video shows that diplomatic cars travelled to the consul generals home shortly after Mr Khashoggi went into the consulate.

Expand Close A protest takes place outside the consulate (AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp A protest takes place outside the consulate (AP)

UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet said the inviolability or immunity of people or premises granted under the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations should be waived immediately.

That convention covers diplomatic immunity, as well as the idea that embassies and consulates sit on foreign soil in their host countries.

Given there seems to be clear evidence that Mr Khashoggi entered the consulate and has never been seen since, the onus is on the Saudi authorities to reveal what happened to him, Ms Bachelet said.

Nils Melzer, the UN special investigator on torture, said that if Turkey and Saudi Arabia cannot conduct a credible and objective investigation, then international involvement may be needed.A Turkish newspaper has published an account of the alleged murder of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, as Americas top diplomat arrived for talks over the Washington Post columnists disappearance.

The report by Yeni Safak adds to increasing pressure on Saudi Arabia to explain what happened to Mr Khashoggi, who vanished on October 2 while visiting the consulate to pick up paperwork he needed to get married.

US secretary of state Mike Pompeo held separate meetings with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu for around 40 minutes each on Wednesday in the Turkish capital, Ankara.

Expand Close Mevlut Cavusoglu with Mike Pompeo (Cem Ozdel/Turkish Foreign Ministry/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Mevlut Cavusoglu with Mike Pompeo (Cem Ozdel/Turkish Foreign Ministry/AP)

Mr Pompeo met Saudi King Salman and his son, the 33-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, on Tuesday. Before leaving Riyadh, he told reporters the Saudi leaders made no exceptions on who they would hold accountable.

They made a commitment to hold anyone connected to any wrongdoing that may be found accountable for that, whether they are a senior officer or official, Mr Pompeo said.

Today, I was in #SaudiArabia where I met with King Salman, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and Foreign Minister al-Jubeir. We had direct and candid conversations. Wednesday, I fly to Ankara to meet with Turkish officials. Read my full statement here: https://t.co/99fU8gxPEw  Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) October 16, 2018

No major decisions are made outside the ultra-conservative kingdoms ruling Al Saud family.

Mr Khashoggi had fled the country last year amid the rise of Prince Mohammed, whom he wrote critically about in the Post.

The Yeni Safak report cited what it described as an audio recording of Mr Khashoggis death, which it said showed the writer was tortured.

The newspaper said Saudi consul general Mohammed al-Otaibi could be heard on the tape, telling those allegedly torturing Mr Khashoggi: Do this outside, youre going to get me in trouble.

The newspaper said one of the Saudis torturing Mr Khashoggi replied: Shut up if you want to live when you return to (Saudi) Arabia.

Expand Close CCTV video of a man believed to be Jamal Khashoggi entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul (CCTV/Hurriyet/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp CCTV video of a man believed to be Jamal Khashoggi entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul (CCTV/Hurriyet/AP)

Saudi officials have not responded to repeated requests for comment from the Associated Press. Mr al-Otaibi left Turkey on Tuesday afternoon, Turkish state media reported.

Security services in Turkey have used pro-government media to leak details of Mr Khashoggis case, adding to pressure on the kingdom.

US President Donald Trump, who earlier warned of severe punishment if the kingdom was found culpable, criticised the allegations against Saudi Arabia and compared them to the accusations of sexual assault against Brett Kavanaugh during his Supremne Court confirmation hearing.

Here we go again with youre guilty until proven innocent, Mr Trump told the AP in an interview.

That attitude does not appear to be shared with Congress, as one prominent Republican senator said he believed that the crown prince, widely known as MBS, had Mr Khashoggi murdered.

This guy has got to go, said senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina. Saudi Arabia, if youre listening, there are a lot of good people you can choose, but MBS has tainted your country and tainted himself.

On Tuesday, a high-level Turkish official told the AP that police found certain evidence of Mr Khashoggis murder at the consulate.

Expand Close Police arrive at the Saudi consuls residence in Istanbul (Petros Giannakouris/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Police arrive at the Saudi consuls residence in Istanbul (Petros Giannakouris/AP)

Later on Wednesday, police arrived at the residence of the Saudi consul in Istanbul to conduct a search. They had wanted to search on Tuesday night but did not have permission from Saudi Arabia.

Leaked surveillance video shows that diplomatic cars travelled to the consul generals home shortly after Mr Khashoggi went into the consulate.Donald Trump has said Saudi Arabias crown prince denies knowledge of what happened to a journalist who went missing after visiting the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, saying answers will be coming shortly.

The US president tweeted after a phone call with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman about the fate of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi, who vanished on October 2 while visiting the consulate to pick up paperwork he needed to get married.

Mr Khashoggi had written columns for the Washington Post that were critical of the crown prince.

Mr Trump said the Saudi heir to the throne totally denied any knowledge of what took place in their Turkish Consulate.

He added that the crown prince told me that he has already started, and will rapidly expand, a full and complete investigation into this matter. Answers will be forthcoming shortly.

US secretary of state Mike Pompeo travelled to Saudi Arabia to talk to King Salman and the 33-year-old crown prince about the fate of the journalist.

Expand Close Mike Pompeo with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh (Leah Millis/Pool via AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Mike Pompeo with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh (Leah Millis/Pool via AP)

It comes as a high-level Turkish official said police searching the Saudi consulate found evidence that Mr Khashoggi was killed there.

Authorities also appeared ready to search the nearby residence of the consul general after the diplomat left the country.

Saudi officials have called Turkish allegations that a team of 15 Saudi agents killed Mr Khashoggi baseless, but US media reports suggested that the kingdom may acknowledge the writer was killed at the consulate, perhaps as part of a botched interrogation.

The close US ally is ruled entirely by the Al Saud monarchy, and all major decisions in the ultra-conservative kingdom are made by the royal family.

Washington Post publisher and chief executive Fred Ryan said the Saudi government owes the Khashoggi family and the world a full and honest explanation of everything that happened to him, noting that Tuesday marked two weeks since the disappearance of the 59-year-old journalist.

The Saudi government can no longer remain silent, and it is essential that our own government and others push harder for the truth, Mr Ryan added.

The high-level Turkish official said police found certain evidence of Mr Khashoggis killing at the consulate.

Police planned a second search at the Saudi consul generals home, as well as some of the countrys diplomatic vehicles, Turkeys foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said.

Expand Close The Saudi Arabia consuls residence in Istanbul (Emrah Gurel/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp The Saudi Arabia consuls residence in Istanbul (Emrah Gurel/AP)

Leaked surveillance video shows diplomatic cars travelled to the consul generals home shortly after Mr Khashoggi went into the consulate.

Consul General Mohammed al-Otaibi left Turkey on Tuesday afternoon, state media reported, just as police began putting up barricades around his official residence.

Saudi Arabia did not immediately acknowledge he had left or offer a reason for his departure.

Earlier in the day, UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet said the inviolability or immunity of people or premises granted under the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations should be waived immediately.

That convention covers diplomatic immunity, as well as the idea that embassies and consulates sit on foreign soil in their host countries.

Given there seems to be clear evidence that Mr Khashoggi entered the consulate and has never been seen since, the onus is on the Saudi authorities to reveal what happened to him, Ms Bachelet said.

Turkey had wanted to search the consulate for days.

Permission apparently came after a late Sunday night call between King Salman and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Certain areas of the consulate were to remain off-limits, although officials would be able to inspect surveillance cameras, Turkish media reported.

Mr Erdogan told journalists on Tuesday that police sought traces of toxic materials and suggested parts of the consulate had been recently painted, without elaborating.Melania Trumps plane was forced to return to a Washington area military base because of smoke in the cabin.

A spokeswoman for the first lady said everyone is fine and everyone is safe after the plane returned to Joint Base Andrews.

Mrs Trump later boarded a different plane to make the visit to a Philadelphia hospital and meet families of children affected by exposure to opioids while in the womb.

According to TV reporters travelling with Mrs Trump, the flight was in the air for about 10 minutes when smoke filled the cabin, and then Secret Service agents rushed to the front of the plane.

It is not clear what caused the problem.

Melania Trump to focus on opioids, newborns in hospital tour https://t.co/v30YJz5gAT via @phillydotcom  Melania Trump 45 Archived (@FLOTUS45) October 16, 2018

Thomas Jefferson University Hospital has provided care to mothers with opioid use disorder and their newborn children for more than 45 years.

Mrs Trump toured a neonatal intensive care nursery and spoke at a conference on a new system that tracks infants suffering opiate withdrawal.

The visit was part of her Be Best campaign, which focuses on issues affecting children, including the importance of healthy pregnancies.Electric car maker Tesla says it has secured land in Shanghai for its first factory outside the US, pushing ahead despite mounting US-Chinese trade tensions.

Tesla said it had signed a land transfer agreement on a 210-acre site for the factory.

It announced the plan for a Chinese factory in July after the Beijing government said it would end restrictions on full foreign ownership of electric vehicle manufacturers.

Those plans have gone ahead despite US-Chinese tensions over Beijings technology policy.

Expand Close A Tesla Model S (Richard Vogel/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp A Tesla Model S (Richard Vogel/AP)

Washington imposed penalty tariffs on Chinese goods and Beijing retaliated by raising duties on imports of American products including electric cars.

China is the biggest global electric vehicle market and Teslas second-largest after the US.

California-based Tesla joins global firms including General Motors, Volkswagen and Nissan in pouring billions of dollars into manufacturing electric vehicles in China.

Local production would eliminate risks from tariffs and other import controls. It would help Tesla develop parts suppliers to support after-service and make its vehicles more appealing to mainstream Chinese buyers.

Expand Close Elon Musk (Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Elon Musk (Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP)

The move is an important milestone for what will be our next advanced, sustainably developed manufacturing site, Teslas vice president of worldwide sales, Robin Ren, said.

Shanghai is a centre of Chinas motor industry and home to state-owned Shanghai Automotive Industries, the main local manufacturer for GM and VW.

Tesla has said production in Shanghai will begin two to three years after construction of the factory begins and eventually increase to 500,000 vehicles annually.

Tesla has yet to say how it will pay for the factory. The company has yet to give a price tag but the Shanghai government said it would be the biggest foreign investment to date.

Teslas 5 billion dollar (3.8 billion) Nevada battery factory was financed with help from a 1.6 billion dollar (1.2 billion) investment by battery maker Panasonic.

Analysts expect Tesla to report a loss of about 200 million dollars (152 million) for the three months ending on September 30 after the previous quarters 742.7 million dollar (565 million) loss.

Chief executive Elon Musk said in a September 30 letter to US regulators that the company was very close to achieving profitability.

Teslas estimated sales in China of under 15,000 vehicles in 2017 gave it a market share of less than 3%.

The company faces competition from Chinese brands including BYD Auto and BAIC Group that already sell tens of thousands of hybrid and pure-electric vehicles annually.

Until now, foreign car makers that wanted to manufacture in China were required to work through state-owned partners. Foreign brands baulked at bringing electric vehicle technology into China to avoid having to share it with potential future competitors.

The first of the new electric models being developed by global firms to hit the market, Nissans Sylphy Zero Emission, began rolling off a production line in southern China in August.

Lower-priced electric models from GM, VW and other brands are due to hit the market this year, well before Tesla is up and running in Shanghai.Srinagar: Top militant Mehraj ud Din Bangroo was among four persons killed in a gunfight with the government forces in Fateh Kadal area of downtown Srinagar on Wednesday, police said.

Director General of Police, Dilbag Singh identified the two militants killed in a gunfight as Mehraj ud Din Bangroo and Faid Mushtaq Waza.

Talking to reporters after the wreath-laying ceremony of a cop Kamal Kishore who was also killed in the gunfight, Singh said that Bangroo was involved in several killings and weapon-snatching incidents.

He said the identity of the third militant was yet to be ascertained.

Giving details of the operation, he said that an operation was launched in Fateh Kadal after specific inputs about the presence of militants in a house.

Three bodies were found during search operation after the operation ended today morning. Two were identified while the identity of their active associate was being ascertained, he said.

However, reports said that the person who was yet to be identified was the son of the house owner. They identified him as Rayees.

All educational institutions were closed and Internet suspended in Srinagar district. Class work was also been suspended at Kashmir University.

Meanwhile, clashes have erupted in Fateh Kadal and Khanyar area of the city.Whether one supports same-sex marriage or not, the Supreme Court decision in the Ashers case last week should be welcomed. This was never a case about same-sex marriage itself, but about the freedom of a Christian family business to refuse to be forced to express a view on a controversial matter of public policy with which they morally disagreed.

All who believe in freedom of conscience and expression should be happy with this important legal decision, which affirms the right of people not to be forced to accept a political view with which they disagree.

The Supreme Court unanimously decided that the McArthurs, the owners of Ashers Bakery, were lawfully entitled to object to icing a cake for Gareth Lee, whereby they would have been forced to support a message in support of same-sex marriage, to which they were conscientiously opposed.

This should not be seen as a victory for those opposed to same-sex marriage, but a victory for freedom of conscience and free expression.

A contrary result would have been very bad news for all who value political and religious freedom in a democratic society.

As the Supreme Court president, Lady Hale, said: "The objection was to the message, not the messenger."

The Supreme Court concluded that there was no direct discrimination against Mr Lee because of his sexual orientation, but, rather, because objection was taken against the message that he wanted iced on the cake he wished to buy.

The evidence was that the McArthurs both employed and served gay people and treated them in a non-discriminatory way.

The court said that anyone who wanted that pro-same-sex marriage message would have been treated in the same way as Mr Lee. The McArthurs' reason for refusing was their deeply held and genuine religious objection to same-sex marriage.

The court said that, by way of comparison, it was akin to a Christian printing business being required to print leaflets promoting an atheist message. In a nutshell, as the court emphatically explained, the objection was to the message and not to any particular person, or persons.

As far as same-sex marriage is concerned, nothing in this judgment adversely affects that campaign in Northern Ireland. This case does not affect that outstanding issue, which remains to be resolved by our non-functioning Assembly.

Nor is there anything at all in this decision that reduces, or undermines, the rights of gay people in Northern Ireland. It certainly does not, in any way, permit, or encourage, discrimination in goods or services to gay people here.

What this Supreme Court decision does is to reaffirm the right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion and freedom of expression, as contained in Articles 9 and 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. It does this at a time when such freedoms are being threatened.

This judgment completely overturns the previous decision of the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal, which, in 2016, delivered a convoluted judgment which unduly complicated what appeared to ordinary people to be a straightforward issue of the right of free expression and conscience for the McArthur family.

At the time of its decision, the Appeal Court was rightly subject to sustained criticism nationally from gay rights advocates and liberal commentators, together with more conservative elements in the media. They together voiced concern that the judgment had potentially curtailed free expression and conscience.

The Court of Appeal explicitly dismissed the proposition that Ashers Bakery was being forced to make a statement in favour of same-sex marriage with which it disagreed.

But, by its recent judgment, the Supreme Court properly dismissed this bizarre proposition.

Questions arise for the Equality Commission in their enthusiastic pursuit of this case. People are bemused that this case was prioritised by the commission for special attention.

The commission, which is generally perceived as doing a good job, did not seem to worry about the disproportionate amount of time, effort and resources spent on this case. It is a fact that the Equality Commission spent more than 250,000 on this case - a huge chunk of public money - which may be seen as wasted by the man in the street at a time when the public purse is under pressure.

But now, it should reflect carefully on this case and in its future decision-making about other cases.

It should let itself be informed by the wider issues of freedom of expression and conscience arising out of the Supreme Court judgment.

The 'gay cake' case has been quite a saga, legally and media-wise. Much ink has been spilt over this apparently trivial issue of icing on a cake, and it has raised serious human rights questions and much emotion.

As the undaunted and long-time gay rights activist Peter Tatchell has said (probably with Voltaire in mind): "Although I profoundly disagree with Ashers ... in a free society, neither they, nor anyone else, should be forced to facilitate a political idea that they oppose."

We all could learn from those wise words.Remember devolution? It was supposed to bring decision-making closer to the local level. Instead, with Stormont suspended and Brexit talks in crisis, Northern Ireland's future is now being decided in Belgium, of all places.

The latest round of talks in Brussels over the next few days will revolve around what's become known as the "Northern Ireland backstop". It's one of those neologisms, like selfie and binge-watching, that people didn't even know they needed until it was invented.

Essentially, Britain wants to have a free trade agreement with the EU, which would allow commerce to continue exactly as before, but without accepting EU rules on collective trade bargaining and free movement of people. The EU thinks - not unreasonably - that this would give Britain benefits not enjoyed by remaining members, so they're resisting.

If both sides are unable to overcome those difficulties, London and Brussels agreed last year that there needed to be a fallback arrangement, so that, in the event of a "no deal", nothing would change on the Irish border and goods and people could still flow freely, as the peace process demanded.

The problem is this either means the UK as a whole staying in the customs union, or Northern Ireland abiding by different rules than the rest of the UK.

The first option is unacceptable to Brexiteers and the second to unionists, for obvious reasons.

Once Northern Ireland is hived off from Great Britain and left in the jurisdiction of the EU, Ireland has effectively become an all-island unit.

Hence, the deadlock which this week's summit is meant to resolve.

There were glimmers of hope over the weekend that there may be a breakthrough, but they proved premature. In fact, the deadlock may be getting worse, since the EU is now said to be demanding a "backstop to the backstop", namely that, if it's not possible to agree a UK-wide backstop, the original Northern Ireland-only proposal should kick in.

Complicating the situation still further is that Theresa May needs DUP votes in order to survive at Westminster.

All things considered, it's surprising - as pointed out on BBC's Politics Live on Monday - that the Prime Minister has been as tough as she has with the DUP.

Nationalists tend to portray Theresa May as feebly in hock to the shrill demands of hardline unionists, but if that was the case, then she'd have backed down long since. Instead, the Tory leader keeps inching both unionists and Brexiteers along, forcing them to tighten the screws periodically in response, not least by threatening to effectively collapse the government. DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds calls it a "battle for the Union itself".

Democratic Unionist rhetoric has softened a little since the weekend's high drama, but the Prime Minister would be foolish to dismiss their objections to what's being cobbled together in Brussels as bluster. That they're still prepared to risk the survival of the Government - potentially opening the door of 10 Downing Street to republican sympathiser Jeremy Corbyn - shows how serious the stakes have become. Or, perhaps, that should be surreal?

Sinn Fein has actually taken to accusing the DUP of putting "flag-waving jingoism" before the economy. Republicans have always placed constitutional doctrinairism above ordinary people's jobs and livelihoods - not to mention their lives - to the extent that Michelle O'Neill's patriotic heroes in the IRA were prepared to blow Belfast's commercial centre to smithereens in order to advance their lunatic cause.

Despite most of our exports going across the Irish Sea, it's telling that Sinn Fein's real concern is still with ensuring there are no barriers between north and south, where a much smaller fraction of trade is done. That's "flag-waving jingoism", too.

O'Neill even had the cheek to say this week that "the DUP can't wish away... basic economics". Getting lectures on "basic economics" from the Shinners is like being ticked off for marital infidelity by the MP for Upper Bann.

Long gone are the days when republicans opposed foreign interference in Irish affairs, that's for sure. It turns out that they were only against it if the people telling them what to do were speaking English. As long as they spoke French, like EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier, Sinn Fein rolls over like an obedient puppy.

One thing seems to have been forgotten in all this. When EU Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker (left) addressed the Dail in June, he was asked a simple question by Richard Boyd Barrett of People Before Profit: "If negotiations fail with the Tory Government on the exit agreement, will you give us a clear commitment that the European Union will not impose a border, customs posts, or any other infrastructure on the frontier?"

Juncker couldn't have been clearer. "Yes," he said, agreeing there would be no border apparatus, or personnel "under any circumstances".

Northern Ireland and the Republic already have different VAT regimes, after all. That is managed smoothly without customs officials checking every truck. Why, then, are those, such as the SDLP and Alliance Party, who purport to believe that the EU is negotiating in good faith, not reassured by Juncker's words?

Arlene Foster explosively suggested in this newspaper at the weekend that Barnier had tried to fob her off with a straight "lie": that Northern Ireland would have the best of both worlds if unionists acceded to the backstop.

Could it be that, deep down, Foster's pro-Remain critics don't trust the EU, either?

That includes the Irish Government, who are now accusing the British of "backsliding" over the backstop. If the EU is acting in good faith, why isn't Juncker's guarantee enough?

Either way, we may be about to find out. The chances of "no deal" have risen sharply in recent weeks and Theresa May heads to the EU summit in Brussels with disgruntled Tories plotting her downfall at Westminster.

With so few friends, there's an argument to be made that Northern Ireland's interests would be better served right now by the DUP backing, rather than undermining, the Prime Minister. To uphold the Union, May has been prepared to risk the wrath of her party by not ruling out the idea of the UK as a whole staying in close alignment with the EU.

That ought to count for something. If May is ultimately prioritising Northern Ireland's place in the Union, isn't that more of a win for the DUP than rowing in behind those pushing for a hard Brexit?

Arlene Foster either wants to have her cake and eat it, or finds herself in the same position as Theresa May, being buffeted on all sides from colleagues with conflicting - and possibly irreconcilable - demands. The DUP needs to decide which is more important: the Union or Brexit.

Surely, that's an easy choice?The pledge by the DUP's Westminster leader Nigel Dodds to paralyse the Conservative Government's legislative agenda if a border in the Irish Sea emerges seems bold.

It begs the question though: what legislative agenda?

Consumed by Brexit legislation, Theresa May's government produced the thinnest Queen's Speech ever in terms of normal politics.

Quite what would be achieved for Northern Ireland by the DUP's Westminster Ten (currently nine) downing the remaining legislative items is unclear.

Stopping the extension of compulsory insurance to automated vehicles, preventing the licensing of vertically launched space rockets and resisting the spread of smart meters into homes might give visceral pleasure.

It's hardly 1974 Ulster Workers' Council constitutional stoppage territory though.

Having already banked more than 400m for Northern Ireland, the DUP risks losing the other 600m promised.

Budget-breaking is the DUP's big Westminster card.

The numbers simply do not stack up if the DUP swaps sides and votes against the Chancellor.

Opposition forces reach 326; government 315. Game and set to the DUP, if not the match.

What would follow would be zombie government, unable to operate.

A defeated budget would create a crisis almost certainly triggering a vote of confidence in Theresa May's hapless administration.

But the DUP has already indicated it would support the government in such a vote - which rather blunts their swords.

And, in any case, there is now precious little prospect of there being an unsatisfactory deal presented to the DUP this side of Budget Day, October 29. October 30 might be another matter.

Only a year ago, at the DUP reception at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester, Nigel Dodds happily lauded a "five-year deal".

Two months later, the souring began, the DUP refusing to accept a Brussels-shaped agreement unless full GB-Northern Ireland regulatory alignment, with no new regulatory checks, was maintained.

Everyone knew that this would be difficult to square with what remained in the December text regarding Northern Ireland's continuing trade alignment with the EU.

And, unless there is now some dancing on the head of a pin over what constitutes new or merely extended regulatory checks, the text remains impossible to truly reconcile. The DUP say they don't fear another election - and why should they?

Notwithstanding all the controversies surrounding the party, in the hermetically sealed ethnic blocs that constitute much of the Northern Ireland electorate - or its voting part at least - the question is potentially not so much whether the DUP can hold on to their 10 seats, but whether they can take Lady Sylvia Hermon's.

And another hung parliament might yet leave a DUP 11 with influence.

More immediately, however, the DUP may be about to forsake their influence in this Parliament.

Some 76% of DUP voters - and 75% of unionist voters more broadly - said after the 2017 election that they supported the DUP-Conservative link and only 2% of DUP voters declared themselves opposed.

But the essential problem for the DUP is that the more the Conservative government softens Northern Ireland's Brexit, the greater the chance of cross-party acceptance of the deal.

If the Prime Minister can attract sizeable support from Labour - still a mighty task it must be said - the DUP 10 matter much less.

The powerless vista is bleak. Removed from power in Belfast and self-removing from power at Westminster isn't a great sell for Arlene Foster to take to her party conference next month.

But, as ever, the DUP are not bluffing in their current demands.Some of the images from a new series of graphic TV ads which have aired for the first time as part of a campaign seeking to challenge the 35% of people who support paramilitary-style attacks

In Northern Ireland, the ambition of Government departments is to improve wellbeing for all by tackling disadvantage and driving economic growth.

In delivering this ambition, we are committed to working towards a more equal society, where children have the best possible start in life and where everyone is supported to lead long, healthy and active lives.

Yet there are people in our society - sometimes children and young people - who are living under threat and in fear of violent attacks from paramilitaries. This needs to stop. Paramilitary-style attacks have a devastating effect on people's health and wellbeing.

People who experience violence, or live in fear of violence, are likely to experience negative impacts on not just their physical health. Their mental health and wellbeing is also likely to suffer as a result.

I am privileged and proud to offer my support to the Ending the Harm campaign, and the Department of Health will continue to work together with our partners across all sectors to stop these brutal attacks.

Professor Liam Kennedy's research provides a stark lesson on the impacts of paramilitary violence in Northern Ireland, particularly on some of the most vulnerable in our society.

A significant proportion of the victims of paramilitary attacks are children - between 1990 and 2013, over 500 children under the age of 17 were victims of paramilitary shootings or beatings.

For every child who has been shot or beaten, there will be others who are under threat from paramilitaries and who live in fear of them.

In the short term, every attack means an ambulance is called, people are taken to hospital, undergo surgery and treatment and may need support services over many years. At a time when our Health and Social Care service is already under pressure, this demand on valuable resources is completely avoidable.

But the consequences of these attacks, this fear, can also last a lifetime.

People who have suffered such appalling abuse are at greater risk of alcohol or substance abuse, and mental and physical health problems.

And we now know that these lasting effects of trauma can be passed down through generations, from parent to child.

I would send a very clear message to anyone who thinks that these attacks are somehow justified. A paramilitary assault on a child is child abuse.

None of us would tolerate the sexual abuse of a child, or the neglect of a child. Why would we stand by or condone a paramilitary assault on a child?

But, unlike other forms of child abuse, some people in our society still think that children who are subject to a paramilitary assault deserve it.

As a society, we all need to work together to stop these attacks, and break this cycle of trauma.

The launch of this campaign is an important step on that journey.

Sean Holland is the Chief Social Work officer for Northern IrelandThe most persistent legacy of conflict in Northern Ireland might just be that so few believe that violence offers any way through our difficulties. We have to hope at least. Anyone wishing Northern Ireland well in its dream of a shared future has to look hard for another hope. For now we have an eerie calm.

Beneath the surface, three separate dangerous viruses are interacting in this body politic at the same time: constitutional uncertainty, sectarian polarisation and loss of confidence in the system. And that doesn't count legacy. Brexit is the most obviously deadly.

There are two things you should avoid in a divided society with a fragile peace: unilateralism and uncertainty. Brexit gave Northern Ireland both - a decision of the UK which, intentionally or not, jolted the hyper-delicate balance around sovereignty on which the legitimacy of the peace project relies, but a decision where the consequences are guesswork.

Everything in the Agreement depends on Northern Ireland being British enough, Irish enough and unique enough to bring in deeply suspicious partners.

The architecture of Good Friday was justified because only intricate design could suggest a sustainable outcome, and no angels-on-the-heads-of-a-pin argument about what clause has been broken takes away from the conclusion that hard-Brexit Britain will destroy its core relationship, its backstop and its viability.

Brexit has become a signal from the Conservative Party for the Agreement's most reluctant participants to return to ancient polarities - as if they have not been tried and failed before.

Even if we halt before the cliff-edge, the last two years have done immeasurable damage to that most elusive yet essential element of peace: trust.

Gone are the days of Blair, Ahern and celebratory state visits. The potentially disastrous element is the new approach of the British Government. Technically committed to the Agreement, the hard-Brexit cheerleaders have increasingly realised that Ireland's open borders are incompatible with their version of 'taking back control', while the alliance between the DUP and the Conservatives at Westminster has rendered the claim of a British Government to neutrality in Northern Ireland implausible.

Meanwhile Sinn Fein, not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth, have deserted Northern Ireland to prioritise a united Ireland, although it is unclear how total polarisation could be avoided.

Brexit 'negotiations' have become an exercise in brinksmanship and tactics in which governments declare their commitment to uphold the Agreement 'in all of its aspects', but the relationships which alone guarantee it in even a few are dissolved.

On the way, things have been said and kites have been flown which deliberately test the limits of partnership and do long-term damage whose consequences will last long past Brexit day. Northern Ireland with its shared demography and location away from capitals has become a concept which has lost its utility, a pawn to be sacrificed in a game of chess.

The damage of Brexit to Northern Ireland has been made more virulent by its interaction with two other infections - sectarianism and corruption.

Sectarianism never left our bloodstream: a chronic and energy-sapping illness which neither Sinn Fein nor the DUP showed much interest in curing in their power-sharing years. But the recent deterioration in relationships has been ominously swift and bitter.

The two elections of 2017 were not so much exercises in enthusiasm for DUP and Sinn Fein, as expressions of fear and loathing at the opposition. But the consequences of unleashing loathing are potentially lethal for power-sharing.

Now Brexit and sectarianism have been complicated by another sickness. As the inquiry into the Renewable Heating Initiative has ground on, an examination into over-spending has become an expose of abuse of office, revealing weak Civil Service ethics and political malpractice in a system without opposition.

Each day, the Northern Irish system is revealed as defenceless against unaccountable party cliques. Had the Assembly survived, it is uncertain how much of this would have become public. Meanwhile the House of Commons report on Ian Paisley's breach of standards has compounded the general sense of corruption - discounted by an electorate convicted of the sectarian need to protect 'our own', lest 'they' profit from 'our' weakness.

For 600+ days Northern Ireland has had no effective government. Both Brexit and corruption are now largely projected through the rhetoric of sectarianism. Public respect for political institutions and belief in change has descended into cynicism and a fatalism that sectarian preferences take priority over ethics.

Meanwhile, the key British-Irish relationship approaches breaking point, the relationship between local political leaders has deteriorated and neither the DUP nor Sinn Fein make much serious effort to pretend that they are bought into a shared future, except on unacceptably exclusive terms. Unable to move anywhere, the whole system has come to a halt for fear that one false breath could bring the house of cards down, exemplified by vacuous statements from the Secretary of State.

In 1969 Northern Ireland descended into carnage. It took 30 years to extricate ourselves from the resulting cycle of revenge and bitterness. 'Taking back control' in 1998 looked like accommodation, engagement and pluralism. A forward-looking region was an outward-looking region, shaped by engagement with different others. A special region requiring a special solution, it was and remains a question of making a shared future or enduring a scared future. But the silence is eerie and it feels like the hand of history is moving.Government forces captured five senior communist rebel leaders who were allegedly involved in an October plot to oust President Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippine military said Wednesday.



Adelberto Silva, a consultant for the underground Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), was one of the five intercepted on Tuesday at an army checkpoint south of Manila, military Chief of Staff Gen. Carlito Galvez said.



Silva was with Edical Legaspi, a rebel leader in the northern Philippines, and three others when they were caught at the checkpoint in Laguna province, Galvez said.



They are key ranking officials of the communist movement involved in the mobilization for the plot against Duterte, the general said.



Their sinister objective is to overthrow the government. So we are trying to continue to insulate the vulnerable sectors from them, he added.



Recovered from the suspects were two .45-caliber pistols, four hand grenades, a homemade bomb and assorted ammunition, officials said.



In 2016, Silva was among communist leaders freed by Duterte as a goodwill gesture to jump start peace talks with the party, whose armed wing is called the New Peoples Army (NPA). In January this year, a Philippine court revoked the temporary freedom granted to Silva and fellow communist leaders Benito and Wilma Tiamzon, who remain at large.



Galvez did not explain what roles Silva and his group were to play in the alleged ouster plot codenamed Red October. The plotters had been ramping up recruitment efforts at some of the countrys top universities, the military said earlier this month.



The alleged plot was first announced last month by Duterte himself. At the time, he said he had received foreign intelligence alleging that his political arch-rival, opposition Sen. Antonio Trillanes, was conniving with CPP founder Jose Maria Sison in efforts to oust him.



Duterte had promised to show proof, including the name of the country that provided the information. But weeks have passed without any evidence being presented in public to support the presidents allegations.



Trillanes, a former navy officer, and Sison have denied the allegations. Trillanes own military fraternity has also dismissed them.



The military had originally said that the plot was to take place in the middle of this month, but it has since backtracked and said the rebels had apparently decided against it.



However, presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo said the intelligence report about the plot remained credible.



I wont even wonder why theres always a plot. Thats precisely the rationale of the creation of the communist to oust the present government, Panelo said.



The Philippines has a long history of coup plots. The late president, pro-democracy icon Corazon Aquino survived six coup attempts in the 1980s after a peaceful revolution ousted dictator Ferdinand Marcos, who had ruled the country for two decades.



In 2001, ex-President Joseph Estrada was chased out of office in a military-backed popular uprising over alleged corruption.



Jeoffrey Maitem in Cotabato City, Philippines contributed to this report.Soldiers deploy to control the crowd during a pro-Thaksin Shinawatra demonstration in Bangkok, April 13, 2009.

The new Thai army chief on Wednesday defended previous military power-grabs that overthrew civilian governments in Thailand, and said he would not rule out another intervention if next years general election led to political conflict.

Gen. Apirat Kongsompong, a staunchly royalist general who took over as commander of the Royal Thai Army less than three weeks ago, made the comments during his first news conference in Bangkok.

The past armed forces would not have had staged coups in recent years unless the politics created the conditions, Apirat told reporters. I hope the politics would not trigger conflicts among the citizens again.

Thailand is due to hold a general election by May 2019 at the latest, the first such polls to be held since a junta took over in May 2014.

Im confident that if the politics doesnt create riots, nothing would happen, Apirat said in Bangkok during his first news conference since assuming the armys top post. No riots, no intervention.

Political violence in the streets of Bangkok and other Thai cities preceded the last military coup, which toppled the government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra on May 22, 2014.

On Wednesday, pro-democracy activists, politicians and academicians slammed Apirats remarks.

The armed forces interest is one factor for coup. They gain from budget allocation, which is more useful elsewhere. The coup is not necessary but the military makes it like it is, Titipol Phakdeewanich, dean of the political science faculty at Ubon Ratchathani University, told BenarNews.

A long history of coups

Thailands armed forces have staged at least 18 coups since 1932, when the nation adopted a constitutional monarchy, according to the Congressional Research Service. The military quashed a protest movement in 2010 and ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra  Yinglucks brother  in 2006.

Eight years later, when then-Army Chief Gen. Prayuth Chan-o-cha plunged the nation into military rule by overthrowing Yinglucks government, he dissolved parliament, detained political leaders and imposed a curfew while promising to bring Thailand back to democracy within 18 months.

Since then, Prime Minister Prayuth has postponed multiple times what he has referred to as his road map to an election, infuriating pro-democracy groups by pushing the date back to February 2019 at the earliest.

Gen. Apirat played key roles in suppressing deadly street protests by the pro-Thaksin Shinawatra Red Shirt movement since 2009. He also took a major role in the coup that installed Prayuth in power.

Apirat is the son of Gen. Sunthorn Kongsompong, who led a successful coup against then-Prime Minister Maj. Gen. Chatichai Choonhavan in 1991.

Reacting to the generals comments, an opposition MP with Pheu Thai Party said the military should stay out of politics and let the politicians deal with the problems.

The coups happened because the military took sides. The political problems must be solved through a democratic way, MP Somkid Cheukong told BenarNews.

Politicians end conflict in the parliament and not on the streets.2 missing as boat capsizes

Two persons are missing after a boat capsized in the Karnali river in Kailali on Monday evening.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.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For Immediate Release, October 17, 2018 Contact: Tara Cornelisse, (415) 971-8773, tcornelisse@biologicaldiversity.org Endangered Species Protection Sought for Vanishing Mojave Desert Bee Native Bee Unseen Across 80 Percent of Range It Occupied Just 25 Years Ago LAS VEGAS The Center for Biological Diversity filed a petition today asking the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to give Endangered Species Act protection to the Mojave poppy bee, which is known to survive only in seven locations in Clark County, Nev. Although it once thrived across much of the Mojave Desert, the quarter-inch-long, yellow-and-black bee has been pushed to the brink of extinction by habitat loss, grazing, gypsum mining and motorized recreation. The bees pollinating skills are tightly linked to the survival of two rare desert poppy flowers, and the bee has disappeared as those plants have declined. If we dont act quickly, were going to lose this beautiful little native bee as we watch two of the Mojaves irreplaceable desert flowers continue to decline, said Dr. Tara Cornelisse, an entomologist and senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity. Their story is a perfect example of why we cant turn our backs on the plight of our imperiled native bees. The Mojave poppy bee, first described by scientists in 1993, inhabited at least 34 known sites across Nevada, California, Arizona and Utah. Its current known range is now just seven known sites, all of them in the Lake Mead National Recreation Area and adjacent Bureau of Land Management land in Clark County, Nev., where it faces ongoing threats from grazing, mining and motorized recreational vehicles. The bee is a specialist that pollinates two increasingly rare poppies that produce pollen but no nectar: the Las Vegas bear-poppy and the dwarf bear-poppy. Female Mojave poppy bees collect pollen from the poppies to feed their young, while males aggressively defend flowers for a chance to mate with pollen-collecting females. Consequently both males and females pollinate the rare bear-poppies. The Las Vegas bear-poppy is a rare plant and considered a critically endangered species in Nevada. The dwarf bear-poppy is a federally endangered species found only in Washington County, Utah. A leading cause of the dwarf bear-poppys ongoing decline  despite its Endangered Species Act protection  is the absence of the Mojave poppy bee, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service. This poppy bee is a vital part of the Mojave landscape that erupts into a gorgeous floral display in spring, attracting droves of nature lovers to the desert, said Cornelisse. If we lose this special bee, the Mojave Desert is at risk of losing three species that define its essence. Background

The disappearance of the Mojave poppy bee is part of a troubling decline in many of the 4,000-plus species of native, wild, mostly solitary bees in the United States that are needed to pollinate the full spectrum of wild plants. Native bees often provide more effective pollination of native plants than honeybees, which are not native to the United States. Wild pollinator declines across North America are due to habitat loss, agricultural intensification, pesticide use, invasive non-native species, climate change and pathogens. About 90 percent of wild plants and 75 percent of leading global food crops  including 35 percent of the global food supply  depend on animal pollinators for reproduction, and the great majority of that work is done by bees. Despite the growing evidence of the decline in bee populations, the rusty patched bumblebee is the only bee in the continental United States currently protected under the Endangered Species Act.Silicon Valley startup Acme Clinical Trials (ACT) is working to bridge this gap. The nonprofit and its comprehensive digital destination AClinicalTrials.com brings together more than 300,000 trials, with thousands added daily from researchers and physicians around the globe.

The number of registered clinical studies has skyrocketed in the last two decades, growing from just under 1,300 in 2000 to more than 290,000 today. With this growth comes a host of benefits for patients, families, and the medical community as a whole -- every trial and every study represents new opportunities to both find answers and help those living with these diseases, disabilities, and chronic conditions.



Bridging the Patient/Access Gap



That said, while the trials and the data emerging from these cutting-edge studies exists, information and access isnt readily available, even to those who need it most. This not only leaves patients in the dark, but keeps researchers and other key industry insiders from unpacking the data coming from clinical studies -- stakeholders who could help advance these causes and accelerate success.



Silicon Valley startup Acme Clinical Trials (ACT) is working to bridge this gap. The nonprofit and its comprehensive digital destination AClinicalTrials.com brings together more than 300,000 trials, with thousands added daily from researchers and physicians around the globe. To ensure patients, families, and researchers connect with the right intel and insights quickly and easily, ACT leverages an artificial intelligence- (AI) powered guided search feature.



Right now the information is out there, but its fragmented and housed on government sites -- sites that are confusing and cumbersome to navigate, says ACT Founder Nofel Izz. Our guided search makes finding the right studies easy. When they find relevant studies, patients can submit their medical information to several at a time, using ACTs blockchain-enabled platform to share their medical information with trial hosts.



Driving Research Ahead



In addition to supporting potential trial participants, ACT will also help researchers, physicians, and patients to tap into data emerging from these high-value studies.



Well cull analytics and demographics of disease types along with pharmaceuticals taken, Nofel explains. Using AI, well identify links between health conditions, medications, and trials, helping establish critical connections and from there, establish more clear-cut success rates for specific diseases and treatment plans.



Like the clinical trial landscape, this emerging data is out there but is often difficult to find, access, and leverage. ACT not only democratizes this essential data but, with automated filtering and authentication, ensures the 15,000-plus new records added daily are error-free.



A Lifetime of Entrepreneurship



ACT isnt the first game-changing venture for Nofel. A renowned entrepreneur, Nofel is currently involved with 19 startups -- and counting.



With a strong computer science background and MBA from University of Cambridge, Nofel has long leveraged his diverse professional and academic experiences to build innovative new businesses. Much of his work centers on bringing cutting-edge technology to the mainstream.



ACT, Nofel explains, was an idea he initially pitched to fellow Cambridge alumni Wassel Al Fakhoury, an M&A attorney and entrepreneur Xuhua Ji. I wanted to create a new clinical trials platform that would leverage AI and neural networks to overcome common patient and researcher obstacles, he adds.



Despite the radical nature of Nofels space elevator and other innovative launches hes pioneered, he says ACT is by far the most complex and the most high-potential. The technology were using for ACT is far more complicated than rocket science, he says. The fact is, rockets work, Nofel explains. AI and neural networks -- what were leveraging for ACT -- still have a long way to go.



Gaining Global Traction & Support



Though still in its infancy, ACT has gained significant traction and interest from worldwide investors. To date, the nonprofit is seeking $30 million in seed investments but, already, has received letters of intent and interests from premier investment companies in the Gulf region and Saudi Arabia -- as well as Chinese investors such as China International Capital Corporation (CiCC), Tasly Pharma, and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. These and future funds raised will enable ACT to remain free for all users.



We want to ensure individuals in developing countries -- people in dire need of treatments, transplants, and insights can access ACT, says Nofel. This network enables these users to find relevant trials and studies, while disseminating information and helping advance our collective quest for cures.



In addition to investors, ACT has also invited 70,000 medical specialists from around the world to add input, articles, and questionnaires to the platform. This, Nofel explains, will help patients better search and explore clinical trials, with the option to connect to participating specialists for further guidance and support.



Our goal was to establish a powerful clinical trial and medical analytics platform free of cost and open to the public, Nofel adds. Now, one year later, ACT is the single largest database of active and completed clinical trials in the world.Eminent Indian figure delivers first high-profile talk at Birmingham

The evening will be opened by Sampad Arts performance Converse, featuring dance and music artists Vidya Patel and Shammi Pithia. Photo credit: Serendipity Arts Festival

One of Indias most eminent political, diplomatic and business figures will deliver the University of Birmingham India Institutes inaugural Distinguished Lecture on his countrys relationship with Western nations.

Ambassador Dr. S.Jaishankar, President, Global Corporate Affairs, Tata Group will explore What India means to the West, with unique insights from his time as foreign secretary of India and Indian Ambassador to the United States, China, and the Czech Republic.

In partnership with the Consulate General of India, the University will welcome the former Indian High Commissioner to Singapore to an evening opening with Sampad Arts performance of Converse, featuring outstanding dance and music artists Vidya Patel and Shammi Pithia.

After delivering his lecture, Ambassador Jaishankar will participate in a discussion panel featuring University of Birmingham Chancellor, Lord Bilimoria of Chelsea, Consul General India Dr Aman Puri and Professor Scott Lucas, from the Universitys Department of Political Science and International Studies

The event takes place in the Elgar Concert hall at 5.30pm on Wednesday 24 October. Booking is essential for anyone wishing to attend the free event and tickets are available at https://thebramall.co.uk/events/india-institute-distinguished-lecture/

Professor Robin Mason, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (International) at the University of Birmingham, said: Were delighted to welcome Ambassador Jaishankar to the University of Birmingham. As one of Indias most eminent political, diplomatic and business figures, Dr Jaishankar is perfectly placed to comment on Indias relations with Western nations and we look forward to gaining his fascinating insights.

As a civic university with a global outlook, we are pleased to join the Consulate General of India in hosting the India Institutes first Distinguished Lecture to give people in the UK this unique opportunity to listen to and ask questions of an influential and distinguished thought leader.

ENDS

For more information or interviews, please contact: Tony Moran, International Communications Manager, University of Birmingham on +44 (0) 121 414 8254 or +44 (0)782 783 2312. Out-of-hours enquiries: +44 (0) 7789 921 165.

Note for editors3 family members among six dead in road accidents

At least six people, including three members of a same

family, died in separate road accidents in different parts

of the country in the last two days. Seventeen people were injured.Doorstep allowance handout drive pleases senior citizens

After elderly citizens complained of difficulties in collecting social security allowance from banks, most local units in Parbat have started to provide monthly benefits to senior citizens at their doorsteps.Steps To Do Saraswati Puja At Home Festivals lekhaka-Staff

Basant Panchami : Ma Saraswati Easy Pooja Vidhi |     | Boldsky

Vasant Panchami is just around the corner. As you know, Vasant Panchami is the beginning of the spring season. On this day, the Goddess of learning and wisdom, Saraswati, is worshipped throughout the length and breadth of the country. This year Vasant Panchami, also known as Basant Panchami, will be observed on 10 February 2019.

Goddess Saraswati is known to be the Goddess of learning, wisdom, knowledge, music and fine arts. By invoking her blessings, a person can gain knowledge and wisdom. On the day of Vasant Panchami, every student is supposed to keep his/her books at the feet of the Goddess so that the Goddess blesses the students and they can gain success in education and exams.

Saraswati Puja Should Be Performed By The Students In the eastern states of India, people perform Saraswati puja at home for the well-being of their children. It should be noted that this puja must be compulsorily performed by the students. Starting from taking bath, getting the ingredients ready for the puja and reciting the mantras, these things can be done by the students. Apart from this, there are many other rituals which must be followed for Saraswati puja at home. Take a look. Ingredients Required An idol of Goddess Saraswati

A white cloth

Flowers - lotus, lilies and jasmine

Mango leaves and bel patra

Turmeric

Kumkum

Rice

5 types of fruits which must include coconut and bananas

A kalash

Betel nut, betel leaves and durva grass

Lamp and incense sticks

Gulal (Holi colours)

Milk

Dawaat & Kalam (Wooden pen and inkpot)

Books and musical instruments Early Morning Rituals The person performing the puja must take bath early in the morning with a special kind of medicinal water. The bath water must contain neem and tulsi leaves. Before taking the bath, the person must apply a mixture of neem and turmeric paste on his/her body. This ritual purifies the body and also protects it against all kinds of infections. After taking bath, the person must wear either white- or yellow-coloured clothes. Placing The Idol & Kalash Clean the area where you are planning to place the idol. On a raised platform, spread a white cloth. Place the idol on this platform. Decorate it with turmeric, kumkum, rice, garlands and flowers. Keep the books or musical instruments near the idol. Fill the inkpot with milk, put the wooden pen in it and place it near the idol. Fill the kalash with water, place a sprig of five mango leaves, and put a betel leaf over it. Then keep the betel nut and durva grass on it with a flower on top. Also, keep an idol of Lord Ganesha beside the Goddess. Reciting The Mantras Take flowers and bel patras in your hand and invoke Lord Ganesha first. Place the flowers and bel patras at the feet of the Lord. Then repeat the same procedure for Goddess Saraswati. Chant the mantra: "Yaa kundendu tushaaradhawala, yaa shubhra vastravrutha Yaa veena varadanda manditakara yaa shweta padmasanaa. Yaa brahmachyuta shankara prabhrutibhi devai sadaa vandita, Saa maam pathu saraswati bhagavati nishshesha, jadyapaha. Aum saraswathyae namah, dhyanartham, pushpam samarpayami." Lighting The Lamp After invoking the Goddess, light the lamp and incense sticks. Offer sweets, fruits and other food items to the Goddess. Do the arti and sing hymns in praise of the Goddess. Do not read or study after the puja. Eat only vegetarian food on this day. Immersing The Idol Of The Goddess The next day after Vasant Panchami, before immersing the idol, write 'Aum Saraswathye Namah' on the offered bel patras with a wooden pen by dipping it in the milk. Offer these bel patras again to the Goddess and pray. Later, immerse the idol in water.Reciba en su email: noticias de ultima hora, analisis tecnicos o el cierre de mercado

Email no valido Nombre requerido Recibira las informaciones mas relevantes del dia en tiempo real Que informacion desea recibir? Noticias de Ultima hora Boletin Cierre de Mercado Boletin analisis tecnico Boletin Fundsnews Debe seleccionar un tipo de boletin Acepto la Politica de privacidad Debe aceptar la politica de privacidad Responsable EMPRESAS DEL GRUPO WEB FINANCIAL GROUP Finalidad La remision de informacion, novedades y promociones Establecimiento o mantenimiento de Relaciones Comerciales. Legitimacion Consentimiento del interesado. Interes legitimo en el desarrollo de la relacion comercial Destinatario Empresas del Grupo WEB FINANCIAL GROUP Derechos Acceso, rectificacion, supresion, limitacion, oposicion y portabilidad Informacion adicional Politica de Privacidad de nuestra pagina Web + INFORMACIONPR Newswire

BRISBANE, Australia, Oct. 17, 2018

BRISBANE, Australia, Oct. 17, 2018 /PRNewswire-iReach/ -- As the demand for local healthcare services increases, doctors and dentists are now cashing in on the opportunity to buy, sell and grow medical and dental practices for profit.

There has been a surge of demand among doctors and dentists to buy local practices as a way of creating revenue outside of the traditional practitioner model. Traditionally, practice ownership has been viewed as a lucrative pathway to income outside of the fee for service model. However, the reality of the situation reveals that it can be fraught with financial headaches, staffing issues and costly problems  depending on the knowledge and experience of the operator.

Industry disruptor Dr Padma Gadiyar, a clinician and current owner of a multi-million dollar medical/dental practice empire believes there is a short cut.

"Buying, growing and selling medical and dental practices is an exact science, with a specific formula for success. Just as clinicians get repeatable, reliable results from treatment regimes, practice owners must have a specific pathway for business success", says Dr Padma.

Dr Gadiyar has disrupted the old model of where brokers put buyers and sellers of medical and dental practices together. She believes that helping people buy and sell practices is not just a transaction the way that traditional brokers work.

Instead, Dr Padma asserts that it's about strategic business mapping over a minimum of 10 years, rather than a buy/sell transaction. She believes that this is particularly important for smaller operators to understand as, it's a decision that will effect their business life, their lifestyle and their personal life. Whilst the larger corporate operators generally have a more strategic approach to mergers and acquisitions.

In her experience Dr Padma believes that without the right planning, buyers could be paying up to 30% more and sellers could be leaving tens of thousands of dollars on the table.

"In this environment if you conduct business the same way as it's been done for the last 10 years, you are in for a rude awakening. For example, in the last 2 years we have noticed a significant shift in patient expectations, online marketing and new technology. This has greatly impacted buying, growing and selling medical and dental practices", says Dr Padma. "That's why mapping out a success plan, using a proven formula before buying, selling, or growing a business could avoid very costly mistakes, and avoid a lot of headaches too".

For more info, visit: http://www.professionalpracticesales.com.au

Media Contact: Natasha Howie, Professional Practice Sales, 1300517077, [email protected]

News distributed by PR Newswire iReach: https://ireach.prnewswire.com

SOURCE Professional Practice SalesOli to invite Modi for Bibaha Panchami

Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli will invite Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to attend the wedding procession (baraat) event from Ayodhya to Janakpur during the Bibaha Panchami, his chief adviser has said.To keep the rating score and review content relevant for your upcoming trip, we archive reviews older than up to 36 months.

Only a customer who has booked through Booking.com and stayed at the property in question can write a review. This lets us know that our reviews come from real guests, like you. Who better to tell others about the free breakfast, friendly staff, or quiet room than someone whos stayed at the property before?

We want you to share your story, both the good and the bad. All we ask is that you follow a few simple guidelines.

Reviews vision

We believe review contributions and property responses will highlight a wide range of opinion and experiences, which are critical in helping guests make well-informed decisions about where to stay.

Reviews principles

Contributions to Booking.com are a reflection of the dedication of our guests and properties, and are treated with the utmost respect.

Whether negative or positive, we'll post every comment in full, as quickly as possible, after being moderated to comply with Booking.com guidelines. We'll also provide transparency over the status of submitted content.

Once a review has been submitted, you can modify it by contacting Booking.com customer service.

We will use the same guidelines and standards for all user-generated content as well as the property replies to that content.

We will allow the contributions to speak for themselves, and we wont be the judge of reality. Booking.coms role is that of a distributor of feedback from both guest and property.

Guidelines and standards for Reviews

These guidelines and standards aim to keep the content on Booking.com relevant and family-friendly without limiting expression of strong opinions. They are also applicable regardless of the sentiment of the comment.

Contributions should be travel related. The most helpful contributions are detailed and help others make better decisions. Please dont include personal, political, ethical, or religious commentary. Promotional content will be removed and issues concerning Booking.coms services should be routed to our Customer Service or Accommodation Service teams.

Contributions should be appropriate for a global audience. Please avoid using profanity or attempts to approximate profanity with creative spelling, in any language. Comments and media that include 'hate speech', discriminatory remarks, threats, sexually explicit remarks, violence, and the promotion of illegal activity are not permitted.

All content should be genuine and unique to the guest. Reviews are most valuable when they are original and unbiased. Your contribution should be yours. Booking.com property partners should not post on behalf of guests or offer incentives in exchange for reviews. Attempts to bring down the rating of a competitor by submitting a negative review will not be tolerated.

Respect the privacy of others. Booking.com will make an effort to obscure email addresses, telephone numbers, website addresses, social media accounts, and similar details.

The opinions expressed in contributions are those of Booking.com customers and properties and not of Booking.com. Booking.com does not accept responsibility or liability for any reviews or responses. Booking.com is a distributor (without any obligation to verify) and not a publisher of these comments and responses.

By default, reviews are sorted based on the date of the review and on additional criteria to display the most relevant reviews, including but not limited to: your language, reviews with text, and non-anonymous reviews. Additional sorting options may be available (by type of traveller, by score, etc...).

Translations disclaimer

This service may contain translations powered by Google. Google disclaims all warranties related to the translations, express or implied, including any warranties of accuracy, reliability, and any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and noninfringement.Over 2.5 million people leave Kathmandu

More than 2.5 million people have travelled from Kathmandu to their native places to celebrate Dashain festival starting Ghatasthapana, the Metropolitan Traffic Police Division (MTPD) said on Tuesday.Potential of Nepali herbal products still untapped

Nepali herbal products have immense potential to secure notable exports earnings but the lack of research, absence of proper processing and failing to label appropriate specifications have been impeding its business prospects, experts have said.President offers prayers at Palanchok Bhagawati temple

President Bidya Devi Bhandari paid homage to the goddess at the Palanchok Bhagawati temple, on the occasion of Mahaastami, the eighth day of the 10-day Bada Dashain festival, on Wednesday.President, PM to offer tika during Dashain

President Bidya Devi Bhandari and Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli will offer tika to distinguished persons and as well as public during Dashain on October 19A man who told police he acted as the muscle during an alleged drug debt collection that sent a man to hospital with a severe head injury has been denied bail.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 17/10/2018 (1126 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Advertisement Advertise With Us

A man who told police he acted as the muscle during an alleged drug debt collection that sent a man to hospital with a severe head injury has been denied bail.

Israel Blacksmith, 27, is facing multiple charges in Brandon provincial court, including attempted murder, aggravated assault and numerous weapon-related offences.

None of the charges have been proven in court and Blacksmith is presumed innocent.

On July 28, three masked men went to an apartment on Fifth Street  one armed with a hammer-like weapon and the others with pellet guns  to allegedly confront the man who lived there, Crown attorney Marnie Evans told the court on Monday.

Police learned through multiple interviews and statements that one of the assailants had given money to the victim to buy methamphetamine, but the victim did not deliver, Evans said, and so the three men allegedly went to collect.

Once inside the apartment, two of the men shot the victim in the shins and stomach with pellet guns before the third man hit him in the head with the hammer-like object before fleeing, Evans said.

The victim allegedly can be seen on security footage stumbling out of his apartment holding a towel to his head after he texted some friends for help, Evans said. They arrived and took him to Brandon Regional Health Centre via taxi.

While in the emergency room, the victims condition worsened and he lost consciousness due to a massive brain bleed, Evans said. He was airlifted to the Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg, where he remained on life support for several weeks.

There was a long time where doctors didnt know whether or not he would regain consciousness, Evans said. He has since regained consciousness but has been transferred to a permanent care facility to deal with some of the effects hes suffered.

Since waking up, the victim has no movement on his left side, Evans added, and there is concern he is at risk to have a life-threatening stroke due to the brain bleed he experienced.

Police arrested three suspects a few days after the incident, Evans said, with Blacksmith being one of them.

He admitted to police he was at the victims home that night and went for the purpose of collecting money, but didnt know how much was owed, Evans said.

Blacksmith also described himself as the muscle, Evans added, saying he expected to make a little money out of the deal.

Blacksmith is not believed to have been the one to hit the victim in the head, Evans said, but is alleged to have shot him with a pellet gun.

We have a situation where three individuals, under a planned and calculated attack, attend to (the victims) residence for the purposes  to get money from him, Evans said. Mr. Blacksmith knew before attending that location he was going to be the muscle, that they were going there for a reason and he was hoping to get some money out of the incident  he attended knowing all that and that they were going there potentially for violence.

Defence lawyer JohnathanRichert said that while Blacksmith agreed to go to the victims home with the two other suspects as a form of intimidation, he had no idea the situation would escalate to the point that it did.

I would ask the court to bear in mind what portions of those convoluted facts actually involve Mr. Blacksmith and what exactly was the extent of that involvement, Richert said. He was a willing participant going in, but not necessarily proven to be, or even strongly suspected to be, one of the primary players of the incident.

Due to not being the primary wrong-doer, Richert argued Blacksmith was not the primary danger to the public and could be released with significant security in the form of cash or a surety.

Judge Donovan Dvorak ultimately disagreed with the defence and denied Blacksmith bail for the protection and safety of the public.

This is obviously a very serious offence  really I dont think its necessary or constructive to try and parse out who caused what specific injury  its pretty clear based on the evidence put forward  that this was a joint enterprise with three individuals attending the residence, Dvorak said. In the circumstances, hes well in the midst of this.

Blacksmiths two co-accused, Mitchell Livingstone and Devyn Colton Dale Pratt, remain in custody on similar charges, including attempted murder and aggravated assault.

All three accused are scheduled to have their matters reappear in court next week.

 edebooy@brandonsun.com

 Twitter: @erindebooyWith the early cold coming to Brandon, Samaritan House Ministries has seen an increased demand for their shelter but are unable to open early due to budget constraints.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 17/10/2018 (1126 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Advertisement Advertise With Us

Samaritan House Ministries executive director John Jackson, pictured in back, gets to work at the food bank on Tuesday. (Chelsea Kemp/The Brandon Sun)

With the early cold coming to Brandon, Samaritan House Ministries has seen an increased demand for their shelter but are unable to open early due to budget constraints.

"We would be very much willing to open it sooner if we had the funds available," said John Jackson, Samaritan Houses new executive director.

With the early cold snap hitting Brandon this year, Jackson said there has been an increased demand for their Safe & Warm shelter. Vulnerable people sleeping "rough" are looking for places of shelter due to the premature winter weather.

As an agency, they are willing and able to open sooner, but are unable because of funding limitations.

Located at Samaritan House, the Safe & Warm shelter is fully staffed and available for adults experiencing "occasional homelessness." The shelter is welcome to anyone willing to abide by the rules and be safe.

Cots and mattresses have been donated by CFB Shilo, providing 20 beds.

Historically, the shelter has run from November to March during the colder winter months.

"Due to funding, we have not been able to open it sooner, but we have received many requests from the community," Jackson said.

The 2016 Point-in-Time Homelessness count in Brandon indicated there were more than 200 homeless people in Brandon. The group surveys people to find those who consider themselves homeless or underhoused.

Those who identify as homeless may not be living on the street and instead be people travelling, or in town without a place to stay. Providing support for those in need includes countering stigma  a constant challenge, Jackson said, with negative stereotypes and attitudes held against those who use Samaritan House services.

With the diverse demographics living in the city ranging from university students and new immigrants to those working on the Enbridge pipeline, Jackson said the crunch on resources in Brandon can create a significant demand for their services.

Funding for Samaritan House comes from United Way, Brandon Neighbourhood Renewal Corporation and other sources, including private donations.

As the new executive director, Jackson is focused on renewing relationships with community partners and welcomes any opportunities to collaborate.

These community collaborations are essential for ensuring the success of Samaritan Houses services.

He cited receiving more than 1,000 small hams from Maple Leaf Foods and revitalizing relationships with different Hutterite colonies and grocers in town as steps in the process.

The colder weather has mainly effected demand for the Safe & Warm shelter, but there is always a need for donations to the food hamper program.

"We are in good shape. but we could always use more," Jackson said.

Personal hygiene items, childrens items, cereal and canned food are a constant need at the centre.

The Samaritan House food bank serves 20,000 hampers a year.

"Which tells you its not perhaps people you would expect," Jackson said. "Its used by anyone who needs it."

 ckemp@brandonsun.com

 Twitter: @The_ChelseaKempShadow of Bolshevism

Our problem is that we believe in revenge. Once a king was travelling in the countryside where he happened to touch a nettle. Its stinging hair gave the king such sharp pain that he immediately ordered all the nettles in the country to be wiped out.The Best Little Floorhouse in Texas Your choice for flooring in Central Texas! Your flooring is more than just the surface you walk on  it's an integral part of your home. With over 35 years of flooring experience, The Best Little Floorhouse in Texas has the resources and knowledBy Padraig Hoare

The chief of EirGrid has said it needs to become much better at engaging communities, as it seeks significant investment in the electricity grid around the country to prepare for infrastructure, such as data centres.

Speaking at the power transmission bodys annual conference in Cork, Mark Foley said six regions, including two in Munster, as well as Dublin and the border, needed upgrades, using either the existing grid, or new grids, if the country was to progress economically and socially, up to 2040.

At EirGrid, we work to ensure that the energy sector of Ireland is fit-for-purpose, today and into the future. As the transmission system operator, we have to make the best possible use of electricity customers money and ensure that all investments in the system are truly necessary, he said.

It will be challenging to persuade communities of the need to upgrade infrastructure, as well as new development, Mr Foley said.

EirGrid projects have been marred by protests and community backlash in recent years, including proposals for pylons over-ground, running from Cork to Kildare, with fears being expressed about the safety of such projects.

Mr Foley said the power operator needed to up its game in bringing communities on board.

EirGrid had a real, hard look, as well as people in other sectors, at how to go about it. There are a number of key principles: one is that you have to start much earlier in the process. You dont rock up with a fait accompli.

Secondly, you have to listen, and part of that skillset is you preferably have people with local roots to do that engagement.

Thirdly, weve got to be open to what we have heard. Fourthly, we have to look at what we give back to the community. It is about a contract between two parties. It has to be: both parties have to benefit in some way. Its not about big infrastructure on peoples doorsteps. Its about understanding what the need is, and whether we have looked at all the options, and if we have taken account of what peoples concerns are.

We have to make communities partners, not just in transmission, but also other pieces of vital national infrastructure, for the whole economy and society.

A report by EirGrid said there were four possible scenarios for electricity growth over the coming 22 years, ranging from a slow change in electricity generation, due to poor economic growth, right up to a scenario where a strong, growing economy leads to high levels of consumer-spending ability, and a public desire to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.Deutsche Bank is poised to take over an estimated 300m in performing property portfolio loans associated with a number of OCallaghan Properties (OCP) assets in Cork.

The news the bank is the preferred bidder for the Nama sale of the Project Lee portfolio emerged last night. Nama declined to comment but a spokesperson for OCP confirmed the news.

The loans in Project Lee include: A significant portion of the Opera Lane development in the city centre, including retail units and overhead apartments; offices at Half Moon St, largely occupied by Apple, which has its European headquarters on the northside of the city; apartments at Lancaster Gate, Western Rd; and the retail park at Mahon, next to the OCP-developed Mahon Point Shopping Centre.

The portfolio covers more than 150 apartments, all fully let since the developments at Opera Lane and Lancaster Quay were completed.

The loans also cover sites at Lancaster Quay, earmarked for further apartments, and a development site by Mahon Point.

The Cork-based firm said it was delighted to welcome Deutsche Bank as owners of the Project Lee portfolio. We are concentrating on our core development portfolio of offices and residential in Cork, Dublin, and London at the moment and this new arrangement with Deutsche Bank will help us create further opportunities from the Project Lee portfolio over the next two to three years, it said.

It was reported in July the assets in the portfolio generate a 12m income stream. Moves to sell OCP-related loans were initiated by Nama in 2015, but the process was held up by legal complications and by the death, in January 2017, of company founder Owen OCallaghan.Update 6.10pm: The Taoiseach has said that the key issue of agreeing the backstop deal is not only an issue of substance but "an issue of trust".

Leo Varadkar reiterated Ireland's position on the backstop, which he said must be legally operable and would prevent a hard border emerging between the North and the Republic.

The Taoiseach was speaking ahead of a bilateral meeting with British prime minister Theresa May in Brussels.

Both leaders spoke by telephone earlier this week, however, there were no indications they are closer to resolving the outstanding Irish border issue.

Mr Varadkar said that he welcomes fresh thinking, but added that "time is running out".

"We have always been abundantly clear about what our objectives are and they have been the same since the referendum happened, and that is that there should be a withdrawal agreement that allows us for an orderly exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union," he added.

The Taoiseach travelled to Brussels on Wednesday ahead of a working dinner with the leaders of EU 27 in which they will discuss the ongoing Brexit negotiations.

Speaking about the Irish border issue, Mr Varadkar added: "We can't have an expiry date, it can only be temporary unless and until we have an alternative agreement that also ensures us that there will be no hard border on the island of Ireland.

"That's what we agreed in writing with the European Union and the United Kingdom back in March so this is not just an issue of substance, it's also an issue of trust."

He also signalled his support for extending the UK's Brexit transition period, saying that he welcomed any proposal that would help bring about a solution.

Following reports that EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier was open to pushing the implementation period back to end in December 2021, Mr Varadkar said that negotiating a new economic and security relationship between the EU and the UK within two years would be a "real challenge".

"Certainly we're willing to listen to any proposals that might help to bring us to a solution.

"I really need to say though that any extension to the transition period couldn't be a substitute to the backstop, it would still need to have that.

"And perhaps that would give people greater confidence that it would never need to be invoked."

Varadkar: 'Fresh thinking always welcome, but time running out' for Brexit talks

Update 4.20pm: The Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said he is willing to listen to any proposals at today's EU summit that will bring about a solution to the talks.

Mr Varadkar will hold a private meeting with Theresa May before tonight's key EU summit on Brexit, where the British Prime Minister will address EU leaders.

It looks likely no deal will be reached tonight, but the Taoiseach has said he is willing to listen to all suggestions.

Mr Varadkar said: "You know fresh thinking is always welcome, you know but time is now running out and we've always been abundantly clear about what our objectives are and they have been the same since the referendum happened.

"That is that there should be a withdrawal agreement that allows for an orderly exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union, there should be a transition period so business and individuals can prepare for the changes that will take place at the end of the transition period."

Latest: Adding an extra year to Britain's transition period out of the EU could give the breathing space to work out the backstop for the Irish border.

That is according to Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin who says it may help to focus minds.

The EU's Chief Negotiator Michel Barnier has suggested extending the transition arrangement by a year in the hope it will make a trade agreement more likely.

That would mean the proposed backstop to avoid a hard border in the case of a bad Brexit would not be needed.

Micheal Martin says it is an idea worth considering.

"Time in terms of the British politics is an important factor, I think Britain still has a lot to work out in terms of the British political system in terms of Brexit," said Mr Martin.

So an extension could give that breathing space for people to work out more sensible positions.

Simon Coveney also reacted positively to reports that EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier was open to pushing the implementation period back a year to end in December 2021.

However, British government sources insisted Downing Street was not calling for an extension to transition arrangements as Theresa May prepares to address EU leaders as she battles to keep her faltering hopes of securing a Brexit deal alive.

With 26 EU Foreign Ministers in Luxembourg with @HMcEntee at GAC debate on #BREXIT. Absolute solidarity from all with @MichelBarnier and IRE on need for a legally operable backstop in the WA, a backstop that must apply unless and until another solution is found. @BrendanHowlin  Simon Coveney (@simoncoveney) October 16, 2018

However, with her party split, and some Tory MPs openly calling for her to go, Mrs May has little room to manoeuvre if she is to secure a deal which stands any chance of getting through Parliament.

Ahead of her visit to Brussels, Mrs May was able to secure the backing of her Cabinet, at least for now, amid reports that some Brexiteer ministers were prepared to quit if she gave too much ground to Brussels.

(PA Graphics)

However, there was anger among Tory Brexiteers after The Daily Telegraph reported that Chancellor Philip Hammond warned the meeting that the UK could still have to pay the EU up to 36 billion of the 39 billion "divorce bill" to settle its outstanding liabilities, in the event of a no-deal break.

The Prime Minister will briefly address the leaders of the EU 27 on Wednesday evening before they discuss the state of play in the Brexit negotiations over a working dinner while she leaves.

Mrs May will also have bilateral meetings with European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker, European Council president Donald Tusk, and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar.

Michel Barnier has said he will work calmly and seriously to reach a deal (Niall Carson/PA)

Coveney 'happy to show flexibility' on Brexit transition period to avoid hard border

The EU is considering extending the two year Brexit transition period to prevent a hard border in Ireland.

The extension of one year would provide more time to develop a temporary customs arrangement between the UK and the EU.

Michel Barnier and Simon Coveney

It comes ahead of a meeting of European leaders tonight in Brussels.

Significant issues need to be resolved before a Brexit deal can be agreed, Tanaiste Simon Coveney has said.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "A lot of work has happened over the last two weeks that have actually found ways of closing gaps and getting agreement.

But there are a small number of remaining issues. They are significant issues, so we shouldn't downplay them, that need to be resolved.

Referring to reports that EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier is open to extending the UK's transition period by a year, Mr Coveney said: "We have always said that we are happy to show flexibility in terms of how we get to a destination where-by there is a backstop, or an insurance mechanism, in place to reassure people on the island of Ireland that they are not going to see the re-emergence of physical border infrastructure.

"Everybody is agreed that that's where we need to get to. And, I think, Michel Barnier has shown a willingness to think imaginatively, and to show flexibility to get there.

"There needs to be a backstop that's there unless or until something better can be negotiated or agreed.

"And what Michel Barnier has indicated very clearly is that the EU side, certainly, is willing to allow more time in the transition period to agree an alternative solution to a backstop."

Ireland welcomes Michel Barnier's approach in allowing more time in the Brexit transition period to solve the Irish border issue says Deputy PM of Ireland @simoncoveney #r4today pic.twitter.com/Z5Zk7eGinS  BBC Radio 4 Today (@BBCr4today) October 17, 2018

Mr Coveney said: "What Michel Barnier is now suggesting is, look, let's ensure that the backstop is never likely to be used by creating the space and time for the UK and the EU to be able to negotiate UK-wide customs arrangements that can ensure that there won't ever be the need for customs checks between Britain and Northern Ireland.

"Which I know is a genuine concern amongst unionists.

"In Ireland we don't want that either."

Regarding setting a date for a crunch EU Brexit summit next month, Mr Coveney said: "I think what's more likely is that dates will be suggested, but that there won't be a commitment to a new summit unless there is a signal from the negotiating teams that there is something to sign off on.

"And I think that's sensible. What we don't want to do is create drama around the build-up to a new summit date and not actually have something to sign off on.

"Both sides want to get a deal done here, and I think we need... to allow the negotiating teams to set the pace with a view to making recommendations, hopefully by mid-November, that a new summit is necessary to sign off on a final deal."

Earlier: EU considering extending Brexit transition period in effort to reach border deal

The EU is considering allowing Britain to leave the EU over a longer period in return for agreeing to prevent a hard border on the island of Ireland.

It is being reported today that the idea of extending the two-year Brexit transition by one year is being considered to provide more time to develop a temporary customs arrangement between the EU and the UK.

The EU's chief negotiator Michel Barnier outlined the idea to member states in Luxembourg last night ahead of a key European Council summit later.

Michel Barnier

The meeting - which had been billed as "the moment of truth" in the negotiations - is the occasion when the leaders of the remaining 27 member states were supposed to give the green light for a special summit in November to finalise the terms of Britain's withdrawal.

Tonight's summit had been built up as the key date when a Brexit deal would get done but it is now at risk of being a bust.

EU Council president Donald Tusk has said there needs to be creativity from Theresa May when she addresses EU leaders tonight.

"The problem is clear, it is still the Irish question," said Mr Tusk.

He has warned that without new "concrete proposals" from the British to break the logjam over the so-called Irish border "backstop", further progress may be impossible.

The deal to stop a hard border with Northern Ireland if the two sides cannot reach a trade deal is what is holding things up.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has conceded there is lots of work to do on the backstop.

"The gaps between positions are significant and time is running out for a deal to be in place by the time the UK leaves on March 29 next year," said Mr Varadkar.

Despite this meeting being the deadline talks may now run into November or even December.

Fianna Fail's Micheal Martin put some of the blame for the delay at the government's feet.

"It's long past time to put aside the over-produced videos and ministerial self-promotion and to show far more urgency in Brexit preparedness," said the Fianna Fail leader.

Meanwhile, Sinn Fein's Mary Lou McDonald has hit out at the British government.

"With time running out they continue to show scant regard for Ireland, for our rights, for our economy and for our peace agreements," said Ms McDonald.

All eyes will turn to the EU court at Brussels this evening to see if an unlikely deal can be reached.

Digital DeskPresidential candidate Peter Casey has said that the travelling community has been "poorly represented by Pavee Point".

Speaking on the RTE Six One news, Mr Casey said his earlier comments were made because the travelling community "refused to take possession" of six houses that had been built at a cost of 1.7m.

He said: "They were sitting empty. The travelling community had refused to take possession of the houses because they wanted to have stables and an acre of land attached to them."

Mr Casey went on to say that the community had been poorly represented by Pavee Point who dispute his claims saying that they wanted the land to rent and that horses were part of the culture of travellers.

"I think they should have gone down to Tipperary and explained to the travelling community there that there are people sleeping in the streets in Dublin, people are homeless in Dublin...

"They left down the travelling community. I believe it showed very poor leadership by Pavee Point.

"They should have gone down there and said you're not looking good here."

Peter Casey is expected to take part in a live debate with other six candidates on Pat Kenny's Big Debate Presidential Election Special on Virgin Media One at 10pm.

Presidential candidate Peter Casey to visit Tipperary traveller accommodation

Update 5.15pm: Presidential Candidate Peter Casey is to visit Traveller accommodation in Tipperary tomorrow.

The house at Cabra Bridges in Thurles were refused by members of the travelling community.

The Presidential candidate has been criticised for describing them as people who are camping on somebody else's land and shouldn't be given special status.

Update 3.30pm: A spokesperson for Peter Casey said he will not be making a statement after he was criticised for making controversial comments about the travelling community.

The Presidential candidate described them as people who are camping on somebody else's land and shouldn't be given special status.

The Irish Traveller movement and Pavee Point have called on Mr Casey to withdraw from the race.

'You're meant to be a president for all the people': Traveller group hits back at 'desperate' Casey

Martin Collins

Latest: A spokesperson for Traveller rights group Pavee Point has said that comments made by presidential candidate Peter Casey were disturbing and disappointing.

Martin Collins has called on Mr Casey to step down after saying that Travellers should not be recognised as an ethnic minority and describing them as "basically people that are camping on somebody else's land".

Speaking to Sean O'Rourke on RTE Radio 1 this morning, Mr Collins said: "His comments are not befitting of any person who is a candidate in the election for president of office."

You're meant to be a president for all the people, you are meant to be inclusive.

Mr Collins said that the statements made by the presidential hopeful are bordering on racism.

"This is a desperate measure coming from a desperate man who is doing really really poorly in the polls," said Mr Collins.

"He is ill-informed, ill-advised, his comments are reckless."

Even if Mr Casey were to withdraw his comments, Mr Collins believes that he should step down from the campaign.

"I think at this stage my view and the view of my community is that comments from such a person is not befitting of a person holding presidential office and therefore on that basis we would call for him to withdraw from this election."

You can listen to the full interview with Marin Collins here.

"It was a very important step to recognise Traveller ethnicity, Travellers experience so many inequalities. I have spoken to young male Travellers whose suicide rate is six times of the average population" Michael D Higgins on @morningireland #aras18  Michael D Higgins (@MichaelDHiggins) October 17, 2018

Incumbent Michael D Higgins is favourite to win the race for the presidency when the country goes to the polls in just over a weeks time.

He told RTE that Travellers comprised an ethnic minority which experienced discrimination, adding: I find these views appalling.

He said they lived an average of 10 years less than the general population, and young Traveller men were six times more likely to take their own lives.

Just in the door after a great day on the #Aras18 trail. Started off in @RTERadio1 before visiting @ICHHDublin. Then onto canvass Grafton/Moore Street before heading out to do the Six O'Clock show. Looking forward to getting back at it tomorrow! #LiadhForPresident #ANewIreland pic.twitter.com/02BlI7d1M2  Liadh Ni Riada (@LiadhNiRiada) October 16, 2018

Sinn Fein candidate Liadh Ni Riada said stereotyping of any ethnic group was unacceptable.

"The Travelling community are an integral and historic element of the Irish nation who have faced discrimination and marginalisation at the hands of the state and local authorities for many decades.

"They have been demonised and vilified by elements of the media who see Travellers as a handy scapegoat when discussing social problems."

A spokesperson for Peter Casey says that he is not available for comments and will not be issuing a statement.

PA & Digital Desk

Gavin Duffy brands Peter Casey Traveller comments 'reckless and inflammatory'

Presidential candidate Gavin Duffy has responded to comments Peter Casey made about Travellers.

Mr Casey said Travellers should not be recognised as an ethnic minority.

Speaking this morning, Mr Duffy said that the comments deeply concerned him calling them "reckless and inflammatory".

He said that Mr Casey should withdraw the comments also said that they had no place in a presidential campaign.

"They reach back into another era which I believed we, as a society and a community, have put well behind us," said Mr Duffy.

"Travellers face many challenges in life, not least in developing and sustaining understanding and acceptance with the settled community.

"Such comments only pitch us back into a time and a dark place that we have long ago left behind. I would ask Mr Casey to withdraw his comments."

Among the comments made by Peter Casey was the claim that the travelling community don't pay their fair share of taxes.

"They get education, they get support and they are not paying their fair share of taxes in society," said Mr Casey.

"They live, by and large it's acknowleged, outside of society. That's why they get their status but, you know, did they put in their tax returns?

"Did they pay their taxes? I think it's just wrong."

Traveller advocacy group Pavee Point have described his comments as "ill informed and offensive" and called for Mr Casey to drop out of the presidential race.

Earlier: Calls for Peter Casey to withdraw from Aras race after Traveller comments

Calls are being made on Peter Casey to withdraw from the race to be Ireland's next President over comments he made about Travellers.

Mr Casey said Travellers should not be recognised as an ethnic minority.

Pavee Point has described the comments as grossly insulting and offensive and have called on him to withdraw from the race for the Aras.

Peter Casey made the comments while speaking to the Indepdent.ie's podcast 'The Floating' Voter.

"I don't believe that Travellers should be given special status, why should they be given status over and above yourself or myself," said Mr Casey.

He said that it is "nonsense" that Travellers are viewed as a minority ethnicity saying "they're not Romany or whatever".

He went on to describe Travellers as "basically people that are camping on somebody else's land".

Digital DeskJustice Minister Charlie Flanagan has apologised on behalf of the State to garda whistleblower Maurice McCabe for the calumny by those who should have protected and supported him in the force.

Mr Flanagan told the Dail this morning that the findings and conclusions of the Disclosures Tribunal third interim report, published last week are stark.

The central conclusion it reached is a man who rightly saw loyalty to the people whom he served are superior to any loyalty to the organisation of which he was part, he said.

A man who had at all times had the interests of the public uppermost in his mind and who had to endure a campaign of calumny by those who should have protected and supported him.

Mr Flanagan said Sgt McCabe deserved the gratitude of everyone for bringing the serious shortcomings to public attention.

He also deserves an apology for what he had to endure - both himself and his family over a decade, he said.

BREAKING: The Minister for Justice @CharlieFlanagan says he has apologised on behalf of the State to Sgt Maurice McCabe and his family for what they had to endure for over a decade pic.twitter.com/9aEDGQJyb5  RTE Politics (@rtepolitics) October 17, 2018

Since the report was published I have spoken with Sgt McCabe. I have apologised on behalf of the State to him and his family for the manner in which he was treated over a number of years and I am arranging to meet the sergeant in the near future.

I want to reiterate the apology in person.

This afternoon, there will be statements on the Disclosures Tribunal in the Dail at which it is expected Taoiseach Leo Varadkar will again call on Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin and Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald to apologise for the treatment of former Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald.By Niall Murrary, Education Correspondent

Update 3pm: Organisers of a 'hazing'-type student society event are to attend respect and dignity training at Dublin City University.

The college has suspended all social activities by the Accounting & Finance Society for the rest of the term because of "misconduct" at the October 4 event. It was advertised as an AGM, taking place in a ground floor room of the business building, with an opportunity to run for four first-year rep positions, two from each of the universitys campuses at Glasnevin and St Patricks College, Drumcondra.

After an EGM on Monday, the society said it has been suspended from social activity, but will continue running accounting grinds, networking sessions and other non-social activities during its suspension this semester.

A&F will ensure that this does not happen again and would like to take this opportunity to apologise to any member who was offended by last weeks EGM, its Facebook post said.

DCU said it does not tolerate such inappropriate behaviour and the issue was dealt with promptly and decisively by its society life committee, which is responsible for governance of DCU student societies. As well as suspending all the societys social activities for the rest of term, students who organised the event are being required to attend a training workshop focused on the topic of respect and dignity at DCU.

DCU is fully committed to all students and staff abiding by an ethos of dignity, courtesy and respect at all times and to operate to the highest possible standards, a spokesperson said.

DCU society suspended after students reportedly 'hazed' and asked to kiss and demonstrate sex positions

Earlier: The Accounting and Finance Society at Dublin City University (DCU) has been suspended after students were asked to complete a series of inappropriate tasks at their EGM.

First years who wanted to be on the committee reportedly had to kiss each other and strip to a certain degree.

DCU students Clara Kelly and Brendan Fernando Kelly Palenque who are part of college newspaper 'College View' told Sean O'Rourke on RTE Radio 1 that they were there to cover the event.

Brendan said that students were asked to demonstrate a number of sex positions in under a minute, kiss each other and make phone calls to significant others to tell them they had either cheated or had an STD.

According to Brendan, some people stripped, one student fell off a table.

He estimated that there were between 100 and 150 students in the room.

The President of DCU says he was shocked to learn about the behaviour of students at an on-campus event.

Professor Brian MacCraith says it will not happen again on his watch.

"This does not happen at DCU, I am president for eight and a half years and never encountered this before," said Prof MacCraith.

"Every student I have spoken to in the past few days is disgusted by it."

"I have met with the student union three times in the last 48 hours and they have made a very strong statement.

But this is unacceptable in DCU and it will not happen again under our watch.

Siona Cahill, President of the Union of Students Ireland (USI) also spoke to Sean O'Rourke and said that the USI do not condone what happened at the event.

She said that what was being described was unacceptable but not reflective of college societies.

"It's not a thing in societies in Ireland, this incident is quite isolated but that doesn't mean that it's OK," said Ms Cahill.

She added: "It smacks really of a wider problem. Consent education needs to be rolled out across third level and second level."

You can listen to the full interview below.

Digital DeskBy Ann O'Loughlin

Twenty five people have left seven mobile homes in a yard which Dublin City Council has said presents a serious fire hazard, the High Court heard today.

The caravans are located in a vehicular/car wash yard in Prussia Street and had been used to accommodate a number of individuals and families who are believed to have been from Eastern Europe.

Last week, Mr Justice Seamus Noonan granted the council an order that the mobile homes be immediately vacated.

He was told the mobile homes were positioned quite close to one another, had electricity cables running into them, gas cylinders outside, waste materials stored nearby and there was evidence that people were smoking around them.

Fire officers believed fire could spread rapidly from one mobile to another given the flammable nature of their construction and fittings with no means of egress in the event of a fire.

The judge commented that the conditions appeared to be "like a bomb about to go off".

He granted the evacuation order against the occupier and lessee of the site, TiboTancos, and against the owner, Mary McGrath, of Greenfields House, Maynooth, Co Kildare.

Today when the matter returned before the judge, Conleth Bradley SC, for the council, said agreement had been reached with the respondents and the caravans had been vacated.

The caravans themselves were still on site but the question of their removal was a separate planning enforcement matter, he said. The fire authority was concerned they should be vacated because of the risk to life.

Mr Bradley sought a permanent order that the caravans could not be used for habitation.

Mr Tancos, a Hungarian, told the judge he was agreeable to such a permanent order. The court heard last week he had also advertised the caravans for sale.

A solicitor of Ms McGrath said his client did not know anything about the use of the site for this purpose.

The judge said it had not been suggested that she did or that there was anything amiss as far as Ms McGrath was concerned but there was an urgency about granting the order.

The judge granted the permanent order and was told there was not application for the costs of the case by the council.

The court heard last week the situation of the people living in the caravans had been brought to the attention of the Dublin Region Homeless Executive and the judge hoped it would be in a position to look after them.Garda whistleblower Sgt Maurice McCabe should be paid massive damages following the State apology given to him yesterday, it has been claimed.

The State is facing a significant payout to Sgt McCabe, who is already taking a case against Tusla, the child and family agency, after it grossly mishandled an erroneous allegation against him. Tusla has already formally apologised.

He yesterday received a full State apology for the smear campaign carried out against him by former Garda commissioner Martin Callinan, more than 12 years after first raising concerns about the force.

The possibility of a new financial settlement to Sgt McCabe was raised after a formal state apology was given to him and his family.

Fianna Fail justice spokesman Jim OCallaghan said: He should be paid damages. The State has now apologised and he was defamed by what was said about him by the then most senior police officer in the land.

During a Dail debate on the findings of the third interim report of the Disclosures Tribunal by Judge Peter Charleton, Mr Callaghan said while the apology was fully merited and justified, Sgt McCabe deserves more.

Sgt McCabe is entitled to another remedy. But the State needs to recognise that its most senior police officer engaged in a campaign of calumny against Sgt McCabe and that campaign has to be rectified by the State, he said.

Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan issued the apology to Sgt McCabe and his family after what he called the reprehensible behaviour of some members of An Garda Siochana towards him.

I have spoken with Sgt McCabe on the phone and, on behalf of the State, I apologised to him and his family for the manner in which he was treated over a prolonged period. He was extremely gracious and accepted that apology in the spirit in which I offered it, said Mr Flanagan.

My sincere hope is that he, his wife Lorraine, and their family can now put this horrendous and prolonged ordeal behind them and get on with their lives.

Meanwhile, the debate heard claims that former tanaiste Frances Fitzgerald was hounded out of office by kangaroo courts in the Dail and at the public accounts committee.

Mr OCallaghan said Ms Fitzgerald resigned after getting caught up in the controversy surrounding the OHiggins commission and issues relating to Sgt McCabe.

I bear no ill will toward Frances Fitzgerald, I share the view that she is a fine politician. But I cannot be insincere. Inaccurate and incorrect information was given to the Dail, there was a requirement for political accountability, and, unfortunately for her, she got caught up in that. There was nothing personal but she was accountable to this House, he said.

Mr Flanagan said:

I would like to say that Frances Fitzgerald is a loss to the Cabinet and I do not believe that her resignation served any public interest, though it may have served the political interests of some people and some parties in this House. I hope to see Frances Fitzgerald returned to high office in the near future.

At last nights Fine Gael parliamentary party meeting, Tanaiste Simon Coveney said Ms Fitzgerald had been completely vindicated by Judge Charletons report. Many of the cheerleaders who had called for her head last November had remained silent since last week.

Independent TD Clare Daly said Judge Charletons report was a searing indictment of several State institutions, in particular An Garda Siochana and Tusla, and of the media.

He castigated a number of journalists for frustrating the work of the tribunal and the public will. He castigated the public relations companies, which he has characterised, correctly, as far as I am concerned, as a hideous development in Irish public life given the domination of spin, she said.By Elaine Loughlin and Daniel McConnell

Presidential candidate and businessman Peter Casey has refused to back down from controversial remarks made about the Travelling Community. The matter dominated the agenda yesterday and was a key point of dispute as all six candidates squared off on Virgin Media Televisions debate last night, hosted by Pat Kenny.

Controversy arose after Mr Casey had claimed that Travellers are basically people camping in other peoples land, that house prices drop in areas where they settle and that they are not paying their fair share of taxes in society.

Asked about his comments Mr Casey said: I am the only candidate who says what he believes, there is far too much political correctness in this society today.

However, he admitted that he sometimes regrets his comments. He blamed Pavee Point, the group representing the Travelling Community for poorly representing a group of Travellers who refused to move into a development in Tipperary until they received commitments around having land to hold horses on.

They let down the Travelling community. They should have gone down there and said you are not looking good here and they should have represented the Travelling community.

He claimed he had spoken to some councillors in Tipperary who said they were essentially being blackmailed into giving them stables and they wanted an acre of land per house.

This claim had been vehemently denied by Pavee Point earlier in the day who said the families were looking for land to rent to keep their horses on.

Mr Casey told RTE news it is wrong to encourage ethnic groups to feel they are different. They are encouraged to think that they are different, they are not. They should think and act as Irish people, not necessarily as different to everyone else, then their children end up thinking that they are different and its harder for their children to fit into society.

Martin Collins, co-director of the Pavee Point Traveller and Roma Centre, said: Our president needs to be inclusive of all citizens and I would not have any confidence that he would be inclusive.

These comments put Mr Caseys presidential campaign on the same level as a local election where people play the Nimby (not-in-my- backyard) card to gain votes, as we have seen so often in the past.

Mr Collins urged him to withdraw and added: In the unlikely event that Mr Casey was elected as President it is obvious Travellers would not be welcome at Aras an Uachtarain, which is sad in the light of the new era of recognition and inclusion in Ireland.

Incumbent Michael D Higgins is favourite to win the race for the presidency when the country goes to the polls in just over a week. He told RTE that Travellers comprised an ethnic minority which experienced discrimination, adding: I find these views appalling.A much-delayed plan to turn Dublin's College Green into a pedestrian plaza has been rejected.

An Bord Pleanala has refused permission for the proposal, which would have banned all cars and put restrictions on buses and taxis.

In its decision, An Bord Pleanala agreed the overall idea would "significantly enhance the amenity and attractiveness" of the area.

However, it argued the plaza could have a significant and negative impact on bus passengers, and taxis trying to get tourists to local hotels.

The planning authority also said that it had "unacceptable" safety concerns regarding cyclists, pedestrians, buses and emergency vehicles.

A decision on the long-awaited project had suffered many delays, with An Bord Pleanala explaining that it was a "highly complex and unique" case.

Green Party Councillor, Ciaran Cuffe, says he is "saddened" to hear the project has been turned down.

Saddened to hear College Green Plaza turned down by Bord Pleanala. Back to the drawing board. We still desperately need more car-free child-friendly spaces in Dublin City  Ciaran Cuffe (@CiaranCuffe) October 17, 2018

He says Dublin still desperately needs more car-free child-friendly spaces.

Business group Dublin Chamber ha said that it is "unsurprised" by the decision but has challenged planner to come up with a new proposal that would allow for the plaza to become a reality.

"Our position was always one of qualified support, but repeated calls for stronger traffic analysis were never answered," said Dublin Chamber's Head of Public Affairs Graeme McQueen.

"It is unsurprising, therefore, that An Bord Pleanala have decided against the proposals.

"We remain supportive of more pedestrianised areas in Dublin. We absolutely need them.

"But increased public transport investment and proper planning is required to allow for that to be possible."

Meanwhile, Senator Kevin Humphreys has called on Dublin City Council to re-engage with all the key stakeholders to keep the plan for the plaza on their agenda.

"Most modern European capitals have pedestrianised Plazas which serve to enrich the city's aesthetic and accessibility," said Senator Humphreys.

"Dublin City Council must immediately gather all the key stakeholders together and begin to develop a strategy to address the concerns raised by An Bord Pleanala."

Digital DeskThat's it from the Virgin Media One presidential debate.

The polls open on Friday, October 26 when you will get to have your say on who you think should be the next president of Ireland.

Update: A question was posed by an audience member about the cost of the election.

Gavin Duffy said: "I would say to people watching, it's bizarre that three of us have come from one TV programme, I apologise.

"I believe there are really big issues facing Ireland, I felt I had something to contribute, and I've put myself forward, that's democracy."

Liadh Ni Riada acknowledged that without Sinn Fein there may not have been an election.

"It is about upholding democracy, this is about the future, I'm an MEP already and I had to give this a huge amount of thought," she said.

"There was no question about it, Sinn Fein would always field a candidate."

Michael D Higgins said: "Democracy is important.

"I believe I have the experience and the authenticity of values I have represented all my life."

Freeman claims she is only 'independent' candidate in race

Update: Liadh Ni Riada has said she would separate her party beliefs from her presidential duties.

"I'm proud to be nominated by Sinn Fein but this is about being a president for everybody and that inclusivity.

"There's no denying it, I'm a Sinn Fein candidate, but I would be a president for everyone."

Joan Freeman has said she is the only independent candidate in the race.

"We're not looking at the real thing, to run for this campaign you have to be a millionaire or aligned to a party."

Casey would donate salary to charity chosen by county councils

Update: Peter Casey has announced he would donate his presidential salary by month to a different charity chosen by county councils.

Liadh Ni Riada said: "I think the salary should be halved. The president should lead by example."

Sean Gallagher said: "The issue for me is about the expenses, that these expenses have not been audited for four years, if that was any other government department, heads would roll."

Joan Freeman said she would accept the entire salary to funnel it to volunteers as awards from her own pocket.

Michael D Higgins said: "I've never accepted the full salary, I took a reduction of 23.6%.

"I don't draw my ministerial pension, I'm perfectly happy to accept any salary that the Government suggest.

"About the 317,000 you ask about, I have no problem appointing an independent audit.

"It would be entirely wrong to personalise or politicise this."

Mr Higgins has called the charges levelled at him by Peter Casey "a fantasy list".

Questions turn to housing crisis as candidates reveal they are all landlords

Heated debate so far on a range of issues, including housing, presidential expenses and water charges. Much more to come after the break on Virgin Media One. #PKDebate Who do you feel is winning so far? #Aras18  Virgin Media Television (@VirginMedia_TV) October 17, 2018

Update: Asked about the housing crisis, President Higgins, Sean Gallagher and Gavin Duffy admitted they are all landlords.

Peter Casey said: "The president is the influencer in chief. You can only influence as president."

Joan Freeman said: "Homelessness has many different levels. We have children, 280% increase in child homelessness, and students trying to get accommodation. That is up to the government. It is the president's duty and role to inspire new initiatives to help that."

Mr Gallagher said: "The president can remind the government that they must work together to address the greatest crisis of our time."

Mr Higgins said: "I have raised the issue of homelessness many times.

"It's an important debate we need to have about the role of the state and the role of the private sector.

"The issue isn't about getting on the property ladder, it's about shelter and security in housing."

The three businessmen admitted they supported water charges.

Gavin Duffy chastises Pat Kenny over hunting questions

Update: Gavin Duffy admitted he used to hunt as he grew up in the countryside, before chastising presenter Pat Kenny.

He said: "I want to say we have to be careful how we're disqualifying people about going into public life.

"To say Joan can't be a president for all people because she voted no in Repeal the 8th, considering the work she has done, is wrong."

Ni Riada questioned about 'ambivalence to violence' about comments on IRA atrocities

Update: Liadh Ni Riada was asked about her "ambivalence to violence" in regard to past comments about IRA atrocities.

She said: "I think any atrocity like that (Enniskillen bombing) should be condemned, but look, the IRA have been gone the last 20 years, we have a peace process in place, we should be cementing that.

"Would you call Nelson Mandela a terrorist?"

Managing Director of Virgin Media Television Pat Kiely, MEP Liadh Ni Riada and Director of Programming at Virgin Media Television Bill Malone pictured tonight as Presidential candidates arrived at Virgin Media Television Studios in Dublin for Virgin Media Television's Presidential Debate with Pat Kenny. Picture: Brian McEvoy

Freeman accused of being out of step with public over No vote in abortion referendum

Update: Joan Freeman, who voted No in the Repeal the 8th referendum, has been accused of being out of step with the majority of the public who voted to repeal Ireland's abortion laws.

She said: "I don't think the Irish people are as judgmental as you have just been, Pat (Kenny).

"I reflect what Ireland is, this is what makes us democratic, we're able to discuss and debate.

"It was my personal conviction, that has nothing to do with my public duty."

Freeman brands Higgins and Gallagher 'arrogant' for debate no show

Update: Joan Freeman said the decision of Sean Gallagher and Michael D Higgins to not show up to the last TV debate was arrogant and offensive.

Mr Higgins said he undertook to do as much as he could in terms of media, including TV, radio and print but is constrained by his role as president.

"To talk about not turning up, I've been turning up since 1969."

Mr Higgins said he changed his mind after he said he would only run for one term.

"It's very important to know the role, and the extent of the role," he said.

Peter Casey refuses to back down over traveller comments

Update: The first televised Irish presidential debate with all six candidates has begun with a question asking each candidate whether they would be a one or two-term candidate.

Joan Freeman, Liadh Ni Riada, Gavin Duffy and Sean Gallagher all said they would only be one-term presidents.

Peter Casey said he would serve his term, and would again go for nominations from county councils for a second term.

Mr Casey was asked by presenter Pat Kenny about his controversial comments on Wednesday, when he said Irish Travellers were "camping" on other people's land.

Peter Casey pictured tonight as Presidential candidates arrived at Virgin Media Television Studios in Dublin for Virgin Media Television's Presidential Debate with Pat Kenny. Picture: Brian McEvoy

"We have so many wonderful nationalities here, it's wrong to single out one particular ethnic group differently," he said.

"One of the county councils who endorsed me was Tipperary, and as you know we have a housing crisis at the moment.

"When I was down there, there was 1.7m spent building six houses that the travelling community wouldn't move into because they wanted sheds and two stables and one acre of land.

"Why should they be given the right to turn down a house? I think that is wrong."

President Michael D Higgins has highlighted that Traveller men have 11 years' less life expectancy than other males, and are six times more likely to commit suicide.

Kenny asked candidates if they would like Traveller people to live next door to them.

President Michael D Higgins pictured tonight as Presidential candidates arrived at Virgin Media Television Studios in Dublin for Virgin Media Television's Presidential Debate with Pat Kenny. Picture: Brian McEvoy

Mr Higgins said: "Yes, I have a halting site a couple of hundred yards from my house and they are wonderful people."

Mr Casey interrupted and suggested that Mr Higgins objected to a halting site near his home in 1968.

Mr Higgins said that was inaccurate.

"I have never objected to a halting site. I was an elected representative on Galway city and county council and I often took a stand, unpopularly, on the rights of Travelling people to be offered housing," he said.

Mr Casey accused his fellow nominees of lying about their feelings towards Travellers, and said: "It's like giving chocolate to a diabetic, you're not helping them."

Mr Gallagher replied: "That's a racist comment Peter."

Presidential candidates go head to head in live debate

Earlier: The six candidates seeking election to the presidency are taking part in a live TV debate.

The debate will be hosted by Pat Kenny and went live at 10pm on Virgin Media One.

This is the second debate this week after President Higgins and Sean Gallagher sat out of Monday's debate on Claire Byrne Live on RTE.

According to Virgin Media, the candidates will field questions from Kenny as well as members of the live studio audience.

Speaking ahead of the debate, Pat Kenny said: "It's very exciting to be hosting the first TV debate with all candidates in front of our audience.

"Its a great opportunity for viewers to see them all in action and for them to put forward their vision for their presidency and convince us why they are the best candidate.

"Polls are just polls and nothing is a given until the votes are cast."

Mr Kenny hosted the infamous Frontline debate ahead of the 2011 debate where a tweet that came from a 'fake' account was blamed for derailing Gallagher's hopes of winning the election.

With just over a week to go until the country heads to the polls, join Pat Kenny and our live studio audience for the first televised debate with all six candidates.

Pat Kenny's Big Debate: Presidential Election Special, tonight at 10pm on Virgin Media One. #PKDebate pic.twitter.com/WIvV7VxbmD  Virgin Media Television (@VirginMedia_TV) October 17, 2018

Meanwhile, President Higgins looks on course to be re-elected as President for the next seven years according to the latest opinion polls.

Today's Irish Times/MRBI figures show the current president has a commanding 66% lead, with Sean Gallagher his nearest rival on 12%.

Liadh Ni Riada is just behind Sean Gallagher on 11%, while Joan Freeman has 5% support, Gavin Duffy is on 4% and Peter Casey has 2%.By Louise Roseingrave

A jury at the inquest of a 32-year-old man who was suffocated with plastic bags has returned a verdict of unlawful killing. Ian Quinn was found dead in his apartment at Annaly Grove, Ongar, Dublin 15 on May 31 2014.

Witness Robert Byrne told an inquest into the mans death at Dublin Coroners Court that two women approached him screaming for help around 3.20am on May 31 2014.

There was no one around. They came running from the apartments calling out, saying Help and asking to use my phone, Mr Byrne said.

They made the call on the phone. They said they were asleep and when they woke up the man in the house was not moving and not breathing, he said.

They were shaking and seemed scared but they werent crying, he said.

They said on the phone that theyd been up since 10am drinking and had slept and then woken up but they could not wake him, Mr Byrne said.

Paramedics entered the house and found the man dead. When Gardai arrived one of the women revealed they had held a plastic bag over the mans head.

Garda Adrian Kildea said he responded to a call to Annaly Grove and found a man stripped to his boxers with bruising on his arms.

There were two females on the couch. One of the females disclosed we had a bag over his head and the other nudged her. They admitted they had been drinking for two days and both had placed plastic bags over his head and shouted, how do you like that?

Gardai found several small plastic bags on the kitchen floor. The bags were tested and Mr Quinns DNA was found on them.

State pathologist Professor Marie Cassidy said death by suffocation using plastic bags showed no specific autopsy findings. She gave the cause of death was consistent with plastic bag suffocation and said this was this was a diagnosis of exclusion.

Prof Cassidy found a number of surface injuries to the body, including scratch marks to the face that she said could have resulted from fingernails. Ian Quinn had a black eye and a scratch under his nose along with a number of bruises to his face that could have been caused by minor blows and slaps, Prof Cassidy said. The pathologist noted a number of bruises to his forearms that could have been signs of gripping, the court heard.

The post-mortem findings support that death could be due to plastic bag suffocation, Prof Cassidy told the court.

A toxicology screening found a high level of alcohol in Mr Quinn's system along with a number of prescription drugs, including diazepam, alprazolam and zopiclone, all of which were present at therapeutic levels.

Prof Cassidy said this combination could have affected his actions and reactions including his ability to defend himself.

Mr Quinns brother Karl Finnegan was in court to give evidence of the formal identification but he left during the pathologists evidence.

Detective Superintendent Colm Murphy told the court that a murder investigation was launched following Mr Quinns death. Two women were charged with the mans murder. The two women offered guilty pleas to manslaughter as the trial was to commence on March 5 last. Both were found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to six years in prison.

The jury returned a verdict of unlawful killing in accordance with the findings of the criminal trial judge.

Coroner Dr Myra Cullinane extended her sympathies to the mans family.1. Yes. Council members appear to have taken time to review each section carefully.

2. Yes. The council has set up town halls and a public hearing to inform the residents.

3. No. The council should have set up a charter review committee, including residents.

4. No. Some of the items proposed so far benefit the council more than the community.

5. Unsure. Its hard to say until after the public has had more opportunities to weigh in.

Vote

View ResultsPicture This have announced a five-night run at 3Arena Dublin, March 2019.

A feat no other Irish band have ever attempted before.

Not only that, but the band also announced a new single entitled One Drink.

The song heralds the arrival of the bands anxiously awaited second full-length album, MDRN LV, out February 15, 2019.

Two years since their formation, theyve impressively sold over 300K tickets, concluding 2017 with a sold-out UK and Ireland tour highlighted by gigs at O2 Shepherds Bush London, SSE Arena Belfast, and a two-night stand at 3Arena in Dublin.

The Dublin shows will form part of the MDRN LV European tour which includes shows in London, Manchester, Paris, Berlin, Milan, Amsterdam and Stockholm.

It also follows two sold-out US shows later this year in The Bowery Ballroom, New York on November 28 and The Moroccan Lounge, LA on December 3.

Tickets from 49.90 go on sale next Wednesday, October 24 at 9am at www.ticketmaster.ie

A pre-sale is available from 4pm through https://PictureThis.lnk.to/OfficialStoreBy Benjamin Jumbe.

The minister of Tourism Wildlife and Antiquities Prof Ephraim Kamuntu has defended President Musevenis visit with American artiste Kanye West

Kanye West and wife Kim Kadashian met the president at statehouse earlier this week, drawing concerns from some sections of the public who were wondering how someone on a private trip ended up at statehouse.

Now addressing journalists Prof Kamuntu said president Museveni is the countrys chief promoter and as such had every right to meet the artiste

The president recently attacked Uganda Tourism Board for failing to do its role of marketing the country.BlackRock, the world's largest money manager, saw its net flows soften in the third quarter, as nervous investors yanked money from its products.

Long-term net inflows of $US10.6 billion ($14.9 billion) in the quarter were the lowest since 2016, a result Chief Executive Officer Larry Fink called disappointing on Tuesday. Institutions withdrew $US24.8 billion from BlackRock's index and active products in the period.

BlackRock chief Lawrence Fink said the results were "disappointing." Credit:Christopher Goodney

"We're not particularly happy," Fink said in a phone interview. He highlighted that investors are trying to shed riskier positions amid geopolitical uncertainty.

"They don't understand the political instabilities," he said. "They're worried about the impact of global trade. A common conversation we're hearing from clients is: are we at peak earnings?"The competition regulator is looking to hit Singtel Optus with a $10 million penalty, after years of directly billing customers for ringtones and subscriptions that potentially misled more than 240,000 people.

Optus earned $66 million in revenue from the billing scheme, charging customers a combined $195 million. Credit:Glenn Hunt

Since April 2014, Optus billing arrangements resulted in some customers being slugged with charges for content they did not want, such as ringtones, games and horoscopes, with one click that added a cost to their bill. About two million customers were charged each year.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission commenced proceedings in the Federal Court against Optus, while Optus admitted it made false or misleading representations and will jointly apply with the regulator for orders from the court.

This will include a proposed $10 million penalty. While new laws came into place in November that could allow the regulator to slug offenders with much higher penalties, this does not apply to offences that happened before the rules came into place.Tabcorp became the latest high-profile company to receive a first strike against its remuneration report on Wednesday in what may be a sign of a growing backlash this AGM season against excessive pay packets.

More than 40 per cent of votes were against the remuneration report despite chairman Paula Dwyer announcing at the meeting that changes would be made to awards being paid to its executives - relating to its merger with Tatts - which had been a major source of contention. It followed a 62 per cent vote against Telstra's remuneration report on Tuesday.

Tabcorp chairman Paula Dwyer. Credit:Attila Csaszar

Ms Dwyer acknowledged investor concerns that executives were being awarded on the basis of their "extra-ordinary efforts" to implement the merger, but not for extracting the synergies that would see the benefits of the merger flow through to investors.

"After considering shareholders' feedback, the board acknowledges the concerns and now intends to apply a synergy-based performance measure and to extend the vesting period for the restricted shares granted to key management personnel," she told the meeting.The ABC's head of radio is leaving the public broadcaster, but says his departure is in no way linked to recent leadership turmoil.

Michael Mason said in a staff email on Wednesday that now was the right time to step down as director of radio. The announcement comes just weeks after the ABC board sacked former managing director Michelle Guthrie, with former chairman, Justine Milne, subsequently resigning.

"I am keenly aware that we have just experienced significant change at the highest levels within the ABC," Mr Mason wrote. "After 34 years at the ABC I can honestly say I have been privileged to have had the opportunity to work alongside some of this country's greatest broadcasting and media talent - both in front of and behind the mic.A man has died in a workplace incident in Sydney's south-west on Thursday morning.

The man was driving a car when it crashed into a stationary trailer in the carpark of a warehouse on Helles Avenue in Moorebank about 6.15am.

Six ambulance crews were called to the carpark but the driver died at the scene. A police spokeswoman said the man is yet to be formally identified.

A 17-year-old male passenger suffered minor injuries and was taken to Liverpool Hospital, an ambulance spokesman said.

Police from Liverpool City Police Area Command are investigating the incident and will prepare a report for the coroner.Meghan Markle showed her home town style on Wednesday by baking banana bread for the family whose farm she and Prince Harry visited near Dubbo.

The property is a fifth generation family farm established in 1887 located about 20 kilometres east of Dubbo. When they arrived they were greeted by a mob of sheep, and the royal couple then got their hands dirty, throwing cotton seed onto hay feeding their mob of cattle.

The Duke and Duchess finished the tour of the family farm with a morning tea prepared by the Wongarbon CWA, however it was the hand-baked banana bread which was prepared by the Duchess of Sussex as a token of thanks to the Woodley family which stole the show.

The Duchess of Sussex presented the Woodley family with the handmade chocolate and ginger treat, having spent her evening baking it in the kitchens of Admiralty House on Tuesday night.A pharmacist on Sydney's lower north shore has been charged over allegations she supplied $500,000 worth of a cervical cancer vaccine to a man, before it was illegally exported for resale in Hong Kong.

Katherine Gong, 34, who operates Mosman's Harmony Pharmacy and Wellness Clinic, was charged on Wednesday, alongside a 31-year-old man, after the duo came into the sights of a major joint agency investigation into illicit drug supply.

Harmony Pharmacy proprietor and pharmacist Katherine Gong has been charged by police. Credit:Facebook

It is alleged the pharmacist supplied almost 2500 Gardasil 9 "injections" to the man, who then exported the substance under a false declaration to Hong Kong, where they had an increased retail value of more than $600,000.

The charges follow police raids on the Mosman pharmacy and a residential unit at Sydney Olympic Park in August this year.Staff at a company in Sydney's south are rallying to help their colleague Joseph Bechara whose bride, Francheska, 26, suffered multiple strokes while they were on their honeymoon in New York.

Joseph and Francheska are now facing a medical bill that could exceed $300,000 as she recovers from brain surgery.

Joseph and Francheska Bechara on their wedding day.

The news shocked his colleges at Milestone Civic at Miranda where Mr Bechara has worked for the past six years.

A colleague, Ben Didonato, started a GoFundMe page in support of the couple and has so far raised $78,000 towards a goal of $300,000 that would go towards their medical expenses.An engineering consultant who signed off on the Thunder River Rapids Ride as mechanically and structurally safe weeks before the fatal malfunction that killed four people in October 2016 was given entirely blank daily and annual maintenance logs for the ride.

Cindy Low, Kate Goodchild, Luke Dorsett and Roozi Araghi died on October 25 when their raft collided with another raft and flipped over.

The Thunder River Rapids ride in 2008.

Engineering consultant Thomas Polley completed a mechanical inspection of the ride in September 2016, relying on verbal assurances from the park's engineers that daily maintenance inspections were being carried out.

He signed off on the ride with recommendations for a full electrical inspection, amid other recommendations, despite there being no completed paperwork recording maintenance for the ride.An engineering consultant who certified Dreamworlds Thunder River Rapids Ride as mechanically and structurally safe days before 2016's fatal accident says he did not place a great deal of importance on Workplace Health and Safety inspecting his certificate.

His assertion was questioned as silly by Dreamworlds lawyers at the coronial inquest into the deaths of Sydney woman Cindy Low and Canberra tourists Kate Goodchild, her brother Luke Dorsett and his partner Roozi Araghi.

Bruce Hodgkinson SC (right) and James Bell QC, lawyers for Ardent Leisure, arrive for the inquest into the Dreamworld disaster at the Magistrates Court at Southport in June. Credit:AAP

Thomas Polley was contracted by Dreamworld to complete the theme parks annual safety compliance inspections in September 2016.

Eight days after he issued the certificate, the Thunder River Rapids Ride malfunctioned, killing all four victims almost instantly when the raft they were riding in collided with another, empty, raft and flipped over onto the conveyor belt.Queensland mother Fiona Simpson has been formally recommended for a bravery award for shielding her baby during a freak hailstorm in the state's south-east.

Kingaroy mother Fiona Simpson shielded her daughter as they were hammered by hail. Credit:Facebook

The 23-year-old was left with horrific bruising and cuts after hail blew out her car windshield last week near Kingaroy, however she managed to protect her baby girl from the brunt of the storm.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk on Wednesday told parliament she had written to the Australian Bravery Decorations Council to formerly recognise Fiona's courage.

"The cuts and bruises Fiona suffered show how bad it was. [Baby] Clara had barely a scratch," the premier said.Police are offering a $100,000 reward for information leading to the capture of a fugitive whom they believe has been hiding in plain sight since allegedly killing his brother with a sword.

Jonathan Dick, 40, is wanted over the brutal death of his brother David Dick, who was slain as he walked out of a lift at Westfield Doncaster on February 3 last year.

Now one of Australia's most wanted fugitives, he has evaded police for more than 18 months.A former WA construction company finance manager who stole almost $1.15 million from her employer in what a judge described as "deliberate, deceptive and systematic" theft has been permanently banned from providing financial services and credit activities.

Annabelle Martincic made multiple electronic transfers with false descriptions from the bank accounts of M3 Building and Construction  where her former partner was one of three directors  into four other accounts, including her own between May 2014 and April 2016.

Annabelle Martincic was found guilty of 185 counts of stealing.

She was sentenced in the WA District Court in June after she was found guilty of 185 counts of stealing, following a jury trial earlier this year.

Her crimes were uncovered when another director of the company started getting phone calls from creditors whose invoices were not being paid.A WA police officer has been charged with common assault in the wake of an incident north of Geraldton earlier this year.

The 27-year-old detective first class constable was charged by the Internal Affairs Unit on Wednesday over the incident, which is alleged to have occurred while the officer was arresting a man in Glenfield on July 26.

The officer was charged by the Internal Affairs Unit on Wednesday. Credit:File

Details of what happened during the arrest have not yet been released by WA Police, but the officer was charged with common assault following the incident.

It is understood he was working with the State Operations Division at the time.London: Queen Elizabeth believes Australia's policy of waiting until her death before reconsidering a republic is untenable, according to a new book examining her reign.

Queen of the World, written by the British author and royal reporter Robert Hardman, says the Queen's view is that, if Australia wants to be a republic, it should "get on with it" rather than "this lingering deathwatch".

"That would be untenable for the Prince of Wales, untenable for the Queen and untenable for the country itself, because obviously, they'd be looking at their watches waiting for her to pass away," Hardman writes, citing a palace official.

A new book claims Queen Elizabeth is bemused by Australia's attitude towards becoming a republic. Credit:AP

"The palace view was: 'You've got to name a date because we can't have this lingering 'deathwatch.'Turkey hopes to enter the Saudi consul's residence in Istanbul in connection with the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Turkey's foreign minister says after meeting US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Turkish officials have said they believe the journalist was murdered and his body removed, an allegation the Saudis have strongly denied.

Khashoggi was a US resident who wrote columns for the Washington Post and was critical of the Saudi government, calling for reforms.

Turkish police had been expected to search the Saudi consul's Istanbul residence on Tuesday. They did not do so, officers at the scene said late on Tuesday, because Saudi officials were not able to join. Hours earlier, the consul general left Turkey for Riyadh.Toronto: The Canadian government is ready to pardon those with a pot possession record of 30 grams or less after the country becomes the second, after Uruguay, with a legal national marijuana marketplace on Wednesday.

A senior government official, said those convicted of possessing of 30 grams or less of marijuana in the past will be eligible for a pardon, but they will have to apply for one.

Tom Clarke, 43, will be among the first to legally sell recreational marijuana when his shop opens at midnight in Newfoundland, Canada's easternmost province.

"I am living my dream. Teenage Tom Clarke is loving what I am doing with my life right now," he said.

Clarke has been dealing marijuana illegally in Canada for 30 years. He wrote in his high school yearbook that his dream was to open a cafe in Amsterdam, the Dutch city where people have legally smoked weed in coffee shops since the 1970s.Sign up for our PoliticsNY newsletter for the latest coverage and to stay informed about the 2021 elections in your district and across NYC

For a second year, theyll walk the Boardwalk toward a world without breast cancer.

Participants in the American Cancer Societys annual Making Strides Against Breast Cancer, Brooklyn Walk edition, will take to the iconic Riegelmann Boardwalk on Oct. 21, continuing a 16-year tradition of uniting supporters and survivors.

The events return to the seaside venue is a testament to the communitys care for the cause, according to an ACS spokeswoman.

Making Strides Against Breast Cancer is an opportunity for thousands of people from all over Brooklyn to not only fight back against breast cancer, but also form a massive community of support with one another, said Ashley Engelman. Women who are newly diagnosed with breast cancer meet longtime survivors. Caregivers connect with other caregivers. Doctors walk alongside their patients. Everyone is uniting for a single, important cause: eradicating breast cancer.

The non-competitive event aims to raise awareness as well as funds for breast-cancer prevention, research, and patient services. Some 25,000 Brooklyn walkers raised nearly $750,000 at last years event, all of which went towards putting services in place for breast-cancer patients, Engelman said.

The money raised from Making Strides Against Breast Cancer supports critical breast cancer research so that we can continue to find better treatments, she said.

That mission was endorsed by two breast-cancer survivors who walked the walk on the Boardwalk last year, one of whom said 2017 marked her dozenth appearance at the event.

I have been walking with Making Strides Against Breast Cancer for 12 years. I started participating in the walk because I felt they needed to find a cure, said Doris Taylor, a Brooklyn resident for 35 years. The feeling of walking along with other survivors lets me know that I am blessed, and gives me a feeling of gratitude. I am a two-time survivor with double mastectomy and reconstruction.

Another two-time breast cancer survivor, Cynthia Jean, has been walking Making Strides walks for four years, and said she continues to do participate because she has personally benefitted from research advancements.

Four years ago, they didnt have an effective medication for my type of cancer, HER2+, Jean said. But today Im on Perjeta, which I take once every three weeks and [which] targets those cancer cells. The day of the walk is a day of unity, strength, hope and courage.

Engelman said that everyone is welcome at the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walk, but encouraged people to register online in advance, and to make donations and fund-raise. She noted that the American Cancer Society is the largest funder of cancer research outside of the federal government, and weve played a role in nearly every major breast cancer research breakthrough in modern history.

This years walk will start on the Boardwalk under the Parachute Jump, and travel up to Coney Island Avenue and back down to the finish line at Stillwell Avenue. Bicycles, carts, scooters and other vehicles will not be allowed on the walk route; strollers and wheelchairs are welcome.

Walk the walk at Making Strides Brooklyn at MCU Park (1904 Surf Avenue between W. 17th and W. 19th streets). Oct. 21, on-site registration starts at 8 am; walk starts at 10 am. Register in advance online at www.makingstrideswalk.org.

Reach James Harney at (718) 260-2529 or e-mail him at jharn ey@cn gloca l.com .Sign up for our PoliticsNY newsletter for the latest coverage and to stay informed about the 2021 elections in your district and across NYC

84th Precinct

Brooklyn HeightsDUMBOBoerum HillDowntown

Caught the creep

Cops cuffed a guy for hitting a woman with a metal pipe on Dean Street on Oct. 9, police said.

The 47-year-old victim told police she was between Bond and Hoyt streets at about 2:30 pm when the suspect ran up to her from behind and started whacking her with the pipe until she fell to the ground. The suspect took her iPhone, credit cards, headphones, and cash and fled until cops stopped him on Court and Baltic streets, according to authorities.

Threat and steal

A lout threatened to kill a woman and stole her phone outside a York Street subway station on Oct. 14, police said.

The 30-year-old victim told cops she was exiting the station near Jay Street at about 4:15 pm when the creep showed her a knife and said, Im gonna murder you. The goon snatched her phone with her credit card in its case and fled the station, according to authorities.

Copped copper!

Some jerk stole thousands of dollars worth of copper wires from a Columbia Heights construction site on Oct. 12, police said.

The punk broke into the site near Doughty Street and ran out with 2,000 pounds of copper wire, copper boss plates, and boxes of copper, according to authorities.

Market watch out

A good-for-nothing took a womans wallet and other belongings out of her purse while she was shopping at a Gold Street grocery store on Oct. 9, police said.

The woman told cops she had placed her purse on her shopping cart while perusing the aisles in the market near Fleet Street at about 7:40 pm when some sneak reached into it and grabbed her wallet, along with her house keys, headphones, and phone inside it, according to authorities.

Subway scoundrel

A malefactor snatched a guys phone from his hands while on a Manhattan-bound train near Fulton Street on Oct. 12, police said.

The victim told cops he was aboard the 2 train near Hoyt Street at about 11 am when the punk grabbed his iPhone from his hand, jumped off the train, and fled the station, cops said.

 Julianne CubaSign up for our PoliticsNY newsletter for the latest coverage and to stay informed about the 2021 elections in your district and across NYC

88th Precinct

Fort GreeneClinton Hill

Two-on-one

A pair of marauders grabbed a guys phone and wallet near Carlton Avenue on Oct. 11, police said.

The victim was walking near DeKalb Avenue at about 4:30 am when the two punks came up to him from behind, cops said. One of the bruisers held the victim while the other went through his pockets and took his Samsung Galaxy phone, Beats headphones, and Fossil wallet with $5, a credit card, and identification card inside it, and then both fled down DeKalb Avenue, according to authorities.

Cutting remarks

Cops cuffed a guy for threatening to knife a teen and steal his money outside a Fulton Street subway station on Oct. 10.

The 14-year-old victim was walking out of the station near S. Portland Avenue at about 9:20 am when the suspect pulled out a knife and said Give me your money, cops said. The suspect grabbed $24 from the victim and then fled the station.

And a day earlier, the suspect showed the same knife to another 16-year-old victim while on the train near Lafayette Avenue and Fulton Street and stole $300 from him, but officers later caught him on Oct. 11, police said.

Here comes treble

Police arrested a Saint Felix Street music school employee on Oct. 13 after video captured him stealing cash from the school.

The 36-year-old suspect was caught in the act while stealing about $250 from the school near Hanson Place on various dates, according to authorities.

Park prowler

Some bruiser stole a guys cellphone while he was working out in a Fort Greene Park on Oct. 9, police said.

The 61-year-old victim told cops he was exercising in the green space near Myrtle Avenue at about 6 am when the punk came up behind him and grabbed his phone from his belt and then ran away, according to authorities.

Festival flea

A baddie stole a bunch of items from inside the Brooklyn Navy Yard during a festival on Oct. 5 through Oct. 8, police said.

The weasel ran off with an estimated $29,195 worth of clothing and shoes, and $14,432 worth of electronics, shoes, clothes, and magazines from the Flushing Avenue building, cops said.

 Julianne CubaSign up for our PoliticsNY newsletter for the latest coverage and to stay informed about the 2021 elections in your district and across NYC

78th Precinct

Park Slope

Helter shelter

Police arrested a woman for allegedly beating another gal inside an Eighth Avenue homeless shelter on Oct. 4.

The victim told police she was arguing with the suspect inside a library at the shelter between 14th and 15th streets at 7:49 am, when the woman pulled a chair out from under her and started pummeling her arm to the point where she could no longer bend it.

Cops cuffed their suspect that day, charging her with misdemeanor assault, according to police.

Lender fender

Some goon slugged a 19-year-old girl inside a Grand Army Plaza library on Oct. 1.

The victim told police she was boarding an elevator inside the book lender between Flatbush Avenue and Eastern Parkway at 5:46 pm, when an unknown assailant caught her with a mean sucker punch.

No arrests have been made, and police closed the case, cops said.

Wake up!

A couple of lowlifes attacked a sleeping man at Grand Army Plaza on Oct. 1.

The victim told police he was dozing on a bench between Eastern Parkway and Flatbush Avenue at 2:40 am when somebody smacked him hard on the head, giving him a nasty gash on his ear.

No arrests have been made in the case, which has been closed, cops said.

Caffeinated crook

Cops busted a man for allegedly stealing 38 Red Bulls from a Flatbush Avenue chain store on Oct. 2.

An employee told police she spotted the suspect nab an estimated $119 worth of the energy drink off shelves at the store near Atlantic Avenue at 9:45 pm, before breezing past the register with his ill-gotten jitter juice.

Police arrested the suspect that day, charging him with misdemeanor larceny, cops said.

Bike heist

Police arrested a 52-year-old man who they say broke into a mans Carroll Street home and stole his bike on Oct. 2.

The victim told police his wife noticed the suspect break into their home between Fifth and Sixth avenues at 8:22 pm, before nabbing the two-wheeler and attempting to pedal off.

But before he could make his escape, the victim confronted the suspect, leading him to ditch the bike and instead flee on foot, cops said.

Police soon arrived and searched the area with the help of the victim, who was able to point out his alleged burglar, who cops promptly cuffed on a felony burglary charge, according to police.

 Colin MixsonDear Reader,

Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance.

We, however, have a request.



As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed.



Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard.



Digital EditorJust a few weeks ago, when Tata Motors launched its campaign for the new look Tigor, the compact sedan in its stable, it raised a few laughs and many eyebrows. The reason: the company trolled rivals Ford, Honda and Maruti Suzuki in its teaser campaign for Tigor.

While the creative copy aroused interest, the question being asked was why does a decades-old auto brand need to ambush competitors? Tata Motors may well be following global peers who have traditionally taken each other on in public spats to establish territorial supremacy. Or it may simply be drawing inspiration from a growing ...Uber Technologies Inc is considering selling minority stakes in its costly self-driving car unit as the ride-hailing company tries to address rising cost pressures ahead of its initial public offering, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday. Uber received interest from potential investors and could spin off its Advanced Technologies Group into a separate business unit with its own valuation and equity, FT reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Uber will retain operational control and majority ownership of the unit, but external partners could share the cost of ...The armies of India and China will resume their annual bilateral military exercise 'Hand in Hand' in December, Army sources said Wednesday.

The drill will be held in China, the sources added.

The last 'Hand-in-Hand' exercise took place in Pune in 2016. However, the drill did not take place in 2017 due to tensions between the two armies over Doklam, where the forces of India and China were locked in a 73-day stand-off.

Doklam, in the Sikkim sector, is a strategically important area which is claimed by Bhutan.

India has been acting as security guarantor to the tiny country in the sensitive region.

Post Doklam, India and China have been working to increase cooperation. Prime Minister Narendra Modi held an informal summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping at Wuhan in April.

In August, Chinese Defence Minister Wei Fenghe visited Delhi during which the two sides decided to work towards firming up a new bilateral pact on defence cooperation and agreed to increase interactions between their militaries at multiple levels to avoid Doklam-like standoffs along the disputed border.

In March, Army Chief Bipin Rawat had said the annual India-China military exercise will resume, noting that the relationship between the two countries which had turned "sour" after the Doklam stand-off was now improving.

The "bonhomie" between the two forces was back, Rawat had said.

Enable Ginger Cannot connect to Ginger Check your internet connection or reload the browser Disable in this text field Edit Edit in Ginger Edit in GingerM J Akbar's criminal defamation complaint against journalist Priya Ramani, who has accused him of sexual misconduct around 20 years ago, is scheduled to come up for hearing on Thursday in the Patiala House court here.

Akbar on Wednesday tendered his resignation as Minister of State for External Affairs.

His lawyer Sandeep Kapur of law firm Karanjawala & Co said that the private criminal defamation case will come up for hearing on Thursday before additional chief metropolitan magistrate Samar Vishal.

The lawyer also forwarded the brief resignation letter of Akbar who was associated with several media houses in the past.

"Since I have decided to seek justice in a court of law in my personal capacity, I deem it appropriate to step down from office and challenge false accusations levied against me, also in a personal capacity. I have, therefore, tendered my resignation from the office of Minister of State for External Affairs. I am deeply grateful to Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi and to the External Affairs Minster Smt Sushma Swaraj for the opportunity they gave me to serve my country," Akbar said in his letter.

Kapur said since the matter is subjudice, the law will take its own course.

"Since we have already filed the defamation case, we will pursue it in the court," he said.

Akbar on Monday had filed the criminal defamation complaint against Ramani alleging she "wilfully" and "maliciously" made imputations against him with the ulterior motive of maligning his reputation and political standing.The minority community, a part of America's fabric, is contributing to keep the country safe, New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal has said.

Grewal, the first to become the Attorney General of any American state, was speaking at the seventh annual gala of the American Chamber of Commerce (SACC) held in Jersey City on Saturday.

"In every position that I have held in the past and even as Attorney General now, I have attempted to promote understanding and acceptance through my service to show everyone through my work that Sikhs are a part of the fabric of this country (and) that we are doing our part to keep all of us in this country safe," Grewal said.

Ravi Bhalla, Mayor of Hoboken, said organisations like SACC have a growing importance where businesses can come together to find meaningful value into their existence and join hands to positively affect people's lives.

Speaking at the event, Ravi Singh, CEO of Khalsa Aid International stressed on the importance of Sikhs uniting for humanity and passed on his message of faith, hope and humanity.

"The gala is not just a showcase of these triumphs but also a realisation of the fact that the road to success is filled with obstacles," said Sunny Kaila, SAAC president.

A highlight event of the Sikh American business community in the US, the annual gala showcases successful Sikh entrepreneurs coming together for mutual prosperity.Any US-India bilateral trade deal as mentioned by President Donald Trump will encounter challenges given the lack of convergence between the two sides on trade issues and their different approach to free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations, according to a research paper released by a Singaporean think-tank.

The US and India are major bilateral trade partners. India is the 9th largest goods trade partner of the US, while the US is the 2nd largest goods trade partner of India.

The paper, written by Amitendu Palit of Institute of South Asian Studies, has highlighted that India needs to be cautious about the US plans to use the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) talks to curb China's economic influence, especially when the trade war between the US and China do not show any signs of meltdown.

"They (negotiations) could further complicate the US' intention of using its bilateral FTAs to isolate China," said Palit, who is a senior research fellow at the ISAS, in the paper released on Tuesday.



The paper highlights that any bilateral agreement talks between the two would encounter challenges given the lack of convergence between the two sides on trade issues and their different approach to free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations.

Palit said that the US' intention of correcting imbalances with major trade partners through bilateral talks highlights such possibilities with respect to India.

From an Indian perspective, trade relations with the US are particularly significant, not just because of the large size of the trade ($126.2 billion in 2017, including both goods and services), but also the prominent trade surplus ($27.3 billion in 2017, including both goods and services) it enjoys.

This is one of the rare bilateral trade relations that are a net foreign exchange earner for India, said Palit.

From the US perspective, trade relations with India need to be 'corrected', given that deficit trade is inimical to America's economic interests, he noted.

Trump's description of India as 'tariff king' leaves little doubt about his intention of extracting greater access in the Indian market for American products and thereby altering the trade balance in favour of the US.

This is a strong motivation on part of the Trump administration to persuade India into talks on a bilateral FTA, much like it has done with Japan, believes Palit.



But he also highlighted the rough ride ahead.

Notwithstanding the large bilateral trade, India and the US hardly have common ground on trade issues.

They have locked horns at the World Trade Organization on several occasions.

The US' dissatisfaction with Indian trade policies range from food grain procurement at cheap rates to the demand for local content in solar panels for government consumption, according to Palit.

India's latest grievances against the US include tightening H1-B visa rules and the hike in steel and aluminium tariffs.

Successive US administrations have had major issues with India's intellectual property (IP) rules and their shoddy enforcement, noted Palit.

India's emphasis on data localisation policies run into conflict with the commercial interests of US businesses like Walmart, Amazon, Facebook and Google that have penetrated into the Indian economy.

These issues are bound to affect the progress in the FTA talks, said Palit.

The talks could become more cumbersome due to differences in the approach to FTA negotiations by the two countries.

These include government procurement, rules for state-owned enterprises, ambitious IP protection conditions, investor-state-dispute rules, e-commerce and digital trade regulations, and labour and environment standards.

Indian FTAs do not include these and focus more on traditional trade issues like tariffs, non-tariff barriers, rules of origin and trade facilitation.

Even on trade in services, a common interest for both, the US' approach to negotiations is based on the negative list, that is, indicating a negative list for only those sectors that are restricted for market access, whereas India is used to dealing with a more restrictive 'positive list method.



The US' insistence on a wider scope and different approach to negotiations would be a challenge for India, according to Palit.

Even in traditional trade areas, the US demand for greater market access in 'sensitive' sectors, like agriculture and automobiles, which are heavily protected by tariffs, would be a political challenge for India, he said.

The research paper highlights about the recently concluded US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), which explicitly provides for termination of the FTA by any of its members if any of the other enterers into an agreement with a 'non-market' economy.

The purported intention of keeping the other partners of the USMCA away from possible FTAs with non-market countries is clearly an effort to scuttle their trade engagements with China, believes Palit.

The possibility of future bilateral US FTAs including such a provision cannot be overlooked, Palit noted.The Punjab Cabinet on Wednesday approved a policy to allow promoters to surrender their licences if they are unable to develop colonies.

The Cabinet met in Chandigarh under the chairmanship of Chief Minister and decided to necessitate the policy in view of the difficulties faced by the promoters, an official spokesperson said.

The official added that the promoters will now be able to surrender the licences issued to them under the Punjab Apartment and Property Regulation Act, 1995, subject to certain conditions.

Section 5 of the Punjab Apartment and Property Regulation Act, 1995, provides for the issuance of licences to promoters for developing colonies.

If a promoter fails to comply with the conditions of the licence issued to him, the licence may be cancelled under provision 5 (12) of the Punjab Apartment and Property Regulation Act, 1995," he said.

However, due to slump in the real estate sector, some promoters were unable to develop colonies or complete the development works in the colonies, and they wanted to surrender their licenses but could not do so, in the absence of any provision or policy, he added.

A committee was constituted under the chairmanship of Additional Chief Administrator (F&A), Punjab Urban Development Authority, with Engineer-in-Chief Town Planner, Punjab, Senior Town Planner, Greater Mohali Area Development Authority, Legal Advisor, PUDA and Estate Officer (Policy) as members, to examine the matter, the official said.

Meetings were held by the committee members who came to the conclusion that many promoters were willing to surrender licences issued to them in respect of their colonies, the spokesperson further said.

Giving details of the new policy, the spokesperson said that the surrendering of licence would be allowed in cases where the promoter had not sold/allotted/leased out any plot/apartment and not undertaken any development works at the site of the colony, he said.

The promoters will submit an affidavit attested by an Executive Magistrate assuring that no sale deed/allotment/lease deed for any plot/apartment/villa/house has been executed in the said colony, he said.

Otherwise, the promoter will obtain irrevocable consent from the allottees/plot holders/apartment owners in the form of an affidavit attested by an Executive Magistrate regarding no claim on the property, he added.

However, if any construction has been raised in the licenced colony, the same has to be demolished by the promoter first, restoring the land to its original form, he said.

The spokesperson said that before surrendering the licence of the colony, a 30-day public notice, inviting objections from the public, will have to be published by the promoter in two national daily newspapers having wider circulation in the locality, he added.

If any objection is received after publication, the authority will take an appropriate decision after hearing the parties concerned, he said.

The charges deposited by the promoter on account of Change of Land Use, licence fee etc, will not be refunded. The promoter will be solely responsible for any legal claims/liabilities in case he/she has availed any bank loan etc. on the basis of licence, the official said.

Before issuance of approval for surrender of licence, the promoter will submit an affidavit, duly attested by an Executive Magistrate, declaring therein that he/she will not sell any plot sub-dividing the land under the colony without obtaining requisite approval/licence from the competent authority, failing which legal action will be initiated under the appropriate provisions of the Punjab Apartment and Property Regulation Act, 1995, the official said.Wholesale have doubled in the past week to Rs 21.5 a kg, the highest in eight months, at the benchmark Lasalgaon mandi in the Nashik district of

This is due to estimates of lower production this year, following in the state's major producing centres. contributes nearly 30 per cent of Indias overall output and Nashik district alone has around 80 per cent of the states production. Hence, in Nashik hampers the all-India trade.

On most occasions between March and October, prices moved between Rs 6 and 12 a kg. However, these suddenly shot up to Rs 18.5 a kg at Lasalgaon on Monday, after reports on in It steadied on Tuesday, before shooting up again on Wednesday.

Also, arrivals had during the past three days, to a mere 500 tonnes on Wednesday at Lasalgaon. Experts say output in Maharashtra is expected to decline by half this year. Deficiency of rainfall has led to drought in 17 districts, covering 20,000 villages of the major producing pockets.

Deficiency of rainfall has also led to reduced soil moisture, resulting in delayed crop arrival and 30-40 per cent reduction in onion size, said Sanjay Sanap, proprietor of Shivkrupa Traders, a wholesaler at Lasalgaon.

The state faced a similar drought situation in 2016. Its impact was seen in 2017, when prices shot up to Rs 35 a kg at Lasalgaon. For retail consumers, prices had crossed Rs 60 a kg.

Prices might touch Rs 40-45 a kg in mandis by Diwali, on low availability of last years stock and expected delay in harvest of the new-season crop. But, unlike past years when traders and arhatiyas (middlemen) were benefiting from the price hike, farmers will reap benefit this time with whatever quantity they are currently holding on to, said Santosh Chavan, another onion wholesaler in Nashik.

Traders expect farmers to start harvesting premature crop, to take advantage of the current price hike. The onion harvest in India normally begins by the end of October.

The sharp increase in prices has pushed India out of export markets. Onion from Pakistan works out cheaper by $100 a tonne in the Middle East, Sri Lanka and other destinations. Export demand has collapsed; exporters are currently executing old orders, said Ajay Shah, president, Horticulture Exporters Association.

The chief minister has asked ministers to visit tehsils to assess the crop situation. According to an estimate, nearly 20,000 villages got less than 75 per cent of the expected rain this season.

Indias onion export was about 2.1 million tonnes, worth Rs 43.8 billion, in 2017-18. The previous year, it was nearly 3.5 mt, worth Rs 46.5 bn.The Communist Party of India virtually set October 21 as the deadline to the to finalise the seat-sharing formula for the upcoming Assembly elections in Telangana, and indicated it is also mulling the option of contesting independently.

The Congress, the TDP, CPI and Telangana Jana Samiti (TJS) announced a few weeks ago an electoral alliance in principle for the December seven election to the 119-member Assembly.

Seat-sharing talks among the four constituents have been on. Sources in the have said distribution of seats is driven by "winnability" factor in constituencies.

Leaders of CPI and TJS, in particular, have made no secret of their displeasure over what they say delay in clinching the issue.

Sources in the say the TDP, CPI and TJS are demanding more seats than their "fair share".

Speaking to PTI Wednesday, CPI National General Secretary Suravaram Sudhakar Reddy said: "We can't wait for them (the Congress) eternally (to finalise seat-sharing).

ALSO READ: Telangana CM vows Rs 100K waiver for each eligible farmer if he wins polls

"On October 21st, our state party executive is meeting. We will decide whether we should go with the alliance or we should decide our own of way of contesting independently", Reddy said.

"We will discuss what is to be done," he added.

CPI has already given to the Congress a list 12 seats from where it would like to contest; of that, the Left party is keen on nine constituencies.

"We are ready for negotiation...one or two seats less also. (We are ready to settle for) seven-eight (seats)," Reddy said.

When asked for his reaction, AICC In-Charge of Telananga, R C Khuntia sought to downplay the threat.

Khuntia, in fact, said he had a lengthy discussion with senior CPI leader D Raja last night on the seat-sharing issue.

"Talks are going on (with TDP, CPI and TJS). We will finalise them (seat-sharing talks) very soon", Khuntia told PTI.

Last Sunday, the CPI said it has entered into an alliance with Ajit Jogi's Janata Congress Chhattisgarh (J) for the Chhattisgarh Assembly polls next month.Danske Bank said on Wednesday it had dropped plans to appoint Jacob Aarup-Andersen as chief executive after the Danish Financial Supervisory Authority (FSA) said a more experienced candidate was needed. Denmark's largest bank is looking for a new leader after Thomas Borgen was ousted last month as the group struggles to deal with a $235 billion money laundering scandal. "The FSA's preliminary assessment is that it considers the candidate well qualified in many areas, but also finds that longer experience, including within certain of Danske Bank's business areas, ...might buy a supersonic missile successfully test-fired by China which is said to be cost-effective and better than the BrahMos developed by India and Russia, the Chinese state media has reported.

The HD-1 is not like other supersonic missiles as it needs less fuel and flies faster and farther, said a report in the Global Times, after China announced it has struck its biggest drone deal with its all-weather ally

According to the deal, Beijing, which is Islamabad's biggest arms supplier, will sell it 48 drones.

Commenting on the successful flight of the missile, a Chinese military expert said the HD-1 will face little competition in the arms market.

The missile has been developed by South China-based Guangdong Hongda Blasting Company.

The test at a discreet location in North China verified the launch, power and flight control systems, the company was quoted as saying by the Times.

All parameters for the supersonic cruising flight of the HD-1 missile achieved their estimated values, the statement said.

The HD-1's advanced solid fuel ramjet needs less fuel than its competitors, rendering the lighter missile able to fly faster and farther, said Beijing-based military analyst Wei Dongxu.

" and Middle Eastern countries are likely to show interest given the weapon's potential to break anti-missile systems at supersonic speeds, he said.

The is a more expensive, less useful supersonic cruise missile developed by India and Russia, according to Wei.

The HD-1 is a comprehensive weapon system consisting of missile, launch, command, control, target indication and comprehensive support systems, the company that developed it had said in a separate statement released in August.

The HD-1 can be adapted to aircraft and ships as well as the basic ground-based vehicle version, the company said.Saudi Arabia has started a full investigation into the case of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was last seen entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, US President has said and insisted that blaming Riyadh over his disappearance was premature.

Soon after talking with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over phone on Tuesday, Trump in a tweet said that answers related to Khashoggi's disappearance would be forthcoming shortly.

"Just spoke with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia who totally denied any knowledge of what took place in their Turkish consulate, Trump said.

Bin Salman was with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Saudi Arabia during that call.

In a statement, Pompeo said he "had direct and candid conversations" with the king and the crown prince, as well as Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir.

Trump tweeted that the Saudi Crown Prince "told me that he has already started, and will rapidly expand, a full and complete investigation into this matter. Answers will be forthcoming shortly."

Khashoggi, a dissident Saudi journalist, who wrote for The Washington Post and lived in the US as legal permanent resident was last seen entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Turkish investigative agencies have said that he was brutally killed inside the consulate. They claim to have audio and video evidence of it.

So far Saudi Arabia has denied the allegations and said that Khashoggi left the consulate. Some US media reports said that Saudi Arabia is planning to come out with a report in which it is expected to say that the interrogation of Khashoggi went wrong and was killed in the process.

Trump, under tremendous pressure from lawmakers, has warned of severe punishment. However, he has pushed back again any effort to cancel the mega $110 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia asserting that such a move will hurt US economy and jobs.

"Here we go again with you're guilty until proven innocent," Trump told The Associated Press as he compared the allegations against Saudi Arabia to the sexual misconduct allegations from multiple women against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearing.

Trump also said "that would be bad" if Saudi Arabia's king and crown prince knew about the suspected killing of Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate.

NBC News reported that the Saudis are discussing issuing an explanation that would admit that Khashoggi was killed in the consulate while giving bin Salman so-called plausible deniability by saying he neither ordered the murder nor knew about it.

It also said that a person with knowledge of the discussions said the kingdom will claim that rogue operatives killed the journalist during either an interrogation or an attempt to kidnap him and return him to his native Saudi Arabia.

Khashoggi had penned articles critical of the country's rulers.

Earlier on Tuesday, Trump said that "I have no financial interests in Saudi Arabia" but in fact he has boasted in the past that "I make a lot of money with them."



Trump's attempt to distance himself from profiting from Saudi Arabia is undercut by a long record showing deals his companies made with that country's government and citizens, media reports said.Failure to secure a trade deal for Britain when it exits the European Union next year could set the UK auto sector back two decades, leading parts suppliers said on Wednesday as they urged leaders to reach agreement at a summit in Brussels. Europe's carmakers' lobby ACEA and suppliers' association CLEPA, along with BMW and brakes maker Brembo, jointly warned that a no-deal exit would be catastrophic for the industry. The "just-in-time" industry model relied on frictionless trade between Britain and mainland Europe, they said. "If we are ...said Wednesday he did not want to walk away from over the disappearance and alleged killing of Jamal Khashoggi, arguing the US relies on the kingdom in the fight against terrorism.

Asked during an interview on Fox Business what action he had in mind for if he learned it was responsible, Trump said: "Well, I hope we're going to be on the better side of the equation."





"You know we need in terms of our fight against all of the terrorism, everything that's happening in and other places."



Asked if the US would not then walk away from Saudi Arabia, he said: "I do not want to do that and frankly they have a tremendous order, USD 110 billion."



The reference was to promised US arms sales to the kingdom.One of the suspects identified by Turkey in the disappearance of the Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi was a frequent companion of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman  seen disembarking from airplanes with him in Paris and Madrid and photographed standing guard during his visits this year to Houston, Boston and the United Nations. Three others are linked by witnesses and other records to the Saudi crown princes security detail. A fifth is a forensic doctor who holds senior positions in the Saudi Interior Ministry and medical establishment, a figure of such stature that ...Monetary Fund chief has postponed a planned trip to the Middle East with a stop in for an investment conference, after a prominent journalist's disappearance.

"The Managing Director's previously scheduled trip to the Middle East region is being deferred," an IMF spokesman said in a statement, without further explanation.

Lagarde had been set to participate in the kingdom's Future Investment Initiative conference that has been boycotted by global business and media leaders since the suspected death of Jamal Khashoggi, who was last seen at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2.

On Saturday, during the IMF's annual meetings in Bali, Lagarde had said she would travel to Riyadh for the gathering next week.

"Human rights, freedom of information are essential rights and horrifying things have been reported and I am horrified," she told reporters at the time. "But I have to conduct the business of the IMF in all corners in the world and with many governments.

"When I visit a country, I always speak my mind... So at this point of time my intention is to not change my plans and to be very attentive to the information that is coming out in the next few days." But there have since been growing accusations against top levels of the conservative kingdom over the case, triggering a diplomatic crisis.

Turkish authorities say the journalist was killed inside the Saudi consulate by a group of hitmen traveling from Riyadh, which has insisted without evidence that disappeared after leaving the consulate.White House officials are worried that the apparent killing of the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and Saudi Arabias changing account of his fate, could derail a showdown with Iran and jeopardize plans to enlist Saudi help to avoid disrupting the oil market. Officials said the dilemma comes at a fraught moment for the Trump administration, which is expected to reimpose harsh sanctions against Iran on Nov. 5, with the intent of cutting off all Iranian oil exports. But to make the strategy work, the administration is counting on its relationship with the Saudis to ...President Donald Trumps reaction to the disappearance and death of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul reveals important details about the declining influence of US in the Middle East.

As a scholar who follows the links between international and domestic politics in the Middle East, it is not hard to see that what President Trump has said so far about the Khashoggi affair will accelerate the diminishing power of the US in the Middle East. New dynamic for an old alliance American influence in the Middle East  especially over Saudi Arabia  was ...and should "reveal everything" they know about Jamal Khashoggi's disappearance, a top UN human rights official has said while demanding a "thorough and impartial" probe into the whereabouts of the dissident Saudi journalist.

Khashoggi, 60, is feared to have been killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The incident has resulted in a global outrage, more so in the US as he lived here as a legal permanent resident and worked for 'The Washington Post'.

Khashoggi vanished on October 2 after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Turkish authorities suspect he was abducted and murdered by the Saudis.

But Riyadh insists that the journalist, a known critic of Saudi King Salman, had left the building and that murder claims are "baseless".

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet on Tuesday urged the Governments of and to "reveal everything they know" about the disappearance and a possible extra-judicial killing of the prominent journalist.

Bachelet urged the authorities of both the countries "to ensure that no further obstacles are placed in the way of a prompt, thorough, effective, impartial and transparent investigation".

She welcomed the agreement that has allowed investigators to conduct an examination inside the consulate and possibly also at the residence of the Saudi Arabian Consul-General in Istanbul.

Bachelet said diplomatic immunity of officials must be "waived immediately" to ensure a prompt and transparent probe.

"In view of the seriousness of the situation surrounding the disappearance of Khashoggi, I believe the inviolability or immunity of the relevant premises and officials bestowed by treaties such as the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations should be waived immediately," Bachelet said.

She said under law, both a forced disappearance and an extra-judicial killing were "very serious crimes" and immunity should not be used to impede investigations into what happened and who is responsible.

"Two weeks is a very long time for the probable scene of a crime not to have been subjected to a full forensic investigation," Bachelet said.

Protection from national jurisdictions is bestowed on consular premises and officials by treaties such as the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.

"There seems to be clear evidence that Khashoggi entered the Consulate and has never been seen since, the onus is on the Saudi authorities to reveal what happened to him from that point onwards," she said.

The High Commissioner noted that and were both party to the 'UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment'.

They are obliged to take all measures to prevent torture, enforced disappearances and other serious human rights violations to investigate allegations of acts constituting these crimes, and to bring to justice those suspected of committing them, she said.

Speaking to journalists in Geneva amid news reports that details of Khashoggi's death may surface soon, indicating that it was an accident, UN human rights office (OHCHR) spokesperson Rupert Colville said potentially serious crimes had been committed and the perpetrators should be held accountable.

"The one thing we really know as a solid fact is that Khashoggi went into the consulate and he was never seen coming out again," Colville said, adding that it seemed "very probable" that some crime had been committed.

"Enforced disappearance or murder, if that has occurred, extra-judicial killing, either way, those are very serious crimes," he added.

"We all need to know what it was, how it happened and who was responsible and where the evidence leads".

US lawmakers have been demanding scrapping of the $110 billion mega defence deal with Riyadh, whereas heads of several companies, CEOs, newspapers have announced not to attend an upcoming finance conference in Saudi Arabia.

President Donald Trump on Monday talked to the Saudi King, during which the latter flatly denied having any knowledge of the missing journalist.Saudi Arabia is unlikely to employ its so-called "oil weapon" in the diplomatic crisis over the disappearance of a journalist after visiting the country's consulate in Istanbul. Experience from the last time Saudi Arabia tried to use oil sales as a diplomatic instrument in 1973/74 shows such action does not work and the kingdom itself would be the biggest victim. Despite some of the impassioned rhetoric in Saudi media, self-interest makes it improbable the government will retaliate by reducing oil sales or trying to drive up prices. That has not stopped some ...The minority Sikh community, a part of America's fabric, is contributing to keep the country safe, New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal has said.

Grewal, the first Sikh to become the Attorney General of any American state, was speaking at the seventh annual gala of the Sikh American Chamber of Commerce (SACC) held in Jersey City on Saturday. "In every position that I have held in the past and even as Attorney General now, I have attempted to promote understanding and acceptance through my service to show everyone through my work that Sikhs are a part of the fabric ...Pakistan is seeking foreign aid to tackle its sagging and Saudi Arabia is one of the most important investors that it needs to get its hands on, opines Arif Rafiq, who authored 'The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor

In an article, titled "What Is Saudi Arabia's Grand Plan for Pakistan?", published in The National Interest, Rafiq notes that the first foreign visit of Imran Khan after taking over as Pakistan's Prime Minister was to Saudi Arabia in a bid to woo Riyadh to invest in energy and mining in Pakistan.

"It appears that Islamabad asked Riyadh to park funds close to $10 billion with the State Bank of Pakistan-well before these investments achieve financial close-to shore up Pakistan's forex reserves in the interim," Rafiq wrote in the article published on October 16.

Terming Pakistan's claims and subsequent denials of inviting Saudi Arabia to join the China-Pakistan Economic Border (CPEC) as a strategic partner, as "Islamabad's scramble for dollars", the article states that talks between the two countries on several projects, including CPEC will, however, continue.

ALSO READ: IMF loan may come with a political cost for Pakistan PM Imran Khan

Islamabad has put forth five projects including the Reko Diq copper and gold mine in Balochistan, which amounts to hundreds of billions of dollars. However, the author, who is also editor of the CPEC Wire newsletter, pointed out that last year Pakistan lost an arbitration case to the Tethyan Copper Company.

The World Bank's Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes ruled against Islamabad in relation to the unlawful denial of a mining lease for the Reko Diq project in 2011. The tribunal is expected to determine Pakistan's liability this year, which might exceed 11 billion US dollar.

With Reko Diq's not-so-strategic location, that is, less than one hundred miles from Pakistan's border with Iran, the mine could be an easy target for the insurgent attacks.

"Resource nationalism is a driver of the ethnic Baloch insurgency, but it also receives support from regional states," Rafiq wrote.

Mentioning the suicide bombing incident by Balochistan Liberation Army, which attacked a convoy transporting Chinese engineers to the Saindak copper and gold mine, Rafiq noted that the attacker used an Iranian vehicle.

"Militants with several Baloch separatist groups combatting the Pakistani state are believed to be in Afghanistan or Iran. Projects linked to the Saudis would become targets in the same way Chinese projects have been over the past fifteen years," the article states.

Islamabad wants to rope in Riyadh for the second set of projects, which includes two government-owned operational regasified liquefied natural gas-fueled power plants in the Punjab province.

"Riyadh reportedly expressed interested in purchasing equity in the plants on a government-to-government basis, but that may not be legally possible. Instead, a Saudi power company, ACWA Power, could take part in open bidding for the plants. Sale of the plants could earn Islamabad much-needed cash, but there are geopolitical complications tied to that sale too. These power plants are fueled by liquified natural gas (LNG) from Qatar. Sale of the plants to a Saudi public or private entity would likely require an alternate source of LNG and could even impact Pakistan's fifteen-year LNG supply contract with Qatar," writes Rafiq.

The third investment project for Saudi Arabia in Pakistan is a Saudi Aramco refinery in Gwadar, the site of a Chinese-operated port and industrial zone. Just like Reko Diq mine, Gwadar shares a close proximity to Iran border.

The article goes on to mention that "Gwadar is a competitor to Iran's Chabahar port, where India will operate a terminal that will be used to bypass Pakistan to access Afghanistan and Central Asia. It is an end node for the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which begins in Kashgar, located in China's Xinjiang region. Economic activity and investment in Gwadar have progressed tepidly when compared to other regional upstarts like Duqm in Oman and Khalifa Port in Abu Dhabi, which have received significant inflows from China, with the potential to exceed $10 billion. Investment from a global energy giant like Saudi Aramco would catalyze other investments and boost port activity."

Rafiq also notes that even though a refinery in Gwadar would give the Saudis "an economic foothold in a strategic location" as it is right outside the Strait of Hormuz but close to Persian Gulf shipping lanes, and could lock Pakistan into purchasing Saudi crude, there are several flip sides to this investment.

One of the limitations to Saudis' investment is the memorandum of understanding signed by Saudi Aramco with a consortium of Indian state-owned oil companies for a $44 billion oil refinery and petrochemicals complex in India.

Rafiq also points that the domestic demands of Pakistan will be met if a refinery were to open in Gwadar and it would help Pakistan to save on import bills.

"Whether it's infrastructure development, energy trade, or defence hardware sales, China is ubiquitous across the Middle East and has been an equal opportunity partner to both Iran and its Gulf Arab adversaries. Iran is crucial to China's Silk Road Economic Belt. And the Gulf Arab states, especially the United Arab Emirates, could be critical to its Maritime Silk Road," reiterates Rafiq.

Talking about North-South gas pipeline project for which Pakistan is seeking investment from Saudi Arabia, the author observes, "Pakistan signed a government-to-government agreement with Russia to build the pipeline and supply the LNG. The two countries, however, have not come to agreement on pricing, and Rostec has struggled to find financing for the project, though reports last year indicated that China's Silk Road Fund could finance it. Russia may have difficulty supplying the LNG."

He asserted that Saudi's role in the project remains unclear. But Pakistan has also invited the Arab kingdom's investment in an open bidding for exploration in ten oil and gas blocs.

Noting that fuel makes up one of the most imported commodity in Pakistan, Rafiq says, "Reducing its dependence on imported fuels by ramping up domestic oil and gas exploration is critical for Pakistan to escape its boom-bust cycles that bring it to the IMF's doorstep every few years. Pakistan may actually have enough recoverable natural gas to not only meet domestic demand but also export it."

The article also notes that even though under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's influence, the strategic use of aid and investment has increased, there is an economic basis for Saudi investment in Pakistan.

The article further mentions that the FDI from China has been going up as against going down of net inflows from the Gulf countries. But Iran has not been able to make any investment in Pakistan.

Rafiq opines that, "For Pakistan, there is no escape from geopolitics, even when it comes to issues like connectivity and trade. And that is true in a global sense as well as the United States adopts a tougher posture toward the Belt and Road Initiative, digs deeper into a tariff war with China, and continues to use economic sanctions or lawfare to force Iran to capitulate."

In his article, the author asserted that Pakistan faces strong challenge to address its economic problems. "Calls for Pakistan to become a "normal" state that puts its economic interests above its strategic are outdated, reflecting a view of globalization that is now passe," concluded Arif Rafiq in the piece.During his working visit to Washington, the Kazakh National Economy Minister, Timur Suleimenov, discussed a range of issues with his US counterparts, including the cooperation, the implementation of prior agreements and US sanctions policy, Ministry's official website reports.





The implementation of the agreements reached between the Presidents of Kazakhstan and the United States of America in this January was of special attention, the Ministry's report notes. As well as the observation of Kazakhstan's economic interests amid US's anti-Russian sanctions, and the promotion of Kazakhstan's potential membership in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) were touched upon.





The US sides said that the economic sanctions against several states were not intended to America's key partner in the region - the Republic of Kazakhstan. Also, the concrete agreements to maintain an active dialogue so as to minimize the sanctions' possible economic impact to Kazakhstan's economy were reached," reads the press release.





As for the discussion of Kazakhstan's potential membership in OECD and the promotion of the country's status in a number of the Organization's Committees, the US side expressed readiness to assist in this direction.





During the meetings, the Kazakh Minister of National Economy with representatives of the United States Department of State stressed the interest to implement new joint projects in infrastructure, agriculture, food processing, and production. Responsible persons of both sides to maintain an active and regular exchange of views on these issues were assigned," says the report.





According to the Ministry of National Economy of Kazakhstan, the US Senators, in turn, "confirmed the significance of Kazakhstan as a key partner in the region and noted that the sanctions imposed on Russia were not intended against Kazakhstan's economy".







British Prime Minister Theresa May and business minister Greg Clark met Ratan Tata, patriarch of the Tata family, a few weeks ago as its car brand Jaguar Land Rover warns about the effect of Brexit and diesel policy, a government source said. The sprawling Tata conglomerate includes manufacturing, defence, aerospace, services and steel operations. Tata bought ailing Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) in 2008 and has ploughed billions of pounds into the firm, making it Britain's biggest automotive company producing nearly one of three cars made in the country. ALSO ...The and eight other countries on Tuesday requested a meeting on to hear from a UN fact-finding mission that has accused the country's military of atrocities against Muslim Rohingyas.

The request is likely to run into opposition from China, which has friendly ties with Myanmar's military and has sought to shield from action by the Security Council.

In a joint letter seen by AFP, the nine countries said the mission's chairperson should brief the council to allow it to "receive further information on this situation and its implications for peace and security."



The UN fact-finding mission released an explosive report last month that called on the council to refer the situation to the Criminal Court in The Hague, or to create an ad hoc criminal tribunal, as was done with the former Yugoslavia.

The fact-finding mission said that Myanmar's top generals, including Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing, must be investigated and prosecuted for genocide in Rakhine State.

Myanmar has rejected accusations that its military committed atrocities in the crackdown last year that forced more than 700,000 Rohingya to flee over the border to Bangladesh.

In a separate letter to the council, Myanmar's Ambassador Hau Do Suan said his government "strongly objects" to the request to hear the fact-finding mission.

The ambassador repeated Myanmar's complaints that the report was "one-sided", based on "narratives and not on hard evidence".

"Putting accountability above all else without regard to other positive developments is a dangerous attempt that will face utter failure," he warned in the letter obtained by AFP.

Britain, France, Peru, Sweden, Ivory Coast, the Netherlands, Poland and Kuwait joined the in requesting the meeting to be held during the month of October.

Support from the nine countries for the request means that China would likely fail to block a meeting through a procedural vote.

Nine votes are required at the 15-member council to approve an agenda item and vetoes do not apply.

Myanmar maintains that the violence in Rakhine was triggered by Rohingya extremists who attacked border posts in August 2017.

But the fact-finding mission said there were reasonable grounds to believe that the atrocities were committed with the intention of destroying the Rohingya, warranting the charges of "genocide."



The report found that the military's tactics had been "consistently and grossly disproportionate to actual security threats", and said that estimates that some 10,000 people were killed in the crackdown was likely a conservative figure.A research vessel has docked in Taiwan amid tensions with China over trade and arms sales.

Taiwan's official Central News Agency says the Thomas G Thompson arrived in the southern port of Kaohsiung on Monday to refuel and make crew changes. It quoted Defense Minister Yen De-fa as saying its visit is "unrelated to military activity." China objects to all governmental and military contact between the US and Taiwan, which it claims as part of its territory to be conquered by force if necessary.

Though it's not the first time the Thomas G Thompson has stopped in Taiwan, this visit comes during a particularly sensitive time in US-China relations.



China has demanded the US cancel a $330 million sale of spare parts and related support for Taiwan's US-made F-16 fighter jets and other military aircraft. While Washington has no official relations with Taiwan, it is legally obligated to ensure it has the means to defend itself.

The arms sale was announced amid a trade feud fuelled by US accusations that China runs an abnormally large surplus with the US, engages in cyber-theft and coerces foreign companies into handing over technology.

That has led the US to impose punitive tariffs on $250 billion in Chinese imports. Beijing has counterpunched with import taxes on $110 billion of American products.



ALSO READ: Livid China asserts right over Taiwan as US allows diplomatic visits there

The two have also feuded over Chinese weapons purchases from Russia and China's territorial claims in the South China Sea where the US says a Chinese destroyer came aggressively close to a ship late last month, forcing it to manoeuvre to prevent a collision.

China's relations with Taiwan are largely frozen because the president of the self-governing democracy, Tsai Ing-wen, refuses to concede to Beijing's demand that she recognise the island as a part of China. That's led Beijing to use its influence to narrow Taiwan's ability to participate in society and increase its military threat toward it.



The Thomas G Thompson is owned by the US Office of Naval Research and operated in cooperation with the University of Washington.OPEC has urged its members not to mention oil prices when discussing policy in a break from the past, as the oil producing group seeks to avoid the risk of US legal action for manipulating the market, sources close to OPEC said. Proposed US legislation known as "NOPEC", which could open the group up to anti-trust lawsuits, has long lain dormant, with previous American presidents signalling that they would veto any move to make it law. But US President Donald Trump has been a vocal critic of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, blaming it for high oil ...Three people, including an election candidate, lost their lives and seven were injured in a bomb blast that took place in Lashkargah on Wednesday morning.

The blast took place at the office of the deceased election candidate, Jabar Qahraman, who was contesting from southern Helmand province, reported TOLO news quoting local officials.

Minister of Interior Wais Ahmad Barmak also confirmed the casualties, while the wounded have been taken to a nearby hospital for treatment.

Terrorist outfit, Taliban has claimed responsibility for the explosion.

The Taliban had attacked two military check posts in Afghanistan's western Farah province bordering Iran on Sunday, in which at least 20 Afghan soldiers were killed and 11 were wounded.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu has written two letters to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh related to Cyclone Titli and the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, respectively.

In one of the letters, Naidu has sought an interim relief of Rs 1200 crore for Andhra Pradesh that is reeling under the impact of Cyclone Titli, while in the other, the Chief Minister has sought the Home Minister's intervention in issues including that of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, at the earliest.

In the letter written regarding Cyclone Titli, Naidu said "The relief operations are going on a war footing basis and so far we have spent Rs 500 crore. The state government requires immediate assistance from the central government to continue the relief operations. I have already requested the Prime Minister of India to release interim relief of Rs 1200 crore so as to enable the state government to come to the rescue of the people affected by the devastating cyclone."

On October 13, Naidu wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi requesting him to release an interim relief of Rs 1200 crore in the wake of damages caused to life, property, and infrastructure in the state due to Cyclone Titli.

Furthermore, Naidu sought financial relief saying that the devastating cyclone, which hit North Coastal Andhra Pradesh on October 11, has badly damaged the infrastructure and derailed normal life in the region especially in Srikakulam and Vizianagaram districts of the state.

Meanwhile, Naidu, in another letter, expressed concerns over the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014.

"It is a matter of great concern that though four and half years have nearly elapsed after the state was divided, there are many issues which could have been resolved but are pending till now. In spite of the best efforts made by the State Government for early resolution the following disputes are still pending resolution - Special Category Status, Polavaram Project, Bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh Bhavan, Increase of seats in Andhra Pradesh State Legislative Assembly, Release of balance resource gap funds of 201-15, establishment new railway zone, establishment of cracker and petroleum complex in Kakinada, and others," the letter read.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A deadly blast rocked the polytechic college in Kerch, Crimea, on Wednesday leaving at least 18 people dead and 50 more injured, according to the Crimean health ministry. The Russian National Anti-terrorism Committee (NAC) said that an unidentified explosive device had been detonated in the college.

The Russian Investigative Committee has classified the blast as a terrorist attack. However, initial examination of bodies of those killed in Crimean college showed they died from gunshot wounds.

According to Crimea head Sergey Aksyonov, the organizer of the terrorist attack on the college killed himself. "A student of the same educational institution, 22 years old, was in his fourth year," Aksyonov said on the Rossiya 24 television channel, adding that the young man was a resident of Kerch, and that after the blast he killed himself.

"Criminal proceedings were instituted under article 205 of the Russian Criminal Code (terrorist attack) following the explosion in a Kerch college . According to preliminary data, an unidentified explosive device, filled with metal objects, was detonated in the canteen of the polytechnic college today," Russian Investigative Committee spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko said.

She added that investigators had yet to verify information about the explosion victims, noting that the majority of them were teenagers. "Investigators began to question witnesses and eyewitnesses, they are examining CCTV footage," Petrenko said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Communist Party of India (CPI) has strongly condemned the "brutal attack" on former Jawaharlal Nehru University students' union (JNUSU) president Kanhaiya Kumar's convoy at Begusarai district of Bihar, and alleged that it was orchestrated by the activists of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Yuva Morcha and Bajrang Dal.

"The Secretariat of Communist Party of India severely condemns the brutal attack on Com Kanhaiya Kumar at Bachwada sub-division of Begusarai district of Bihar by the goons of BJP Yuva Morcha and Bajrang Dal," a statement issued by the CPI read.

Narrating the incident, the CPI said that Kumar was returning after a political campaign to motivate people to join the party's proposed massive rally on October 25 at Patna when the incident took place.

"He was returning after a political campaign to motivate people to join CPI proposed massive rally on October 25 at Patna. More than 50 goons attacked the convoy with weapons beaten colleagues of Kanhaiya, damaged several vehicles. Com Kanhaiya is safe but several comrades who resisted are injured," the statement read.

The CPI further claimed that the attack on Kumar was to kill him, adding: "It is a shame on the part of the ruling clan to carry such inhuman attacks on popular student leader like Kanhaiya Kumar."

The party has also demanded the immediate arrest of the perpetrators.

"The CPI demands immediate arrest of the culprits and severe punishment. The attack reflects the poor law and order situation in Bihar. CPI will not be afraid of these attacks of Hindutva communal forces and will fight back," it concluded.

The reaction from the party came after few people were injured and several vehicles were vandalised when Kumar's convoy was attacked near Dahia village on Tuesday.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) secretary general Sanusi Barkindo and Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan held a meeting on Wednesday to discuss the surging crude oil prices at the third India-OPEC Energy Dialogue here.

At the meeting, both sides sought responsible pricing in the best interests of producers and consumers.

Expressing his optimism, Pradhan said he is certain that Secretary Barkindo will put India's point of view in the producer's group. "This is a continuous dialogue between OPEC and India. We are all concerned about the stability of the market and will look into the interest of the common citizen of the world. 32 per cent of crude oil is produced by OPEC and its allied countries. And I assure you that OPEC is our best custodian after Barkindo took charge. I am assured that Barkindo will put forth our point of view to the producer's group."

Pradhan also expressed concern about global trade practices limiting the affordability of energy.

Barkindo also reaffirmed that India is an important partner of OPEC, "We in OPEC consider India as a growing economy, a country that represents not only the present but future especially in the field of emerging and sustainable development."

"We remain deeply appreciative of India's continued commitment to OPEC in India Energy Dialogue. Our dialogue will continue to bring our viewpoint closer. The decision at the level and in OPEC will be in the interest of both producers and consumers," added Barkindo. He also appreciated the initiatives taken by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the field of energy.

Stating their stand on the sanctions that the United States imposed on Iran, Barkindo said, "We have to remain focused together with our non-OPEC partners in ensuring that the market remains very much supplied, and the balance that we regained in the past two-three years is sustained."

Earlier in June this year, OPEC along with its non-OPEC partners met in Vienna and decided the balance they achieved should be maintained and sustained.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Pippa Middleton, the youngest sister of the Duchess of Cambridge, Kate Middleton, welcomed her first child- a boy- with husband James Matthews.

The 35-year-old gave birth to her baby boy on Monday afternoon at St. Mary's Hospital in West London, the same hospital where Kate delivered her three children, Page Six reported.

In the past few months, Pippa has been snapped on multiple occasions running errands and attending a number of events despite her pregnancy. She even wrote about her pregnancy, wherein she stressed on the importance of stretching and meditation for to-be mothers.

Pippa and her husband, James, tied the knot in May last year. The couple was recently spotted on their babymoon at a luxurious resort in Tuscany, Italy.

(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 on Wednesday strongly endorsed women's entry into Kerala's Sabarimala Temple, asserting that it is wrong to go against the Supreme Court's verdict, which allowed the entry of women of menstruating age inside the temple premises.

Swamy said, "The Supreme Court has made a decision, but now you (protestors) are saying that it's our tradition. Triple Talaq is also a tradition in that way, everybody was applauding when it was abolished. The same Hindus have come on the streets now. It's a fight between Hindu Renaissance and Obscurantism. Renaissance says all Hindus are equal and caste system should be abolished. Because no Brahmin today is only intellectual, they're in the cinema, business as well. Where is it written that caste is from birth? Shastras can be amended."

Asserting his point, he added, "There is no such thing as God-given tradition. Tradition is what people have been saying for so many years. In our Hindu system, we have Vedas, Upanishads etc which are God-given messages. God directly has communicated with our sages who have documented it. Then there is a question of a code of behavior, for which there are 'Shastras' and now we have a constitution which is our Shastras. According to the constitution's Article 14, read with morality condition of Article 25, it is said that subject to morality worship is a fundamental right. Hence Supreme Court has given a verdict and now it should be implemented. This is the job of the state to implement it and if the state is incompetent it should ask for Centre's help."

Echoing Swamy's sentiments, Lok Sabha MP Udit Raj expressed surprise over 'women stopping women' from entering the temple.

Raj said, "I have seen a fight for equality, not for slavery and inequality. On one hand, fight against atrocities by men is going on in the nation and on the other hand, women are fighting against their own freedom and rights. It has happened for the first time in the world, it's amusing. 'Make me a slave, treat me unequally, we are inferior to men'; women are stopping women. What is the point in this? I don't know what's happening in this nation. This is my personal opinion and not political."

Meanwhile, in Kerala protests are being held at the Pamba base camp against the entry of women in Sabarimala Temple.

It is for the first time that the Temple would be opening for devotees after the Supreme Court verdict.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Keira Knightley is all set to feature in 'Misbehaviour', a Miss World pageant comedy-drama.

The film will be directed by BAFTA-winner Philippa Lowthorpe, who is one of the only two women to have won a BAFTA TV Award for direction.

It is based on the 1970 Miss World pageant in London, the live broadcast of which was disrupted, as part of the Women's Liberation Movement, claiming that such beauty competitions demeaned women.

The show, however, resumed after a while, only to cause further uproar after Miss Grenada became the first black woman to be crowned Miss World, reported Variety.

The Oscar-nominated actor, whose past credits include 'Pride and Prejudice', 'Anna Karenina', and ' The Imitation Game', will next be seen in Disney's 'The Nutcrackers and the Four Realms' and Gavin Hood's "Official Secrets.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will be travelling to Turkey at the request of US President Donald Trump.

"The President has asked me to travel to Turkey to meet with senior leaders. We will remain in close contact with Saudi and Turkish authorities as they complete this process and ultimately announce their findings," said a statement U.S. Department of State.

This comes after Pompeo met Saudi King Salman and Foreign Minister al-Jubeir in Riyadh to discuss the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Pompeo, in his meeting with Saudi authorities had stressed on the need of a thorough, transparent, and timely investigation in the case.

In a press statement, the Secretary of state said, "We had direct and candid conversations. I emphasized the importance of conducting a thorough, transparent, and timely investigation, and the Saudi leadership pledged to deliver precisely on that. My assessment from these meetings is that there is serious commitment to determine all the facts and ensure accountability, including accountability for Saudi Arabia's senior leaders or senior officials."

Earlier, United States President Donald Trump had threatened of "severe punishment" for the Gulf country if there has indeed been any Saudi hand in the scribe's disappearance. The UK's Foreign Minister, Jeremy Hunt, had also said that they would have to "think about the appropriate way to react" if Saudi Arabia is found guilty in Khashoggi's disappearance.

Turkish officials had previously claimed that their Saudi counterparts carried out Khashoggi's kidnapping and murder. They had alleged that a 15-men team flew from Riyadh to Istanbul on the day the senior journalist visited the consulate and carried out the alleged murder of the journalist.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Sri Lanka's Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Wednesday asserted that the country's relationship with India is intense and encompasses multiple spheres including intelligence sharing, hence, media reports claiming alleged involvement of Indian intelligence agency in a plot to assassinate Sri Lanka's President is baseless and false.

"The attention of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been drawn to media reports attributed to President Maithripala Sirisena alleging the involvement of an Indian Intelligence Service in a plot to assassinate him. The Ministry wishes to clarify that the media reports in this connection are baseless and false. The Ministry wishes to emphasise that relations between Sri Lanka and India including at the highest levels of government are strong, encompassing multiple spheres including intelligence sharing. It is disappointing, therefore, that matters of this nature have become the subject of distorted and erroneous media reports taking the President's remarks out of context, which has given rise to further media and social media speculation and the spread of unfounded fear among the public," Sri Lanka's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

"In continuation of the close and regular interaction between Sri Lanka and India at all levels including at the highest levels of government, President Sirisena had discussions this morning as well at a meeting with the High Commissioner of India in Colombo," the statement added.

The statement comes after some media reports in Sri Lanka carried a story saying President Sirisena had allegedly shocked his cabinet by accusing India of plotting to assassinate him during a weekly meeting. The media reports had surfaced days before the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka Ranil Wickremesinghe is scheduled to visit New Delhi.

President Sirisena's Advisor and Coordinating Secretary, Shiral Lakthilaka, and Joint Cabinet Spokesperson Minister (Dr) Rajitha Senaratne also refuted the media reports and asserted that the President did not make any such statement claiming agent attached to India's RAW service was involved in the alleged plot to assassinate him.

"The President had spoken in general terms about secret services of countries attempting to assassinate leaders. This happens even in America, the President said, and added that the Prime Minister of India might not be aware of it. There was no mention of RAW at all," Lakthilaka was quoted as saying in Lankan newspaper Sunday Times Sri Lanka on Wednesday.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Dismissing media reports that claimed Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe had a showdown at the Cabinet meeting on Tuesday over a proposal to develop the East Container Terminal of the Colombo Port as an Indian investment, the Lankan government on Wednesday issued a statement saying that no paper relating to the infrastructure development projects by the Indian government or Indian companies were included in the agenda of that Cabinet meeting.

"President, as the Head of the Cabinet of Ministers, has paid attention to the printed and electronic media reports on the matters discussed during the Cabinet meeting held at the Presidential Secretariat on 16th October 2018. It is stressed that those news are completely untrue. Any Cabinet paper relating to the infrastructure development projects planned to be implemented in Sri Lanka by the Indian government or Indian companies were not included in the agenda of that Cabinet meeting," the Sri Lankan government said in a statement.

The statement issued by S. Abeysinghe, Secretary to the Cabinet of Ministers, added, "The President briefed the Cabinet of Ministers about the matters of mutual importance, important matters in the regional and international arena and the important matters discussed during his meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the BIMSTEC Summit held in Nepal recently. He stressed that those discussions helped further strengthen the long-term friendship between the two countries. Hence, it is kindly requested to make sure to inquire from Cabinet Spokespersons and verify when reporting the matters discussed during the Cabinet meetings."

Sri Lanka's Daily Mirror had reported that at the Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Ports and Shipping Minister, Mahinda Samarasinghe submitted a Cabinet memorandum on developing the terminal by the Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA) but Prime Minister Wickremesinghe, backed by Development Strategies and International Trade Minister Malik Samarawickrama, insisted that it should be on the basis of an Indian investment.

"Apparently incensed by the Prime Minister's remarks, the President was reported to have said that it was vital to keep the sea port within the ambit of the Sri Lankan Government and that as a country Sri Lanka would lose its sovereignty in the event of alienating sea ports to external parties. The President is also reported to have been critical of the leasing of the Hambantota Port to a Chinese Company and said he had discussed the development of the Colombo Port with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he met him on the sidelines of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC)," Daily Mirror said in its article.

The newspaper further quoted President Sirisena saying that Indian Prime Minister was not opposed to the development of the East Container Terminal of the Colombo Port by Sri Lanka. "However, the Prime Minister had persisted in saying that a bulk of container traffic for the Colombo Port originated from India and, therefore, it was all the more important to develop it with India. Sources said the President and the Prime Minister had continued hurling arguments at each other," Daily Mirror wrote.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena on Wednesday had a telephonic conversation with Prime Minister Narendra Modi wherein he categorically rejected the media reports about him alluding to the involvement of India in any manner whatsoever in an alleged plot to assassinate the President and a former Defence Secretary of Sri Lanka.

Their telephonic conversation comes hours after a news report in an Indian daily stated that President Sirisena had expressed concerns during a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday about his assassination bid by Indian intelligence agency RAW.

"He (President Sirisena) mentioned that the mischievous and mala fide reports were utterly baseless and false, and seemed intended to create misunderstanding between the two leaders as well as damage the cordial relations between the two friendly neighbours," read a statement from the Prime Minister's Office.

Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe will be in India on three-day official visit from Thursday.

During his conversation, President Sirisena further apprised Prime Minister Modi of the urgent steps taken by him personally and the Sri Lankan government to publicly reject these reports. In this context, he also recalled his meeting with the High Commissioner of India to Sri Lanka, Taranjit Singh Sandhu, on Wednesday morning.

"The President also stated that he regards the Prime Minister as a true friend of Sri Lanka, as also a close personal friend. He stressed that he greatly valued the mutually beneficial ties between India and Sri Lanka, and remained steadfast to work with the Prime Minister for further strengthening them," the statement added.

On his part, Prime Minister Modi "appreciated the prompt steps" taken by President Sirisena and the Sri Lankan government to firmly refute the malicious reports by publicly clarifying the matters.

"He also reiterated India's emphasis on 'neighbourhood first' policy and the priority the Government of India and he personally attach to developing even stronger all-round cooperation between the two countries," the statement further read.

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka's Ministry of Foreign Affairs also asserted that the country's relationship with India is intense and encompasses multiple spheres including intelligence sharing.

On Wednesday, a leading Indian daily carried a news report from Colombo quoting sources in a Cabinet meeting that the Indian intelligence agency, Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) was 'trying to kill' President Sirisena, but 'Prime Minister Narendra Modi may not be aware of the plan.'

Lanka's Foreign Office, President Sirisena's Advisor and Coordinating Secretary, Shiral Lakthilaka, and Joint Cabinet Spokesperson Minister Rajitha Senaratne also refuted the media reports and asserted that the Sri Lankan President did not make any such statement claiming that India's RAW agent was involved in the alleged plot to assassinate him.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A Delhi court has recently sought the Central Bureau of Investigation's (CBI) reply on a petition seeking monitoring of investigation into an alleged medical college bribery scam. The petition has also sought for a time bound investigation into the case which is being conducted by the CBI for almost a year.

The court fixed next hearing in the case on November 2.

Advocate Vijay Aggarwal has filed the plea on behalf of a retired judge of Orissa High Court, Judge IM Qudussi who is an accused in the alleged scam.

The petition stated that the investigation has been going on for almost a year and no report has been filed so far by the Investigating Officer before the court in terms of the provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973.

In September 2017, the probe agency had registered an FIR against Judge Quddusi and others for their alleged involvement in the conspiracy to reverse a government order barring the medical college from admitting students because of substandard facilities and non-fulfillment of required criteria.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)MJ Akbar on Wednesday resigned as the Minister of State (MoS) for External Affairs amidst strong criticism over multiple sexual harassment allegations against him.

"Since I have decided to seek justice in a court of law in my personal capacity, I deem it appropriate to step down from office and challenge false accusations levied against me, also in a personal capacity. I have, therefore, tendered my resignation from the office of Minister of State (MoS) for External Affairs. I am deeply grateful to the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi and to the External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj for the opportunity they gave me to serve my country," Akbar said in a statement issued after his resignation.

The latest development comes after 20 women, one after another, came forward and alleged Akbar of sexually harassing them in his journalistic days. The storm around journalist-turned-politician gathered momentum after #MeToo campaign raged in India.

The 67-year-old had been facing flak over the allegations of inappropriate behaviour towards women, with opposition parties mounting attack on the government and demanding is ouster.

On returning from an official visit to Nigeria on Sunday, Akbar refrained from speaking on the allegations and said, "There will be a statement later on."

Later on Monday, he filed a defamation case against Priya Ramani - one of the first women, who publicly accused Akbar, her former boss, of sexual misconduct.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Union Minister of Minorities Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi on Wednesday unfurled India's highest tricolour on the rooftop of Haj House in Mumbai.

The flag, which was installed on the terrace of Haj house, is believed to be the highest flag to be installed on any building in India. The size of the flag is 20 feet by 30 feet which is erected at a height of 20 meter.

Describing the day as 'historic', Naqvi said, "Today, we have unfurled the tallest flag on any Indian building. This will also enhance the pride of Mumbai and its neighbouring regions."

The Union Minister also announced the schedule of Haj 2019.

Speaking to the media, he said, "This year, Haj has been announced a month earlier than the previous year. Also, Haj 2019 is going to be 100 per cent subsidy free."

"Last year, more than one lakh 75 thousand Muslims had completed Haj. The online application process for Haj 2019 will begin from October 18 while the offline application process will start from October 22," Naqvi said.

The Minister also informed that an app has been launched through which people can apply. The main aim of this is to digitalise the entire process. He further added that approximately 21 embarkation points will be functional and Haj pilgrims will also be able to go from the Calicut International Airport

"We are hopeful that Indian Muslims will go in large number for Haj 2019 in comparison to that of Haj 2018," he concluded.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Kerala Minister VS Sunil and CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury have strongly condemned the protests opposing entry of women of all ages into the Sabarimala temple.

Alleging the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of trying to make it a law and order issue, Kerala minister VK Sunil told ANI: "Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and BJP are taking double standards. On the one hand, five advocates associated with the BJP gave a petition in the Supreme Court over entry of women of all ages into Sabarimala temple. On the other hand, BJP is leading a fight against the verdict, and now they are trying to make it as a law and order issue."

On Wednesday morning, Congress party leaders had organised a peaceful protest in Nilakkal against the entry of women into the temple. Over 50 people, including former Travancore Devaswom Board president Prayar Gopalakrishnan, were taken into custody in Nilakkal and Pamba, both Sabarimala base camps for protesting against women's entry into the Lord Ayyappa shrine.

Yechury lashed out at the Congress for staging a protest. He told ANI, "This is most unfortunate. Sadly, Congress' local unit has also joined the protest whereas the Congress in the centre (Delhi) had welcomed the judgement of the Supreme Court. This has exposed their duplicity."

Further sharpening his attack, he alleged that the BJP and RSS are deliberately arousing passions for electoral gain. He added, "If at all BJP and RSS are against the verdict, the only way available to circumvent the verdict is through a legislative procedure in Parliament. If they are really serious to circumvent the verdict then this is the route. Why are they not taking that route? This is clearly a game of communal polarisation."

Senior BJP leader Subramanian Swamy told ANI that he strongly endorsed women's entry into Kerala's Sabarimala temple. He further asserted that it is wrong to go against the Supreme Court's verdict. The apex court had allowed the entry of women of menstruating age inside the temple premises.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Tension gripped the state of Kerala as devotees hit the streets in protest against entry of women into the Sabarimala temple. The protesters were lathi-charged as they gathered at the Nilakkal base camp of Pathanamthitta district. Stones were also pelted.

The shrine of Lord Ayyappa, located on the mountain range of the Western Ghats, opened for the first time today after the Supreme Court verdict allowed women of all ages to enter the temple. The temple will close on October 22.

Protesters blocked and attacked Republic TV journalist Pooja Prasanna's car in Pathanamthitta district. India Today journalist Mausami Singh and its crew also faced the ire of the protesters at the base camp.

Scores of protesters, including women, have been up in arms since the verdict was pronounced. Traditionally, women of menstruating age were barred from entering the temple.

In protest against the verdict, the devotees stopped vehicles and prevented women belonging to the 'prohibited age' group from moving towards the holy hill.

Reacting on the issue, Kerala Minister for Health, Social Justice and Woman and Child Development KK Shailaja on Wednesday termed the protest as "intentional" and politically motivated.

Backing the verdict of the top court, Shailaja said that the state government is bound to follow the direction of the court which prevents the fundamental right of women of the country.

"I can predict what is going on there, I think it is intentional, it is dirty politics they (protesters) are playing. We cannot say if they are actual devotees. The Supreme Court's order is constitutional and the government is bound to implement it," Shailaja told ANI.

Meanwhile, activist Rahul Easwar was arrested by from Nilakkal base camp and a non-bailable FIR was registered against him for stopping women. After the arrest, he was kept in the Pamba police station.

Easwar, however, denied allegations that he hit women. He said, "I was moving to the other direction. It is a vendetta against me."

A total of 30 people were arrested in Pamba since Tuesday in connection with the protests.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Ahead of the assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, while taking a jibe at Congress president Rahul Gandhi, said that shrines are not meant for political purposes.

Addressing a public gathering in Vidisha on Tuesday, where a massive roadshow was held, the Chief Minister said, "Shrines are not the place to indulge in cheap to get votes. Rahul Baba should realise that one cannot get votes by moving around sporting 'tilak' on one's forehead during election times. One has to be with people all the time and work for them tirelessly to win their confidence."

Continuing his tirade against Gandhi, Chouhan, who is trying to win the post for a consecutive fourth term, questioned why the Congress President visited temples only during pre-poll days.

"I have no objection if Rahul visits a temple or a mosque or any other shrine. But, why he was seen making temple visits only during election days. People are aware of his tricks. He should not think that people of this country are fools," Chouhan added.

Challenging the Congress to give a report of the work done during the party's 10-year-rule in Madhya Pradesh between 1993-2003, Chouhan said, "The state was made a 'BIMARU' during the Congress' tenure in the state because of non-performance of the then Digvijay Singh government."

He further claimed that Madhya Pradesh has witnessed development in agriculture by expanding irrigation coverage from a mere 7 lakh hectare to 70 lakh hectares in the last 15 years.

The election in Madhya Pradesh is scheduled to be held in a single phase on November 28. Counting of votes will be done on December 11.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)General Officer Commanding in Chief (GOC) Northern Command, Lieutenant General Ranbir Singh on Wednesday asserted that the situation along the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir is under control even as there is no change in the terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

Lt. Gen. Singh said, "The situation is under control. However, the situation remains fragile because of the attempt by Pakistan to push infiltrators in Jammu and Kashmir. As per inputs available to us, there is no change in terrorist infrastructure across the LoC in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, and therefore, we keep having several reports of infiltration attempts by Pakistan trained terrorists."

Lt. Gen. Singh's comments have come amidst a spike in terror strikes in the Kashmir Valley. Just on Wednesday, a gun battle between terrorists and security forces broke out in Fateh Kadal in downtown Srinagar.

A policeman was killed and three militants, including a wanted Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) commander, were smoked out in an hour-long encounter.

"Our counter-infiltration grid at LoC, at various tiers of the grip up to the hinterland, is very effective and it is because of that we have been able to neutralise a large number of terrorists," added Lt. Gen. Singh in Kangra during the first inter-services para-gliding competition.

Reacting to the reports of surgical strike threat by Pakistan, the GOC reiterated that the Indian Army is prepared for any contingency. And, will exhibit its capabilities when required. "It doesn't really matter what statements are made from which quarter, it is important for us to retain, and refine our capabilities, and be prepared for any contingencies at all times," he said.

The Army Commander also spoke about the recent controversy surrounding Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist Manan Wani, the research scholar from Aligarh Muslim University.

"The Army is fully cognisant of the ground realities, there is a lot of potential in the youth in Jammu and Kashmir. And, the army's efforts are always towards harnessing these energies between the good of the state and the nation."

Lt. Gen Singh assured that the army will ensure the panchayat and municipal polls in Jammu and Kashmir are smoothly conducted by the authorities.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena said he was assured of "fullest cooperation" towards development in Sri Lanka by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a telephonic conversation.

"This evening, I had a very successful telephone conversation with the Indian Prime Minister Shri @narendramodi, who assured India's fullest cooperation towards the development and prosperity of Sri Lanka," Sirisena tweeted.

The phone call comes amidst media reports which claimed that Sirisena accused India of plotting his assassination during a weekly meeting. The reports speculated that the President had claimed that an agent attached to India's RAW service was involved in the alleged plot to assassinate him.

The media claims have since been strongly dismissed by Sri Lanka. The country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs termed the reports as "false" and "baseless" while highlighting the strong relationship between the two nations.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The numbers of passengers is swelling at Nepalgunj airport with only two days left for Bijaya Dashami, the last day of the 10 days long Bada Dashain festival, the biggest festival of the Nepalis.

However, many people are not getting the air tickets as the number of flights to various destinations is far too less than the number of passengers seeking to go home for the festival by air. Therefore, it looks like many people will not be getting air tickets and would be left stranded.

The passengers have been complaining that the airlines companies have been issuing tickets giving priority to people with high connections.

Dolpa and Humla districts of the Karnali province do not have road connectivity. Although Jumla and Mugu of Karnali province and Bajura of Far-west province have road connectivity, transport service is not regular and reliable. Hence, the people of these districts mainly rely on air transport for travel.

Travellers to these districts in the mountainous region have been facing problem especially during the festival time due to the shortage of adequate number of flights.

Usually the people who have connections to the top political leaders and ministers get the air tickets while those without such advantage are left in the lurch, said Surendra Shahi of Mugu, who has been struggling to get plane ticket to Mugu for the last one week.

Chief of the Nepalgunj Civil Aviation Office, Prem Nath Thakur, said that this situation is because the number of flights is very less compared to the number of passengers seeking air tickets.

According to him, Tara and Summit Air have been operating daily one flight each to Dolpa, Mugu, Humla, Jumla and Bajura. The Sita Air's plane is said to be currently out of order whereas the Nepal Airlines has started operating its flights to these places only from Sunday. Tara and Summit Air have only one airplane based in Nepalgunj and they have been operating daily one flight to each of the above destinations.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The United States Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) took action against a vast network of businesses providing a financial lifeline to the Basij Resistance Force (Basij), a paramilitary force subordinate to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

The new sanctions, the US Treasury said, focused on Bank Mellat and Mehr Eqtesad Bank, according to an official press release.

The US has levied grave charges against the Basij while outlining the activities of the paramilitary force subordinate of Iran's Armed Forces.

According to the statement, Basij recruits, trains, and deploys child soldiers to fight in IRGC-fueled conflicts across the region. Children, including migrants from Iran and Afghanistan, are trained as fighters for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF), and then deployed to Syria to support the Assad regime, the press release further stated.

The recruited Afghan immigrants, including children as young as 14, are made to join the Fatemiyoun Brigade, a militia made up of Afghan fighters under the control of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force in Syria.

The Iran-based network of businesses providing financial support to the Basij is known as Bonyad Taavon Basij and is comprised of at least 20 corporations and financial institutions. This network employs shell companies and other measures to mask its ownership and control over a variety of multibillion-dollar business interests in Iran's automotive, mining, metals, and banking industries, many of which have significant international dealings across the Middle East and with Europe.

The US Treasury's Secretary Steven Mnuchin was quoted as saying, "The Bonyad Taavon Basij network is a quintessential example of how the IRGC and Iranian military forces have expanded their economic involvement in major industries and infiltrated seemingly legitimate businesses to fund terrorism and other malign activities. This vast network provides a financial lifeline to the Basij's efforts to recruit, train, and indoctrinate child soldiers as young as twelve who are coerced into combat under the IRGC's direction."

The US further claimed through the statement that the IRGC and the Basij use the monies generated from this network to support terrorism along with committing a variety of human rights abuses in Iran and abroad.

Tuesday's action targets the Basij and Bonyad Taavon Basij, adding these entities to a list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists, which already includes the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force and similar groups who provide support to terrorists or acts of terrorism.

This network has known business ties with international companies around the globe. The release warned that the implications of partnering with companies associated with the Basij could contribute to the ongoing human rights abuses and terrorism they export to the region.

The U.S. Department of Treasury further urged international companies to ensure the undertaking of necessary due diligence to avoid engaging in "sanctionable activity" with entities that support the Iranian regime's "malign" activities.

US Treasury's Secretary Mnuchin emphasised, "The international community must understand that business entanglements with the Bonyad Taavon Basij network and IRGC front companies have real- humanitarian consequences, and help fuel the Iranian regime's violent ambitions across the Middle East."

The US also claimed that Mehr Eqtesad Bank's investment firm, Mehr Eqtesad Iranian Investment Company, acts as an intermediary for the economic entrenchment of the Basij and Bonyad Taavon Basij. It further designated five other investment firms pursuant to Executive Order 13224, Tadbirgaran Atiyeh Investment Company, Negin Sahel Royal Company, Mehr Eqtesad Financial Group, and Technotar Engineering Company for being owned or controlled by Mehr Eqtesad Iranian Investment Company, and Taktar Investment Company for being owned or controlled by Technotar Engineering Company.

The American country also designated Iran's largest tractor manufacturer in the Middle East and North Africa, Iran Tractor Manufacturing Company (ITMC) under E.O. 13224 for being owned Mehr Eqtesad Iranian Investment Company and its Negin Sahel Royal Company.

Other companies like Taktar Investment Company, Iran's Zinc Mines Development Company (IZMDC), Calcimin, Bandar Abbas Zinc Production Company, Qeshm Zinc Smelting and Reduction Company, Zanjan Acid Production Company, and Parsian Catalyst were also designated under the Executive Order for being connected through a maze of owners that all lead back to Mehr Eqtesad Iranian Investment Company.

The US has also put Esfahan's Mobarakeh Steel Company on the list for "assisting, sponsoring, or providing financial, material, or technological support for, or financial or other services to or in support of, Mehr Eqtesad Iranian Investment Company."

OFAC also designated Andisheh Mehvaran Investment Company under E.O. 13224 for "being owned or controlled" by IZMDC and Parsian Bank, Sina Bank, and Bahman Group for "assisting, sponsoring, or providing financial, material, or technological support for, or financial or other services to or in support of, Andisheh Mehvaran Investment Company."

The now-imposed US sanctions were expected as it was reported that more sanctions would be imposed on Iran in November, including barring Iran's sale of crude oil and transactions with its Central Bank.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Popular video-sharing website, Youtube is experiencing an outage across its various platforms.

Several users who were trying to access the video sharing platform on Wednesday morning complained of seeing '500 Internal Server Error' messages and '503 Network Error' messages popping up on their screens.

Responding to the reports of error and outage, the Team Youtube took to micro-blogging website Twitter and said that they are working towards resolving the issue.

"Thanks for your reports about YouTube, YouTube TV and YouTube Music access issues. We're working on resolving this and will let you know once fixed. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and will keep you updated", Team Youtube posted on Twitter.

The global outage of YouTube comes a day after Twitter users, particularly iOS users, went into a frenzy for about an hour, when the app began streaming notifications in a cryptic series of alphanumeric characters.

Another prominent social media platform, Facebook also faced a security breach a few days back.

One of Google's subsidiaries, Youtube was launched in 2005.

Currently, YouTube is one of the most visited websites on the internet.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)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/At least 10 persons from Chhattisgarh were killed after a car in which they were travelling collided head-on with a truck on NH-35 in Odisha's Nuapada district, police said on Wednesday.

The incident took place near Silada in Nuapada late on Tuesday night.

The pilgrims of Pithora area of Chhattisgarh were returning from Komna in Nuapada after offering prayers at the Vaishnodebi temple, said police.

On being informed Nuapada police and fire services personnel reached the spot and recovered the bodies.

Nuapada inspector-in-charge Bibekananda Mahanta said they have informed the Chhattisgarh police about the incident and asked them to inform the family members of the deceased.

--IANS

cd/mag/sed

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A teenage student detonated an explosive device and opened fire at a technical college in Russian-annexed Crimea on Wednesday, killing at least 18 people and injuring 40 others before turning the gun on himself, Russia's investigative committee said.

Investigators said 18-year-old Vladislav Roslyakov, a fourth year student, launched an assault against fellow students at his college in the Crimean city of Kerch before killing himself, the BBC reported.

"We quickly established the identity of the young man who arrived at the college immediately before the incident," the investigative committee said in a statement.

"Based on video footage, he was holding a gun in his hands," it said, adding that his body was later found on the college premises with a gunshot wound.

Officials initially said that an "unidentified explosive device" had detonated in the college's dining area and called the incident a "terrorist act". But Russia's investigative committee later reclassified it as "mass murder".

An official said most of the victims were students of the technical college, which is a vocational school for 850 teenagers.

The college's director, who was not at the scene at the time of the attack, told the Russian media that unknown armed men had broken into the building. She compared it to the school siege of Beslan in 2004, during which about 330 people died.

"There were lots of corpses, corpses of kids, a real terrorist attack," she said.

Kerch is located on the Crimean Peninsula's closest point with mainland Russia, to which it is connected by a road bridge.

Russia annexed Crimea -- which has a majority ethnic Russian populace -- in 2014 following the Ukrainian revolution; although Kiev maintains it is part of its territorial integrity.

--IANS

soni/sed

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Seven persons were arrested on the charge of involvement in a failed armed robbery here last week, police said on Wednesday.

Deputy Commissioner of Police Pankaj Kumar Singh said that the seven accused were held on Tuesday on the Delhi-Noida road while going in a car used in the crime.

The accused had intercepted a cash van on October 8 on the DND (Delhi-Noida Direct) flyover and shot at guard Bishambar while he was ferrying three boxes of cash from Janakpuri to Noida.

The officer said that the accused couldn't break open the vault or find the keys to the remaining locks and fled without looting Rs 4.2 crore kept in the safe.

--IANS

mg/tsb/bg

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Breakthrough Prize Foundation announced nine recipients of the 2019 Breakthrough Prize in recognition of their important achievements in the fields of fundamental physics, life sciences and mathematics.

The Foundation will award a total of $21 million to the nine winners. It is considered the most generous science prize in the world, Xinhua news agency reported on Wednesday.

Five scientists won the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences for their contributions to finding significant solutions to curing human diseases.

Frank Bennett from Ionis Pharmaceuticals and Adrian Krainer from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory were recognised for developing an effective antisense oligonucleotide therapy for children with the neurodegenerative disease of spinal muscular atrophy.

Angelika Amon from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Howard Hughes Medical Institute won the award for determining the consequences of aneuploidy, an abnormal chromosome number resulting from chromosome mis-segregation.

Xiaowei Zhuang with Harvard University and Howard Hughes Medical Institute won the prize for discovering hidden structures in cells by developing super-resolution imaging, a method that transcends the fundamental spatial resolution limit of light microscopy.

Zhijian "James" Chen from University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and Howard Hughes Medical Institute, was honoured for elucidating how DNA triggers immune and autoimmune responses from the interior of a cell through the discovery of the DNA-sensing enzyme cGAS.

"The winners of the Breakthrough Prize in Life Science show us all how it's done," said Cori Bargmann, chair of the selection committee.

"Through creativity, innovation, persistence, and skill, each of them brought about an advance that was previously unimaginable," Bargmann added.

The Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics went to Charles Kane and Eugene Mele from University of Pennsylvania for their new ideas about topology and symmetry in physics, leading to the prediction of a new class of materials that conduct electricity only on their surface.

Vincent Lafforgue from the French National Center for Scientific Research and the Institut Fourie of Universite Grenoble Alpes was awarded the Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics for groundbreaking contributions to several areas of mathematics, in particular to the Langlands program in the function field case.

"Vincent Lafforgue, in the so called 'function field case,' found a beautifully simple direct argument," said Richard Taylor, chair of the selection committee.

"After seeing it, you ask yourself how the rest of us could have missed it for so long. You finally see why Langlands correspondence has to exist -- it no longer seems an unmotivated miraculous consequence of complicated computations," Taylor said.

British astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell from University of Dundee and University of Oxford claimed the Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics for her role in the surprise discovery of pulsars -- an exotic new type of star -- first announced in February 1968, and for her inspiring scientific leadership over the last five decades.

In addition to the seven main-stage prizes, a total of six New Horizons Prizes, worth 100,000 dollars each, were awarded to seven physicists and five mathematicians for early-career achievements in their respective fields.

The awarding ceremony of the Breakthrough Prize, which was hailed as the "Oscars of Science," will take place on November 4 at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, with a gala event hosted by acclaimed actor, producer and philanthropist Pierce Brosnan, said the Foundation.

Sponsors of the Breakthrough Prize Foundation include Google co-founder Sergey Brin, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan, Ma Huateng, founder of China's internet giant Tencent, Israeli-Russian entrepreneur and venture capitalist Yuri Milner and his wife Julia Milner, as well as Anne Wojcicki, an American entrepreneur and the co-founder of the personal genomics company 23andMe.

--IANS

vc/nir

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Actress Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, who supported a Women's Cancer Initiative (WCI) event here, says people generally need to be more aware about the disease as early detection can give them a better chance at a cure.

Aishwarya interacted with the media when she supported WCI's Soul Stirrings event, hosted by Tata Memorial Hospital here on Tuesday.

The actress and former Miss World pointed out that there are many myths in the country about cancer as a disease.

"There are so many myths and misconceptions in our country that it is astonishing to realise and recognise that there are so many people even in this day and age who believe that a disease like cancer could possibly be contagious to us. That's shocking, but to many it seems that's a fact.

"That just boils down to lack of awareness, education, access to information, recognising what this disease is all about and the step you need to take as simple as early detection," she said.

Aishwarya said it is important to educate people and create awareness among them about cancer.

"Events such as these have come together to draw attention and raise awareness, increase dialogue, make information more accessible to people and have people coming for their regular check-ups for early detection because that in the course of action is referred to as a baby step, but it is the most important step to a possible cure of the disease when a patient has it.

"So, earlier detection gives you a higher chance at a cure and that's a possibility that every person should humanly have a right to access. We hope this early detection of curable cancer in women will be an important component of the cancer control program in India."

She applauded WCI's event for supporting and taking care of various issues related to cancer, especially amongst underprivileged women.

--IANS

iv/rb/vm

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)From his days of being an iconic editor to an alleged sexual predator, the fall of M J Akbar has been sudden and steep.

Caught as he was in the web of #MeToo allegations, Akbar stepped down as Minister of State for External Affairs on Wednesday.

In his chequered career, Akbar was a spokesperson for both the Congress and BJP. Highly regarded for his journalistic abilities, Akbar was founder-editor of weekly magazine Sunday and The Telegraph and The Asian Age newspapers.

He commanded the respect of generations of aspiring and budding journalists for his erudition, his command and crispness of language, his play of words as also his articulation. Akbar became editor of Sunday, which turned into a successful news magazine in 1976, and of The Telegraph 1982.

All that changed as allegations of and molestation of women who had worked with him started pouring in against him in the wake of the #MeToo campaign.

He joined the Congress and was a member of the ninth Lok Sabha from 1989 to 1991. From 1991 to 1993, he was advisor to the Human Resource Development Ministry.



He returned to journalism with an aim of creating a newspaper with an international focus. He launched The Asian Age in 1994 with editions in Delhi, Mumbai and London, the first Indian newspaper to have an international edition.

In his long journalistic career, he was also associated with The Sunday Guardian and India Today magazine.

Akbar joined the BJP ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, expressing his faith in the leadership of Narendra Modi. He was first elected to Rajya Sabha in July 2015 and was re-elected in July 2016.

Akbar has authored 10 books, including 'India: The Siege Within', 'Riot after Riot: Reports on Caste and Communal Violence in India', 'Nehru: The Making of India', '1989' and 'Kashmir: Behind the Vale'.



Akbar's columns were widely followed and he continued writing till he became a minister in the BJP-led government in 2016.

He was given the portfolio of Minister of State for External Affairs in an apparent bid to increase Narendra Modi government's outreach, especially to the Muslim countries.

Women who had worked with him came up with their accounts of travails one after another in the social media.

Akbar, who was abroad when the allegations first surfaced about 10 days back, termed them as "wild, baseless and false" on his return. He also filed a defamation case against the journalist who had first levelled the charges, but the accounts against him continued to pour in.

Journalists, individually and also through their representative organisations, expressed their dismay over his decision not to quit.



The government also gave the signal that Akbar has to fight his battles individually as the complaints pertained to the period when he was editor.Anna Burns from Northern Ireland has won the 2018 Man Booker Prize for her third novel "Milkman". She won the much coveted 50,000 pound award for her timely, troubles-set novel about a young woman being sexually harassed by a powerful man.

Burns, 56, became the first Northern Irish winner of the award and accepted the prize at a ceremony at Guildhall here late on Tuesday.

She is also the first female winner since 2012, when Hilary Mantel took the award with "Bring Up the Bodies".

Booker's chair of judges, the philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah, said that the novel is "incredibly original".

"Milkman" is narrated by an unnamed 18-year-old girl, known as "middle sister", who is being pursued by a much older paramilitary figure, the milkman.

"None of us has ever read anything like this before," said Appiah, announcing the prize.

"Anna Burns' utterly distinctive voice challenges conventional thinking and form in a surprising and immersive prose. It is a story of brutality, sexual encroachment and resistance threaded with mordant humour."

Written in lengthy blocks of paragraphs, eschewing character names for descriptions, Appiah admitted that "Milkman" could be seen as "challenging, but in the way a walk up Snowdon is challenging. It is definitely worth it because the view is terrific when you get to the top," he said.

Previous Irish winners, including John Banville, Anne Enright and Roddy Doyle, all come from the Irish Republic.

Burns beat writers including American literary heavyweight Richard Powers, Canadian Esi Edugyan and Daisy Johnson, at 27 the youngest author ever to be shortlisted for the award.

According to Appiah, the judges, picking from a shortlist that delved into some dark themes, were "unanimous" in their choice of winner -- and not influenced by concerns that picking a third American winner in a row could cause controversy.

Burns, who was born in Belfast and now lives in East Sussex, drew on her own experiences growing up in what she called "a place that was rife with violence, distrust and paranoia".

As the milkman presses his advances on the reluctant middle sister, rumours begin that she is having an affair with him.

Milkman also spoke to the concerns of today, Appiah said. "I think this novel will help people think about #MeToo ... It is to be commended for giving us a deep and subtle and morally and intellectually challenging picture of what #MeToo is about."

First awarded in 1969, the Man Booker Prize is recognised as the leading award for quality literary fiction written in English.

Its list of winners includes many of the giants of the last five decades, from Salman Rushdie to Margaret Atwood, Iris Murdoch to J.M. Coetzee.

The prize has also recognised many authors early in their careers, including Eleanor Catton, Aravind Adiga and Ben Okri.

No Indian authors were longlisted or shortlisted for the 50th edition of the prize.

--IANS

ss-vc/in

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Pune Police and the Army have launched a probe into allegations of rape levelled against four soldiers of the Army Medical Corps (AMC) by a deaf-mute 30-year-old woman employee of the Military Hospital here, an official said.

"We have lodged a First Information Report (FIR) for rape and molestation, based on the victim's complaint. We shall first investigate the matter and then seek permission of the Centre for further action as they (accused) are Army employees," Senior Police Inspector Rajendra Mohite told IANS.

According to the complaint, the woman had got a Class IV job in the handicapped category at the Military Hospital in July 2014.

A few months later, in early 2015, she was raped in the bathroom by a soldier when she was on night duty in the family ward.

She informed her immediate superior about the incident by a text message who promised to look into her complaint. Later, he also raped by threatening to make her message viral.

Subsequently two other soldiers joined them and the foursome sexually assaulted her regularly since 2015, said the widow, who also has a 12-year-old son.

The woman claimed that the jawans had also made video clips of their sex acts with her and blackmailed her into submission.

Finally, unable to bear the ongoing exploitation any longer, in July (2018), she went to Indore and sought help from a NGO, Anand Society Deaf Institute (ASDI), which specializes in helping speech-and-hearing handicapped persons.

The ASDI arranged the services of a sign language expert, Gyanendra Purohit, who recorded her complaint, accompanied her to Pune to lodge a complaint with the Military Hospital Commandant and later with the Indore DIG H.C. Mishra.

"In July, when we approached the concerned authorities in Pune, we did not get proper response. Then, we sent a video of the woman's plight to Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Gen Vipin Rawat and Army Headquarters seeking justice for her," Purohit told IANS.

Following a green signal from the Army authorities on August 16, the Pune Police on Tuesday lodged the victim's FIR against the four soldiers.

They are: Ward Master Harun Rashid, Mohammed Muthazim, Ravindra Singh (both nursing assistants), and an ambulance assistant, Ahirwal.

All of them were attached to the Army Medical Corps and one is still posted at the Military Hospital here. Another has been posted in Jammu and Kashmir, one in Lucknow and another was recently transferred to a new location.

The woman said that all the four soldiers took "advantage of her handicap" threatened, abused and blackmailed her into submission for nearly four years, and her past complaints to several seniors were ignored.

An Army Court of Inquiry and the Pune Police have launched independent investigations into the matter

--IANS

qn/mr

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The railways has suggested that strategically important 465-km railway line proposed between Himachal Pradesh's Bilaspur and and Kashmir's along the Indo-China border be declared a " project", a Northern Railway (NR) official said on Wednesday.

Addressing a press conference here, NR General Manager Vishesh Chaubey said: "The first phase of the survey for the 465-km line project, which will be one of the world's highest railway lines, has been completed and initial estimates put the cost of track construction at Rs 833.60 bn."

He said the project would be one of the most difficult ones that the railways has ever undertaken.

Chaubey said: "We have suggested that the project be declared a project, as once completed it will help the armed forces reach the region as well as boost tourism in the area."

In terms of funding, once the project is declared a project, most of the funds would come from the Central government.

According to him, the Northern Railway also suggested to start construction of a 51-km stretch between Upshi in and Phe in immediately.

The first survey for the proposed railway line has been completed and the final location survey is expected to be completed in 30 months after which a detailed project report would be presented.

According to officials, the new line project would have a highest road point of 5,360 meters above the sea level.

China has built the Qinghai-Tibet railway line in Tibet at a height of around 2,000 metres above the sea level.

He said that the new line project will include 74 tunnels, 30 stations, 124 major bridges and 396 minor bridges according to the first phase of the survey.AMizoram would celebrate Christmas under the BJP-led state government, said Bharatiya Janata Party President Amit Shah on Wednesday, adding the party would field candidates in all the 40 Assembly seats of the state where polls are due on November 28.

"People of Mizoram would celebrate the next Christmas in the state under the BJP-led state government. Congress would be voted out in the assembly polls," he said while addressing party's booth-level workers' meet at R. Dengthuama Indoor Stadium in Aizawl.

Shah, who came here after holding meetings with Assam party leaders and state Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal in Guwahati, said the BJP would field candidates in all the 40 constituencies on its own without alliance with opposition Mizo National Front (MNF) or the ruling Congress.

Blaming Congress "as a source of all corruption" and for perpetuating a dynastic rule, he asked the people to vote BJP for development and for ending corruption.

The BJP chief alleged that Congress government in Mizoram has not implemented many development schemes initiated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"If BJP forms government in Mizoram, all 100-plus Central flagship programmes would be implemented successfully," said the BJP leader who also inaugurated BJP's state office, Atal Bhavan, in Aizawl.

Mizoram BJP state president Prof John V Hluna, Nagaland Deputy Chief Minister Y. Patton, Assam Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma accompanied Shah.

Sarma, who is the convener of the BJP-led anti-Congress alliance, North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA), is the party's in-charge for Mizoram elections.

BJP's national general secretary Ram Madhav earlier announced that his party would likely field candidates in all the 40 assembly seats, but the party might forge an alliance with the like-minded parties in a post-poll scenario.

BJP leaders in Mizoram have been asserting that they would make all-out efforts to remove Congress from power in the state to "paint the North-East with the saffron colour."

Mizoram is the only state ruled by Congress in northeast India, comprising eight states.

The BJP has been making concerted efforts to win the Christian-dominated state, after having formed governments on its own or joining hands with allies in the remaining six northeastern states, excluding Sikkim.

Meanwhile, the ruling Congress during the past one month suffered a major setback after state Home Minister and senior party leader R. Lalzirliana and two sitting legislators, Lalrinliana Sailo and Buddha Dhan Chakma, both former ministers, resigned from the party.

Lalzirliana and Sailo joined MNF and Chakma joined BJP on Wednesday in presence of Amit Shah.

Sources in the MNF said both the Congress deserters are likely to be the candidates of MNF, a local party, which ruled the state for two terms (1998-2003 and 2003-2008).

The ruling Congress on October 11 has announced 36 candidates for the upcoming polls, dropping eight sitting MLAs and fielding 12 new faces.

State Congress president and Chief Minister Lal Thanhawla will contest from two constituencies -- his home turf Serchhip and Champhai South.

Among the 36 candidates, four are below 40 years, eight are between 41 and 50 years, 14 in the age group of 51 to 60, four are between 61 and 70 years and five candidates, including Lal Thanhawla, are above 70 years.

Both Congress and main opposition MNF led by party President and former Chief Minister Zoramthanga have already begun their election campaign.

--IANS

sc/prs

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Accusing the Congress of concocting "falsehoods" to gain power in Madhya Pradesh, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said the party has three chief ministerial aspirants and they were busy pulling each other down.

"The Congress has lost its ground in Madhya Pradesh. They don't have any agenda for development. It seems, nothing is left for them to oppose us. They have no issues and in the lack of issues they are concocting falsehood.

"The development work by our government has frustrated them and that is why they are talking nonsense," he said during his interaction with booth-level party workers of Hoshangabad in election-bound Madhya Pradesh.

The Prime Minister also interacted with booth-level workers of Chatra in Jharkhand, Pali in poll-bound Rajasthan, Gazipur in Uttar Pradesh and Mumbai North in Maharashtra through the NaMo App under the programme 'Mera Booth, Sabse Mazboot' (my booth strongest).

During his interaction with workers in Hoshangabad, a woman sought to know from the Prime Minister the ways to tackle the Congress' "falsehood and misleading" election campaign in the state.

Responding to her, Modi said that the condition of the Congress in Madhya Pradesh is that "there are three Chief Minister candidates and all are busy in pulling down each other to become chief minister".

"Around one dozen other leaders are there who are also aspiring for the post. They are silent but playing games for their turn, waiting if all the three fall. Where there are over a dozen candidates aspiring to become Chief Minister, what will they think about development. They neither have policy nor any intention. They are busy in making strategy based on falsehood. It's our responsibility to expose them," he said.

He said that for the sake of opposition the Congress sometimes brings Pakistan's flyover and uses photographs of Bangladesh as its lacks an agenda to counter the BJP government.

"Sometimes there are fake news and sometimes there are misleading photographs. In fact, Shivraj Singh Chouhan's government has done so much of development work that the opposition can't raise their finger at it. It has turned Madhya Pradesh from a "BIMARU state to Bemisal state" (from a sick state to an incomparable state)," the Prime Minister said.

In July this year, Congress veteran and former Chief Minister Digvijaya Singh had posted a photo of a bridge and tweeted that it was the pillar of the overbridge on the Subhash Nagar Railway Crossing. Raising questions on the quality of work, Singh had said that the construction of the bridge was not even complete and cracks can be seen on the pillar. Later, it was pointed out that the cracked pillar was of a bridge in Rawalpindi and an old one at that.

Recently, ahead of Congress President Rahul Gandhi's visit to Madhya Pradesh, state Congress chief Kamal Nath took to Twitter for lambasting the condition of the roads in Madhya Pradesh with a picture showing a man folding the upper layer of a road made up of tar while some bemused kids watched. It was later found that the image was originally tweeted in 2016 by Rifat Alam, a Bangladeshi user, who criticized the Bangladeshi government for the poor condition of the roads.

During his interaction with party workers in Chatra, the Prime Minister also took a dig at Rahul Gandhi without taking his name.

As soon as one of the workers, while putting his question, took his name Rajkumar Sahu, the Prime Minister asked: Are you really a Rajkumar (Prince)? Nowadays, we need to be very careful with "Rajkumar".

"I am not that Rajkumar born with a golden spoon," replied Sahu which had the Prime Minister laughing.

Responding to another query of another party worker in Chatra, the Prime Minister highlighted how the BJP government in Jharkhand restarted long-pending infrastructure and welfare projects in the state.

Mentioning how the 'Statue of Unity' will spread Sardar Patel's vision and his contribution to India's unity to the future generations of the country, he lambasted the opposition for questioning the move.

The interaction concluded with a worker in Ghazipur who sought Modi's guidance on the strategy for the upcoming 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

"The BJP had achieved the most through the efforts of its hard working and devoted karyakartas and its strong organization," he said.

Remembering former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, he said that the BJP, which had only two seats in 1984, reached a milestone of 282 seats in 2014.

--IANS

bns/vsc/bg

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)As Delhi's air quality inches fast towards the "very poor" category, Environment Minister Imran Hussain on Wednesday released NASA satellite's recent images of north India which showed stubble burning at "dangerous levels".

"It is high time that the crop residue burning in the fields be immediately halted, failing which a serious health hazard awaits entire northern India," he said in a statement.

Last week, Hussain had released photographs of stubble burning across the Delhi-Chandigarh National Highway.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Minister has been requesting the central and neighbouring state governments - Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh - to take action to prevent air pollution.

"It is beyond any reasonable understanding as to why this menace is being ignored despite a well-known fact that the consequences will be disastrous in the coming days," Hussain said.

With a Graded Response Action Plan already in force, Hussain said that there will be "zero tolerance for garbage and crop residue burning". He has also pleaded for covering all the construction material to stop dust re-suspension.

Burning of paddy straw every year during October and November and wheat straw during April in Punjab and Haryana are the major contributors of air pollution in Delhi-NCR, as the smoke travels towards the national capital.

--IANS

sd/mag/sed

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Despite the removal of the Haj subsidy from the 2018 pilgrimage season, there was no financial burden on the pilgrims as middlemen were eliminated and a transparent, fully online system was put in place, Union Minister for Minority Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said here on Wednesday.

Terming the Haj-2018 as a 'pro-pilgrim' initiative, he said that in 2017, Rs 1,030 crore was paid to airlines for the airfares for 1,24,852 pilgrims, but in 2018, it came down to Rs 973 crore for 1,28,702 pilgrims who went for the pilgrimage through the Haj Committee of India.

This means Rs 57 crore less was paid to airlines this year though 3,850 more pilgrims travelled after ending the Haj subsidy, Naqvi pointed out.

Terming the Haj-2018 as "successful", Naqvi said that for the first time since Independence, a record 1,75,025 Muslims from India performed the pilgrimage without availing any subsidy and expected the number to go up further in 2019.

Safety and better facilities and medical amenities for the pilgrims are the priority of the government. There will be no lackadaisical approach on this, he said while announcing the Haj-2019 season at the Haj House in Mumbai.

He said that the online application process will start on October 18, while the offline process will be taken up on October 22, making it the first time that the next year's (2019) Haj preparations have been initiated immediately after completion of the current season (2018).

In 2018, a total of 3,55,604 applications were received, of which 1,66,387 were from women.

According to Naqvi, the early start of the Haj process will ensure availability of better facilities and smooth functioning as all the concerned agencies, both in India and Saudi Arabia, would get sufficient time to make arrangements.

"The process of airlines tender will be completed by November 2018 and accommodation process in Mecca and Medina by December 2018-January 2019," Naqvi said.

All the 20 embarkation points will be functional like 2018 and Haj pilgrims can also go via Calicut Airport and the accommodation rates in Saudi Arabia shall remain unchanged for 2019.

--IANS

qn/mag/sed

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Enforcement Directorate on Wednesday said it has attached assets in India and abroad worth Rs 218 crore belonging to fugitive diamond merchants Nirav Modi and his maternal uncle Mehul Choksi.

The duo, who have fled the country, are accused of defrauding state-run Punjab National Bank of Rs 13,500 crore.

A senior official of the agency said: "A villa at a foreign location worth Rs 27 crore belonging to Choksi has been attached."

The assets attached by the ED include a Hyderabad property worth Rs 120 crore belonging to A.P. Gems & Jewellery Park.

On specific intelligence, diamonds with a market value of Rs 18.76 crore belonging to the Firestar Group related to Nirav Modi were also seized, the official added.

The agency also attached a flat worth Rs 1.70 crore in Mumbai's Trump Tower. It is in the name of Choksi's daughter.

The official revealed that the agency has attached an overseas flat worth Rs 51 crore belonging to Mihir Bhansali, a close aide of Nirav Modi.

The official also said that Letters Rogatory have been sent to the authorities of foreign jurisdictions to enforce the provisional attachment orders.

The financial probe agency has till date attached properties worth Rs 4,488 crore in the PNB fraud case.

Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi of Gitanjali Group are under probe by both the Central Bureau of Investigation and the ED. The ED had on May 24 and May 26 filed chargesheets against the two. Non-bailable warrants have also been issued against them.

The Interpol had issued a Red Corner Notice (RCN) against Nirav Modi, his brother Neeshal and sister Purvi, who are Belgian citizens, Bhansali and Aditya Nanvati (both close associates of Nirav Modi).

However, a RCN request against Choksi, who acquired Antiguan citizenship earlier this year, is pending with the Interpol.

--IANS

aks/shs/bg

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Enforcement Directorate (ED) is probing a Bihar NGO associated with the Muzaffarpur horror as it used to receive Rs 36 lakh per annum of government funds, an agency official said.

Following a thorough examination over the last two months, the ED has now launched a probe into the financial aspect of the crime that originally involved sexual assault on at least 34 girl inmates at the short stay home.

The finance probe agency is inquiring into the operations of NGO Seva Sankalp Evam Vikas Samiti which had been running the shelter home since 2013.

It has been alleged that the main accused Brajesh Thakur had managed to get his close relatives to become part of the NGO's governing body using fraudulent means.

Thakur was only a patron, not an office-bearer of the NGO.

As the investigations are underway, the NGO's accounts have been frozen and its governing body members have been directed not to dispose of any of its assets.

The organisation has also been blacklisted by the state government.

The Income Tax Department is also conducting a probe involving Thakur and his NGO to find out details of their assets and expenditure of Rs 4.5 crore granted by Bihar government in the last decade.

The sexual abuse of at least 34 of the 41 girl inmates housed at the shelter home came to light during a social audit by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai in May.

An FIR was lodged against 11 people, including Thakur, on May 31. The probe was later taken over by the Central Bureau of Investigation.

--IANS

rak/in/sed

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The European Commission and Breakthrough Energy Ventures, an investment fund led by Microsoft Corporation co-founder Bill Gates, launched on Wednesday a joint project to foster innovation in the energy sector in order to tackle climate change.

The new investment fund, Breakthrough Energy Europe (BEE), is the brainchild of Gates and European Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation Carlos Moedas, Efe news reported.

"With a capitalization of 100 million euros ($115 million), BEE will give a strong signal to markets and investors that the global transition to a modern clean economy is here to stay. With this initiative, the Commission takes action to continue leading in the fight against climate change and to deliver on the Paris Agreement," the Commission said in a statement.

"As our planet increasingly faces the unpredictable consequences of climate change and resource depletion, urgent action is needed to adapt to a more sustainable model and modernize Europe's economy and industry," it added.

Maro efcovic, Vice President of the Commission, presided the official Memorandum of Understanding for the BEE which both Gates and Moedas signed.

Gates praised the EU for leading the way for clean energy innovation and said the joint venture was bound to attract direct investment so scientists and entrepreneurs could pave the way in the fight against climate change.

Breakthrough Energy sets a goal to ensure basic standards of living are accessible to everyone on the planet without leaving a large carbon footprint in detriment of the

--IANS

soni/

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Creating gender solidarity is a step towards a better tomorrow, believes veteran actress Sharmila Tagore, who says she faced brickbats and bouquets for some of her choices which are now celebrated as game changers.

Sharmila has spoken out in support of how 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.

She said in a statement: "As a female actor in Bollywood back in the day, owing to some choices I made I was often perceived by some as a social suspect and by some as a woman ahead of her times. Both brickbats and bouquets by different sections came my way, however I stood my ground. Today my decisions have been vindicated both by my industry colleagues and viewers.

"Ironically, those choices are even celebrated as game changers. True, it is empowering to make one's own choices and continue to do what one believes in but it is even more joyful when we receive encouragement to do so rather than being questioned, put down or dissuaded. Creating gender solidarity is a positive concept and I congratulate Lux for their support to this significant movement of 'HeForShe'.

The gala will pledge solidarity of male members of the film fraternity with their female counterparts and celebrate their presence and contribution.

Sharmila's daughter-in-law Kareena Kapoor Khan, a successful actress herself, said: "According to the norms, the man is the bread earner. But if you see today, women are at the forefront too."

Actress Madhuri Dixit-Nene welcomed the initiative "which makes us stronger together as an industry and as professionals".

"We need to recognise that the magic of performances comes when both genders equally contribute with their unique sensibilities. It is unfair when credit or dues are denied on basis of gender," she said.

Launched by the UN in 2014, HeForShe, a global initiative, is an invitation for men not to be bystanders and onlookers but involve themselves as active supporters who work along with women to create a better and stronger society.

--IANS

rb/bg

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Gurugram's Additional District and Sessions Judge Krishan Kant's wife and son were shot at by the judge's security guard in a fit of fury, a senior police officer said on Wednesday.

Ritu (38) and Dhruv (18) were fired at by Haryana Police Constable Mahipal Singh (32) at the busy Arcadia market in Sector 49 here on October 13 afternoon.

Deputy Commissioners of Police Sumit Kuhar and Sulochana Gajraj officially addressed the media for the first time after the incident.

The victims had gone to shop at the market. When they returned, Mahipal Singh was not near the car.

"Upset over his absence, Ritu scolded Mahipal Singh while Dhruv asked him to hand over keys of the car. Angry over their behaviour, the guard first started beating Dhruv who was seated on the passenger seat. A few minutes later he shot at him twice," Kuhar said.

"The accused also beat up the judge's wife before shooting at her," the officer said.

Asked if the guard was harassed by the judge's family, Kuhar said the killer told the interrogators that it was a "cold-blooded attack".

The judge's wife died late that night.

The police officer said the accused was also involved in the business of running two app-based private taxis.

The arrested man's uncle Dhaan Singh alleged that police were under pressure from the judiciary to quickly resolve the case. He added that they were not allowed to meet Mahipal Singh.

Mahipal Singh will be produced in a court on Thursday.

--IANS

pradeep/mr/shs

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Singh on Wednesday received a summons from an Ahmedabad court in a defamation suit filed by the Reliance Group over his allegations of a scam in the Rafale deal.

The Ahmedabad City Civil and Sessions Court has asked Singh to "provide a written submission" before the court on October 20 in relation to the Rs 5,000-crore civil defamation suit.

Singh told IANS that he stood by what had he said, because everything that he had said until now had "turned out to be true in the past few days".

"I spoke the truth and the things that I had earlier claimed are turning out to be true. Hence, I will stand by what I had said earlier about the scam in the Rafale deal and I will not change my stance in the court," he said.

"I will keep fighting for truth in the name of 'Bharat Mata' and I will continue raising my voice against this scam," he added.

Anil Ambani's Reliance Group had filed the suit in February this year over "false, distorted and malicious insinuations" made by the Aam Aadmi Party MP in connection with the Rafale deal.

In a press briefing on February 13, Sanjay Singh had raised "suspicions" regarding the purchase of 36 Rafale fighter jets from France's Dassault in a government-to-government contract.

He had said that the Rafale deal is "the deal of scams", alleging that a contract worth Rs 22,000 crore was awarded to Anil Ambani's Reliance Defence, even though the company lacked experience in the field.

--IANS

sd/shs/sed

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Hondas Activa scooter has breached the 2-crore sales mark in India, Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India said on Wednesday.

According to the company, while it took 15 years to achieve the first one crore sales, the recent addition has come in just three years.

"Over 18 years and 5 generations, Honda 2Wheelers India continuously added value to exceed customers' expectations and making Activa the most preferred choice of Indian 2 wheeler buyers," said Minoru Kato, President and CEO, Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India.

"We are delighted that Activa partnered over 2 crore Indian families on the move in realising their dreams."

Honda Activa was launched in 2001.

--IANS

rv/prs

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh on Wednesday requested the United States to immediately lift the sanction on the import of pomegranate arils from India.

US Ambassador to India Kenneth I. Juster called on Singh on Wednesday to discuss ways to boost trade and bilateral relations in agriculture.

Singh requested Juster for immediate removal of the ban on Indian pomegranate arils, seed pods inside the fruit, assuring the US that India had made necessary improvement in the production system related to these exports.

The Ambassador assured that the legislation related to the access of Indian commodities in the US markets would be finalised expeditiously in order to enable export of Indian table grapes to the US by November this year.

--IANS

spk/shs/sed

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)An Indian national has been arrested in Nepal's Birgunj city for possessing marijuana, the police said.

Sonu Kumar Mahato hailed from Bihar and was detained on Tuesday. The confiscated cannabis was worth over Rs 45,000, the Himalayan Times reported on Wednesday.

Police officials said that the 6.5 kg marijuana was brought from Nepal's Makawanpur district and was seized while it was being transported to India.

An investigation into the case was ongoing.

--IANS

soni/

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Israel's Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Tuesday said that his country should deliver a "serious blow" to Gaza Strip's Hamas, following weeks of violence at the borders.

"We are not willing to accept the level of violence we see one week after another," Lieberman told reporters during a tour of the Israeli military's Gaza Division, Xinhua reported.

"A serious blow to Hamas could bring us at least five more years of quiet," he said.

Also on Tuesday, Israel's military said in a statement that one of its aircraft fired at a group of Palestinians in Gaza Strip after they launched helium-filled arson balloons into Israeli territory.

There were no immediate reports of injuries in the airstrike.

Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group that runs Gaza, has been holding weekly demonstration near the border fence between Israel and Gaza Strip, since March 30 to protest the 12-year blockade imposed by Israel.

Israeli forces have so far killed at least 155 Palestinians during the violent clashes with Palestinian protesters since March.

--IANS

vc/ahm/

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)More than a week after several women journalists levelled allegations of sexual harassment and molestation, former Editor M.J. Akbar on Wednesday resigned as Minister of State for External Affairs as the #MeToo movement claimed its first toll in Indian

In a brief statement announcing his resignation, Akbar said he deemed it appropriate to fight the charges against him legally in a personal capacity, only two days after defying calls for his resignation when he returned from abroad on Sunday.

The resignation came as Prime Minister Narendra Modi was under attack from the opposition for his silence on the issue. Akbar's continuance in the government appeared untenable in the face of growing accusations despite his filing a defamation suit against one of the accusers.

"Since I have decided to seek justice in a court of law in my personal capacity, I deem it appropriate to step down from office and challenge false accusations levelled against me, also in a personal capacity.

"I have, therefore, tendered my resignation from the office of Minister of State for External Affairs. I am deeply grateful to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and to External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj for the opportunity they gave to serve my country," he said.

On Sunday, after returning from a trip abroad, the Minister called the allegations levelled by about 15 women journalists, most of whom who had worked under him in the Asian Age daily, as "wild, baseless and false" and had threatened to sue them.

On Monday, he filed a defamation case against Priya Ramani, who was the first to come out against Akbar. It was followed by the accounts of travails undergone by other women journalists, including Ghazala Wahab who accused him of molestation.

The accounts continued to pour even after Akbar had filed the defamation case.

While the Congress demanded his resignation and removal, Bharatiya Janata Party leaders kept a studied silence.

On Tuesday, Congress President Rahul Gandhi made a veiled attack on Modi saying a man who gives the slogan "beti padhao, beti bachao" went silent when asked about allegations against his Minister.

The BJP had been maintaining a silence on the allegations against Akbar except a statement by party chief Amit Shah who said the charges have to be looked into.

The 67-year old Akbar, who had joined the BJP ahead of Lok Sabha elections in 2014, was inducted into the government in 2016.

--IANS

ps/vsc/mr

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)BJP MLA Manvendra Singh's switchover to the opposition Congress on Wednesday ahead of the Assembly elections in Rajasthan is a "selfish act", Assembly Deputy Speaker Rao Rajendra Singh said here.

His move to join the Congress is also an insult to thousands of BJP leaders who helped him become an MLA, Rao said.

Addressing a press conference here, Rao recalled that Manvendra Singh was suspended from the BJP in 2014 when he campaigned in favour of his father and former Union Minister Jaswant Singh, who was contesting as an independent.

The BJP leader said that veteran leader Jaswant Singh was elected as a BJP lawmaker in 1980, 1986, 1998, 1999 and 2004 and that he got a chance to represent the party in the Lok Sabha in 1990, 1991, 1996 and 2009.

He said that the BJP workers and voters should be prepared to teach a lesson to such a person who flouted party discipline.

--IANS

arc/tsb/sed

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Maoists on Tuesday called for a boycott of the Telangana Assembly elections scheduled for December 7.

In a statement sent to some media houses, Communist Party of India-Maoist called upon people not to participate in what it termed 'fake' elections and fight for a "democratic Telangana".

Issued in the name of CPI-Maoist's Telangana State Secretary Haribhushan, the statement found fault with the policies pursued by all political parties.

Alleging that the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) has not fulfilled promises made in the last Assembly elections, it said that since public resentment was growing, Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao went for early elections by dissolving the Assembly nine months before its term was to expire.

Haribhushan also slammed the Maha Kutami or Grand Alliance and the Bahujan Left Front (BLF). He said nothing could be achieved with the unity of the Congress and the Telugu Desam Party.

He said he believes that parties like the CPI and the Telangana Jana Samithi joining hands with the Congress and the TDP in the name of Maha Kutami is tantamount to mobilising votes for bourgeoisie parties.

The letter alleged that the Left parties have given up solving people's basic problems and the revolutionary movement to vie for positions of power.

The Maoist movement has considerably weakened in Telangana over the last decade. However, following the killing of a legislator and a former legislator in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh last month, security agencies have gone on high alert in Telangana.

Intelligence agencies have reportedly cautioned politicians in Telangana against possible strikes by the Maoists during the election campaign.

--IANS

ms/tsb/bg

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Centre has put on hold a decision to merge the posts of Chandigarh Police Deputy Superintendents of Police (DSP) posts with DANIPS, a Home Ministry official said on Wednesday.

"Notification of the Ministry of Home Affairs dated September 25 merging the posts of DSPs of Chandigarh Police with that of Delhi, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep, Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli Police Service (DANIPS) has been kept in abeyance till further orders," said the official.

The move came after the notification could not find much favour with the Chandigarh Police officers, who have challenged it in the Central Administrative Tribunal.

Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh and various other senior politicians from the Congress, Shiromani Akali Dal and Aam Aadmi Party have also lodged a protest against the Home Ministry's decision.

They consider the move a dilution of Punjab's claim over Chandigarh and has called it a violation of the Punjab Reorganisation Act, 1966.

The September 25 notification faced protests as it put an obligation on the Union Territory Police DSPs to go out of Chandigarh on deputation to Delhi, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep, Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli for at least three years.

Earlier, DSP-rank officers of the Chandigarh Police were not sent out of the city.

The Home Ministry has also advised the Chandigarh administration that it might be made optional for Sikh women, riding two wheeler or pillion, to wear protective head gear, as per the practice in Delhi.

The Chandigarh administration has also been advised that in filling up civil posts, the ratio of 60:40 may be used as between Punjab and Haryana, wherever it was being followed conventionally, said the official.

--IANS

rak/in/vm

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Artist Jatin Das was named on Wednesday by writer Garusha Katoch in a second allegation against the Padma Bhushan recipient, accusing him of trying to kiss her forcibly when she had interned under him in 2013.

The "renowned painter... tried to take advantage of me when I was 20. Five years too late but it is about time I speak up", Katoch tweeted referring to a December 2013 incident at Das' house.

"He leaned in and hugged me tight almost trying to kiss me. I looked away, I had tears in eyes, I am sure he saw them," said the 25-year-old.

Relating her experience with Das during her first "internship opportunity" at JD Centre of Art, where the painter is the founder-chairman, Katoch describes her daily experience as she started feeling uneasy around him.

She said in her tweets that Das everyday delayed her after her work hours while other interns left the Shahpur Jat office in south Delhi at 4.30 p.m., he would invariably make her linger on till 7 or 8 p.m. piling some job on her at the last moment.

When on Day 3, Das offered Katoch to move in with him in a spare room to save her rent, the writer said: "I felt cagey and my chest tightened. In my mind I knew it was my last day. I will quit."

He offered her a ride as it was way after her working hours, Katoch said and Uber and Ola were still not there. She said only a year had passed after the "Nirbhaya" episode and she took his offer.

But Das took a detour, she claimed, and first took her to his home in Asiad Village in Hauz Khas to show her a spare room and that's where he tried to kiss her.

He also tried to put a pair of socks on her "beautiful feet" saying "You must be so cold...I had never felt so disgusted before", she added.

Katoch panicked and did not know how to reach out to her parents who lived in Himachal Pradesh.

"So why am I speaking now? Not because I am a victim, not because I have any agenda. I am speaking now so that any woman or man going through this at workplace or beyond does not go through what I went through.

"Self-doubt, fear of the powerful figure, fear of the society or or fear of going out is not your destiny. Don't take 5 years or 10 years to speak up," she wrote.

Jatin Das could not be reached for comments.

Katoch's tweets surfaced after conservationist-entrepreneur Nisha Bora accused him of sexual harassment on Tuesday.

Das had denied the allegations and called them "ridiculous and vulgar", adding he did not know Bora.

--IANS

sj/in/sed

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A militant was apprehended after a grenade attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Pattan town on Wednesday left three policemen and a civilian injured.

Upon receiving a tip-off about the movement of militants in the area, a checkpost was set up in Pattan town of Baramulla district, police said.

When they signalled a vehicle to stop, militants hurled a grenade at the police party.

A Deputy Superintendent of Police, a constable, a special police officer and a civilian were injured in the grenade explosion.

The police chased the militants and nabbed one of them, who was identified as Faizan Majeed Bhat.

"He had joined militancy recently. His accomplice, Showkat Ahmad, managed to escape", the police said.

--IANS

sq/shs/sed

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A 16-year-old girl living in northwest Delhi alleged rape in Gurugram early this month, following which a zero FIR was registered, police said on Tuesday.

Police said that as per the girl's complaint lodged at the Sector 51 police station here, she met Ankit of Gurugram through a common woman friend last month.

"He invited me to Gurugram on October 8, took me to a hotel and raped me several times after making me consume a cold drink spiked with a sedative" the teenager said.

"The accused warned me not to disclose the crime to anyone and threatened me with dire consequences otherwise", she said.

The girl said that she was not aware of his residential address and even his mobile phone was switched off since the sexual assault.

--IANS

pradeep/tsb/bg

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Username: Password: or Register

Back to

Forum

Reply to

This post

Post New

Thread Thread Rating: 1 Vote(s) - 1 Average

1

2

3

4

5

Page: 1 2 For almost 8 decades USA has been warring with the world for israel LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 468376

10-17-2018 11:18 AM











Post: #1 For almost 8 decades USA has been warring with the world for israel

Advertisement millions upon millions sacrificed to betrayers LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 468195

10-17-2018 11:32 AM











Post: #2 RE: For almost 8 decades USA has been warring with the world for israel

No it hasn't.. in the mid 1950s the US threatened to destroy Britain/France for supporting Israel, it also threatened to impose heavy sanctions on Israel..



The US was willing to send to a fleet to sink British merchant vessels in the Med if the UK did not pull back from attacking it's ally, Egypt...



The US was willing to destroy the UK to protect a Muslim country, and while the world changes and turns you can not completely erase what has already happened..



The US wanted a NATO style organisation in the ME centered around the strongest nation which was Egpyt.. the organisation was to be MEDO.. however it's ally was also supporting the uprising against France in Algeria... so the lines where pretty much drawn, the US was intent on kicking out the older powers and placing itself in their stead..



The pretense that it's all Israel is quite amusing, more like the US using it as a stepping stone for the ME... much in the same way the Eisenhower Doctrine was used to expel Britain and France from the region...



But things always turn.... and we are in an age where they seem to be turning yet again... quite fascinating to watch... though at the same time worrisome that it might all end in tears and a glowing planet limping through the Universe.. LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 468378

10-17-2018 11:33 AM











Post: #3 RE: For almost 8 decades USA has been warring with the world for israel

Millions of people and trillions of dollars for Soviet colony called Israel. LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 468378

10-17-2018 11:36 AM











Post: #4 RE: For almost 8 decades USA has been warring with the world for israel

LoP Guest Wrote: (10-17-2018 11:32 AM) No it hasn't.. in the mid 1950s the US threatened to destroy Britain/France for supporting Israel, it also threatened to impose heavy sanctions on Israel..



The US was willing to send to a fleet to sink British merchant vessels in the Med if the UK did not pull back from attacking it's ally, Egypt...



The US was willing to destroy the UK to protect a Muslim country, and while the world changes and turns you can not completely erase what has already happened..



The US wanted a NATO style organisation in the ME centered around the strongest nation which was Egpyt.. the organisation was to be MEDO.. however it's ally was also supporting the uprising against France in Algeria... so the lines where pretty much drawn, the US was intent on kicking out the older powers and placing itself in their stead..



The pretense that it's all Israel is quite amusing, more like the US using it as a stepping stone for the ME... much in the same way the Eisenhower Doctrine was used to expel Britain and France from the region...



But things always turn.... and we are in an age where they seem to be turning yet again... quite fascinating to watch... though at the same time worrisome that it might all end in tears and a glowing planet limping through the Universe..

The British were responsible for the Russian MiG jets that appeared in the skies of Korea. The British are imperial scum. Eisenhower should have nuked their asses along with the Soviet colony. The British were responsible for the Russian MiG jets that appeared in the skies of Korea. The British are imperial scum. Eisenhower should have nuked their asses along with the Soviet colony. LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 468380

10-17-2018 11:45 AM











Post: #5 RE: For almost 8 decades USA has been warring with the world for israel

LoP Guest Wrote: (10-17-2018 11:32 AM) No it hasn't.. in the mid 1950s the US threatened to destroy Britain/France for supporting Israel, it also threatened to impose heavy sanctions on Israel..



The US was willing to send to a fleet to sink British merchant vessels in the Med if the UK did not pull back from attacking it's ally, Egypt...



The US was willing to destroy the UK to protect a Muslim country, and while the world changes and turns you can not completely erase what has already happened..



The US wanted a NATO style organisation in the ME centered around the strongest nation which was Egpyt.. the organisation was to be MEDO.. however it's ally was also supporting the uprising against France in Algeria... so the lines where pretty much drawn, the US was intent on kicking out the older powers and placing itself in their stead..



The pretense that it's all Israel is quite amusing, more like the US using it as a stepping stone for the ME... much in the same way the Eisenhower Doctrine was used to expel Britain and France from the region...



But things always turn.... and we are in an age where they seem to be turning yet again... quite fascinating to watch... though at the same time worrisome that it might all end in tears and a glowing planet limping through the Universe..

Is this the samson threat? Go ahead. You are the ones who love the things of the material world.



Your history is bad.

Who were the ones inciting the separatist, "democracy" movements that became disastrous bloodbaths for these places? But so much easier to get in and make a little business and then yell antisemitism when you get caught.



The m.e. was a fascinating place before you moved in and got to wag the dog.

Now it's in ruins.

Just like the u.s. cities and beyond.

You guys hate border controls, it's antisemitic not to allow you to run from the damage you cause.

You see stasis as the enemy because it does not allow you to grab the controls. But with you there is no progress. Just death and bad money. Is this the samson threat? Go ahead. You are the ones who love the things of the material world.Your history is bad.Who were the ones inciting the separatist, "democracy" movements that became disastrous bloodbaths for these places? But so much easier to get in and make a little business and then yell antisemitism when you get caught.The m.e. was a fascinating place before you moved in and got to wag the dog.Now it's in ruins.Just like the u.s. cities and beyond.You guys hate border controls, it's antisemitic not to allow you to run from the damage you cause.You see stasis as the enemy because it does not allow you to grab the controls. But with you there is no progress. Just death and bad money. LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 468342

10-17-2018 11:53 AM











Post: #6 RE: For almost 8 decades USA has been warring with the world for israel

We need to cut ties with that shithole LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 468195

10-17-2018 12:01 PM











Post: #7 RE: For almost 8 decades USA has been warring with the world for israel

LoP Guest Wrote: (10-17-2018 11:45 AM) LoP Guest Wrote: (10-17-2018 11:32 AM) No it hasn't.. in the mid 1950s the US threatened to destroy Britain/France for supporting Israel, it also threatened to impose heavy sanctions on Israel..



The US was willing to send to a fleet to sink British merchant vessels in the Med if the UK did not pull back from attacking it's ally, Egypt...



The US was willing to destroy the UK to protect a Muslim country, and while the world changes and turns you can not completely erase what has already happened..



The US wanted a NATO style organisation in the ME centered around the strongest nation which was Egpyt.. the organisation was to be MEDO.. however it's ally was also supporting the uprising against France in Algeria... so the lines where pretty much drawn, the US was intent on kicking out the older powers and placing itself in their stead..



The pretense that it's all Israel is quite amusing, more like the US using it as a stepping stone for the ME... much in the same way the Eisenhower Doctrine was used to expel Britain and France from the region...



But things always turn.... and we are in an age where they seem to be turning yet again... quite fascinating to watch... though at the same time worrisome that it might all end in tears and a glowing planet limping through the Universe..

Is this the samson threat? Go ahead. You are the ones who love the things of the material world.



Your history is bad.

Who were the ones inciting the separatist, "democracy" movements that became disastrous bloodbaths for these places? But so much easier to get in and make a little business and then yell antisemitism when you get caught.



The m.e. was a fascinating place before you moved in and got to wag the dog.

Now it's in ruins.

Just like the u.s. cities and beyond.

You guys hate border controls, it's antisemitic not to allow you to run from the damage you cause.

You see stasis as the enemy because it does not allow you to grab the controls. But with you there is no progress. Just death and bad money.

What planet are you from? I mean seriously, read some history of the ME, and the US, Britain, France, Russia etc etc... you know, it's out there in lots of different biases and flavours...



That Israel is a stepping stone into the ME for the US seems pretty obvious to many who read across the spectrum of views on the topic to define their own views of the world...



The US is as much an imperial force as any other nation, they are all champing at the bit to replace the US or getting a bigger slice of the cake, as it was and as it will always be, the US is no paragon of virtue but then no one is...



I certainly can't call the US out on that as my own country has done exactly the same thing and probably would again given half the chance... it's the way of the world..



The whole American line that it is always, always someone elses fault just wears really thin after a while....



The US did what all empires do, it put a lot of effort into kicking out the old powers and sitting itself in the top seat.... you don't get that kind of power, the kind the US still has by being some nice guy, or holding onto some moral highground, it simply does not exist at that level.. and that applies to the Romans, the Spanish, the French, the British etc...



You can not write a history that claims the US has done something for x number of years and be really specific in the number and not be called out when it is wrong... and it is, at the time the US was very much opposed to Israel/Britain/France, however it shifted it stance once it got Britain/France out of the way..



Pretending it is otherwise is amusing.. What planet are you from? I mean seriously, read some history of the ME, and the US, Britain, France, Russia etc etc... you know, it's out there in lots of different biases and flavours...That Israel is a stepping stone into the ME for the US seems pretty obvious to many who read across the spectrum of views on the topic to define their own views of the world...The US is as much an imperial force as any other nation, they are all champing at the bit to replace the US or getting a bigger slice of the cake, as it was and as it will always be, the US is no paragon of virtue but then no one is...I certainly can't call the US out on that as my own country has done exactly the same thing and probably would again given half the chance... it's the way of the world..The whole American line that it is always, always someone elses fault just wears really thin after a while....The US did what all empires do, it put a lot of effort into kicking out the old powers and sitting itself in the top seat.... you don't get that kind of power, the kind the US still has by being some nice guy, or holding onto some moral highground, it simply does not exist at that level.. and that applies to the Romans, the Spanish, the French, the British etc...You can not write a history that claims the US has done something for x number of years and be really specific in the number and not be called out when it is wrong... and it is, at the time the US was very much opposed to Israel/Britain/France, however it shifted it stance once it got Britain/France out of the way..Pretending it is otherwise is amusing.. LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 468342

10-17-2018 12:03 PM











Post: #8 RE: For almost 8 decades USA has been warring with the world for israel

LoP Guest Wrote: (10-17-2018 12:01 PM) LoP Guest Wrote: (10-17-2018 11:45 AM) Is this the samson threat? Go ahead. You are the ones who love the things of the material world.



Your history is bad.

Who were the ones inciting the separatist, "democracy" movements that became disastrous bloodbaths for these places? But so much easier to get in and make a little business and then yell antisemitism when you get caught.



The m.e. was a fascinating place before you moved in and got to wag the dog.

Now it's in ruins.

Just like the u.s. cities and beyond.

You guys hate border controls, it's antisemitic not to allow you to run from the damage you cause.

You see stasis as the enemy because it does not allow you to grab the controls. But with you there is no progress. Just death and bad money.

What planet are you from? I mean seriously, read some history of the ME, and the US, Britain, France, Russia etc etc... you know, it's out there in lots of different biases and flavours...



That Israel is a stepping stone into the ME for the US seems pretty obvious to many who read across the spectrum of views on the topic to define their own views of the world...



The US is as much an imperial force as any other nation, they are all champing at the bit to replace the US or getting a bigger slice of the cake, as it was and as it will always be, the US is no paragon of virtue but then no one is...



I certainly can't call the US out on that as my own country has done exactly the same thing and probably would again given half the chance... it's the way of the world..



The whole American line that it is always, always someone elses fault just wears really thin after a while....



The US did what all empires do, it put a lot of effort into kicking out the old powers and sitting itself in the top seat.... you don't get that kind of power, the kind the US still has by being some nice guy, or holding onto some moral highground, it simply does not exist at that level.. and that applies to the Romans, the Spanish, the French, the British etc...



You can not write a history that claims the US has done something for x number of years and be really specific in the number and not be called out when it is wrong... and it is, at the time the US was very much opposed to Israel/Britain/France, however it shifted it stance once it got Britain/France out of the way..



Pretending it is otherwise is amusing..

You're an idiot. Turkey is the stepping stone for the ME. Learn some geography fucktard You're an idiot. Turkey is the stepping stone for the ME. Learn some geography fucktard LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 468380

10-17-2018 12:12 PM











Post: #9 RE: For almost 8 decades USA has been warring with the world for israel

LoP Guest Wrote: (10-17-2018 12:01 PM) LoP Guest Wrote: (10-17-2018 11:45 AM) Is this the samson threat? Go ahead. You are the ones who love the things of the material world.



Your history is bad.

Who were the ones inciting the separatist, "democracy" movements that became disastrous bloodbaths for these places? But so much easier to get in and make a little business and then yell antisemitism when you get caught.



The m.e. was a fascinating place before you moved in and got to wag the dog.

Now it's in ruins.

Just like the u.s. cities and beyond.

You guys hate border controls, it's antisemitic not to allow you to run from the damage you cause.

You see stasis as the enemy because it does not allow you to grab the controls. But with you there is no progress. Just death and bad money.

What planet are you from? I mean seriously, read some history of the ME, and the US, Britain, France, Russia etc etc... you know, it's out there in lots of different biases and flavours...



That Israel is a stepping stone into the ME for the US seems pretty obvious to many who read across the spectrum of views on the topic to define their own views of the world...



The US is as much an imperial force as any other nation, they are all champing at the bit to replace the US or getting a bigger slice of the cake, as it was and as it will always be, the US is no paragon of virtue but then no one is...



I certainly can't call the US out on that as my own country has done exactly the same thing and probably would again given half the chance... it's the way of the world..



The whole American line that it is always, always someone elses fault just wears really thin after a while....



The US did what all empires do, it put a lot of effort into kicking out the old powers and sitting itself in the top seat.... you don't get that kind of power, the kind the US still has by being some nice guy, or holding onto some moral highground, it simply does not exist at that level.. and that applies to the Romans, the Spanish, the French, the British etc...



You can not write a history that claims the US has done something for x number of years and be really specific in the number and not be called out when it is wrong... and it is, at the time the US was very much opposed to Israel/Britain/France, however it shifted it stance once it got Britain/France out of the way..



Pretending it is otherwise is amusing..

What are you talking about?

The u.s. took over because europe was exhausted after two stupid world wars that the u.s. should have stayed away from.

How's your alliance with china?

We know that you serve empire, any empire.

We just now hope that everyone is on to you and your murderous frauds. What are you talking about?The u.s. took over because europe was exhausted after two stupid world wars that the u.s. should have stayed away from.How's your alliance with china?We know that you serve empire, any empire.We just now hope that everyone is on to you and your murderous frauds. LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 468383

10-17-2018 12:13 PM











Post: #10 RE: For almost 8 decades USA has been warring with the world for israel

LoP Guest Wrote: (10-17-2018 11:32 AM) No it hasn't.. in the mid 1950s the US threatened to destroy Britain/France for supporting Israel, it also threatened to impose heavy sanctions on Israel..



The US was willing to send to a fleet to sink British merchant vessels in the Med if the UK did not pull back from attacking it's ally, Egypt...



The US was willing to destroy the UK to protect a Muslim country, and while the world changes and turns you can not completely erase what has already happened..



The US wanted a NATO style organisation in the ME centered around the strongest nation which was Egpyt.. the organisation was to be MEDO.. however it's ally was also supporting the uprising against France in Algeria... so the lines where pretty much drawn, the US was intent on kicking out the older powers and placing itself in their stead..



The pretense that it's all Israel is quite amusing, more like the US using it as a stepping stone for the ME... much in the same way the Eisenhower Doctrine was used to expel Britain and France from the region...



But things always turn.... and we are in an age where they seem to be turning yet again... quite fascinating to watch... though at the same time worrisome that it might all end in tears and a glowing planet limping through the Universe..

Stfu...non stop war and conflict with dozens of nation, groups and countless individuals since ww1 if you want to be real about it...then there's the aid, the allowance of defiling our constitution so no one may utter a bad word about them.

we are Israel's little bit*h just ask netenyahu... Stfu...non stop war and conflict with dozens of nation, groups and countless individuals since ww1 if you want to be real about it...then there's the aid, the allowance of defiling our constitution so no one may utter a bad word about them.we are Israel's little bit*h just ask netenyahu... LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 468383

10-17-2018 12:15 PM











Post: #11 RE: For almost 8 decades USA has been warring with the world for israel

LoP Guest Wrote: (10-17-2018 12:13 PM) LoP Guest Wrote: (10-17-2018 11:32 AM) No it hasn't.. in the mid 1950s the US threatened to destroy Britain/France for supporting Israel, it also threatened to impose heavy sanctions on Israel..



The US was willing to send to a fleet to sink British merchant vessels in the Med if the UK did not pull back from attacking it's ally, Egypt...



The US was willing to destroy the UK to protect a Muslim country, and while the world changes and turns you can not completely erase what has already happened..



The US wanted a NATO style organisation in the ME centered around the strongest nation which was Egpyt.. the organisation was to be MEDO.. however it's ally was also supporting the uprising against France in Algeria... so the lines where pretty much drawn, the US was intent on kicking out the older powers and placing itself in their stead..



The pretense that it's all Israel is quite amusing, more like the US using it as a stepping stone for the ME... much in the same way the Eisenhower Doctrine was used to expel Britain and France from the region...



But things always turn.... and we are in an age where they seem to be turning yet again... quite fascinating to watch... though at the same time worrisome that it might all end in tears and a glowing planet limping through the Universe..

Stfu...non stop war and conflict with dozens of nation, groups and countless individuals since ww1 if you want to be real about it...then there's the aid, the allowance of defiling our constitution so no one may utter a bad word about them.

we are Israel's little bit*h just ask netenyahu...

I should clarify..I use the word israel because no other is accurate to describe the NATION...which is the synagogue of Satan...the real Israel, that is the people are to be defended in the way usa has been doing for the pretenders I should clarify..I use the word israel because no other is accurate to describe the NATION...which is the synagogue of Satan...the real Israel, that is the people are to be defended in the way usa has been doing for the pretenders spo snouou

Vocem sine nomine audivit!

User ID: 350320

10-17-2018 12:31 PM



Posts: 67,593









Post: #12 RE: For almost 8 decades USA has been warring with the world for israel

LoP Guest Wrote: (10-17-2018 11:32 AM) No it hasn't.. in the mid 1950s the US threatened to destroy Britain/France for supporting Israel, it also threatened to impose heavy sanctions on Israel..



The US was willing to send to a fleet to sink British merchant vessels in the Med if the UK did not pull back from attacking it's ally, Egypt...

sounds rather specific.. how about some links ? sounds rather specific.. how about some links ? LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 468195

10-17-2018 12:50 PM











Post: #13 RE: For almost 8 decades USA has been warring with the world for israel

spo snouou Wrote: (10-17-2018 12:31 PM) LoP Guest Wrote: (10-17-2018 11:32 AM) No it hasn't.. in the mid 1950s the US threatened to destroy Britain/France for supporting Israel, it also threatened to impose heavy sanctions on Israel..



The US was willing to send to a fleet to sink British merchant vessels in the Med if the UK did not pull back from attacking it's ally, Egypt...

sounds rather specific.. how about some links ?

You mean the Suez crisis wasn't specific????? I mean, end of an empire and all that, kept the French out of NATO etc.... The Russians threatening to nuke the West, the US threatening to destroy Britain etc etc.... pretty interesting topic.. and you being an Aussie when the Aussies fully supported Operation Musketeer...



My point remains that the OP was framing a time period which includes a timeframe where Israel was one of the 3 musketeers (Operation Musketeer) and in opposition to the US and Russia...



Isn't this why we have history books, be they American, British, French, Russian etc so we can get some balanced views on history by reading across the board and making informed decisions in terms of certain conspiracies, and this is one conspiracy that set Britain/France/Israel against the US and Russia... You mean the Suez crisis wasn't specific????? I mean, end of an empire and all that, kept the French out of NATO etc.... The Russians threatening to nuke the West, the US threatening to destroy Britain etc etc.... pretty interesting topic.. and you being an Aussie when the Aussies fully supported Operation Musketeer...My point remains that the OP was framing a time period which includes a timeframe where Israel was one of the 3 musketeers (Operation Musketeer) and in opposition to the US and Russia...Isn't this why we have history books, be they American, British, French, Russian etc so we can get some balanced views on history by reading across the board and making informed decisions in terms of certain conspiracies, and this is one conspiracy that set Britain/France/Israel against the US and Russia... LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 468342

10-17-2018 12:51 PM











Post: #14 RE: For almost 8 decades USA has been warring with the world for israel

Israel is not our ally.



Take a guess at which country has been caught committing espionage against the USA more than any other country. LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 438538

10-17-2018 01:42 PM











Post: #15 RE: For almost 8 decades USA has been warring with the world for israel

LoP Guest Wrote: (10-17-2018 11:53 AM) We need to cut ties with that shithole

Advertisement



Back to

Forum

Reply to

This post

Post New

Thread















A Delhi Court on Wednesday issued a non-bailable warrant against a former BSP MP's son, who is absconding after a case was registered against him for threatening a man with a gun at a luxury hotel here.

The Patiala House Court issued the NBW on a plea of Delhi Police, which continued its operations in coordination with the Uttar Pradesh Police to nab Ashish Pandey, the son of former Bahujan Samaj Party MP and MLA Rakesh Pandey.

The warrant was issued a day after a First Information Report was lodged against him for whipping out a pistol during a scuffle with another man and his woman friend at Hyatt Regency in south Delhi early on Sunday.

The Delhi Police told the court that a team was dispatched to his residential address in Lucknow, but he could not be found.

He had absconded and was deliberately evading the process of law, the police said in its plea.

According to the police, his mobile telephone's signals were last picked up in Uttar Pradesh's Basti district bordering Nepal. The police fear he could escape to the Himalayan nation.

--IANS

akk-md-mg/shs/sed

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Kerala Police chief Loknath Behra on Wednesday said no one will be stopped from going to Sabarimala as the chief priest of the Lord Ayyappa temple announced that women from the royal and tantri families will take part in the prayers.

"There is a very strong police presence in and around Sabarimala," Behra told the media here as a police force of over 1,000 personnel took position in Nilackal and Pamba -- the foothills of the famed Lord Ayyappa temple.

"None would be stopped nor would anyone be allowed to take law into their hands. Sabarimala is safe and anyone can come and pray," the police chief added.

Activist and tantri family member Rahul Eashwar, who is leading the protest, was called up by Additional Director General of Police Anil Kanth earlier in the day.

Kanth told Eashwar that they should see to it that laws were not broken.

"We told the officer that we are not here to create any issues. All that we are doing is sit and pray. Senior members, including women from the royal and tantri families will be taking part in our prayer sessions, which will start very soon at Nilackal," said Eashwar.

Wednesday, is going to be a crucial day for the temple, as at 5 p.m, the doors of the temple would be opened for the monthly pujas which would end on October 22.

This is the first time that the temple would be opening after the Supreme Court's September 28 verdict allowing women in the 10-50 age group to enter the famed temple.

Barring the ruling Left government-led by Pinarayi Vijayan, the Congress, BJP and numerous Hindu organisations are on a war path warning of strong protests if any temple traditions were broken.

Early on Wednesday, police officers chased away a group of protesters who were holding fort at Nilackal and were stopping and checking vehicles, for any women in the age group between 10 and 50.

Inspector General of Police Manoj Abraham, who is in charge of security, told the media at Nilackal that the police is fully geared to face any eventualities.

"By now itself we have registered three cases and seven people have been arrested. We are unable to say if there would be any issues... None will be stopped anywhere and those who want to come can come," said Abraham.

Those who are opposed to breaking the century old traditions of the temple include the Pandalam Royal family, the tantri family of Sabarimala temple and numerous Hindu organisations.

The custodian of the temple is the Travancore Devasom Board (TDB), which is presently led by senior CPI-M leader A.Padmakumar.

Former Congress legislator and previous TDB president Prayar Gopalakrishnan said that this temple is adored by lakhs of devotees around the world and it was not protest that they were doing.

"Instead we are showing extreme patience to see that the traditions of the temple is protected. We, the believers, are attached to no political parties and our only concern is that traditions should be protected and I will go to any extent, even laying down my life for it," said Gopalakrishnan.

Earlier, the protesters stopped two women state government health officials who had come to take part in a routine meeting at the temple.

The women both medical doctors were allowed to go in only after they showed proof that they were above age 50.

Protesters also shooed away a few women police constables who were trying to go to areas of the temple town, which are out of bounds for women in the age group 10 to 50.

CPI-M legislator Raju Abraham under whose constituency the Sabarimala temple comes said that all wish and want there should be nothing that disturbs the peace of the temple town.

Firebrand senior BJP women leader Shoba Surendran said it was Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's ploy to post Abraham here.

"We warn the officials that they should not try to create problems and we express our strong resentment in the way our people who are protecting the rights of the temple was chased away by the police. We women will not sit idle," said Surendran to the media at Nilackal.

Six time independent legislator P.C.George, under whose constituency Poonjar lies, which is nearby to the temple town said that he will see that no traditions of the temple is broken.

--IANS

sg/in/mr

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Police from Delhi and Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday continued to hunt for the son of a former BSP MP who threatened a man with a gun at a luxury hotel in Delhi, officials said.

A police officer said that Ashish Pandey's mobile telephone's signals were last picked up in Uttar Pradesh's Basti district bordering Nepal.

The telephone now appeared to be switched off, the officer said.

On Tuesday, authorities alerted airports and Delhi Police personnel reached Lucknow in search of Pandey who whipped out his pistol during a scuffle with another man and his woman friend at Hyatt Regency in south Delhi early on Sunday.

Police fear that Pandey could sneak into Nepal.

Three Delhi Police teams were in Uttar Pradesh and looking for Pandey with the help of Uttar Pradesh Police, an officer told IANS in Delhi.

Pandey is the son of former Bahujan Samaj Party MLA and MP Rakesh Pandey.

--IANS

md/shs/mr

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A Jammu and Kashmir policeman and three militants were killed in a gunfight in old city area of Srinagar on Wednesday, police said.

The four died in the gun battle that erupted between holed up militants and the security forces in Fateh Kadal area after information about militant presence was received.

Three Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) troopers were also injured as the holed up militants fired upon approaching personnel triggering the encounter.

The policeman killed was identified as Kamal belonging to Reasi district of Jammu region.

The identity of the slain militants was yet to be established, a police officer said. One of the slain might be the son of the house owner where the militants were hiding.

Reports said Mehraj Bangroo, a wanted militant belonging to Fateh Kadal could also be among those killed.

All schools and colleges in the area have been closed as a precautionary measure. Mobile Internet services have also been suspended.

--IANS

sq/in

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A bomb ripped through the campaign office of a leading parliamentary candidate in Afghanistan's Helmand province on Wednesday, killing him and injuring eight others, the police said.

The blast took place at around 10 a.m. when (candidate) Abdul Jabar Qahraman and some of his supporters were inside his office in the provincial capital Lashkar Gah, a police official told Xinhua news agency.

Omar Zawak, the spokesman for Helmand provincial government, said that Qahraman succumbed to his wounds after receiving critical injuries.

Three suspects were arrested and an investigation was underway, officials said.

The murder of Qahraman brought to 10 the number of killed parliamentary candidates in militants attacks since the beginning of election campaigns on September 28 in the insurgency-plagued country.

More than 2,500 candidates are contesting for the 249 seats in the Afghan Parliament, with the October 20 elections denounced by insurgents as a "false" process that aims at legitimizing the presence of foreign troops in country.

--IANS

soni/

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)US Secretary of State held talks with Turkish President here on Wednesday following his trip to Saudi Arabia to discuss the case of journalist who disappeared two weeks ago after entering his country's consulate in Istanbul.

The meeting in Ankara came following the Turkish and the US media reports that Khashoggi was killed minutes after he arrived at the building for paperwork on October 2. The reports cited the Turkish officials as saying that there were audio recordings proving he was beaten and drugged, then brutally killed and dismembered.

Erdogan received Pompeo at Ankara's Esenboga Airport in the morning and later Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said the meeting between the President and the top US official had been "beneficial and fruitful", the BBC reported.



Before Turkey, Pompeo was in Saudi Arabia for talks with King Salman, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir. He said Saudi Arabia's leaders "strongly denied" involvement in the journalist's disappearance.

Saudi's leadership told Pompeo it was committed to a full and transparent inquiry into Khashoggi's disappearance.

Khashoggi was a permanent resident of the US in self-imposed exile who penned a column in the Washington Post and was a fierce critic of Riyadh's human rights violations and of the Crown Prince's policies.Preparations to hold free and fair elections to the Mizoram state Assembly are satisfactory, Chief Election Commissioner Om Prakash Rawat said here on Wednesday.

"Mizoram has always had an excellent record of holding free and fair elections. In the upcoming Assembly election, the state would once again establish its record of free and fair polls," Rawat told reporters before leaving for New Delhi after a two-day visit to the mountainous state.

Mizoram goes to the polls on November 28 to constitute the 40-member Assembly. In the outgoing Assembly, the Congress has 34 members.

Rawat, who was accompanied by Election Commissioners Sunil Arora and Ashok Lavasa, complimented the District Magistrates, who are also the District Electoral Officers, for the poll preparations. "Their meticulous preparations would help in conducting a smooth and fair election."

"Concerns and views expressed by political parties, civil societies and officials over the Reang tribal voters sheltered in six Tripura relief camps, reliability of Electronic Voting Machines, and ceiling limits on election expenditure were heard," he said.

These concerns would be addressed appropriately, Rawat added.

The single-phase election will be held on November 28. The statutory notification would be issued on November 2 and the last date for filing nominations is November 9.

As many as 768,181 people out of a total population of 10,91,014 are eligible to cast their votes.

Women once again outnumber men in Mizoram's electoral rolls. Of the total electorate, 393,685 are women and 374,496 men.

--IANS

sc/shs/bg

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Protesters opposed to the entry of women in the 10-50 age group to the Sabarimala temple clashed with police and heckled women journalists as the pilgrimage season opened on Wednesday, with no woman in that group making it to the hill shrine despite police assurances.

Shortly before the famed temple opened at 5 p.m., the authorities decided to clamp prohibitory orders in a 30-sq km area of the temple town on Thursday -- to prevent the kind of street protests seen on Wednesday.

The temple opened for the first time after the September 28 Supreme Court ruling allowing entry of women aged between 10 and 50. In no time, frenzied male and female crowds took over the roads leading to the temple to block women in that age group.

Pathanamthitta District Collector P.B. Nooh said Section 144 will be enforced in view of the "widespread protests of today".

Minister for Devasoms Kadakampally Surendran, who was at the temple town overseeing the arrangements for the temple opening, asked the BJP and RSS protesters to desist from creating trouble.

"The Sabarimala issue should not be allowed to flare up. The government has no other option but to ensure that the apex court's directive is implemented," he told the media.

But contrary to expectations, no woman aged 10 to 50 was able to make it to the temple, which will remain open for five days.

There was a sit-in protest near the hallowed 18 steps leading to the sanctum santorum, with a banner reading that the traditions of the temple should be maintained.

Traditionalists opposed to the entry of women forcibly turned back a woman from Andhra Pradesh and another who tried to make it to the temple.

During the day, demonstrators clashed on four occasions at Nilackal and Pamba with the police, leaving some protesters and police personnel injured. More than a dozen protesters were arrested.

Similar protests in and around the temple town forced a 45-year-old woman from Andhra Pradesh and her family to abandon their trip to the Ayyappa temple.

As angry protesters went after her, shouting and abusing, Madhavi decided to return.

Another woman devotee, Liby, who got down at the Pathanamthitta bus stand and was to board a bus to Nilackal, faced a mob and was taken to a police station for safety.

The police also detained members of the Pandalam Royal and Sabarimala temple Tantri families, including women, taking part in a protest. Their arrests triggered more protests.

On Wednesday morning, Kerala Police chief Loknath Behra said there was a very strong police presence in and around Sabarimala.

"None will be stopped nor will anyone be allowed to take law into their hands. Anyone can come and pray," he added. But it did not happen that way.

Barring the Left government, the Congress, BJP and Hindu organisations are on a war path against the apex court ruling.

Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala said the issue in Sabarimala was not one of gender equality.

"The CPI-M-led government has not even cared to file a review petition while the BJP and RSS are out to create problems. Here the issue is of faith and traditions," he said.

Earlier, police chased away a group of protesters at Nilackal who were stopping and checking vehicles to see if they had women in the 10-50 age group.

Inspector General of Police Manoj Abraham said the police had registered three cases and seven people had been arrested.

The protesters also stopped two women government health officials who were heading for a routine meeting at the temple. They were allowed to go in only after they showed proof that they were aged above 50.

Protesters also shooed away a few women police constables who were trying to go to the temple town.

Some female reporters working for the electronic media were injured when the protesters turned their ire on the journalists. Later, journalists working for Malayalam TV channels also came under attack.

--IANS

sg/mr/shs

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Italy's Valentino Rossi and other MotoGP riders discussed the connection between a motorcycle and a piano during a promotional event organized by Yamaha here on Wednesday.

Rossi, Spain's Maverick Vinales, France's Johann Zarco, Malaysia's Hafizh Syahrin and Japan's Katsuyuki Nakasuga took part in the event, equally renowned for its motorbikes as for its pianos, reports Efe.

"You try to find the contact with the bike, I think that more or less happens with the piano. And this is important to be able to take the maximum from the instrument," Rossi said.

The musical theme "Great Time" by Luxembourg composer Francesco Tristano was also presented at the event, which took place ahead of the Japanese Grand Prix at the Motegi Twin Ring circuit on Sunday.

Tristano, who discussed the similarities between the world of music and racing, said that the theme was inspired by a MotoGP race he had attended.

"I felt very familiar with many aspects of the preparation and the teamwork involved in an event like this. It was very intense especially, in the box. On the grid was something, but in the box was something very unique. Something I could relate to, just before the performance," Tristano said.

The Japanese MotoGP Grand Prix will take place on Sunday.

--IANS

gau/bg

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Strong protests by Sabarimala traditionalists on Wednesday forced a 40-year-old Andhra woman and her family to abandon their trip to the Lord Ayyappa temple.

Madhavi accompanied by her parents and children began their Pamba climb on the Swami Ayyapan road leading to the hilltop temple hours ahead of its opening for the monthly puja rituals.

Ten minutes into their trek, accompanied by a strong police force, the family had to abandon their plans of praying to the Lord Ayyappa inside the temple premises accompanied by Madhavi, who is in the prohibited age group of 10-50.

The protesters had put every impediment on her way, but Madhavi was able to break the barriers at Nilackal and Pamba accompanied by police as she trekked higher.

Police officers climbing along assured her that they would be with her if she wished to proceed and she could go forward.

However, angry protesters were unrelenting. They went after her. Unable to bear the anger Madhavi decided to return.

Wednesday, is crucial for the Kerala government as it pitches to implement the September 28 Supreme Court verdict allowing all women irrespective of their ages to pray at Sabarimala.

The doors of the temple that would be opened at 5 p.m. would remain open till October 22. This is the first time that the temple would be opening after the apex court's verdict.

Barring the ruling Left government-led by Pinarayi Vijayan, the Congress, BJP and numerous Hindu organisations are on a war path warning of strong consequences if any temple traditions were broken.

The hardcore devotees of the temple are observing their protests at a few places at Nilackal and are engaged in chanting songs and prayers and it includes representatives from the Pandalam royal family members and also the temple tantri families.

In a related development, a young woman Liby bound to pray at the temple clad in jeans was stopped at the Pathanamthitta bus stand by angry devotees.

"Is this the way a lady should go to the temple. She claims to have observed the penance but if you look at the beads of the customary Sabarimala necklace, it's very clear that she has worn it today or yesterday. This is not acceptable to us and she won't be allowed to go," said angry a group of angry women protesters.

Liby hailing from Alappuzha is being protected by a group of police officials.

"We will not allow the bus that she boards to go to Sabarimala to move from here. We will burn the bus and are ready to face any consequences," said a young man at the bus stand.

Following the protest, the police took her to the nearby police station.

--IANS

sg/in

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Rome, Oct 17 (IANS/AKI) Hardline Interior Minister Matteo Salvini on Wednesday continued his criticism of the alleged drop-off of two African migrants by French police in the northwest border town Claviere, claiming he would be "under investigation by half of Italy's prosecutors" for doing far less.

"The French government has apologized, claiming the police officers who accompanied these migrants were new to the job and did not know the area," Salvini told Radio Rai2 public radio.

"If I had done half of all this, I would be under investigation by half of Italy's prosecutors," Salvini added.

Prosecutors in Turin said on Wednesday they had opened an European judicial probe into "unknown persons for the transport of foreigners aimed at their illegal entry into Italy" over the incident in Claviere on Friday which was witnessed by several people who noted the police van's number-plate.

Salvini on Wednesday called the reported drop-off of the two migrants in a wooded area by two French paramilitary gendarme police - whose van then allegedly drove back across the border at high speed - "an unprecedented affront to our country" and "an international disgrace".

"What happened in Claviere was an unprecedented affront to our country," Salvini wrote on Facebook. We are facing an international disgrace, and (French President Emmanuel) Macron cannot pretend nothing has happened..

"Dont' international organisations, from the UN to the Europe Union, find it sickening to dump people in an isolated area without assistance or warning?," the post added.

Tensions between France and Italy have risen in recent months as Rome has accused Paris of hypocrisy by refusing to take in "a fair share" of more than 700,000 migrants who have reached Italy by boat since 2014.

Italy in March protested to France over a incident in which French border police entered a clinic in the border town of Bardonecchia run by a NGO that cares for migrants trying to cross the Alps, the Foreign Ministry said. Italian prosecutors are also probing that incident.

Also in March, French police sparked outrage by carrying out identity checks at Bardonecchia station, with the Italian Foreign Ministry summoning the French Ambassador to protest.

Last year, journalists from AFP news agency said they saw French police dropping off migrants in front of Bardonecchia train station.

--IANS/AKI

mr/

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)For nearly four decades, Muslims in this Bihar village have been helping Hindus celebrate Dussehra and playing mythical characters in the Ramlila -- a dramatic representation of the life of Lord Rama. The village is an example of India's composite culture and the communal harmony lived through Dussehra.

For 10 days, Shaikh Akleem is Goddess Sita, Guddu Tiwari is Lord Rama while Afzal Ansari is Lord Shiva and Amit Singh becomes Hanuman, enthralling people from far and near with their get-up and performances in Sato Awanti, a village in Kaimur district, about 200 km off Patna.

Shaikh Akleem (19) is thrilled playing the role of Sita, with Tiwari as "Maryada Purushottam Ram".

"I am lucky to play Sita, loved and respected by all. It is a matter of pride for me," Akleem said.

Guddu Tiwari, playing the role of Rama, said that Ramlila here was unique because it was played and organised with the help of Muslims. "Both Muslims and Hindus treat Ramlila as their own, it is special for us."

This is a part of decades-old tradition started by a group of Muslims with the support of Hindus in Sato Awanti. Both the communities enthusiastically participate in Ramlila in the village.

"It all started 36 years ago, in 1982, when a few Muslims, including Jamaluddin Ansari and Nurul Ansari, decided to organise Ramlila. Over the years, this village has become popular for it," said Shaikh Mumtaz Ali, the Director of Ramlila in the village.

In the first Ramlila organised in the village, Khurshid Alam played the role of Lord Rama and Jamaluddin Ansari acted out Kumbhakaran, the younger brother of Ravana. Sharfuddin Ansari, a martial expert, has been helping the troupe depict war scenes.

Shaikh Mumtaz Ali, the father of Akleem, said that "we have successfully managed the Ramlila show for the last six days, and hope to do so for the remaining three days".

The response of the people has been overwhelming, Shaikh Mumtaz Ali said.

During the evening show, loud chants of "Siyavar Ram Chandra Ki Jai" by the audience that has several Muslims can be heard.

"Not just Hindus, but several Muslims from the neighbouring villages and some from far-off villages come to watch our rare show," said Shaikh Mumtaz Ali.

According to Suresh Singh, the patron of Ramlila in the village, both Muslims and Hindus donate money and work together to ensure the success of the show.

"In our village, more than religious, it is a social event with participation from all. It's a positive sign," Suresh Singh said.

This year, Tauqeer Ansari is playing the role of Kumbhakaran. Dozens of children, both Hindu and Muslim, form the "Vanar Sena" of Lord Rama, he said.

The spirit of conviviality can be gauged from the fact that Hindus help Muslims take out the Muharram procession in the village.

"We are proud that Muslims help us, support us to celebrate Durga Puja. They have set an example of harmony. This is unheard of anywhere else," Guddu Tiwari said.

Mahesh Prasad, a villager, said: "We can't think of celebrating the festival in such a big way without the support of Muslims."

(Imran Khan can be contacted at imran.k@ians.in)

--IANS

ik/shs/mr/tb

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Traditionalists opposed to the entry of women in the 10-50 age group to the Sabarimala temple despite a Supreme Court ruling took on the Kerala government on Wednesday, forcibly turning back stray women visiting the shrine despite police assurances that no one will be prevented from taking part in the pilgrimage.

The police meanwhile arrested members of the Pandalam Royal and Sabarimala temple Tantri families, including women, taking part in a protest near here against the temple's opening to all women.

They were taken in a police jeep to a nearby police station, triggering more protests during which two women television journalists also came under attack.

"How can the police arrest a very elderly lady of the Tantri family? She was on a peaceful protest. This is not acceptable," said state BJP General Secretary K. Surendran as he squatted at the site with his supporters.

Similar protests at various places in and around the temple town on Wednesday forced a 45-year-old woman from Andhra Pradesh and her family to abandon their trip to the Ayyappa temple.

The woman, Madhavi, accompanied by her parents and children began the climb leading to the hilltop temple hours ahead of its opening for the monthly puja rituals.

Ten minutes into their trek, accompanied by a police force, the family had to abandon their plans.

As angry protesters went after her, shouting and abusing, Madhavi decided to return.

Another woman devotee, Liby, who got down at the Pathanamthitta bus stand and was to board a bus to Nilackal, faced angry devotees who booed her.

"I wanted to pray at the Sabarimala temple," she said as police took her to a police station for protection.

On Wednesday morning, Loknath Behra said there was a very strong police presence in and around Sabarimala.

"None will be stopped nor will anyone be allowed to take law into their hands. Anyone can come and pray," he added.

Activist and Tantri family member Rahul Eashwar, who is leading the protest, was told by Additional Director General of Police Anil Kanth that laws should not be broken. "We told the officer that we are only sitting and praying," Eashwar said.

On Wednesday, the temple will open its doors at 5 p.m. for monthly pujas which will end on October 22.

Barring the ruling Left government, the Congress, BJP and Hindu organisations are on a war path against the apex court ruling.

Industries Minister and veteran CPI-M leader E.P.Jayarajan said that those opposing the entry of women to the temple will face the wrath of the Sabarimala Ayyappa.

Earlier, police chased away a group of protesters at Nilackal who were stopping and checking vehicles to see if they had any women in the 10-50 age group.

Inspector General of Police Manoj Abraham said the police were fully geared to face any eventuality.

"We have registered three cases and seven people have been arrested," he said.

The protesters also stopped two women government health officials who had come to take part in a routine meeting at the temple.

They were allowed to go in only after they showed proof that they were aged above 50.

Protesters also shooed away a few women police constables who were trying to go to the temple town.

--IANS

sg/mr/shs

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena on Wednesday rejected media reports alleging an Indian hand in a plot to assassinate him and a former Defence Secretary of Sri Lanka during a telephone call with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"The President of Sri Lanka Maithripala Sirisena called Prime Minister Modi today," the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) said in a statement.

"The President of Sri Lanka stated that he categorically rejected the reports in sections of media about him alluding to the involvement of India in any manner whatsoever in an alleged plot to assassinate the President and a former Defence Secretary of Sri Lanka," the statement said.

"He mentioned that the mischevous and malafide reports were utterly baseless and false, and seemed intended to create misunderstanding between the two leaders as well as damage the cordial relations between the two friendly neighbours," it stated.

According to the statement, Sirisena apprised Modi of the "urgent steps taken by him personally and the Sri Lankan government to publicly reject these reports.

Sirisena also said that he met Indian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka earlier in the day in this connection.

"The President also stated that he regards the Prime Minister as a true friend of Sri Lanka, as also a close personal friend," the statement said.

"He stressed that he greatly valued the mutually beneficial ties between India and Sri Lanka, and remained steadfast to work with the Prime Minister for futher strengthening them."

According to the PMO statement, Modi appreciated the prompt steps taken by Sirisena and the Sri Lankan government to firmly refute the malicious reports by publicly clarifying the matters.

"He (Modi) also reiterated India's emphasis on 'Neighbourhood First' policy and the priority the government of India and he personally attach to developing even stronger all-round cooperation between the two countries," it stated.

This development comes ahead of Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe's visit to India starting on Thursday.

Modi and Wickremesinghe are scheduled to hold a bilateral meeting here on Saturday.

--IANS

ab/prs

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Actor Suniel Shetty has come out in support of a campaign to save man-eating tigress Avni from being killed.

The "Hera Pheri" actor on Wednesday tweeted: "Chasing and killing a mother means risking the lives of young babies, especially when she's not been getting out of the forest and has confined herself to her home, the forest."

"We must show her respect, respect the forest and let them live in peace. Let Avni live," Suniel added.

The five-year-old tigress is currently the focus of a hunt for the past two months after she allegedly killed human beings in the lush Pandharkawada forests of Yavatmal in eastern Maharashtra last year.

The Bombay High Court's Nagpur Bench on Tuesday admitted a PIL that sought a stay on plans to kill Avni and instead capture her alive.

According to the change.org petition to save Avni, her killing "would eventually result in the death of her two cubs too, as they are both too young to hunt and survive on their own".

--IANS

sim/rb/vm

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)One of the suspects identified by Turkey in the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was a frequent companion of the kingdom's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the media reported.

Three other suspects were linked to Prince Mohammed's security detail and a fifth was a forensic doctor, holding senior positions in the Saudi Interior Ministry and medical establishment, the New York Times reported on Tuesday.

One suspect, Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb, was a diplomat assigned to the Saudi Embassy in London in 2007, according to a British diplomatic roster. He travelled extensively with the Crown Prince, perhaps as a bodyguard, the report said.

According to the Times, the other three suspects were Abdulaziz Mohammed al-Hawsawi -- a member of the security team that travels with the crown prince; Thaar Ghaleb al-Harbi, and Muhammed Saad Alzahrani.

Two people with the same names -- Al-Harbi and Alzahrani -- were identified as members of the Saudi Royal Guard, the Times said.

The fifth suspect was Salah al-Tubaigy -- an autopsy expert, who the Times said identified himself on Twitter as the head of the Saudi Scientific Council of Forensics.

Meanwhile, a CNN report said that the Saudi operation that resulted in the apparent death of Khashoggi in Istanbul, Turkey, was organized by a high-ranking officer with Saudi Arabia's main intelligence service, the General Intelligence Presidency.

The report described the officer as close to the inner circle of the Saudi Crown Prince.

These developments raise doubts about US President Donald Trump's claim that the journalist may have been murdered by "rogue killers". He has been refraining from pointing a finger at Saudi Arabia, one of Washington's principal allies in the Middle East.

Cautioning against rushing to blame Saudi Arabia over Khashoggi's disappearance, Trump said King Salman strongly denied to him any knowledge of what happened.

The US leader said that Riyadh was being treated as "guilty until proven innocent".

Khashoggi -- a permanent resident of the US in self-imposed exile who penned a column in the Washington Post and was a fierce critic of Riyadh's human rights violations and of the Crown Prince's policies -- has been missing since he entered the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul on October 2 for paperwork needed for his planned marriage.

Turkish officials say that the journalist was killed by a special team of 15 Saudi officials sent to Istanbul for the task. They say that the team assassinated Khashoggi, dismembered his body with a bone saw they had brought for the purpose and flew out the same day.

Records showed that two private jets chartered by a Saudi company with close ties to the Saudi Crown Prince and Interior Ministry arrived and left Istanbul on the day of Khashoggi's disappearance.

However, Saudi authorities maintain that Khashoggi left the consulate the same afternoon but have provided no evidence to support the claim.

The New York Times confirmed that at least nine of 15 suspects identified by Turkish authorities worked for the Saudi security services, military or other government ministries.

CNN on Monday cited sources as saying the Saudis were preparing a report that Khashoggi died in a botched interrogation, while The Wall Street Journal said the kingdom was weighing whether to say that rogue operatives killed Khashoggi by mistake.

Trump and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who visited the kingdom for talks on the issue, said the Crown Prince informed them that an investigation into the matter had begun and answers would be forthcoming shortly.

--IANS

soni/sed

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Actress-filmmaker Nandita Das, whose father -- artist Jatin Das -- has been accused of sexually harassing a woman, says while she will continue to add voice to the # movement, she believes the truth will prevail in the "disturbing allegations" against the Padma Bhushan recipient.

"As a strong supporter of the # movement, I want to reiterate that I will continue to add my voice to it, despite the disturbing allegations made against my father, which he has categorically denied," Nandita posted on Facebook.

"I have maintained from the very start that this is the time we all need to listen, so that women (and men) feel safe to speak up. At the same time, it is also important to be sure about allegations so as not to dilute the movement. I am touched by the number of people - friends and strangers - who are concerned and are trusting my integrity. I do believe truth will prevail. And that is all I have to say on this matter," she added.

Conservationist Nisha Bora on Tuesday accused Jatin Das of sexually harassing her at his Khidki village studio in 2004. Das refuted the allegation as "ridiculous and vulgar".

The # movement in India has been on a rise with victims of sexual harassment from all walks of life voicing their stories. Nandita has been vocal about urging women to speak up against any such unsavoury experiences that they have faced at their work place.Two suspected female militants surrendered on Wednesday after Bangladeshi security forces raided the hideout of a banned Islamist group under siege in the country's Narsingdi district.

Bangladesh's Counter-Terrorism Police Unit Chief Monirul Islam said that the operation at the second militant hideout in the district was over, Xinhua news agency reported.

He said the female militants, who are students of a private university in Dhaka, surrendered at about 3 p.m.

Security forces surrounded two buildings in separate places in the district on Monday night that they suspected to be militant hideouts.

After operation at the first hideout on Tuesday, bodies of two militants including that of a woman were found.

"We're primarily sure all the four militants of both the hideouts are members of Neo-JMB," Islam said.

The Neo-JMB, an offshoot of the banned militant outfit JMB (Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh), was blamed for the deadly July 1, 2016 attack on a Spanish cafe in Dhaka, which killed 22 people, mostly foreigners.

Since the cafe attack, the Bangladeshi police conducted a series of large-scale operations against militants.

--IANS

soni/sed

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)United Arab Emirates Minister of State for Defence Affairs Mohammed Ahmed Al Bowardi Al Falacy on Wednesday visited the state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) in this tech hub for a first hand account of its technology and products, said the aerospace major.

"I am happy to be here and proud to see the sophisticated level of manufacturing that is in place," said the company quoting Falacy.

"The Minister evinced keen interest in Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas," HAL added.

Tejas is a single-seat, single-jet engine, multi-role light fighter designed by the HAL along with the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) for the Indian Air Force and Navy.

Falacy, who is on a two-day visit to India, met Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in New Delhi on Tuesday and agreed to boost military exchanges, training, military medicine and defence industry tie-ups between the two nations.

--IANS

bha/mag/bg

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The US military on Tuesday said its special forces conducted an airstrike in the vicinity of Harardhere town in Mudug region of central Somalia on October 12, killing 60 Al Shabab militants.

The US Africa Command (Africom) which oversees American troops on the African continent said this airstrike was the largest airstrike against the militants since November 21, 2017, when American forces killed about 100 terrorists in an airstrike against the insurgents' camp, Xinhua reported.

"We currently assess this airstrike killed approximately 60 terrorists. We also currently assess this airstrike did not injure or kill any civilians," Africom said in a statement.

Africom has vowed to work with its partners to transfer the responsibility for lasting security from the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) to the Somali government and its member states.

"Alongside our Somali and international partners, we are committed to preventing al-Shabab from taking advantage of safe havens from which they can build capacity and attack the people of Somalia," the statement said.

"In particular, the group uses portions of southern and central Somalia to plot and direct terror attacks, steal humanitarian aid, extort the local populace to fund its operations, and shelter radical terrorists." it said.

--IANS

vc/ahm/

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Username: Password: or Register

Back to

Forum

Reply to

This post

Post New

Thread Thread Rating: 1 Vote(s) - 1 Average

1

2

3

4

5

Mueller is expected to issue core findings of Russia probe soon after Mid-Terms Von_Zolta

harshtog#@Queezie?

User ID: 417346

10-17-2018 06:21 PM



Posts: 687









Post: #1 Mueller is expected to issue core findings of Russia probe soon after Mid-Terms

Advertisement This beggars belief insofar as Mueller seems 'addicted' to the position of power that this situation affords him. I just don't think he's all that ready to let go. Besides - a lot can happen between now and the election. There's no obligation on Muellars part to even release his findings. I doubt he will. He's one sleazy bastard.



Mueller Ready to Deliver Key Findings in His Trump Probe, Sources Say <---LINK

Shannon Pettypiece - Oct 17 2018, 4:00 AMOct 17 2018, 11:47 AM

(Bloomberg) --



Special Counsel Robert Mueller is expected to issue findings on core aspects of his Russia probe soon after the November midterm elections as he faces intensifying pressure to produce more indictments or shut down his investigation, according to two U.S. officials.

Specifically, Mueller is close to rendering judgment on two of the most explosive aspects of his inquiry: whether there were clear incidents of collusion between Russia and Donald Trumps 2016 campaign, and whether the president took any actions that constitute obstruction of justice, according to one of the officials, who asked not to be identified speaking about the investigation.





The question of timing is critical. Muellers work wont be concluded ahead of the Nov. 6 midterm elections, when Democrats hope to take control of the House and end Trumps one-party hold on Washington.



But this timeline also raises questions about the future of the probe itself. Trump has signalled he may replace Attorney General Jeff Sessions after the election, a move that could bring in a new boss for Mueller. Rosenstein also might resign or be fired by Trump after the election.

Rosenstein has made it clear that he wants Mueller to wrap up the investigation as expeditiously as possible, another U.S. official said. The officials gave no indications about the details of Muellers conclusions. Muellers office declined to comment for this story.

Pre-Election Lull



With three weeks to go before the midterm elections, its unlikely Mueller will take any overt action that could be turned into a campaign issue. Justice Department guidelines say prosecutors should avoid any major steps close to an election that could be seen as influencing the outcome.

That suggests the days and weeks immediately after the Nov. 6 election may be the most pivotal time since Mueller took over the Russia investigation almost a year and a half ago. So far, Mueller has secured more than two dozen indictments or guilty pleas.



Read More :--->

Trumps frustration with the probe, which he routinely derides as a witch hunt, has been growing, prompting concerns in Congress he may try to shut down or curtail Muellers work at some point.

Theres no indication, though, that Mueller is ready to close up shop, even if he does make some findings, according to former federal prosecutors. Several matters could keep the probe going, such as another significant prosecution or new lines of inquiry. And because Muellers investigation has been proceeding quietly, out of the public eye, its possible there have been other major developments behind the scenes.

Mueller only recently submitted written questions to Trumps lawyers regarding potential collusion with Russia, and his team hasnt yet ruled out seeking an interview with the president, according to one of the U.S. officials. If Trump refused an interview request, Mueller could face the complicated question of whether to seek a grand jury subpoena of the president. The Justice Department has a standing policy that a sitting president cant be indicted.

At the same time, Mueller is tying down some loose ends. Four of his 17 prosecutors have left the special counsels office in recent months. Three are going back to their previous Justice Department jobs, and the fourth has become a research fellow at Columbia Law School.

After several postponements, Muellers team has agreed to a sentencing date for Michael Flynn, Trumps former national security adviser, who pleaded guilty to one count of making false statements last year. The Dec. 18 date comes more than a year after Mueller secured a cooperation deal with Flynn, suggesting that Muellers team has all it needs from him.

Trumps former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, struck his own cooperation agreement with Mueller last month, after being convicted at trial in Virginia on eight counts of bank fraud, filing false tax returns and failure to file a foreign bank account. The plea agreement let him avoid a second trial in Washington. The judge in the Virginia trial, who wasnt part of the plea agreement, has scheduled a sentencing hearing Friday, which could complicate Manaforts cooperation agreement with Mueller.

Muellers prosecutors also have met with Michael Cohen, Trumps former personal lawyer. Cohen pleaded guilty in New York in August to tax evasion, bank fraud and violations of campaign finance laws. That separate investigation, headed by the U.S. Attorneys Office in Manhattan, is one of several New York probes involving the Trump Organization, and could ultimately prove to be more damaging to the president than Muellers work.

Manaforts Plea

Former federal prosecutors said in recent interviews that Manaforts plea deal probably advanced Muellers timeline for determining whether there was collusion.

Manafort could be assisting Muellers team on questions related to whether the Trump campaign changed the Republican partys stance on Ukraine as part of an understanding with the Russian government, and whether the Russians helped coordinate the release of hacked emails related to Democrat Hillary Clinton with members of Trumps campaign, said another former prosecutor who asked not to be named.

QuickTake: From Cohen to Collusion, Tallying Trumps Legal Risks

Manafort is also key to understanding a June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower between Donald Trump Jr. and a group of Russians who had promised damaging information concerning Clinton, the former official said.

Manafort appears to have good material to offer, said Samuel Buell, a former federal prosecutor who teaches at Duke University School of Law. Hes not going to get that deal unless he can help Mueller make a case against one or more people, Buell said. Cooperators cant expect leniency unless they provide "substantial assistance in the prosecution of others," Buell added, citing sentencing guidelines.

Although the days and weeks after the election might test Mueller in new ways, he has confronted pressure before to shut down.

Done by Thanksgiving

Trumps lawyers have attempted to publicly pressure Mueller into wrapping up his investigation, setting artificial deadlines since the early days of the probe when they predicted it would wrap by the end of 2017. In August 2017, then-White House lawyer Ty Cobb said he would be embarrassedif the investigation dragged on past Thanksgiving.

Even if Muellers probe stretched through 2019, the timeline wouldnt be unprecedented. Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr spent four years investigating President Bill Clinton before releasing his report on the Monica Lewinsky affair, which spun out of a probe into an Arkansas land deal known as Whitewater.

It took almost two years for Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald to indict Scooter Libby, Vice President Dick Cheneys chief of staff, for lying to investigators and obstruction of justice in October 2005 in the investigation into the public outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame.

2018 Bloomberg L.P.

Bloomberg :---> Ex-Trump Fixer Cohen Said to Have Lengthy Talks With Mueller Trumps frustration with the probe, which he routinely derides as a witch hunt, has been growing, prompting concerns in Congress he may try to shut down or curtail Muellers work at some point.Theres no indication, though, that Mueller is ready to close up shop, even if he does make some findings, according to former federal prosecutors. Several matters could keep the probe going, such as another significant prosecution or new lines of inquiry. And because Muellers investigation has been proceeding quietly, out of the public eye, its possible there have been other major developments behind the scenes.Mueller only recently submitted written questions to Trumps lawyers regarding potential collusion with Russia, and his team hasnt yet ruled out seeking an interview with the president, according to one of the U.S. officials. If Trump refused an interview request, Mueller could face the complicated question of whether to seek a grand jury subpoena of the president. The Justice Department has a standing policy that a sitting president cant be indicted.At the same time, Mueller is tying down some loose ends. Four of his 17 prosecutors have left the special counsels office in recent months. Three are going back to their previous Justice Department jobs, and the fourth has become a research fellow at Columbia Law School.After several postponements, Muellers team has agreed to a sentencing date for Michael Flynn, Trumps former national security adviser, who pleaded guilty to one count of making false statements last year. The Dec. 18 date comes more than a year after Mueller secured a cooperation deal with Flynn, suggesting that Muellers team has all it needs from him.Trumps former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, struck his own cooperation agreement with Mueller last month, after being convicted at trial in Virginia on eight counts of bank fraud, filing false tax returns and failure to file a foreign bank account. The plea agreement let him avoid a second trial in Washington. The judge in the Virginia trial, who wasnt part of the plea agreement, has scheduled a sentencing hearing Friday, which could complicate Manaforts cooperation agreement with Mueller.Muellers prosecutors also have met with Michael Cohen, Trumps former personal lawyer. Cohen pleaded guilty in New York in August to tax evasion, bank fraud and violations of campaign finance laws. That separate investigation, headed by the U.S. Attorneys Office in Manhattan, is one of several New York probes involving the Trump Organization, and could ultimately prove to be more damaging to the president than Muellers work.Manaforts PleaFormer federal prosecutors said in recent interviews that Manaforts plea deal probably advanced Muellers timeline for determining whether there was collusion.Manafort could be assisting Muellers team on questions related to whether the Trump campaign changed the Republican partys stance on Ukraine as part of an understanding with the Russian government, and whether the Russians helped coordinate the release of hacked emails related to Democrat Hillary Clinton with members of Trumps campaign, said another former prosecutor who asked not to be named.QuickTake: From Cohen to Collusion, Tallying Trumps Legal RisksManafort is also key to understanding a June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower between Donald Trump Jr. and a group of Russians who had promised damaging information concerning Clinton, the former official said.Manafort appears to have good material to offer, said Samuel Buell, a former federal prosecutor who teaches at Duke University School of Law. Hes not going to get that deal unless he can help Mueller make a case against one or more people, Buell said. Cooperators cant expect leniency unless they provide "substantial assistance in the prosecution of others," Buell added, citing sentencing guidelines.Although the days and weeks after the election might test Mueller in new ways, he has confronted pressure before to shut down.Done by ThanksgivingTrumps lawyers have attempted to publicly pressure Mueller into wrapping up his investigation, setting artificial deadlines since the early days of the probe when they predicted it would wrap by the end of 2017. In August 2017, then-White House lawyer Ty Cobb said he would be embarrassedif the investigation dragged on past Thanksgiving.Even if Muellers probe stretched through 2019, the timeline wouldnt be unprecedented. Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr spent four years investigating President Bill Clinton before releasing his report on the Monica Lewinsky affair, which spun out of a probe into an Arkansas land deal known as Whitewater.It took almost two years for Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald to indict Scooter Libby, Vice President Dick Cheneys chief of staff, for lying to investigators and obstruction of justice in October 2005 in the investigation into the public outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame.2018 Bloomberg L.P.Bloomberg Shannon Pettypiece - Oct 17 2018, 4:00 AMOct 17 2018, 11:47 AM(Bloomberg) --Special Counsel Robert Mueller is expected to issue findings on core aspects of his Russia probe soon after the November midterm elections as he faces intensifying pressure to produce more indictments or shut down his investigation, according to two U.S. officials.Specifically, Mueller is close to rendering judgment on two of the most explosive aspects of his inquiry: whether there were clear incidents of collusion between Russia and Donald Trumps 2016 campaign, and whether the president took any actions that constitute obstruction of justice, according to one of the officials, who asked not to be identified speaking about the investigation.That doesnt necessarily mean Muellers findings would be made public if he doesnt secure unsealed indictments. The regulations governing Muellers probe stipulate that he can present his findings only to his boss, who is currently Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. The regulations give a special counsels supervisor some discretion in deciding what is relayed to Congress and what is publicly released.The question of timing is critical. Muellers work wont be concluded ahead of the Nov. 6 midterm elections, when Democrats hope to take control of the House and end Trumps one-party hold on Washington.But this timeline also raises questions about the future of the probe itself. Trump has signalled he may replace Attorney General Jeff Sessions after the election, a move that could bring in a new boss for Mueller. Rosenstein also might resign or be fired by Trump after the election.Rosenstein has made it clear that he wants Mueller to wrap up the investigation as expeditiously as possible, another U.S. official said. The officials gave no indications about the details of Muellers conclusions. Muellers office declined to comment for this story.Pre-Election LullWith three weeks to go before the midterm elections, its unlikely Mueller will take any overt action that could be turned into a campaign issue. Justice Department guidelines say prosecutors should avoid any major steps close to an election that could be seen as influencing the outcome.That suggests the days and weeks immediately after the Nov. 6 election may be the most pivotal time since Mueller took over the Russia investigation almost a year and a half ago. So far, Mueller has secured more than two dozen indictments or guilty pleas. (This post was last modified: 10-17-2018 06:39 PM by Von_Zolta .)

Back to

Forum

Reply to

This post

Post New

Thread















Filmmaker has moved the Bombay High Court with a Rs 100-million defamation suit against his former Phantom Films partners and Vikramaditya Motwane amid the #MeToo furore.

Bahl, in a suit filed on Tuesday, sought direction from the court to restrain the two from making any statement about him to the media or via social media.

The court on Wednesday posted the matter to Friday so that the alleged victim's side of the story can also be heard in the court's chambers, Bahl's advocate Hitesh Jain told IANS.

The 'Queen' famed Bahl was last year accused of sexual harassment by a former employee of the film collective Phantom Films, for an incident that took place in 2015 in Goa during the promotion of the banner's movie 'Bombay Velvet'.

The allegation resurfaced as the # garnered steam in India, leading some others, including 'Queen' actress Kangana Ranaut, to point fingers at Bahl's behaviour towards women.

Kashyap came out in support of the allegations in a HuffPost India report and also tweeted about it, while Motwane called Bahl a "sexual offender".

Bahl has said the defendants are "taking advantage of the ongoing # in the country".

Kashyap, Motwane, Bahl and Madhu Mantena made a creative film quartet in Bollywood when they established Phantom Films in 2011. They came up with movies like 'Lootera', 'Hasee Toh Phasee', 'Queen' and 'Udta Punjab', as well as the web series 'Sacred Games'.

The company's dissolution was announced earlier this month.Women journalists who hurled allegations of sexual harassment and molestation against former editor M.J. Akbar on Wednesday expressed happiness over his exit as the Minister of State for External Affairs and vowed to continue their fight.

Besides those who levelled the charges against Akbar, government bodies meant to protect women as well as feminist activists too welcomed the move.

Journalist Priya Ramani, who was the first to go public with her accusation against the former editor and is facing a defamation suit filed by Akbar, said she felt "vindicated".

"As women, we feel vindicated by Akbar's resignation. I look forward to the day when I will also get justice in court," Ramani tweeted.

At least 15 journalists have accused Akbar of sexual harassment and molestation. He filed a defamation suit against Ramani alleging that "scandalous allegations" have been made to bring down his image in society.

Journalist Suparna Sharma, who had accused Akbar of having "plucked my bra strap", said the fight was not over with his resignation.

"Akbar should have resigned immediately after returning to India instead of issuing a statement," said Sharma, referring to Akbar's Sunday statement where he had rubbished all the allegations and questioned the motive behind them.

"When he issued the statement, it seemed it was government versus Priya Ramani. Now that he has resigned, it is Akbar vs Priya Ramani," she said and asked the former Minister to withdraw the defamation case against Ramani.

"The longer he fights this battle against Ramani, more women will come out," she said.

Ghazala Wahab, who had accused Akbar of molesting her several times, said his quitting was effect of the #MeToo movement that has witnessed women from across the spectrum coming out with their horror stories of sexual harassment in and outside the work place.

"It was a momentum which was built up and it is one of the effect of that momentum. I think that the momentum does not stop here and it continues. It is a collective victory for all the women," said Wahab, now the Executive Editor of Force magazine.

"Hope the movement carries on and spreads in every part of the country," said Wahab, who had detailed how she was molested and harassed by Akbar on several occasions when she was employed with The Asian Age.

"On #MahaAshtami Devi Durga slays the demon? #MJAkbar gone...." tweeted journalist Saba Naqvi who had called Akbar a "predator".

Journalist Harinder Baweja, who too had accused Akbar, wondered if Prime Minister Narendra Modi and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj would now "break their silence".

"As a next step, he should withdraw the defamation suit unless Akbar wants to continue defaming himself," Baweja said on twitter.

UK-based journalist Ruth David, who too has levelled charges of sexual harassment against Akbar, said: "I was one of those women and I stand by my story and with those who spoke up. We raise our voices now so others will not experience what we did."

Welcoming Akbar's quitting, National Commission for Women chairperson Rekha Sharma said: "Finally, the government has listened to the voice of women and acted accordingly."

Delhi Commission for Women Chief Swati Maliwal said it was shameful on the part of Akbar to have delayed his quitting.

"The credit for the resignation goes not to the Centre or Akbar but directly to the #MeToo campaign. Especially to those brave women who reported the assault and those women and men who stood by them," she tweeted.

--IANS

akk-mg-and/mr

(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.)Writer-producer Vinta Nanda on Wednesday filed a police complaint against actor Alok Nath, whom she has accused of sexually violating her 19 years ago.

The complaint was lodged at the Oshiwara police station, Nanda said in a statement.

"The police was very co-operative and they took my statement. It was not easy for me to give my statement as it is like reliving your pain. We have given a written complaint against Alok Nath and they registered the same," Nanda said, adding that she gave her statement to a female police sub-inspector.

Amid the #MeToo movement that got sparked in India after Tanushree Dutta renewed a decade-old allegation against Nana Patekar, Nanda of "Tara" fame came out about her unsavoury experience with Alok, who has for years enjoyed a holier than thou image on-screen.

Several others also came out about their experiences with Alok, leading film and television associations like CINTAA (Cine and Television Artistes Association) and IFTDA (Indian Film and Television Directors' Association) to send him notices.

Alok had rejected IFTDA's notice on the ground that no police complaint had been filed against him. Instead, he filed a civil defamation suit against Nanda, demanding a written apology and compensation of one rupee.

Nanda's lawyer had said on Monday that her client will remain undaunted in her fight against the sexual violation she faced even if defamation suits come her way.

--IANS

rb/bg

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Averring that electoral understandings have to be formalised in a spirit of give and take, Congress leader Salman Khurshid on Wednesday said his party could not talk to the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress until the state government stops its efforts to suppress his party.

Khurshid, in the city on a round of community Durga Puja marquees, said Congress was neither prepared to go for political adjustments by throttling itself, nor does it expect such a stand from others.

With the Lok Sabha elections months away, there is much talk of the Congress joining hands with other parties to put up a strong fight against the ruling BJP at the Centre.

A section of the state Congress leaders has already indicated its preference to join hands with the Trinamool. However, a substantial number of leaders are firmly opposed to any electoral understanding with the Trinamool, as they feel the state ruling party was trying to finish the Congress in the state.

"All of us want to contest the elections together. But to fight the elections together, everybody has to be accommodative in a spirit of give and take. If we are ready for adjustments, that does not mean we will throttle ourselves, nor do we expect such an attitude from others," said Khurshid.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has stated time and again that the issue of forging an anti-BJP alliance in a particular state should be entrusted to the strongest party in that particular state.

At the same time, she has announced that the Trinamool would contest all the Lok Sabha seats in the state in next year's general election.

Asked whether the Congress was planning to hold talks with the Mamata government in the given situation in the state, Khurshid said: "We can talk to the Mamata government when it stops its attempts to suppress us. How can we talk to such people?"

--IANS

ssp/prs

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Early local lore tells of the Ranes as feared Maratha raiders, who would ride into erstwhile and plunder wealth from the region's wealthy folks.

In contemporary times, the Congress over the last two days, must have felt the heat of yet another raid -- to be more specific by a descendant of one of the several Rane clans -- Health Minister Vishwajit Rane, who has claimed credit for the switch-over of two Congress MLAs into the BJP's pocket.

Now-former MLAs, Subhash Shirodkar and Dayanand Sopte on Tuesday, joined the BJP at a formal ceremony in the capital, putting not just the Congress in a tight spot, but also BJP's allies Forward and Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party.

The switch-over has left the Congress and the BJP tied at 14 legislators each, with the Congress no longer in a position to claim the single largest party (in the state assembly) status and exercise their privilege before the Governor to stake claim to form a government.

It also leaves the ruling allies Forward and Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party, some of whose members were flirting with the Congress with a toppling game in mind, with very little room to manouvre, especially now after the BJP's central and state leadership have threatened them with the dissolution of the state assembly.

The brisk 24-hour manouvering has also jettisoned Visjwajit Rane,47, as one of the contenders for the chief ministerial position, especially with incumbent Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar's recovery from advanced pancreatic cancer prolonging for several months now.

"He (Vishwajit) must have told the BJP High Command, that he will get two Congress MLAs, so make him Chief Minister," Congress secretary A. Chellakumar said on Tuesday.

Rane, a three time MLA (twice on a Congress ticket) insists it is his mission to demolish the Congress in Goa.

"I will demolish the They will be reduced to 10 by Christmas-New Year. Save your flock. That is my message to Rahul Gandhi. Leaders in the Congress are tired of Rahul Gandhi," Rane told IANS.

When asked about chief ministerial ambitions, the Health Minister, opted for a more humbler approach.

"I am just a partyman who wants to keep doing the work given to him. I personally harbour no such ambition," he said.

The son of former four-time Congress Chief Minister Pratapsingh Rane, a new entrant to the BJP -- Vishwajit Rane resigned as Congress MLA after the 2017 assembly polls to join the BJP.

He has shared the perks of power during the BJP's first stint in power with Parrikar at the helm two decades back.

While the Health Minister's father was a Congress MLA and Speaker, who shared a healthy working relationship with Parrikar, the latter had appointed Vishwajit Rane as head of a government corporation much to the chagrin of the Congress leadership in Goa.

While he was a part of the Congress, however, Vishwajit Rane's outspokenness, his penchant for the dramatic and constant threats to the party's leadership about contesting assembly elections as an independent rather than on a Congress ticket, has more often than not peeved his peer as well as seniors within the party.

Despite the fact, that he is one of the few MLAs confident of winning his bastion of Valpoi, and the growing anti-government sentiment in recent times, a large chunk of the state BJP leadership is wary of what he could bring to the table.

"He is a man in too much hurry and cannot lead a cluster of MLAs. He can win his constituency without any party support, but that does not mean he is necessarily a team player.

"He has always got his way around Congress leadership because of his father's reach in the party. Can he function in a more disciplined, structured organisation like ours?" a senior BJP leader said on condition of anonymity.

Caste calculations also appear to bear against Rane's shot at the top post.

While the Parrikar regime's appeasement of the Brahmin community has stoked mass dissent against the ruling set-up, Rane's Maratha roots may not bear much advantage, considering that the BJP needs to woo back the Bhandari (non Brahmin, non Maratha caste grouping) voters ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, if not a mid-term poll, which is also an option on the BJP's table.

His 'raid' exploits apart, the newcomer tag could also serve as a deterrent for Rane's chances, as members of the BJP's state core committee have gone on record, that the party needs a chief ministerial candidate who has solid BJP credentials.

Party sources said, that Rane is up against Union Minister of State for AYUSH Shripad Naik, state BJP president Vinay Tendulkar and Speaker Pramod Sawant for the Chief Minister's post.With fresh revelations corroborating its allegations over the inclusion of a private firm as an Indian offset partner in the Rafale deal, the on Wednesday slammed Prime Minister for benefiting his crony asking him to break his silence on the multi-crore "scam".

Citing a report by French blog Portail Aviation, spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala said it reinforced the fact that Modi "facilitated a sweetheart deal with to enormously and illegitimately benefit a crony friend".

The French blog has put up images of documents published by two unions of Rafale-maker Dassault -- the CFDT and CGT -- and quoted Chief Operating Officer Loik Segalenn as telling the two unions that it was "imperative" for the company to sign an agreement with Reliance Defence to get the contract for the jets.

Surjewala said the report by the French blog also corroborates former French President Francois Hollande's assertions that the "Indian government proposed Reliance Defence as the partner for Dassault for and France did not have a choice".

"A complete presentation of the Make in India with the creation of the enterprise "Dassault Reliance Aerospace" in Nagpur was made.

"According to Segalenn, it was imperative and mandatory for Dassault-Aviation to accept this counterpart in order to obtain the export contract of Rafale India.

"This is the inevitable consequence of the Rafale India contract which required making Make in India to be signed.

"A joint venture was therefore created with the Indian company to achieve this goal," said Surjewala reading out excerpts of the French report translated into English.

"This is the third confirmation after Hollande had clearly told a French outlet about Modi securing the deal for Reliance Defence," he said.

Referring to claims by several Bharatiya Janata Party ministers that "freely chose" its offset partner, the demanded to know why Segalenn said "it was imperative and mandatory for Dassault-Aviation to accept this counterpart in order to obtain the Rafale India export contract".

Observing that neither the French nor the Indian government denied the "unequivocal assertions" made by Hollande, the Congress demanded that Modi speak up on the issue.

"Undisputed evidence now corroborates, brazen crony capitalism and quid pro quo by in the multi-crore Rafale scam. Time for Modi to break his silence," added Surjewala.

Alleging massive irregularities in the deal that has caused "huge loss to the public exchequer", the Congress has been relentless in attacking Modi and his government over the deal announced by the Prime Minister in 2015.

The party has twice petitioned the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) for a special and forensic audit and also moved the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) seeking a probe and seizure of relevant documents pertaining to the deal. It has also been persistent in demanding a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe.

Besides questioning the "inflated" price of the jets, the Congress has also been targeting the Centre over the propriety of a newly-founded private company getting the Rs 300 billion Rafale offset contract at the cost of the state-owned Ltd (HAL).Two suspected militants, including a woman, were killed and two female university students, believed to be involved in Bangladesh's deadliest terrorist attack in 2016, surrendered on Wednesday, bringing an end to a 40-hour long tight security clampdown in Narsingdi near the national capital.

"We are wrapping up our operation as two women militants both students of Dhaka private Manarat University -- have surrendered," Counter-Terrorism and Transnational Crimes unit (CTTC) chief Monirul Islam told reporters at the scene in central Narsingdi district, 75 kilometres northeast of Dhaka.

The two women, clad in black burqas, were escorted by law enforcers to a special ambulance around 2:45pm. They were also wearing helmets at the time.

The CTTC officials said the two women, believed to be involved in the July 1, 2016 deadly attack on Dhaka's Holey Artisan Bakery attack, had rented an apartment as ordinary tenants several months ago.

One of them was married to a fugitive operative of Neo Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh or Neo-JMB, an al-Qaeda linked group that carried out the cafe attack.

The cafe attack in Dhaka killed 22 people, including 17 foreigners. All the six terrorists involved in the attack were also killed in a subsequent commando assault.

Earlier, police cordoned off two militant hideouts a five-storey building and another seven-storey building on Tuesday night. They raided the five-storey building Tuesday night and recovered the bodies of a man and a woman along with firearms.

The officials said CTTC had information that the second woman was set to marry over phone with another Neo-JMB operative in a secret wedding ceremony. They raided the building Tuesday night and in an encounter two militants were killed.

However, the two female militants including the "terrorist bride" escaped and "we came to know that they are staying at another hideout at Narsigndi town which we raided in a near simultaneous time", officials said.

The Neo JMB is inclined to Islamic State and is believed to have carried out the cafe attack.

Since late 2015, the Neo-JMB led by Bangladeshi-origin Canadian Tamim Chowdhury was carrying out small scale clandestine attacks on foreigners and non-Muslims. Chowdhury was killed in an encounter.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Three militants and a policeman were killed during an encounter between ultras and security forces in the city on Wednesday, prompting authorities to close down schools and snap internet services, officials said.

Security forces launched a cordon and search operation in Fateh Kadal in downtown area of the city following an intelligence about the presence of militants there, they said.

The militants have been identified as Mehrajuddin Bangroo, Fahad Waza and over ground worker Rayees (son of the house owner where the encounter took place), they said.

The policeman killed during the operation was identified as constable Kamal.

The operation turned into an encounter after millitants opened fire on security forces.

The district administration has closed all schools and educational institution in the city as a precautionary measure and internet services on mobile have also been snapped.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Four Army personnel have been booked for allegedly raping and molesting a 34-year-old speech and hearing-impaired woman employee of a military hospital at Khadki near Pune in 2015, police said Wednesday.

The case came to light when the woman contacted an Indore-based sign language expert through video call in June and narrated the incident.

Besides the police, Army too is conducting a 'court of inquiry' against the four personnel, who worked in the same hospital at the time.

The alleged offence took place between January and June 2015 at the Military Hospital - Kirkee in Pune's Khadki suburb. The woman has been working at the facility since 2014.

"According to the woman's complaint, she was on night duty when she was allegedly raped by one of the accused, who at the time was posted at the hospital," a senior police official said.

"When the survivor told another officer about the incident, he initially told her that he would reprimand the 'accused'. But, he too sought sexual favours from her by threatening her to make the message viral, and allegedly raped her. After some days, two more personnel approached the woman and allegedly took advantage of her," the police official said.

The woman, a class IV employee at the hospital, approached an NGO in Indore, Madhya Pradesh in June this year. The NGO subsequently approached the Indore police.

On Tuesday night, the Indore police informed about the matter to their Pune counterparts, who have registered a case against the four personnel under IPC sections 376 (rape) and 354 (molestation), he said.

Meanwhile, an official of the Army's Southern Command said they were conducting an enquiry into the matter.

"The court of inquiry was initiated well before the police complaint was registered," the official said.

Gyanendra Purohit, chief coordinator of the Police Help Centre for deaf and mute persons at Indore's Tukoganj police station, told PTI that the victim had contacted him in June through video call.

Purohit, who is a sign language expert, said he informed the authorities at the Military Hospital about the woman's complaint on July 5.

His wife Monica, who is also a sign language expert, sent an e-mail to Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and senior Army officers on August 6 about the alleged incident, he said.

She had also sent, through the e-mail, a video in which the victim narrated her ordeal through sign language, Purohit said.

"The victim cannot speak and hear since birth. Her husband died last year....We want justice for her," he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Four men working with the Army have been booked for allegedly raping and molesting a 34-year-old speech and hearing-impaired woman employee of a military hospital here in Maharashtra in 2015, police said Wednesday.

Besides the police, the Army too is conducting a 'court of inquiry' against the four personnel, who also worked in the same military hospital at the time.

The alleged offence took place between January and June 2015 at the Military Hospital - Kirkee in Pune's Khadki suburb. The woman has been working at the facility since 2014.

"According to the woman's complaint, she was on night duty (at the hospital) when she was allegedly raped by one of the accused, who at the time was posted at the hospital," a senior police official said.

When the survivor told another personnel about the incident, he initially told her that he would reprimand the "accused". "But, he too sought sexual favours from her by threatening her to make the message viral, and allegedly raped her. After some days, two more personnel approached the woman and allegedly took advantage of her," the police official said.

The woman, a class IV employee at the hospital, had approached an NGO in Indore, Madhya Pradesh earlier this year. The NGO subsequently approached the Indore police.

On Tuesday night, the Indore police informed about the matter to their Pune counterpart, who have registered a case against the four personnel under IPC sections 376 (rape) and 354 (molestation), he said.

Meanwhile, an official of the Army's Southern Command said they were conducting an inquiry into the matter.

"The court of inquiry was initiated well before the police complaint was registered," the official said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The CISF Wednesday took over the security of theyet-to-be operationalKannurInternational Airport (KIAL), the largest civil air facility inKerala, with the deployment of over 600 armed commandos, a senior official said.

This is the 61st civil airport in the country that has come under the cover of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) after the Union Home Ministry accorded manpower sanction for the purpose.

The CISF unit will be headed by a Commandant rank officer and the airport, spread over 2,330 acres with a runway length of 3,050 meters, will be operational from the first week of December.

KIAL is about 20-km from the popular tourist town of Kannur and will have common departure and visitor gates for international and domestic passengers and also a common check-in-area.

Kerala has three other major airports at Kochi, Kozhikode and Thiruvananthapuram.

"KIAL would be the first airport in India which would dispense with stamping of hand baggage from day one of its operations due to the surveillance systems in place," CISF spokesperson Assistant Inspector General (AIG) said.

The CISF is a federal security force which guards strategic installations including airports in the country. It has a special aviation security group for rendering this task.

The security at the airport would be similar to what is seen at 60 other civil airports, the CISF said adding, that quick reaction commando teams and other personnel would be deployed at KIAL to thwart incidents of terror and sabotage.

"In the light of the increased threat perception to the aviation sector across the country, security of KIAL is of utmost importance as thousands of tourists including foreigners will visit Kerala through this airport," Singh said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Days after a 50-year-old security guard of a cash van was killed after unidentified persons opened fire at the vehicle in east Delhi's Mayur Vihar,



police have arrested seven men, including the employee of the firm ferrying the money.

The accused have been identified as Sunil (28), Mohit (24), Kapil (25), Sachin (40), Bijender (28), Sandeep (25) and Parvesh (27), police said.

The failed robbery bid took place on October 8 at DND flyover in Mayur Vihar. Several men in two cars intercepted the cash van carrying Rs 4.2 crore and opened fire, leading to the death of the armed guard present inside the cash van.

The accused Parvesh is an employee of the firm ferrying the money, while Sandeep is a former employee of the same firm, police said.

The accused were identified after scanning the CCTV footage. Raids were conducted across Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana to trace them, they said.

Based on a tip-off, a trap was laid on the night of October 16 and 17 on the Delhi-Noida link road where the accused persons arrived in the same car used for the offence and subsequently, they were apprehended, Pankaj Singh, Deputy Commissioner of Police (east), said.

During interrogation, it was revealed that Sunil who was involved in several offences joined hands with his old friends Mohit and Kapil and formed a gang to execute robberies across Delhi and NCR. Later, they included Bijender and Sachin in the gang, he said.

Sachin gave them logistical assistance such as procuring of arms, getting fake number plates and suggesting places where they could go into hiding after commission of offences, while Bijender gave them ground support, the officer added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A seven-year-old girl, who was returning home from her school, was allegedly raped by a man in Haryana's Rewari district, police said Wednesday.

The man grabbed the child and took her to the fields and raped her there on Tuesday, they said.

The girl was profusely bleeding when she reached home, police said. She narrated the ordeal to her mother following which police were informed, they added.

The child was admitted to a hospital in a serious condition, police said.

A case has been registered and efforts are on to nab the accused, they said.

The girl's parents are said to be migrant labourers.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Medium pacer Mohammad Abbas registered a five-wicket haul to steer Pakistan into a dominating position in the second Test against Australia in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday.

Abbas finished with five for 33 to bowl out Australia for a paltry 145 to give Pakistan a 137-run lead in the first innings on the second day at Sheikh Zayed Stadium.

Pakistan stretched that lead to 281 as they were 144 for two at close, with Azhar Ali not out on 54 for his first half century in the series and Haris Sohail was 17 not out.

With eight wickets in hand Pakistan were in a great position to force a 1-0 lead in the two-match series after the first Test ended in a fighting draw in Dubai last week.

Azhar, who fell for disappointing scores of 18, four and 15 in the last three innings, batted with resolve, having so far hit three boundaries.

But it was once again debutant Fakhar Zaman who lifted Pakistan with a brilliant 66 following up his 94 in the first innings, before giving a return catch to Nathan Lyon who took an evasive action but still managed to hold onto the ball.

Zaman hit seven boundaries in an enterprising knock.

Mohammad Hafeez, who scored a hundred in the drawn first Test, fell to a lazy shot off pacer Mitchell Starc, caught at short mid-off for six.

Earlier, Abbas and spinner Bilal Asif (3-23) wrecked Australia for 145 in their innings.

Abbas had Shaun Marsh, in the fourth over of the day, for three and Travis Head for 14 before wrapping up the innings by trapping Starc leg-before for 34.

This becomes Abbas's third five-wicket haul in a burgeoning career of ten Tests. Asif had removed Aaron Finch (39) and in the last over before lunch trapped Tim Paine leg-before for three.

Marnus Labuschagne offered some resistance during his 25 before falling to a freakish run out, backing up too far as a drive from Starc was deflected to the stumps by Yasir Shah with Labuschagne out of his crease.

Abbas, whose first wicket of the match made him the joint second fastest Pakistani to 50 wickets, gave Pakistan an early wicket in the fourth over of the day, removing Marsh with a catch in the slip.

He then had Head caught in the second slip to leave Australia at 56 for four. Leg-spinner Yasir made it 75 for five with the wicket of Mitchell Marsh, caught close to the wicket for 13 before Australia lose two more to reach lunch at 91 for seven.

Afer the Tests both the teams will play a series of three Twenty20 international with the first in Abu Dhabi on October 24.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Senior BJP leader Ravinder Raina Wednesday sought action against "mischievous elements" who are trying to defame the Aligarh Muslim University and the Jawaharlal Nehru University besides bringing a bad name to Jammu and Kashmir.

Raina, who is the president of BJP's J&K unit, however, did not identify the "mischievous elements".

"There are some mischievous elements in the AMU and the JNU who are trying to defame these institutions of learning. The name of Jammu and Kashmir crops up each time whenever there a controversy," he said.

Raina said he was pained over such happenings and asked for action against such "bad elements" so that the peaceful atmosphere is not vitiated.

He was replying to a question on the revocation of the suspension order of two Kashmiri students by the AMU on Tuesday.

Two Kashmiri students -- Wasim Ayub Malik and Abdul Hasib Meer -- were suspended last Friday for allegedly participating in an aborted Namaaz-e-Janaza (prayer meeting) in the university campus for slain Hizbul Mujahideen militant, Manan Bashir Wani.

Wani, an AMU student who quit his PhD course in Allied Geology and joined the militant ranks in January this year, was killed in an encounter in Kupwara district last week.

The BJP leader said, "A terrorist is a terrorist and anyone who supports him is a traitor."



"Our policy is crystal clear and we have full faith in democracy. We are Indian and anybody who tries to destabilise the nation will be dealt with iron hands," he said.

Describing the killing of three Lashker-e-Toiba terrorists in Srinagar on Wednesday as a "major success", Raina said Kashmir will get rid of terrorism "very soon".

"The one who takes up arms and tries to kill unarmed civilians or goes to Pakistan and comes back with arms and explosives will meet death. Terrorists, separatists or anybody, who is conspiring against the nation, will be shown no mercy," he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Pakistan on Wednesday told Iran that it had launched "active" efforts to locate 11 Iranian security personnel, who were abducted by unknown militants near its border.

The Iranian guards were abducted by terrorists on Tuesday in the Lulakdan, a small village some 150-km southeast of Zahedan, the capital of the province of Sistan-Balochistan bordering Pakistan, according to Iranian media.

So far no group has claimed responsibility for kidnapping the Iranian guards.

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif Wednesday called his Pakistan counterpart Shah Mahmood Qureshi and raised the issue of abduction of the Iranian border guards.

Qureshi "expressed his serious concern on the incident" and briefed Zarif about the active efforts launched by the Pakistan's law enforcement agencies to ascertain the whereabouts of the missing Iranian guards, in coordination with the Iranian military and intelligence counterparts, the Foreign Office said.

It said the two Directors General (Military Operations) were in close contact through hotline to coordinate the search and rescue efforts including enhanced air surveillance and troops deployment in the border area where the incident took place.

Qureshi blamed the kidnapping on "our common enemies unhappy with the existing close, friendly relations between Pakistan and Iran," the FO added.

Reaffirming Pakistan's commitment of not allowing anyone succeed in such malicious efforts, Qureshi said that Pakistan and Iran have traditionally shared a "border of peace and friendship" which would be maintained in the same spirit.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Samajwadi Secular Morcha founder Shivpal Yadav said Wednesday he was open to the idea of joining a proposed alliance of opposition parties in Uttar Pradesh against the ruling BJP.

Shortly after moving into the government bungalow vacated by Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati in Lucknow, he told reporters that he would use the 6, Lal Bahadur Shastri Marg residence as the office of his morcha.

The Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh allotted the bungalow to Shivpal Yadav, who is Samajwadi Party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav's brother and the estranged uncle of SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, after a Supreme Court directive.

"I have entered the bungalow and will start work from here. We have invited all those who did not get due honour in Samajwadi Party to join our morcha, which we have formed as people have lost trust in political parties. We will work against the anti-people government (in UP)," Shivpal Yadav said.

On the proposed grand alliance of opposition parties in Uttar Pradesh, Shivpal Yadav said, he will "consider" the proposal if he is invited to join it.

Shivpal Yadav has not quit the SP but formed the morcha following differences with Akhilesh Yadav. He said the morcha will contest the 2019 Lok Sabha election.

"I tried my level best to remain united. You (media) ask him (Akhilesh Yadav) why he allowed people to leave. Except on Mainpuri seat, where Mulayam Singh Yadav is likely to contest, we will contest elections on all Lok Sabha seats (in UP) in 2019."



Asked whether he will field his son Ankur Yadav in the Lok Sabha election, he said it will be "decided by the morcha".

Earlier Wednesday, Shivpal Yadav reached the bungalow with his supporters and entered it after performing a puja and havan on Durga Ashtmi.

Shivpal Yadav had said he was allotted the bungalow "as there were intelligence reports of threats to me."



The Congress previously suggested Shivpal Yadav was favoured in the allocation of the bungalow, saying he was working for the BJP. The BJP had defended the decision, saying "no should be seen in it".

Launching the morcha in August, Shivpal Yadav had said he felt neglected in the SP after Akhilesh Yadav took the charge of the party.

Mayawati vacated the bungalow after the Supreme Court struck down on May 7 an amendment to the Uttar Pradesh Ministers (Salaries, Allowances and Miscellaneous Provisions) Act that allowed former chief ministers to retain their government accommodation when their term ended.

After this, former chief ministers, including Mayawati, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Akhilesh Yadav, Narain Dutt Tiwari and Rajnath Singh, had to vacate their government bungalows.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Beset by graft cases filed by DMK against its senior leaders, including the Chief Minister K Palniswami, AIADMK celebrated its 47th foundation day by launching a spirited counter attack on its arch rival,calling its chief M K Stalin "the embodiment of corruption."



At the main event at the AIADMK headquarters here, Palaniswami and his deputy O Panneerselvam hoisted the party flag and garlanded statues of its founder M G Ramachandran and his successor J Jayalalithaa.

Fisheries minister D Jayakumar launched a no holds barred attack on DMK, raking up the Sarkaria Commission report that led to the dismissal of the DMK government in 1976.

He was responding to reporters' queries on DMK's charges of corruption in award of road contracts by Palaniswami, over which the Madras High Court has ordered a CBI probe.

The DMK had moved the court against Palaniswami and a few of his ministerial colleagues, alleging corruption.

For the last two years, the founding day celebrations have been a low key affair after the untimely demise of AIADMK's charismatic leader Jayalalithaa in December 2016.

The post Jayalalithaa era has seen a churning in AIADMK, with ouster of the Sasikala family from the party by Palaniswami and Paneereselvam led groups after their merger.

Ousted leader T T V Dhinakaran,nephew of V K Sasikala,who has floated his outfit AMMK and has been a thorn in the flesh of the Dravidian party, has said he would retrieve the party.

Sasikala, serving a four year term in a Bengaluru jail in a disproportionate assets case,had recently moved the Election Commission, praying for an election for the post of general secretary, from which she was removed, by appointing an observer.

Targeting DMK, Jayakumar also alleged that its government was the only one to have been dismissed on corruption charges.

"Is there anything more shameful than this?... Stalin is the embodiment of corruption," he charged.

Jayakumar expressed confidence that AIADMK would survive the next 100 years and said the ongoing celebrations are a befitting reply to its adversaries, who expected that the party would fold up after the demise of Jayalalithaa.

"We will continue to survive for the next 100 years, will celebrate the golden jubilee in the next three years and diamond jubilee after 25 years," he said.

Referring to Dhinakaran's claims that he would "retrieve" AIADMK, the minister said the AMMK leader would not stand a chance of retaining his RK Nagar seat if there was a re-election.

On the day, seven AIADMK workers who lost their lives during party related works in the state were each given Rs two lakh, those injured were given Rs 50,000 each and a mobile application for blood donation was launched.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Union Minister Ramdas Athawale Wednesday termed the resignation of Minister of State for External Affairs M J Akbar as the "right decision" and said allegations against him should be "properly investigated".

The 67-year-old journalist-turned-politician had stepped down earlier in the day due to mounting pressure following a spate of allegations of sexual harassment against him by several women scribes, who welcomed his resignation as a "vindication".

Athawale, who is the minister of state for social justice and empowerment in the Narendra Modi government, said the opposition was also demanding Akbar's resignation.

"Opposition was demanding his resignation. The decision M J Akbar has taken is right," Athawale, whose Republican Party of India is an ally of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government said.

"The allegations levelled against him should be properly investigated," he added.

Akbar's sudden announcement to quit came a day before the court hearing of a criminal defamation complaint filed by him against Priya Ramani, a journalist who has accused him of sexual misconduct around 20 years ago.

In a brief statement, Akbar said he has decided to seek justice in a court of law in his personal capacity.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Congress Wednesday termed as "victory of truth" the resignation of union minister M J Akbar following charges of sexual harassment against him.

Congress spokesperson Priyanka Chaturvedi said she saluted those women who stood on their charges against the minister bravely despite the "brazen" stance taken by the government.

"This resignation is a vindication of the power of truth. More strength to India's women," she said.

"The resignation of MoS External Affairs MJ Akbar after serious charges were levelled against him by senior women journalists who worked with him is a vindication of the power of truth even if it began with one brave person speaking up," she said.

The Congress leader hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for what she said was his "silence" in the matter.

"I salute these women who stood their ground despite the brazen stance of the GoI, silence of the PM who speaks about women empowerment, the arrogant misuse of power by deploying a battery of lawyers against one woman and allowing the accused to continue in his role," Chaturvedi said in a tweet.

Alleging that using threat and intimidation as a tool to silence voices has become the norm of the Modi government, she said but this brazenness is returning to haunt them.

"The women of the country are saying the time for this is up&threat to silence voices can no longer be the norm or acceptable," she said.

Mahila Congress chief Sushmita Dev termed Akbar's stepping down as a "moral victory" for everyone and sought support for the #MeToo movement across party lines.

"M J Akbar's resignation is a moral victory for everyone. The defamation case can't change that. The #MeToo movement needs support across party lines," she tweeted.

" I admire the courage of @priyaramani & all the victims who spoke out against sexual harassment & abuse. @mjakbar s resignation is a moral victory for everyone. The defamation case can't change that. The #MeToo movement needs support across party lines.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Congress Wednesday termed as "victory of truth" the resignation of Union minister M J Akbar following charges of sexual harassment against him, and asked whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi will dare to speak up now on the #MeToo movement.

Congress leader Ragini Naik accused the Modi government of being "misogynist" which "deceived" women voters who placed their faith, reposed their trust in the BJP in 2014.

"Times is up Modi ji. The silence of PM Modi on #MeToo movement is deafening," she told reporters.

"Now that M J Akbar, who has been accused by no less than 36 women of misconduct and harassment, has finally resigned, will PM Narendra Modi dare to speak up," Naik asked.

Congress spokesperson Priyanka Chaturvedi said she saluted the women who stood against Akbar bravely in spite of the "brazen" stance taken by the government.

"This resignation is a vindication of the power of truth. More strength to India's women," she said.

Akbar stepped down as junior external affairs minister Wednesday, the first high-profile head to roll in the #MeToo movement that has banded women from diverse backgrounds against a spectrum of sexual misconduct they have faced.

The 67-year-old journalist-politician's resignation as minister of state for external affairs comes a day ahead of the hearing of his criminal defamation case against journalist Priya Ramani, one of the women who accused him of sexual misconduct, at Delhi's Patiala House court.

Mahila Congress chief Sushmita Dev termed Akbar's stepping down as a "moral victory" for everyone and sought support for the #MeToo movement cutting across party lines.

"M J Akbar's resignation is a moral victory for everyone. The defamation case can't change that. The #MeToo movement needs support across party lines," she tweeted.

"I admire the courage of @priyaramani & all the victims who spoke out against sexual harassment & abuse. @mjakbar s resignation is a moral victory for everyone. The defamation case can't change that. The #MeToo movement needs support across party lines."



Naik said the Congress believes that Akbar's resignation was a result of the persistent pressure put by women who shared their horrific and uncomfortable stories. It was also a vindication of the Congress party's unequivocal stand on the #MeToo movement, she added.

"We also think that it is a time for a fair trial so that justice prevails. This country has a rule of law and the Congress party believes that any allegation levelled against anybody must pass this test of justice. We hope and wish that all the women fighting this tough battle would be heard and finally justice would be imparted," she said.

Chaturvedi, too, hit out at Prime Minister Modi for what she said was his "silence" on the matter.

"I salute these women who stood their ground despite the brazen stance of the GoI, silence of the PM who speaks about women empowerment, the arrogant misuse of power by deploying a battery of lawyers against one woman and allowing the accused to continue in his role," Chaturvedi said in a tweet.

Alleging that using threat and intimidation as a tool to silence voices has become the norm of the Modi government, she said but this brazenness is returning to haunt them.

"The women of the country are saying the time for this is up and threat to silence voices can no longer be the norm or acceptable," she said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)BJP president Amit Shah Wednesday criticised the Congress government in Mizoram as "corrupt" and said it failed to deliver services to the people of the state.

At a campaign rally at R. Dengthuama Indoor stadium in Aizawl, Shah accused Chief Minister Lal Thanhawla of running "a corrupt and dynastic rule" in the state.

He claimed Thanhawla was trying to install his younger brother as the next chief minister.

Lal Thanzara, younger brother of the chief minister, serves as health minister in the state government.

Shah said the BJP would not form an alliance with any other political party in Mizoram, including the opposition Mizo National Front, a constituent of the North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA).

NEDA is a political coalition formed in 2016 by the BJP, along with regional parties such as Naga People's Front, Sikkim Democratic Front, People's Party of Arunachal, Asom Gana Parishad and Bodoland People's Front.

The BJP would contest all 40 seats of the Mizoram Legislative Assembly with confidence to form a corruption-free government to bring self-sufficiency in food grains and energy generation, Shah added.

Mizoram will see a single-day voting on November 28.

Results will be declared on December 11 along with four other states.

Mizoram is the only state in the northeast where Congress has a government and BJP leaders have asserted they would make concerted efforts to oust Congress from the eight northeastern states.

Lal Thanhawla, also Congress state unit president, has been Mizoram chief minister since 2008.

Shah held Lal Thanhawla responsible for the despicable condition of roads and highways as the state public works department was the latter's portfolio.

Citing several central projects and funds allocated for Mizoram, he alleged that the Congress government failed to take up any development projects to benefit people.

The BJP chief, welcomed Dr. B.D. Chakma, former minister and Congress legislator who resigned as a member of the assembly Tuesday, into the party.

Shah was accompanied by Assam finance minister and BJP general secretary in-charge of Mizoram elections Himanta Biswas Sharma, party general secretary Ram Lal and senior party functionaries.

He also inaugurated Aizawl's BJP office called "Atal Bhavan" in Tuikhuahtlang.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Anyone entering the US illegally would be arrested, detained and then deported back, President Donald Trump has warned as he threatened three Central American nations to halt a migrant caravan from heading to America or lose millions of dollars in foreign aid.

Trump's warning comes amidst reports that a new migrant caravan from Honduras comprising about 1600 people is moving towards the US via Guatemala.

The caravan, formed in the Honduran city of San Pedro Sula on Saturday, crossed into Guatemala on Monday. Guatemala detained one of its coordinators on Tuesday, but other members of the caravan are advancing through Guatemala with hopes of reaching the US border.

"Anybody entering the United States illegally will be arrested and detained, prior to being sent back to their country!" Trump said in a late-night tweet.

He said his administration has informed the three countries - Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador that America will stop all payments to them if they allow their citizens to enter the US.

"We have today informed the countries of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador that if they allow their citizens, or others, to journey through their borders and up to the United States, with the intention of entering our country illegally, all payments made to them will STOP (END)!" Trump said in another tweet.

In 2017, the US gave USD 248 million to Guatemala, USD 175 million to Honduras and USD 115 million to El Salvador in foreign aid.

Vice President Mike Pence also tweeted earlier, saying that he had spoken with Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez and Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales.

He said Trump's message to Honduras also applied to Guatemala, "no more aid if it's not stopped!"



"Spoke with Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales about caravan heading for the US and made clear our borders and sovereignty must be maintained. We expect our partners to do all they can to assist and appreciate their support. Reiterated POTUS' message: no more aid if it's not stopped!" Pence tweeted.

This caravan's emergence comes nearly six months after another caravan consisting largely of Honduran immigrants reached the US-Mexico border.

Its formation also comes just weeks before high-stakes midterm elections in the United States, in which many Republican candidates have been echoing President Trump's message of boosting border security and cracking down on illegal immigration.

Trump has been a fierce advocate of building a border wall with Mexico to tighten the US' immigration controls.

He believes border security is a serious national issue and the lack of it poses a substantial threat to the "sovereignty and safety" of America and its citizens.

During his campaign, Trump tapped into the immigration concerns of many Americans who worry about loss of economic opportunities and the threat of criminals and terrorists entering the country.

His call for the construction of a border wall was one of his most popular proposals and helped the billionaire tycoon to galvanise masses.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The attempt by a 45-year old woman from neighbouring Andhra Pradesh to trek to the Sabarimala temple Wednesday failed as protesters prevented her from proceeding to the hill shrine at Pamba, one of the main entry points.

As the countdown started for the opening of the temple for the five-day monthly pooja in the evening, the agitation of Ayyappa devotees spread to Nilackal and Pamba, the two main base camps of Sabarimala.

The woman, identified as Madhavi, a native of East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh, would have been the first female to trek the Sabarimala hills after the Supreme Court verdict allowing women of all age groups into the Lord Ayyappa temple.

The incident happened despite the heavy deployment of police personnel in and around Pamba.

Madhavi, along with her family members, attempted to reach the holy hills in the morning via the Swamy Ayyappan road, one of the two forest trekking paths to Sannidhanam (the temple complex) but the group was forced to retreat after protesters blocked their way.

Even though the police personnel gave them protection and allowed them to move further, the family, after walking a short distance, decided to return as angry activists of Ayyappa Dharma Sena surrounded them and asked them to go back.

Tension prevailed at Pamba for some more time after police tried to disperse the protesters, who had gathered in large numbers.

Meanwhile, members of tantri (head priest) family and the Pandalam royal family took part in the namajapa (prayer) strike of devotees at Pamba.

Devotees including women sat by the roadside and chanted aloud mantras of Lord Ayyappa, even as armed police personnel were deployed in large numbers at the base camp.

Talking to reporters at Sannidhanam, temple tantri Kandaru Rajeevaru said the centuries-old rituals and traditions of the Lord Ayyappa shrine should be protected.

While Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader, M T Ramesh said the government and police were trying to make Sabarimala a "war zone".

"It is important to protect the sanctity of the Lord Ayyappa Temple. The government is not taking into consideration the sentiments of Ayyappa devotees who are coming in large (numbers) to Nilackal and Pamba," he told reporters in Pamba.

Senior Minister, E P Jayarajan said agitators would invite "Ayyappa dosham" (the wrath of Lord Ayyappa) for blocking devotees who go to Sabarimala after taking vrata (penance).

He also said the ongoing agitation was "anti-people, anti-constitutional and anti-law".

"The government will give protection to devotees who are coming to offer worship at Sabarimala," he said in Thiruvananthapuram.

State Devaswom Minister, Kadakampally Surendran, who was at the Sannidhanam to hold a review meeting with officials, said the government would not allow anyone to take law into their hands and block devotees from coming to Sabarimala.

Meanwhile, Director General of Police (DGP) Loknanth Behera warned that people who blocked the vehicles carrying Ayyappa devotees would be arrested and booked.

The apex court had on September 28 passed a historic judgement lifting the ban on entry of girls and women of menstrual age into the temple, a verdict that was hailed by rights activists but opposed by traditionalists.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Terming Essar Steel as "unique and compelling opportunity" to gain foothold in India, steel giant ArcelorMittal said Wednesday it will pay Rs 7,469 crore to the creditors of Uttam Galva and KKS Petron to be eligible to acquire the debt-laden firm, as per Supreme Court order.

The Supreme Court on October 4 had granted one more opportunity to the world's largest steelmaker ArcelorMittal and Russia's VTB Capital-backed NuMetal to bid for Essar Steel if they clear their non-performing asset (NPA) dues of their related corporate debtors within two weeks.

"ArcelorMittal announces that, in-line with the Indian Supreme Court ruling dated 4 October 2018, it has approved a payment of 7,469 crore rupees (approx USD 1 billion) to the financial creditors of Uttam Galva and KSS Petron to clear overdue debts in order that the offer it submitted for Essar Steel India Limited (ESIL) on 2 April 2018 is eligible and can be considered by ESIL's Committee of Creditors (CoC)," the Luxembourg-headquartered company said in a statement.

The Laxmi N Mittal-owned company, which is the world's largest steel maker, which has been on a murky legal battle with other bidders, especially the Russian VTB Bank-promoted NuMetal, had on April 2 submitted a proposal to take over Essar Steel.

Of the Rs 7,469 crore payment, around 80 per cent will be used to settle the dues of Uttam Galva and the rest 20 per cent for KSS Petron, the company said.

ArcelorMittal said its board of directors believes that "ESIL represents a unique and compelling opportunity for the Company to establish a significant footprint", with substantial expansion potential, in the high-growth Indian steel market.

It concluded that, given the significant benefits that ESIL would bring to ArcelorMittal, making this payment was an appropriate course of action under the circumstances.

"As stipulated in the Supreme Court ruling, ESIL's CoC now has an eight-week period to accept what it considers to be the best resolution plan from eligible applicants," the statement said.

Russia's VTB Bank on October 12 had moved the Supreme Court seeking clarification of its October 4 verdict by which mining major ArcelorMittal and NuMetal were granted another opportunity to bid for Essar Steel.

VTB Bank has recently indicated that it was likely to bid alone for the debt-ridden Essar Steel.

A bench of justices R F Nariman and Indu Malhotra had said that ArcelorMittal and VTB Bank-promoted NuMetal can bid for Essar Steel, provided the two pay off the non-performing assets (NPAs) of their related corporate debtors within two weeks from October 4.

It, however, had held that ArcelorMittal India Pvt Ltd and NuMetal Ltd were ineligible to file resolution plans for corporate debtor Essar Steel -- which had NPAs or bad debts amounting to Rs 45,000 crore -- as per the criteria laid down in the amended Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC).

As per the verdict, ArcelorMittal will qualify to bid for Essar Steel only if it clears about Rs 7,000 crore dues of two firms, Uttam Galva and KSS Petron, it was previously associated with.

With regard to NuMetal, the court had held that it was a shell company of Essar Group promoter Ravi Ruia and can only become eligible after of the NPAs of the group firms.

The court, however, had not specified NPAs of NuMetal's related corporate debtors which have to be paid off to become eligible to bid for corporate debtors Essar Steel.

Earlier, both the firms had moved the apex court against the decision of National Company Law Appellate Tribunal which had ruled that NuMetal's second bid for Essar Steel was eligible, but the same by ArcelorMittal would qualify only if it cleared the Rs 7,000 crore dues of two firms it was previously associated with.

ArcelorMittal is the world's leading steel and mining company, with a presence in 60 countries and an industrial footprint in 18 countries. When it comes to coal mining, it is the fifth largest globally.

In 2017, ArcelorMittal had revenue of USD 68.7 billion and crude steel production of 93.1 million tonne, while own iron ore production stood at 57.4 million tonne.

ArcelorMittal is listed on the stock exchanges of New York, Amsterdam, Paris, Luxembourg apart from the Spanish stock exchanges of Barcelona, Bilbao, Madrid and Valencia.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)An Indian Army soldier has been picked up from Meerut for questioning on suspicion he provided sensitive information to Pakistan-based intelligence operatives through social media, a defence spokesperson said Wednesday.

The soldier, whose identity has not been revealed is associated with the Signal Regiment in Meerut, the spokesperson said in Lucknow. He is said to have been posted with the regiment for two years.

An investigation is under progress by Army Intelligence authorities, the official said.

The jawan is being questioned about whether any confidential information related to the Western Command has been leaked through social media, another defence official said.

In a similar case earlier this month, a BrahMos Aerospace engineer was arrested in Nagpur on charges of spying. Nishant Agarwal was arrested in a joint operation by anti-terrorist squad units of Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh.

Agarwal was later taken to Lucknow, where he was interrogated. Officials said he was in touch with suspected Pakistani intelligence operatives through two Facebook accounts in the names women being operated from that country.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Colourful paragliders silhouetted skyline in Himachal Pradesh as the Army stole the show by getting top three places in first-ever inter-services paragliding competitions in Himachal Pradesh's Kangra district Wednesday.

Naik Ashish Kumar of 14 Dogras secured the first position with 1,179 points, followed by Havildar Kupuswami of 9para and Naik Sunil Kumar of 14 Mechanised Infantry, who stood second and third respectively, Defence spokesperson Col Devender Anand said.

The closing ceremony of the First Inter-Services Paragliding Accuracy Competition was held here and Lt Gen Ranbir Singh, General Officer Commanding-In-Chief Northern Command, was the chief guest on the occasion.

Other dignitaries, Maj Gen AK Samantra, GOC Dah Division; Maj Gen Kulpreet Singh, IG BSF Jammu, Ram Avtar, Brig Sukhmeet Singh and SDM Baijnath , Vikas Shukla were also present on the occasion.

The event witnessed awe-inspiring wing control and accuracy skills put on display by the paragliding pilots from the Army, Air Force, Navy, BSF and Assam Rifles at Bir-Billing - touted as the world's second best paragliding site.

The competition, a first-of-its-kind, was conducted by the Dah Division under the aegis of Army Adventure Wing from 15 to 17 October 2018 and provided an excellent opportunity to the participating paragliding pilots to showcase their skills, Col Anand said.

Overall conduct and arrangements were coordinated by Cassino Gunners on behalf of Dah Division, the Defence spokesperson said.

The competition culminated with an awards presentation ceremony by the Army Commander.

Lt Gen Singh congratulated the winners for their excellent show of paragliding skills and the Dah Division for the "stupendous conduct of such an event".

He appreciated the enthusiasm and healthy competitive spirit of all participants and expressed confidence that the services paragliding pilots would perform equally well in similar national and international events and bring laurels for their respective services.

Kalpana Singh Dhatt, Regional President AWWA, Northern Command gave away consolation prizes to the trainee student pilots.

The event also witnessed an equipment display as part of "Know Your Army" and guidance for recruitment into the armed forces alongside the competition that displayed the dynamic lifestyle of uniformed personnel and also motivated the youth to join the esteemed armed forces.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Hurricane Michael killed at least 30 people in four states, as the storm made its way through the southeastern United States last week, new local estimates showed Tuesday.

Twelve bodies were recovered in Bay County, Florida, Sheriff Tommy Ford told local media, bringing the death toll up to 20 in that state.

The powerful Category 4 storm, which originally made landfall along Florida's Gulf of Mexico coastline with winds of up to 155 miles (250 kilometers) an hour, also left one person dead in Georgia, three in North Carolina and six in Virginia.

Hurricane Michael left scenes of destruction in its wake in Florida, and authorities fear the death toll could still increase as the search operation continues in the most heavily damaged areas.

Nearly 137,000 Florida homes and businesses were still without power Tuesday, and several water and food distribution points were still in place for affected residents throughout the state.

Some jurisdictions implemented curfews and most schools in the affected areas were closed until further notice.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Maggie's Farm We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.With the arrest of two Mumbai-based persons, police in Thane district of Maharashtra Wednesday claimed to have busted an ATM card skimming racket.

According to police, the accused would steal the ATM passwords of bank account holders residing in Mira Bhayandar township and siphon off money from their accounts.

"The duo was arrested based on a tip-off," Assistant Superintendent of Police Atul Kulkarni said.

Following several complaints of cash getting deducted from the bank accounts of people through suspected cloned ATM cards, Thane District Rural SP Dr Shivaji Rathod had directed the police personnel to nab the accused, he said.

"As part of the plan, a police team kept a watch near a bar on Ghod Deo Phatak road a couple of days back and arrested Kishore Nayya (33) and Hemant Jain (32)," Kulkarni said.

"During their interrogation, the accused told the police that they would collect the ATM card data through the skimmers placed on the ATMs. After knowing the password, they would siphon off funds from the bank accounts," police said.

Besides eight fake ATM cards, one skimmer and three mobile phones, the police also recovered other accessories that is used in making fake ATM cards, police said.

The duo was booked under IPC sections 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 467 (forgery of valuable security, will, etc) and 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating) and the IT Act of 2008.

Among other things, the police are in the process of collecting information like the total amount siphoned off by the accused so far, the official said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)At least 17 people were killed and dozens more wounded, most of them teenagers, after an attack on a college in Russian-annexed Crimea on Wednesday, with conflicting versions referring to a lone shooter and a bomb.

Russia's Investigative Committee said the attack was carried out by 18-year-old student Vladislav Roslyakov, who was captured on security camera footage carrying a gun in the technical college in Kerch and whose body was later found with gunshot wounds.

The Investigative Committee, which probes major incidents, had initially classified the attack as an act of terror, but later said it was investigating a mass murder after "this young man shot dead people in the college and then committed suicide," adding that all victims died of gunshot wounds.

The attack had first been reported as an explosion, with Russia's National Anti-Terrorism Committee saying an "unidentified explosive device" had gone off.

Committee spokesman Andrei Przhezdomsky said bomb squads were working "at the blast site", adding that the body of Roslyakov was found in the college next to a pump-action gun.

The Investigative Committee said 17 were killed in the attack which took place at around 12 noon (0900 GMT) on the peninsula, which was annexed by Moscow from Ukraine in 2014.

However Crimean leader Sergei Aksyonov told Russian Rossiya-24 television that the death toll had risen to 18, with more than 40 injured.

"The supposed killer shot himself, it's a student in the fourth year who was studying at the college. His body was found in the library on the first floor," Aksyonov wrote on Facebook.

The Investigative Committee said most of the victims were teenagers. The college's website says it accepts students in the last three grades of school, from the age of 14.

Aksyonov announced three days of mourning from Thursday over the "terrible tragedy".

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is currently in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, said in televised comments that a "tragic event" had happened and that "as a result of an explosion of an explosive device, people died and many are injured".

He was speaking during talks with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and made the statement before the Investigative Committee said the crime was a mass shooting rather than a terrorist attack.

"It's already clear that it's a crime, the motive and possible versions for this tragedy are being carefully examined," Putin said.

"I want to express condolences to the relatives of the dead and express the hope that the injured recover as quickly as possible," the president said, calling for a minute's silence to mourn the victims.

Kerch is linked to the Russian mainland by a bridge opened by Putin in May.

Witnesses said that the attacker fired shots but also spoke of hearing an explosion.

A student at the college who asked not to give his name told AFP that "I was in a class when I heard shooting on the first floor."



"When we all ran out into the corridor, there were others running and shouting that some guy with a machine gun was randomly shooting everyone in turn."



"Then a strong explosion went off, but thank God, I was already outside and saw our guys being thrown out of the windows by the explosive wave," he said, adding that part of the building collapsed.

Another witness who gave his name as Sergei and who worked nearby said in a video on the Kerch.tv website that he heard "a bang and shots." Sergei, whose shirt was covered in blood, said victims "were taken away in public transport, in minibuses and buses, with two or three people in each ambulance."



"They are children and staff," the witness said. "I saw people without legs, without arms.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)India pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar feels that the upcoming Australia tour will be challenging even though the hosts will be without their two star players -- David Warner and Steve Smith.

The 28-year-old also believes that no overseas tour is easy.

"It (the Australian tour) will be challenging, no tour is easy. But Australia will be challenging because when you play outside your home (country) you need to adapt to certain conditions. It won't be easy for bowlers as there is hardly any movement these days," Bhuvneshwar told a select group of reporters here on Monday.

Australia will not be having the services of Smith and Warner, who are serving a one-year ban for ball-tampering during Australia's previous visit to South Africa.

Asked how the absence of Smith and Warner will affect Australia, Bhuvneshwar said: "I cannot say that we will overcome them. They don't have the two batsman (Smith and Warner), who have done well over the years. (But) there are other batsmen in their place and it is not that they aren't good."



"Its their home conditions. For us, if the two (Smith and Warner) were there, it is a challenge, now they are not there, it will still be a challenge," the Uttar Pradesh fast bowler said.

"If it would have been easy, we would have always won the series (in the past). It won't be easy. Our preparation in the practise matches there will matter," he said.

Bhuvneshwar is now associated with ASICS and was in the city for its promotion.

India are set to tour Down Under for a four Test match series, which begins with the first Test at Adelaide on December 6.

Bhuvneshwar has been rested for the first two ODIs against the West Indies.

The right-arm fast bowler, who has played 92 ODIs and 21 Tests, lauded the rotation policy of the team management.

"The way fast bowlers are managed, the rotation policy is in a way good, as we get a break and others get a chance and the body remains fresh," he said.

He also stressed on the need to have breaks.

"Breaks are needed after you play a long tour. You are mentally tired, like Jasprit (Bumrah) said when you return you are fresh and are rearing to go. Hence breaks are needed, as your body gets tired," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Filmmaker Vikas Bahl, accused of sexual assault by a former employee of Phantom Films, has filed a Rs 10 crore defamation suit against Anurag Kashyap and Vikramaditya Motwane, his former partners in the production house.

The court, during the hearing Wednesday, directed Bahl to make the woman employee a respondent to the suit and adjourned the hearing to October 19.

Bahl, the director of Kangana Ranaut-starrer "Queen", has sought an interim direction from the court seeking to restrain Kashyap and Motwane from making any statements, either to the media or on social media platforms, against him.

The suit, filed Tuesday, alleged that Kashyap and Motwane made "defamatory, slanderous and baseless allegations" against him due to which he has suffered irreversible damage to the reputation.

It demanded damages of Rs 10 crore from Kashyap and Motwane.

He labelled his former partners as opportunists, who allegedly orchestrated the whole campaign against him, making him look like the person responsible for the production house's fall.

Justice S J Kathawalla, who heard arguments on Bahl's application for interim order, asked if the parties were open to sort out the issue amicably.

"Is there any way to end this matter? Just check if the parties are willing for this," he asked the lawyers.

The court also directed Bahl to make the woman who has levelled allegations against him a respondent to the application, saying it was pertinent to hear her too.

Justice Kathawalla directed Bahl, Kashyap, Motwane and the woman to appear in person in his chamber on Friday, when the matter would be heard.

Bahl's counsel Sharan Jagtiani argued that even after the alleged incident, the woman was in touch with Bahl.

To this, Kashyap's counsel Venkatesh Dhond said Bahl cannot trivialise the woman's allegations on this ground, as she had to continue working with Phantom Films.

Justice Kathawalla, while adjourning the matter, noted that while the #MeToo movement was good, there should be guidelines in place so that authorities know how to handle such cases.

The judge passed no order on Bahl's plea.

Phantom Films was established in 2011 by Kashyap, Motwane, Bahl and producer Madhu Mantena.

The company's productions include "Lootera", "Hasee Toh Phasee" and the blockbuster "Queen".

Soon after Bahl was named by a former employee of Phantom Films amid the MeToo campaign, Kashyap and Motwane dissolved the production house.

The unidentified woman employee alleged that Bahl sexually assaulted her in Goa during a promotional tour for the movie "Bombay Velvet" in 2015.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Filmmaker Vikas Bahl, accused of sexual assault by a former employee of Phantom Films, has filed a defamation suit against Anurag Kashyap and Vikramaditya Motwane, his former partners in the production house.

Bahl, the director of Kangana Ranaut-starrer "Queen", has also sought interim direction from the court seeking to restrain Kashyap and Motwane from making any further statements either to the media or on social media platforms against him.

Hearing on Bahl's plea for interim direction was underway at the Bombay High Court Wednesday evening.

His suit, filed Tuesday, alleged that Kashyap and Motwane made "defamatory, slanderous and baseless allegations" against him due to which he has suffered irreversible damage to the reputation.

He labelled his former partners as opportunists, who allegedly orchestrated the whole campaign against him, making him look like the person responsible for the production house's fall.

Phantom Films was established in 2011 by Kashyap, Motwane, Bahl and producer Madhu Mantena.

The company's productions include "Lootera", "Hasee Toh Phasee" and the blockbuster "Queen".

Soon after Bahl was named by a former employee of Phantom Films amid the MeToo campaign, Kashyap and Motwane dissolved the production house.

The unidentified woman employee alleged that Bahl sexually assaulted her in Goa during a promotional tour for the movie "Bombay Velvet" in 2015.

Bahl had earlier this month issued legal notices to Kashyap and Motwane threatening to file civil and criminal defamation cases if they did not withdraw their messages (on social media) and tender an unconditional apology.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The government is using a citizen utility mobile phone app to help locate revellers who get lost during pandal hopping and tackle the issue of human trafficking, minister Shashi Panja has said.

The city police had last year launched the 'Bondhu' app to help people lodge grievances and alert cops at Lalbazar control room in case of any danger by pressing the panic button.

Several incidents have been reported in the past when people, visiting the city during Durga Puja, were lost in the crowd and later spotted by the police, who helped them return to their families, she said.

"There are instances when people deliberately leave behind their children or old parents by taking advantage of the huge number of people visiting the pandals during Durga Puja," the Minister of State for Women and Child Development and Social Welfare told PTI.

Unattended children are also vulnerable to fall in the trap of human traffickers during the festival, she said.

"Keeping in mind that people do not get lost and fall prey to the human traffickers, we have decided to take help of the Bondhu app to help those lost in the crowd to reunite them with their families," Panja said.

In fact, after an understanding with the Kolkata Police, the department has arranged for eight decorated child-friendly vans in each of the eight divisions under the police jurisdiction, Panja said.

"The vans will rush to the pandals after receiving message about any person or a child getting lost from their family members in the crowd," she said.

As part of their initiative, directions have been given to puja committees to keep on making announcements about such incidents, the minister said.

Quick response team, stationed nearby, would be alerted to trace the missing children, distressed women or senior citizens.

Besides, the Kolkata Police emergency number 100, child helpline 1098, women helpline 1091 and missing persons' helpline number 9002999999 would be available for the five days of festivities, the minister said.

"A number of homes for women and children have been made ready to extend services during the celebrations," she stressed.

An official of the Women and Child Development and Social Welfare department said kiosks have been set up at Rajballavpara near Jagat Mukherjee Park, Sealdah and Mudiali areas in the city to provide first-aid, water bottles, dry food, soft toys, sanitary napkins and wheelchairs.Karnataka deputy chief minister G Parameshwara Wednesday said the JDS-Congress coalition government would show its strength by winning theupcoming bypolls and claimed that the BJP was set to "lose its face."



Battle lines have been drawn for the byelections taking place on November 3 for three Lok Sabha constituencies of Mandya, Shivamogga and Ballari and two assembly constituencies of Ramanagara and Jamakhandi.

"There is no personal ego involved and everybody is working together. Our coalition government will gain more strength by winning in all the five places. BJP is set to lose its face," Parameshwara told reporters.

Flagging off buses to Deekshabhoomi in Nagpur to mark the anniversary of Dr B R Ambedkar, architect of the Indian constitution, embracing Buddhism along with his followers,the deputy chief minister said Congress and JD(S) have unanimously decided the candidates for the elections.

The state government has arranged 23 Airavat Volvo buses from Karnataka to Nagpur to take part in the celebrations. Of these, 16 vehicles were flagged off from Bengaluru.

It was at the Deekshabhoomi that Ambedkar had led his followers to embrace Buddhism in 1956.

The deputy chief minister lauded JD(S) for its support in Ballari and Jamakhandi where Congress candidates were fighting against the BJP.

Parameshwara took a dig at BJP state president B S Yeddyurappa and MP Shobha Karandlaje, saying their analysis on the unity of coalition partners was not required.

The two coalition partners have arrived at a consensus that JD(S) would field its candidates at Shivamogga, Mandya and Ramanagara while Congress from Ballari and Jamakhandi.

The two parties have also agreed on helping each other byappointing election-in-charge in each of the five constituencies where bypolls are taking place.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A bomb placed under a sofa killed an Afghan election candidate on Wednesday, officials said, as deadly violence escalates ahead of the October 20 parliamentary ballot.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack on Jabar Qahraman, who was running for the southern province of Helmand, a stronghold for the militant group.

Another seven were wounded in the blast, provincial governor spokesman Omar Zhwak told AFP.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A 16-year-old boy drowned Wednesday in DDA's Sanjay Van Lake in south-west Delhi's Vasant Kunj, police and fire department officials said.

He had gone with his friends to the lake, the police said, adding the boy slipped into the water body.

His body was fished out later by a team of divers, who were informed about the incident around 3 pm, an officer said.

The victim was identified as Shahid Ali, a resident of Mehrauli, the DFS officer said.

The Delhi Development Authority (DDA), the governing authority of the lake, issued a statement about the incident Wednesday night.

"It has been reported that at Sanjay Van Lake, boy of nearby Rana Colony, who tried to enter into the lake, slipped into it and drowned," it said.

The DDA said though there is a precautionary signboard at the lake, the boy "made an attempt to enter it, ignoring the warning" against it.

"The security work at Sanjay Van is assigned to M/s Competent Securities as per an agreement. The DDA expresses its condolences to the aggrieved family and promises all possible help (to them)," the DDA said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Centre has denied permission for the scheduled visit of ministers to 17 countries to mobilise funds from expatriates for flood relief work, officials here said Wednesday.

Chief Minister is scheduled to leave for some of the Gulf countries on Wednesday as part of the efforts to mobilise funds from expatriates.

He is expected to be back by October 21.

Seventeen of the 20 state ministers had also planned to visit different countries in the Gulf and Europe to mobilise funds.

However, the Centre has approved the foreign visit of the chief minister alone.

Officials at the CM's office said the Centre has refused permission for the ministers' foreign trip.

The ministers were scheduled to visit various countries, for five days beginning today to mobilise funds from the expatriate community to help rebuild the flood-hit state.

Vijayan had said on October 3 that each minister would visit various countries from October 17 to 21, including in the Gulf and Europe.

had suffered huge damage in the torrential rains that lashed the state in August last, claiming 493 lives and leaving a trail of destruction.

The LDF government had last month decided to raise Rs 159 bn as loan from the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, and other funding agencies to rebuild the prime sectors of the state.Contests

The Malahat Reviews writing contests provide opportunities for writers to have their best work read around the world in one of North Americas finest literary journals.

Many Malahat Review contest winners have gone on to be recognized by the National Magazine Awards, the Western Magazine Awards, the McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize, and the Best Canadian Poetry in English.

With a contest for every taste and stage of career, its easy to find one that matches your ambition and abilities.



Prize money: $2000 (Long Poem) and $1750 (Novella)

Entries due every February 1

The Malahat Review's oldest contests are offered every other year, with Long Poem entries accepted in odd-numbered years and Novella entries accepted in even-numbered years. The winning entry appears in the summer issue.

Prize money: $1000

Entries due every May 1

As a complement to the Novella and Long Poem prizes, the Far Horizons Awards are short-form contests, with the Far Horizons Award for Short Fiction given during odd years and the Far Horizons Award for Poetry in even. Only open to writers who have yet to publish in book form for the genre in question. Winning entries appear in the autumn issue.

Prize money: $1000

Entries due every August 1

To nurture The Malahat Reviews newest genre, the Constance Rooke Creative Nonfiction Prize was established in 2007. The winning entry appears in the winter issue.

Prize money: $6000

Entries due every November 1

Writers are encouraged to enter The Malahat Reviews newest contest in three categories: poetry, fiction, and/or creative nonfiction. Winning entries are published in the spring issue.

Past Malahat Contests...

Prize money: $1000

In 2017 and 2018, to celebrate the WordsThaw Writers Festival, we invited emerging writers in Greater Victoria to enter their poem or micro text (fiction or creative nonfiction). Entrants also received a free WordsThaw pass. One winner in each category was chosen by judge Janet Rogers in our 2017 contest, and judge Arleen Pare in our 2018 contest.

Prizes: poetry books donated by Canadian presses



In 2016, to mark our fourth-annual literary symposium, WordsThaw, we partnered with the Greater Victoria Public Library, Planet Earth Poetry and the Creative Nonfiction Collective Society to stage the Twitter First Line Contest.

This contest ran from February 21 to March 18. Entrants were invited to come up with the first line of a sonnet, 140 characters or lessiambic and exactly ten syllables longthen tweet it to #140firstline. Book prizes were awarded each week, with poet and essayist Molly Peacock as judge.

Prize money: $2200



In 2012, The Malahat Review invited entries from current University of Victoria students, UVic alumni, and greater Victoria-area writers to a one-time writing contest to mark the University of Victorias 50th Anniversary.As the number of people infected with Zika virus rose to 100 in Rajasthan Wednesday, the Centre rushed an Indian Council of Medical Research team to the state to intensify vector control measures.

Of the total affected people, 23 are pregnant women, said a health ministry official in Delhi, adding that the 20 new Zika cases confirmed Wednesday were from Jaipur and two neighbouring districts.

"A team of experts from ICMR has reached Jaipur to change the insecticides which are being used in the city to kill mosquitoes that spread Zika, dengue, and chikungunya viruses as a part of the integrated mosquito management programme," the official said.

Zika virus has been found in some mosquitoes taken as samples from Sindhi Camp and densely populated Shastri Nagar.

Rajasthan additional chief secretary, medical and health, Veenu Gupta chaired a review meeting in Jaipur Wednesday and released updated figures of the infected cases.

"Almost all Zika virus infected patients are healthy after treatment. Three-fourth patients do not have symptoms of disease and have recovered," a state health department official said.

Most of the Zika cases reported were from Shastri Nagar area, where fogging and other anti-larvae activities are being carried out.

The official said more than 1 lakh households have been surveyed in Shastri Nagar and neighbouring areas and 330 teams have been engaged to destroy mosquito larvae found during the survey.

The Zika virus, transmitted through the aedes aegypti mosquito, causes fever, skin rashes, conjunctivitis, muscle and joint pain. It is harmful to pregnant women, as it can lead to microcephaly, a condition in which a baby's head is significantly smaller than expected, in newborn children.

The state health department has advised pregnant women not to visit the affected areas.

In India, the first outbreak was reported in Ahmedabad in January 2017 and the second in Tamil Nadu's Krishnagiri district in July that year. Both these outbreaks were successfully contained through intensive surveillance and vector management.

The disease is under surveillance of the Union Health Ministry although it is no longer a Public Health Emergency of International Concern under WHO notification since November 18, 2016.

On Tuesday, the Union Health Ministry directed the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) to monitor the cases on a daily basis and urged people not to panic.

Health Minister J P Nadda chaired a high-level meeting to review the activities for prevention and control of Zika virus and stressed the need to undertake exhaustive control measures, including fogging, while strengthening surveillance to facilitate early detection of cases.

During the latest outbreak of the virus, the first case surfaced on September 22, when an 85-year-old woman with no recent travel history tested positive for the virus.

The disease continues to be under surveillance of the Union Health Ministry although it is no longer a Public Health Emergency of International Concern under WHO notification since November 18, 2016.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)As the number of people infected with Zika virus rose to 86 in Jaipur on Wednesday, the Centre rushed an Indian Council of Medical Research team to the Rajasthan capital to intensify vector control measures.

Of the total affected 86 people, 23 are pregnant women, said a health ministry official.

"A team of experts from ICMR has reached Jaipur to change the insecticides which are being used in the city to kill mosquitoes that spread Zika, dengue, and chikungunya viruses as a part of the integrated mosquito management programme," the official said.

Zika virus has been found in some mosquitoes taken as samples from Sindhi Camp and densely populated Shastri Nagar.

On Tuesday, the Union Health Ministry directed the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) to monitor the cases on a daily basis and urged people not to panic.

Health Minister J P Nadda chaired a high-level meeting to review the activities for prevention and control of Zika virus and stressed the need to undertake exhaustive control measures, including fogging, while strengthening surveillance to facilitate early detection of cases.

Zika is caused by the aedes aegypti mosquito, which also transmits dengue and chikungunya and breeds in open, stagnant water.

The first case surfaced on September 22, when an 85-year-old woman with no recent travel history tested positive for the disease.

Fogging and other anti-larvae activities are being carried out in Jaipur to prevent the spread of the virus.

The state health department has issued an advisory for pregnant women staying outside Shastri Nagar not to visit the area.

A control room has been activated at the National Centre for Disease Control to monitor the situation.

The number of monitoring teams in Jaipur has been increased from 50 to 170 and a special isolation ward created at Hira Bagh Training Centre to treat Zika virus-affected patients.

The virus, transmitted through the aedes aegypti mosquito, causes fever, skin rashes, conjunctivitis, muscle and joint pain. It is harmful to pregnant women, as it can lead to microcephaly, a condition in which a baby's head is significantly smaller than expected, in newborn children.

In India, the first outbreak was reported in Ahmedabad in January 2017 and the second in Tamil Nadu's Krishnagiri district in July that year. Both these outbreaks were successfully contained through intensive surveillance and vector management, the ministry had said earlier.

The disease continues to be under surveillance of the Union Health Ministry although it is no longer a Public Health Emergency of International Concern under WHO notification since November 18, 2016.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Charlize Theron has condemned Donald Trump's mockery of Christine Blasey Ford, saying watching the US President belittle the professor was a moment of "extreme sadness" for her.

Theron said it was "worse than high school" to see an adult engage in such behaviour.

When asked to comment on Trump's reaction, the actor told Variety, "You don't have to agree with her but you don't have to belittle her. You don't have to do that. For me, it's worse than high school to see an adult do that, especially the leader of the free world. It's sad."



"If that was his daughter how would he feel if somebody did that? And I think that sometimes it's really hard for people to themselves in other people's shoes and I don't know why it's just plain empathy. Just to have empathy for somebody," she added.

Earlier this month, Trump publicly mocked Blasey Ford, the professor who has alleged that she was sexually assaulted by Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, 36 years ago.

The #MeToo movement shifted from Hollywood to other quarters with Blasey Ford's accusations against Kavanaugh during his confirmation process.

Ford testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee about her memories of the alleged assault - testimony that Trump went on to mock during a rally in Mississippi.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)China's propaganda chief has reportedly warned Hong Kong's senior media executives not to allow the city's newsrooms to "become a base for interfering with mainland politics" as Beijing ramps up pressure on challenges to its authority.

Concerns about press freedom in Hong Kong have intensified after the government denied a visa to a British journalist, who had chaired a talk by an independence activist at the city's press club in August.

The reported remarks by Huang Kunming, head of the Chinese Communist Party's propaganda department, were quoted by Siu Sai-wo, CEO of Hong Kong's Sing Tao Corporation, who spoke to the city's media after a meeting with the Chinese official.

Siu said Huang had told the group of visiting journalists and executives in Beijing that he hoped Hong Kong media "would not become a base for interfering with mainland politics", according to local site Apple Daily.

Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA) chairman Chris Yeung said Huang's remarks sounded like "an obvious case of telling media what they should do and what they should not do".

The comments were "plainly a clear effort, a clear attempt, to influence the media sector here", Yeung told AFP.

Apple Daily reported that some local sites later removed references to the reported remarks after officials from Beijing's liaison office in Hong Kong said that Huang's comments were off the record.

A Google search by AFP journalists for Huang's quote turned up a report by Commercial Radio Hong Kong, but the link led to a blank page, suggesting the original content might have been removed.

The HKJA said it was "deeply concerned" about the reported removals, adding that it would spark "fear (that) media were practising self-censorship".

The delegation was made up of 20 senior management figures from Hong Kong's media industry who were on a three-day visit to Beijing, according to the South China Morning Post.

Earlier this month China warned foreign countries not to "interfere" in Hong Kong's unprecedented decision to effectively blacklist Victor Mallet, a senior Financial Times journalist, after the UK and other governments expressed alarm over eroding freedoms in the former British colony.

Hong Kong's Foreign Correspondents' Club, where Mallet serves as vice president, regularly hosts talks by an array of speakers, including Chinese officials.

The club was pressured by authorities to scrap the talk by pro-independence activist Andy Chan but it had refused, saying it stands for freedom of speech and freedom of the press in the region, and "neither endorses nor opposes the views of its various speakers and panellists".

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A peep into a Thimphu toy shop shows stacks of Pokemons, all made in China, a testimony to the quiet overtures Beijing is making in Bhutan at rival India's expense.

China's annexation of Tibet in 1951 and an unresolved border dispute have long been irritants in ties with Bhutan, and India would prefer they remain estranged.

India jumped to Bhutan's defence last year when Chinese troops started building a road on Doklam, a territory claimed by both China and Bhutan. The eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation lasted 72 days before the Indian and Chinese armies pulled back.

But now Beijing is seeking to mend relations and extend a hand of friendship to the tiny Himalayan kingdom, despite the two having no diplomatic relations.

Chinese shipments have shot up in the past decade, with goods from machinery and cement to electricals and toys making Beijing the third largest source of foreign products to heavily import-dependent Bhutan.

And stuck between the competing regional powers, Bhutan has been gasping to assert its sovereignty and shrug off decades of heavy dependence on India.

Many among Bhutan's 800,000 population feel India's embrace is becoming a stranglehold and getting in the way of Thimpu's ties with other countries.

"Within Bhutan, there is a growing demand to diversify and loosen its dependence on India," University of British Columbia historian Tsering Shakya said.

"However, given the geography and history it is not easy for Bhutan to ignore India's interest." Nestled in the highest, snow-capped mountain range in the world, Bhutan is one of the world's few countries to have never been colonised, and has retained much of its unique culture and charm.

The country's fourth king famously introduced the concept of gross national happiness in the 1970s, shunning the usual gross domestic product used by most modern countries to measure economic growth.

Bhutan was almost as isolated as the mythical Shangri-La until the early 1960s when its first highway was built.

But it has become increasingly dependent on neighbours, as shown in 2013 when India was accused of triggering a fuel crisis by cutting subsidies on cooking gas and kerosene - which some say was a punishment to Bhutan for warming up to the Chinese.

"If we (India and Bhutan) are good friends, our friendship shouldn't be affected by our relations with other countries," said Vimla Pradhan, a 21-year-old college student.

"It appears as if everything Bhutan does, it should have tacit approval from India. India will always come before others but please don't behave like a jealous big brother," she told AFP in Thimpu.

Pradhan, who studies political science and philosophy, is not isolated in her views.

Many aspiring Bhutanese are restless for new opportunities at a time when youth unemployment is 10.6 per cent against the national average of 2.4 percent. India has been generous with loans and grants but Bhutan could do with more investment, and China has deep pockets.

"Where are the jobs? Look at any nook and corner and you will find young men hanging around aimlessly," said Karma Choden, a mother of two, as she waited for customers at a roadside stall selling dry cheese and red chillies.

Bhutan, a growing economy which has been trying to shed its tag as one of the world's least developed countries, is struggling to reduce unemployment as it gears up for only its third ever election on Thursday.

The ruling party was knocked out in the first round of polling in mid-September, signalling the electorate's desperation for change.

China's policy of mixing soft diplomacy and economic aid has reaped rich dividends in South Asian countries where India has long held sway like Sri Lanka and the Maldives.

China has been reaching out to Bhutan through sports, religious and cultural visits as well as scholarships to Bhutanese students.

Its vice foreign minister Kong Xuanyou made a rare trip to Bhutan in July. Bhutan has also been receiving a growing number of Chinese tourists, who have to pay a sizeable visa fee, unlike their Indian counterparts.

The number of Chinese tourists visiting Bhutan surged from fewer than 20 a decade ago to 6,421 in 2017, according to official figures.

Taxi driver Kinzang Dorji is unable to make much sense of Bhutan's diplomacy and history. But he understands the value of foreign investment.

"Bhutan should make friends with other countries," Dorji said.

"Many Chinese tourists have started coming and they are bringing in a lot of money. We don't mind them at all," he said before zooming past a Chinese restaurant in the heart of Thimphu.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A Chinese mining company has claimed to have successfully test-fired a supersonic missile, touted as a potential competitor to the Indo-Russian joint venture BrahMos missile, according to the official media here.

The test conducted on Monday at a discreet location in North China verified the launch, power and flight control systems, state-run Global Times reported while indicating that Beijing's all-weather ally, Pakistan could be one of its buyers.

All parameters for the supersonic flight of the HD-1 missile achieved their estimated values, it quoted a statement released by Guangdong Hongda Blasting Company located in southern China.

"The test flight shows that the HD-1's core components are now mature, with its aerodynamic design, materials and overall structure already proven viable," Wei Dongxu, a Beijing-based military analyst, told the daily.

Hongda independently invested in and developed the HD-1 missile, the statement said.

Wei said the mining company's move to build and test a supersonic missile is an excellent example of military-civilian integration.

Established in 1988, Hongda is a mining company based in Guangzhou, capital of South China's Guangdong Province that also manufactures blasting and military equipment.

The HD-1's advanced solid fuel ramjet needs less fuel than its competitors, rendering the lighter missile able to fly faster and farther, Wei said.

After governmental approval, Hongda intends to sign deals and mass-produce the HD-1 for export, the repot said.

There are not many such supersonic missiles available on the international defence market, Wei said.

Pakistan and Middle Eastern countries are likely to show interest given the weapon's potential to break anti-missile systems at supersonic speeds, he said, claiming that the new missile could be cheaper than the BrahMos.

"The BrahMos missile is a more expensive, less useful supersonic cruise missile developed by India and Russia," Wei claimed.

Hongda will participate in Airshow China 2018 in Zhuhai, South China's Guangdong Province next month, a company spokesperson said.

The HD-1 is a comprehensive weapon system consisting of missile, launch, command and control, target indication and comprehensive support systems, Hongda had said in a separate statement released earlier.

The HD-1 can be adapted to aircraft and ships as well as the basic ground-based vehicle version, the company said.

The total investment in HD-1 is expected to top 1.3 billion yuan (about USD 188 million).

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A Chinese mining company has claimed to have successfully test-fired a supersonic missile, touted as a potential competitor to Indo-Russian joint venture BrahMos missile, according to the official media here.

The test conducted on Monday at a discreet location in North China verified the launch, power and flight control systems, state-run Global Times quoted a statement released by Guangdong Hongda Blasting Company located in Southern China.

All parameters for the supersonic flight of the HD-1 missile achieved their estimated values, the statement said.

"The test flight shows that the HD-1's core components are now mature, with its aerodynamic design, materials and overall structure already proven viable," Wei Dongxu, a Beijing-based military analyst, told the daily.

Hongda independently invested in and developed the HD-1 missile, the statement said.

Wei said the mining company's move to build and test a supersonic missile is an excellent example of military-civilian integration.

Established in 1988, Hongda is a mining company based in Guangzhou, capital of South China's Guangdong Province that also manufactures blasting and military equipment.

The HD-1's advanced solid fuel ramjet needs less fuel than its competitors, rendering the lighter missile able to fly faster and farther, Wei said.

After governmental approval, Hongda intends to sign deals and mass-produce the HD-1 for export, the repot said.

There are not many such supersonic missiles available on the international defence market, Wei said.

Pakistan and Middle Eastern countries are likely to show interest given the weapon's potential to break anti-missile systems at supersonic speeds, he said, claiming that the new missile could be cheaper than the BrahMos.

"The BrahMos missile is a more expensive, less useful supersonic cruise missile developed by India and Russia," Wei claimed.

Hongda will participate in Airshow China 2018 in Zhuhai, South China's Guangdong Province next month, a company spokesperson said.

The HD-1 is a comprehensive weapon system consisting of missile, launch, command and control, target indication and comprehensive support systems, Hongda had said in a separate statement released earlier.

The HD-1 can be adapted to aircraft and ships as well as the basic ground-based vehicle version, the company said.

The total investment in HD-1 is expected to top 1.3 billion yuan (about USD 188 million).

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The is working on a new World Trade Organization (WTO)-compliant for merchandise shipments to replace the existing MEIS, an official said.

Currently, exporters of goods avail of incentives under the Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS). In this, the government provides duty benefits depending on product and country.

"The work is going on for the drafting of the new scheme, which will replace the existing It will be finalised soon. It could be named as rebate of levies," the official said.

The is a Geneva-based 164 member body which frames rules and norms for global exports and imports. India is a member of this multi-lateral body since January 1, 1995.



The formulation of the new also assumes significance as the US has dragged India to the WTO's dispute settlement mechanism over export subsidies, saying that these incentives were harming American companies.

The US has challenged India's export subsidy programmes such as in the WTO, asserting that these initiatives harm its companies by creating an uneven playing field.



Other export benefit programmes, including Export Oriented Units Scheme, Electronics Hardware Technology Parks Scheme, Special Economic Zones, Export Promotion Capital Goods Scheme, and duty-free imports, have been challenged by the US.

According to the Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO), the new scheme should include the refund of indirect taxes like on oil and power, state levies such as 'mandi' tax and embedded tax.



"The new scheme would help boost the country's exports," FIEO President Ganesh Gupta said.

India's exports entered the negative zone after five months, contracting 2.15 per cent in September to $27.95 billion even though the trade deficit narrowed to a five-month low of about $14 billion.As agitating devotees took to the streets in large numbers over the Sabarimala issue, the opposition BJP and Congress Wednesday joined their stir at Pamba and Nilackal, the entry points to the hill shrine.

With the issue of women of all age groups being allowed into the Lord Ayyappa temple taking a political turn, the BJP and Congress have extended support to devotees who are protesting against the CPI(M)-led LDF government's decision to implement the verdict and not file a review petition.

The base camps of Pamba and Nilackal witnessed intensified protests as the Lord Ayyappa temple opens for the five-day monthly pooja this evening, for the first time after the landmark top court verdict.

The Left front government termed the agitation as "politically motivated" and said it would be met politically.

Police evicted members of tantri (head priest) family, including elderly women, and the Pandalam royals who were protesting at Pamba, reciting Ayyappa 'mantras'.

After their eviction, a group of BJP leaders began the 'namajapa' (prayer) meet at the same venue.

BJP state general secretaries, K Surendran, M T Ramesh and Shobha Surendran were among those who led the prayer meet.

They alleged that the police removed the members of the traditional tantri and royal families without any provocation.

BJP state president Sreedharan Pillai observed a fast at the district headquarter, Pathanamthitta, as part of the saffron party's second phase of agitation on the Sabarimala issue.

Thousands of party activists had marched to the state Secretariat in Thiruvananthapuram on October 15 against the LDF government's decision to implement the court verdict disregarding sentiments of devotees.

State Congress working president K Sudhakaran led party workers in the protest at Nilackal to express solidarity with believers.

State Devaswom Minister, Kadakampally Surendran, who held a review meeting at Sannidhanam (temple complex) on the three-month-long Mandalam-Makaravilakku-festival beginning from November 17, said the government would face the agitation politically.

"The government is only implementing the court order," he told reporters at the Sannidhanam.

He also alleged that the BJP-RSS was trying to create tension in the state and destroy the peaceful atmosphere for "political gains."



"We know very well the agenda of RSS and BJP," he said adding the LDF government had no intention to have any confrontation with the believers.

The Minister also condemned the alleged attack on media personnel.

Vijayan on Tuesday had stated that there was an attempt to destroy the secular mind of people of Kerala in the name of Sabarimala issue.

He had also criticised the Congress and said the party had joined hands with the RSS and BJP in the agitation.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Congress in poll-bound Chhattisgrah Wednesday filed a complaint with state Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) alleging the ruling BJP was trying to "lure" its MLA with "the promise of money and a ministerial berth" to cross over to the saffron party.

The opposition party has demanded "de-recognition" of the BJP while accusing the ruling party of being engaged in "political trading" ahead of the next month's assembly polls at the behest of Chief Minister Raman Singh and Home Minister Ramsewak Paikra, a charge denied by the CM.

A delegation led by Congress spokesperson Kiranmayi Nayak submitted a memorandum to the CEO.

"A self-styled godman 'kambal wale baba' allegedly tried to offer money to Chintamani Maharaj, the Congress MLA from Lundra constituency, at the behest of the BJP to switch over to the ruling party," Nayak alleged.

An audio tape containing purported conversation between Maharaj and Baba has gone viral on social media Tuesday.

Maharaj claimed that Baba called him up on October 14 and asked him to meet senior leaders of the BJP and join the party fold.

In the purported conversation, Baba can be heard offering decent money to Maharaj and promising him a ministerial berth if the BJP comes to power again, Nayak alleged.

"Baba was allegedly trying to purchase the Congress MLA at the behest of Chief Minister Raman Singh and Home Minister Ramsewak Paikra," Nayak said while claiming that the incident amounts to violation of Article 324 of Constitution and section 123 of the Representation of the People Act.

Baba can be heard saying that state unit working president of Congress and MLA Ramdayal Uike, who recently joined BJP, was offered Rs 10 crore and promised a ministerial berth, she alleged.

Nayak also claimed that the godman was closely associated with Home Minister Ramsewak Paikra.

"Fearing defeat in the upcoming elections, the BJP is engaged in political trading and offering money to Congress MLAs," the spokesperson alleged.

She said, "This act of the BJP proves that it is apprehensive of losing power in the state and is afraid of the Congress".

The Congress has requested the CEO to de-recognise the BJP, Nayak said.

The Congress also requested the election commission to take action and lodge a case against Baba, Singh and Paikra.

Refuting the charges, Chief Minister Raman Singh said the BJP was strong enough to win elections on its own strength.

"BJP is confident of winning 65 seats (out of total 90 seats) in the elections and it has no need to do such things. The party will win elections on its own strength," Singh told reporters.

Like 'Kambal baba', there are several self-styled godmen who are engaged in 'jugad' (arrangements) to run their businesses, the CM said, adding that the BJP has no connection with such people.

A controversy had erupted last year when Home Minister Ramsewak Paikra had met 'Kambal wale baba'.

Baba, said to be active in Surguja region of the state, claims that he can cure diseases of people by covering them with his blanket.

He could not be contacted for comments.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Open Season Awards

(contest now closed)



This contest is now closed. Check back in August 2022!

The Malahat Review invites entries for its annual Open Season Awards in:

poetry

short fiction

creative nonfiction





The contest is open to Canadian and international writers anywhere in the world.

EXTENDED DEADLINE: 11:59pm (PST) on November 5, 2021

The winner in each category will receive a prize of CAD $2,000 and be published in the magazine's spring 2022 issue #218.

Entries accepted via Submittable only. (See below for instructions.)

Contest Judges

Meet the judges:

Book Prizes

In addition to the three $2,000 prizes, we're giving away book prizes to three lucky contest entrants! All you have to do is submit your work to the contest, and you'll be automatically entered to win. After the deadline, we'll pull three names from the list of entrants.

poetry:

the fool by Jessie Jones

Renaissance Normcore by Adele Barclay

Devil in the Woods by D. A. Lockhart





fiction:

Echolocation by Karen Hofmann

The Malahat Review issue #100, fall 1992

Different Beasts by J. R. McConvey



cnf:

Occupation Child by T. Styppas

The Malahat Review P. K. Page issue #117, winter 1996

Bottoms Up: A History of Alcohol by Sheilah Roberts Lukins



Guidelines



poetry: up to 3 poems only per entry, no individual poem more than 100 lines long (line count must be given for each poem; all poems must be submitted in a single document).





short fiction: 1 story only per entry, no more than 2,500 words in length (word count must be given at the top of the first page).





creative nonfiction: 1 piece only per entry, no more than 2,500 words in length (word count must be given at the top of the first page).





All entries are judged anonymously (no identifying information is to be included on any poem, story, or nonfiction piece submitted).





Multiple entries are allowed (at a reduced fee, if paid for at the same time as the initial entry: see Entry Fees and How to Submit below).





and below). Entrants may submit work in more than one genre (for further information see Additional Entries below).

Entry Fees



 CAD $35 for each entry from Canada *early bird discount until Sep. 30, 2021: CAD $20

 CAD $45 for each entry from elsewhere *early bird discount until Sep. 30, 2021: CAD $30

 CAD $10 for each additional entry (any writer, any country)

 See How to Pay (below) for detailed instructions.

Entrants receive a one-year print subscription to The Malahat Review for the initial entry only.

Additional Entries

To receive the reduced entry fee(s) of CAD $10, any additional entries must be paid for at the same time as the first entry; such additional entries should be submitted online within 24 hours of the initial submission.





Additional entries may be submitted in any genre (e.g., an initial entry in poetry may be accompanied by an additional entry or entries in poetry, fiction, or creative nonfiction).

Eligible Entries

No work simultaneously submitted elsewhere, already published, or already accepted for publication is eligible for consideration (even if only excerpted, or even if revised since original publication). We consider any appearance in print or online to be a publication, including newspapers, newsletters, magazines, anthologies, chapbooks, books, websites, blogs, social media, etc. This restriction applies regardless of the size of the print run or the extent of the circulation of previously published work.





Failure to comply with these criteria for eligibility will immediately disqualify any entry, regardless of when the ineligiblity is discovered in the process of adjudication (submission, processing, screening, shortlisting, final judging).





The entry fee for a disqualified submission will not be refunded, and the entrant will still receive a one-year print subscription to the magazine.

Notification



The winner in each category will be notified by email.





Other entrants will receive notifications of the shortlists and winners via Submittable messages.





The finalists in each category will be announced the week of January 10, 2022 on our website, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.





The winners will be announced one week later.





All winners will be interviewed, and the interviews will be published on our website, and in the April 2022 edition of Malahat lite.



How to Pay (credit card)

Go to our online store to pay your contest fee(s).





Payment must be made online through our store before submitting, since you must include your ORDER# with your submission.





Online payments will not be accepted after the contest deadline (if you have any problems with such payment, please write to malahat@uvic.ca ).



How to Pay (cheque or money order)



If you are unable to pay by credit card, you can mail a cheque or money order made out to The Malahat Review in CAD$ or USD$ to: The Malahat Review, McPherson Library, University of Victoria, PO Box 1800, Stn CSC, Victoria, BC, V8W 3H5, Canada.





Instead of an order#, you must indicate "cheque" or "money order" as required on the submission form.





Cheques or money orders must be mailed with a postmark date of no later than November 5, 2021.

How to Submit

Only online submissions made through The Malahat Review 's Open Season Awards portal on the Submittable website will be accepted.





will be accepted. Acceptable file formats: Word (.doc or .docx) or PDF only .





. A single entry is defined as 1 to 3 poems (uploaded in a single document, maximum 100 lines per poem), or 1 short story or 1 creative nonfiction piece (maximum 2,500 words in each case).





You can make only one entry at a time on the Submittable webpage; to submit additional entries, whether at the reduced rate (paid for at the same time) or at a standard rate, simply follow the same process as with the initial submission (the ORDER # will be the same for additional entries paid for at the same time as the initial submission; it will be different for an entry or entries made at a later date, since these require the full fee).





Click the "Submit" icon below in order to enter the Open Season Awards contest on Submittable:

Previous Prize Winners

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

20112010Former Goa minister Subhash Shirodkar, who quit the Congress to join the ruling BJP, claimed Wednesday the opposition party was never interested in forming government in the state because of the factions within it.

Shirodkar also said the Congress never had the numbers to form government in the state and that its previous bid to stake claim for power was "merely a strategy" to keep party members together.

Regretting that he "wasted" 20 months in the party, he said he now feels he should have quit the Congress last year, soon after the state polls were held.

Shirodkar and another Congress legislator Dayanand Sopte resigned Tuesday as members of the state assembly and also from the party's primary membership. Both later joined the BJP.

He said the Congress, which had won 17 seats after the assembly elections in March last year, was "never interested in forming the government" because of the factions within the party.

"There are at least three-four leaders in the Congress who want to become chief minister. They will never arrive at a consensus," he told PTI in Panaji.

Shirodkar, who was a part of the Congress delegation that met Governor Mridula Sinha to stake claim to form the government last month, said, "It was merely a strategy of the party to keep its flock intact. They also wanted to send a signal to BJP's allies. They never had the numbers."



He now feels he should have taken the step of quitting the Congress long back.

"When Vishwajit Rane left the Congress soon after the 2017 polls, I should have also left with him. I wasted one year and eight months," said Shirodkar, who won five times from the Shiroda constituency in North Goa district.

Soon after the polls last year, Rane, who was elected on Congress ticket from the Valpoi seat, had resigned as an MLA and from the party before Manohar Parrikar could prove his majority in the House. He later joined the BJP.

Shirodkar said he was impressed by Parrikar's work style and the way BJP was implementing infrastructure projects in the state.

"I did not want to keep my constituency devoid of development, that is why I decided to join the BJP," said Shirodkar, who was minister in several Congress-led state governments.

He said he will remain in BJP "till the end of his political career".

The resignations of Shirodkar and Sopte reduced the Congress's strength from 16 to 14 in the 40-member House.

The Congress now ceases to be the single largest party in the Assembly, whose effective strength now stands reduced to 38.

The development assumes further significance as it comes at a time when Goa is witnessing hectic political activity against the backdrop of the ill-health of Parrikar.

In the Goa Assembly, the Parrikar government has the support of 23 MLAs. They comprise 14 from the BJP, three each from Goa Forward Party and Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party, and three Independents.

The Congress had emerged as the single largest party in the fractured verdict thrown up in the Assembly elections last year, but it failed to form the government as it could not muster the majority.

Since then, it has been laying claim to form the government, arguing it was the single-largest party.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Congress' manifesto committee, headed by senior leader P Chidambaram, will visit Mumbai on October 27 to interact with industry representatives, the party said Wednesday.

City Congress chief Sanjay Nirupam said the committee, set up to draft the party's manifesto for the next year's Lok Sabha elections, is meeting various stakeholders across the country.

The main committee led by Chidambaram, a former finance minister, will meet representatives of industry, trade, the banking sector and the investor community, while a sub-committee will visit here on October 23 and interact with civic activists on urban issues, Nirupam said.

This sub-committee will be headed by former Union minister Selja Kumari, he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)M J Akbar's criminal defamation complaint against journalist Priya Ramani, who has accused him of sexual misconduct around 20 years ago, is scheduled to come up for hearing on Thursday in the Patiala House court here.

Akbar on Wednesday tendered his resignation as Minister of State for External Affairs.

His lawyer Sandeep Kapur of law firm Karanjawala & Co said that the private criminal defamation case will come up for hearing on Thursday before additional chief metropolitan magistrate Samar Vishal.

The lawyer also forwarded the brief resignation letter of Akbar, who was associated with several media houses in the past.

"Since I have decided to seek justice in a court of law in my personal capacity, I deem it appropriate to step down from office and challenge false accusations levied against me, also in a personal capacity. I have, therefore, tendered my resignation from the office of Minister of State for External Affairs. I am deeply grateful to Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi and to the External Affairs Minister Smt Sushma Swaraj for the opportunity they gave me to serve my country," Akbar said in his letter.

Kapur said since the matter is subjudice, the law will take its own course.

"Since we have already filed the defamation case, we will pursue it in the court," he said.

Akbar on Monday had filed the criminal defamation complaint against Ramani alleging she "wilfully" and "maliciously" made imputations against him with the ulterior motive of maligning his reputation and political standing.

Expressing her readiness to fight the defamation allegations, Ramani had said, "Rather than engage with the serious allegations that many women have made against him, he (Akbar) seeks to silence them through intimidation and harassment."



Akbar's plea had listed alleged defamatory imputations made by Ramani on social media and also referred to his "long and illustrious" career as a journalist while terming the allegations of Ramani as a "figment of her imagination".

"Whilst it is apparent that the accused has resorted to a series of maliciously serious allegations which she is diabolically and viciously spreading in media, it is also apparent that false narrative against the complainant (Akbar) is being circulated in a motivated manner for the fulfilment of an agenda," it alleged.

It had termed as "scandalous" the allegations made by Ramani and said "very tone and tenor" are "ex-facie defamatory" and they have not only damaged his goodwill and reputation in his social circle but also affected Akbar's reputation in "the community, friends, family and colleagues" and caused "irreparable loss" and "tremendous distress".

It had claimed that the woman journalist, while putting forward the allegations relating to incidents which allegedly occurred 20 years ago, "intentionally put forward malicious, fabricated, and salacious imputations to harm the reputation of the complainant".

"The conduct of the accused person, of not taking any action before any authority, qua the alleged incident against the complainant also clearly belies the sanctity of the article and allegations made by the accused person, which evidently goes on to prove that the said defamatory articles are only a figment of her imagination," it said.

Section 500 of the IPC provides for the sentence for the offence of defamation and an accused may be awarded two-year jail term or fine or both in the event of conviction.

Akbar's name had cropped up in the social media campaign #Metoo against alleged sexual harassment when he was in Nigeria.

Hours after returning home, Akbar had termed the allegations levelled against him by several women as "false, fabricated and deeply distressing" and said he was taking appropriate legal action against them.

The women who accused Akbar of sexual harassment, included Ghazala Wahab, Shuma Raha, Anju Bharti and Shutapa Paul.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)At least 18 people died in a blast in a technical college on the Crimean peninsula, with dozens more injured, Crimean head Sergei Aksyonov said on state television on Wednesday.

"It's a colossal tragedy, 18 people died, and 40 more injured, for the time being," Aksyonov told Rossiya 24 channel, after authorities earlier said 50 people were injured.

A student carried out the attack and shot himself, according to the leader of the Russian-annexed peninsula Sergei Askyonov.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)BJP leader Vijender Gupta Wednesday suggested his party-led central government to "take over" implementation of Delhi Metro Phase-IV project, which has become the bone of contention between the Centre and the AAP government.

The suggestion from Gupta, the Leader of Opposition in the Delhi Assembly, comes at a time when the BJP government at the Centre and the Aam Aadmi Party government in Delhi are engaged in a tussle over funds for the Metro project which many anticipate can be delayed by many years.

"The central government must directly takeover responsibility to implement Delhi Metro Phase IV and Delhi-Meerut Rapid Transit System projects, in view of public interest. Any role of Delhi government in it must be done away with for its non-cooperation," Gupta said.

The AAP government said Tuesday it "assumed" that the Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry would fund the project as asserted by its minister Hardeep Singh Puri.

Puri on several occasions in the past, asserted that if there is no decision from the Delhi government on Metro Phase-IV, his ministry will take a final call.

"Hardeep Singh Puri ji had said that he would provide funds himself (for Metro Phase-IV), we thought they would be doing so," Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia had said.

Gupta alleged that motivated by "narrow political considerations", Kejriwal is "bent upon derailing" Delhi Metro Phase IV and Delhi-Meerut Rapid Transit System projects.

The BJP leader said he will shortly call upon Puri in this matter.

He said the proposal for Rapid Rail Transit System (RRTS) between Delhi and Meerut was forwarded to the Uttar Pradesh and Delhi governments in December 2016.

"The Delhi government did not react to the project that aims to reduce congestion and pollution in Delhi, while UP government gave its approval in May 2017," Gupta claimed.

The impact of rising cost of these Metro projects due to the "delay in decision making" by Delhi government has to be borne by people, he alleged.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Nineteen artworks of three women painters from Bangladesh that ooze vibrancy and renewal of human life in rural settings of the country are on display at an exhibition here.

The paintings of Zebun Nahar Nayeem, Rubina Akhter and Elham Huq touch different facets of emotions and give a peek into the life of women in natural surroundings in their myriad hues.

The exhibition, titled Hope, is on at the All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society (AIFACS) building.

The exhibition was inaugurated by Bangladesh High Commissioner Syed Muazzem Ali last week. He said artistes have always played an important role in the evolution of Bangladesh's nationhood - from the Bangla language movement in the late 1940s to the liberation war in 1971.

Nahar, a former art teacher in Dhaka's Scholastica International School, uses traditional folk motif on canvas as well as wood and on metal.

Elham works with acrylic colour on canvas and Rubina's paintings emphatically bring out her background as an interior designer with the focus as much on painting as on their framing with bits and pieces.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Delhi Police officials met the representatives of the Foreign National Students' Association (FNSA) at the IGI Airport to discuss the problems faced by foreign students in Delhi, the police said Wednesday.

A meeting with the representatives of FNSA was held at Mehram Nagar Wednesday, which was headed by Devesh Chandra Srivastava, Joint CP (Southern Range). Additional DCPs of all the districts, along with foreign students, attended it, said Sanjay Bhatia, DCP (IGIA Airport).

Srivastava briefed the students about the agenda of the meeting and suggested various ways to them so that they can be safe in Delhi during their stay. They were also apprised of the special helpline number of the Delhi Police -- 8750871111 -- for foreign nationals. They were assured that the police would be sensitive to their problems and issues, the DCP added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Meghalaya High Court has ordered police to arrest the headman and the priest of the 500-year-old Nartiang Durga temple in Meghalaya's West Jaintia Hills district if they create problem during Durga puja rituals.

The order came on a petition filed by villagers, after a midnight clash broke out at the temple that left several locals and police personnel injured.

The single bench, which heard the matter Tuesday, directed the district administration to ensure puja festivities "continue in a peaceful and pious manner" as per the desire of the people of the village.

The villagers, numbering around 900, also submitted a resolution to Deputy Committee Garod LSN Dykes on Tuesday, informing that they have decided that the Puja at the temple be conducted by Oni Maskut Deshmukh, a permanent priest of the temple.

In his order, Justice Sen said, "The DC and SP of West Jaintia Hills District are hereby directed to ensure strictly that the headman should not bring his own priest and create law and order problems. If the headman and the priest, Swappon Bhattacharjee, or any other person unnecessarily create problem, they should be put behind bars to ensure that Puja is performed in a pious and proper manner".

During the hearing, the counsel for the petitioners informed the court that puja was underway peacefully till 10.30 pm on Monday when the headman brought Bhattacharjee. The headman's action led to strong protests from devotees, who attacked the group led by the headman.

Justice Sen noted that replacing the priest was in total violation of the court order issued last week.

The court has also directed the DC, SP and the headman of Nartiang village to be present on November 1.

The two warring devotees claimed ownership to perform the rituals soon after the death of the head priest Uttam Desmukh in March this year.

The Durga temple situated at Nartiang village is looked after by Deshmukh Brahmins, who were brought there by the Jaintia kings from Maharashtra many centuries ago.

An elder of the village told reporters that the clash took place two hours before the Durga puja rituals started on Monday night.

He said two groups started attacking each other with sticks, embers, stones and sand forcing the police to spring into action.

A senior district official said normalcy returned to the temple and everyone is cooperating with the court order.

Additional deployment of police personnel at the temple have also been made, according to SP L Syiem.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Eminent economist is bringing together policy experts and academicians from distinguished universities to contribute to substantive analyses on issues confronting the that can further help develop a reform agenda for the government to be elected in the 2019 national polls.

Panagariya, who had served as the first Vice Chairman of the from January 2015 to August 2017, said the aim to bring together the economists and policy experts, under the auspices of the Deepak and Neera Raj Centre at Columbia University, is to enable "more serious analyses on topics such as international trade policy, financial sector reforms, civil service and judicial reforms, privatisation, poverty, employment and health among other.

"India's reform process is far from over. Good progress has been made but a considerable distance is still to be covered. In the complex world of today, one needs more serious analyses by experts on issues relevant to India, Panagariya, the Jagdish Bhagwati Professor of Indian Political Economy at Columbia University, told PTI here.



Noted academicians and economic experts who have so far joined hands with Panagariya in this initiative are University Professor (Economics, Law, and International Affairs) at Columbia University Jagdish Bhagwati, former Deputy Governor of RBI and Senior Fellow at the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, Yale University Rakesh Mohan, Professor of International Economics and Business at Johns Hopkins University Pravin Krishna, Economics Professors at Syracuse University Mary Lovely and Devashish Mitra and Professor in the Economics Department at the University of North Carolina, Anusha Chari.

Panagariya said the research papers that will come out of this collaboration in the next 8-12 months will coincide with India's general elections slated for 2019 and would also contribute towards developing a reform agenda for the new government.

Emphasising the reason behind the collaboration, Panagariya said currently there is not enough work in India or the US in research work on Indian economic policies and the initiative hopes to bring good research-based analyses in this area to the general audience.

"India is a large country and many different issues need to be researched. We need more people writing more directly on policy issues. The academics tend to write for other academics normally. This is an effort to get them to write more widely for the policy audience and to be read more widely rather than just narrowly by another dozen academic economists, he said.

Panagariya said the research papers will be targeted for a wider policy audience including government, media, civil society, policy analysts and students.



Apart from bringing research papers, the initiative will include releasing book volumes devoted to specific policy areas and policy writing through blogs and op-eds.

There are also plans to host a conference in about a year where the research papers will be presented and that will bring together policy makers from India, industry representatives as well as investors to have in-depth discussions on select issues.

The Deepak and Neera Raj Centre in The School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) at Columbia University provides research and expertise necessary to inform policy decisions, deliver increased prosperity, and define India's future role in the global economy.The ED has registered a money laundering case in the Muzzafarpurshelter home matter pertaining to alleged rape of minor girls by officials of the centre, officials said Wednesday.

They said the central probe agency has filed a case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) taking cognisance of a CBI FIR.

The Enforcement Directorate, they said, will soon issue summons to the accused including the centre owner Brajesh Thakur.

It will probe if illegal funds were generated and laundered by this alleged criminal activity, they said.

Over 30 girls were allegedly raped at the centre run by Thakur, chief of the state-funded NGO.

The alleged sexual exploitation of the girls was first highlighted in an audit report submitted by the Tata Institute of Social Science (TISS), Mumbai, to the state's Social Welfare Department in April.

An FIR was lodged on May 31 against 11 people, including Thakur, the owner of the NGO which ran the government-funded shelter home for destitute girls. The probe was later taken over by the CBI.

In all, sexual abuse of 34 inmates out of 42 was confirmed in their medical examination while two others who were unwell were yet to undergo medical tests.

The TISS audit report stated that many girls at the shelter home had complained of sexual abuse. A special investigation team was formed to probe the complaints.

The NGO running the shelter home in Muzaffarpur was blacklisted and the girls were shifted to shelter homes in Patna and Madhubani.

Women staff members of the shelter home and Thakur, who ran the NGO, were among those who were arrested by the local police in connection with the case.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Afghanistan's policy on Pakistan is "flawed" and it has never taken a strong political stand against Islamabad, former Afghan intelligence chief Amrullah Saleh said Wednesday, asserting that "an enemy is an enemy".

Saleh, during an interaction here, said Afghanistan never tried to increase the "cost of war" for Pakistan and always took a "high moral ground" in the hope that its neighbour would reciprocate, but it did not happen.

Asked to elaborate what he meant by the cost of war, the former chief of Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security said, "There is no Afghan dossier on Pakistan in the UN Security Council. We have not presented to the United Nations with a state stamped dossier declaring Pakistan our enemy. We have always tried to leave a few bridges intact and that policy of half-heartedness has not helped us.

"An enemy is an enemy. You can only reach a peace deal with your enemy only if you call him an enemy. But just to break the ice in a meeting and make it cordial, you are calling your enemy, your brother, this is no way you can make peace."



Conceding that Afghanistan's policy towards Pakistan had lots of flaws and still does, Saleh said Afghan President Ashraf Ghani had stated that Pakistan has "launched an undeclared war against us", but had not talked about how to fight the undeclared war.

"On that, we are silent. At times, in order to appease Pakistan certain circles within the state structure in Afghanistan have been shy to state India is our military ally. They go at length to explain India is our economic ally, cultural ally, Bollywood ally, but why not our military ally," said Saleh, who served as the head of the National Directorate of Security from 2004-2010.

He said Afghanistan's policy on Pakistan has never been persistent.

"When bombs go off, we come out and express our anger that it is Pakistan. The next day we cannot stand against the temptation of an invitation from Islamabad. We never stood against Islamabad politically. We only complained about them which is different. Having a solid political stand is different than complaining," he said at the interaction at the Indian Council of World Affairs here.

Saleh accused Pakistan of sheltering terrorists and cited the examples of Mullah Mansoor, Osama bin Laden, Haqqanis, Mullah Omar, Taliban's Quetta shura, as having had taken shelter in Pakistan.

"If this is known, why are we putting our entire force to kill the expendable Taliban, not their strategic centre? So those who say we fought and it didn't work, we have to have a definition for the fight, where did we fight them. Wherever we fought them, they got defeated. We did not fight them in Pakistan that is where they are alive," he said.

Saleh lauded India on the stand taken against terrorism, saying the wisdom in Delhi is much greater.

"We cannot produce iPhone, but I have knowledge of who the enemy in this neighbourhood is. In that area we should be the Steve Jobs," he said.

Talking about a peace conference on Afghanistan that was scheduled to take place in Moscow recently, Saleh said had it gone forward, it would have given recognition to two states in Afghanistan -- an Islamic state ruled by President Ghani and an Islamic Emirate led by Taliban.

He also hailed India over its stand on the conference, saying the country took a very principled position to say that it will attend only if Kabul agrees.

"India is becoming a moral compass as far as these issues are concerned," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Rajasthan BJP MLA Manvendra Singh, the son of former BJP stalwart Jaswant Singh, joined the Congress on Wednesday ahead of assembly elections in the state in December.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi welcomed Manvendra Singh into the party fold at his residence in the morning.

It has been a fight for self respect, Manvendra Singh said while addressing the media later in the day in the presence of Rajasthan Congress leaders Ashok Gehlot, Sachin Pilot, Avinash Pande, Jitendra Singh and Randeep Surjewala.

"It has been a fight for 'swabhimaan' (self respect). The decision to quit the BJP was not my own but that of our entire 'Swabhimaan Sena'," he said, referring to his supporters who have been targeted by the BJP and have also quit the party.

BJP's Katol MLA in Maharashtra Ashish Deshmukh also joined the Congress on Wednesday. He is the son of Ranjeet Deshmukh, a former president of the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee and former Maharashtra minister.

The Congress believes Manvendra Singh will help bring Rajput votes to the party in the December 7 Rajasthan elections, party leaders said.

He had campaigned for his father Jaswant Singh, a former Union minister who had contested the 2014 general elections as an independent.

Manvendra Singh was suspended from primary membership of the BJP.

AICC general secretary Gehlot said only two people -- Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah -- are ruling in the country and leaders in the BJP were feeling suffocated.

Alleging that there was a sense of fear and intimidation in the "rule of tyranny", Gehlot said the Modi government's veil was coming off with exposes on corruption, particularly in the Rafale fighter jet deal.

"Today, every person in the country is frightened and there is an atmosphere of distrust and agencies like Income Tax department, ED and CBI are being abused," Gehlot alleged.

He cited "the way" Jaswant Singh was targeted as part of a "conspiracy" and claimed there was a long line of people who want to quit the BJP and join the Congress.

"Rahul Gandhi will have to take a call on whether to make them join or not," he said.

Welcoming Manvendra Singh, Rajasthan Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) chief Pilot said "it is a lesson for the BJP and time for them to introspect".

"The arrogance in the BJP under Vasundhara Raje has crossed all limits and people are looking at alternatives and that is why they are tying with the Congress," Pilot said.

"We believe this has strengthened the Congress party in Rajasthan," he said, adding that this will help defeat the Raje-led government.

All communities, he said, will unite and fight against the BJP and the Vasundhara Raje government in Rajasthan.

"We will win and form a people's government," he said.

Congress general secretary in-charge of Rajasthan Avinash Pande said, "We welcome Manvendra Singh to Congress family. Everyone who believes in democracy and constitution knows that both are under threat today."



Reacting to Manvendra Singh joining the Congress, senior BJP leader Rao Rajendra Singh said in Jaipur that no leader is bigger than the party.

Individuals are not bigger than the party. BJP does not have a character where people consider them bigger than the party and think that they run them, Rajendra Singh said at a press conference.

The party firmly believes that Manvendra Singh leaving the party will not affect the morale of the workers who will continue to work for the party's victory in the elections.

In September, Manvendra Singh had announced that he would quit the party, saying "Kamal Ka Phool, Badi Bhool" (Big mistake to join the party with a lotus symbol).

He took out a 'Swabhiman Rally' along with his supporters in Barmer's Pachpadra area for a mission of self-respect that he said began with the 2014 general election.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis Wednesday directed the authorities in Solapur to expedite the police housing projects.

Fadnavis was in Solapur for a day-long visit, where he chaired number of review meetings.

The chief minister lauded the Solapur police for their measures in improving the conviction rate.

"The conviction cell, monitoring committee, special investigation squads are some of the unique initiatives by the Solapur police," he said adding that he drew the attention of the authorities concerned to expedite the police housing projects at the earliest.

"In Solapur district, the MIDC police station has the highest conviction rate of 34.21 per cent," he said.

Fadnavis also chaired a meeting to review law and order issues and police initiatives in the district.

"Conviction rate, crime against women, detected and undetected crimes and police housing were the points of review," he said.

Fadnavis stressed rehabilitation of slum dwellers at the earliest.

In another meeting, the CM reviewed various projects of Solapur Municipal Corporation, including Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT), water supply projects, sewage water treatment, Smart City and roads.

Senior officials of the departments concerned joined this meeting via video conferencing from Mumbai.

He also reviewed works under Annabhau Sathe Nagri Vasti Sudhar Yojana, Pradhanmantri Mantri Krishi Sinchan Yojana (PMKSY), Mukhyamantri Gram Sadak Yojana, among others.

In Solapur, the Mukhyamantri Gramin Peyjal Yojana has 28 schemes with total cost of Rs 26 crore. Out of these, 16 schemes are work in progress.

Fadnavis said 72 per cent houses under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) were complete in the district.

"Total 933 villages (in the district) were selected under Jal Yukt Shivar and 1,74,559 hectares of land was brought under irrigation. As many as 5,752 of the total 8,000 farm ponds have been completed," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Automaker Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) Wednesday announced the setting up of its first premium sales and sales outlet called 'Jeep Connect,' in Pune and said it plans to launch six more by December as part of its plans to expand its retail and after-sales service across the country.

Jeep Connect is a network expansion strategy to take the Jeep brand and Mopar closer to customers homes, which may be located far away from the hubs of big cities, FCA India said in a release.

Mopar is the parts, service and customer care organisation within the FCA.

FCA India had launched its first locally-manufactured Jeep Compass SUV in July last year.

"We wanted to take Jeep and Mopar brands closer to our customers living farther away from metros, and now we can achieve this with Jeep Connect, which is a compact concept that will offer the same premium experience that customers get in our outlets in city centres," said Kevin Flynn, president and managing director, FCA India.

The company is set to open six more such outlets outlets by end of December 2018 in Rohtak, Ahmedabad, Muvattupuzha, Panipat, Bilaspur and Warangal, Flynn said.

FCA currently has 68 outlets pan-India for sales, service and spares.

FCA India will have more than 70 sales and service outlets by this calender year from 68. He said that that six outlets have been added in the network in the last nine months of this year. These outlets have come up at Meerut, Solan, Jabalpur, Udaipur, Imphal and Kannur, he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Five men were arrested for allegedly robbing a van carrying Amazon products worth lakhs of rupees, a police official said Wednesday.

The official identified them as Kishan (45), Kuldeep Ragha (24), Aakash Rathore (25), Karan (25) and Aman.

On June 26, a complaint was filed by a person alleging that his van enroute to Karol Bagh from Manesar with Amazon products was looted by men who forcibly intercepted the vehicle at Ridge road, snatched his keys at gun-point and decamped with it, said Madhur Verma, deputy commissioner of police (New Delhi).

Rathore used to work as driver with Amazon Transportation Services in Gurgaon and was aware of the shipment process, which includes the sealing of such vehicles. He and his associates used to wait for vehicles loaded with consignments on highways, Verma said.

Whenever a transport vehicle crossed them, they used to chase it and rob the articles, he said. They use to tamper the company seal and took out items from the vans, he added.

On October 14, Kishan was arrested in connection with the case. After he disclosed names of his associates, the other four were arrested, the DCP said.

During interrogation, the four disclosed that Rathore asked them to join him in executing the crimes. Rathore has purchased a property with the money made by selling the goods in the name of his mother. The documents of the property have been seized and his mother is being interrogated, the police official said.

Police is also trying to recover other articles they have looted, he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The head of an influential business advocacy on Indo-US ties has warned that forgoing a trade deal between the two countries will force the Trump administration to consider alternatives.

Observing that relationship does not work in silos, Mukesh Aghi, president of US-India Strategic and Partnership Forum (USISPF), said the alternatives could start with the suspension of Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) benefits and end with trade skirmishes over Twitter that hurt both the economies.

Last week, White House chief economic advisor Larry Kudlow said that discussions on a trade deal with India has begun. But he did not give any details. In recent weeks, President Donald Trump has said that India wants a trade deal with India and accused New Delhi of having excess of tariffs.

"Forgoing a trade deal will force the US government to consider alternatives, which could start with the suspension of GSP benefits and could end with trade skirmishes over Twitter that hurt both economies," Aghi told PTI.

Asked what will happen to India if there is no trade deal, Aghi said: "At the very least, negative signals will be sent to the current and potential investors. Some will claim that the failed deal shows that India won't budge on thorny issues that make it an unprofitable investment destination".

Not having a trade deal would might strain India-US relationship.

"In the middle, there could be potential sanctions over Iranian oil and CAATSA. We want to avoid this route. We believe it is important to get these relatively minor differences resolved so that we can move on to a more productive dialogue," said the USISPF president.

Observing that some feel that one can deal with trade in one compartment and the strategic relationship in another, Aghi asserted that relationships don't work in silos.

"The highest levels of both governments are required to be present in order to sign off on big trade deals. If either side sours on such a deal, it will spill over into the strategic side of the relationship," he said.

Recently, so much has been accomplished on the strategic side of the US-India relationship from the CAATSA waiver that made it through the US Congress to the signing of COMCASA at the 2+2 Dialogue.

"The two sides should keep this positive momentum by inking a trade deal," he said.

Formed a little over a year ago, the USISPF has been playing a significant role in fostering a robust and dynamic India-US relationship through policy advocacy that will lead to driving economic growth, entrepreneurship, employment-creation, and innovation to create a more inclusive society.

He replied in negative when asked if a deeper defence relationship with the US threatens India's strategic autonomy.

"No, unlike other countries in the region, the United States is not making a play for control through its relationship with India," he said.

The United States' stated mission is a free and open Indo-Pacific. Pushing for a stronger India, as a balance against a more aggressive China, has been the goal of the United States under decades of administrations, despite party or political views, Aghi said.

"The US is the one trustworthy companion that can help India counter threats in its region and ultimately foster a more secure world for us all.

"If you look at the other options, Russia cannot be trusted to supply and maintain defence equipment without demanding additional deals. China brings the possibility of border skirmishes as a constant threat and the Belt and Road Initiative as a long-term concern," he said.

A deeper defence relationship with the US provides India with extra insurance as China buys influence and strategic outposts from India's neighbours, Aghi added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)An Indian software engineer who was charged with insider trading related to Equifax's massive data breach in 2017 has been sentenced to eight months of home confinement and fined USD 50,000 after pleading guilty.

Sudhakar Reddy Bonthu was also ordered to forfeit USD 75,979, the US Justice Department said.

The US Attorney's Office Northern District of Georgia in a statement Tuesday said Bonthu, 44, was sentenced to eight months of home confinement by US District Court Judge Amy Totenberg.

"Bonthu intentionally took advantage of information entrusted to him in order to make a quick profit," said US Attorney Byung J Pak in a statement.

He said that the integrity of the stock markets and the confidence of investors are impaired by those who use nonpublic information for personal gain.

Chris Hacker, the special agent of FBI Atlanta said that it will do everything to hold accountable those who choose to take advantage of their inside knowledge.

"If we don't hold company insiders to the same rules that govern regular investors, the public's confidence in the stock market erodes.The FBI will do everything in its power to hold accountable those who choose to take advantage of their inside knowledge," Hacker said.

Bonthu was an Equifax employee from September 2003 until March 2018. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged him with insider trading in advance of the company's September 2017 announcement of a massive data breach that exposed Social Security numbers and other personal information of approximately 148 million US customers.

The SEC said Bonthu, a citizen of India and a permanent resident of the US state of Georgia, committed securities fraud by engaging in illegal insider trading in the securities of information solutions and human resources company Equifax Inc.

On 12 March 2018, Bonthu's employment was terminated by Equifax and is currently unemployed.

In June, the SEC charged that Bonthu traded on confidential information he received while creating a website for consumers impacted by a data breach.

According to the complaint, Bonthu was told the work was being done for an unnamed potential client, but based on information he received, he concluded that Equifax itself was the victim of the breach.

The SEC had alleged that Bonthu violated company policy when he traded on the non-public information by purchasing Equifax put options.

Less than a week later, after Equifax publicly announced the data breach and its stock declined nearly 14 per cent, Bonthu sold the put options and netted more than USD 75,000, a return of more than 3,500 per cent on his initial investment.

This is the second case the SEC has filed arising from the Equifax data breach. In March, SEC had charged former chief information officer of a US business unit of Equifax, Jun Ying, with insider trading. He has pleaded guilty and his case is pending.

Bonthu's wife, addressing the judge during the sentencing hearing, questioned why her husband was being punished when top executives were not.

"He's just a small fish in this whole game," Rekha Vummadi said.

Bonthu also addressed the judge, saying he accepted responsibility for his actions and that he was sorry to Equifax stakeholders and to his family.

According to the Associated Press, Bonthu faces possible deportation as a result of his felony conviction.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Congress Wednesday alleged that fresh documents in the Rafale deal reveal that Prime Minister Narendra Modi facilitated the contract between Dassault Aviation and Reliance Defence and said it is time he broke his silence on the issue.

Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said the Rafale scam is getting "murkier and muddier" by the day as fresh documents have reinforced that prime minister Modi "facilitated a sweetheart deal" with Dassault to "illegitimately" benefit a crony friend - Reliance Defence.

"Undisputed evidence now corroborates, brazen 'crony capitalism' and 'quid pro quo' by the Modi government in the multi- crore Rafale scam. Time for prime minister Modi to break his silence," he told reporters here.

He said the lid of the Modi government's "murky sweetheart deal in the Rafale scam is now off" and asked whether Modi was prime minister of India or of Anil Ambani.

"The simple question that Modiji needs to answer is 'Are you PM of India or PM of Anil Ambani'? Are you 'chowkidaar' of India or are you the 'chowkidaar' (watchman) of business interests of Reliance group of Anil Ambani," he asked.

Surjewala also asked who was brokering this deal bypassing the lone public sector company which has 60 years of expertise in manufacturing defence aircraft.

The Congress leader alleged the new set of documents reveal the truth of Rs 30,000 crore "offset contract" and a Rs 1,00,000 crore "life cycle cost contract" to Reliance Defence establishes that the deal was a "compensation' brokered by Modi government" and states that it was "it was imperative and mandatory for Dassault-Aviation to accept this counterpart".

It also strongly underlines the charge of French ex-president Francois Hollande about Modi securing a deal for Ambani, he claimed.

"The BJP which is running helter-skelter and throwing all kinds of inconsumable alibis to defend the indefensible will have to be made accountable on the 'biggest defence scam' that has hit the country," Surjewala said.

He said French labour laws make it compulsory for companies with over 50 employees to set up a 'Central Works Council' (CCE), which is on the same lines as trade unions and have a role in financial management of the company as well as in social and cultural activities of employees.

The "minutes of the meeting held on May 11, 2017 between two such trade unions and Dassault Aviation's COO Loik Segalen lift the lid off the murky sweetheart deal of Rs 30,000 crore" and according to minutes of the meeting with CGT, "Segalen is quoted as saying that 'it was imperative and mandatory for Dassault-Aviation to accept this counterpart in order to obtain the export contract Rafale India'," he said.

The minutes of the meeting with another trade union CFDT, state that "this is the inevitable consequence of the Rafale India contract which required making 'Make in India' to be signed, he said.

Surjewala claimed this is the third confirmation after Hollande had clearly told a French outlet about Modi securing the deal for Reliance Defence.

The Congress leader asked if the BJP's and a slew of ministers' claim that Dassault Aviation was free to choose its offset partner, "why is it that Mr Segalen, the 2nd in command of Dassault state that 'it was imperative and mandatory for Dassault Aviation to accept this counterpart in order to obtain the RAFALE India export contract'?"



He also asked if Dassault Aviation willingly agreed to partner with Reliance Defence, why was it called an inevitable compensation? "Was it not deliberate squandering of HAL's interests," he asked.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Crime Branch of Mumbai police has arrested four members of a gang which is suspected to have cheated job aspirants from various states, an official said Wednesday.

Unit-11 of the Crime Branch busted the racket which operated from Bengaluru, the police official said.

Ajay Gupta (23), Cedric Robert (23), Vighnesh Suresh K C (22) and Sneha Pancharia (23), all residents of Hormalu, Bengaluru, were arrested this week.

The gang had allegedly cheated job aspirants from Maharashtra, Punjab, Tamil Nadu and some other states, the official said.

The racket came to light when a senior citizen approached Mumbai police with a complaint.

The complainant said he came across an advertisement of "international jobs and free recruitments" on a Facebook page, the official said.

It advertised jobs in Canada, the US, UAE and other countries.

After the complainant submitted his resume, he was told that he will get a job in Canada. However, after a few days, the accused asked him to deposit money for "processing fee" and other expenses in certain bank accounts, he told police.

After he transferred Rs 1.54 lakh, the so-called recruiters cut off all communication with him, following which he lodged a complaint at Kandivali police station.

One of the accused was arrested from suburban Goregaon here Sunday. It led to the arrest of others from Bengaluru, the police officer said, adding that further probe was on.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A rocket fired from Gaza struck a residential home in southern Israel early on Wednesday and the Israeli military began attacking militant sites in Gaza in response after days of rising tensions.

The Magen David Adom medical service said a woman and her three children, whose home in Beersheba was hit, were being treated for shock.

They had fled to their shelter after warning sirens woke them up shortly before 4 a.m. The mother's swift response likely saved their lives, as the home was destroyed and debris was scattered throughout the street, damaging parked cars and adjacent structures.

Next-door neighbor Segev Naveh said he did not hear the warning sirens and was awoken by the massive blast.

"It was very scary," he said. "If it was falling on my house, I would be dead for sure." The medical service said two other Beersheba residents were injured during the panic to seek cover.

The military said another rocket from Gaza landed in the sea, just off the coast of one of the larger cities in central Israel. No injuries were reported.

Following the attacks, schools in Beersheba were closed and Israel's military chief was cutting short his visit to the United States to come back and manage the crisis.

As a first response, Israeli military jets pounded Hamas targets across the Gaza Strip. The Gaza Health Ministry said a 25-year-old militant was killed inside one of the posts targeted. Three other people were wounded.

Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, a military spokesman, said 20 Hamas targets were struck, including offensive tunnels, weapon workshops and naval shafts. The military released video purportedly showing militants preparing to fire another rocket toward Israel before they were targeted.

The rocket attack on Beersheba was the first in months and the first that hit an Israeli home there since the 2014 summer war between Israel and Gaza's militant Hamas rulers. Beersheba, which is some 50 kilometers (30 miles) from Gaza, is the biggest city in southern Israel, with a population of around 200,000.

Israel and Hamas have fought three wars over the past decade and fighting has flared up on several occasions recently, though neither side appears to be interested in another full-blown war. Egypt has been trying to mediate a long-term cease-fire.

In a rare move, seemingly aimed at easing the tensions, the "joint coordination room of resistance factions," which includes Hamas, Islamic Jihad and others, issued a statement distancing the groups from the rocket fire.

"We reject all irresponsible attempts that try to change the direction and sabotage the Egyptian efforts, including the overnight firing of the rocket," they said.

"At the same time, we emphasize we are ready to confront the Israeli aggression." The head of Egyptian intelligence, Abbas Kamel, was scheduled to visit Gaza this week to renew cease-fire talks. But late Wednesday, Hamas announced his visit had been called off.

"We are sorry that minister Abbas Kamel has canceled his visit to Gaza and Ramallah," Moussa Abu Marzouk, a top Hamas official, wrote on Twitter.

However, a team of other Egyptian security officials was already on its way to try and calm things down.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, held briefings along the Gaza border, vowing that "Israel will act with great force." Conricus rejected the militants' statement, saying the rocket that struck Beersheba was a mid-range, locally produced weapon that was in the possession of only two groups: Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Israel holds Hamas responsible for all violence emanating from the territory it controls.

"Israel will not stand by while our people are under attack, and the world must know that," Israeli President Reuven Rivlin said as he hosted Nickolay Mladenov, the U.N. Mideast envoy.

Mladenov, who has been involved in the recent efforts to mediate a truce, said the rocket fire "fit a pattern of provocations that seek to bring Israel and Gaza into another deadly conflict."



The rocket attack came a day after Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said the time had come to deliver a "heavy blow" to Hamas after weeks of escalating violence along the border.

Lieberman announced Wednesday that all crossings into Gaza were being shut in response to the attack and the fishing zone around Gaza was being limited.

Hamas has held weekly border protests for the past six months, aimed in part at easing a crippling Israeli-Egyptian blockade that was put in place after the Islamic militant group violently seized power in 2007. The blockade has restricted Hamas' ability to govern and made life extremely difficult for Gaza's 2 million residents.

Electricity is supplied for roughly four hours a day, unemployment stands at more than 50 percent and tap water is undrinkable.

The protests have intensified as Egyptian-mediated cease-fire efforts faltered. Last week, some 14,000 Palestinians thronged to the perimeter fence, burning tires and throwing rocks, firebombs and grenades at soldiers stationed atop earth mounds on the other side. Some 20 Palestinians breached the border during Friday's protest.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Senior Congress leader Ashok Gehlot, considered to be in the chief ministerial race in Rajasthan, today indicated it will be too early to speculate on who will be the CM if the party wins in December 7 Assembly polls.

Citing popular TV serial 'Kaun Banega Crorepati' (KBC), Gehlot quipped, "Does anyone know before-hand who will become 'kaun banega crorepati'."



He was asked by reporters at the AICC media briefing as to who will be the chief minister of Rajasthan if the Congress wins the December 7 Assembly polls.

KBC is a popular TV serial hosted by noted actor Amitabh Bachchan.

Gehlot's response drew peals of laughter from those present, including Rajasthan PCC chief Sachin Pilot, at the press conference to announce former BJP MLA Manvendra Singh's joining the Congress.

A former chief minister of Rajasthan, Gehlot is now the AICC general secretary and is in-charge of the organisation. He is locked in the race for chief ministership with Pilot.

The Congress has not yet declared a chief ministerial candidate for the state, where it is gearing up to dethrone the Vasundhara Raje-led BJP government.

Rajasthan has traditionally not re-elected any party to power.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Senior Congress leader and former



Union minister Salman Khurshid Wednesday said switching over of two Goa Congress MLAs to the BJP is a "setback" for the saffron party as the latter speaks of "principle politics", but practicises something opposite to it.

"You can call it a setback (for us) but I believe it is a setback for the BJP as they speak of principle They complain that everything was wrong before they came to power and now everyday we see them function in a manner that is extremely questionable.

"MLAs that go today can come back tomorrow, who were there (on opposition benches) can come here (ruling side)..is that the kind of that we want?" he said.

"It is sad that those we have cherised and worked with leave Congress and go to the BJP at this time when everybody is thinking of leaving BJP and coming to Congress. Let us see how things turn out," Khurshid told reporters after visiting the College Square Puja Marquee.

Two Congress MLAs from Goa, including a former state party chief, joined the BJP Tuesday, dealing a blow to the opposition party in a state where the saffron party-led alliance government enjoys a thin majority.

Subhash Shirodkar and Dayanand Sopte, both of whom have resigned from the assembly, met Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah at his residence Tuesday in the national capital. The MLA duo was later inducted into the saffron party at a press conference addressed by Union minister Piyush Goyal.

Talking on the Sabrimala issue, Khurshid said there are different point of views in the society and that the Supreme Court has tried its best to find a correct answer on this issue.

"We have to accept what Supreme Court finally decides and if we have any problem, then we can go back to the Supreme Court and explain.

"I think just as much as it is important to respect religion, it is important to respect institutions of our constitution, and for all sensible and responsible citizens, it is important to maintain a balance," he said.

The process of dialogue must not come to an end in our society. Whoever has nay concern must express it and we should always be ready with an open heart and an open mind to listen to our people, the Congress leader said.

Women journalists were heckled, their vehicles smashed and young female Ayyappa devotees turned back as hordes of Hindu right activists besieged the road leading to the Sabarimala temple, whose gates were opened for women of menstrual age Wednesday evening for the first time after the Supreme Court's verdict.

Both the Congress, the main opposition party in Kerala, and the BJP, which is desperately seeking to expand its footprint in the state, have lent support to the agitation against the Supreme Court verdict.

The Supreme Court had last month lifted the centuries-old ban on women in the 10-50 age group to enter the shrine.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A Haryana court sentenced self-styled godman Rampal and his 13 followers to life imprisonment in a second case of murder Wednesday.

The court of Additional District and Sessions Judge in Hisar sentenced Rampal, 67, and his followers in the case registered at Barwala police station in the district on November 19, 2014. They had been charged with murder, wrongful confinement of people and criminal conspiracy.

A woman was found dead at Rampal's Ashram in Hisar district on November 19, 2014. Rampal was arrested the same day for murder and other charges were slapped on him.

On Tuesday, the court sentenced the engineer-turned self-styled godman and 14 of his followers to life imprisonment in connection with another case of murder.

On October 11, Rampal and some of his followers had been convicted in two separate cases of murder and other offences, including wrongful confinement of his victims at his Ashram in Hisar.

Additional Sessions Judge D R Chalia also slapped a fine of Rs 2.05 lakh on each of the convicts on Wednesday.

The court awarded life imprisonment and a fine of Rs one lakh each under Section 302 IPC, two years imprisonment under Section 343 IPC and fine of Rs 5,000 each, and life imprisonment under Section 120 B and fine of Rs one lakh each. All sentences will run concurrently.

The court yesterday pronounced the quantum of punishment in the first case involving the death of four women and a child at the Hisar ashram on November 18, 2014.

A P Singh, advocate who represented Rampal and others, said they will challenge the sessions court decision before the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

The verdict was pronounced, after nearly a four-year trial, in a makeshift court inside the central jail in Hisar, where Rampal and his followers have been lodged since their arrest in November 2014.

The two cases against Rampal and his followers were filed at Barwala police station on November 19, 2014.

Besides the murder charges, the Barwala police had also invoked the offence of wrongful confinement, among others, in the two FIRs.

In November 2014, as the police proceeded to arrest Rampal holed up inside his ashram, his followers and devotees, numbering more than 15,000, surrounded the sprawling 12-acre hermitage to prevent the godman's arrest.

Six persons five women and an infant were killed in the ensuing violence.

Ahead of the pronouncement of the sentence, the Hisar district administration had made elaborate security arrangements. Section 144 of the CrPC, prohibiting gathering of more than four persons, has been imposed by the district magistrate, effective till October 17.

Before becoming a self-styled godman, Rampal worked as a junior engineer in a Haryana government department for 15 years before quitting in May 1995.

He later set up an Ashram in Barwala area in Hisar district and another one in Rohtak district and gradually gained popularity as a spiritual leader.

He took to full-time preaching, touring the villages and the cities across Haryana.

In 2006, he ran into controversy and invited the ire of Arya Samaj followers in Rohtak region because of his alleged unwelcome comments on Swami Dayanand Maharishi.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)As the "#MeToo" movement rages on in India, the government is set to form a group of ministers to look into the lacunae in the existing law on sexual harassment, official sources said Wednesday.

They added that the group of ministers will be notified "soon".

Earlier, there were indications that the panel could be headed by a senior women cabinet minister but now, the sources said, it could be headed by Home Minister Rajnath Singh.

The development comes days after Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi proposed the formation of a legal panel to look into the legal and institutional framework in place for handling complaints of sexual harassment and advise her ministry on how to strengthen it.

India's "#MeToo" movement, which started with actor Tanushree Dutta accusing another actor -- Nana Patekar -- of harassing her during the shooting of a Bollywood film in 2008, has escalated sharply with more and more women coming forward with their complaints against various personalities.

M J Akbar, who resigned as the Minister of State for External Affairs Wednesday, filmmakers Subhash Ghai, Sajid Khan, Rajat Kapoor and actor Alok Nath are among those who have been accused of sexual misconduct.Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias quit his post on Wednesday, the government said, in a cabinet dispute over the country's controversial name deal with Macedonia.

"Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has accepted the foreign minister's resignation," the PM's office said in a statement, adding that Tsipras himself would take over the post.

Kotzias on Tuesday had clashed in a cabinet meeting with Defence Minister Panos Kammenos, who is also the coalition partner holding up Tsipras' government.

Head of the nationalist Independent Greeks party, Kammenos has threatened to defect from the government in opposition to the deal brokered by Kotzias and Tsipras earlier this year to rename Greece's neighbour North Macedonia.

The deal has raised strong objections in both countries.

Greece also has a northern province named Macedonia, the heart of Alexander the Great's ancient kingdom.

Many Greeks fear the deal on the table will officially enable Skopje to lay claim to their cultural heritage.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Gujarat High Court on Wednesday said it will monitor the progress on measures taken by the Gujarat government for safety and conservation of Asiatic lions in the Gir forest in the state.

A bench of Chief Justice R Subhash Reddy and Justice V M Pancholi asked the state government to file periodic progress reports on construction of walls around open wells in the areas with lion population, and the measures taken to prevent lion deaths due to electrocution.

Falling into open wells and electrocution after coming in contact with electrified fences installed by farmers (for keeping animals away) are two common causes of lion deaths in Gir.

The high court also directed the state government to seek expert opinion about prevention of virus-related deaths among the big cats.

The reports are to be filed in three months, while the next hearing will be on January 16.

The court was hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by wildlife activist Biren Pandya and another PIL seeking prevention of unnatural deaths of lions in the forests of Gir, the only abode of Asiatic lions.

The second PIL is a petition taken up by the court on its ownafter a report tabled in Gujarat Assembly said that 182 lions died in Gir in the last two years, a large number of them due to unnatural causes.

Earlier, the court had asked the Centre to explain why it has allocated only Rs 95,000 per animal for lion conservation, against Rs 15 lakh per animal for tigers. It has sought a report on the Centre's long-term lion conservation plan.

On deaths of over 20 lions in Gir since September, many of them due to Canine Distemper Disease (CDD), the court said the government should seek expert opinion on whether all lions should be vaccinated against the CDD virus.

The government had said that only the lions and cattle in areas affected by the virus were vaccinated.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Seven men hailing from Bihar were attacked allegedly for wearing "lungi" and "sitting indecently" here, following which three persons were arrested Wednesday, police said.

The attack took place on Monday night in Sama locality in the city, police said.

It has come in the wake of recent attacks on Hindi-speaking migrants in parts of Gujarat. The police claimed that the attack on Monday night was an isolated incident and had "nothing to do with the origin of the victims".

Talking to PTI about the incident, Vadodara Police Commissioner Anupam Singh Gehlot said, "The men were attacked after they did not pay heed to the local residents, who regularly asked them not to sit there indecently by wearing lungi (a traditional garment worn around the waist)."



He said the incident cannot be termed a "hate crime" against Hindi-speaking migrants.

"The victims, working at a construction site in the locality, used to wear lungi and sit in the area. Women and men, staying at Vankarvas under Sama police station area, had repeatedly warned these men against wearing lungi and sitting indecently," Singh said.

"The victims were attacked after an altercation broke out between the two groups on Monday night," he said.

Sama police station Inspector P D Parmar said those who were attacked belonged to Bihar. While six of them are plumbers, another one is an engineer.

According to police, the attackers also torched a motorcycle belonging to the engineer, he said.

The accused were identified as Dhiru Parmar, Hardik Parmar, and Nikunj Vaghela, police said.

The three arrested accused were booked under Indian Penal Code sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 504 (intentional insult to provoke breach of peace), 506 (criminal intimidation), 435 (mischief by fire), and 114 (abettor present when offence is committed).

Parmar maintained that despite the attack, the victims and others from Bihar continue to work at the site.

Several districts in the northern parts of Gujarat were rocked by violence after a labourer from Bihar was arrested on the charge of raping a 14-month-old girl in Sabarkantha district on September 28. The attacks on HIndi-speaking migrants, mostly from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh led to the exodus of thousands of migrants from Gujarat.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The applications for the next year's Haj pilgrimage will be accepted online from Thursday and the process will be fully digital, the Haj Committee of India announced Wednesday.

Union Minister for Minority Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said the pilgrimage will be completely free of subsidy.

The subsidy was scrapped by the Union government earlier this year.

The Haj Committee of India, which makes arrangements for the annual Haj pilgrimage to Mecca for devotees from the country, is a statutory body of the Minority Affairs Ministry.

Speaking at the Central Haj House here, Naqvi said the online application process for the Haj 2019 will start from October 18 and end on November 17.

The early start will ensure a smoother process and better facilities for pilgrims, he said.

The process of tender for choosing airlines to carry the pilgrims will be completed by November, and the accommodation-related process in Mecca and Medina will be completed by December-January, Naqvi said.

"Accommodation rates in Saudi Arabia will be the same as 2018," the minister assured.

"This year (for 2019 Haj), we have 21 embarkation points, the latest (to be added) being the Calicut airport," he said.

Naqvi said the pilgrims will be able to board the flights for Saudi Arabia from the airport in their home state or from airports in adjacent states.

He said even after the removal of the subsidy, the Haj 2018 offered a better experience for the pilgrims.

"Elimination of middlemen and 100 per cent online and transparent system ensured that even after removal of the Haj subsidy, there was no unnecessary financial burden on pilgrims," Naqvi said. The fear that the pilgrimage would become costlier was allayed, he added.

Naqvi said the government has requested the Goods and Services Tax Council to consider the withdrawal of additional 3 per cent tax on the Haj pilgrimage.

He said a record 1,75,025 Muslims from India performed Haj in 2018.

Naqvi also unfurled a national flag installed on the terrace of the multi-storey Haj building, 350 feet above the ground level.

It is the highest national flag installed atop a building at sea level in the country, Naqvi said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India's (HMSI) flagship Activa brand of automatic scooters has crossed 2 crore-customer-mark, the second largest two-wheeler maker said Wednesday.

Activa, which pushed Hero Motorcop's flagship Splendor to second position in May 2017, has retained top spot as largest selling two-wheeler brand in the country. It is also the largest selling two-wheeler globally.

"We've booked our 20 millionth (2 crore) Activa customer today (Wednesday). While it has taken us 15 years to get the first 10 millionth customer, we have achieved the second 10 millionth customer in just three years," the company said in a statement.

HMSI, which runs the world's largest scooter-only plant at Vithalapur in Gujarat with a 1.2 million annual capacity recently announced an additional 0.6 million capacity expansion there to meet the growing demand for automatic scooters.

Contributing over 33 per cent of global volume for the parent Honda, HMSI is the largest volume contributor for the Japanese company.

Minoru Kato, president and chief executive at HMSI, attributed this to constant value addition over 18 years, and five generations of Activas.

Elaborating on the reason of success of the Activa, Yadvinder Singh Guleria, senior vice-president for sales and marketing said, "since its launch in 2001 as our first two- wheeler here, Activa has successfully re-activated the automatic scooter market."



Offering a perspective of Activa's historical journey, Guleria said from selling 55,000 units on the debut year in 2001, the volume crossed 5 lakh-mark in 2003 and in the next two years the volume doubled to cross the 1-million mark.

In 2012, the volume had breached the 5 million mark and in 2015 it grew to 10 million, and has doubled this number in 3 years to reach 20 million.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)After putting his might behind independent projects, "Ship of Theseus" director Anand Gandhi hopes his stories find more mainstream relevance in future.

Gandhi has penned the screenplay for his maiden mainstream outing "Helicopter Eela", starring Kajol. The feature, which released on October 12, is based on his play "Beta Kaagdo".

He has also written and produced "Tumbbad", a historical period horror featuring Sohum Shah, which also released on the same day. A mythological horror, the film has has received unanimous praise by critics.

Gandhi, 38, is glad to contribute in this shifting ecosystem where viewers are warming up to content-driven stories.

"There is a beautiful churning happening. It is exciting to be part of this change and make films. The biggest challenge is to optimise these possibilities and keep pushing and reinventing oneself," Gandhi told PTI.

"I will continue to make the kind of films I want to make. I hope the films I make reach a wider audience. So the definition of commercial cinema changes," he added.

The filmmaker said the difference between commercial and independent cinema has blurred over the years.

"I hope the cinema that resonates deeply with people and provides meaningful experience become mainstream. The lines are blurring, I don't think there is a relevant difference today."



The credit for reigniting the momentum in indie cinema, Gandhi said, goes to actors and filmmakers, who are starting to invest their money and talent in good projects.

"Audiences are watching films and showing their preferences. They are in a way pushing the boundaries of what producers and distributors are willing to take on. Industry people are taking on risks and offering something new to audience. Everyone has to push each other towards a greater evolution," he said.

Gandhi is also a co-creator of ElesVR, India's first virtual reality (VR) platform aiming to bring extraordinary stories.

"The hardware is yet to catch up, it is not very comfortable to watch virtual reality for a long period of time. The headsets are still very heavy and are not extremely conducive and comfortable for viewing for a longer time," he said.

He is at the moment caught up with his next two directorial films -- an American science fiction co-production and a Hindi drama.

For the science fiction feature, Gandhi has collaborated with a scientist who has come on board as his client adviser and executive producer.

"I am beginning to learn whether there are any differences or not. It is an English language film, I hope to get Indian partners involved in the project. Given the nature and subject, it made sense to look for partners in that part of the world. This film will go on floors by December next year," he said.

The Hindi project will go on floors by June or July next year.

"It is different from what I have done so far, it is a drama spanning three decades. We have started talking with actors and partners, in next two months we will hopefully get things locked. We are hoping to make it bilingual, in Hindi and Tamil," Gandhi said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A mega investors' meet may be held in Dharamsala in February next year to showcase Himachal Pradesh as potential investment destination to entrepreneurs, Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur said Wednesday.

Thakur was speaking after launching Him Pragati portal to fast track clearances and approvals of various development projects being monitored by the Chief Minister's office.

The investors' meet in Dharamsala will help in creating international and national visibility about state readiness to attract the investors, he said adding that the state was well connected with upcoming Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor from Amritsar to Kolkata and five major potential state industrial hubs were situated very near to this corridor.

While reviewing the investment targets in the state, he said that a high power committee would be constituted soon under his chairmanship and a sub-committee under the chairmanship of the Chief Secretary in order to attract investment in the state.

The state will focus on agro food processing sector, manufacturing sector, power, tourism and related infrastructure, IT, biotechnology and allied sectors. The thrust would be laid on interaction with CEO's of prominent corporate houses, organising roadshows at major domestic destinations like Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Delhi and Ludhiana.

Earlier during his visit to Kangra district, he paid his obeisance at famous Jawalamukhi temple on Ashtami and performed kanya-poojan.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Actor Idris Elba is in negotiations to join the voice cast of "Cats", the film adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's beloved musical.

Oscar-winning director Tom Hooper will helm the project which is expected to start shooting in England next month, reported Deadline.

If the deal gets finalised, the 46-year-old actor will join Taylor Swift, Jennifer Hudson, James Corden and Ian McKellen in the cast.

Lee Hall will adapt the screenplay for the musical, which Lloyd Webber based on T S Eliot's children's poems.

The film will follow the story of a tribe of cats called the Jellicles and the night they make what is known as "the Jellicle choice" and decide which cat will ascend to the Heaviside Layer and come back to a new life.

Hudson, who won an Oscar in 2007 for her role in "Dreamgirls", will take on the role of Grizabella, a former "glamour cat" ostracised by the Jellicles, while McKellan will play Old Deuteronomy, the elderly Jellicle Leader.

Swift will portray Bombalurina, a flirtatious red cat.

The stage version of the musical is the fourth-longest-running show in Broadway history and the sixth-longest-running in London's West End.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)In what can be seen as confirming fears of a in the country, Wednesday said growth in corporate India moderated to 3.8 per cent in FY18, from 4.2 per cent in FY17, with jobs in smaller companies being hit the hardest.

The rating agency in its report said the moderation in growth is "reflective of the proposition that higher economic growth is weakly translating into higher job creation".

It can be noted that many watchers, including the then Union labour minister have questioned if we are facing a jobless growth, where the economic acceleration is not translating into growth in jobs.

The report, based on an analysis of over 1,600 corporates, said smaller companies, with net sales of less than Rs 500 crore, have witnessed a contraction in growth, while larger companies, with over Rs 5 billion sales, had a positive employment growth in FY18.



ALSO READ: Four factors that will drive September quarter results of India Inc

With a 14 per cent growth, the finance sector led the pack in job creation, followed by retail (13.05 per cent), construction (9.6 per cent), infrastructure (9 per cent) and ratings (8 per cent), according to the report.

On the negative growth front, telecom topped the chart with a 7.6 per cent decline in job creation, followed by education and training registering a 5.3 per cent dip.

In May 2017, Dattatreya conceded that the is real and had also constituted a taskforce on it.

"The current growth is a Many European and Asian countries, including India, are facing it...growth is being reported but it is not reflecting in employment generation," he had said in May last year.



From a cost perspective, the overall employee cost came at 8.3 per cent in FY18, while the average employee cost rose 4.3 per cent, according to the report.

Just like growth in total permanent employees has seen a moderation in FY18 over FY17, both employee cost and average employee cost also witnessed a moderation in FY18 over FY17, it said.An Indian man in Saudi Arabia has been fired from his job for posting "derogatory comments" on women, amid the Sabarimala temple row, a media report said Wednesday.

Deepak Pavithram, a Keralite working with Lulu Hypermarket in Riyadh, was sacked on Tuesday for making misogynistic and insensitive remarks about women on social media.

"We have a strict and zero tolerance policy with regard to our staff misusing social media to spread malicious or derogatory comments which might hurt religious sentiments," V Nandakumar, Chief Communications Officer at Lulu Group, told Khaleej Times.

"All GCC nations are home to a large cosmopolitan population from almost all countries in the world and we respect their sentiments, culture and religious beliefs," Nandakumar said.

Kerala expats in the Gulf took to social media to express their appreciation for Yusuff Ali M A, chairman and managing director of Lulu Group, for taking a strong step against the derogatory remarks, the report said.

This is the second termination in recent times by the Indian-owned retail giant on similar grounds.

In August, they had terminated the services of a Keralite expat in Oman after he posted distasteful comments about flood victims in Kerala.

The company took action against him even though he had apologised for the remarks the next day.

The Supreme Court on September 28 had ruled that women will be allowed entry into Sabarimala temple in Kerala.

The temple opened its door for all women visitors of all age groups for the first time on Wednesday after the historic apex court ruling last month.

Tension prevailed Wednesday morning in Kerala's Nilackal, the main gateway to Sabarimala, after the police used force to disperse protestors opposing the entry of girls and women of menstrual age into the hill shrine.

The temple would be closed on October 22 after the five-day monthly prayer during the Malayalam month of Thulam.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)India, the world's third-biggest oil consumer, Wednesday pressed OPEC to move to responsible pricing of oil and gas saying the recent spike in rates are far detached from market fundamentals and are hurting importing nations.

A combination of crude oil climbing to four-year high and rupee dipping to its lowest level against US dollar has sent retail petrol, diesel and cooking gas (LPG) rates to record high. The relentless price rise has wiped away tax cuts done by the government to give relief to consumers.

At the annual institutional dialogue between the world's third-largest oil importer and the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan gave the cartel, which accounts for 45 per cent of the world output, a perspective of an importing country.

"(I) met OPEC Secretary General Mohammed Sanusi Barkindo at the 3rd India-OPEC Energy Dialogue (and) raised the issue of surging crude prices which is hurting oil importing countries like India. I sought responsible pricing, which is in the best interests of both producers and consumers," Pradhan said.

India imports over 83 per cent of its crude oil needs. Of the crude oil imported, about 85 per cent of comes from OPEC nations. Also, 80 per cent of gas imports come from those countries.

India believes OPEC has a major role in shaping oil prices and availability and the current high oil prices dent the economic development of many countries and threaten already fragile world economic growth.

Pradhan said he also expressed concerns on global trade practices limiting the affordability of energy.

Barkindo, he said, reaffirmed India as an extremely important partner for OPEC and called for further strengthening India-OPEC relationship.

"He said OPEC will help to develop it as a model for developing countries," Pradhan said.

The OPEC secretary general said Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter and the organisation's kingpin, has assured that it is "committed, capable and willing" to ensure there will be no shortage in the oil market.

The government had on October 5 cut excise duty on petrol and diesel by Rs 1.50 per litre and asked oil PSUs to subsdise the two fuel by another Re 1. The twin move resulted in retail rates being cut by Rs 2.50 per litre.

However, the relentless price hike has wiped away all cut benefits on diesel and most on petrol.

While there was no change in prices on Wednesday, petrol in Delhi costs Rs 82.83 per litre and diesel is priced at Rs 75.69.

Since the duty cut, diesel prices have risen by Rs 2.74 per litre, more than wiping away the excise duty cut and oil firm subsidy. Petrol price has during the period risen by Rs 1.33 per litre.

Before the October 5 price cut, petrol in Delhi had hit an all-time high of Rs 84 per litre and diesel was at record Rs 75.45. This came down to Rs 81.50 per litre for petrol and Rs 72.95 in case of diesel on October 4.

In Mumbai, petrol on Tuesday was priced at Rs 88.29 per litre, down from a peak of Rs 91.34 hit on October 4. A litre of diesel in the city costs Rs 79.35, a shade lower than Rs 80.10 record high hit on October 4.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Shares of Infosys rose by nearly 4 per cent Wednesday after the company posted a better-than-expected 10.3 per cent net profit growth in the second quarter.

The scrip after a positive opening further gained 3.53 per cent to Rs 721 on BSE.

At NSE, shares of the company went up by 3.81 per cent to Rs 721.80.

In terms of equity volume, 5.45 lakh shares of the company were traded on BSE and over one crore shares changed hands at NSE during the morning trade.

Sanjeev Hota, AVP Research at Sharekhan by BNP Paribas, said Infosys had delivered "better than expected numbers on topline and bottomline front for second quarter, though margins performance missed the mark".

The India's second-largest software services exporter Infosys Tuesday posted a better-than-expected 10.3 per cent net profit growth in the second quarter after margins were boosted by large deal wins and reiterated its revenue forecast for full year.

Net profit in July-September rose to Rs 4,110 crore, or Rs 9.45 per share, from Rs 3,726 crore, or Rs 8.15 a share, a year ago, the company said in a statement. Revenue from operations grew 17.3 per cent to Rs 20,609 crore.

The company has declared an interim dividend of Rs 7 per share.

The results were announced after market hours Tuesday.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Iran called new US sanctions against its paramilitary Basij group an act of "blind vindictiveness" on Wednesday.

"America's new sanctions are a clear insult to international and legal mechanisms and a result of the American government's blind vindictiveness against the Iranian nation," said foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi.

He called Washington's "lack of adherence to international legal mechanisms" a threat not only "to the Iranian people's interests but also the world's stability and security."



On Tuesday, the US Treasury Department slapped sanctions on the Basij paramilitary group along with a network of more than 20 businesses that were providing it financing.

The US pulled out of a landmark 2015 nuclear accord between Iran and six world powers in May and is reimposing punishing sanctions on the Middle Eastern country, hoping to pressure Tehran into what President Donald Trump calls a "better deal".

"Contrary to the American government's hypocritical claims in support of the Iranian people, such acts obstruct the people's ability to benefit from economic relations with the international community," Ghasemi added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Iran has been playing it cool as it watches the furore over the disappearance of writer Jamal Khashoggi create a crisis for its regional rival Saudi Arabia.

As of Wednesday, the government had yet to make any official comment on the alleged murder of Khashoggi who vanished after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2.

Barraged by questions at his weekly press conference on Monday, foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi said only that Iran was monitoring events.

The Iranian press has been reprinting the gruesome claims from Turkish and other international sources that Khashoggi was tortured and dismembered inside the consulate, and on Wednesday alleged a cover-up by Riyadh and Washington.

"US, Turkey and Saudi colluding to close the murder case of Jamal Khashoggi," read the headline on Wednesday's Jomhuri Eslami, a conservative paper, as it reported on US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's visit to Riyadh and Ankara.

"Pompeo's mission in travelling to Riyadh and then Turkey is to cover up Saudi brutality and scandal by making up stories, and this very project is an excuse to keep milking the Saudis (for weapons' contracts)," added the Javan newspaper, considered close to the Revolutionary Guards.

Reza Ghabishavi, in the reformist Arman newspaper, acknowledged the silence from Iran's leaders over the case.

"The whole world... has reacted, but after two weeks, Iran has made no remarks," he wrote.

"Of course, it's obvious the whole thing is in the interests of Iran because on the one hand it has caused serious differences between America and Saudi Arabia, and on the other hand, the young prince's reforms in Saudi Arabia have been destroyed in the public opinion of the world," he added.

Ghabishavi also pointed out that Khashoggi was no friend of Iran, having strongly criticised the country's foreign interventions in Yemen, Syria and Iraq.

The case comes just a few weeks before full US sanctions are reimposed on Iran following Washington's decision to scrap the 2015 nuclear deal.

Although the sanctions have contributed to a sharp economic downturn in Iran, its leaders have relished a rare opportunity to hold the moral high ground on the international scene, as much of the world criticises the aggression of US moves against Iran.

"Everyone knows that America has lost legally and politically by giving up on its international obligations and that we have achieved victory," said President Hassan Rouhani in a speech on Sunday.

The Tehran Times emphasised that Khashoggi's alleged assassination was the inevitable result of the West's long-running support for Saudi monarchs.

"This is your own doing," wrote editor-in-chief Mohammad Ghaderi, addressing Western governments.

"You pick puppets to rule over (their) lands... and back terrorist Wahhabis," he said, referring to the fundamentalist Saudi interpretation of Islam.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)An Islamic State mastermind, named as Abu Zahi and linked to a deadly attack last month in southern Iran, was killed along with "four other terrorists" in Iraq Tuesday, the elite Revolutionary Guards said in a statement.

The five were killed "during a reconnaissance and surprise operation by forces of the resistance this morning in Iraq's Diyalah province," northeast of Baghdad, the statement said.

The "resistance" is a term used for militias operating in Iraq and Syria with Tehran's support, and trained by the Revolutionary Guards. Abu Zahi was "the mastermind of the recent terrorist crime in Ahvaz," the statement added.

The attack on a military parade in the mainly ethnic Arab city of Ahvaz in southwestern Iran left 24 people dead last month.

Claims of responsibility for that attack were posted by both the jihadists of the Islamic State group and by a separatist group calling itself Ahvaz National Resistance.

On October 1, Iran said it had struck jihadists in Syria with ballistic missiles and combat drones in retaliation for the September attack.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A delegation of the Indian Youth Congress (IYC) Wednesday met the Election Commission officials to lodge their complaint over alleged permission granted to the BJYM to hold a convention in an army cantonment area, the outfit said in a statement.

"Recently Ministry of Defence granted permission to the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM), the youth wing of the BJP, to hold its national convention inside Bison Polo Grounds at Secunderabad Cantonment in Hyderabad." the statement said.

According to it, Bison Polo Ground is "meant" only for military training, NCC Camps and other defence related activities.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The just-concluded urban local body elections in Kashmir witnessed poor voter turnout but these polls will perhaps be remembered for the dearth of contestants as 69 per cent of 598 wards in the valley did not require any polling.

According to data compiled by the election department of Jammu and Kashmir, out of 598 wards spanning across 40 municipal bodies in 10 districts of the valley, polling was held only in 186 wards.

The remaining 412 wards constituting 68.89 per cent of the total - did not require any voting.

The government had made elaborate security arrangements to secure polling staff and polling stations but kept the identity of candidates, who dared to defy militant threats, a secret for security reasons.

As a result, there was no campaigning for these elections and in most cases the candidates chose to remain anonymous.

Over thirty per cent of wards in these 40 urban local bodies across Kashmir valley will remain unrepresented.

No nomination papers were received from 181 wards (30.26 per cent) for the elections. Most of these wards were in the third phase of the polls 62, followed by 56 in the second phase, 44 in the last and 19 in the first phase.

Out of the 598 wards, 231 wards - 38.62 per cent were those which saw no contest and the solitary candidate in each of these wards was declared winner unopposed.

While 69 of these wards were in the first phase, 61 were in the second, 49 in the third and 52 in the fourth and last phase.

In these polls, six municipal bodies had two or less contesting candidates in total two of them zero.

For Pulwama municipal body, which has 13 wards, there were only two contesting candidates who won unopposed. Awantipora, Beerwah and Seer Hamdan municipal bodies all having 13 wards each had only one contesting candidate each in the whole civic body.

Frisal in Kulgam district and Khrew in Pulwama district both in south Kashmir received no nomination papers from any of the 13 wards each body has.

In total, out of the 40 civic bodies in the valley, voting did not take place in 27 of them.

The poll percentage in the rest of the 13 municipal bodies was recorded at 8.3 per cent in the first phase, 3.4 per cent in the second, 3.5 per cent in the third and 4.2 per cent in the fourth and last phase.

The reasons for the low participation in these polls candidate-wise as well as voting percentage-wise can be attributed to threats by militants against any participation in these polls.

Stringent security arrangements were made for the smooth conduct of the polls, while candidates at many places were taken to secure locations which meant no visible campaign for the polls in the valley.

The state's two main parties Conference (NC) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) along with CPI(M) stayed away from the polls because of the legal challenge to Article 35-A of the Constitution in the Supreme Court.

Separatists in the valley had also asked the people to boycott polls.Members of the Jain community have demanded the Centre to declare the 'Parasnath Hill' in Jharkhand as the community's official place of worship.

Shikharji in Giridih district of Jharkhand is located on the Parasnath hill, the highest mountain in the state. It is the most important Jain Tirtha (pilgrimage site) for the Jains, believed to be the place where 20 of the 24 Jain tirthankaras along with many other monks attained Moksha (salvation).

The 'Save Shikharji' campaign is being run by an NGO, Jyot and has received support from the Jain diaspora across the globe.

"Shikharji Hill, the most revered hill for Jains, is a place where 20 of 24 Tirthankaras performed their ultimate sadhana and achieved nirvana. This entire hill is charged by the reverberations emanating from the top-most purified souls having unparallel resolute and determination, making its every inch sacred. It is now impossible to re-create such sanctity," an official statement said.

"What distinguishes India from the rest of the world is its rich religious and cultural heritage. MahaTirths like Shikharji are the epitome of the spiritual wealth of religiously prolific India. Hampering the purity of such places is no less than sabotaging the pride of our nation," it said.

A delegation from the Jain community had also recently met Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das with regard to the matter.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Representatives of the Jain and Zoroastrian will now join 15 other faiths, including Hinduism, Sikhism, at Britain's annual war memorial service to make it more reflective of modern Britain, Faith Minister Lord Bourne announced on Wednesday.

Hinduism, Sikhism, Islam, Christianity and Judaism are among the faiths already represented at the National Remembrance Service held at the Cenotaph in central London on November 11 every year, to commemorate British and Commonwealth soldiers who died in the two World Wars and later conflicts.

"For a tiny faith community, the Zoroastrians have punched well above their weight and contributed immensely to Britain in both World Wars," said Malcolm M Deboo, President of Zoroastrian Trust Funds of Europe, welcoming the move.

"At the outbreak of the First World War, thousands volunteered from Britain and India to serve as soldiers and doctors and many were decorated for their bravery and sacrifice. Sadly, many also lost their lives and a Zoroastrian War Memorial was erected in their memory in South Bombay in 1926 where they are remembered annually," he said.

Among the well-known Zoroastrians in the war efforts was Colonel Phirozshah Byramji Bharucha of the 14th Ferozepore Sikhs Regiment, who was also the first Indian to be awarded the Distinguished Service Order.

"The loss of the lives of Zoroastrian servicemen in World War I also came at great cost to the faith, which relies on the male line to continue the faith, from which it never fully recovered," notes the UK's Communities Ministry.

In reference to the Jain faith, it adds: "Although the Jain faith focuses on non-violence, the Jain community has a long history of serving in the military, including Britain's armed forces.

"For Jains, it is their duty to stand up to tyranny and violence to bring peace. Jains have been an active force in both World Wars."



The National Remembrance Ceremony is led by Queen Elizabeth II and involves official wreaths being laid on the steps of the Cenotaph by political and religious leaders on November 11 - Armistice Day that marked the end of World War I in 1918.

The list of faith representatives who will join the service from this year was expanded following an open nomination process, run by Faiths Forum for London.

"One hundred years ago, men and women of all faiths and beliefs made huge sacrifices for our freedom in the First World War," said Lord Bourne.

"It's absolutely right as a modern, multi-faith society that we step up our efforts to honour those people of other faiths for their contribution. It's because of their bravery and selflessness that we are afforded the privileges and luxuries we enjoy today. Their sacrifices should be honoured through the ages," he said.

The UK government said the addition of several smaller faith communities, also including Coptic Christians, Mormons, Baha'is, Spiritualists and Humanists, will reflect the significant but little-known contribution made by minority ethnic communities to Britain's war efforts.

"It also sends a strong signal throughout Britain and the world that this country values the contribution of its diverse communities," a government statement said.

The faiths and beliefs selected have a link to Britain's Armed Forces and their inclusion is aimed at ensuring that the UK's National Remembrance Service is "truly reflective" of the diverse faiths and beliefs in the country.

The service has changed little since it was first introduced in 1921, and involves hymns, prayers and a two-minute silence. The ceremony ends with a march past of war veterans as a gesture of respect for their fallen comrades.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Tokyo lodged an official protest with Beijing Wednesday after Chinese ships cruised around disputed islands, days before a historic summit between the leaders of the Asian rivals.

Japan's top government spokesman Yoshihide Suga called the intrusion "extremely regrettable" but said Tokyo was nonetheless hoping to "take Japan-China relations to the next level".

The complaint, which is only the latest in a string of similar protests, comes before Prime Minister Shinzo Abe heads to China next week for talks with President Xi Jinping.

The trip will be the first official visit to China by a Japanese leader in seven years, as Asia's two biggest economies take gradual steps to improve their tense relations, marred by bitter memories of the World War II.

Abe has only been to China for international events in recent years, with relations between the two nations deteriorating from 2012 when Tokyo "nationalised" some of the disputed islets.

Since then, the two top Asian economies have taken gradual steps to mend fences but relations remain tense.

China routinely dispatches its coastguard ships, and sometimes military vessels, to waters around the islands, which are called Senkaku by Japan and the Diaoyu islands by China.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A proposal for acquisition of 1,334 hectares of land in Jewar for an international airport has been sent to the Uttar Pradesh government by the Gautam Buddh Nagar administration, officials said Wednesday.

After examining the proposal, the state government would issue a notification under section 11A of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 for the acquisition of the land, District Magistrate (DM) Brajesh Narain Singh told reporters.

A total of 5,000 hectares of land is to be acquired for the greenfield airport, proposed to be built at an estimated cost of Rs 15,000 to Rs 20,000 crore. Once built, it will be the second airport in the National Capital Region (NCR), after Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport.

For the first phase of the project, 1,334 hectares of land is required. As much as 1,239 hectares of land from six villages (Rohi, Dayanatpur, Parohi, Kishorepur, Ranhera and Banwari Baans), which belonged to farmers, would be acquired by the government and due compensation given to them, Singh said.

The remaining 95 hectares of land in the region already belonged to the government, he added.

"I am happy to announce that the requisite 70 per cent consent from the land owners has been taken for the project. In fact, 72 per cent of them have consented to the land acquisition. All formalities have been completed at the district level and a proposal has been sent to the government," the DM said.

Under the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, the consent of at least 70 per cent of land owners is mandatory for a government to proceed with land acquisition for any such project.

"The next step is that the appropriate government has to express its intent to acquire the land for public purpose under section 11A of the Act. So, the collector, in this case the additional district magistrate (land and acquisition), has sent the proposal with our approval to the state government after fulfilling all formalities.

"The government will examine it and issue the notification under section 11A for the land acquisition," Singh explained.

He said the Social Impact Assessment (SIA) report and Social Impact Management Plan (SIMP) for the affected region have already been approved by the government.

According to the SIA report, 5,905 families will be impacted by the project and out of the these, 5,007 are farmers' families while 898 are landless families.

"Around 1,775 families from three villages -- Rohi, Dayanatpur, Kishorepur -- will likely have to be rehabilitated due to the project. A total of 4,235 of the families have given their consent for the project, around 72 per cent, which fulfils the requisite legality of at least 70 per cent consent for carrying out any such land acquisition," the administration said in a statement.

The district administration said when Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had visited Gautam Buddh Nagar on August 3 to talk to the farmers about the project, his instructions were clear to the administration: "Get the project negotiated at the earliest and the farmers must be taken into confidence before moving ahead."



"Our team has worked really hard for this and I believe the process has been very fair, transparent and democratic. The proposal has been scrutinised and the farmers have been taken into confidence. A very fair process has been adopted," the DM said.

Some landowners, including farmers, had initially resisted the land acquisition citing various reasons such as an "inadequate" compensation amount and related benefits, besides the resettlement policy.

The proposed airport is expected to be operational by 2022-23.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Democratic former US vice president Joe Biden has conceded that his advanced years would be an issue if he ran for president in 2020.

At 75, Biden is three years older than Republican President Donald Trump and would be 77 by the time his party's primary contest got underway.

"I think age is a totally legitimate thing to raise," said Biden, who was vice president under Barack Obama, during a speech in Michigan on Tuesday.

"It's totally appropriate for people to look at me and say if I were to run for office again, 'Well God darn you're old,'" he said in remarks carried by CNN television.

"Well, chronologically I am old."



Biden is often cited as a potential Democratic candidate who packs a solid resume and has some of the common touch needed to lure voters from Trump's populist movement.

Among other big Democrat names seen as potential candidates are populist leftist Bernie Sanders, 77, and media mogul Michael Bloomberg, who is 76.

Trump was the oldest American in history to begin a first presidential term when he entered the White House at age 70 years and 220 days in 2016. He says he is "100 percent" sure to seek reelection.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Citing acute shortage of coal in thermal power plants in Karnataka, chief minister H D Kumaraswamy has urged Union Coal Minister Piyush Goyal to ensure adequate supply to the state.

He said the RaichurThermal Power Station (RTPS) with 1,720 MW capacity has zerocoal stock now as it was "short supplied" about six lakh tonnes by the WCL, a central-government owned coal company.

"WCL has short supplied about six lakh tonnes of coal to RTPS this year against the Fuel Supply Agreement quantity, resulting in no coal in stock," the chief minister was quoted as saying in an official release here Wednesday.

Kumaraswamy asked Goyal to make adequate supply of coal to the state thermal units from Mahanadi Coal Fields (MCL).

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Kashmiri students at the Aligarh Muslim University have deferred their decision to surrender their degrees and leave the campus en masse Wednesday following revocation of the suspension order of the two students by the varsity.

The suspension order was revoked Tuesday night after a three-member enquiry panel set up by the varsity exonerated Waseem Ayyub Malik and Abdul Haseeb Mir, saying "no credible evidence" of their participation in any "unlawful assembly" in the varsity campus was found, AMU spokesperson Shafey Kidwai said.

They were suspended Friday for allegedly participating in an aborted Namaaz-e-Janaza (prayer meeting) in the university campus for a slain Hizbul Mujahideen militant, Manan Bashir Wani.

Malik and Meer, besides one unknown person, were also booked by police on sedition charges for allegedly raising "anti-India" slogans.

Former president of AMU Students' Union Mashkoor Ahmad Usmani told reporters that the decision to revoke the suspension order of the two Kashmiri students was a "welcome step" and will have salutary effect not only in the AMU, but also in the Kashmir Valley.

"We are strongly opposed to any anti-national act and we will never allow any such incident to take place at the campus. However, we are strongly opposed to any attempt to harass any student, be it from Kashmir or from any other part of the country.

"We feel that slapping of a sedition case against the two Kashmiri students by police was hasty, ill conceived and based on flimsy evidence," Usmani said.

He said if the police fails to withdraw the cases, the Kashmiri students have decided to re-launch their protest and go ahead with their peaceful resistance by leaving the campus en masse.

Former vice president of AMU Students' Union Sajjad Subhan Rather, who hails from Kashmir and led a silent protest Tuesday at the venue of the All India AMU Alumni Meet, demanded justice for the Kashmiri students.

"We have come to the AMU to build our careers. Please do not snatch away the 'pens' from our hands," he said.

Meanwhile, former Supreme Court judge, Justice Markandey Katju, who is currently abroad, has made an emotional appeal to the Kashmiri students studying at the AMU, urging them not to be "carried away by emotions and abandon their promising futures".

"I wish to send my greetings to Kashmiri students since my DNA is same as theirs. They must not get disheartened by the recent unfortunate turn of events," Katju told PTI.

He assured the Kashmiri students that if they ever needed his help, he will always be available for them in a just cause.

According to AMU officials, Jammu and Kashmir Governor Satya Pal Malik is playing a key role in resolving the ongoing crisis at the AMU.

He is reported to be in close touch with the Uttar Pradesh government and the AMU authorities.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Actor Keira Knightley says she has barred her daughter from watching Disney films "Cinderella" and "The Little Mermaid".

During her appearance on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show", the 33-year-old actor said she is not a fan of every Disney film.

Knightley said she has "banned" her three-year-old daughter, Edie Knightley Righton, from watching 1950 classic "Cinderella" because "she waits around for a rich guy to rescue her".

"Don't! Rescue yourself. Obviously!" she said.

"And this is the one that I'm quite annoyed about because I really like the film, but "Little Mermaid" (is banned, too). I mean, the songs are great, but do not give your voice up for a man. Hello! But the problem with 'The Little Mermaid' is I love 'The Little Mermaid'! That one's a little tricky but I'm keeping to it," she added.

Knightley, however, said Disney's "Finding Dory" is not banned and added that the film is "a big favourite in our house".

"'Frozen' is huge and 'Moana' is totally fine," she added.

Knightley will be next seen in Disney's "The Nutcracker and the Four Realms", where she plays Sugar Plum Fairy.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Family members of a 34-year-old man, who was allegedly shot dead by drug mafia in southeast Delhi's Taimoor Nagar last month, Wednesday met Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal who assured them of all possible help from the AAP government.

According to MLA Amanatullah Khan, the chief minister assured Rupesh Kumar's family that the AAP government will take care of education of his children, Rs 5 lakh as compensation and a job to his wife in civil defence.

Khan said the family, accompanied by representatives of around 300 villages, met the chief minister at his official residence in the morning.

The AAP Okhla MLA said they also demanded that a road in the Taimoor Nagar area should be named after the victim.

Kumar was allegedly shot dead by two unidentified men in front of his minor son and a nephew while he was watching them play.

In the CCTV footage, Kumar was seen in the street when two men walk past him and one of them pumps a bullet in his chest.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Bombay High Court Wednesday refused bail to a man, arrested last year after a video showing two Dalit boys being beaten up and paraded naked for allegedly trying to pilfer a snack item went viral.

Justice A M Badar rejected the appeal filed by Irfan Pathan, one of the three accused. Pathan had moved the high court after the trial court rejected his bail plea.

The offence was a very serious and there was ample evidence against the accused, the judge noted.

The accused has been charged with a "worst form of child abuse", the HC said.

Further, the accused has been booked under Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO), and considering the rise in offences under these laws, it was imperative that the courts take serious view in such cases, the judge said.

"It is the duty of every citizen to protect and preserve self-respect and honour of members belonging to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. However, of late there has been constant increase in commission of atrocities against members of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes," Justice Badar said.

"By such hateful acts, self-image, prestige and dignity of members of the Scheduled Castes and Schedule Tribes is lost. In the instant case, the chargesheet projects the worst form of child abuse," he said.

In May last year, police in neighbouring Thane district arrested Pathan (25), his brother Tavakal (20) and their father Mehmood (69) after the video of the torture of two children went viral.

The video was allegedly shot by the accused themselves.

The trio allegedly thrashed two nine-year-old Dalit boys from a scheduled caste community for trying to pilfer a piece of 'chakli' (a savoury) from their shop in Ulhasnagar town.

The accused tonsured the boys' heads and paraded them naked in the locality with a garland of chappals around their necks, as per the police case.

In his appeal, Pathan had argued that he had already served 17 months as an undertrial, so he should be released on bail.

The high court, however, rejected the plea.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Sri Lankan government on Wednesday rejected as "completely untrue" media reports that President Maithripala Sirisena accused India's Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) of plotting his assassination and he opposed awarding a key port project to India.

The media reports came ahead of Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe's visit to New Delhi for talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi to speed up India-backed projects, including the East Terminal project, in the island nation.

Sirisena accused his senior coalition partner, the United National Party (UNP), of not taking seriously an alleged conspiracy to kill him and former secretary to the ministry of defence, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, the economynext.com reported quoting a ministerial source after a heated Cabinet meeting on Tuesday.

The minister, who declined to be named, claimed that the president said that India's external intelligence agency RAW was behind the plot.

Cabinet spokesman Rajitha Senaratne on Wednesday dismissed the reports at a press conference.

Senaratne, also the Minister of Health, read out a statement by Cabinet Secretary S Abeysinghe which said the president had not said anything about RAW plotting to assassinate him.

"The president, as the Head of the Cabinet of Ministers, has paid attention to the printed and electronic media reports on the matters discussed during the Cabinet meeting at the Presidential Secretariat on 16th October 2018. It is stressed that those are completely untrue.

"Any Cabinet paper relating to the infrastructure development projects planned to be implemented in Sri Lanka by the Indian government or Indian companies were not included in the agenda of that Cabinet meeting," he said.

According to the media reports, Sirisena said he was unhappy with the police Criminal Investigation Department (CID) inquiry into the plot and faulted the law and order minister for what he called the very slow progress of the inquiry.

The president, however, did not give details of how India was involved in the plot and several cabinet ministers were aghast at his claim, the report said.

I think it was uncalled for (to accuse India) because he did not provide any evidence to support his claim, the ministerial source was quoted as saying.

"So far, what we have is the figment of someone's imagination of an assassination plot, the source said. What can now be done is to look at the genesis of this story and how it came about.

The alleged plot was disclosed by a man named Namal Kumara claiming himself to be representing Anti-Corruption Force last month at a press conference.

Kumara had also worked as an informant of the police. Based on his testimony, the police have suspended a Deputy Inspector-General Nalaka Silva who is said to have been involved in the alleged assassination plot.

The cabinet meeting witnessed heated exchanges when the ministers discussed the awarding of the East Terminal of the Colombo port to India, reports said.

Sirisena is opposed to granting India access to develop the terminal just next to the China-run Colombo International Container Terminal (CICT), the report said.

Sirisena had held that since the southern port of Hambantota had been already leased to China, having India in the Colombo port would not be in Sri Lanka's best interests in terms of any contingency.

The Cabinet spokesperson, however, on Wednesday said Sirisena had not expressed opposition to the Eastern Port Terminal deal with India.

What President Sirisena said was he had discussed the issue with Prime Minister Modi during the BIMSTEC summit in Nepal.

He said prime minister Modi was in agreement for Sri Lanka to develop the eastern terminal at Colombo port.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Sri Lankan government on Wednesday rejected as "baseless and false" the media reports that President Maithripala Sirisena accused India's Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) of plotting his assassination and he opposed awarding a key port project to India.

The media reports came ahead of Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe's visit to New Delhi for talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi to speed up India-backed projects, including the East Terminal project, in the island nation.

Sirisena accused his senior coalition partner, the United National Party (UNP), of not taking seriously an alleged conspiracy to kill him and former secretary to the ministry of defence, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, the economynext.com reported quoting a ministerial source after a heated Cabinet meeting on Tuesday.

The minister, who declined to be named, claimed that the president said that India's external intelligence agency RAW was behind the plot.

The Lankan Foreign Ministry termed the report as "baseless and false."



"The Ministry wishes to emphasise that relations between Sri Lanka and India including at the highest levels of government are strong, encompassing multiple spheres including intelligence sharing.

"It is disappointing therefore that matters of this nature have become the subject of distorted and erroneous media reports taking the President's remarks out of context, which has given rise to further media and social media speculation and the spread of unfounded fear among the public," the ministry said in a statement.

It said that in continuation of the close and regular interaction between Sri Lanka and India at all levels including at the highest levels of government, President Sirisena had discussions this morning as well at a meeting with the High Commissioner of India in Colombo.

Earlier in the day, Cabinet spokesman Rajitha Senaratne dismissed the media reports at a press conference here.

Senaratne, also the Minister of Health, read out a statement by Cabinet Secretary S Abeysinghe which said the president had not said anything about RAW plotting to assassinate him.

"The president, as the Head of the Cabinet of Ministers, has paid attention to the printed and electronic media reports on the matters discussed during the Cabinet meeting at the Presidential Secretariat on 16th October 2018. It is stressed that those are completely untrue.

"Any Cabinet paper relating to the infrastructure development projects planned to be implemented in Sri Lanka by the Indian government or Indian companies were not included in the agenda of that Cabinet meeting," he said.

According to the media reports, Sirisena said he was unhappy with the police Criminal Investigation Department (CID) inquiry into the plot and faulted the law and order minister for what he called the very slow progress of the inquiry.

The president, however, did not give details of how India was involved in the plot and several cabinet ministers were aghast at his claim, the report said.

"I think it was uncalled for (to accuse India) because he did not provide any evidence to support his claim," the ministerial source was quoted as saying.

"So far, what we have is the figment of someone's imagination of an assassination plot," the source said. "What can now be done is to look at the genesis of this story and how it came about."



The alleged plot was disclosed by a man named Namal Kumara claiming himself to be representing Anti-Corruption Force last month at a press conference.

Kumara had also worked as an informant of the police. Based on his testimony, the police have suspended a Deputy Inspector-General Nalaka Silva who is said to have been involved in the alleged assassination plot.

The cabinet meeting witnessed heated exchanges when the ministers discussed the awarding of the East Terminal of the Colombo port to India, reports said.

Sirisena is opposed to granting India access to develop the terminal just next to the China-run Colombo International Container Terminal (CICT), the report said.

He had held that since the southern port of Hambantota had been already leased to China, having India in the Colombo port would not be in Sri Lanka's best interests in terms of any contingency.

The Cabinet spokesperson, however, on Wednesday said Sirisena had not expressed opposition to the Eastern Port Terminal deal with India.

What President Sirisena said was he had discussed the issue with Prime Minister Modi during the BIMSTEC summit in Nepal, Senaratne said.

He said prime minister Modi was in agreement for Sri Lanka to develop the eastern terminal at Colombo port.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe will arrive here Thursday on a three-day visit which comes in the backdrop of controversial media reports that Lankan President has accused Indian intelligence agency RAW of plotting his assassination, a claim firmly rejected as "false" by Colombo.

Wickremesinghe, who will arrive here Thursday evening on a scheduled visit, will hold wide-ranging talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday.

Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena also called up Prime Minister Narendra Modi Wednesday and "categorically rejected" the media reports about him alluding to the involvement of Research and Analysis Wing in an alleged plot to assassinate him and a former defence secretary, an Indian government statement said.

"The President apprised the Prime Minister of the urgent steps taken by him personally and the government of Sri Lanka to publicly reject these reports. In this context, he also recalled his meeting with the High Commissioner of India to Sri Lanka today morning," the statement said.

The Prime Minister appreciated the prompt steps taken by the Sri Lankan president and his government to firmly refute the malicious reports by publicly clarifying the matter, it said.

Sri Lankan government also rejected the media reports as "baseless and false".

The two prime ministers are likely to review the status of the India-assisted housing projects in Jaffna during Wickremesinghe's visit. They are also likely to deliberate on the Tamil issue -- the reconciliation process and devolution of powers in Tamil-dominated areas.

During the visit, Home Minister Rajnath Singh and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj will also call on Wickremesinghe.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena called up Prime Minister Narendra Modi Wednesday and categorically rejected the media reports that he had accused India's intelligence agency of plotting his assassination as "utterly baseless and false".

In the telephonic conversation, Sirisena apprised Modi of the urgent steps taken by him personally and the Sri Lankan government to publicly reject these reports, which he described as "mischievous and mala fide", the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) in New Delhi said in a statement.

The media reports came ahead of Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe's three-day India visit from Thursday for talks with Prime Minister Modi to speed up the India-backed projects, including the East Terminal project, in the island nation.

The economynext.com, quoting a ministerial source after a heated cabinet meeting Tuesday, reported that Sirisena had accused his senior coalition partner, the United Party (UNP), of not taking seriously an alleged conspiracy to kill him and the former secretary to the ministry of defence, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa.

The minister, who declined to be named, claimed that the president said that India's external intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) was behind the plot.

The Lankan Foreign Ministry termed the reports "baseless and false".

The Lankan president, during his phone call with Modi, categorically rejected the reports.

"He mentioned that the mischievous and mala fide reports were utterly baseless and false and seemed intended to create a misunderstanding between the two leaders as well as damage the cordial relations between the two friendly neighbours," the PMO statement said.

Sirisena also stated that he regarded Modi as a true friend of Sri Lanka. He stressed that he greatly valued the mutually beneficial ties between India and Sri Lanka, and remained steadfast on working with the prime minister for further strengthening them, the statement added.

Modi appreciated the prompt steps taken by Sirisena and the Lankan government to firmly refute the malicious reports by publicly clarifying the matter.

The prime minister also reiterated India's emphasis on the "neighbourhood first" policy and the priority the Indian government and he personally attached to developing even stronger all-round cooperation between the two countries.

The Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry said it wished to emphasise that the relations between Sri Lanka and India, including at the highest levels of the governments, were strong, encompassing multiple spheres including intelligence sharing.

"It is disappointing therefore that matters of this nature have become the subject of distorted and erroneous media reports, taking the President's remarks out of context, which has given rise to further media and social media speculation and the spread of unfounded fear among the public," the ministry said in a statement.

It added that in continuation of the close and regular interactions between Sri Lanka and India at all levels, including at the highest levels of the governments, President Sirisena had discussions Wednesday morning as well at a meeting with the High Commissioner of India in Colombo.

Earlier in the day, Cabinet Spokesman Rajitha Senaratne also dismissed the media reports at a press conference in Colombo.

Senaratne, also the Minister of Health, read out a statement by Cabinet Secretary S Abeysinghe, which stated that the president had not said anything about the plotting to assassinate him.

"The president, as the Head of the Cabinet of Ministers, has paid attention to the print and electronic media reports on the matters discussed during the cabinet meeting at the Presidential Secretariat on October 16. It is stressed that those news are completely untrue.

"Any cabinet paper relating to the infrastructure development projects planned to be implemented in Sri Lanka by the Indian government or Indian companies was not included in the agenda of that cabinet meeting," he said.

According to the media reports, Sirisena said he was unhappy with the police Criminal Investigation Department (CID) inquiry into the plot and faulted the law and order minister for what he called the "very slow progress of the inquiry".

The president, however, did not give the details of how India was involved in the plot and several cabinet ministers were aghast at his claim, the report said.

The cabinet meeting witnessed heated exchanges when the ministers discussed the awarding of the East Terminal of the Colombo port to India, reports said.

Sirisena was opposed to granting India access to develop the terminal just next to the China-run Colombo International Container Terminal (CICT), the report said.

The cabinet spokesperson, however, said Sirisena had not expressed opposition to the Eastern Port Terminal deal with India.

Wickremesinghe, who will arrive in New Delhi Thursday evening on a scheduled visit, will hold wide-ranging talks with Modi Saturday.

The two prime ministers are likely to review the status of the India-assisted housing projects in Jaffna during Wickremesinghe's visit. They are also likely to deliberate on the Tamil issue -- the reconciliation process and devolution of powers in the Tamil-dominated areas.Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena Wednesday called up Prime Minister Narendra Modi and "categorically rejected" reports in a section of the media about him alluding to the involvement of India in an alleged plot to assassinate him and a former defence secretary, the Prime Minister's Office said.

A statement quoted him as saying that "mischievous and mala fide reports were utterly baseless and false, and seemed intended to create misunderstanding between the two leaders as well as damage the cordial relations between the two friendly neighbours."



The President apprised Modi of the urgent steps taken by him personally and the government to "publicly reject" these reports.

He also recalled his meeting with the High Commissioner of India to Sri Lanka Wednesday morning.

"The President also stated that he regards the Prime Minister as a true friend of Sri Lanka, as also a close personal friend. He stressed that he greatly valued the mutually beneficial ties between India and Sri Lanka, and remained steadfast to work with the Prime Minister for further strengthening them," the statement said.

Modi appreciated the prompt steps taken by the President and his government to firmly refute the malicious reports by publicly clarifying the matters.

He also reiterated India's emphasis on 'neighbourhood first' policy and the priority the government of India and he personally attach to developing even stronger all-round cooperation between the two countries.

Earlier Wednesday, the Sri Lankan government had rejected as "completely untrue" media reports that President Sirisena accused India's Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) of plotting his assassination and he opposed awarding a key port project to India.

The media reports came ahead of Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe's visit to New Delhi for talks with Prime Minister Modi to speed up India-backed projects, including the East Terminal project, in the island nation.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Congress and the Left parties Wednesday hailed the resignation of union minister M J Akbar following charges of sexual harassment and dared Prime Minister Narendra Modi to speak up now.

While the Congress termed the resignation as "victory of truth", it asked whether the prime minister will dare to speak up now.

The Left parties said Akbar's resignation was a victory for the #MeToo movement and the protests carried out by them against the journalist-turned-politician.

The CPI and the women's wing of CPI-M, however, said Akbar should have resigned early and the action has come "too late".

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) said this was insufficient and sought criminal proceedings against Akbar.

Congress leader Ragini Naik said the silence of Modi on the #MeToo movement is deafening, as she accused the government as being "misogynist" which has "deceived" those crores of women voters who placed their faith, reposed their trust in the BJP in 2014.

"Times is up Modi ji. The silence of PM Modi on #MeToo movement is deafening.

"The silence of Prime Minister Modi has deceived those crores of women voters who had placed their faith, reposed their trust in the BJP in 2014," she told reporters.

"Now that M J Akbar, who has been accused by no less than 36 women of misconduct and harassment, has finally resigned, will PM Modi dare to speak up," Naik asked.

"I think the Modi government was compelled to ask M J Akbar to resign from the Union ministry as the #MeToo movement gained momentum in the country. He should have resigned on the first day when his former colleagues made sexual harassment allegations against him," CPI general secretary Sudhakar Reddy said.

Slamming Akbar for the delay in tendering his resignation, he said, "It is too late".

CPI Secretary D Raja said, "The resignation can be called a moral victory for all those women who have suffered such sexual harassment".

He said the social atmosphere in the country was such that women can get the confidence to speak up against the sexual harassment faced by them.

The AAP Wednesday hailed the women who accused Akbar of "sexual harassment" and said his resignation "completely exposed" the 'Chaal, Charitra and Chehra' of the ruling BJP at the Centre.

Reacting to Akbar's resignation, AAP spokesperson Dilip Pandey said the action was "not sufficient" and demanded criminal proceedings against him.

Congress spokesperson Priyanka Chaturvedi said she saluted those women who stood on their charges against the minister bravely despite the "brazen" stance taken by the government.

"This resignation is a vindication of the power of truth. More strength to India's women," she said.

"The resignation of MoS External Affairs MJ Akbar after serious charges were levelled against him by senior women journalists who worked with him is a vindication of the power of truth even if it began with one brave person speaking up," she said.

Mahila Congress chief Sushmita Dev termed Akbar's stepping down as a "moral victory" for everyone and sought support for the #MeToo movement across party lines.

"M J Akbar's resignation is a moral victory for everyone. The defamation case can't change that. The #MeToo movement needs support across party lines," she tweeted.

"I admire the courage of @priyaramani & all the victims who spoke out against sexual harassment & abuse. @mjakbar s resignation is a moral victory for everyone. The defamation case can't change that. The #MeToo movement needs support across party lines. "



Naik said the Congress believes that the belated resignation of Akbar is a result of the persistent pressure put by women who have shared their horrific and uncomfortable stories.

It is also a vindication of the Congress party's unequivocal stand on the #MeToo movement, she said.

"We also think that it is a time for a fair trial so that justice prevails. This country has a rule of law and the Congress Party believes that any allegation levelled against anybody must pass this test of justice. We hope and wish that all the women fighting this tough battle would be heard and finally justice would be imparted," she said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Rail travel at Paddington one of London's busiest stations was disrupted Wednesday after a train damaged overhead electrical wires, touching off a wave of cancellations that affected thousands.

Great Western Rail said the damage was caused by a Hitachi test train operating between London and Bristol. The train was not in passenger use, but the knock-on affects of fixing the problem caused issues for commuters and tourists alike. Some 90,000 people travel through Paddington daily.

"Some of the lines have reopened and a reduced train service is starting to operate into and out of London Paddington following last night's incident with a test train, however delays are expected to last for at least the rest of the day," the company said.

"Customers are advised to only travel if necessary and check before travelling." Though some services were restored, travel was far from smooth, with passengers reporting overcrowded platforms, cancellations and general mayhem.

Trains to London's Heathrow Airport were among those affected, though by mid-afternoon a limited service had resumed.

Commuter Ava Farringdon, 29, a civil servant, said service had been poor in general since the introduction of new electric trains a year ago.

"Government needs to step in and sort this mess out. No one is held to account for poor service," she said. "But they are very happy to hike the fares by 3.5 per cent for a service that has literally dropped off a cliff edge." Among those whose plans were muddled were a group of tourists from New York, who found themselves stranded while trying to get to the southwestern city of Bath for a day trip.

"It's frustrating- we wanted to just take one train and now we have to take three and it's in a place we're not familiar with," said Hannah Bibighause, 26. She added that the chaos had delayed the group's journey by at least two hours.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Outgoing Maldives President Abdulla Yameen told the nation Wednesday he accepted defeat in last month's elections, even as the strongman ruler lobbies the Supreme Court to call a fresh poll.

In a televised address to the nation, Yameen made no reference to his controversial legal bid to annul the results of the election he lost despite stifling his opponents.

"This is my final address to the nation before I leave," said the 59-year-old whose term in office ends on November 17.

"During my tenure, the most difficult thing for me was my failure to learn about the people. I just couldn't find out what shapes their wishes."



He said that he hoped to "serve the people" after leaving office, without elaborating further.

Yameen had already conceded defeat, under pressure from abroad, after his opponent Ibrahim Mohamed Solih emerged the winner in the September 23 poll. But last week he filed a petition against the results in the Supreme Court, defying threats of possible sanctions.

The court Tuesday refused to accept the testimony of three unnamed witnesses put forward by Yameen's lawyers, suggesting the bench was moving closer to ruling against him.

Yameen successfully lobbied the same court in 2013 to nullify election results as he trailed an opposition candidate, which ultimately allowed him to narrowly win a run-off poll.

He has ruled with an iron-fist ever since, crushing dissent and jailing or exiling all his major opponents.

Yameen alleges the country's elections commission used disappearing ink on ballot papers to unfairly favour the opposition.

His lawyers said the anonymous witnesses could show the vote was rigged.

The court's rejection of the witnesses has all but cleared the final obstacle before Solih, a relatively unknown opposition figure, takes the oath of office on November 17.

Ahead of the court hearing in the capital Male, the US had warned "appropriate measures" would be taken if the will of the Maldivian people was undermined.

Washington and its allies have been concerned by growing Chinese influence in the strategically positioned Indian Ocean archipelago, especially under Yameen's authoritarian rule.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A 23-year-old man was arrested on Wednesday for his alleged involvement in a bank robbery in southwest Delhi's Dwarka, in which a cashier was killed, police said.

The accused, identified as Narender, was arrested from Najafgarh, they said.

One double barrel gun with two live cartridges robbed from a security guard of the bank and a motorbike used in the crime was also recovered from his possession, police said.

Earlier, Two men, Sachin (20) and Parvesh (19) both residents of Haryana's Khewra village were arrested in connection with the incident, they said.

In the bank robbery on October 12, Santosh Kumar (25) was killed and three persons were injured in firing by the accused, who fled on motorcycles with Rs 3.16 lakh, the senior officer said.

The CCTV footage of the incident showed five masked men and one wearing a helmet barging into the Khaira village branch of Corporation Bank, police said.

Three of them brandished weapons and threatened people around. The accused even manhandled the security guard and snatched his pistol, they said.

In sometime, four of the accused entered another room while the remaining two guarded the entrance with weapons in hands, they added.

Raids are being conducted in various parts of Delhi and Haryana to nab the remaining accused, police said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A man has been arrested by customs officials for allegedly trying to smuggle into the country gold valuing about Rs 66 lakh at the Delhi airport, according to an official statement issued Wednesday.

The passenger, aged 21, was intercepted after his arrival from Dubai on Monday.

A search of his baggage resulted in the recovery of four gold pieces, crudely given the shape of a bar and collectively weighing 2.3 kg, the statement stated.

The accused, a native of Delhi, was arrested and the gold was seized, it added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A 21-year-old medical student was allegedly killed by the friend of her former lover at her residence in Maharashtra's Latur district Tuesday, the police said Wednesday.

The accused Amar Shinde (21) allegedly slit the throat of the victim Apurva Yadav to avenge the suicide committed by his friend Sarthak Jadhav earlier this year, a police official said when asked about the motive behind the crime.

Shinde has been arrested and booked under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

Jadhav had committed suicide in Osmanabad neighbouring Latur, over 480 kms away from Mumbai, allegedly after Yadav ended her relationship with him, he said.

Yadav and her current boyfriend were booked by the police on the charge of abetment to suicide, the official said, adding that she was out on bail.

Yadav was a student of a medical college in Karnataka. She was staying with her parents since the last few days.

The incident occurred Tuesday afternoon when Yadav was alone at her house in Vishalnagar locality in the Latur MIDC area while her parents were away, the official said.

When her mother returned home, she found her daughter lying in a pool of blood, he said, adding that Yadav was rushed to a state-run hospital in Latur where she was declared dead.

"Yadav died of deep injuries caused to her neck and throat. She was stabbed multiple times all over her body," the official said.

Police suspected role of Shinde after they detained two family members of Jadhav in Osmanabad, he said.

The accused Shinde, who stays in the same locality of Yadav's, is a student of a local college and knew the victim, the official said.

"Shinde entered Yadav's residence Tuesday afternoon and slashed her neck with a sharp weapon. He also stabbed her multiple times," he said.

A case was registered under sections 302 (Punishment for murder), 201 (Causing disappearance of evidence of offence, or giving false information to screen offender) and 34 (Acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) of the IPC.

Police are also investigating if Jadhav's family members played any role in the killing, he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A man here in Maharashtra has filed a complaint against a leading online retailer for allegedly sending him a piece of brick instead of a mobile handset that he ordered, police said Wednesday.



Gajanan Kharat, a resident of HUDCO area here, told the police that on October 9, he placed an order for a mobile phone on the shopping site and also paid Rs 9,134 for it, Harsul police station inspector Manish Kalyankar said.

Kharat subsequently received a message from the e-commerce company that the product would be delivered in a week's time.

The man received a packet from the retailer last Sunday. However, when he opened it, he allegedly found a piece of brick inside it instead of the mobile handset, Kalyankar said.

The man then called up the courier delivery man, who told him that their responsibility was only to deliver the parcel and not to see what was inside it, he said.

Kharat lodged a complaint Tuesday against the e-commerce company at the Harsul police station here.

The police official said they have registered a case under IPC sections pertaining to cheating and are probing it.US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis plans to meet on Thursday in Singapore with his Chinese counterpart just weeks after their talks planned for Beijing fell apart amid growing friction between the US and China.

Shortly after Mattis arrived in Singapore on Wednesday after a visit to Vietnam, a senior Mattis aide told reporters that the meeting is set to happen on Thursday.

Mattis and Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe were in Singapore for a regional meeting of defense ministers. Mattis visited China in June, but since then a series of events have escalated tensions.

The assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs, Randall Schriver, told reporters the Chinese had requested the Singapore meeting. In late September, China told the Pentagon that Wei would be unavailable to meet Mattis in Beijing, so that visit was cancelled.

Schriver said the US sees signs that the military-to-military relationship may be on the upswing.

"The fact that he's meeting with Minister Wei is some evidence that the Chinese are interested in keeping things normal and stable, as are we," Schriver said. "Our impression is that the (Chinese) military wants to keep things stable."



Schriver said the trigger for recent tensions between the Pentagon and the Chinese military was the Trump administration's decision in September to sanction the Chinese military for buying Russian fighter planes and missiles. That action was taken under the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act passed by Congress in 2017.

China responded with strong criticism, followed in the military arena by a decision to cancel a planned visit to the Pentagon by the head of the Chinese navy and a confrontation in the South China Sea between a Chinese warship and a US Navy destroyer, the USS Decatur.

"That may turn out to be a relatively short bump in the road," Schriver said, adding that Mattis is expected to convey to Wei US interest in normal relations with the Chinese military.

More broadly, relations between the US and China have deteriorated in recent months as escalating trade disputes and tariff hikes have been exacerbated by a newly announced US military equipment sale to Taiwan.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Meerut police is probing into an allegation of repeated gang rape of a 15-year-old girl by her two brothers, who are on the run, an official said Wednesday.

Meerut City Superintendent of Police Ran Vijay Singh said the police are probing into the incident on the basis of a compliant lodged by the victim, a resident of Civil Lines police station area.

He said as per the victim's complaint, her two brother had been raping her for the last five years.

They had also been beating her up for protesting against her rape and threatening to kill her mother, the police said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A meeting scheduled in Delhi Wednesday between BJP chief Amit Shah and the leaders of the key constituents in the saffron party-led coalition government in Goa has been postponed to Thursday, a minister has said.

Shah was supposed to discuss the current political situation in the coastal state with the BJP allies.

Besides Goa Forward Party (GFP) chief Vijai Sardesai, Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) leader Sudin Dhavalikar and Union AYUSH Minister Shripad Naik (BJP) were supposed to participate in the meeting.

"The meeting has been put off till Thursday," BJP leader and state Health Minister Vishwajit Rane told PTI over phone from Delhi Wednesday night, without elaborating.

He said Shah would now meet the leaders Thursday morning.

In the 40-member Goa Assembly, the Manohar Parrikar government enjoys the support of 23 MLAs, including 14 of the BJP, three each from the GFP and MGP and three Independent legislators.

In a setback to the Congress, two of its 16 MLAs in the coastal state -- Dayanand Sopte and Subhash Shirodkar -- resigned as members of the House as also from the primary membership of the party Tuesday. Both of them joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Chief Minister Parrikar is away from office for long due to ill health, triggering speculation over the stability of his coalition government.

The Congress had demanded a floor test in the Assembly, claiming that the state government had become rudderless and was in disarray.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Centre has advised the Chandigarh Union Territory administration to fill up its civil posts in the ratio of 60:40 from the Punjab and Haryana governments.

The Home Ministry has also kept in abeyance its order merging the posts of DSPs of Chandigarh Police with the combined police service of Delhi and other UTs, the DANIPS.

In a statement, the Union Home Ministry said the UT Chandigarh administration has been advised that in filling up civil posts, the ratio of 60:40 as may be used between Punjab and Haryana, wherever it is being followed conventionally.

There are 17 sanctioned posts of state civil services in the Chandigarh administration of which 10 are filled by the officers belonging to the Punjab government and seven from the Haryana government on deputation.

"The ration (of 60:40) is being respected for taking officers from Haryana and Punjab civil services," Adviser to the Chandigarh Administrator, Parimal Rai, told PTI.

These officers look after various departments like



Industries, hospitality, rural development and panchayats, public relations, social welfare, women and child development, sports, state transport authority, Chandigarh Transport undertaking, registering and licensing authority etc.

Meanwhile, the home ministry has kept in abeyance its last month's order merging the posts of DSPs of Chandigarh Police with the combined police service of Delhi and other UTs, the DANIPS.

The notification of the home ministry, dated September 25, merging the posts of DSPs of Chandigarh Police with DANIPS has been kept in abeyance till further orders, the statement said.

The decision has been taken following strong objections from the ruling NDA ally Akali Dal and Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh.

The earlier decision was taken to have uniformity in the composition of the feeder grade for induction into the IPS and due to the practical necessity.

Under the existing system, the officers in DANIPS having legitimate claim and also expectations, for promotional avenues, against duty posts in various grades of police service, as per the extant statutory rules and also the resultant vacancies against induction of officers into the IPS.

However, the present structure in the UT of Chandigarh is depriving the DSPs from their legitimate claim on such promotional avenues, another official said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A Tehreekul Mujahideen militant was Wednesday arrested by security forces soon after carrying out a grenade attack in Baramulla district of Jammu and Kashmir, injuring three cops, police said.

"Based on credible inputs that some terrorists are travelling on the Baramulla-Srinagar highway, a police team set up a checkpoint at Baba Teng Pattan," a police spokesman said.

He said one of the vehicles was signalled to stop but the militants inside the vehicle hurled a grenade.

"One police officer, DySp Zafar Mehdi and two other cops -- Shabir Ahmad and Ashiq Hussain -- sustained injuries," the spokesman said.

However, the other cops chased the fleeing militants and managed to apprehend one of them, he said.

He was identified as Faizan Majeed Bhat, a resident of Tral in Pulwama district, the spokesman said. His accomplice Showkat Ahmad Bhat managed to escape, he added.

The duo had recently joined the Tehreekul Mujahideen outfit, police said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Talking tough on terrorism, Jammu and Kashmir Governor Satya Pal Malik has said militants don't have "much of a shelf life" with more than 40 being killed since August and should not expect bouquets if they fire bullets.

Stone pelting has come down as has the number of local recruits in militancy, Malik said while describing the situation in the state as "not grave".

"It is simple. Goli chalaogay to goli chalegi, koi guldasta toh milega nahi (If you resort to firing, you will get a bullet in return. You are not going to get a bouquet in return)," Malik told PTI in an exclusive interview here Tuesday night.

He took over as governor of Jammu and Kashmir on August 23 this year.

"Militants do not have much of a shelf life. The situation is not grave. Since I have joined, about 40 militants have been killed, stone pelting has come down and the number of local youths joining militancy has also come down. I am satisfied that on this front there is no worrying situation," he said.

His opinion is based not just on official briefings but also on narratives provided to him by common people, Malik said.

The governor added that he had met several youth groups, opening himself to them and hearing them out.

"After talking to them, I came to the conclusion that the need of the hour is to address the youth between the 13-20 age group. The concerns of this age group need to be addressed first as they are frustrated," he said.

According to Malik, the youth are unhappy not just with New Delhi but also with Pakistan, local political groups as well as the Hurriyat and are unable to see any ray of hope.

"Therefore, there is need to establish contact with them and work according to their aspirations so they understand that the Centre is not against them," he said.

Discussing instances of educated youth like Mannan Wani -- the scholar-militant killed in an encounter recently -- taking to arms in the Valley, Malik said a narrative had been built on misinformation.

"Many literate people do other bad things. Having said that, in this (case) it was a case of pure misinformation on which he had built a narrative. I am helpless...many of the narratives of misguided youths are based on half knowledge about this great country. How many militants would there be? An exaggerated figure can put it around 400," he said.

For a country like India, getting rid of these 400 people is nothing, he asserted. But the effort is to end terrorism and not terrorists, the governor added.

"Here we are making attempts to kill the ideology of terrorism. Terrorism is not in the gun but in the mind... I will be making every attempt to set these minds free of the poison of terrorism," he added.

Citing Sri Lanka's Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam as an example, Malik asked what it gained from terrorism.

"It had the support of many countries and its own navy and dedicated cadres. What did it achieve out of it except death and destruction. In today's world order, forget India, no one can break even a smaller country," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Challenging the Narendra Modi government to name its "good friends and cronies" who "owe crores" to public banks, CPI (M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury Wednesday alleged they have been allowed to flee while farmers suffered.

Reacting to a report of the probity watchdog Central Vigilance Commission (CVC)'s analysis of the top 100 banking frauds, including those in the jewellery and aviation sectors, Yechury said in the Modi regime, farmers and the poor are "harassed" for measly amounts.

"Why is the Modi government not naming its good friends and cronies who owe crores to the public? Several have already looted and been allowed to scoot. But farmers and the poor are pilloried and shamed for meagre amounts," tweeted Yechury.

The CVC's analysis focussed on the modus operandi, amount involved, type of lending (consortium or individual), anomalies observed, loopholes that facilitated perpetration of the fraud concerned and the systemic improvements required to plug the gaps in the system and procedures.

The frauds were classified and analysed for 13 sectors including gem and jewellery, manufacturing and industry, agriculture, media, aviation, service and project, discounting of cheques, trading, information technology, export business, fixed deposits, demand loan and letter of comfort.

The modus operandi of top 100 loans has sought to be thoroughly analysed and various loopholes or lapses have been identified.

The move assumes significance in the wake of high profile bank fraud cases involving absconding billionaire Nirav Modi and liquor baron Vijay Mallya among others.

The report, which has also been shared with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, carries analysis of large value frauds reported since March 31, 2017.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu on Wednesday left for Belgium to attend 12th ASEM summit and is slated to hold bilateral talks with heads of government of various countries on the sidelines of the meet.

The bi-annual event is considered the highest platform for dialogue and cooperation between Asia and Europe in the areas of trade, investment, security and tourism.

As many as 51 heads of state and government are expected to participate in the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) where a wide range of issues from climate change to terrorism are expected to be discussed, an official statement said.

The Vice President will also have bilateral meetings with leaders from Austria, Portugal, Switzerland and other countries on the sidelines of the summit.

He will address the Indian diaspora at the Jain Culture Centre in Wilrijk, Antwerp and pay tributes at a sculpture of Mahatma Gandhi in the Governorate there.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The National Commission for Women has urged the Kerala police to ensure security of women who wish to enter the Sabarimala temple and demanded stringent action against those taking the law into their hands.

The Commission's response came after a section of protesters, who are opposing the decision to allow entry of women of all ages into the shrine, indulged in violence near the gateway on the foothills leading to the hill shrine.

The Commission, in a letter, asked the police to provide security to women who wish to enter the temple.

It also sought stringent action against those taking the law into their hands and asked DGP Kerala Loknath Behera to submit a detailed action report in the matter to the Commission.

Trouble broke out as the agitators, who are opposing the decision of Kerala government to implement the apex court order lifting a ban on entry of women of menstrual age into the temple, continued to block vehicles of pilgrims and pelted stones, disregarding repeated requests by police to desist from such acts.

As police began a crackdown, the protesters fought pitched battles with them. Later the police used lathi-charge to disperse the protesters, several of whom ran helter-skelter and entered the nearby forest area.

A few media personnel present on the round were attacked and crew of various TV channels were asked to leave the place. They could return the spot after more policemen were deployed in the area.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The National Green Tribunal has asked the South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) and the SDM concerned to inquire and take action against an alleged illegal bakery being run in a residential area in Badarpur here.

A bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel directed the SDMC and the SDM to look into the matter and take appropriate action in accordance with law.

"Allegation in this application is that the illegal bakery was earlier closed by the South Delhi Municipal Corporation in 2006 in the presence of the SDM, Kalkaji and Delhi Police. The same was started again...

"The applicant is directed to furnish a copy of this order, along with a complete set of papers to the SDM,Kalkaji and the SDMC for compliance," the bench said.

The tribunal was hearing a plea filed by Aslam Khan alleging that one Mohd Atif was operating an illegal bakery at house number C-282, Chungi No. 2, Ram Pyari Camp, Lal Kuan in Badarpur here without obtaining consent and permission of Pollution Department and other departments.

"The Tribunal vide order dated February 26, 2016... directed its closure from its location at RZ-3262-A, Street No. 36, Tughlakabad Extension, New Delhi-110019. Thereafter, the respondent no. 5 (Atif) has shifted to the present location but no action is being taken inspite of representations to



authorities concerned," the plea alleged.

The tribunal had earlier ordered closure of industrial units running in "non-conforming" residential areas and slapped a fine of Rs 50,000 each on the Delhi government and others for their "defaults and inaction" towards violation of rules.

It had directed the Delhi chief secretary to call a meeting of authorities concerned and seek an action plan to be prepared and implemented by a team comprising the DCP of the area, SDM and senior officer of Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC). It noted that the said team must also conduct a public hearing on the spot at least once in every week.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)NIIT Technologies Wednesday reported 66.3 per cent jump in net profit to Rs 111.8 crore for the quarter ended September 30, 2018, driven by strong demand across sectors like BFSI and travel and transportation.

The company had registered a net profit of Rs 67.2 crore in the year-ago period, it said in a regulatory filing.

The company's revenues grew 23.1 per cent to Rs 907.4 crore in the reported quarter from Rs 737.2 crore in the year-ago period.

On sequential basis, net profit was up 30.3 per cent, while revenue was higher 10 per cent. Digital revenues grew 11.6 per cent sequentially contributing to 28 per cent of the total revenues.

Speaking to PTI, NIIT Technologies CEO Sudhir Singh said the growth has been driven by the restructured leadership team, differentiated strategy and focussed execution by the team.

"The extremely robust 10 per cent sequential revenue growth and the 217 basis points sequential improvement in Operating Margin is a reflection of the new normal as we target predictable and fast scaling profitable growth," he said.

Singh noted that the recent rupee fall has not had a major impact on the numbers as on a constant currency basis, the company saw 7.6 per cent sequential growth.

He added that "broad-based de-risked growth" across all verticals and significant investments in building differentiated capability, while simultaneously improving margin profile were factors contributing to the strong set of numbers.

Singh said the deal pipeline remains strong across geographies with acceleration in demand for digital services.

The company booked fresh business of USD 160 million during the quarter, which included 10 new logos.

Of this, USD 86 million was from the US, USD 39 million from EMEA and USD 35 million from Rest of the World (RoW). Order book executable over the next 12 months has expanded to USD 363 million, the company said.

"Significant increase in new logo acquisition, accelerating order book generation and new leadership firmly in position have materially improved the business profile of the company," said Arvind Thakur, Vice Chairman and Managing Director at NIIT Technologies.

The company added 261 people during the quarter, taking total headcount to 10,025 at the end of September.

The insurance vertical grew 11.2 per cent during the quarter (contributing to 28.8 per cent of total revenues), while banking and financial services vertical registered 6.2 per cent growth (accounting for 16.2 per cent of total revenues).

Revenues in travel and transportation segment were up 9.2 per cent at the end of the September quarter and represented 26.9 per cent of the revenue mix.

Revenues from Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) contributed 34 per cent, while the US accounted for 49 per cent of the mix. These markets grew 16 per cent and 8.4 per cent on sequential basis, respectively.

India and APAC business accounted for 8 per cent and 9 per cent, respectively of the total mix.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Reacting to estranged legislator Manvendra Singh joining the Congress, senior BJP leader Rao Rajendra Singh Wednesday said "individuals are not bigger than the party".

Son of former Union minister and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) stalwart Jaswant Singh, Manvendra Singh joined the Congress earlier in the day after he announced to quit the saffron party in September.

"Individuals are not bigger than the party. BJP does not have a character where people consider themselves bigger than the party and think that they run it (the party), said Singh, who is also the deputy speaker in the 14th Rajasthan Assembly, at a press conference.

He said Manvendra Singh was already suspended from party's primary membership for campaigning against the BJP's candidate in 2014 general election in Barmer.

Manvendra Singh, the BJP MLA from Sheo constituency had campaigned for his father Jaswant Singh who had contested the 2014 general election as an independent candidate after failing to get a ticket from the saffron party.

The BJP leader said that it was the hard work of the party workers in establishing the identity of any leader or individual and Manvendra Singh had insulted the workers.

However, the party firmly believes that Manvendra Singh's exit will not affect the morale of the workers and they will continue to work for the BJP's victory in the upcoming Assembly election, Singh said.

He also refuted allegations that the Rajput community had drifted away from the BJP, stressing that the party does not see any caste or community as a vote bank.

Singh further said that Manvendra Singh had joined a party where the dictatorship of one family reigns supreme.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A Delhi court on Wednesday issued a non-bailable warrant (NBW) against the son of a former BSP MP for allegedly brandishing a pistol at guests and threatening them in the foyer of a five-star hotel here, a video of which went viral on the social media.

Metropolitan Magistrate Ambika Singh issued warrants against Ashish Pandey, who hails from Lucknow and is the son of former (BSP) MP Rakesh Pandey.

The court passed the order on the plea of Delhi Police which had registered an FIR on the complaint of the assistant security manager of The Hyatt Regency alleging that one person was flagging pistol in his hand in the porch area of the hotel after a tiff with a guest.

The police told the court that during the investigation, the CCTV footage of the incident was obtained and the identity of the accused was established as Lucknow native Ashish Pandey.

"A police team was dispatched at the address of the alleged and it has been informed that the team conducted raid at the said address but the accused was not found," the police said, adding he had absconded.

He was "deliberately evading the process of law and no clue about the present whereabouts of alleged came on record and further raids are being conducted at the possible hideouts of the alleged person," the police said.

The accused is wanted as he is deliberately evading the process of law, therefore, NBW against him may be issued, the police said in its plea.

A video of the incident that occurred early on Sunday went viral on social media resulting in public outrage. It prompted the police to step in and launch a hunt for the accused who has since been missing.The Akali Dal patriarch and former chief minister Parkash Sigh Badal Wednesday said he was not afraid of any threats from "those who want to take my life", as he accused the Congress of backing "such elements" to foment trouble in Punjab.

His comments come after the Uttar Pradesh Police on Monday arrested three men associated with the Sikh militant group, Khalistan Liberation Front, for allegedly planning to target him.

Badal said he would consider a "great fortune and a matter of honour" to lay down his life for the cause of peace and communal harmony in Punjab, especially for strengthening the bond between the Hindu and the Sikh communities.

"These elements, who have always the backing, secret and not so secret, of the Congress party, are still active in Punjab. This unholy combine is bent upon forcing the Sikh masses into the deadly bloodbath of the 1980s from which Punjab and the Sikhs have not yet fully recovered," he said.

Badal said he considers "no price too high' to save the Sikhs and the Punjabis from "this deadly conspiracy".

"Peace and communal harmony are an item of faith with me and I am not afraid of any threats or conspiracies of those who wish to take my life just because my continued presence is a hindrance in the path of their wish to set Punjab aflame again," he said in a statement here.

The SAD leader said he requires no security cover as being offered to him by the government.

"Perhaps it is hard for you to understand but I wish to make it clear that I am ready to die for peace and communal harmony and have no need for any government security.

"Not to speak of any additional security, I request you to withdraw whatever security you need to withdraw from around me," Badal said.

Chief Minister Amarinder Singh had on Tuesday said his government will provide proper security to the Badals in view of the enhanced threat perception to their lives.

Badal said the chief minister should focus on preserving peace and harmony and on saving the state from slipping into "dangerous anarchy".

"They must stop playing the dangerous communal games aimed at causing communal tensions in Punjab. The people of the state have already lost thousands of their innocent near and dear ones to such nefarious and cynical games," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Sri Lanka on Wednesday promised to revoke a rogue bikini ban raising eyebrows at a popular seaside resort, as the authorities urged tourists to wear what they want at the beach.

The signs erected by local police at Habaraduwa Beach, about 130 kilometres south of the capital Colombo, depicted a pair of western women in bikinis crossed out with a red "X".

"According to Sri Lankan culture, please dress in an appropriate suit," it stated, declaring bikinis "improper".

A police official in Colombo said local law enforcers had not sought approval for the signs, which stirred controversy after going viral on social media.

Sri Lanka does not allow visitors in revealing clothing -- including men in shorts -- to visit Buddhist temples and other religious sites, but beaches are generally more relaxed. Tourism authorities said visitors to the island's famed coastline had nothing to worry about, and steps were being taken to remove the signs.

"Dress code policing is unneeded and unwarranted for tourists enjoying the scenic beaches of Sri Lanka," the Tourism Development Authority said.

Sri Lanka, a Buddhist-majority island popular with tourists, has criticised foreigners in the past for offending moral tastes.

Foreigners with clothing, tattoos or jewellery depicting the Buddha have seen tourists deported from the island for "hurting the sensibilities" of Sri Lankans.

Last month, three Sri Lankan men landed in hot water after exposing their bottoms near a Buddhist temple as part of a social media challenge and posting the images online.

They were tracked down and charged with offending Buddhist sentiments.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)British Prime Minister Theresa May said Wednesday that "now is the time" to make a Brexit deal happen, as she arrived for a summit with EU leaders seeking to unblock stalled divorce talks.

May will pitch her vision of how to save the talks on Britain's exit from the union on March 29 to European leaders left frustrated by a dramatic breakdown in negotiations on Sunday.

Before the summit, Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel issued a stern warning that Europe must be prepared for a no-deal Brexit but as she arrived pledged to "try everything to find an agreement".

Negotiations are at an impasse over the issue of a legal backstop to keep open the border between British Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, an EU member.

May faces a battle to find a solution that is acceptable to both the EU and hardline Brexit supporters in her own deeply-divided Conservative party, but she insisted that a deal is achievable and that "now is the time to make it happen".

"I believe everybody around the table wants to get a deal. By working intensively and closely we can achieve that deal," she told reporters as she arrived for the summit.

Ahead of the summit, European Council President Donald Tusk had urged May to offer new "concrete ideas on how to break the impasse".

Lithuania's President Dalia Grybauskaite -- speaking bluntly but reflecting a widely-shared view -- poured cold water on hopes of major developments on Wednesday, saying "today there will be no breakthrough".

"The main thing we would like to hear and see is (the clear) position of (the) UK -- what really they want. Today we do not know what they want. They do not know themselves what they want," she said.

But French President Emmanuel Macron -- who held an unexpected one-on-one with May before the summit dinner -- struck a positive note, saying "we are not so far" from a deal but cautioning that "now we must accelerate the work".

Neither side has shown much sign of flexibility, but EU negotiator Michel Barnier is willing to add a year to the 21-month post Brexit transition period -- taking it to the end of 2021, two diplomats said on condition of anonymity.

The idea would be to give more time to negotiate a deal on future relations and find a formula to defuse the Irish border question.

But a longer transition would not necessarily resolve the backstop issue which must be included in the withdrawal treaty and ratified before the end of March to avoid the damaging "no deal" scenario.

Barnier said "we need time, we need much more time" for talks as he arrived to brief leaders, vowing to work "calmly and patiently" for a deal in the coming weeks.

Even the choreography of Wednesday's summit opening highlights British isolation.

After one-on-one meetings with Tusk, European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker and Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, May will brief her 27 European colleagues before leaving the EU leaders to discuss Brexit over dinner without her.

Tusk has made it clear that if May and Barnier do not signal concrete progress towards a draft deal he will not call a November summit to sign it.

Instead, the matter could either be pushed back to December or -- more dramatically -- the EU could use the November weekend to meet on preparations for a "no-deal" Brexit.

Previously, both sides had agreed that Britain crashing out of the Union on March 29 next year with neither a divorce agreement nor a road-map to future ties would be an economic and diplomatic disaster.

But with the row over the Irish border, fears of a debacle are mounting. To solve the Irish question, Britain has proposed staying aligned to the EU's customs rules until a wider trade deal can be signed that avoids the need for any frontier checks.

But May's own eurosceptic Conservative MPs are demanding this "backstop" arrangement be time-limited, something the EU will not accept.

May said the EU was also insisting on its own "backstop" in case the London proposal did not work, which would see Northern Ireland alone stay aligned with the bloc's customs union and single market.

She says this would threaten the integrity of the United Kingdom -- and it is strongly opposed by her Northern Irish allies from the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) who provide her with crucial support in parliament.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be invited by his Nepalese counterpart K P Sharma Oli to attend the symbolic wedding procession of Lord Rama from Ayodhya to Janakpur in Nepal on December 12, a media report said Wednesday.

The two leaders "had discussed about the plan. The Prime Minister will send a letter to Modi inviting him to take part in the wedding procession in Ram-Janaki temple," Oli's chief adviser Bishnu Rimal was quoted as saying by the Kathmandu post.

"Modi will bring the baraat from Ayodhya, the birthplace of Lord Rama to Janakpur where Sita was born," the paper said.

Acording to the Ramayana, Lord Rama of Ayodhya had married Sita in Janakpur.

"Discussions and preparations are going on about the visit of PM Modi to Janakpur, but his visit is yet to be confirmed," the paper quoted Prime Minister Oli's Press Adviser Kundan Aryal as saying.

Modi's planned visit coincides with Bibaha Panchami, the day Ram and Sita wedded, accompanied by a symbolic wedding procession (baraat), the paper said.

During the 4th BIMSTC Summit held here in August, both prime ministers had discussed the plan of Modi taking part in the Bibaha Panchami on December 12 and then inaugurating the Janakpur-Jayanagar railway track, the paper said.

In May, Modi visited Janakpur where he inaugurated a bus service between Ayodhya-Jankpur and announced Rs 100 crore aid to the Province No 2.

Janakpur is known as the birth place of Sita. A massive Janaki temple was built in memory of Sita in 1910. The three-storied structure made entirely of stone and marble is 50-metre high and spread over 4860 sq feet.

Both prime ministers will jointly inaugurate the Janakpur-Jayanagar railway line that has almost completed its test drive, the paper said.

In the first week of August, railway officials successfully completed the test-run of the route that was lying dormant for the last four years, the paper said.

Nepal's Department of Railway has also already announced that train wet leased from India for the Janakpur-Jayanagar-Kurtha railway sector would start this December.

The Janakpur-Jayanagar-Kurtha broad-gauge railway line was built at a cost of Rs 880 crore with support from India.

Modi travelled to Nepal in 2014 and later, in the same year, visited again to participate in 18th Saarc Summit. He again toured the country in May this year and visited Lumbini and Janakpur.

If he visits Nepal in December as per plans, this would be his fifth visit to Nepal as the prime minister, the paper added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Cash-strapped Pakistan government Wednesday failed to enthuse buyers for 49 luxury automobiles, including 19 bullet proof cars, as just one vehicle was sold at a much-publicised auction, according to a media report.

As Prime Minister Imran Khan grappled with a major debt crisis, his government, which has approached the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a financial bailout, sold 61 vehicles during the first auction held exactly a month back.

It also auctioned eight buffaloes kept at the Prime Minister House and raised more than Rs 23 lakh. The buffaloes were kept by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif.

The highest bid for a buffalo was Rs 385,000 and three of the cattle were bought by supporters of Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party.

The government also plans to auction four helicopters under the use of the Cabinet Division.

In an auction held at the Prime Minister House on Wednesday, one out of the 49 vehicles on display was purchased, Geo reported.

The car purchased from the auction fetched the government Rs 90 lakh, it said.

According to a customs officer, another auction will be held on October 25 at the I-9 dry port in Islamabad.

"There is limited access of citizens to the Prime Minister House," the officer said, apparently referring to the poor response to the second vehicle auction.

The officer said that people should understand that the vehicles that are being auctioned have "special features" which justify the higher price tags.

Khan his first address to the nation emphasised on austerity measures and announced the auction of 102 surplus PM House vehicles.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Eleven Indian fishermen were Wednesday captured by the Pakistani maritime forces in the Arabian Sea but 19 others were saved from falling into the hands of the neighbouring country's forces, the Indian Coast Guard (ICG) said.

The Pakistani forces also seized the boat of the 11 Indian fishermen, the ICG said, adding it is in touch with its counterparts for release of the captured persons and the boat.

The ICG said a Pakistan maritime surveillance ship 'Basol' "apprehended" Indian fishing boat 'Khuda Dost Ka Karam', registered at Okha in Gujarat, with 11 fishermen at the "mutually-agreed 'No Fishing Zone (NFZ)'.

In a press statement, the Coast Guard added that it "averted apprehension" of two other Indian fishing boats by the "Pakistan entities".

It said it was alerted during the patrolling near the International Maritime Boundary Line after intercepting a VHF (very high frequency) communication.

"The Pakistani warship was chasing Indian fishing boats reportedly operating in Pakistan waters," the ICG said.

"ICGS Rajratan is a Fast Patrol Vessel based at Porbandar, operating in the area for maritime surveillance. It intercepted two Indian fishing boats namely Mayshab Maa and Safina Al Tahiri, both registered at Okha (in Devbhoomi Dwarka district). There were total 19 fishermen on board," it said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Two Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz senators - Haroon Akhtar and Sadia Abbasi - were disqualified by the Supreme Court on Wednesday for holding dual nationalities at the time of filing their nomination papers for the upper house of the parliament.

Akhtar and Abbasi, the sister of former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, are members of the upper house of the parliament.

A seven-member bench of the apex court headed by Chief Justice Saqib Nisar gave the orders of their disqualification under Article 63 (1)(c) of the 1973 Constitution, Dawn reported.

The article pertains to a person's disqualification from Parliament due to holding the nationality of a country other than Pakistan.

The bench said that both the senators possessed dual nationality at the time of submission of their nomination papers for the Senate election held in March this year.

The chief justice also told the counsels of Punjab Governor Chaudhry Sarwar and PML-N's Nuzhat Sadiq to furnish their clients' verified affidavits showing that they had given up their second nationalities before filing their nomination papers.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A Pakistani serial killer was executed at a prison here on Wednesday after a court dismissed a petition for his public hanging filed by the father of a seven-year-old girl, who was raped and murdered by the convict.

Imran Ali, who was convicted for the rape and murder of the minor girl in the city of Kasur, some 50-km from Lahore earlier this year, was hanged to death this morning in Kot Lakhpat Central Jail.

Ali was executed in the presence of both Magistrate Adil Sarwar and the deceased's father. The girl's uncle was also present at the jail, the Dawn reported.

An ambulance had also arrived at the scene, accompanied by a brother of the convict as well as two of his friends.

A two-member Lahore High Court bench comprising Justice Sardar Shamim Ahmed and Justice Shahbaz Rizvi on Tuesday dismissed the plea of Amin Ansari, father of the minor girl, seeking public hanging of the convict.

In January last, police arrested Imran two weeks after he raped and killed the minor girl and threw her body into a garbage dump in Kasur.

The incident triggered nation-wide street protests in with people demanding a harsh punishment for the 23-year-old accused. Violent protests in Kasur city following her murder claimed two lives.

An anti-terrorism court here last week ruled that Imran's death sentence will be carried out on October 17 at Lahore's Central Jail.

Imran, a resident of Kasur, was accused of being involved in at least nine incidents of rape-cum-murder of minors. The court has given its verdict in five cases.

Ansari's counsel had also requested the court to allow a live telecast of the hanging inside the jail. The court did not agree and dismissed the plea.

Contingents of police and anti-riot forces surrounded Kot Lakhpat jail at the time of Ali's hanging.

Talking to the media after the execution, Ansari regretted that the authorities did not allow the live telecast of the hanging.

"Zainab would have been seven years, two months old today," he said. "Her mother is devastated from grief."



Ansari also thanked the chief justice of and said that the "murderer had met his fate today".

After the execution, Ali's family accompanied by police contingents took his body to Kasur.A Pakistani serial killer was executed at a prison here on Wednesday after a court dismissed a petition for his public hanging filed by the father of a seven-year-old girl, who was raped and murdered by the convict.

Imran Ali, who was convicted for the rape and murder of the minor girl in the city of Kasur, some 50-km from Lahore earlier this year, was hanged to death this morning in Kot Lakhpat Central Jail.

Ali, 23, was executed in the presence of both Magistrate Adil Sarwar and the deceased girl's father. The girl's uncle was also present at the jail, the Dawn reported.

A two-member Lahore High Court bench comprising Justice Sardar Shamim Ahmed and Justice Shahbaz Rizvi on Tuesday dismissed the plea of Amin Ansari, father of the minor girl, seeking public hanging of the convict.

In January last, police arrested Imran two weeks after he raped and killed the minor girl and threw her body into a garbage dump in Kasur.

The incident triggered nation-wide street protests in Pakistan with people demanding a harsh punishment for the convict. Violent protests in Kasur city following her murder claimed two lives.

An anti-terrorism court here last week ruled that Imran's death sentence will be carried out on October 17 at Lahore's Central Jail.

Imran, a resident of Kasur, was accused of being involved in at least nine incidents of rape-cum-murder of minors. The court has given its verdict in five cases.

Ansari's counsel had also requested the court to allow a live telecast of the hanging inside the jail. The court did not agree and dismissed the plea.

Contingents of police and anti-riot forces surrounded Kot Lakhpat jail at the time of Ali's hanging.

"My daughter would have been seven years, two months old today," he said. "Her mother is devastated from grief."



Talking to the media after the execution, Ansari regretted that the authorities did not allow the live telecast of the hanging.

Ansari also thanked the chief justice of Pakistan and said that the "murderer had met his fate today".

After the execution, Ali's family accompanied by police contingents took his body to Kasur.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Pakistan has emerged stronger from the "tribulations" though the fight against terrorism "is still on", Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa has told Italian military leaders.

Gen. Bajwa, who was in Rome on a visit, called on Italian Defence Minister, Dr. Elisabetta Trenta, Chief of Italian Army Lt. Gen. Salvatore Farina and other senior military officials, the Inter Services Public Relations, the media wing of the army said Wednesday.

Gen. Bajwa's discussions focused on enhancing bilateral defence and security cooperation including potential joint initiatives, the statement said.

"The Italian leadership was highly appreciative of the role played by Pakistan in regional stability and also towards global security," the ISPR statement said.

"They maintained that Pakistan is well on its way towards a prosperous future and that Italy and Pakistan will benefit by building on the existing relationship between the two countries," it said.

Asked about the success formula in war against terrorism, Gen. Bajwa said that it was due to the spirit of sacrifice and support of the nation, especially the people in the country's tribal areas.

"Though the fight is still on, Pakistan has emerged stronger from the tribulations," he was quoted as saying.

He said that today's Pakistan is open to the world and the Government is looking for "peace within and peace without" to provide the people the prosperity they deserve after the difficult times.

During the stay, Chief of Army Staff (COAS) was also presented demonstrations of Italian defence capabilities both for land and amphibious operations. He also interacted with the Italian defence industry officials.

Gen. Bajwa, 57, also visited the UK and held talks with the country's military leadership last week.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Pakistan lost opener Mohammad Hafeez early in their second innings but were still at 51-1 at tea on the second day of the second Test in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday.

Fakhar Zaman was unbeaten on 32 and Azhar Ali on 12 not out as Pakistan stretched their lead to 188 with eight wickets in hand to force a 1-0 win in the two-match series.

Hafeez, who scored a hundred in the drawn first Test in Dubai, fell to a lazy shot off pacer Mitchell Starc, caught at short mid-off for six. Earlier, medium pacer Mohammad Abbas (5-33) and spinner Bilal Asif (3-23) wrecked Australia for 145 in their innings.

Abbas had Shaun Marsh, in the fourth over of the day, for three and Travis Head for 14 before wrapping up the innings by trapping Starc leg-before for 34.

This becomes Abbas's third five-wicket haul in a burgeoning career of ten Tests.

Asif had removed Aaron Finch (39) and in the last over before lunch trapped Tim Paine leg-before for three.

Marnus Labuschagne offered some resistance during his 25 before falling to a freakish run out, backing up too far as a drive from Starc was deflected to the stumps by Yasir Shah with Labuschagne out of his crease.

Abbas, whose first wicket of the match made him the joint second fastest Pakistani to 50 wickets, gave Pakistan an early wicket in the fourth over of the day, removing Marsh with a catch in the slip.

He then had Head caught in the second slip to leave Australia at 56-4. Leg-spinner Yasir made it 75-5 with the wicket of Mitchell Marsh, caught close to the wicket for 13 before Australia lose two more to reach lunch at 91-7.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Pakistan on Wednesday informed Iran that it had launched "active" efforts to locate 11 Iranian security personnel, including Revolutionary Guards intelligence officers, who were abducted near the countries' shared border.

The Guards blamed "terrorist groups that are guided and supported by foreign forces" for the abductions on Tuesday on the southeastern border with Pakistan.

Pakistan's foreign ministry said Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi met his Iranian counterpart Javad Zarif in Islamabad and briefed him "about the active efforts launched by the Pakistan law enforcement agencies to ascertain the whereabouts of the missing Iranian guards, in coordination with the Iranian military and intelligence counterparts".

Qureshi blamed the kidnapping on "our common enemies unhappy with the existing close, friendly relations between Pakistan and Iran", the foreign ministry said in a statement.

The group kidnapped was involved in "a security operation" and included two members of the elite Revolutionary Guards intelligence unit and seven Basij militiamen as well as regular border guards, said the Young Journalists' Club (YJC), an Iranian state-owned website, in an article that was later deleted.

The abduction took place around the Sistan-Baluchistan province, which has long been a flashpoint, with Pakistan-based Baluchi separatists and jihadists carrying out regular cross-border raids against Iranian security posts.

The province has a large, mainly Sunni Muslim ethnic Baluchi community which straddles the border.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A parliamentary delegation of the Tibetan government in exile in India Wednesday said more than any other country, it is India which can play a role in addressing the Sino-Tibetan issues, even as the group's leader asserted that the its administration had "deep faith" in its middle-way approach to the situation.

Youdon Aukatsang, and two other parliamentarians in the four-member delegation that visited four states -- Maharashtra, Goa, Gujarat and Rajasthan -- in the past 20 days, interacted with reporters here and shared their experiences of meeting political leaders and the public in general in these states.

"We met with governors, chief ministers, speakers, lawmakers and other political leaders in various states as part of an outreach campaign launched by the Tibetan Parliament in Exile this year. All the states were very receptive to the message that we sought to convey to them, particulary the leaders in Gujarat," Youdon, head of the delegation, said.

The four lawmakers reached Delhi on Monday for the last leg of the visit and have already sought an appointment with Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, she said.

"We were slated to meet Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia tomorrow, but we have received as communication that he has asked to postpone the meet to next week,"



the delegation leader later said on the sidelines.

Youdon said since arriving in Delhi, they have met several senior political leaders, including Union minister Maneka Gandhi, BJP's veteran politician M M Joshi, Delhi Assembly Speaker Ram Niwas Goel, and added that they were slated to meet L K Advani Thursday.

The Tibetan Parliament in Exile is the highest legislative organ of the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA), established in Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh, in 1959.

"Our adminstration has approved a middle-way approach, which was unanimously passed by our Parliament in Exile in India. I think, what we are doing right now, this is the best step forward," she said.

For Tibetans, the 'middle-way approach' implies not seeking independence but genuine autonomy within the framework of the People's Republic of China. This vision is articulated in the Memorandum on Genuine Autonomy for the Tibetan People, which was presented to the Chinese government in 2008.

"There has been a stalemate in the talks since then (2008), but we are still going to pursue the same policy. We have deep faith in it. Besides, there are a few back-channel diplomacy efforts that are underway," Youdon said.

She added that Tibet considered India to be the best supporter in its struggle.

"More than any other country, India has a role to play in addressing the Sino-Tibetan issues. More so, what happens in the Tibetan situation will also have deep ramification on India," Youdon said.

The delegation also said that a number of Tibetans have resorted to self-immolation in the Tibetan Autonomous Region.

The delegation had started their visit from Maharashtra on September 29.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A PIL has been moved in the Delhi High Court on the deaths due to starvation, especially of children, in various parts of the country, including the national capital, and seeking directions to the Centre and the AAP government to take steps to address the issue.

The plea by a lawyer contends that the deaths due to starvation and the issue of malnutrition were more prevalent in families living in slums as many of them do not have ration cards for accessing subsidised food grains.

The petition is listed for hearing on November 15 before a bench of Chief Justice Rajendra Menon and Justice V K Rao.

The plea was initially moved by advocate Maneesh Pathak in the Supreme Court, which, on September 7, asked him to first approach the Delhi High Court.

In his PIL, Pathak has referred to the death of three minor girls, in July this year, who according to their post-mortem report were suffering from extreme malnutrition, and contended that such cases were on the rise in other states as well.

He has claimed that often the poor families living in slums do not have ration cards due to a lack of address proof and has contended that it should not be a ground for denial of subsidised food to them.

"Making food security conditional (on a ration card) is a violation of the fundamental right to life under the Constitution," the lawyer has said in his petition.

He has sought framing of a policy so that the marginalised section of society receives adequate supply of food and drinking water to ensure that a proper nutritional level is maintained amongst them.

The petition said that this can be achieved by an efficient public distribution system for free delivery of essential food articles to the poor families, including those without ration cards.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Delhi and Uttar Pradesh police teams raided several places Wednesday but failed to trace Ashish Pandey, a politician's son who is on the run after brandishing a gun at a five-star hotel in New Delhi.

Raids have been carried out at various places associated with Ashish Pandey and we will be able to make the arrest soon, the state's Additional Director General (Law and Order) Anand Kumar said.

The police are looking for Pandey after a video clip surfaced on social media, showing him in confrontation with two other guests in the foyer of Delhi's Hyatt Regency Hotel on Saturday night.

The Delhi Police has obtained a non-bailable warrant against him and also issued a show-cause notice to the hotel for alleged negligence.

Ashish Pandey, who is a realtor, hails from Lucknow and is the son of former Bahujan Samaj Party MP Rakesh Pandey. His brother, Ritesh Pandey, is an MLA in Uttar Pradesh.

ADG Anand Kumar said the licence for the weapon brandished by Pandey was issued in Ambedkar Nagar in 1999. The district administration is carrying out the process of cancellation or suspension of the licence.

Anand said he is not aware if there is any other case lodged against Pandey in Uttar Pradesh, but more information is being gathered.

Gaurav Kanwar, an ex-Congress MLA's son who was allegedly threatened by Pandey, told Delhi Police in a statement that he was too scared to approach them immediately after the incident.

According to him, he was abused by some people when he escorted his woman friend to a hotel washroom when she took ill during dinner.

When the two were waiting for their car at the hotel foyer, Pandey and his friends again approached them.

I will kill you, Pandey allegedly told him.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Police is learnt to have sought information, including Aadhaar number, contact details and latest photograph, about students from other states studying in educational institutions in Punjab.

The move came days after three students from Jammu and Kashmir were arrested by the Punjab Police and the J&K Police special operations group in a joint operation.

Notably, on October 10, police had arrested three Kashmiri students and seized an assault rifle and explosives from them in a raid at a college hostel in Jalandhar.

The Punjab Police had then described the trio as a module of Kashmiri terror outfit Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind and said they had links with the Jaish-e-Mohammed.

Now, colleges and educational institutions in the state have been asked to provide details like Aadhaar numbers, permanent addresses, e-mail IDs, dates of birth, fathers' names, names of course and duration, dates of admission and latest photographs of their students who have come from other states.

A proforma for collection of the details has also been issued.

Ashwani Sekhri, chairman, Joint Action Committee (JAC) of unaided educational institutions, representing around 1,650 unaided colleges of Punjab, said the institutions had been asked by police to provide the information.

"We will cooperate with the police. Whatever information they require, will be provided," he said.

Sekhri said around one lakh students from various other states, primarily Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Bihar and northeastern states, were estimated to be studying in educational institutions in Punjab.

Meanwhile, Panjab University in Chandigarh has been asked by police to provide information about its Kashmiri students.

An email sent to all departments by the Dean of University Instructions read, "You are requested to provide information on Kashmiri students admitted to your department/centres/institute "



The email sought details such as names of candidates, their fathers' names, class, addresses and contact numbers.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Police have stepped up vigil in Gujarat's Surat district in the wake of tension following a minor girl's rape and murder, for which a migrant from Bihar has been named as the main suspect, a senior official said Wednesday.

The body of the three-and-a-half-year-old girl, who had gone missing, was found Monday in a locked house in the same building where she lived in Surat city.

The migrant labourer has been named as the main suspect by police in the case, Surat police commissioner Satish Sharma told PTI.

The police have increased vigil in Surat as a precautionary measure, in view of the current situation across Gujarat where Hindi-speaking migrants, particularly from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, were targeted following a rape incident in Sabarkantha district last month.

"The situation is tense (in some pockets of Surat) not because the suspect is from Bihar, but because such an incident has happened. People are asking why such an incident took place. They (locals) are not against people from Uttar Pradesh or Bihar," Sharma said.

He said the police were "trying their best" to nab the man and that they were in touch with cops in those areas and regions where he could have possibly gone after the incident.

The suspect, whose identity has been withheld, was apparently known to the girl's family, he said.

The victim and her parents, who hail from Maharashtra, lived on the first floor of a house in Godadara locality, while the suspect used to live on its ground floor, where the body was found, he said.

To avoid any unwarranted situation, some precautionary measures have been taken and the police are keeping a close watch, Sharma said, adding that locals have also been urged to keep calm.

"People have been assured that the police are doing their job (to trace the culprit)," he said.

According to Sharma, as many as four incidents of rape of minors have come to light in Surat in the past 15 days.

"In all the four cases, the accused were either relatives, family friends, neighbours or known persons. In this case, the victim's family knew the suspect as they used to live in the same house," Sharma said.

He said they have initiated a drive in the city to make people understand the hazards of leaving their children alone or trusting neighbours or known persons.

Thousands of migrants have fled Gujarat following a spate of attacks on them early this month after a migrant worker from Bihar was arrested by police for allegedly raping a 14-month-old girl in Sabarkantha district on September 28.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Former President Pranab Mukherjee on Wednesday took up the priest's role to offer Mahastami puja at his ancestral house in Mirati in Birbhum district.

Clad in dhoti, Mukherjee chanted hymns before the idol on the second day of the four-day Durga Puja as the devotees repeated the shlokas and offered 'pushpanjali' (floral offerings) to the Goddess.

His son and Congress leader Abhijit Mukherjee was among those present.

"Durga Puja symbolises peace and amity, Goddess Durga stands for power which slays evil. On this day, let's all take pledge for a peaceful world where everyone can live in harmony, a world freed of violence," Mukherjee told reporters after the Mahastami rituals.

"I extend my best wishes to all on the occasion of Durga Puja," Mukherjee added.

Mukherjee had arrived at the house on Monday from Kolkata in a car.

He had donned the priest's role at the household puja for years including the time when he was the President of India and a union minister beforehand.

Lakhs of devotees offered 'anjali' (prayer) to the deity at community and household pujas across West Bengal on Wednesday. Thousands also thronged puja pandals during midday as 'Sandhi Puja' rituals were performed before the idol.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who had inaugurated a large number of Durga Pujas in the run up to the festival, wished people on her official Twitter handle on the occasion of 'Mahastami'.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)On the completion of four years of the Manohar Lal Khattar-led BJP government later this month, public meetings would be organised in all 22 districts of Haryana, a state minister said Wednesday.

The first such public meeting will be held on the occasion of birth anniversary of former Haryana Deputy Chief Minister Mangal Sein at Rohtak on October 27, Minister of State for Cooperation Manish Kumar Grover told reporters here.

Khattar was sworn in as the chief minister of BJP's first government in Haryana on October 26, 2014.

To mark four years of the Khattar-led government, Grover said public meetings would be organised across the state, and Agriculture Minister O P Dhankar would be the coordinator of the meetings.

During these meetings, people would be informed about the four years' achievements of the present state government, Grover said.

The public meetings would be completed in the month of November, 2018, he added.

Replying to another question, he said that compensation would be awarded to farmers for the damage caused to their crops due to recent spell of heavy rain irrespective of the fact whether they have got crop insurance or not.

He said the BJP is all set to hold municipal elections and the dates would soon be announced. The BJP would contest these elections on party symbol, he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Punjab government Wednesday decided to amend the industrial policy to give investment incentives by way of Net SGST on intrastate sales to promote business enterprises in the state.

The state cabinet meeting, chaired by Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, also approved global tendering for the upcoming hi-tech cycle valley on a 100-acre industrial park in Ludhiana, an official statement said here.

The Cabinet noted that since the government could not give direct concessions to industry in matters of land acquisition, other incentives should be provided through amendment to the policy so that both the state and the industry get the best deal through measures such as global tendering.

The Cabinet observed that for effective implementation of the policy there was need to explicitly define and explain the term 'Net SGST Incentive'.

A series of meetings/consultations were held among departments of Excise and Taxation, Finance, Industries and Commerce and Investment Promotion, the statement said.

After deliberations, a detailed formula for different eventualities was finalized in the meeting under the chairmanship of the Finance Minister.

According to the new formula, incentive amount would be calculated based on output IGST (or CGST+SGST), that would be called GST rate for formula, the statement said.

Overall quantum and/or period for claim of incentives shall remain same as defined in IBDP-2017 (as amended from time to time) for the respective category.

Availing of incentives up to the overall ceiling i.e. 200 per cent/125 per cent/100 per cent of FCI, as applicable, shall depend on the capacity utilization of the unit during the eligibility period, the statement said.

The incentive under the present policy would only be applicable for such investment proposals where Common Application Form has been submitted by March 31, 2020.

This formula would be subject to various conditions. In the case of a unit with multiple outputs having more than one GST rate, the incentive amount shall be calculated pro rata to the respective sales (value as defined in GST law) of eligible outputs, the statement said.

If the amount calculated as above is less than 2.5 per cent of the FCI in any particular year, the unit will be entitled to get such difference as the additional amount of incentive, subject to the fact that it has been able to achieve sales of three times of the FCI.

For example, if the GST incentive for a unit with FCI worth Rs 100 crore and sales of Rs 310 crore in a fiscal year (FY) comes to Rs 1 crore in the FY, the unit shall be able to get an additional amount of Rs 1.5 crore as incentive, the statement said.

The unit operating for a part of the year of the incentive period will get the amount on pro rata basis, with the requirement of sales being three times of FCI also applying on a pro rata basis.

With respect to the cycle valley to be developed in Dhananshu village of Ludhiana district, as per an earlier decision of the state government, the Cabinet decided that the 100 acres of undeveloped land would be allotted through an objective, open, competitive and technical bidding process to a well-established company of international repute.

The selected project company would be responsible for the development of the entire industrial park in the allotted land.

It would develop its own anchor unit in 50 acres and in the remaining 50 acres the company would invite major national and international manufacturers as ancillary and/or vendor units, the statement said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The owner of a private school in Rajkot district of Gujarat received a 'parcel bomb' which was successfully destroyed by police Wednesday morning, a senior official said.

Police are now looking for the unidentified sender.

The bomb, made with gelatin sticks and a detonator switch and packed in a gift box, was delivered by a courier at Shri Krishna School run by Vitthal Dobaria in Upleta town, 320 km from Rajkot, on October 12.

He alerted police after finding the contents of the box suspicious.

The Bomb Detection and Disposal Squad destroyed the bomb early Wednesday morning in a 'controlled blast', district Superintendent of Police Balram Meena told PTI.

"We suspect that the person who delivered the gift box was not a courier boy, as he did not follow the usual procedures of courier firms. The sender had written on the box that he was a former student of the school and sending the gift to thank Dobaria for his support," said Meena.

"The sender had requested Dobaria to open the box on October 14. Dobaria opened it Tuesday night and found suspicious items inside, so he alerted police," the SP said.

The materials used to make the bomb are generally used for tunnel blasting, he said.

"Luckily, the bomb did not go off. The sender could be a novice. But it was clear that Dobaria was the target. He has not pointed fingers at anyone. We have formed four teams to identify the culprit," the SP said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Ralph Fiennes will be honoured by European Achievement in World Cinema Award at the European Film Awards 2018.

The announcement was made by The European Film Academy in a press release, saying the 55-year-old actor is being recognised for his "rich and extensive career in front of and behind the camera".

Over the years, Fiennes has featured in many memorable films such "The Grand Budapest Hotel", "The English Patient" and "Schindler's List".

His ardent fans know him as the man who essayed the role of Lord Voldemort in the Harry Potter franchise and as the most recent "M" in James Bond films "Skyfall" and "Spectre".

Fiennes played Nazi officer Amon Goeth in Steven Spielberg's "Schindler's List" in 1993 which earned him a BAFTA and an Oscar nod.

His filmography also includes blockbusters such as "Strange Days", "A Bigger Splash", "Sunshine" and "The Hurt Locker", among others.

Fiennes made his directorial debut in 2011 with "Coriolanus", the film adaptation of Shakespearean tragedy of the same name.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Reserve Bank Wednesday refused to grant more time to Yes Bank's long serving CEO and MD Rana Kapoor and asked the private sector lender to appoint his successor latest by February 1, 2019.

Last month, the Yes Bank board had sought at least a three-month extension for Kapoor from the RBI beyond January 31, 2019, stating that finding a suitable successor is a "time consuming challenge".

The central bank, however, has not agreed to the suggestion and insisted Yes Bank's board should find his successor within the stipulated time.

"The Reserve Bank of India has reaffirmed that a successor to Shri Rana Kapoor, MD & CEO, YES Bank should be appointed by February 1, 2019," the lender said in a stock exchange filing.

The RBI had earlier 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.

Kapoor has been in his position since the inception of the bank in 2004.

The bank's board has already 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.

Kapoor owns 10.66 per cent share in the bank.

Yes Bank shares dropped 6.85 per cent to close at Rs 231.75 apiece on BSE.

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 CEO's 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 RBI has been maintaining a cautious stance with regard to heads of private sector banks in the recent months.

Earlier this week, it gave approval for only three-year to Sandeep Bakhshi as CEO and MD of ICICI Bank, as against five-year term sought by the board of the country's largest private sector bank.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)In a joint operation, the police and the excise department seized 83,000 litres of rectified spirit with an estimated value of Rs 8 crore being ferried to Delhi in three tankers and arrested two men.

Senior Superintendent of Police Vaibhav Krishna said that based on a tip-off, the joint team found three tankers stationed near a private dental college in Masuri here loaded with rectified spirit being used to make spurious diesel, petrol and liquor and also for hardware purposes.

All three tankers were smuggling the consignment from Lakhimpur Kheeri district towards Delhi to deliver it to an oil company, the SSP said, adding that the vehicles and the consignment were impounded.

The arrested accused were identified as truck driver Dharamvir and buyer Rashid.

They were nabbed while stealing the rectified spirit from the tanker and transferring it into drums of 200 litres each for sale.

The drivers and cleaners of the other two trucks and others involved in the illicit trade some how fled the spot, the SSP said, adding that efforts are on to nab them.

The arrested duo confessed to their involvement in the stealing and selling of the spirit from tankers and were minting huge money in the process, he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Managements of temples and prayer places in Maharashtra will face legal action if the banned plastic items are found on their premises, the state government said Wednesday, as it moved forward to implement the ban in toto.

State Minister Ramdas Kadam also said the onus of not allowing plastic on their premises falls on the temples, mosques, churches and gurudwaras.

"A trust managing a religious place will have to face legal action if the banned plastic (items) are found inside that religious place or on its premises," Kadam told PTI.

The state government in March this year announced ban on the manufacture, use, sale, distribution and storage of plastic materials, such as one-time-use bags, spoons, plates, PET and PETE bottles and thermocol items.

The government started enforcing the ban on a variety of plastic items from June 23.

Kadam said some people are still using plastic despite the ban. He said the state government wanted to strengthen its deterrent action.

"There have been several instances where the ministry found that plastic bags are being used for carrying flowers and food items. Now, the (religious) trusts will face legal action if the banned plastic material is found in their premises," he said.

The minister said some trusts in the state have allowed vendors to set up stalls selling food and flowers on their land.

"If the banned plastic material is found with these stalls, the trust concerned will also face the action," the Shiv Sena leader said.

He said the state government has already collected 300 tonnes of banned plastic since the ban came into force and collected Rs 3 crore in fine from violators.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Ecuador denied on Wednesday reports that UN pressure had forced it to restore communications to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange at the country's embassy in London.

Ecuador "rejects with indignation" reports that President Lenin Moreno was influenced by meetings with UN officials on the Assange case, the foreign ministry said.

"Ecuador received no pressure from anyone to make the decision," a ministry spokeswoman told AFP.

The foreign ministry said Moreno "did not even talk about the issue of asylum" in meetings last week with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi and the UN special rapporteur for Freedom of Expression David Kaye.

Quito blocked Assange's internet and mobile phone access in March after he broke "a written committment" not to interfere in Ecuador's foreign policy.

The ministry also rejected as "false" reports that the UN pressured Ecuador into issuing a "special protocol" regulating the "minimum conditions of stay" for Assange.

A protocol governing Assange's stay at the embassy, revealed by Ecuadoran internet site Codigo Vidrio, warns the 47-year-old Australian that further breaches will lead to "termination of asylum."



The website reported that from December, under the protocol, the embassy will no longer pay for food, medical care, laundry and other expenses generated by his stay at the embassy.

Ecuador's decision to cut Assange's communication came days after he used Twitter to challenge Britain's accusation that Russia was responsible for the nerve agent poisoning of a Russian former double agent in the English city of Salisbury.

He also criticised the arrest in Germany of former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont under a European Union warrant issued by Spain over Puigdemont's failed bid last year to declare independence for his Spanish region.

Ecuador installed a jammer to prevent Assange from accessing email and restricted the number of visitors he can receive.

Assange has been holed up at the embassy since 2012 after a British judge ruled he should be extradited to Sweden to face allegations of sexual assault there.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The rupee surrendered all the gains made during the day and settled 13 paise lower at 73.61 against the US dollar on Wednesday amid steady capital outflows and strengthening of the American currency.

The US dollar strengthened against its rivals ahead of the Federal Reserve's release of minutes from the September meeting.

The Indian rupee also came under pressure following a heaving selling in domestic equities.



At the Interbank Foreign Exchange, the rupee opened on a higher note at 73.43 and gained further ground to hit an intra-day high of 73.37 against the US dollar.

But eventually, the Indian unit erased all the gains and finally settled the day at 73.61, down by 13 paise.

The domestic currency climbed 35 paise to end at a nearly two-week high of 73.48 per dollar on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the benchmark Sensex on Wednesday fell 383 points to end below the 35,000-mark in highly volatile trade, breaking three sessions of gains as investors booked profits.



The broader NSE Nifty, too, dived 131.70 points, or 1.24 per cent, to close at 10,453.05.

Unabated foreign fund outflows also had an impact on the domestic currency. Foreign investors sold shares worth Rs 11.6563 billion on Tuesday, provisional data showed.

The Financial Benchmark India Private Ltd (FBIL) set the reference rate for the rupee/dollar at 73.4846 and for rupee/euro at 84.9800. The reference rate for rupee/British pound was fixed at 96.8684 and for rupee/100 Japanese yen was 65.47.Tribals living in the hills around Sabarimala alleged that the government and the Travancore Devaswom Board were trying to demolish centuries-old customs by allowing entry of women in the 10-50 age group into the famous

They claimed that restrictions imposed on women in the menstruating age group were part of a custom prevailing in tribal societies living in the forests in Kerala.

They also claimed several rights of the tribal communities over the and the places associated with the hill shrine were forcibly taken away from them by the authorities of the government and the Travancore Devaswom Board that manages the temple.

"The Devaswom Board has even taken control of tribal Gods and devasthanams in various hills around Sabarimala," said 70-year-old V K Narayanan, chief of the forest-dwellers in the Attathodu area.

He alleged the authorities were trying to demolish centuries-old tribal custom associated with the temple.

"Look at our skin. We are tribals. Our custom is being demolished by those institutions which are duty-bound to protect them," he said.

The tribal chief, who is called as Mooppen, said considering menstruating women impure is a Dravidian custom and is associated with the worship of nature by the tribal people.

"Lord Ayyappa is our God. Restrictions imposed on women of a certain age group from entering the shrine is part of our custom. Following the custom is very important for worshipping at the Lord Ayyappa temple situated in the dense forests. It should not be violated. Impure women should not be allowed in the Sabarimala temple," said Narayanan, participating in the Sabarimala Achara Samrakshana Samiti's agitation.

He claimed access for general public to the started only in the beginning of the 20th century and earlier only royals and priests used to trek once in a year during Mandala-Makaravilakku season to the hills for performing poojas.

"Lighting of lamps in the temple used to be done by our forefathers because no others dared to enter the shrine in the deep forests more than a century ago. Our people survived in this forest which had wild animals including tigers and leopards as we are protected by Lord Ayyappa," he said.

"We will not let any impure woman enter into poonkavanam -- sacred forests of Lord Ayyappa," 58-year old tribal woman Omana said Tuesday evening as she checked pilgrims' vehicles heading to Pamba to ensure that no woman in the age group of 10 and 50 years was travelling in them to enter the Sabarimala temple.

Like Omana, dozens of tribal and Dalit women and children living in the hills around Sabarimala had assembled at Nilackal, keeping vigil at the main gateway to Sabarimala, and other pockets on the way to the hill shrine to ensure that not a single woman in the age group of 10 and 50 years goes to the temple violating the age-old custom associated with it.

Police on Wednesday removed protesters increasing its presence in Nilackal base camp, 20 kilometres from Sabarimala, following incidents of the vehicle checks by devotees, preventing women belonging to the "banned age group" from trekking the holy hills.

The tribals and dalits believe that if the women in this particular age-group climbed the hill violating the custom would bring a bad omen for them.

"This is the holy land of Lord Ayyappa. He is our prince. No one should be allowed to disturb our Lord who protects us from all evil forces," Karthyayani, 54, belonging to the Kurava community, a scheduled caste, said.

"I appeal to all including politicians... kindly don't disturb peace of our Lord and forests in the name of the judgement," Omana, who belongs to the Ullada tribal community, said.

The tribals feel that some vested interests were utilising the verdict on Sabarimala to play politics over the issue.

"We live a few miles away from the temple. Our women in this age group have never attempted to go to the temple," she said.

The women said they could not agree with the top court verdict permitting women of all age groups to enter the shrine.The Shiromani Akali Dal Wednesday hailed Union Home Ministry's decision for restoration of the 60:40 ratio in recruitment, appointments and postings between Punjab and Haryana in the Union Territory of Chandigarh.

SAD patron and former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal also hailed the Centre's decision for keeping the September 25 notification of merging the posts of Deputy Superintendent of Police in Chandigarh with DANIPS in abeyance.

The UT/Chandigarh administration has been advised that in filling up civil posts, the ratio of 60:40 may be used as between Punjab and Haryana, wherever it is being followed conventionally, according to a statement issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on Wednesday.

The MHA also Wednesday put on hold the September 25 notification, merging the posts of DSPs of Chandigarh Police with DANIPS.

Under the September 25 notification, the DSPs of Chandigarh police were liable to be posted to other Union territories of Delhi, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Daman and Diu, Lakshadweep and Dadra and Nagar Haveli.

"The stoppage of the merger of posts of DSPs should be followed as a model and nothing should be done to disturb the status of Chandigarh as the prospective capital of Punjab, with current administrative arrangements being only of a temporary nature till the transfer to Punjab actually materialised," Badal said.

Notably, the Congress, the Akali Dal and the AAP had objected to a notification by the Centre that includes ChandigarhDSPs in the DANIPS cadre, making them liable to be transferred to various other Union Territories.

They had urged the Centre to reconsider the notification, arguing it would affect the agreed 60:40 ratio of officers from Punjaband Haryanain Chandigarh.

The political parties had seen the notification as an attempt to do away with the 60 per cent share of the state's officers in the Union Territory of Chandigarh while pointing out that as per the provisions of the Punjab Reorganization Act, 1966, which created the states of Punjab and Haryana and the Union Territory of Chandigarh from November 1, 1966, all assets and liabilities of the parent state between newly-created states in the ratio of 60:40.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Saudi Arabia has agreed to waive 2,000-riyal tax imposed on Pakistanis performing Umrah every year on the request of Prime Minister Imran Khan, a media report said Wednesday.

The Senate Standing Committee on Religious Affairs was informed on Tuesday that Prime Minister Khan had requested Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud to abolish the tax imposed by the Saudi government on Pakistanis during his visit to the Gulf country last month.

"I have been informed that this was some kind of a discriminatory tax on Pakistanis and the government should do something about it," Senator Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri said.

Secretary of Religious Affairs Muhammad Mushtaq said the tax was imposed to discourage repeated Umrah by a few people only and had recently been slapped on anyone coming from any country of the world.

"However this new tax of 2,000 riyals (USD 533) on people performing more than one Umrah within two years has been abolished for the people of Egypt and Turkey after requests were made by governments of these countries to the Saudi government," Mushtaq was quoted as saying by the Dawn newspaper.

He said that the matter had been taken up with the Saudi authorities in Islamabad and it was suggested that Prime Minister Khan should make the request to the Saudi crown prince for the tax waiver.

"The prime minister during his visit to Saudi kingdom took up the matter with the Saudi crown prince and he has agreed to abolish the tax," Mushtaq said, adding that it was a matter of time before the Saudi government would notify the waiver.

Some senators, however, criticised the prime minister's move, saying it would benefit only a few rich people who wanted to perform Umrah every year.

The number of Umrah visas issued this year has reached 421,411, according to data provided by the Saudi Arabia's Hajj and Umrah Ministry.

The largest number of pilgrims are from Pakistan (82,169) followed by India with 49,492 and with Indonesia 16,259, Arab reported.

The Umrah - an Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, Hijaz, Saudi Arabia- is performed by Muslims and can be undertaken at any time of the year, unlike hajj which has specific dates according to the Islamic lunar calendar.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Finding illegal diversion of funds from the company, markets regulator Sebi Wednesday directed Shivinder Mohan Singh, Malvinder Mohan Singh and eight other entities to repay Rs 403 crore along with interest to Fortis Healthcare.

The Singh brothers are former promoters of Fortis Healthcare.

All the entities have prima facie acted in a fraudulent manner in diverting funds around Rs 403 crore from Fortis Healthcare Ltd (FHL), a listed company, for the ultimate benefit of parent company -- RHC Holding Pvt Ltd -- and group company -- Religare Finvest Ltd -- violating the securities laws, Sebi said.

In a 21-page interim order, the watchdog said that prima facie role of FHL and Fortis Healthcare Ltd (FHsL) in the alleged diversion of funds through conduit entities has been established.

Apart from the Singh brothers, FHsL, RHC and Religare Finvest, the other entities that have been asked to repay the money are Shivi Holdings Pvt Ltd, Malav Holdings Pvt Ltd, Best Healthcare Pvt Ltd, Fern Healthcare Pvt Ltd and Modland Wears Pvt Ltd. The money along with due interest has to be paid within three months to FHL.

Pending completion of investigation and till further order, the Singh brothers and the eight entities have also been directed not to dispose of any of their assets or divert any funds without prior permission of Sebi. However, they can utilise funds for certain purposes, including for meeting expenses of day-to-day business operations, the order said.

"The prime facie role of FHL and FHsL in the alleged diversion of funds through the conduit entities (viz. Best, Fern and Modland) to RHC Holding and Religare Finvest Limited for the ultimate benefit of Shivi Holdings Private Limited, Malav Holdings Pvt Ltd., Shivinder Mohan Singh and Malvinder Mohan Singh has already been established," the regulator said, citing a forensic audit report.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A serial killer of minor girls was executed at a jail in Lahore on Wednesday after he was convicted and sentenced to death by an anti-terrorism court for raping and murdering a seven-year-old girl, in an incident that sparked outrage and violent protests in Pakistan early this year.

Imran Ali, 24, who was convicted for the rape and murder of the minor girl in Kasur city, some 50-km from Lahore, was hanged at 5.30am in the presence of the victim's father Amin Ansari and magistrate Adil Sarwar in Kot Lakhpat Central Jail. The girl's uncle was also present at the jail.

A resident of Kasur, Imran was accused of being involved in at least nine incidents of rape-cum-murder of minors. The court has given its verdict in five cases.

Imran had told police that he committed the heinous crime after he got addicted to sex by watching child pornography.

In January, police arrested Imran through a DNA match two weeks after he raped and killed the minor girl and threw her body into a garbage dump in Kasur.

The incident triggered nation-wide street protests in Pakistan with people demanding a harsh punishment for the convict. Violent protests following the girl's murder claimed two lives in Kasur.

He was sentenced to death in February for the minor girl's rape and murder.

His appeals against the verdict failed and earlier this month President Arif Alvi rejected a plea for clemency.

An anti-terrorism court in Lahore last week ruled that Imran's death sentence will be carried out on October 17 at Lahore's Central Jail.

Amin Ansari, the victim's father, filed a petition in the Lahore High Court, seeking public hanging of Imran.

A two-member Lahore High Court bench comprising Justice Sardar Shamim Ahmed and Justice Shahbaz Rizvi on Tuesday dismissed Ansari's plea and ordered Imran's execution in the jail.

Ansari's counsel had also requested the court to allow a live telecast of the hanging inside the jail. The court did not agree and dismissed the plea.

Contingents of police and anti-riot forces surrounded Kot Lakhpat jail at the time of Imran's hanging.

Talking to reporters after Imran's hanging, Ansari said: "Today I am happy to see the murderer of my daughter hanged. The beast met his end."



He said his family is devastated by the loss of his beloved daughter.

Ansari regretted that the authorities did not allow the live telecast of the hanging.

He, however, thanked the chief justice of Pakistan and said that the "murderer had met his fate today".

After the execution, Imran's family accompanied by police contingents took his body to Kasur.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The UGC has asked all universities and higher educational institutions to set up 'Intellectual Property centres' and 'Innovation labs' to promote a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship.

"The start-ups, innovators and entrepreneurs from across the country have appreciably applied their creativity to address social issues.

"However, it is further needed that a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship must be promoted as there is is no dearth of grassroots level innovations in the country and efforts must be made to facilitate their growth," the University Grants Commission (UGC) said in a letter to universities.

Setting up Intellectual Property Centres at universities, establishing innovation labs, setting up entrepreneurship cells and adding entrepreneurship into curriculum are among the activities prescribed by UGC.

It has also asked universities to encourage organisation of boot camps, mentoring and investor sessions and holding entrepreneurship focussed events at colleges where successful entrepreneurs be invited to interact with students.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Pakistan's Opposition leader on Wednesday accused the country's anti-graft body of forming an "unholy alliance" with Premier Imran Khan's party to target opposition leaders and vowed to continue his political struggle despite his arrest in a housing scam.

Shehbaz, who is the president of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), addressed the National Assembly session convened on the Opposition's demands to protest his arrest by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

The former Punjab chief minister has been in the NAB's custody since October 5 in connection with the housing scam. The National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser last week had ordered the NAB to bring him to the Assembly after the opposition requested him to convene a session, Dawn reported.

Shehbaz, 67, thanked opposition parties and leaders, in particular, Pakistan Peoples Party chairperson Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, for backing him.

"This is the first time in history that an opposition leader was arrested without any charges in such a hasty manner," said Shehbaz, adding that he did not want to discuss the merit of the case against him.Samajwadi Secular Morcha (SSM) founder Shivpal Yadav Wednesday shifted to the govenment bunglow vacated by Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati at 6 Lal Bahadur Shastri Marg here.

"After having 'puja and hawan', Shivpalji has formally entered the bungalow today on the occasion of Durga Ashtmi," an SSM leader said.

Yadav reached the bungalow with supporters this morning and performed religious rituals before entering it.

The Yogi Adiyanath government had allotted the bungalow to Yadav after Mayawati vacated it following a Supreme Court directive.

"I have been allotted the bungalow as there were intelligence reports of threats to me," Yadav had said after allotment of the bungalow.

"I am a five-time legislator and it has been allotted to me as a senior member of the state assembly," said Shivpal Yadav, who is Samajwadi Party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav's brother and the estranged uncle of party president Akhilesh Yadav.

While the Congress suggested favouritism in the allocation, saying Yadav was working for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, the BJP had defended the decision, saying "no should be seen in it".

While launching the morcha in August, Shivpal Yadav had said he felt neglected in the SP after Akhilesh Yadav took charge of the party.

Yadav has not quit the SP even after forming the morcha, which he says will contest the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

Mayawati vacated the bungalow after the Supreme Court struck down on May 7 an amendment to the Uttar Pradesh Ministers (Salaries, Allowances and Miscellaneous Provisions) Act that allowed former chief ministers to retain their government accommodation when their term ended.

After this, former CM's including Mayawati, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Akhilesh Yadav, Narain Dutt Tiwari, and Rajnath Singh had to vacate their bungalows in the state capital.

Shivpal Yadav, who was residing at his own Vikramaditya Marg residence, will be using the bunglow for running party activities, the SSM leader said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)"Game of Thrones" star Sophie Turner says she studied about schizophrenia and mental disorders to prepare for her role in "X-Men: Dark Phoenix".

The 22-year-old actor, who reprises her "X-Men: Apocalypse" role of Jean Grey in the new film, told Screenrant that director Simon Kinberg provided her the study material and she almost experienced what it was like to hear voices in the head.

"As soon as Simon [Kinberg] kind of told me what the movie was about we just started straight away sharing ideas, sharing materials. Simon gave me a big, big book on schizophrenia," Turner said.

"I actually found this thing online, on YouTube. And it was just kind of repeating, repeating, repeating, what it sounds like being a schizophrenic. So I used to walk around town with all these voices in my head. Kind of feel it out. And see what it felt like," she added.

The actor said she wanted to understand the complexity of her character and that is why she devoted so much time in prep work.

"Jean is just ... she's so, so, layered. She's so complex in this movie. I really don't think that I've done more research for a role than for this one and I loved every minute of it," she added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Surgical strike is only one of wide spectrum of options available to the country against terror infrastructure across the Line of Control and the Indian Army will take action as the situation warrants, a top Army commander said here on Wednesday.

Chief of Army's Northern Command Lt Gen Ranbir Singh also played down the statements made by Major General Asif Ghafoor, spokesperson of Pakistan military's Inter Services Public Relations, on Saturday warning that Islamabad would launch 10 surgical strikes in response to single such offensive from India.

"It does not really matter as to what statements are being made from which quarter, but it is important for us to retain our capability, to define our capability and to be prepared for any contingency at all times," the Lt Gen said.

"I wish to assure you that the Indian Army is fully prepared and committed and have the resolve that when required, we will be able to exhibit our capability," he told reporters while replying to queries on the issue.

The Army commander was also asked if the force can carry out surgical strike again against terror infrastructure in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and about Ghafoor's statements.

"Indian armed forces are prepared for a range of options and I assure you that at any time, when the situation warrants, we will be able to take action, which is deemed appropriate at that time," Lt Gen Ranbir Singh said.

"Surgical strikes is only one of those options over a wide spectrum of options that are available to the northern command, Indian army and to our great nation,"he said.

Major General Asif Ghafoor had made the remarks while talking to the media in London, where he was accompanying Pakistan Army Chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa on a visit.

"If India dares to launch a surgical strike inside Pakistan, it will face 10 surgical strikes in response," Ghafoor was quoted as saying by Radio Pakistan. He also said those who think of any misadventure against us should have no doubt in their minds on Pakistan's capabilities.

Lt Gen Ranbir Singh said the people of the country should be rest assured that the Indian Army shall be able to achieve the task entrusted to it.

"Therefore, whether any statement is made, whatever form and whichever quarter of the world, the Indian armed forces are professionally committed. We wish to assure you that we remain a very responsible and accountable instrument of national power. We shall be able to achieve the task whenever it is entrusted to us," Lt Gen Singh said.

He said the force has the resolve to be able to further refine its capabilities.

"But let there be no doubt about it, Indian Army remains committed and Indian Army is fully capable and when required, any challenging task will be undertaken and you will find the Army coming out with flying colours," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Student union elections were held in Haryana after 22 years on Wednesday but barring the BJP-affiliated ABVP major student bodies stayed away, protesting that these were only indirect polls.

In Kurukshetra, over 70 protesting students were detained by police. There were reports of similar demonstrations from other parts of the state.

In the indirect polling system, class representatives are elected in colleges and department representatives in universities.

They in turn elect the president and other office bearers of student unions.

According to the results available till 5 pm, 517 of the 1,108 class representatives (CRs) had been elected unopposed in 11 universities in the state.

Similarly, 1,816 CRs in colleges were elected unopposed.

Student union polls were banned in 1996 by the then chief minister Bansi Lal following incidents of violence.

The state Minister Ram Bilas Sharma said the polling was peaceful.

There was tight security on the campuses, including in Kurukshetra University and Maharshi Dayanand University in Rohtak.

In Kurukshetra, over 200 students affiliated to the National Students Union of India (NSUI) and the now disbanded Indian National Students' Organisation - the student wings of the Congress and the Indian National Lok Dal respectively - held a demonstration.

Other student organisations also joined the procession to express resentment against the state government over the holding of indirect elections.

The police rounded up over 70 protesting students in Kurukshetra for violating prohibitory orders imposed under section 144 of the CrPC, Kurukshetra's Deputy Superintendent of Police Gurmail Singh said.

They were taken to the police station and later released.

He said police personnel were deployed at all the 69 polling booths.

Protests against indirect polls also took place at other places, including Kaithal and Faridabad, reports said.

Congratulating the students, teachers and officials, Ram Bilas Sharma said the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party had lived up to its election promise.

In the run-up to October 2014 assembly elections, the BJP had promised that if voted to power it will revoke the ban on student elections.

On Friday, Haryana police had resorted to baton-charges on students sitting on dharnas in Kurukshetra and Rohtak demanding direct polls.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Ten people, including four women, were killed in Odisha's Nuapada district early Wednesday when their car collided head-on with a truck, a senior police official said.

The victims, mostly members of one family, were on their way home to Pithora in Chhattisgarh after offering prayers at the Vaishno Devi temple in the district when the accident occurred near Silada on NH-35 around 2.30am, Nuapada Superintendent of Police Smit P Parmar said.

The impact of the collision was so severe that all 10 persons on board the vehicle, including four women and the driver, died on spot, he said.

The truck driver, however, abandoned his vehicle and fled the spot, Parmar said.

"After getting information, police and fire brigade personnel rushed to the site and pulled the bodies out of the mangled vehicle," the SP said.

The bodies have been handed over to the family members after post-mortem, he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Tension is brewing in some parts of Kerala hours ahead of the opening of the ancient Sabarimala Temple for monthly prayers Wednesday with devotees opposing the Supreme Court order stepping up protests and police taking some of them into custody.

Two women devotees could not proceed to the shrine after protests against the decision to allow women in the menstruating age into the Ayyappa shrine.

A woman from Andhra Pradesh, in the below 50 year age group, who tried to climb the Sabarimala Hills to reach the Lord Ayyappa temple, returned to Pamba following protests by male devotees.

She was provided security by the police to climb the hills but was forced to return after protests.

A woman from Alappuzha district, said to be in the below 50 years age group, who was on the way to Sabarimala armed with the Supreme Court order was stopped from proceeding at the Pathanamthitta bus terminal by passengers.

The passengers including women chanting Ayyappa mantra urged the woman, Liby, not to violate the centuries-old custom of the shrine where women in the menstruating age group are not allowed.

Liby said she would climb the hills and no one had the right to violate the freedom granted by the Supreme Court.

The woman was later escorted out to the bus station by the police.

Police have strengthened security in Pamba, Nilackal and Erumelithe, which are important centres to be covered before reaching Lord Ayyappa temple in Sabarimala.

Some people were taken into custody by police at Nilackal for staging protests against the decision to allow women in the menstruating age into the Ayyappa shrine.

Kerala Police chief Loknath Behera said in Thiruvananthapuram that no one would be allowed to disturb the law and order situation in the state.

Hundreds of protesters have gathered at Nilackal, the main gateway to Sabarimala, hours after the police used force to disperse devotees opposing the entry of girls and women of menstrual age into the hill shrine.

Women devotees have also gathered at Nilackal where firebrand right wing Hindu leader K P Sasikala would address a gathering.

Congress also staged a sit-in protest at Nilackal.

Earlier, the police, deployed in large numbers in Nilackal, some 20 kms away from the Sabarimala hilltop, had removed a makeshift shelter erected by a protesting group- Sabarimala Achara Samrakshana Samiti.

The protesting group of devotees had been staging a sit-in chanting Ayyappa mantra in the shelter in protest against the Supreme Court order permitting women of all age groups to enter the shrine.

The small group of protesters ran away from the spot when the police initiated action in the early hours of Wednesday when they tried to block buses at the key entry point to the temple.

Hours ahead of the opening of the hill shrine for the monthly prayers, police said they would not let anyone block the movement of people.

Taking full control of Nilackal, police also warned against those who creating hurdles for pilgrims.

Police took strong action against the protesters after some of them checked vehicles heading to Pamba and prevented women in the age group of 10 and 50 from entering the hill shrine.

A couple from Tamil Nadu, aged 45 and 40, on their way to Pamba, were forced to get off from the KSRTC bus Monday night allegedly by some activists of the Sabarimala Achara Samrakshana Samiti.

Although the couple had said that they would go only up to Pamba and not climb Sabarimala, the activists stopped them from proceeding.

The police later took them to safety.

Some activists of the Sabarimala Achara Samrakshana Samiti, who had stayed back at Nilackal, also allegedly prevented mediapersons from carrying out their work.

Crew of various TV channels were asked to leave the place. They were able to return to the spot after additional policemen were deployed in the area.

Around 500 police personnel, including women, have been deployed in Nilackal to ensure a safe passage to pilgrims to the Lord Ayyappa temple.

Meanwhile, another group of devotees said they would stage a Gandhian-style peaceful protest in Pamba.

The shrine located on the mountain ranges of the ecologically fragile Western Ghats opens later in the evening for the first time after the recent Supreme Court order.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has said no one would be allowed to block devotees from proceeding to Sabarimala.

Groups of women devotees including senior citizens, clad in traditional sarees, had stopped each and every vehicle at Nilackal Tuesday.

Besides private vehicles, devotees even stopped and inspected Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) buses and asked young women to get off them Tuesday.

Very few police personnel were present when the incidents happened.

Protesting women had said no women belonging to the banned age group of 10-50 will be allowed to travel further from Nilackal and offer worship at the shrine.

The temple would be closed on October 22 after the five-day monthly prayer during the Malayalam month of Thulam.

The Supreme Court had on September 28 passed a historic judgement lifting the ban on entry of girls and women of menstrual age into the temple, a verdict that was hailed by rights activists but opposed by traditionalists.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Three children were buried alive when a portion of the land they were digging caved-in here in Madhya Pradesh Wednesday morning, police said.

Five children were engaged in soil digging work at the land plot located in Botrai village, Damoh Superintendent of Police Vivek Agrawal said.

Two of them were standing to collect the soil while the others were digging when suddenly a portion of the land caved-in, burying the three children under the loose soil debris, he said.

The other two kids immediately alerted some villagers who rushed to the spot and pulled out the trapped children from the debris, he said.

The three victims, all cousins and aged between 10 and 15 years, were rushed to a community health centre in the nearby Patharia town where doctors declared them brought dead, the police official said.

A case has been registered at the Patharia police station and an investigation is on into the incident, he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has made history after the parliament approved Tuesday his new 20-member cabinet half composed by women who have been offered key posts including the defense portfolio.

The new cabinet received confidence vote from the parliament in what has become the first balanced cabinet in the history of the country known for patriarchal society.

Abiy who rose to power in April has downsized his new team from 28 to 20 posts, entrusting ten portfolios to women and ten to men.

The new team has drawn attention as women are tussled in key positions with the defense ministry going to Aisha Mohammed Musa and the finance ministry to Ahmed Shide who was the previous governments spokesman.

Abiy also came up with the Ministry of Peace at the time one of Africas fastest growing economies is facing threats of internal conflicts in the wake of a spate of ethnic clashes in recent months.

The new ministry will be headed by Muferiat Kemal, a former speaker of parliament.

Our women ministers will disprove the old adage that women cant lead, Abiy told the Parliamentarians.

This decision is the first in the history of Ethiopia and probably in Africa.Three persons were killed and as many injured after a collision between their car and an SUV collided with each other in Rajasthan's Kota district, police said Wednesday.

The incident took place late in the evening Tuesday, they said, adding that among the dead are the car driver and a grandfathergrandson duo.

The deceased were identified as Suresh Sharma, 62, his 10-month-old grandson Tanshu, and car diver Deepak Sharma, 27 -- all residents of Kota city, Deoli-Manji police station SHO Amar Nath said.

Barring the driver, the occupants of the car were all from the same family.

Three members of the family -- Ashish Sharma, his mother Savitri Sharma, and wife Priyanka Sharma -- suffered injuries and were admitted to a private hospital in Kota where they are undergoing treatment, the SHO said.

Ashish Sharma, a Kota city resident and a lecturer in a dental college in Ahmadabad was returning to Kota with his family after paying obeisance at the Sati Mata temple in Sangod when their car collided head on with an SUV near Khand village, SHO Nath said.

The six were rushed to hospital in Kota where doctors declared three of them dead, he said.

A case of negligent driving has been registered against the SUV driver who fled the spot after the mishap, the SHO said.

The bodies were handed over to the family members this morning after postmortem and investigation into the matter is underway, he added.

In a separate incident, a 35-year-old mean was killed when a truck hit his motorcycle in Jhalawar district, police said.

The deceased, identified as Santosh Meena, is a resident of Lambawar village in Baran district, they said.

He died on the spot late in the evening on Tuesday after a speeding truck hit his motorbike on Hgatoli road under Aklera police station in the Jhalawar district.

The truck driver fled the spot after the mishap but his truck was seized, Aklera police station SHO Ramkishan Meghwal said.

Police have registered a case of negligent driving against the truck driver and efforts are underway to nab him, Meghwal said.

The body was handed over to the family members after postmortem, he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Three militants, including a wanted Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) commander, and a policeman were killed during an encounter between ultras and security forces in the city Wednesday, prompting authorities to close down schools and snap mobile internet services.

Police assisted by the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) launched a cordon and search operation in Fateh Kadal in downtown area of the city following a specific intelligence input about the presence of militants there, a senior police official said.

"Cordon was laid in the early hours following specific intelligence input. Three militants, including Mehrauddin Bangroo, were killed in the encounter," Inspector General of Police (IGP) Kashmir Swayam Prakash Pani said.

The other two militants have been identified as Fahad Waza and over ground worker Rayees, son of the house owner where the encounter took place.

The IGP said Bangroo was involved in several killings in Srinagar and was the key coordinator for the Lashkar in the city.

"Bangroo's elimination is an important achievement for security forces," Pani added.

Giving details of the operation, police officials said a siege was laid around the house where the militants were hiding.

"As soon as the police barged inside the house, the policemen came under a heavy barrage of firing from the militants, resulting in injuries to one jawan, who succumbed later," the officials said.

They said the security forces responded to the firing of militants in equal measure and in the heavy exchange of fire, the house, where the ultras were hiding, got destroyed.

"The militants managed to run out of the house and tried to enter into an adjacent house, but were killed in the street," they added.

The policeman killed during the operation was identified as constable Kamal Kishore.

A wreath-laying ceremony was held for the slain policeman at the District Police Line here before his mortal remains were sent to his native place.

The district administration has closed all schools and educational institution in the city as a precautionary measure and internet services on mobile have also been snapped.

Meanwhile, clashes broke out in several parts of the old city after the encounter as miscreants pelted stones at the security forces, the officials said.

They said curfew has been imposed in some pockets of the city to maintain law and order.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Tamil Nadu unit BJP President Tamilisai Soundararajan Wednesday said the Kerala government can consider bringing an ordinance to reinforce the ban on women of menstrual age from entering the hill shrine of Lord Ayyappa at Sabarimala.

She also accused the LDF government in Kerala of acting against Hindu sentiments.

"...the state government can bring an ordinance," she told reporters here in response to questions on the proests against the supreme court order lifting the ban on entry of women in the age group of 10-50 into the temple.

The Constitution had provisions to protect people's faith and the state government should take the ordinance route to meet demands of the protesters, she said.

"By declining requests to go for an appeal or file a review petition, against the Supreme Court order on women's entry, the Kerala government is only displaying its anti-Hindu sentiments," she told reporters here.

Her remarks came on the day when protesters opposing the Supreme Court order turned violent and clashed with police at Nilackal at the foothill of Sabarimala.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K



Palaniswami Wednesday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, seeking his intervention to secure the release of eight fishermen from the state slapped with a hefty fine of



Rs 60 lakh Sri Lankan rupees each on charges of poaching fish.

Urging Modi to direct the Ministry of External Affairs to register "our strong protest at the highest level in Sri Lanka," the chief minister wanted India to put forth an effective defence in Lankan courts and secure the release of the fishermen sans the fine (approximately Rs 26 lakh per head) or jail term.

Eight fishermen from Thoothukudi district, arrested on August 21 by Sri Lankan Navy for allegedly fishing in their territorial waters, had been convicted under a new legal provision that entails heavy fine for illegal fishing, Palaniswami said in his letter to Modi.

"They were convicted by a Sri Lankan court under the provisions of Fisheries (Regulation of Foreign Fishing Boats) Act...and imposed a fine of LKR (Lankan rupee) 60 lakh per head (approx INR 26 lakh per head)," he said.

The court has also ordered that in case the fine was not paid, the fishermen will have to serve three months prison term.

Palaniswami said he had drawn Modi's attention last July to the amendments made by Lanka to the two acts and their consequences for Indian fishermen.

Sri Lanka enforcing the amendments against Indian fishermen from Tamil Nadu is nothing but a "mockery" of the diplomatic efforts being undertaken by the Centre to sort out the sensitive issue, the AIADMK leader said.

"This has created a sense of panic in the minds of fishermen of Tamil Nadu," he said.

The Tamil Nadu chief minister requested the prime minister to ensure immediate action to secure the release of the eight fishermen and eight other fishermen languishing in Lankan jails.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Top police brass of eight northern states and some paramilitary forces proposed a slew of measures Wednesday to enhance coordination among them to tackle crime in the region.

The proposed measures included shifting of hardcore criminals to jails of other states and deploying paramilitary forces for prison security besides sharing real time inputs about criminals and their activities.

The novel proposals were made and discussed during a brainstorming session of the police brass of Punjab, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Delhi and Chandigarh here.

Organised by the Punjab police as the "fifth meeting of northern region police coordination committee", the police officials discussed a broad range of issues pertaining to internal security, terror threats, cross-border terrorism, drug abuse and radicalization of youth, said an official release.

Delivering his keynote address, Punjab Director General Police Suresh Arora said such meetings have become "all the more relevant" in the face of multiple security challenges.

He said fighting terrorism and other organised crimes in the northern region through joint mechanisms was the need of the hour.

Arora appreciated the "effective coordination" among the police of the members states, which also resolved Wednesday to share "realtime inputs" about criminals and drug peddlers.

He also suggested evolving an inter-state mechanism to deploy paramilitary forces for prison security in member states to help contain the activities of smugglers and gangsters lodged in their jails.

Emphasizing on the need for effective cooperation among states, CRPF ADG VSK Kaumudi proposed lodging hardcore criminals to the jails of other states and ensuring their court appearances through video conferencing.

Punjab DGP (Law & Order) Hardeep Singh Dhillon expressed satisfaction over "better coordination" between the state police with the BSF.

He said in consultation with the BSF, Punjab has deployed 50 companies equipped with armoured vehicles along the border as line of second defence.

He also emphasized to put strict vigil along Ujh and Ravi rivers on the J&K border to check infiltration from across the international border.

J&K ADGP (Headquarters) Abdul Gani Mir cited activities of drug trafficking across the international border and POK, and briefed the participants on the efforts being taken by his state police and government towards de-addiction.

Gani Mir spoke about the J&K experience of using the Public Safety Act to detain drug smugglers and suppliers in J&K.

Punjab DGP (Intelligence) Dinkar Gupta briefed the participants about the emerging security scenario in the border state of Punjab and inter-state, inter-regional activities of anti-national and terrorist elements.

He also suggested that thrust be put on the joint efforts on de-radicalization of misguided youths.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticised rapidly mounting global condemnation of Saudi Arabia over the mystery of missing journalist Jamal Khashoggi, warning of a rush to judgment and echoing the Saudis' request for patience.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Trump compared the case of Khashoggi, who Turkish officials have said was murdered in the Saudis' Istanbul consulate, to the allegations of sexual assault levelled against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearing.

"I think we have to find out what happened first," Trump said. "Here we go again with, you know, you're guilty until proven innocent. I don't like that. We just went through that with Justice Kavanaugh and he was innocent all the way as far as I'm concerned."



Trump's remarks were his most robust defence yet of the Saudis, a US ally he has made central to his Mideast agenda.

They put the president at odds with other key allies and with some leaders in his Republican Party who have condemned the Saudi leadership for what they say is an obvious role in the case.

Trump appeared willing to resist the pressure to follow suit, accepting Saudi denials and their pledge to investigate.

The Oval Office interview came not long after Trump spoke Tuesday with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

He spoke by phone a day earlier with King Salman, and he said both deny any knowledge of what happened to Khashoggi.

After speaking with the king, Trump floated the idea that "rogue killers" may have been responsible for the disappearance.

The president told the AP on Tuesday that that description was informed by his "feeling" from his conversation with Salman and that the king did not use the term.

In Turkey earlier Tuesday, a high-level Turkish official told the AP that police investigators searching the Saudi Consulate had found evidence that Khashoggi was killed there.

Also Tuesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with the king and crown prince in Riyadh and said the Saudis had already started a "serious and credible investigation" and seemed to suggest it could lead to people within the kingdom.

The secretary of state noted that the Saudi leaders, while denying knowledge of anything that occurred inside the consulate, had committed to accountability "including for Saudi Arabia's senior leaders or senior officials."



Pompeo was heading next to Turkey, where officials have accused the Saudis of using a 15-member team to kill Khashoggi inside the consulate.

Trump said he hoped the Saudis' own investigation of Khashoggi's disappearance would be concluded in "less than a week."



In the meantime, there were signs at home that Trump's party was growing uncomfortable with his willingness to defend the Saudis.

In an interview with Fox News, a prominent Trump ally in the Senate called on Saudi Arabia to reject the crown prince, known as MBS, who rose to power last year and has aggressively sought to soften the kingdom's image abroad and attract foreign investment.

"This guy has got to go," said Sen Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, turning to speak to the camera.

"Saudi Arabia, if you're listening, there are a lot of good people you can choose, but MBS has tainted your country and tainted himself."



Khashoggi, a Saudi citizen who was also a resident of the United States, has been a contributor to The Washington Post and a critic of Saudi leaders, especially Crown Prince Mohammed.

International leaders and business executives are severing or rethinking ties to the Saudi government after Khashoggi's high-profile disappearance.

Trump has resisted any action, pointing to huge US weapons deals pending with Saudi Arabia and saying that sanctions could end up hurting the American economy.

He said it was too early to say whether he endorsed other countries' actions.

"I have to find out what happened," he said.

But his complaint about "guilty until proven innocent" and comparison to the Kavanaugh situation suggested he was giving the Saudis more leeway than other allies.

Khashoggi went to the consulate on October 2 to get documents for his upcoming marriage to a Turkish woman while his fiancee waited outside.

She and Turkish authorities say he never emerged and he has not been heard from since.

Khashoggi, 59, had been living in the US for a year in self-imposed exile and writing columns for the opinion section of the Post.

Trump said Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin's trip to attend a Saudi investment conference is still on but could be cancelled by Friday depending on what the investigation finds.

"I think we'll also be guided by what other countries are doing," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)US President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he expects to know within days what happened to Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, who is alleged to have been murdered by Saudi agents.

"We will probably know that by the end of the week," Trump said at the White House. The president said he would be getting a "full report" from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on his return from meetings with Saudi leaders.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Facing the prospect of bruising electoral defeat in congressional elections, President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he won't accept the blame if his party loses control of the House in November, arguing his campaigning and endorsements have helped Republican candidates.

In a wide-ranging interview three weeks before Election Day, Trump told The Associated Press he senses voter enthusiasm rivaling 2016 and he expressed cautious optimism that his most loyal supporters will vote even when he is not on the ballot.

The AP asked Trump "if Republicans were to lose control of the House on November 6th or a couple of days later depending on how long it takes to count the votes do you believe you bear some responsibility for that?"



"No, I think I'm helping people," Trump said.

Elaborating, Trump added: "And I will say that we have a very big impact. I don't believe anybody's ever had this kind of an impact. They would say that in the old days that if you got the support of a president or if you've got the support of somebody it would be nice to have, but it meant nothing, zero. Like literally zero. Some of the people I've endorsed have gone up 40 and 50 points just on the endorsement."



Trump spoke on a range of subjects, defending Saudi Arabia from growing condemnation over the case of a missing journalist, accusing his longtime attorney Michael Cohen of lying under oath and flashing defiance when asked about the insult "Horseface" he hurled at Stormy Daniels, the porn actress who accuses him of lying about an affair.

Asked if it was appropriate to insult a woman's appearance, Trump responded, "You can take it any way you want."



Throughout much of the nearly 40-minute interview, he sat, arms crossed, in the Oval Office behind the Resolute Desk, flanked by top aides, including White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and communications director Bill Shine. White House counselor Kellyanne Conway listened from a nearby sofa.

The interview came as Trump's administration was being urged to pressure Saudi Arabia to account for the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Instead, Trump offered a defense for the US ally, warning against a rush to judgment, like with what happened with his Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, who was accused of sexual assault.

"Well, I think we have to find out what happened first," Trump said.

"Here we go again with, you know, you're guilty until proven innocent. I don't like that. We just went through that with Justice Kavanaugh. And he was innocent all the way." Weeks away from the midterms, Democrats are hopeful about their chances to recapture the House, while Republicans are increasingly confident they can hold control of the Senate.

Trump has been campaigning aggressively in a blitz of rallies aimed at firing up his base. He said he believes he's doing his job, but allowed he has heard from some of his supporters who say they may not vote this November.

"I'm not running," he said. "I mean, there are many people that have said to me ... 'I will never ever go and vote in the midterms because you're not running and I don't think you like Congress.'"



He added: "Well, I do like Congress." If Democrats take the House and pursue impeachment or investigations including seeking his long-hidden tax returns Trump said he will "handle it very well."



The president declared he was unconcerned about other potential threats to his presidency. He accused Cohen of lying when testifying under oath that the president coordinated on a hush-money scheme to buy Daniels' silence.

Trump on Tuesday declared the allegation "totally false." But in entering a plea deal with Cohen in August, federal prosecutors signaled that they accepted his recitation of facts and account of what occurred.

Trump said that Washington lawyer Pat Cipollone will serve as his next White House counsel and that he hoped to announce a replacement for U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley in the next week or two. He again repeated his frustration with Attorney General Jeff Sessions over the special counsel investigation, saying he could "fire him whenever I want to fire him, but I haven't said that I was going to."



On the ongoing Russia investigation, Trump defended his son Donald Trump Jr. for a Trump Tower meeting with a Kremlin-connected lawyer offering damaging information about Democrat Hillary Clinton. Trump called his son a "good young guy" and said he did what any political aide would have done.

Trump again cast doubt on climate change, suggesting, incorrectly, that the scientific community was evenly split on the existence of climate change and its causes. There are "scientists on both sides of the issue," Trump said.

"But what I'm not willing to do is sacrifice the economic well-being of our country for something that nobody really knows," Trump said.

He added: "I have a natural instinct for science, and I will say that you have scientists on both sides of the picture." Asked about his wartime leadership, Trump acknowledged that he has not brought U.S. troops home from conflict zones overseas and that there are more Americans serving in harm's way now than when he took office.

"It's not a lot more. It's a little bit more," he said.

Saying he's trying to preserve "safety at home," Trump added that if there are areas where people are threatening the US, "I'm going to have troops there for a period of time." Trump increased U.S. troop totals in Afghanistan by about 4,000 last year.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The lawyer of an American pastor whose confinement in Turkey caused a Turkish-US diplomatic rift is appealing his client's conviction on terror charges.

Andrew Brunson was convicted last week and sentenced to more than three years in prison, but was freed and allowed to leave Turkey for the two years he already spent in custody. He has since returned to the United States and met with President Donald Trump.

State-run Anadolu Agency said lawyer Ismail Cem Halavurt filed an appeal on Wednesday arguing the court's ruling was against "the law and procedures." Prosecutors who had sought a longer sentence for the evangelical pastor also filed a similar appeal.

Brunson was accused of links to Kurdish militants and a US-based Muslim cleric whom Turkey blames for a failed coup in 2016.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has called an Emergency Committee meeting on the Ebola virus outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which has already claimed around 130 lives.

The WHO has assessed the national and regional risk of the current Ebola outbreak in DRC as very high, although the global risk remains low and, so far, the UNs health watchdog has not called for any trade or travel restrictions to be imposed, the WHO said in a press release.

The Emergency Committee, scheduled for Wednesday at WHO headquarters in Geneva, will decide whether the outbreak constitutes a public health emergency of international concern, and what recommendations should be made to manage the spread of the disease.

This outbreak, the tenth to hit the DRC over the last four decades, was declared in North Kivu Province on August 1, this year and, based on the worsening security situation in and around the city of Beni, WHO elevated the risk from high to very high on September 28.

The agency identified 39 new confirmed cases that were reported between October 1 and 11, including 32 from Beni.

The DRC Ministry of Health, WHO and other partners have been responding to the outbreak with teams on the ground, but WHO has warned that continuing insecurity severely affects both civilians and frontline workers, forcing the suspension of the response for several days in late September, and raising the risk that the virus will continue to spread.

More than 20 civilians in Beni were killed in the incident that provoked the suspension, which came on the heels of multiple attacks in previous weeks. It is estimated by the UN that more than a million civilians under threat from armed groups, are internally-displaced in North Kivu; around 500,000 this year alone. The eastern region is close to the border with Uganda, and Rwanda.

Meanwhile, the UN Childrens Fund (UNICEF) reports that one month after the beginning of the school year, 80 per cent of school-aged children have returned to school in Beni and Mabalako health zones, the two epicenters of the Ebola outbreak. UNICEF has identified more than 1,500 schools in the areas affected by the epidemic.Turkmenistan inaugurated Wednesday a $3.4 billion petrochemical plant as the Central Asian state seeks to both obtain greater value from natural gas and reduce its reliance on exporting it to China and Iran.

The plant should produce 386,000 tonnes of polyethylene and more than 81,000 tonnes of polypropylene -- both used to make plastic -- by processing 5 billion cubic metres of gas per year, according to fuel and energy chief Myratgeldi Meredov.

President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, who participated in the opening of the facility on the coast of the Caspian Sea, said it is part of the country's "extensive plans to diversify the Turkmen energy complex, to increase the economy's export potential by launching production of gas and chemical products that are in demand on the global markets."



While Turkmenistan sits on the world's fourth largest gas reserves, its isolation means it has struggled to take full advantage of them.

Its dependence on a few neighbouring countries as customers was driven home when Russia decided to halt imports of Turkmenistan gas three years ago, leaving the country with just China and Iran as customers.

The chemicals produced at the plant will be exported to China, India, Turkey, Europe and other Central Asian countries.

Built by a consortium that includes South Korean firms LG International Corporation, Hyundai Engineering Corp.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The United Nations envoy for Syria announced on Wednesday he will step down at the end of November after more than four years in the key post, setting back UN efforts to end the seven-year war in Syria.

"I will myself be moving on as of the last week of November," Staffan de Mistura told the UN Security Council during a meeting on the crisis in Syria.

The Italian-Swedish diplomat, who became the UN's third Syria envoy in July 2014, said he was leaving for "purely personal reasons" and had discussed his plans to leave with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

De Mistura will be traveling to Damascus next week to push for the creation of a committee to agree on a post-war constitution for Syria.

Syria is resisting the UN-led effort to set up a constitutional committee that will be comprised of government officials, opposition members and representatives of civil society.

"I am not laying down the charge until the last hour of the last day of my mandate," he said.

De Mistura was appointed UN envoy for Syria in July 2014 after veteran Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi resigned following the failure of peace talks in Geneva.

Brahimi spent two years in the position, stepping in after former UN chief Kofi Annan quit just six months into the role. Annan had described the Syria envoy's job as "mission impossible."



De Mistura's departure will complicate UN peace efforts at a time when the Syrian government is continuing to make territorial gains, opening up prospects for a political settlement to end the war.

More than 360,000 people have died in the war in Syria, which began in March 2011 as an uprising against President Bashar al-Assad but has since morphed into a complex war with myriad armed groups, some of which have foreign backing.

Among the names being floated as a possible successor are the UN's Middle East peace coordinator Nickolay Mladenov and the UN envoy for Iraq Jan Kubic, according to UN diplomats.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Uttar Pradesh Congress held Wednesday a Navratri 'kanya pujan' function at the party headquarters to honour young girls, attracting the BJP charge of misusing religion for votes.

UP Congress chief Raj Babbar Babbar held the 'kanya pujan' along with party leaders and workers amid chanting of holy 'mantras' (hymns).

The Congress Sewa Dal claimed it has been organising the ceremony every year in all state districts.

During the function Babbar offered gifts and food packets to young girls, who are "worshipped" as part of the Navratri celebrations.

Speaking on the occasion, Babbar said his party has been giving the same respect to all religions and will continue to do so in future as well.

The BJP attacked the Congress dismissing its claims.

BJP spokesperson Manish Shukla said it is "ironical" that the Congress, which has coined terms like "Hindu terror" and dubbed Hindutva as "bigger threat" than Lashkar-e-Taiba is now holding such functions of religious fervour for "obvious political reasons."



"The Congress has always been seeking votes in the name of religion, caste and region and today's programme proves this beyond doubt," he said.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi's Kailash Mansarovar Yatra during August this year and his frequent visits to temples and other religious shrines during poll campaigns too had come in for severe criticism by the BJP in the past.

Seva Dal's state convenor Pramod Pandey earlier said it has always been the policy of the party to respect all religions and it has never sought votes in the name of religion.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The US on Wednesday announced its intent to withdraw from the little-known UN Universal Postal Union (UPU), arguing that the current system that governs international postal rates allows countries like China to provide subsidies to their postal companies to ship products to the US at cheaper rates thus putting American firms at a disadvantage.

The State Department on Wednesday was scheduled to provide a notice in Switzerland to indicate that the US will be initiating withdrawal procedures from the UPU.

Even as the US is open to negotiations, the self-declared rates by the country could come into effect as soon as within six months.

"Under the current rules of the Universal Postal System, foreign governments, foreign posts are able to send packages to the United States at highly subsidised rates," a senior administration official said.

China, for instance, accounts for a large portion of the flow, but there are also other countries involved and other posts involved, the official said.

Singapore, for example, and several countries in Europe benefit from this. "So this is not a China issue, per se, it's a situation where people are getting hurt in this country by an unfair system," the official explained.

The issue, the official claimed, has been long due and it was then US President Ronald Reagan who had first expressed concern in 1986.

Reagan had expressed concern to correct this problem, but it's an example where the US, stuck in a multilateral organisation with 193 countries and only one vote, has been saddled with this problem, the official noted.

Giving an example, the official said a one-pound package costs domestically about USD 10 to USD 13 for a US business or manufacturer to send, whereas the Chinese mailer, for the last mile, and same distance, one would reimburse about USD 2.50.

"That's a huge gap. It's an even bigger gap for a 4.4-pound package: The US mailer pays about USD 20 to USD 23 while the Chinese mailers pay just USD 5," the official added.

According to another senior administration official, there are 40 to 70 per cent discounts on packages from China to the US compared to what it would be to send them domestically.

"That's costing us about USD 300 million per year in -- in the United States and that's what we're trying to fix," the official said.

Explaining the reason for withdrawing from the international postal body, the official said the US Postal Service winds up picking up the tab for that which hurts the Post Office.

Secondly, in order for the Post Office to make up the losses on these foreign packages, it also raises the rates on Americans who want to send foreign packages abroad, and that hurts America's exporters. "So it's a double whammy there," he said.

According to the official, it's a system where America's own domestic manufacturers get hurt, the US Postal System gets hurt, and in an age of the Internet where there's been a proliferation of these so-called third-party marketplaces, this subsidy has basically facilitated the transfer of both a high level of counterfeit goods as well as the narcotic and fentanyl trade.

Last month, a US interagency delegation travelled to Ethiopia, where the UN Universal Postal Union meeting was taking place and demanded revision in the system.

"We were rebuffed there. Everyone was on notice that if we were rebuffed, we would move forward. This is in terms of, again, the Trump administration themes, we were dealing with a multilateral organisation, one vote out for 193. We didn't get fairness, and so this administration's taking unilateral action," the official said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Secretary of State on Wednesday refused to blame key US ally Saudi Arabia over the disappearance of journalist even as Riyadh faced new claims he was killed and tortured inside its Istanbul consulate.

After talks with the Saudi leadership in Riyadh marked by expressions of mutual goodwill, Pompeo in Ankara met President whose government also remains wary of giving public details about Khashoggi's fate.

Pro-government Turkish media published gruesome new allegations Khashoggi was killed by being gradually dismembered by a Saudi assassination squad, some of whom the New York Times said were tied to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

But Pompeo declared he did not want "to talk about any of the facts", while President Donald Trump said innocence must be presumed, drawing a parallel with his US Supreme Court judge nominee who faced sexual assault accusations.

The controversy has blown a massive hole in attempts by Prince Mohammed to promote himself as a modern reformer and led to a spate of cancellations from a major Riyadh investment conference scheduled next week.

Khashoggi, a former regime insider who became critical of Prince Mohammed, has not been seen since he stepped inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2 to sort out marriage paperwork.



Turkish police on Wednesday began searching the residence of the Saudi consul in Istanbul for their investigation, with forensics experts in white overalls entering the building, an AFP correspondent said.

The Saudi consul Mohammed al-Otaibi left Istanbul for Riyadh on a scheduled Saudia flight Tuesday afternoon, with Ankara insisting he had not been expelled and left by his own choice.

Turkish police on Monday night also undertook an eight-hour search at the consulate itself, taking away soil and DNA samples. Erdogan said toxic material was found which had been "painted over".

Pompeo came to Ankara after Riyadh where he held a 20-minute talk with King Salman and then a brief meeting and much lengthier dinner with his son Prince Mohammed.

The top US diplomat said that in Saudi Arabia he stressed the "importance of them conducting a complete investigation into the disappearance" and Riyadh had vowed to do this.

"They made a commitment that they would show the entire world the results of their investigation," said Pompeo, adding Saudi also vowed that no-one would have immunity.



But he refused to be drawn on whether Khashoggi was alive or dead and who could be responsible. "I don't want to talk about any of the facts. They didn't want to either."



Pompeo held 40 minutes of talks at the airport with Erdogan, whose government has echoed the American reticence to disclose details or make accusations.

Interviewed by state-run Anadolu news agency, Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu refused to be drawn into commenting on what may have happened inside the consulate.

"I have my own opinions... I have strong opinions but that (the investigation) is the job of the judiciary," he said. Cavusoglu also said after meeting Pompeo that the investigation had to be left to prosecutors.

Trump also refused to accuse Saudi Arabia, drawing a parallel with the case of new US Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh who had faced a swirl of allegations of sexual assault.

"Here we go again with, you know, you're guilty until proven innocent," he said. "I don't like that. We just went through that with Justice Kavanaugh and he was innocent all the way as far as I'm concerned," he told the Associated Press.



ALSO READ: Pompeo meets Turkish President over missing journalist Jamal Khashoggi

Several US media said Monday that the Saudis are preparing a report that Khashoggi's death resulted from a botched interrogation. However there has yet to be any sign of this being published.

Pro-government Turkish daily Yeni Safak reported it had heard audio recordings of Khashoggi being tortured during an interrogation, having his fingers cut off and then decapitated.

It said al-Otaibi can be heard on one tape saying during Khashoggi's torture: "Do this outside. You are going to get me in trouble."



The daily reported that in another tape, an unknown individual tells Otaibi: "If you want to live when you return to Saudi Arabia, be quiet!"



The New York Times reported Tuesday that a suspect identified by Turkey was a frequent companion of the prince's. Three other suspects are linked to his security detail and a fifth is a high-level forensic doctor, the Times said.

International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde was the latest to pull out of Prince Mohammed's much-trumpeted investment conference next week. An IMF spokesman said she had postponed her planned trip to the Middle East with a stop in Saudi Arabia.Vietnam has freed a well-known blogger after two years in prison on the condition that she leave for the United States.

Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh, known as "Mother Mushroom," was arrested in October 2016 and sentenced to 10 years in prison on charges of defaming the Communist government.

The conviction of the popular blogger, who wrote about human rights and industrial pollution, drew criticism from some Western governments and international human rights groups.

Friends of the 39-year-old blogger said she was on her way to the US with her mother and two young children.

"After numerous efforts, the family of Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh was reunited in a free country," her friend Nguyen Tin wrote on his Facebook page. "Congratulations to her small family."



Quynh's lawyer, Ha Huy Son, said her release was good but did not lift the obstacles faced by people who fight for democracy in Vietnam.

Nicholas Bequelin, Amnesty International's Regional Director for East and South East Asia, said in a statement, "While Mother Mushroom is no longer imprisoned, the condition for her release was exile and there are over one hundred people languishing in jail because they peacefully spoke their mind in public, on blogs or on Facebook."



In June, Vietnam's Communist authorities released prominent human rights lawyer Nguyen Van Dai and exiled him and another dissident to Germany.

Quynh's release came as US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis visited Vietnam.

Meawhile, a court in southern Binh Duong province sentenced an activist to seven years in prison on Wednesday after finding him guilty of producing 3,300 leaflets calling on workers to protest against a proposed law on special economic zones.

Nguyen Dinh Thanh, 27, was convicted of conducting propaganda against the state in the one-day trial.

Protests took place across the country in June against the proposed law, which critics say would favour Chinese investors. The government has since delayed passage of the law by the National Assembly.

Vietnam has stepped up a crackdown on dissent over the past two years with dozens of activists and bloggers put on trial for national security law-related offenses.

Despite sweeping economic reforms since the mid-1980s that opened Vietnam to foreign investment and trade and made it one of the fastest-growing economies in Asia, Communist authorities tolerate no challenge to their one-party rule.

There are more than 100 "prisoners of conscience" in Vietnamese prisons, according to Amnesty International.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Writer-director Vinta Nanda, who has accused actor Alok Nath of raping her, submitted a complaint against the actor at a police station here on Wednesday.

Police said they were yet to register an FIR in the case.

In a social media post last week, Nanda had alleged that the actor had raped her 19 years ago.

Nath had refuted the allegations and also filed a civil defamation suit against Nanda.

A senior police official said Nanda submitted her complaint against Nath at Oshiwara police station. "She gave a written application and our inquiry is on," he added.

Meanwhile, Nanda in a statement said the police were "very cooperative" and a woman police sub-inspector recorded her statement.

"It was not easy for me to give my statement as it is like reliving your pain," Nanda said.

Following Nanda's rape accusations, Nath had Monday filed a civil suit in a court here and sought Re 1 as damages for allegedly defaming him.

Nath's wife Ashu had also recorded her statement before a magistrate in connection with her complaint against Nanda and sought that defamation proceedings be initiated against the writer-director.

She told the court that their (Nath and Ashu's) reputation has been damaged because of the allegations levelled by Nanda.

Nath and his wife, in their complaint, said, "Without commenting on anything about her (Nanda), the fact remains that all such occasions, such as the #MeToo campaign, are being encashed by way of utilising the social media for the purpose of either gaining some name and fame or for the purpose of defaming the reputation of a person."



Nanda had alleged that the actor had raped her 19 years ago. Although she did not name Nath in her social media post, she referred to him as the actor who is known as the "most Sanskari person" in the field of acting. Nath is known for playing characters endorsing 'moral values' in films such as "Maine Pyaar Kiya", "Hum Aapke Hain Koun!", "Hum Saath Saath Hain" and "Vivah".

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Veteran actor Michael Caine has said casting couch was an open secret in Hollywood.

The 85-year-old actor said though he knew about producers like Harvey Weinstein asking for sexual favours from aspiring starlets in return for a role, he did not know the extent of the problem.

"In Hollywood, we were all aware of the casting couch. It was almost a joke. We knew it existed. But my view of the casting couch was that a young lady went to do an audition, the producer said, 'Well you've got the part if you did this', she said 'I'm not doing that' and he said 'well you haven't got the part' and she left.

"I thought it was terribly unfair that a talented actress might not get a part because she wouldn't do something sexual with the producer. But it happened and there was nothing I could do about it. I was a nobody in Hollywood. I didn't have the power of the big producers. But I never thought there were any actual physical attacks," Caine told Radio Times magazine.

The "King of Thieves" actor said he believes Weinstein's scandal will serve as an example for others in the wake of the #MeToo juggernaut.

"I did three pictures with him. Harvey was a single character in himself. But there is one great thing if it can be described like that, about Harvey and his behaviour. It's that actresses are safe now.

"No producer would dare to do anything sexually, because he knows he's going to wind up in court, which is exactly where Harvey is," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Prime Minister Narendra Modi will join a flag-hoisting ceremony at Red Fort on October 21 to mark the 75th anniversary of the 'Azad Hind government' headed by Subhas Chandra Bose, he announced Wednesday.

Modi stated this in a video interaction with Bharatiya Janata Party workers during which he spoke at length about his government's works to celebrate the contributions of many personalities who, he said, were neglected by the Congress in its rule of several decades.

He also hit out at the Congress over its criticism of him and the BJP government in Gujarat over Sardar Patel's statue project, claiming that the opposition party was in fact insulting Patel as it always had contempt for the country's first home minister, credited for uniting hundreds of princely states.

History knows that the Congress had a lot of contempt for Patel and it could never tolerate him being recognised for his works, Modi said, attacking the opposition party for its "Made in China" jibe at the project.

The Statue of Unity, said to be tallest in the world, will help the young generations appreciate Patel's contributions, he added.

While the Congress neglected the likes of Bhim Rao Ambedkar, Bose and Patel, the BJP believed in remembering everybody who contributed to nation-building, he said, citing his government's works, including constructing museums for noted tribal personalities and developing five places linked to Dalit icon Ambedkar.

"We respect everybody who served the country," he said while noting that he recently inaugurated a statue of Sir Chhotu Ram in Haryana.

He was a multi-faceted personality and people should read about him, Modi said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Zimbabwes Vice President Constantino Chiwenga is receiving medical treatment in a hospital in South Africa and wishes to come back next week, the Zimbabwean government has said following speculations that the General is in bad shape after he was injured in a bomb attack during electoral campaigns in June.

George Charamba, Presidential spokesperson has told state-run newspaper Herald that Chiwenga is responding well to treatment and has had a phone conversation with President Emmerson Mnangagwa.

Chiwenga, 61, reportedly left the country early last week for medical treatment in South Africa after he was hurt in a bomb attack that targeted President Mnangagwa during an electoral rally at White City stadium.

The man who played a decisive role in the removal of longtime ruler Robert Mugabe in November last year sustained injuries in the attack. His wife, Marry and several officials including military officers and government figures were also wounded.

Chiwenga did not leave the country despite the injuries until the formation of the new cabinet following Mnangagwas victory in the July polls.

Reports on social media indicated Chiwengas health had deteriorated and that he was in bad shape.

Charamba also pointed out that the Vice President may head back home next week as he is really concerned about the implementation of some government projects.

So, uppermost on his mind are projects which are meant to revamp our irrigation infrastructure. Barring the unforeseen, we expect the couple back into the country sometime this week, Charamba said.Chief Election Commissioner O P Rawat on Wednesday said that the Supreme Court's recent ruling on decriminalisation of politics would be strictly observed and candidates have to clearly mention the stages of against them in their affidavits.

The candidates' affidavits would be immediately uploaded on the Election Commission's website, the CEC told reporters while referring to the apex court order in September.

Mizoram and four other states are going to polls over the next two months.

The CEC was in Mizoram with two Election Commissioners- Sunil Arora and Ashok Lavasa - and four senior officials to review the poll preparedness for the November 28 assembly election.

The had said on September 25 that criminalisation of politics strikes at the very root of democracy by making the citizenry suffer at the hands of those "who are nothing but a liability" to the country.

In a 100-page verdict, the court had left it to Parliament to make a law to ensure that persons facing serious do not enter the political stream.

"The Election Commission would ensure strict observance of the Supreme Court's recent ruling on decriminalisation of politics and the candidates should clearly mention the stages of against them in the affidavits which would be immediately uploaded in the election commission website," Rawat said.

In Mizoram, at least 80 flying squads would keep a close vigil on the candidates to ensure that no cash, liquor or drugs are used in the hustings and the expenditure monitoring would include utilisation of GPS to monitor movements of suspected parties, he said.

The EC team under CEC on Tuesday interacted with representatives of different political parties and also people from administration as well civil society as part of preparation for the one day voting to 40-member Mizoram assembly on November 28.

A close watch would be kept on bank accounts of candidates to detect suspicious transactions, the CEC said.

The CEC was not categorical on questions whether Bru voters in the relief camps would exercise franchise in Mizoram as committed by the Election Commission on April 7, 2014.

"Certain decisions have to be made in view of fresh developments after free ration and cash dole were stopped by the Centre in the relief camps," Rawat said.

He said that the Election Commission has been assessing the situation closely.

The NGO Coordination Committee, a conglomeration of three major NGOs and two student bodies, had on Tuesday urged the EC to defranchise all the Bru voters who chose to stay back in Tripura and did not return to Mizoram.

Only 40 of the 5,407 Bru refugee families returned to Mizoram from the six refugee camps in Tripura during the stipulated one month of repatriation process that ended on September 30.

The CEC said that preparations for free, fair, peaceful and smooth polls to the 40-member Mizoram legislature on November 28 were on.

Arrangements were being made to ensure exercise of franchise by all, including persons with disabilities.

He said that the state government has been instructed to ensure availability of drinking water, toilet and electricity in all polling stations while ramps should also be made for persons with disabilities.

At least one polling station, manned only by women election and security officials, would be established, Rawat said.Women activists Wednesday welcomed the resignation of Minister of State for External Affairs M J Akbar, terming it a victory of the #MeToo movement in India, and asserted that the determination and courage of about 20 women journalists "belatedly forced" the Union minister to step down.

Akbar stepped down Wednesday following a spate of allegations of sexual harassment during his days as editor of several publications.

In a brief statement, Akbar said he had decided to seek justice in a court of law in his personal capacity.

Kavita Krishnan, secretary of the All India Progressive Women's Association, said it was the determination and courage of 20 women journalists who came forward to expose Akbar that has "belatedly" forced him to resign.

"PM (Narendra) Modi's silence and tacit support for Akbar so far would have continued had it not been for the steady flood of women who refused to be deterred by the defamation case," Krishnan told PTI.

Women rights activist Ranajan Kumari said Akbar should be ashamed that he did not resign earlier and that he was still fighting against the woman who called him out.

Activist Mariam Dhawale said it was a victory of the women's movement and Akbar's resignation was "long due".

"He should stop the terror tactics he is using to intimidate women who came out against him," Dhawale said.

Over the last fortnight, about 20 women have come forward to narrate their experiences of alleged sexual harassment at the hands of Akbar.

On Tuesday, around 19 women journalists, who have worked with 'The Asian Age' newspaper, had come out in support of their colleague Priya Ramani who has accused Akbar of sexual harassment, a joint statement issued by them had said.

The journalists had urged the court to hear their testimonies against Akbar, claiming that some of them suffered sexual harassment by the minister and others have been witness to it.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Women activists Wednesday welcomed the resignation of Minister of State for External Affairs M J Akbar, terming it a victory for the #MeToo movement in India, and asserted that the determination and courage of about 20 women journalists "belatedly forced" the Union minister to step down.

Akbar stepped down Wednesday following a spate of allegations of sexual harassment during his days as editor of several publications.

In a brief statement, Akbar said he had decided to seek justice in a court of law in his personal capacity.

Kavita Krishnan, secretary of the All India Progressive Women's Association, said it was the determination and courage of 20 women journalists who came forward to expose Akbar that has "belatedly" forced him to resign.

"PM (Narendra) Modi's silence and tacit support for Akbar so far would have continued had it not been for the steady flood of women who refused to be deterred by the defamation case," Krishnan told PTI.

"So now, finally M J Akbar had to resign thanks to the sheer numbers of women coming up to out him as a predator! Bravo women," she said in a tweet.

Women rights activist Ranjana Kumari said Akbar should be ashamed that he did not resign earlier and that he was still fighting against the woman who called him out.

Activist Mariam Dhawale said it was a victory of the women's movement and Akbar's resignation was "long due".

"He should stop the terror tactics he is using to intimidate women who came out against him," Dhawale, General Secretary of the All India Democratic Women's Association, said.

She also called for a free and fair investigation into the allegations.

"Akbar must be prevented from using his political and social influence to impede a just trial and intimidate the complainants," Dhawale said.

Delhi Commission for Women Chairperson Swati Maliwal said the credit of the resignation should be given to the movement of the women who forced Akbar to step down.

"Frankly, M J Akbar should be ashamed that he did not resign sooner," Maliwal said.

National Commission for Women Chairperson Rekha Sharma also welcomed the move.

Over the last fortnight, about 20 women have come forward to narrate their experiences of alleged sexual harassment at the hands of Akbar.

On Tuesday, around 19 women journalists, who have worked with 'The Asian Age' newspaper, had come out in support of their colleague Priya Ramani who has accused Akbar of sexual harassment, a joint statement issued by them had said.

The journalists had urged the court to hear their testimonies against Akbar, claiming that some of them suffered sexual harassment by the minister and others have been witness to it.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Some of the women journalists who had spoken out against Union minister M J Akbar for alleged sexual misconduct welcomed his resignation Wednesday, saying they felt "vindicated", but noted that they had a long battle ahead for justice.

Akbar, the Minister of State for External Affairs, stepped down Wednesday, following a spate of allegations of sexual harassment during his days as editor of several publications.

Priya Ramani, the journalist against whom Akbar has filed a defamation case, said she looked forward to the day when she would also get justice in court.

"As women, we feel vindicated by Akbar's resignation. I look forward to the day when I will also get justice in court," she said



Suparna Sharma, who also came out against Akbar, said she welcomed his resignation.

"It is a big moment for us. In a sense, I feel vindicated. Though the step should have been taken as soon as he landed in Delhi, but now, at least, there will not be a power imbalance and it will not be a fight between the government and Ramani," the resident editor of The Asian Age newspaper told PTI.

Meenal Baghel, who came out in support of Ramani, said Akbar's decision to quit was long overdue, while author Kiran Manral said they still had a long road ahead for justice.

"It was the right thing to do and we welcome it. it was long overdue," Baghel, editor of Mumbai Mirror, said in response to a question.

"A very big thanks to everyone who backed each of us," she said in a tweet.

Journalists from multiple media platforms have come forward claiming harassment by Akbar under the "#MeToo" social media campaign against sexual misconduct.

Akbar was in Africa when the allegations surfaced against him.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The number of Rohingya refugees has reached nearly one million, with young girls sold into forced labour in Bangladesh accounting for the largest group of trafficking victims, according to a UN agency.

The UN Migration Agency (IOM) said on Tuesday that families desperate to earn money were frequently sending their daughters to work in dangerous environments.

The IOM said that women and girls lured into forced-labour accounted for two-thirds of those receiving the agency's support in Cox's Bazar and another 10 per cent were victims of sexual exploitation.

It said men and boys also were not exempt and account for about a third of refugees forced into labour.

Despite the often false promises of work and a better life, some victims are unaware of the risks or so desperate to escape the situation, that no measure is too drastic, it said.

"Sacrificing one family member for the sake of the rest of the family" is the rationale, Dina Parmer, IOM's head of protection services in Cox's Bazar, said in a statement.

The agency said that number of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh has reached nearly one million.

The IOM's counter-trafficking and protection staff have helped nearly 100 people who have escaped trafficking situations and returned to Cox's Bazar since the crisis began in August 2017.

An estimated 7,00,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled Rakhine State since the military crackdown, resulting in a major crisis in neighbouring Bangladesh.

The agency has provided physical and mental health assistance, legal counselling, shelters and emergency cash assistance to support survivors, but due to the nature of human trafficking, many victims are reluctant to come forward and are unaccounted for.

According to Parmer, the Rohingya refugee community is extremely vulnerable to human trafficking due to their brutal life experiences and lack of education wrought by long-term discrimination back home in Myanmar, where they have been an oppressed minority for decades.

The IOM and NGO partners are developing creative ways to communicate the dangers of trafficking in the camps, including comic illustrations, street drama and music illustrating real-life stories to spread the message.

One Rohingya woman, working gruelling hours for little pay in the fish-processing industry, told the agency that there were very limited number of jobs in the refugee camps and for women almost nothing.

The UN and the US have said the violence against Rohingyas amounted to ethnic cleansing.

Myanmar authorities have said that military crackdown against the rebels was aimed at rooting out Rohingya militants who attacked police posts on the August 25.

According to the Red Cross estimates, only about 300,000 Rohingya remain in the entire state.

Myanmar and Bangladesh have reached a deal on the return of hundreds of thousands of Rohingyas that sidelined the UN refugee agency.

According to the agreement, which was finalised in Myanmar's capital Nay Pyi Daw early last year, a two-year deadline has been set for the repatriation of the Rohingyas.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)By John MillerZURICH (Reuters) - Roche's third-quarter revenue beat analysts' forecasts as new drugs such as Ocrevus for multiple sclerosis picked up pace and as China bought more of older medicines whose sales are dropping elsewhere following patent expiries. Third-quarter sales rose 7 percent to 13.97 billion Swiss francs ($14.10 billion), the Swiss drugmaker said on Wednesday, compared with analysts' average forecast of 13.8 billion francs in a Reuters poll. The world's biggest maker of cancer drugs did not give profit figures, saving those for the full-year report in early 2019.So far, ...By Prak Chan ThulPHNOM PENH (Reuters) - A European Union decision to ramp up trade pressure on Cambodia has alarmed unions in its garment industry, a pillar of the economy that employs about 700,000 people, but a key grouping of manufacturers said the risk would take months to materialise.Cambodia's biggest export market, the EU, warned this month that the Southeast Asian nation would lose special access to the world's largest trading bloc, in a punitive response to its move away from democracy.Some Western countries have criticised a July election won by Prime Minister Hun Sen, calling it ...By Stine JacobsenCOPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Danske Bank, reeling from a money laundering scandal, suffered another setback on Wednesday when the Danish financial regulator rejected its candidate for chief executive on the grounds that he lacked sufficient experience.Denmark's largest bank is looking for a new leader after Thomas Borgen was ousted last month as the group struggles to deal with a money laundering scandal.Danske's board had asked the financial watchdog for its approval of Jacob Aarup-Andersen, 40. Aarup-Andersen joined Danske in 2016 from Danica Pension and has held the post of head ...By Stine JacobsenCOPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Danske Bank, reeling from a money laundering scandal, will resume its search for a new chief executive after a Danish regulator rejected its internal candidate for the job, and analysts said it would be forced to look outside the bank.Jacob Aarup-Andersen, 40, the Danske board's choice to take over the helm of Denmark's biggest bank, was rejected by the country's financial regulator on the grounds that he wasn't experienced enough.The previous CEO, Thomas Borgen, was ousted last month as the group struggles to deal with a 200 billion euro ($230 billion) ...@alextdaugherty

Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart dislikes Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro so much that he framed the notice banning the congressman from the country, hung it in his office and bragged about it on social media.

But the Miami Republicans wife promoted travel to Venezuela two years ago. In 2016, a year after the ban on Diaz-Balart was announced by Maduro, Tia Diaz-Balart posted a list of best places to visit in Venezuela on the website for Ladat Travel, a company founded by the congressmans wife to create custom-tailored dream vacations for clients and groups. The posts mostly describe tourist attractions like Venezuelas Angel Falls, the worlds tallest uninterrupted waterfall. Tia Diaz-Balarts LinkedIn page says she founded the company in August 2014 and worked there until September 2017, and the companys associated LLC shows up in Diaz-Balarts 2014 federal financial disclosure.

When asked by the Miami Herald, Diaz-Balarts campaign said Mario and Tia Diaz-Balart never made any money off tourists traveling to Venezuela or anywhere else because the business venture never got off the ground.

She never made any money off of any tour or travel anywhere, Diaz-Balart campaign representative Cesar Gonzalez said. It was kind of like this idea that she had of starting this travel agency. It never took off.

More here.BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Commission submitted for approval on Wednesday a free trade agreement with Vietnam, its first comprehensive open markets deals with a developing Asian country.The EU-Vietnam trade and investment agreements will need approval from the EU's 28 members and from the European Parliament, some of whose members have expressed concern over Vietnam's human rights record.The parties have agreed a related accord to promote democracy and human rights, including commitments, dialogue and possible sanctions. EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom said no one denied there ...By Maria KolomychenkoMOSCOW (Reuters) - U.S. sanctions targeting Russia's nascent high tech industry have caused a Russian microchip company significant financial woes and delayed the launch of an initiative meant to produce substitutes for Western products, the firm's owner said. President Vladimir Putin has stressed the need to develop Russia's domestic tech industry to make it less dependent on Western equipment. But Moscow's efforts to manufacture Russian microchips and other high tech products have been thwarted by U.S. sanctions against a string of Russian tech companies. Angstrem-T, ...(Reuters) - Glencore Plc said its chairman Tony Hayward will no longer be attending the Future Investment Initiative conference in Saudi Arabia, confirming a report in the Financial Times.He is the latest top executive to pull out of next week's high profile conference, amid widespread concern about the fate of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Khashoggi, a U.S. resident and Washington Post columnist critical of Riyadh's policies, disappeared on Oct. 2 after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Turkey believes he was murdered and his body removed. Saudi Arabia has denied that.The investment ...By Allison LampertORLANDO, Fla. (Reuters) - Gulfstream Aerospace expects growth in both sales opportunities and deliveries next year, as the U.S. business jet maker brings two new large-cabin corporate planes to market, company President Mark Burns said on Wednesday.Burns said in an interview that the entry into service of the company's new G500 and G600 business jets will drive market growth for Gulfstream, a division of General Dynamics Corp. "I expect next year will be a growth year," he said on the sidelines of the National Business Aviation Association annual corporate jet show in ...(Reuters) - British software group Scisys is moving to Ireland so it can participate in EU-funded work such as the European Space Agency's programme after Brexit, it said on Wednesday.Scisys will create a new holding company incorporated in Ireland, with shares listed on both London's junior AIM market and Euronext Dublin, it said, adding that the new company will be tax resident in the UK.It is one of many companies which have moved to Ireland or opened a base there ahead of Britain's departure from the European Union next March with lawyers, financial firms and industrial groups needing to ...By Francesco Guarascio and Gabriela BaczynskaBRUSSELS (Reuters) - Italy's eurosceptic government is pushing for a reduction of tensions between the European Union and Russia but risks isolation in Brussels as EU partners seek instead stronger measures to deter Moscow from interfering in EU affairs.Russia has been subjected to EU sanctions since the 2014 Ukraine crisis and Rome has long urged a relaxation of the penalties on the grounds that they have hit Italian firms trading with Moscow.In a new pro-Russia thrust, Italy is now calling on EU partners to back a plan to channel EU money to ...DUBAI/SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Kuwait Petroleum Corp set the price for Kuwait Super Light Crude (KSLC) at $2.30 a barrel above Oman-Dubai quotes for October and at a premium of $3.05 a barrel for November, a source with knowledge of the matter said on Wednesday.The official KSLC selling prices (OSPs) were competitive, an Asian crude buyer said, as they were in between the prices for two Saudi light grades.KSLC's OSPs are more than $2 a barrel below that of Saudi's Arab Super Light crude and 50 cents a barrel higher than Saudi's Arab Extra Light, Reuters data showed.Kuwait, the fifth largest OPEC ...(Reuters) - Tesla Inc Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk will purchase company stock worth $20 million in the next open trading session, the electric carmaker said in a filing on Wednesday.The news comes weeks after Tesla and Musk agreed to pay $20 million each as fine as part of a settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Tesla said the purchase is 'separate and apart from the settlement' between Musk, Tesla and the SEC.Shares of the company rose 2 percent in premarket trading. (Reporting by Munsif Vengattil in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur)(This story has not been ...By Tanvi Mehta(Reuters) - Indian shares rose over 1 percent on Wednesday to a near two-week high before paring gains, unable to play catch-up with global markets, as liquidity concerns dragged down non-banking financial stocks.Indian markets have been facing a liquidity crunch with a depreciating rupee and higher oil prices. And, the recent string of defaults by non-banking financial firms on debt repayment has compounded worries."We should have followed how global markets behaved, but it is more to do with the sell-off. FIIs (foreign institutional investors) are selling regularly after a ...@martindvassolo @alextdaugherty

Democrats may be wary of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi in other parts of the country, but shes welcome in South Florida.

With the midterm elections just weeks away, Parkland students and parents convened Wednesday with Pelosi in Coral Springs to game plan for November. The round table discussion focused on gun control, moderated by U.S. Rep Ted Deutch, was equal parts emotional venting and strategizing.

Pelosi called the activists and parents a blessing to our country, and said because of the energy coming out of Parkland, the issue of gun control would top the Democratic Partys agenda in the House of Representatives if they take control.

I admire you so much, she said. You have the purpose, the generosity of spirit. You have the marchers  you have people who will go out there to make a difference  and you just have a relentless, persistent, dissatisfied approach.

More here.By Camillus Eboh and Felix OnuahABUJA (Reuters) - Nigeria's upper house of parliament approved a planned $2.786 billion Eurobond issue on Wednesday but advised the government to limit foreign borrowing and instead boost revenues.Nigeria, which emerged from recession last year, approved a three-year plan in 2016 to borrow more from abroad. It wants 40 percent of its loans to come from offshore to lower borrowing costs and help to fund its record-high budgets.Lawmakers said the new bond issue will raise foreign borrowing to 32 percent of Nigeria's total debt from 30 percent at June 2018.On ...By David GaffenNEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices fell on Wednesday, with U.S. futures dipping below $70 a barrel for the first time in a month, after U.S. stockpiles rose by 6.5 million barrels, almost triple what analysts had forecast, while exports dropped.U.S. light crude oil slumped $1.84, or 2.6 percent, to $70.08 a barrel by 12:19 p.m. EDT (1619 GMT), after falling as low as $69.63. Oil had been rising on worries about Iranian sanctions and tensions between the United States and Saudi Arabia after the death of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. "This market is dangerously close to $70. If ...WARSAW (Reuters) - Poland's dominant gas firm PGNiG has finalised the terms of a deal to buy liquefied natural gas (LNG) from U.S. company Venture Global LNG, part of a move to cut reliance on Russian supply, the company said on Wednesday. PGNiG struck an agreement with Venture Global in June to acquire 2 million tonnes of LNG a year for 20 years, equivalent to 2.7 billion cubic metres of natural gas after regasification. It has now signed contracts with two Venture Global subsidiaries running from 2022 and 2023 respectively, under which it will buy the LNG under the Free on Board (FoB) ...MUMBAI (Reuters) - The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has asked Fortis Healthcare to recover 4.03 billion rupees ($55 million) from its founder brothers and firms related to them, pending an investigation into loans made by the company.Tycoon brothers Shivinder Singh and Malvinder Singh and eight firms related to them should jointly pay the sum with due interest to Fortis within three months, SEBI said in its order on Wednesday."A detailed investigation of the entire scheme employed in this case is necessary to find out the role of each entity in the alleged routing of funds," ...By Nerijus AdomaitisOSLO (Reuters) - Royal Dutch Shell has agreed to sell its Danish upstream business to Norwegian Energy (Noreco) for $1.9 billion as part of its wider divestment strategy, the company said on Wednesday.The sale brings Shell's three-year $30 billon divestment plan close to its conclusion, having begun the process in 2015 after the acquisition of BG Group. Deals so far have included large portfolios in the British North Sea, Gabon, Thailand and Canada."Today's announcement is consistent with Shell's strategy to simplify its portfolio through a $30 billion divestment programme ...JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's retail sales rose in August as household goods, clothing and cosmetics grew, data showed on Wednesday, with recovering consumer spending a sign the economy is climbing out of a recession that has piled pressure on President Cyril Ramaphosa.Sales rose 2.5 percent year-on-year in August after increasing 1.4 percent in July, the statistics office said. The expansion was much more than the 0.3 growth forecast by a Reuters poll, and was the highest rate of growth since May 2018.Africa's most industrialised economy hit a recession in the second quarter, as ...By Yilei Sun and Adam JourdanBEIJING (Reuters) - Tesla Inc has signed an agreement with the Shanghai government for an 860,000 square metre plot of land to build its first overseas Gigafactory, the electric carmaker said in a Chinese social media post on Wednesday. Tesla signed a deal with Shanghai authorities in July to build its first factory outside the United States, which would double the size of its global manufacturing.Tesla did not give the price tag for the plot, but the Shanghai Bureau of Planning and Land Resources said on Wednesday that a plot of land of 864,885 square metres had ...(Reuters) - French oil major Total has signed a deal with Indian conglomerate Adani Group to re-enter the South Asian nation's liquefied natural gas (LNG) market and build 1,500 retail service stations over the coming decade.In a joint statement, the two companies said they planned to develop multi-energy offerings, including LNG regasification terminals on the country's east coast to meet growing demand for the cleaner-burning fuel."India's energy consumption will grow among the fastest of all major economies in the world over the next decade," Patrick Pouyanne, Total chairman and CEO said ...marketsandmarkets

Bioinformatics Market, By Products and Services and Bioinformatics Platforms (2018) and Global forecast 2023



ID: 1542791

Bioinformatics Market by Product & Service (Knowledge Management Tools, Data Analysis Platforms (Structural & Functional), Services), Applications (Genomics, Proteomics & Metabolomics), & Sectors (Medical, Academics, Agriculture) - Global Forecast to 2023

(firmenpresse) - According to the new market research report & Service (Knowledge Management Tools, Data Analysis Platforms (Structural & Functional), Services), Applications (Genomics, Proteomics & Metabolomics), & Sectors (Medical, Academics, Agriculture) - Global Forecast to 2023", published by MarketsandMarketsing number of collaborations between companies and research institutes are the major factors driving the growth of the market.



Don

Early buyers will receive 10% customization on reports.



The global bioinformatics market is projected to reach USD 13.50 billion in 2023 from USD 7.73 billion in 2018, at CAGR of 14.5%. Growing demand for nucleic acid and protein sequencing and the rising applications of bioinformatics in drug discovery, clinical diagnostics, and personalized medicine are key factors supporting the growth of this market. On the other hand, a lack of well-defined standards and common formats for data integration may limit market growth to a certain extent.



In this report, the market has been classified based on product & service, applications, sectors, and region. Based on product and service, the bioinformatics market is segmented into knowledge management tools, bioinformatics platforms, and bioinformatics services. In 2018, the knowledge management tools segment is expected to account for the largest share of the market. The bioinformatics platforms segment is projected to grow at the highest rate during the forecast period. This high growth is attributed to an increase in the use of bioinformatics platforms in drug discovery and development.



On the basis of applications, the global bioinformatics market is divided into genomics, chemoinformatics and drug design, proteomics, transcriptomics, and metabolomics. In 2018, the genomics segment is expected to account for the largest share of the global bioinformatics market due to the increasing applications of genomics in personalized and preventive medicine.



On the basis of sector, the global bioinformatics market is divided into medical biotechnology, academics, animal biotechnology, agricultural biotechnology, environmental biotechnology, and forensic biotechnology. In 2018, the medical biotechnology segment is expected to account for the largest share of the global bioinformatics market. The rising adoption of bioinformatics tools in pharma and clinical applications is driving market growth.





In 2018, North America is expected to account for the largest share of the bioinformatics market. The large share of North America is attributed to the continued funding from the government and private sectors for life sciences research.



Browse

189 - Tables



27 - Figures



195 - Pages







One of the major factors restraining market growth is the lack of well-defined standards and common formats for data integration. Most of the research institutes have their own exclusive identifiers, indexing schemes, and data formats. As data models change frequently, the data integration process becomes difficult. This may limit the growth of the market to a certain extent.



Key players that provide bioinformatics products and services are Thermo Fisher Scientific (US), Illumina Inc (US), Agilent Technologies (US), QIAGEN (Netherlands), BGI (China), Wuxi NextCODE (China), Eurofins Scientific (Luxembourg), Waters Corporation (US), Sophia Genetics (Switzerland), Partek (US) and DNASTAR (US). These players focus on both organic and inorganic growth strategies such as product launches, partnerships, and agreements to maintain and enhance their market share in the bioinform



Request for Free Sample Report (at) http://bit.ly/2yd2SSd



Browse Adjacent Markets (at) Biotechnology Market Research Reports & Consulting

About MarketsandMarkets



MarketsandMarkets



Our 850 fulltime analyst and SMEs at MarketsandMarkets"Growth Engagement Model ". The GEM aims at proactive collaboration with the clients to identify new opportunities, identify most important customers, write "Attack, avoid and defend" strategies, identify sources of incremental revenues for both the company and its competitors. MarketsandMarkets take their innovations/disruptions early to the market by providing them research ahead of the curve.



MarketsandMarkets"Knowledge Store" connects over 200,000 markets and entire value chains for deeper understanding of the unmet insights along with market sizing and forecasts of niche markets.



Contact:



Mr. Shelly Singh



MarketsandMarkets

630 Dundee Road



Suite 430



Northbrook, IL 60062



USA : 1-888-600-6441



Email: sales(at)marketsandmarkets.com

Research Insight: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/ResearchInsight/bioinformatics-market.asp



Visit Our Website: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com













Mr. Shelly Singh



MarketsandMarkets INC.

630 Dundee Road



Suite 430



Northbrook, IL 60062



USA : 1-888-600-6441



Email: sales(at)marketsandmarkets.com





Juristisches zu dieser Pressemitteilung

Weitere Pressemitteilungen von marketsandmarkets

Gynecology Surgical Instruments Market Analysis, Segments, Key Players, Drivers, ... The growth of the market is mainly driven by factors such as the high incidence of gynecological diseases, increasing awareness programs, and rising government investments for providing advanced healthcare facilities & services. However, incre ...



4 thoughts on Medical Camera Market Overview | Growth Drivers | Restraints | Opp ... The Global Medical Camera Market is expected to reach $3.69, at a CAGR of 8.7% Browse 73 market data tables and 36 figures spread through 118 pages and in-depth TOC on Medical Camera Market http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/ ...



Mass Spectrometry Market: Drivers, Opportunities, Latest Trends and Industry Ana ... According to a new market research report "Mass Spectrometry Market by Platform (Hybrid mass spectrometry (Triple Quadrupole, QTOF & FTMS), Single mass spectrometry (Quadrupole, TOF & Ion Trap)), Application (Pharmaceuticals, Biotechnolo ...



Bereitgestellt von Benutzer: akshayjadhav0912Datum: 17.10.2018 - 18:04 UhrSprache: DeutschNews-ID 1542791Anzahl Zeichen: 6813contact information:Contact person:Town:Phone:Kategorie:Typ of Press Release: Erfolgsprojekttype of sending: VeroffentlichungDate of sending:Anmerkungen:Diese Pressemitteilung wurde bishermal aufgerufen.Die Pressemitteilung mit dem Titel:steht unter der journalistisch-redaktionellen Verantwortung vonBeachten Sie bitte die weiteren Informationen zum Haftungsauschlu (gema TMG - TeleMedianGesetz ) und dem Datenschutz (gema der DSGVO ).Hari Sankaran, the former vice-chairman and managing director of debt-laden IL&FS, has blamed Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) and the 'capital intensive' nature of infrastructure business for the problems faced by IL&FS group. Sankaran also denied all charges of corruption and wrong doing.

In a 34-page affidavit filed with the National Company Law tribunal (NCLT), Sankaran said that LIC's decision in 2015 to not go ahead with the proposed merger with Piramal group led to a cash crunch at the troubled company.

"It was anticipated that the merger (with Piramal), once completed would have generated around Rs 8,500 crore by way of investible funds in the merged entity," Sankaran said.

"The said term sheet contained standstill obligations on IL&FS, which were then anticipated to be in force for 3-4 months. However, this standstill period got extended to almost 9-10 months - largely because LIC took time to consider the proposal and ultimately did not agree with the merger valuation - with significant resultant adverse consequences on IL&FS as no additional finance could be raised by way of equity or debt throughout this period," he added.

According to Sankaran, the main reason or the problems was capital intensive nature of infrastructure business. "The business model of IL&FS was predicated on refinancing of projects as risks were mitigated and revenues stablished."

Calling for an independent forensic probe by a foreign agency, Sankaran said the appointment of an overseas agency, possibly from the UK, Israel or Singapore, would help prove that "there was no wrongdoing or mismanagement in the company.

"Such a course would avoid any hint of a conflict of interest, as over the years, the known experts/consultants having a presence in India or their associates would have done some work for Respondent No. 1 (IL&FS) and its group companies, having regard to the scale and breadth of their operations," he added.

Last month, the financial services arm of beleaguered infrastructure conglomerate IL&FS had defaulted on interest payments on commercial papers. Earlier, the crippled group defaulted on a short-term loan of Rs 1,000 crore from Sidbi, while a subsidiary has also defaulted Rs 500 crore dues to the development finance institution.

The IL&FS group has a consolidated debt of Rs 91,000 crore with IL&FS alone having nearly Rs 35,000 crore, IL&FS Financial Services Rs 17,000 crore.

On October 1, the government had ordered an Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) investigation into the affairs of IL&FS and its subsidiaries. The debt-laden infrastructure financing giant was allegedly paying dividends and huge managerial pay-outs regardless of looming liquidity crisis.

The Centre had also superseded the board headed by former LIC chairman SB Mathur and replaced it with a seven-member board led by India's richest banker Uday Kotak. This was only the second time after Satyam Computer Services Ltd that the government has taken control of a company board.Donna Shalala has a conundrum.

In her bid to flip a Miami congressional seat once thought an easy pickup for Democrats, shes struggling with Hispanic voters. But to woo a majority of the district, she must venture onto Spanish-language television and debate a former Spanish-language broadcast journalist who couldnt be more at home in a studio.

For the second time in four days, Shalala and Republican Maria Elvira Salazar were beamed Tuesday into the living rooms of Floridas 27th congressional district. With independent candidate Mayra Joli standing between them, they sparred for an hour from Univision 23s Doral studios while making their case to serve as the successor to retiring U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

And once again, Shalala was on Salazars home turf, listening to her opponents interpreted comments through an earpiece and speaking to viewers through a translator. Im here for this debate in Spanish, although my Spanish is not very good, she said.

Before either had even introduced themselves, Salazar put Shalala on the defensive, immediately ripping into the former University of Miami president during her opening comments over the Democrats announced appearance Wednesday with House minority leader Nancy Pelosi and California Congresswoman Barbara Lee  who reportedly said when Fidel Castro died that we need to stop and pause and mourn his loss.

It seems to me that Mrs. Shalala should reconsider and cancel that press conference, said Salazar, who is a Republican Cuban-American. That is an offense and a lack of sensitivity to prisoners, to those shot, to the exiles who live here in the city of Miami.

Shalala, who had not yet uttered a word, said she didnt know what Salazar was talking about  even though the press conference was scheduled at her own campaign headquarters. Shalalas campaign said later that the candidate was thrown off by a muddled translation in her earpiece.

I definitely dont know anything about that press conference, said Shalala. But I absolutely oppose the Cuban government.

It was a rough start for a campaign that says it does not yet have a date set for an English-language debate as the two campaigns fight over dates. The night also ended strangely, with Joli accusing Salazar of being funded by the Illuminati and Shalala by the Clintons.

Click here to read the rest.After disrupting the telecom sector, Reliance Jio seems well on its way to start another 'tariff war' -- this time in the cable and digital content and broadcasting market. Reliance Jio is building a robust digital content ecosystem in the country, which will get a huge boost after the official rollout of its fixed broadband service, called GigaFiber. The Mukesh Ambani-led company's attempts at buying stakes in Den Networks and Hathway Cable and Datacom, India's two largest cable TV and broadband service providers, will not only give it a direct access to over 20 million cable subscribers but will also help them capture around 23 per cent of the cable market, a Business Standard report said. This could also give both Airtel and SITI cable, who are prominent players in the broadband segment, a run for their money.

Subhash Chandra-owned SITI Networks claims to have a network of over 33,000 km of the optical fibre and coaxial cable, through which it provides cable services to over 11.3 million digital customers across 580 locations. Airtel, on the other hand, has 2.5 million broadband subscribers, mostly connected through the copper network. Amid a stiff competition from Reliance Jio, the company is planning to expand to 100 cities from the current number of 89. It is also gearing up to build the advanced fibre broadband network and hopes to tap in around 20 million subscribers in the next three years.

The final decision on Reliance Jio 's stake takeover in Den and Hathway could be announced as early as Wednesday. Hathway Cable is owned by the Raheja Group while Sameer Manchanda owns DEN Networks. Both these companies have informed the stock exchanges that their respective boards are meeting on October 17 to discuss and approve a proposal for raising funds. Interestingly, RIL's step-down subsidiary, Reliance Jio Media, which owns a pan-India cable licence, already boast links with both companies JioGigaFiber hopes to leverage.

The fixed broadband market is dominated by the state-owned BSNL, which has a subscriber base of 9.15 million subscribers, followed by Airtel with 2.21 million customers. Atria Convergence Technologies holds the third largest share with 1.34 million subscribers.

Although some industry experts expect the deals to come under the Competition Commission of India's (CCI) scanner, many negligible "overlap" in the two cable markets due to different areas of operations. DEN has a strong presence is Uttar Pradesh and north India but Hathway does its business in central and western India.

Edited by Manoj SharmaIn the first quarter of this financial year, Tata Steel took a debt of around Rs 17,500 crore for acquiring 5.6 million tonne (MT) Bhushan Steel and, with this, its consolidated debt increased to Rs 1,16,615 crore from Rs 92,147 crore three months before. Tatas acquired Bhushan offering Rs 35,200 crore to the lenders and Rs 1,200 crore to the operational lenders. Besides, the company agreed to acquire the steel business of Usha Martin for Rs 4,700 crore in September. The latest news is that Tata Steel plans to match the offer price of JSW Steel for Bhushan Power & Steel (BPSL). It is likely to revise its bid to Rs 19,700 crore from its earlier Rs 17,000 crore.

Tata Steel's steel production capacity in India will increase to 19.3 MT with the acquisitions of Bhushan Steel and Usha Martin. BPSL has 3.5 MT of capacity. In addition, Tatas looks to add in 5 MT greenfield expansions. Adding up all these, the capacity of the company will go up to 27.8MT, but at a cost of additional Rs 45,000 crore. Tata Steel had a consolidated revenue of Rs 1.33 lakh crore and a profit of Rs 17,757 crore in the last financial year.

JSW Steel along with Aion Capital acquired the 1.5-million-tonne Monnet Ispat and Energy at Rs 3,875 crore, including Rs 1,000 crore as equity and working capital. The steel maker will have 19.5 MT capacity with the addition of Monnet. In addition, the company looks to build 6MT Greenfield capacity. The company's gross debt stood at Rs 39,600 crore at the end of the June quarter. If JSW wins BPSL and adds 6MT Greenfield capacity, the production can be increased to 29MT. But that itself will be a cost burden of Rs 50,000 crore. JSW Steel had a consolidated revenue of Rs 71,670 crore and a profit of Rs 6,113 crore in the last financial year.

In the last two financial years, the steel sector has witnessed a turnaround with the country's steel production going up from 89 MT in FY15 to 134 MT in FY18. The exports went up by 136 per cent and India became a net exporter of steel for the first time in FY18. India's per capita steel consumption has jumped from 58 kg to 68 kg in the past three years. The government has set an ambitious target of 300 MT of crude steel production by FY31 in its National Steel Policy. The per capita steel consumption is estimated to jump to 158 kg by then.

The state-run Steel Authority of India (SAIL) is the largest steel maker in capacity with 21 MT, including the Bhilai expansion. It has completed the expansion programme at its plants at Rourkela, Bokaro, Asansol and Durgapur. Commissioning of a melting shop with billet casters at Bhilai in Chhattisgarh has marked the end of its current capital expenditure cycle. The company has a debt of Rs 45,000 crore.

Vedanta group is also looking to pursue its ambitions in steel business and it acquired Electrosteel Steels at Rs 5,320 crore through the insolvency process. ArcelorMittal submitted a Rs 42,000 crore resolution plan for Essar Steel, besides offering Rs 7,000 crore for settling the dues of Uttam Galva and KSS Petron, in which the global giant held stakes.Japan has a unique problem. Its growing populace of dementia sufferers has increased its frozen assets manifold. Not only is this a hurdle for the Japanese economy, it is also creating difficulty in the personal lives of people as the loved ones of these people are fretting over how to handle the money.

As mentioned in a report in Bloomberg, captive capital held by patients of Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia in Japan had risen to $1.3 trillion, by end of March 2018. The finding revealed by Dai-Ichi Life Research Institute Inc said that the amount is more than a quarter of the size of the overall economy.

The report states that this is a problem that has seeped into various levels. For instance, at a personal level, relatives of such sufferers are overwhelmed by the sheer responsibility of the task of managing savings and investments. Then there are the policymakers who must keep in mind the personal savings of these citizens as well as push for using the same money to boost the economy. When it comes to brokerages, such static savings signifies loss businesses in a market that is already shrinking.

Kohei Komamura, an Economics professor at Keio University who studies approaches to finance in an aging society said that this is going to have a massive impact on the Japanese economy. He said that new societal rules, financial products and financial advice systems that addresses the cognitive capability of elderly is the need of the hour.

Companies like Mitsubishi UFJ Trust & Banking Corp and Nomura Trust and Banking Co. are trying to create a range of products to help dementia sufferers to put their money in trusts or bequeath assets earlier in life. Some financial institutions are following up on a government recommendation that dementia sufferers should be allowed to split their money into living expenses and savings in the hope that people who handle these accounts eventually will be more comfortable using the money.

However, a government plan to appoint close ones as financial guardians is seeing no takers. The labour and welfare ministry is now trying to make the programme easier by offering more support from legal experts and advisers.

On top of that the government is also concerned about scamsters. Such fraudsters have scammed Japanese people out of 20.2 billion yen in the first seven months of 2018 by mostly targeting the elderly, as mentioned in the National Policy Agency data.

Nomura Holdings and Keio University have started a joint research on the effects of ageing to improve understanding of the behavioural patterns and characteristics of the elderly.

The problem only intensifies from hereon. Mizuho Research Institute Ltd said that 50% of securities and 40% of all financial assets in Japan are expected to be held by those over 70 years of age.The sale process of Essar Steel under the insolvency law may face either of two eventualities - sale at discount or inordinate delay. The Supreme Court recently asked two lead bidders, Numetal consortium and ArcelorMittal to pay off their dues to qualify for Essar bidding.

Numetal will have to pay the entire debt of Essar Steel (around Rs 49,000 crore) to qualify for the bid since Essar's defaulter promoter Rewant Ruia was one of its stake holders. The cost for ArcelorMittal would be Rs 7,000 crore. If both the bidders don't find any merit in such a bid, they will back out, leaving Vedanta alone in the fray. It will reduce the sale value.

Inviting fresh bids will be another option. JSW Steel and VTB group (promoter of Numetal) are exploring opportunities to go solo in bidding.With the Rupee weakened, the Narendra Modi government is again exploring the feasibility of non-dollar trade with friendly nations. At a recent meeting, Prime Minister Modi broached the possibility of a Government-to-Government (G2G) mechanism with visiting Russian president Vladimir Putin.

The two commodities that Russia has in abundance - oil and precious stones - constitute 45 per cent of India's total import bill. This may seem to be a terrific way to reduce India's dollar dependence but the problem lies in implementation.

Trade with Russia accounts for less than 2 per cent of India's merchandise trade at the moment, though both countries have a long-standing friendly relationship.

The $7 billion India-Russia defence deal was definitely the high point of Putin's visit, but oil and diamonds can be the real game changers if New Delhi and Moscow work to enhance bilateral trade.Delhi-based think tank Centre for Accountability and Systemic Change (CASC) has served a legal notice to Maneka Gandhi, the Union Minister for Women and Child Development seeking imposition of penalty of Rs. 50,000 against heads of BJP, Congress and CPI(M).

The notice states that complaints regarding sexual harassment in #MeToo campaign emerged because the internal mechanisms were not present as prescribed by the law.

Political parties are the biggest private organisations in the country claiming membership of crores, but have not complied with the law which requires compliance by any organisation with minimum 10 workers. In absence of an Internal Complaint Committee, the victims do not even have a proper complaint redressal mechanism. Political leaders are mostly connected with the state governments and have been known to influence the police. Hence, it becomes difficult for victims to approach the police.

The notice, of which Business Today has a copy, reads, "There are 7 national, 59 states, and more than 2000 registered unrecognised political parties in India. Most of them promise for security of women in their manifestos and campaigns. However, many of them do not have the Internal Complaint Committee as required under the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 and the Handbook prescribed by the Central Government".

Sent through Advocate Virag Gupta, who is also co-founder of CASC, the notice states that "BJP, Congress and CPI(M) do not have an Internal Complaints Committee".

Regarding the other political parties, CASC has sought that the Ministry should issue a Show Cause Notice asking why any action wasn't taken against political parties as per Section 26 of the Act. A copy of Legal Notice is also sent to Election Commission, which registers all the political parties in India. CASC has asked that failure to take any action by the Ministry will compel it to approach the Court.

The #MeToo movement as of now is gravitating towards the media and fashion industry. Much recently, following the allegations former editor and Minister of State for External Affairs, M.J. Akbar has resigned. The President of NSUI, too, resigned following the allegations of sexual harassment. Allegations of sexual harassment have also been made against the social media manager of Congress, and as there was no internal ICC, FIR was lodged after a long time. However, the resignations will not solve the problem for these political parties unless they comply with the norms of the law not just by the book but also in spirit.European Union leaders will give British Prime Minister Theresa May a tough reception in Brussels on Wednesday, warning her to rally support at home for the Brexit deal on offer or be cut loose without one in March.

May will address the other 27 EU national leaders at a summit before they sit down to dinner without her. Officials said they expected the leaders to tell May they have little more to offer since talks stalled on Sunday and they will step up preparations for Britain to drop out of the bloc with no deal.

Summit chair Donald Tusk warned that the risk of a "no deal" dumping Britain out of the bloc and into legal limbo and border chaos on March 29 was greater than ever. He put the onus on May to bring a "creative" solution to break the impasse over the EU-UK land border on the island ofIreland.

Tusk called it a "Gordian Knot," making clear he did not see May as a contemporary "Alexander the Great," capable of slicing through the tangle of opposition she faces in London and Belfast over her Brexit plan in order to clinch a treaty with the EU.

The "no deal" message is sincere enough. It is also a tactic to pressure a negotiating partner the EU views as weak. And it might just help May by giving her the kind of political theater useful in persuading Britons she has fought for the best deal.

More subtly, leaders may also sound relaxed on the calendar for talks. On Tuesday, officials echoed the mantra that "the clock is ticking" to agree a treaty that parliaments can ratify in time for Brexit. But, sensing more urgency in London, senior EU officials said Brussels would "keep calm and carry on," ready to wait till December or even later to clinch a final agreement.

"For now, Britain is negotiating with Britain," Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders said, referring to May's troubles with her own cabinet and supporters. "We need more weeks to see if we can get a deal. We'll work calmly."

Germany's Europe minister called on May to "take responsibility and be constructive." But some diplomats believe May could be unable to move again in negotiations until after she has steered her budget through parliament in early November.

Citing a German government document, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper reported late on Tuesday that the European Commission had offered to allow Britain - "in a good will gesture" - to remain in the EU customs union and internal market beyond an agreed transitional arrangement until the end of December 2020.

Leaders will decide at dinner after May has left them on Wednesday whether to firm up a tentative plan to hold a special Brexit summit in mid-November. But Tusk said they would need to believe that a deal was nearly done -- and without some new move from May in Brussels, that belief seems unlikely to come this week.

"There needs to be a much clearer, sharper messaging on the choice the UK faces," one senior diplomat told fellow national envoys after talks broke down on Sunday. The EU had gone as far as it could to address May's difficulties with her hardline pro-Brexit and Northern Irish allies, he said -- now the summit must not let May think things were just carrying on as normal.

Quite how tough the EU message is to May after Wednesday's dinner will depend on her approach, diplomats said. If she brings to Brussels the uncompromising tone they heard a month ago in Salzburg, when name-calling on both sides hit a low, then the EU warnings of impending calamity will step up a notch.

EU chief executive Jean-Claude Juncker will tell leaders after May has spoken on Wednesday evening about his European Commission's plans for a "no deal." Officials say that will include how to rush through emergency EU legislation to cope with huge disruption to transport and trade links.

The Commission had planned to release its proposals last week but held off, officials said, because Brexit negotiators did not want to sour what was an increasingly positive mood in talks behind the scenes. The brick wall those talks hit over the Irish border issue has flipped around that logic.

Some EU leaders, notably President Emmanuel Macron of France which faces questions over intensive cross-Channel trade and traffic, want much more public clarity to show that the bloc could cope with cutting Britain out of EU regulations. (Reuters)

Source: www.businessworld.ieIt was announced this week that Bank of Ireland mortgages will be available through brokers from November. The proposition is being launched initially with 10 brokers based in the Dublin area, expanding beyond that on a phased basis through 2019.



The initial broker offering will provide the same product rates and offers as available through direct channels and will focus on owner occupiers for first time buyers, movers and switchers. The broker proposition will not include equity release, tracker for mover, and buy to let products.



Bank of Irelands intention to re-enter the broker market offering increased choice for consumers acquiring a mortgage through the broker channel was announced to the market earlier this year. Brokers will benefit from Bank of Irelands award winning online mortgage application system Rome, which supports the banks UK broker channel.



Commenting on the commencement of the broker channel, Head of Products of Bank of Ireland, John O Beirne said, "We announced in February that we intended to re-enter the Irish mortgage broker market later this year. This plan has progressed well and we will recommence offering mortgages through brokers from November. This will further support growth in our mortgage business and offer greater choice for consumers who choose the broker channel."

He added, "As announced previously, we are initially partnering with a select number of brokers in the Dublin region, expanding to other regions across Ireland on a phased basis next year. We are delivering a leading digital origination system for brokers by leveraging our award-winning UK platform."

Source: www.businessworld.ie

It was announced this month that Irish Distillers has invested over 150 million in its sites in Cork and Dublin to meet demand for its products as the Irish whiskey renaissance continues apace.



The investment will see the construction of eight new maturation warehouses, each holding 16,800 casks, with further land to be purchased to support the next phase of development, in Dungourney, Co. Cork.



The company has also added an additional mechanical vapour recompression evaporator, made by GEA Wiegand in Germany, to its Midleton Distillery in East Cork. The addition allows the distillery to further expand its capacity.

A third mash filter and new fermenters are also to be installed in the distillery to meet the increasing demand for its portfolio of whiskeys. The distillery will also complete construction of a new office building in July 2019.

The investment is accelerated by the continued growth of Jameson which is now in double or triple-digit growth in more than 80 markets across the world. Nearly 130 million is to be spent expanding and upgrading the distillery in Midleton, and maturation site in Dungourney, Co. Cork, with over 20 million being invested in development of its bottling plant in Fox and Geese, Co. Dublin.



Irish whiskey is the fastest growing premium spirit in the world, with sales now accounting for more than one third of all Irish beverage exports.



Commenting on the investment, Chairman and CEO at Irish Distillers, Conor McQuaid said, "This 150 million investment in Midleton, Dungourney and Fox and Geese reflects the growing international success of Irish Distillers whiskey portfolio. With a tradition dating back to 1780, we have been distilling in the Midleton Distillery since 1975 and we are delighted to confirm our commitment to this tradition, and at the same time continue to embrace progress, delivering new and innovative expressions of Irish whiskey. We look forward to building upon our success story by continuing to bring innovative Irish whiskeys to the market."

Source: www.businessworld.ieBritish software group Scisys is moving to Ireland so it can participate in EU-funded work such as the European Space Agency's programme after Brexit, it said on Wednesday.

Scisys will create a new holding company incorporated in Ireland, with shares listed on both London's junior AIM market and Euronext Dublin, it said, adding that the new company will be tax resident in the UK.

It is one of many companies which have moved to Ireland or opened a base there ahead of Britain's departure from the European Union next March with lawyers, financial firms and industrial groups needing to maintain ties with the bloc.

Scisys, founded in 1980, operates in the space industry, including work for the European satellite navigation system Galileo. It also supplies customised software systems and services to the media, space, government and defence sectors.

It said the move, which has already been flagged to shareholders, would enable it to satisfy "any applicable European Union residency requirements for EU-funded work without adversely affecting the group's ability to continue contributing to space programmes".

The Galileo satellite programme - which Scisys has been involved in since the early system design phase - has been a trigger point in Brexit negotiations.

British technology has been instrumental in Galileo's development, and London has been angered by moves to shut British companies out of the project before Brexit next year. The EU has said it is honouring existing laws.

Chippenham-based Scisys said the new firm will have the same existing board and management team. (Reuters)

Source: www.businessworld.ieThe latest restrictions on foreign investments in the United States have revealed the enviable status of China's pharmaceutical sector amid President Donald Trump's tariffs on Chinese goods.

Understandably, some of the sector's biotechnology companies have been feeling the heat since the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Investment Security decided in October to ramp up scrutiny of foreign investments in 27 strategic areas tied to critical technologies.

Biotech is an area covered by the decision, which complements Trump's protectionist foreign trade policy and takes effect Nov. 10. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) will act on the ruling by boosting its reviews of proposed foreign investments.

CFIUS will have the power to block business deals based on national security concerns or perceived threats to U.S. technological superiority. The rule, which is set to expire no later than March 5, 2020, comes under the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act of 2018.

On a broader scale, however, the ruling will not change the fact that Trump's tariffs have yet to impact China's pharmaceuticals industry, including biopharmaceutical companies. U.S. imports of Chinese raw ingredients used in drug manufacturing have avoided the new restrictions. And U.S.-China trade friction hasn't dampened enthusiasm for biopharmaceutical investment in China against the backdrop of strong growth potential for the nation's health care sector.

U.S. pharmaceutical companies have in fact won Trump administration support for a tariff exemption. Company executives got that backing in mid-May after arguing at a government hearing that tariffs should not be imposed on pharmaceutical raw materials produced in China, since non-Chinese suppliers are hard to find.

That said, the tightened foreign investment review mechanism will likely affect what has been a strong influx of Chinese investments in the U.S. pharmaceutical sector, including biotech firms.

Since 2017, Chinese venture capital and private equity funds have been pouring billions of dollars into American drug developers, particularly biotech and life science businesses, according to Bloomberg, Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal and Reuters reports.

U.S. biotech and drug developers raised about $10 billion from venture capital investors in 2017. Of that amount, a record $3.5 billion came from Chinese investors. According to a Financial Times report, China has become one of the most important sources of capital for biopharmaceutical companies in the United States.

This trend has become more pronounced in recent months. In the three months ending March 31, China's venture capital investors poured $1.4 billion into biotech companies in the United States, an amount that represented about 40% of all funds raised in the sector during this period, according to a Bloomberg report based on data from the research firm Pitchbook.

Chinese investment in U.S. biotech is driven by a long-nurtured hope that the fruits of American drug development will be introduced to China's market, where a huge population underscores a capacity for high-yield investment.

At the same time, costs tied to in-licensing U.S. drug developments  that is, acquiring permission and the rights to develop, perform clinical trials, launch and market a drug  have been soaring. Chinese companies exclusively built on the in-licensing business model such as Brii Biosciences and Zai Lab have been happy to pay a premium for assets aligned with overseas drug development pipelines. The strategy can yield an investor 10 times an initial, in-licensing payment for a drug sold in China over three years, Reuters reported.

But what do the new U.S. foreign-investment restrictions mean for Chinese investors? Certainly, Chinese funds will be subject to more stringent scrutiny by CFIUS if they try to acquire research and development know-how from American biotech and life science companies, or seek to obtain in-licensing for certain drugs under development.

The new rules could hamper future Chinese acquisitions of U.S. biotech assets by going beyond the scope of previous CFIUS reviews, which focused only on mergers and acquisitions, to include proposed minority investments as well as joint ventures.

While CFIUS previously had authority only over deals that gave foreign investors a controlling stake, it now has power over all transactions including minority equity investments, investment funds and joint ventures. Without CFIUS approval, an investment can be doomed.

In addition, if CFIUS thinks foreigners who invest in sensitive technology in the United States have the ability to access private technical information or participate in corporate decision-making (for example, by putting a representative on a companys board of directors), the investment or acquisition plan can be denied.

A biopharma venture capital executive said his firm is reviewing the potential impact of the new U.S. rules.

We made some substantial investments in overseas bio-pharmaceutical assets" and "really positioned ourselves strategically in cross-border transactions" before the latest broadening of CFIUS' power. "Looking forward, it will be critically important to work around funding sources and vehicles."

Meanwhile, as Sino-U.S. trade friction shows no signs of abating, many are asking about the possible lasting impact on Chinas health care industry.

The Trump administration has adopted a two-fold strategy against China, taking aim at trade and investment. It's a strategy influenced by rising anxiety over China's science and technology capabilities and the fact that the country is catching up with the United States.

On June 15, Trump announced tariffs on $50 billion worth of Chinese goods and taxes on 1,102 items. Notably, following drugmaker objections, pharmaceutical products including biopharmaceutical were not on the list of products for which tariffs were imposed by the United States Trade Representative.

China is the world's largest supplier of raw materials for chemical compounds. Tariffs on pharmaceutical ingredients and related products imported from China would affect Chinese producers as well as U.S. companies that rely on those raw ingredients, potentially driving up U.S. consumer drug prices, which would be to Trump's chagrin.

Chinese-made pharmaceutical ingredients are used to produce a variety of drugs including insulin, epinephrine, heparin, antibiotics, antidepressants, sedatives and vaccines. Many generic drugs sold in the United States are produced in India with raw ingredients mass produced in China. Moreover, the raw materials needed to produce high-priced, non-generic drugs account for a small portion of the total manufacturing cost.

U.S. authorities would have to map out the entire supply chain of ingredients for generics and non-generics if they wanted to understand the full impact of imported Chinese pharmaceuticals and related products on the U.S. market. But the fact that drugs are not included in the Trump tariff catalog proves that Chinese pharmaceutical companies are in a relatively low position on the pharmaceutical sector value chain.

On the other hand, Chinese companies are making rapid progress in the biopharmaceutical sector. They're even catching up with competitors in other countries in terms of research and development.

Progress in CAR-T cell therapy and other types of immunotherapy may catapult Chinese companies into industry-leading positions. Joint research and development projects in which Nanjing Legend works with Johnson & Johnson, and WuXi AppTec teams up with Juno have generated confidence in China's technological abilities and the proficiency of its professionals.

Many scientists who worked overseas have returned to work for Chinese companies, and that fact has in turn attracted investor support. Moreover, better health care is a prominent expectation among the nation's rising middle class.

Surely, the future is bright for China's heath care industry as a whole and the biopharmaceutical sector in particular. China's role as a drug ingredients supplier and its fast-growing domestic pharmaceuticals sector are overshadowing the U.S. trade war against China.

Indeed, the rise of China's pharmaceutical sector is a phenomenon that cannot be blocked by Trump.

Wang Zhen is the managing director at Zhifei Impact Communications.

If you want to submit an opinion piece to Caixin Global, please send an email to to gangwu@caixin.com.Changsheng was accused of producing and selling nearly 500,000 doses of poor-quality vaccines. Photo: VCG

Chinese rabies vaccine-maker Changchun Changsheng Life Sciences Ltd. was fined more than 9.1 billion yuan ($1.3 billion) and its production license was revoked as punishment for falsifying data and producing ineffective vaccines for babies.

China's drug regulator imposed the penalties on the unit of Shenzhen-listed Changsheng Bio-Technology Co. Ltd. and banned 14 company executives from working in the drug sector, the China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) said Tuesday. Some executives may face criminal charges.

This is the most stringent administrative penalty on record, an official at the CFDA told Caixin. The company must be held responsible for its intentional fraud.

Separately, the China Securities and Regulatory Commission (CSRC) said Tuesday it imposed an additional fine of 600,000 yuan on the Shenzhen-listed parent. Four executives, including Chairwoman Gao Junfang, were banned for life from entering the securities market because of violations of disclosure requirements related to the vaccine scandal, according to the CSRC statement.

The northeastern Jilin province-based company was accused of producing and selling nearly 500,000 doses of poor-quality vaccine for diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus, a group of bacterial diseases, according to a previous report by the official Xinhua News Agency. The company has halted production and 18 employees were arrested in July.

The authorities ordered a recall of Changshengs products from Chinese and foreign markets, even though no injuries or deaths were reported from use of the companys vaccines.

The scandal sparked public outrage and led to the downfall of several senior officials including a vice governor of Jilin and the party secretary of the State Administration of Market Regulation, which oversees drug regulation.

Some analysts said it might be difficult in practice to collect the hefty fines or force the company to delist from the stock market. The total assets of the company were about 8 billion yuan by the end of the first quarter, according to the company.

The company for sure will die after handed 9.1 billion yuan of fines, one analyst said, adding that there are concerns about the interests of the companys minority shareholders.

Changsheng plans to set up a special compensation fund for its rabies vaccine scandal and will pay as much as 650,000 yuan per person to those who have suffered from the vaccine, the company and government authorities said Tuesday.

Trading of Changsheng shares has been halted since Aug. 31 after it failed to disclose its half-year earnings on time. The company, with a market capitalization of 3.17 billion yuan before the suspension, is rescheduled to release its interim report Oct. 31.news, latest-news

The number of Canberra teachers and principals taking leave due to violence, harassment and bullying in school has tripled in just five years, according to government data. In the past financial year, 67 educators took leave after reporting such incidents compared to 42 the year before and only 16 in 2013-14. As the union warns violence and "excessive" workloads are taking a toll on teachers, WorkSafe ACT has launched legal action against the territory's education directorate for failing to protect its staff. On Monday, Work Safety Commissioner Greg Jones revealed a two-year investigation into three public schools found the ACT government had breached its duty of care, reflecting systemic problems with its workplace violence policies. Among the incidents investigated was the case of a pregnant staff member punched repeatedly in the stomach by a young student, a teacher hospitalised after a kick and a support worker who reported multiple injuries from students but was left in harm's way for months as strategies put in place failed to protect them. A spokeswoman for the ACT government's education directorate said it took all incidents of violence and bullying seriously and was rolling out $7 million reforms designed to increase reporting and improve responses to occupational violence. In the case of an explicit threat, the spokeswoman said security guards could be arranged at schools, but this had only happened three times between January 2013 and August this year. While reports of occupational violence in schools jumped to 1500 in 2017, ACT secretary of the Australian Education Union Glenn Fowler said he did not believe students were becoming more violent. Instead, a cultural shift towards reporting was underway in schools. "In the past our [teachers], they weren't talked out of it but they were told it was part of the job," Mr Fowler said. "Now people have a better understanding of what's acceptable and not acceptable." Responding to the increasing number of staff taking leave over bullying and harassment, Mr Fowler said there were "definite stressors" in schools, driven in part by intense workloads that saw educators clocking in up to 65 hours a week. While Canberra schools enjoy fairly high teacher to student ratios, Mr Fowler said resourcing was crucial to any workplace violence policy. "Often that will involve extra staff," he said, adding the union did not believe schools were necessarily understaffed. Education minister Yvette Berry has committed a further $2.4 million to implement WorkSafe's recommendations over the next two years, but did not say whether staffing would be considered in reforms. A specialist three-person team brought in last year to help schools deal with occupational violence would be expanded by four new staff and "external expert services". Ms Berry said the directorate's new workplace violence policy, developed alongside the union and launched in July last year, was now leading the nation in addressing the issue. While reports of violence increased, the directorate stressed in its latest annual report that the time staff spent off work had not, though it did not provide those figures before deadline. The latest national survey of principal wellbeing found close to one in two Australian school leaders had been threatened with violence, with parents and students identified as the main perpetrators, and students reported to be behind the majority of assaults. More than 50 per cent of Canberra principals were threatened in 2017, slightly more than the previous year, though reported violence dropped to about 40 per cent of school leaders. Last year, about 45 per cent also reported being bullied. Ms Berry said plans underway to meet WorkSafe's requirements included improving support for students with behavioural issues due to disability or trauma, who were often at the centre of incidents. The journey forward would be a difficult one, she said, as the right of all students to an inclusive education was balanced against the need to keep schools safe. As well as rolling out violence training, a spokeswoman said the directorate was consulting with schools about new guidelines to help staff faced with "unreasonable behaviour from external community members". "Our relationship with our community is mostly very positive...but from time to time school leaders and teachers are faced with unacceptable and intimidating behaviour from adults," she said. Mr Fowler noted political rhetoric around education, that saw teachers publicly singled out, questioned and critiqued, could also be to blame for aggression from the community. "Kevin Rudd famously said he'd sack principals if the NAPLAN results weren't good, and it wasn't just him. The public have had it modelled to them that teachers are at their disposal." Opposition spokeswoman for education Elizabeth Lee condemned the government's failure to protect school staff, calling on Ms Berry to apologise to teachers for the breach identified by WorkSafe. "[Her] claim that her government is leading the nation on this issue is insulting and insensitive," Ms Lee said. "The Labor government has shown a remarkable disregard and disrespect for the profession and has essentially allowed teachers to come to harm." The directorate's annual report also revealed an increase in compensation claims for psychological injury by staff in 2017, offsetting a fall in claims for musculoskeletal disorders. In the past financial year there were 3139 work, health and safety reports, up from 2242 the year before. So far in 2018, WorkSafe has slapped the directorate with two improvement notices. The watchdog will closely monitor the roll-out of its recommendations, Mr Jones said. Know more? sherryn.groch@fairfaxmedia.com.au

/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/81fc7e78-849a-4b36-ad7a-d079e4985593/r0_1596_3333_3479_w1200_h678_fmax.jpgnews, act-politics

A Canberra charity has revealed plans to build a respite centre for palliative patients and their carers, as new data shows the pressure dying patients are placing on the ACT's public hospitals. Figures released by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare on Wednesday showed the ACT had the highest rate of palliative care patients in public hospitals in the country in 2015-16 at 33 per 10,000. That rate has increased from 19.8 in 2011-12, 9.2 in 2012-13, 20.8 in 2013-14 and 25.9 in 2014-15. There's been a 79 per cent increase in the number of palliative care patients in public hospitals in the same period - from 736 patients in 2011-12 to 1319 in 2015-16. On top of this palliative patients stayed in ACT public hospitals longer than anywhere else, except the Northern Territory, on average 11.6 days. Palliative care staff in the ACT also worked the longest hours in the country - 36.3 hours per week for nurses and 51.3 hours per week for specialist palliative medicine physicians. Palliative Care ACT president Louise Mayo said the strain end-of-life care placed on the health system and carers had prompted them to develop a proposal for a short-stay respite centre for palliative care patients. Ms Mayo said the centre would complement the ACT's existing palliative care hospice, Clare Holland House, which was often too full to provide respite care, and would stop families at crisis point having to send their dying loved ones to hospital out of sheer desperation. "About 70 per cent of the population want to die at home. In the ACT we're doing better than the rest of Australia on that, about 30 per cent of people get their wish to die at home, 16 per cent higher than the rest of the country but we've identified two barriers to dying at home - carer fatigue and isolation. The Hub has been designed to mitigate those barriers," she said. "We haven't been able to find another model of care like this in the palliation space, there's no overnight respite palliation for people anywhere in Australia. There are definitely hospices that have specialist medical support but this is not that, this is just another version of being at home but one where carers can recharge their batteries." The Hub would have about eight suites with an ancillary bedroom for carers to stay in. Each suite would have its own courtyard, so patients could have visitors or bring their dog, Ms Mayo said. The centre would allow people to stay during the day, while their regular carer was at work or attending appointments, or overnight so their carer could get some rest. Patients could cycle in and out of The Hub as much as they needed, rather than staying for long block periods, Ms Mayo said. "What we're finding in our research and from anecdotal experience is when a person with a life-limiting illness goes to hospital they want their personal carer with them, they don't want to be separated. The suites we'll build will have a secondary bedroom where the primary carer can get some rest themselves," Ms Mayo said. "We believe The Hub will allow people to use support services and be another part of palliation support in partnership with the hospitals and the hospice." Palliative Care ACT hopes to begin building the Hub by 2020 although the exact timeline will depend on how quickly they can raise the money needed to build and staff the centre. End-of-life care is not covered under the National Disability Insurance Scheme but early costings indicate it will be much cheaper to have a patient stay at The Hub than in an acute hospital bed. The group is in talks with ACT Health on its model of care, and raised $103,000 at the annual Palliative Care ACT fundraising dinner on Saturday night. They're also selling bricks to help build the centre at $50 a pop. Business can also buy a gold brick for $1000. Ms Mayo said the John James Foundation, Morgans Financial Services and Lend Lease had already offered "significant" financial support for the project. The proposal comes almost a month after a $6 million expansion to Clare Holland House was announced. The palliative care hospice will receive $4 million from the federal government, $2 million from the Snow Foundation while the ACT government will fund the extra staff needed for the up-to 12-bed expansion. Ms Mayo said recent discussions about voluntary euthanasia had put a spotlight on the need for more palliative care resources in Canberra. An ACT Legislative Assembly inquiry looking at end-of-life choices is due to report back next month on the provision of palliative care and the applicability of the Victorian assisted dying scheme to the territory. To buy a brick email Palliative Care ACT at office@pallcareact.org.au

/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/91bdb5ed-fe35-4975-8ec3-c44dc0ac9555/r0_196_4976_3007_w1200_h678_fmax.jpgnews, latest-news

The freedom of religion and anti-discrimination political developments over the past 10 days are a disappointing way to make policies wherever one stands on the best outcomes. The period began with the government stone-walling over the release to the public of the Ruddock Review report as demanded by Kerryn Phelps, the Independent candidate for the Wentworth by-election. Then the report was leaked to the Fairfax press which published parts of it. This was followed by a rash of commentary and continued stone-walling. However, when public opinion swung firmly behind the rejection of the right of religious schools to expel gay students as allowed under existing law and the religious schools themselves, as well as leading religious leaders, protested that they had been misrepresented, suddenly the political leadership swung into action. While still refusing to release the report, the Prime Minister pledged to introduce legislation to remove this discriminatory right allowed to the religious schools. The Opposition Leader gave bipartisan support but went further and proposed that religious schools also lose the right to sack gay staff. The Prime Minister insisted that the two aspects were separate issues. This is simply no way for a community to address a contentious issue nor for a parliament and government to make public policy. The Ruddock Review was always a political exercise in the context of the passing of same-sex marriage but, once set up and with the community consultation undertaken and the report submitted last May, surely the contents and conclusions needed to be treated with greater respect. Instead, there have been many losers. The public has good reason to be outraged. We have been drip-fed the Prime Ministers personal opinions on these matters since his elevation by the Liberals last month and fobbed off by responses that Cabinet had not yet discussed the report. But we have no way of knowing whether or not the report has had ministerial, departmental or inter-departmental consideration. It would be helpful to know. Whatever the case, if informed open debate was called for surely the report should have been released immediately to facilitate better discussion. Such reports offer not just recommendations but useful summaries of the issues at stake and of the current legislative position at state and federal level. Without the report, few Australians have a firm grasp of the subject. Instead, the Prime Minister deflected calls to release the report, describing it not as a government report but a report to the government. Yet the government had shaped the review, appointed the reviewers and talked it up as likely to make a major contribution. Like other governments on various issues, the Morrison government wanted above all to control the debate about religious freedom and to hide the report until it revealed its own plans. It had an internal political division between conservatives and liberals to manage as well as relations with the Nationals. It wanted to defer any announcements until well after the crucial Wentworth byelection and to then announce a fully-formed policy proposal. It could then try to sell its proposal to the public as the best and only response. It would only then release the report. This way of doing things was like putting the cart before the horse. Now the horse has bolted. Once the report was leaked the government lost control and started making policy on the run. As Fairfax columnist and former Labor government adviser, Sean Kelly, has convincingly demonstrated, once public opinion polls revealed the publics overwhelming distaste for the PMs position, Morrison, followed by Bill Shorten, rushed to act. The political leaders quickly became followers. Responsiveness is good but responding in a considered fashion rather than helter-skelter is surely better. The main stakeholders have been badly treated. One can only guess what the committee itself, the expert panel, thinks of the way its work has been treated. They are substantial community figures who applied themselves conscientiously. Ruddock, a former Immigration minister, was joined by Emeritus Professor Rosalind Croucher, President of the Human Rights Commission, Dr Annabel Bennett, barrister and former judge, Fr Frank Brennan SJ, CEO of Catholic Social Services Australia, and Queensland Law Professor Nicholas Aroney. They received 15,500 submissions and held public sittings in each capital city, which is a considerable effort. They have a right to feel miffed even though they are experienced enough to know that once a report to government has been submitted it is out of their hands. What has happened is business as usual in that regard. Their collective wisdom hasnt been heard this week as they have maintained a professional silence because the politicians have taken over. The LGBTIQ community, the subject of much of the debate, must feel carried along helplessly by the tumultuous turn of events over the last ten days after fearing they would be at risk from the political machinations over freedom of religion. The religious communities have felt drawn to publicly correct the damage done to their reputations by an under-informed debate framed as secular Australia versus religious Australia. Religious school principals have defended themselves from the charge of wanting to eject gay students from their schools, while some church leaders remain silent extending protection to gay and lesbian staff as well as students. The outcome remains in the balance. The end result may eventually include greater clarity and inclusiveness, at least as it applies to non-government schools and sexual identity. But the route we are taking leaves much to be desired. Community discussion would be better informed and policy-making would be more rational if the government immediately released the Ruddock report. John Warhurst is an Emeritus Professor of Political Science at the Australian National University.

/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/31efbfc4-1298-4dc1-87b6-60cffc06ed17/r0_278_5463_3365_w1200_h678_fmax.jpgnews, latest-news

Jakarta: Indonesia could delay signing a planned free trade deal with Australia if Prime Minister Scott Morrison formally recognises Jerusalem as Israel's capital, political analysts suggest, as the move would provoke deep anger in the lead up to the Muslim nation's presidential election. And Malaysia's prime minister-in-waiting, Anwar Ibrahim, has criticised the proposal and warned that if recognition is granted, ASEAN nations should strongly protest the move. Mr Morrison's decision to float diplomatic recognition of Jerusalem, and a possible shift of the embassy from Tel Aviv, provoked a swift reaction in Jakarta on Tuesday - and in the Arab world - with Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi declaring such a move could "threaten the peace process [with Palestine] and world stability". The announcement also made waves in Malaysia which, like Indonesia, is a majority-Muslim nation that strongly supports the creation of a Palestinian state. Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad is aware of the proposal but his office declined to comment on Wednesday, pointing out that a formal policy shift has not yet been confirmed by the Morrison government. Late on Tuesday, Anwar - Mathathir's anointed successor - said: I hope Australian government is not serious in this proposal to support unreasonable American decision to set up their embassy in Jerusalem". Anwar told the Astro Awani website that Australia should not condone the "unjust practices of the Israeli government". Australia is part of Asia and they take lots of pride to become the neighbours of ASEAN in Asia. I believe if the country proceed[s] with the plan, its neighbouring countries in ASEAN must register a very, very strong protest against the Australian government." If the Australian government were to press ahead with the proposal, it is likely diplomatic relations with both nations would be damaged. Lowy Institute non-resident fellow Matthew Busch said the Indonesian government would likely "reserve its right to throw the deal overboard" but that President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo would not want to scrap the deal - given how long it has taken to finalise and that it would conflict with his broader message about being pro-trade and pro-investment. "The key question is whether this will become a domestic political issue in Indonesia or not. Sometimes these things flare up and sometimes they just fade way. We will have to wait and see if anyone tries to use this to gain political advantage in Indonesia," he said. "I dont thinking President Jokowi will be so mortally offended that he will tear it up, he is already invested in the deal, he values having a productive relationship with Australia." Evan Laksmana, an analyst at Jakarta's Centre for Strategic and International Studies, said he did not think Indonesia would kill off the free trade deal, but if the Morrison government formally shifted its position to recognise Jerusalem it could delay the signing of the deal, which is due to take place by the end of the year. "I think some in Jakarta understand that this is about a domestic political concern [the Wentworth byelection]. If it is officially announced, not just floated, the timing would be terrible as we are in an election year. "At the very least, Jokowi could very quietly push back the announcement of the trade deal until after the election [due in April 2019]. Not cancelling, not withdrawing, but maybe not signing it until after the election." "President Jokowi would not want to be seen negotiating a free trade agreement with a country that hurts the Palestinian cause." Thus far, the response from opposition politicians in Indonesia about the proposal has been muted. But that could change in an election year that is once again expected to be dominated by nationalism and both Mr Joko and 2019 presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto looking to appeal to conservative Muslim voters. Aryo Djojohadikusumo, an MP with the Gerindra party and nephew of Mr Prabowo, said "the policy of Gerindra and Prabowo is the creation of an independent Palestinian state". He declined to comment further. Similarly, the influential MP Fahri Hamzah, who is deputy speaker of Parliament and a member of the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) which is allied with Prabowo's party, was critical of the proposal but declined to comment directly on "Australia's internal affairs". Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week said Indonesia was very, very important to Israel and he was keen to improve ties. The two countries do not have formal diplomatic relations. The influential Co-ordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs, Luhut Pandjaitan, dismissed concerns the Australian-Indonesia free trade deal was about to be scrapped, saying "I suppose that will remain unaffected and continue". Trade Minister Minister Enggartiasto Lukita said on Tuesday there was no suggestion the deal could be postponed and that it was on schedule to be signed by the end of the year.

/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/3492deb3-40f7-4dca-aa67-ffb470d0e2ad/r0_246_4000_2506_w1200_h678_fmax.jpgBharat Electronics Limited (BEL) has released an employment notification calling out aspirants to apply for the post of Engineer. Those interested can check out the eligibility, salary scale, how to apply and the complete details of the government job here.

The job is for a contract period of five years. The application fee is priced INR 500 and is payable online. Selected candidates can earn up to INR 1,40,000. The last date to apply for this government job is Nov 14, 2018.

BEL Recruitment 2018 For Engineers: Earn Up To INR 180000

BEL Recruitment 2018 Vacancy Details

CRITERIA DETAILS Name Of The Posts Engineer Organisation Bharat Electronics Limited Educational Qualification BE or BTech in electrical or mechanical engineering Experience 2 years Skills Required Engineering skills Job Location Pune (Maharashtra) Salary Scale INR 40,000 to INR 1,40,000 Industry Electronics Application Start Date October 16, 2018 Application End Date November 14, 2018

Maximum Age Limit: 27 years

Also Read: HPL Recruitment 2018: Apply For 11 Civil Engineer Vacancies

How To Apply For BEL Recruitment 2018

In order to apply for BEL Recruitment 2018, follow these steps:

Step 1 Log on to the BEL official website. Step 2 Hover over the Careers tab on the home page. Step 3 Select Recruitment - Advertisements. Step 4 The list of recent notifications will open. Step 5 Click on the Application Form link against BEL requires Engineers on Fixed Term basis for its Pune Unit. Step 6 The application form will open. Step 7 Take a printout of it.

Step 8: Send the completed applications to BEL.

BEL Recruitment 2018 Application Format And Mailing Address

Superscribe on the envelope, "Application for the post of *name of the post*" and send it to:

Dy. General Manager(HR), Bharat Electronics Limited, N.D.A.Road, Pashan,Pune- 411021, Maharashtra.

Send the scanned copy of the application form to contengr-1@bel.co.in before Nov 6, 2018.

Follow the link - http://bel-india.in/Documentviews.aspx?fileName=pune-web-advtrevised-final-revised-161018.pdf to read the detailed official notification.The Shipping Corporation of India Limited has released an employment notification calling out aspirants to apply for the posts of Technical Superintendent/Base Manager and Technical Assistant.

The contract period of the employees is for two years and can be extended for another six months. The maximum salary that can be earned through this government job opportunity is INR 1,35,600 per month.

The selection process is through a walk-in interview held on Oct 25, 2018. Selected candidates are entitled for a leave of 30 days a year. The officers are however not entitled to health benefits since they will not be permanent employees.

BEL Recruitment 2018: 20 Engineers To Be Hired

SCI Recruitment 2018 Vacancy Details

CRITERIA DETAILS Name Of The Posts Technical Superintendent/Base Manager and Technical Assistant Organisation The Shipping Corporation of India Limited Educational Qualification BE or MFG Experience 1 year Skills Required Engineering and technical skills Job Location Mumbai Salary Scale NR 60,000 to INR 1,35,600 per month Industry Shipping Application Start Date October 15, 2018 Application End Date October 25, 2018

Age Limit: 45 years for Technical Assistant and 62 years for Technical Superintendent/Base Manager

Also Read: GPSC Recruitment 2018: 285 Assistant Engineer Vacancies Open

How To Apply For SCI Recruitment 2018

In order to apply for SCI Recruitment 2018, follow these steps:

Step 1: Prepare a resume in the prescribed format.

Step 2: Submit it to SCI along with your ID proof and original documents on the day of interview.

Venue

The Shipping Corporation of India Limited, Shipping House, 17th Floor Cafeteria, 245, Madame Cama Road, Nariman Point, Mumbai - 400021.

Time

10 am

Contact Persons

Varsha S. Iyer, DM (P)- 022772576

Nilesh Hiremath AM(P)- 022772594

Follow the link - http://www.shipindia.com/uploaded_pdfs/carreer/MODU%20Add.pdf to read the detailed official notification.Dr. Kermit Gosnell's former Philadelphia facility, the Women's Medical Society, was the scene of untold horrors for many years, involving hundreds of babies being killed after being aborted alive.

This column contains material that is difficult to read. But for a long time it was difficult even to find material to read about the story, as major media outlets tried mightily to ignore the story of America's most prolific killer.

That may change now that "Gosnell: The Trial of America's Biggest Serial Killer" has been released in more than 600 movie theatres. It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.

Let me explain, with apologies for the details.

Dr. Kermit Gosnell owned and operated the Women's Medical Society clinic in Philadelphia. Well known for providing grisly lateterm abortions, the Gosnell clinic was actually raided in 2010 by the police on suspicion of illegal use of prescription drugs. They found an unsanitary, blood-stained, cat-infested "house of horrors" in which women were found suffering various degrees of malpractice by unlicensed and unqualified personnel. Fetal remains from late-term abortions were found in jars, in milk bags, in cat-food containers. The severed feet of dozens of fetal corpses were preserved.

In 2011, Gosnell was charged with eight counts of murder in addition to hundreds of violations of Pennsylvania's abortion laws. The murder charges related to an adult woman, Karnamaya Mongar, who died following an abortion procedure, and seven newborns killed by having their spinal cords severed with scissors after being born alive during attempted abortions. In the May 2013 trial, prosecutors focused on fewer charges to obtain the necessary convictions to send Gosnell away for life. He was convicted of murder (first degree) for three of the infants, and manslaughter for Mongar. Gosnell is in prison for life, having waived his right to appeal in order to avoid the death penalty.

But what was introduced at trial was only the bloody tip of a massive iceberg of killing. An unlicensed physician at the clinic, Steven Massof, 49, pleaded guilty to two counts of third-degree murder, murder conspiracy and other charges before Gosnell's trial. He testified to a grand jury that he snipped the spines of more than 100 babies after seeing them breathe, move or show other signs of life.

"Severing the spinal cords of moving, breathing babies outside their mothers' wombs was, according to Massof, 'standard procedure'," reported the grand jury.

"Partial-birth" abortion is infanticide by another name. "After-birth" abortion is infanticide, homicide, murder, pure and simple. And it took place on a massive scale at the Gosnell clinic.

How then did America's most prolific serial killer get away with it for so long? Therein lies a tale about regulators, the medical profession, police and journalists.

Gosnell had been sued dozens of times over more than three decades. Detailed complaints on several occasions had been made to state regulators. His clinic was found in violation by the state department of health as early as 1989. But despite mountains of evidence that would have shut down an orthopedic practice overnight, Gosnell was allowed to operate, with abortion politics providing cover. It went right to the top, with the grand jury finding Gov. Tom Ridge's office responsible for regulators looking the other way, or not bothering to look at all. That Gosnell preyed upon the poor made it easier for his victims to be ignored.

Abortion politics had corrupted the news media.

The police and prosecutors seemed deliberately lethargic, if not negligent, in following up deaths of women at the clinic, at least one of which resulted in a civil settlement. It was, after all, a Drug Enforcement Agency investigation that finally brought Gosnell down for illegal prescriptions. Had it not been for the DEA, Philadelphia police may have waited for the Internal Revenue Service to do its work for them.

Then came the trial. By all accounts it should have been a notorious story locally, if not nationally. But the major news media gave it a pass. Only after a shaming campaign on social media built pressure on the major networks and newspapers did the Gosnell story get some of the coverage it deserved.

Abortion politics had corrupted the news media. While a graphic sign outside an abortion clinic merits a disapproving story  to say nothing of violence at abortion clinics  the dismemberment of hundreds of babies born alive was treated as a non-story, unhelpful to the abortion cause.

And while Hollywood is eager to make movies about serial killers, the producers of the Gosnell film could not get the film financed. It got made only after a crowdfunding campaign raised the necessary US$2.1 million, normally chump change in the movie business.

The Gosnell story is difficult to tell. But that was not the reason that so many tried not to tell it. Will its cinematic telling now also be ignored?Press Briefing Transcript Tuesday, October 17, 2018 Audio recording media icon [4.11MB] Please Note: This transcript is not edited and may contain errors.

OPERATOR: Good afternoon and thank you for standing by and welcome to CDC update on acute flaccid myelitis. Todays conference is being recorded. If you have objections please disconnect at this time. Your line is placed on a listen only mode until the question and answer session of todays conference. At that time you may press star followed by the number one to ask a question. I would like to turn it over to Kathy Harben, Chief of CDCs New Media Branch.

KATHY HARBEN: Thank you all for joining us today on an update on acute flaccid myelitis also known as AFM in the United States. We are joined by Dr. Nancy Messonnier. She is director of CDCs National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. She has opening remarks and then she and her staff will be available for a Q&A period.

NANCY MESSONNIER: Thank you. Good afternoon and thank you for joining us today to talk about acute flaccid myelitis or AFM. Today I want to update you on CDCs work on AFM including what we know and what we dont know about the condition and advice for clinicians and parents. AFM is a rare, but serious condition that affects the nervous system. It specifically affects the area of spinal cord called gray matter and causes muscles and reflexes to become week. We know this can be frightening for parents. I know many parents want to know what the signs and symptoms are that they should be looking for in their child. I encourage parents to seek medical care right away if you or your child develop sudden weakness or loss of muscle tone in the arms or legs. CDC has been actively investigating AFM, testing specimens and monitoring disease since 2014 when we first saw an increase in cases. The number of cases reported in this time period in 2018 is similar to what was reported in the fall of 2014 and 2016. Since 2014, most of the AFM cases have been among children. In 2018 so far, CDC has received reports of 127 patients under investigation or PUIs; 62 cases have been confirmed as AFM (in 22 states) edited for clarity. CDC and state and local health departments are still investigating some of these PUIs. Of the confirmed cases, the average age is about 4 years old. More than 90 percent of the cases are in children age 18 years and younger. We plan to post updated PUI and AFM counts on our website this afternoon. Going forward, we will report updated case counts on our website every Monday afternoon. We expect that the case count may vary from week to week as our experts work with local and state health departments to investigate their PUIs. Based on previous years, most AFM cases occur in the late summer and fall. The data we are reporting today is a substantially larger number than in previous months this year. CDC recently received increased reports for patients suspected to have AFM with an onset of symptoms in August and September. With enhanced efforts working with state and local health departments and hospitals we were able to confirm a number of these cases faster. Also, CDC is now providing a number of patients still under investigation or PUIs, so people can better investigate increases in confirmed cases over the coming months. We understand that people particularly parents are concerned about AFM. Right now, we know that poliovirus is not the cause of these AFM cases. CDC has tested every stool specimen from the AFM patients, none of the specimens have tested positive for the poliovirus. AFM can be caused by other viruses, such as enterovirus and west nile virus, environmental toxins and a condition where the bodys immune system attacks and destroys body tissue that it mistakes for foreign material. While we know that these can cause AFM, we have not been able to find a cause for the majority of these AFM cases. The reason why we dont know about AFM  and I am frustrated that despite all of our efforts we havent been able to identify the cause of this mystery illness  we continue to investigate to better understand the clinical picture of AFM cases, risk factors and possible causes of the increase in cases. Despite extensive laboratory testing, we have not determined what pathogen or immune response caused the arm or leg weakness and paralysis in most patients. We dont know who may be at higher risk for developing AFM or the reasons why they may be at higher risk. We dont fully understand the long-term consequences of AFM. We know that some patients diagnosed with AFM have recovered quickly and some continue to have paralysis and require ongoing care. And we know of one death in 2017 in a child that had AFM. For health care professionals, we have developed a provider tool kit that contains information on AFM and instructions for reporting PUIs to the health department. CDCs website has information for families with patients with AFM, links to important resources and a section for health care providers. We will continue to post updates on our website. As a parent myself, I understand what it is like to be scared for your child. Parents need to know that AFM is very rare, even with the increase in cases that we are seeing now. We recommend seeking medical care right away if you or your child develop sudden weakness of the arms or legs. As we work to better understand what is causing AFM, parents can help protect their children from serious diseases by following prevention steps like washing their hands, staying up to date on recommended immunizations and using insect repellent. While I am concerned about the increase in cases, I want folks to know this work is core to CDCs mission to protect America from health threats. Thank you and we are happy to take any questions.

OPERATOR: Thank you, at this time if you is questions or comments you may press star 1. Again that is star 1 for questions or comments. Maggie Fox, you may go ahead.

MAGGIE FOX: Thanks, very much. Can you talk about a little bit more about the possible agents? You mentioned environmental toxins for the first time. Can we also put this in context of how extraordinarily rare these numbers are given the overall population of children? Thank you.

NANCY MESSONNIER: Sure. Thank you for the questions. Let me start with the second. Overall, the rate of AFM over the years that it has been diagnosed which is since 2014 is less than one in a million. That is why we say that this disease is incredibly rare. In terms of the causes, we are looking at everything. Certainly, after three cycles of this, when we have looked through all the normal agents, we are looking beyond that to see if there are things beyond normal infectious diseases that could cause this. Of course, we are considering environmental agents broadly. We have seen no sign of that yet, but we are open and considering all possibilities. This is a mystery so far and we havent solved it yet, so we have to be thinking broadly.

MAGGIE FOX: Thank you.

OPERATOR: The next question comes from Mike Stobbe. You may go ahead sir.

MIKE STOBBE: Thank you for taking my call. So I just wanted to confirm a couple of things. First of all, did you say 90 percent of these cases are in children 15 and younger, 1 in 5. Also, I want to confirm there have been no deaths in the 127? Also, 127, each of these cases are people who had paralysis or weak arms and legs? Then the last question, you talked about the rate of AFM since 2014 is less than one in a million. What is the denominator? A million kids in the U.S. or a million kids who have enterovirus? You said you havent been able to establish a cause in most cases, but in some it sounds like you have. What have you established and how many cases have you determined a cause?

NANCY MESSONNIER: Thats a long list of questions. Let me see if I can start with  overall since we have started detecting the increases in 2014 there has been 386 cases. So its that case over the population denominator, not those with the enterovirus that gets us less than one in a million. Its 18 years old, so 90 percent of the cases are in those 18 years of age or younger. Lets see  what are the causes? So for individual cases, we have determined causes. For example, weve have detected enterovirus in several of these individual cases. Theres sort of a long list of other agents that we have found in one or two. But if you are having the peaks of disease every late summer and early fall you would think we are finding a single agent. That is what we are not finding. For individual cases we are finding agents, but nothing that provides the unifying diagnosis that we expect to explain this disease. I guess, if you want to be specific, I can tell you that in several of the cases we found enterovirus and several cases we found rotovirus. Sorry, rhinovirus, not rotovirus. Some of it is public literature. But again this is a wide variety of causes. It doesnt explain the whole peak of disease. Did that answer all of your questions? There are a lot of them.

MIKE STOBBE: Im sorry to load a big list on you. Can you quantify of the 62 confirmed cases, like 20 of them you found something? Did you find west nile in any of them? If there is a tally of specific numbers, that would be helpful.

NANCY MESSONNIER: The numbers that Im quoting are actually primarily from the last two clusters in 2014 and 2016 where we have had much more time to go through a long list of diagnostics. In 2018, most of these cases are just occurring, so we havent finished the whole diagnostic algorithm. The numbers we would quote would be from the previous two clusters though we had no reason to think they would be different now. The number that I gave you, the overall number of patients under investigation are those patients for which we are looking in more depth to see if they meet the confirmed case definition. That is the smaller number versus the larger number that I gave you. I will stop there and see if there are more questions.

OPERATOR: Once again, that is star 1 if you would like to ask a question. Our next question comes from Helen Branswell, please state your affiliation.

HELEN BRANSWELL: Hi, Im with stat. I was wondering if there are any geographic clues that you are seeing a pattern with these infections? Do they cluster in any part of the country? Are they being seen elsewhere? Im fairly certain Canada has seen them. Im not sure if Ive heard reports from Europe. Is this unique to North America?

NANCY MESSONNIER: Thank you for both of the questions and for giving me the chance to clarify. There has been reported cases of AFM in many countries, but nobody else has detected this very particular pattern of disease with these seasonal clustering every other year. As far as we know it has only been detected in the united states. In terms of clustering in the United States, many states in the U.S. has been impacted by this disease, so we are not seeing geographic clustering in 2018 nor have we seen it in 2016 or 2014. We are looking for clues, but we really havent seen it in the geography.

HELEN BRANSWELL: Thank you.

OPERATOR: our next question comes from Betsy McKay from Wall Street Journal. You may go ahead.

BETSY MCKAY: Thanks so much. I have a couple questions. One is, if you compare this year, 2018 so far with 2014, is it on track, do you think, to be worse? Or is this more intense so far than 2014 or not? I saw 127 cases, but some are under investigation whereas in 2014, the CDC reported I think 120 people. Anyway, if you can put this year in context with 2014 and whether this is worse or not or if you think it will be worse  and also, is AFM reportable by  reported voluntarily by health departments to the CDC? Is it a reportable disease by doctors to health departments? How might that be playing into the numbers?

NANCY MESSONNIER: As you point out, in previous years we reported confirmed cases and we didnt regularly update on the patients under investigation. We decided this year that it was really important to be able to report also the patients under investigation so folks to see what is coming. That may be why the numbers dont exactly lineup to what you are familiar with in the previous two, 2014 and 2016. So far, we are generally on track to have a number of cases similar to what we have seen in 2014 and 2016, but it would be premature to say that were confident that we know what is going to happen since it really is early in this. Your second 

BETSY MCKAY: What is reportable? Is AFM notifiable? What is the process right now?

NANCY MESSONNIER: So we work very closely with our state and local partners across a wide variety of diseases. They are very concerned about AFM as we are. And they are working hard to identify these cases, report them and track them. And thats something that all across the country we are working with state and local health departments on. We have a call with them later today. We have a close partnership with them and we know that they are concerned about AFM and they have been reporting patients under investigation to us.

BETSY MCKAY: I guess my real question was, of the number of cases that have been reported, do you think there may be more out there that arent being reported? And is growing awareness of the disease affecting the numbers, causing them to be higher or do you not think that is a factor here?

NANCY MESSONNIER: Thank you for clarifying the question. This is actually a pretty dramatic disease. These kids have a sudden on set of weakness. They are generally seeking medical care and being evaluated by neurologists, infectious disease doctors and pediatricians. So, it is certainly possible that there are patients out there who have the disease who havent been reported, especially mild disease. We think the majority of cases are coming to our attention. That being said, one of the reasons that we are going out with this information is we do want to let patients know about this illness so that they can be aware of it and know that if their child does have sudden on set of weakness in their arms and legs they need to seek medical care right away.

BETSY MCKAY: thanks so much.

OPERATOR: Thank you. Lena Sun from the Washington Post, you may go ahead.

LENA SUN: Hi. Thanks for taking the call Dr. Messonnier. Can you just sort of very simply go over what CDC does when these cases come to your attention? What are you doing to investigate? And how is anything different now this year than in previous years in terms of what you guys are doing?

NANCY MESSONNIER: Sure. So this is what CDC is here for, to investigate these kinds of clusters of illness. So we do all of the normal protocol that we would follow. When we detect the cases we gather a bunch of information through our health departments, partners and hospitals, as well as, collecting a whole bunch of samples. So with a case investigation we have expanded laboratory testing. We also have reviewed a number of external experts to help us think through this disease to make sure that we are doing absolutely everything we can both clinically, epidemiologically and also from a laboratory perspective to identify the cause. Although we have had activities all along and this is a normal pattern of how we would investigate, we are certainly escalating our response this year to make sure that we are basically considering everything possible and doing everything that we can.

LENA SUN: So just to follow up, so is that external panel of experts, was that something new this year or have you always had that external panel?

NANCY MESSONNIER: We have been consulting with experts since this began as we would normally do when something isnt so straightforward to us. We expanded the group last year  not last year, but in 2016 to make sure that we were considering every possibility. We are going to do the same thing this year, go back and make sure that any expert that might be able to give us information is included in our discussions.

LENA SUN: Thank you.

OPERATOR: Thank you. Allison Aubrey from NPR, you may go ahead.

ALLISON AUBREY: Three quick questions. Wondering if you can circle back to the west nile question. Have any of them been linked to west nile this year? Im assuming the diagnosis is made by the onset of the symptoms if there isnt a common pathology, as you just explained you havent been able to link it back to any common pathology confirming the diagnosis is made on the symptoms. You mentioned that some kids recover fully, there was one death, some kids continue to have paralysis. Can you talk about the number of kids that you think make a full recovery?

NANCY MESSONNIER: Thank you for reminding me about the west nile virus. I think it was in Mike Stobbes list of questions and I missed it. None of these patients have had west nile virus, though we do not believe that west nile virus is causing these cases. In terms of the case definition, it is also a radiological finding. These patients have a specific finding in their MRI scans. It is a combination of symptoms, but also an MRI. Since we dont have a pathogen identified the case definition has to include those findings, not the identification of an actual pathogen. In terms of the numbers, I dont have that right in front of me, but we can get back to you with estimates from the previous two seasons.

ALLISON AUBREY: Thank you.

OPERATOR: Thank you. Our last question comes from Susan Scutti from CNN. You may go ahead.

SUSAN SCUTTI: Thank you for taking my question. Yesterday CNN reported 30 states reporting PUIs or confirmed cases. You are saying 22 states. Can you explain the eight-state discrepancy?

NANCY MESSONNIER: I think the way that I would explain this is that the 22 states that we are reporting are the states that have confirmed cases. As you know, many states across the country as well as parents are identifying issues and are talking about their own kids that may have illness. The 22 number is the states that have confirmed cases. Thats what we will be reporting on our website. There is going to be a delay, a lag in the timing of some of these reports. Its a case definition that requires review of the radiological images as well as the clinical syndrome. So there is a bit of a lag as we review those things. There may be cases reported in the media that arent yet confirmed to the CDC. We will report overall cases under investigation, but then the confirmed cases and the states that have confirmed cases.

KATHY HARBEN: Thanks. Dr. Messonnier now has a few final comments.

NANCY MESSONNIER: Thank you for listening today. I want to take this last moment to remind parents that AFM is a very rare condition. It is also a serious condition. We want to encourage parents to seek medical care right away if you or your child develops symptoms of AFM, such as sudden weakness and loss of muscle tone in your arms or legs. As we work to better understand what is causing AFM, parents can help protect their children from serious diseases by following prevention steps like washing our hands, staying up to date on recommended vaccines and using insect repellent to prevent mosquito bites. Thank you.

KATHY HARBEN: Thank you Dr. Messonnier and also thank you to the media who have joined us for this call. If you have follow up questions, you can call our media line at 404-649-3286 or e-mail us at media@cdc.gov. A transcript of this call will be posted later today. Thank you again for joining us. This concludes our call.

OPERATOR: Thank you. This does conclude todays conference call. You may go ahead and disconnect at this time.

###

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICESexternal iconYamama Cement posts 3Q18 loss

ICR Newsroom By 17 October 2018

Yamama Cement Co reported a drop in revenues in the first nine months of the year to SAR107.7m (US$28.7m) from SAR164.2m in 3Q17. The fall in sales was attributed to the steep price decline in the Saudi market.



The 3Q results also showed a SAR46.4m net loss after zakat and tax. In 3Q17 the company reported a SAR29.2m net profit, according to Reuters.

Published underBangladesh cement exports rise July-Sept

17 October 2018

Bangladesh's cement industry recorded export revenue of US$3.17m during July-Sept 2018 compared to US$2.72m of the corresponding year-ago period, according to the Bangladesh Export Promotion Bureau. This is an increase of 16.54 per cent YoY. The export figure also includes a minor amount of salt, stone and related products.



Bangladeshs government has set an export target of US$14m for cement industry for the financial year 2018-19 (June-July), against US$12.59m from last fiscal year. The target is based on an expected growth of 11.20 per cent.



Presently, cement is reportedly being exported to India, Myanmar, Nepal, Maldives and Sri Lanka.

Published underBefore Melania Trump ever met Donald Trump, she was living a completely different life. She was born as Melanija Knavs on Apr. 26, 1970, but her name was later westernized to Melania Knauss. However, after she became a married woman in 2005, she took on a new last name: Trump.

Though she met her future husband while living in New York, Trump grew up in the communist nation of Novo Mesto, Slovenia. She was raised alongside a younger sister, but later discovered she had a half-brother on her fathers side, as well.

Overall, Trumps life was pretty mysterious before she became the wife of a famous businessman. Heres everything we know about what her life was like before becoming Mrs. Trump.

She started modeling at 16 years old

Long before her days as the first lady, Trump had her own successful career as a model. She got started at just 16 years old, after being discovered by Slovenian photographer Stane Jerko. Trump was simply sitting on a fence waiting for a friend outside of a fashion show, when the photographer couldnt help but notice her beauty.

It was January 1987 when I went home just before the end of the fashion show, Jerko told Today. On the stairs of the Festival Hall, I saw a girl that immediately caught my eye. There stood a tall, slender, and attractive long-haired girl with distinct eyes.

She dropped out of college to model

When Trumps modeling career came calling, she decided to put a halt on her college education. She enrolled at the University of Ljubljana, which is located in Slovenia. Her major was in design and architecture, but once she signed with a modeling agency at 18, she dropped out.

It wasnt until she was 22 that she had her big break. She competed in a Look of the Year contest for Jana, a Slovenian womens magazine  and she was crowned the runner-up. Even if she didnt win, she caught the attention of photographers who wanted to work with her.

She learned how to speak five languages

Just because Trump dropped out of college doesnt mean she didnt have the opportunity to learn. She reportedly speaks five languages: Slovene, English, German, Serbian, and French.

Her career peaked in the 90s

Trump ended up working with some big names in the 90s, officially making her a successful model. From 1992 to 1996, she modeled in Milan and Paris. She worked with well-known photographers, such as Helmut Newton and Patrick Demarchelier, even landing on covers of Harpers Bazaar in Bulgaria and Italys Vanity Fair.

By 1996, she made her move to New York  where she would meet her future husband, Donald Trump, two years later.

She always lived a private life

Trump is often criticized for leading such a private life as the first lady. However, her privacy is something shes always valued. In a 2005 New York Post interview, ID Models president Paolo Zampolli recalled what Trump was like before meeting Donald.

It was unusual for her to go out; she never went to clubs or bars, Zampolli claimed. She never dated anyone in New York before Donald. She only went to movies by herself and to the gym.It seems like were always hearing about members of the royal family traveling here and there for official visits and tours but did you ever wonder who was paying for all those trips they take abroad?

The British royals do a lot of traveling overseas in an effort to promote good relations with other countries, however, their means of transportation getting from one place to another differ from time to time. Sometimes theyll take a private jet to travel from one destination to the next while other times they are seen flying commercial.

Kate Middleton, who opted to take the private jet for her and Prince Williams most recent Canadian tour, flew British Airways for her solo tour to the Netherlands in 2016. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have also been spotted flying commercial. In December 2017, the pair were seen sitting in the back of the plane on a commercial flight to Nice, France. Even Queen Elizabeth herself has flown on budget airlines during her reign.

How they get around can depend on where they are going and for what purpose, which is the reason for the change in transportation most times. The royals have a limited travel budget and typically only request the private jet for official visits, not personal trips. The British taxpayers usually foot the bill for their travel expenses, but not always.

On occasion, the country they are traveling to pays for the trip. For example, in October 2018 when the Duke and Duchess of Sussexs headed to Australia for their tour the Australian taxpayers, not the British, picked up the costs. Residents of the country also paid when the queen flew there for a five-day visit in 2006. Her Majestys whole visit added up to more than $1 million then, so its safe to assume that Harry and Markles cost a lot more.

Prince Charles is also an extravagant traveler. For a trip to Romania, Italy, and Austria he managed to rack up more than $200,000 in travel expenses. That number though doesnt seem like much compared to how much was spent when he hopped aboard the private jet and visited India, Malaysia, Brunei, and Singapore.

According to Vanity Fair, that trip came out to more than $475,000. The Prince of Wales also has no problem using the familys most expensive mode of transport, the royal train, to travel from place to place. Palace officials though claim that Charles uses the appropriate transportation for his foreign trips.

I sense that personal connections, or what the jargon might call people-to-people links, will have a very important role to play in defining this new chapter in relations with our friends and neighbors around the world, said Clive Alderton, the Princes principal private secretary.

The Express noted that between 2016 and 2017 British taxpayers coughed up almost $6 million for royal traveling.

Read more: Which Member of the Royal Family Refuses to Shake Hands With Fans and Why?

Check out The Cheat Sheet on Facebook!Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has welcomed the idea of moving the Australian embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, sparking widespread debate over the issue.

In May, the United States moved its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem signaling the United States recognition of Jerusalem as Israels true capital.

On Tuesday, Australias Prime Minister suggested that the land down under might be following suit.

During a press conference on Monday, Morrison said, We are committed to a two-state solution. Australias position on this issue has, to date, assumed that it is not possible to consider the question of the recognition of Israels capital in Jerusalem, and that be consistent with pursuing a two-state solution.

The Prime Minister goes on to say that the former Ambassador of Australia to Israel, Dave Sharma, suggested several months ago that moving the Australian embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv could allow for Australia to both, recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move toward a two-state solution.

The two-state solution refers to a resolution between the warring nations of Israel and Palestine that would create "an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel  two states for two peoples," as the New York Times put it.

Many on the world stage have been working for decades to achieve this goal, but as Prime Minister Morrison stated in the press conference, it hasnt been going that well.

Morrison said, We are committed to a two-state solution, but frankly, it hasnt been going that well, and you dont keep doing the same thing and expect different results.

He continued, And so when sensible suggestions are put forward that are consistent with your policy positioning, and in this case pursuing a two-state solution, Australia should be open-minded to this.

Morrison goes on to say that he and the government are open to the move and as such, Australia is open to the move.

This announcement sparked controversy on the world stage, and Palestinian leaders are voicing their disappointment, while Israeli leaders are voicing their content.

The move is not definitively happening, and Morrison stated that he would like to take the coming months to confer with his colleagues and other world leaders before a decision is reached.

Photo courtesy: Keith Zhu/Unsplash

Video courtesy: Straya NewsJUBA, South Sudan, October 17, 2018 (Morning Star News) Security officials in Sudan last week arrested 13 Christians during a worship service in the Darfur Region, sources said.

Personnel from Sudans National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) interrupted the worship service the afternoon of Oct. 10 in Nyala, capital of South Darfur state in western Sudans Darfur Region and arrested all 13 Christians present (not Oct. 13 while evangelizing Muslims, as reported elsewhere), the sources said.

NISS personnel gave no reason for arresting the Christians, members of four different house churches who had come together for the service, except to say that they were all converts from Islam, the sources said. Authorities are targeting Christian converts from Islam in Darfur, they said.

We are worried because their whereabouts are still unknown, said one source, adding that he feared they might be tortured. The Christians gathered as one body of Christ from different denominations.

The arrested Christians include 10 from Darfur and three from the Nuba Mountains in southeastern Sudan. Church leader Tajaldin Idriss Yousif was arrested along with his church members: Alfadil Ismail Alnil, Ahmed Mohammed Hassan, Neseraldin Osman, Shemen Ahmed Shemen and Abubaker Biri.

Other Christians arrested were identified only as Kamal, Abdullah, Mutasim, Mujahid, El Sadik Afendi, Bolis Suliman and Abdel Maseh. NISS, widely regarded as a notorious agency staffed by hard-line Islamists, may hold people in detention for up to four and a half months without charges.

Following the secession of South Sudan in 2011, Sudan President Omar al-Bashir vowed to adopt a stricter version of sharia (Islamic law) and recognize only Islamic culture and the Arabic language. Church leaders said Sudanese authorities have demolished or confiscated churches and limited Christian literature on the pretext that most Christians have left the country following South Sudans secession.

The Sudanese Minister of Guidance and Endowments announced in April 2013 that no new licenses would be granted for building new churches in Sudan, citing a decrease in the South Sudanese population.

Sudan since 2012 has expelled foreign Christians and bulldozed church buildings on the pretext that they belonged to South Sudanese. Besides raiding Christian bookstores and arresting Christians, authorities threatened to kill South Sudanese Christians who do not leave or cooperate with them in their effort to find other Christians.

Sudan fought a civil war with the South Sudanese from 1983 to 2005, and in June 2011, shortly before the secession of South Sudan the following month, the government began fighting a rebel group in the Nuba Mountains that has its roots in South Sudan.

Due to its treatment of Christians and other human rights violations, Sudan has been designated a Country of Particular Concern by the U.S. State Department since 1999.

Sudan ranked fourth on Christian support organization Open Doors 2018 World Watch List of countries where Christians face most persecution.

If you would like to help persecuted Christians, visit http://morningstarnews. org/resources/aid-agencies/ for a list of organizations that can orient you on how to get involved.JUBA, South Sudan, October 17, 2018 (Morning Star News)  A young Catholic woman has discovered personally that many Public Order Police in Muslim-majority Sudan believe they have a mandate to sexually harass those they deem inappropriately dressed.

Nyankiir Kual Mayen, a 24-year-old university student in Al Qadarif in eastern Sudan, filed a complaint with police two days after a Public Order Police officer held and groped her on Sept. 21, but there is no indication police have taken any action, sources said.

Mayen, a South Sudanese national studying at Al Qadarif University, was on her way to a church service when she noticed a Public Order Police officer following her in his vehicle. Identified only as Akasha, the officer stopped her as she reached the towns main market area, she said. Women not dressed according to strict Islamic customs in Sudan are easily identifiable as non-Muslims.

The officer grabbed her and groped her breast, Mayen said.

He ordered her to come with him to the police station, but she insisted that it was illegal to arrest women on the street without a warrant, Mayen said. Annoyed, the officer said he would arrest her for indecent dress, she said.

One of nearly a dozen witnesses said the officer told her he was from the Public Order Police with a mandate to arrest and harass women who were indecently dressed. The business administration student, who is choir director at her church, was wearing a long skirt and blouse, witnesses said.

Nyankiir was wearing decent clothing, a witness identified only as Dalia said.

Mayen was not charged, and the officer left. She filed the complaint against him on Sept. 23.

The officer in charge of investigating Mayens complaint, identified only as Adri, declined to comment when contacted by Morning Star News.

Several witnesses confirmed the assault to Morning Star News.

This incident is true my brothers and sisters, Mayen said. I will not forgive such a person.

The incident drew widespread reaction on social media, with many calling for justice to be administered to the officer.

Rights activists say Sudan Public Order Police routinely violate human rights, including religious freedom, often arresting women and forcing them to pay fines and bribes to secure their release.

Following the secession of South Sudan in 2011, Sudan President Omar al-Bashir vowed to adopt a stricter version of sharia (Islamic law) and recognize only Islamic culture and the Arabic language. Church leaders said Sudanese authorities have demolished or confiscated churches and limited Christian literature on the pretext that most Christians have left the country following South Sudans secession.

The Sudanese Minister of Guidance and Endowments announced in April 2013 that no new licenses would be granted for building new churches in Sudan, citing a decrease in the South Sudanese population.

Sudan since 2012 has expelled foreign Christians and bulldozed church buildings on the pretext that they belonged to South Sudanese. Besides raiding Christian bookstores and arresting Christians, authorities threatened to kill South Sudanese Christians who do not leave or cooperate with them in their effort to find other Christians.

Sudan fought a civil war with the South Sudanese from 1983 to 2005, and in June 2011, shortly before the secession of South Sudan the following month, the government began fighting a rebel group in the Nuba Mountains that has its roots in South Sudan.

Due to its treatment of Christians and other human rights violations, Sudan has been designated a Country of Particular Concern by the U.S. State Department since 1999.

Sudan ranked fourth on Christian support organization Open Doors 2018 World Watch List of countries where Christians face most persecution.

If you would like to help persecuted Christians, visit http://morningstarnews. org/resources/aid-agencies/ for 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/ ?In 2020, we were the church on our heels. A global pandemic shut down much of our world. But the church has been on the move since it was birthed; it will continue to be on the move until God makes all things new.Churches offered funding for science projects

Churches across England are being invited to apply for grants to fund activities aimed at promoting a better understanding between science and faith.

Applications are being encouraged from Christian churches as part of Scientists in Congregations, a scheme aimed at inspiring learning and discussion about science in the Christian community.

The project is part of the Equipping Christian Leadership in an Age of Science programme and is open to all mainstream Christian churches.

A total of 32 projects in churches, dioceses and cathedrals have been funded through Scientists in Congregations since 2016 for activities ranging from evensong services with a scientific theme, to public lectures, family science clubs and discussion groups.

The Bishop of Kingston, Dr Richard Cheetham, one of the leaders of Equipping Christian Leadership in an Age of Science, said: 'Scientists in Congregations is playing a significant role in changing the grass roots level conversation about the way that the church relates to science  both changing the way regular churchgoers view how their faith relates to science and the perceptions of those who don't usually go to church but are fascinated by the events they attend.'

Projects funded so far include one in the Harwell and Chilton CofE benefice, made up of two parish churches in Oxford Diocese. They are located in an area known as 'Science Vale UK', which includes the Harwell Campus, an international centre of excellence for science, home to the Rutherford Appleton Laboratories, the European Space Agency and 200 science orientated companies.

The churches received funding for public lectures, a family science club and a fortnightly science discussion group.

Rector Dr Jonathan Mobey, a practising GP, said: 'We really needed to take the initiative and encourage Christians who are working in science and technology but also to reach out in a wider sense to debunk the myth that science and faith are incompatible.

'We have raised awareness of the fact that there are prominent scientists who are Christians and increased the confidence of those who work in science and technology.'

Rev Dr Tim Bull, a former computer scientist and director of ministry for St Albans Diocese, launched the 'Take your Vicar to the Lab' project two years ago with Rev Prof Nick Goulding, Professor of Pharmacology and Medical Education at Queen Mary University of London.

More than 30 clergy and readers have visited laboratories and academic facilities including the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire, the Genome Centre and Genomic England in London and Barts Hospital and the School of Pharmacy at University College London. The project has inspired more activities including a church summer holiday programme.

Projects aim to build on existing links between church leaders and science specialists in their congregations. The science professionals can have an expertise in areas from physics, chemistry and biology to medicine, psychology and social scientific approaches to questions of human nature, culture and theology.

The deadline for application is January 7, 2019. For more details and to apply click here.EXCLUSIVE: Evangelical bishops offer olive branch to GAFCON

Evangelical bishops in the Church of England have offered a hand of friendship to GAFCON  the international Anglican grouping emerging as a potential future alternative to the Anglican Communion.

In an unexpected overture, 13 bishops have written a letter declaring that it is 'really important' for them 'to stay in good relationship' with their 'orthodox Anglican brothers and sisters' in GAFCON, and say they hope their initiative in reaching out 'can mark the beginning of better communication and liaison between us'.

At the same time, the bishops make it clear they have no intention of leaving the Church of England at the moment, stating: 'We hope that you will understand our continuing commitment to [it], which we see as privilege, gift and calling, and that you will hear our request to work together closely as partners in the Gospel as we journey into God's future.'

The olive branch to GAFCON comes just days after an earlier letter from evangelical bishops warning the Church of England not to liberalise its sexual ethics. While there is some overlap in signatories, the list of those signing is not identical.

The bishops behind this second letter say they are writing in response to GAFCON's 2018 assembly in Jerusalem, and the 'Letter to the Churches' which was produced there. They express agreement with GAFCON's view of the crisis in Anglicanism: 'The analysis of the current tragic situation in the Anglican Communion which is set out [in GAFCON's letter]... is one which resonates with our experience as Bishops in the Church of England... We cannot disagree with the GAFCON diagnosis concerning the tear in the fabric of the Communion.'

And referring to GAFCON's call for liberal provinces not to be invited to the next global conference of bishops at Lambeth in 2020, the bishops say 'representations will need to be made' to Justin Welby 'by all orthodox Anglicans, in order to indicate the strength of feeling on this issue'. They also 'resonate' with GAFCON's wish for its new conservative Anglican provinces in North America and Brazil to be invited.

The bishops say they see it as their 'present calling' to 'remain committed to the Church of England'. But they also admit: 'There may come a time when the Church of England... departs from the biblical and apostolic Faith  and this might occur for any number of reasons.' At the moment, however, they say 'the core doctrine of the Church of England remains unchanged'.

They add: 'There is some popular misrepresentation of the current House of Bishops which alleges that we are heterodox; we recognise the fears, but our personal conversations and experience lead us to the conclusion that [this] perception is far from the normative reality.'

The letter goes on to 'recognise that the GAFCON movement is something that has united Anglican Churches across the world who are looking for a different shape for a global Communion', but adds: 'We regret that no recognition is given in the letter to those who in good conscience believe it is right to stay within their current Anglican structure.'

Archbishop Foley Beach, Primate of ACNA and Chairman-designate of GAFCON, is currently on a tour of the UK. It is not clear whether he or the letter-writers have been in touch with one another yet to meet face to face. The letter from the bishops says: 'We would welcome the opportunity to engage more fully in conversations with GAFCON UK about its polity, how it sees itself in relation to the Church of England, and about its missional strategy and purpose.'

The bishops say they were grateful for the invitation to attend GAFCON 2018. But they state that a problem in doing so was the requirement to sign an extra declaration of faith in addition to that which they had already made for the Church of England. 'Perhaps,' they say, 'there is room for some accommodation on this issue for those of us who would like to attend future GAFCON events'. They also ask for 'liaison between us' as GAFCON's networks are developed in England.

Signatories to both letters this week are the Bishops of Peterborough, Willesden, Durham, Blackburn, Ludlow, Plymouth and Carlisle, and Rt Rev Mark Rylands, formerly Bishop of Shrewsbury and now an assistance bishop in the Diocese of Exeter. Signatories to the first letter but not the second are the Bishops of Birkenhead, Maidstone, Lancaster, and the retired Bishop of Shrewsbury; signatories to the second letter but not the first are the Bishops of Winchester, Lewes, Guildford, Basingstoke, and Southwell & Nottingham.

One reason for some of the difference is that the signatories of this new letter do not include those bishops who attended GAFCON in Jerusalem  it comes specifically from evangelical bishops who did not attend. The full text of the letter is being posted on the website of the Church of England Evangelical Council.

David Baker is a former daily newspaper journalist now working as an Anglican minister in Sussex, England. Find him on Twitter @Baker_David_AIn rare campaign for Cuba, churches advocate against gay marriage

Cuban evangelical churches are collecting signatures to petition against a proposed constitutional amendment that would open the door to gay marriage, as part of an unusually strong nongovernmental political campaign for the Communist-run island.

Cubans have been discussing the broader revamp of their Soviet-era constitution, as proposed by the Communist Party, at official block-level meetings nationwide since August.

Article 68, which redefines matrimony as gender neutral, has sparked a particular uproar, revealing how macho Cuban society remains despite making headway on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights in recent years.

Cuba's churches, which enjoy more autonomy and influence than any other organization not affiliated with the Communist Party after the country expanded religious freedoms in the 1990s, have been stoking the controversy.

'We do not in any way approve Article 68...because the Bible condemns it,' Pastor Lester Fernandez, 39, said to euphoric applause from around 500 people gathered at a Methodist church in Havana one weekday morning earlier this month.

The Methodist Church is one of 21 evangelical denominations that this month started gathering signatures for a petition against the amendment.

They have also been plastering posters celebrating the 'original family design, just as God created it' on their doors and windows, surprising many Cubans in a one-party country with tight control of public spaces.

Some analysts say the focus on gay marriage is crowding out discussion of other, more sensitive issues raised by the constitutional revamp, which maintains Cuba's one-party socialist system as 'irrevocable' while reflecting changes of recent years in its 224 articles.

'[Gay marriage] has functioned as a smokescreen to hide other realities,' said Isbel Diaz Torres, an activist for many issues, including LGBT rights.

Diaz Torres said he would be happy to finally be able to marry his boyfriend of 14 years if the constitution were approved and the necessary legal changes made.

But he wished Cubans would use the public consultation to address other issues like human rights.

The consultation has provoked an unusually open debate for Cuba, with some citizens, for example, calling for direct elections for president. Yet some topics, like the possibility of another political or economic system, appear to remain off-limits.

Half a million signatures?

Cuba persecuted gays in the early decades of Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution, as it did religious people, rounding them up as counter-revolutionaries and placing them in labour camps.

Castro apologised in 2010 for this, and the country has made strides in LGBT rights in recent years, thanks partly to the advocacy of his niece, Mariela Castro, director of the National Centre for Sex Education (CENESEX). Fidel Castro died in 2016.

If the constitution were approved with Article 68 in place, Cuba would be on track to joining Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Uruguay in allowing same-sex couples to marry.

Given that it already guarantees other LGBT rights like free sex-change operations, this would make it an unlikely regional leader in LGBT rights, particularly in the Caribbean where homophobia is rife and some countries still have anti-sodomy laws.

However, the government has promised to take into account public suggestions for a final version to be put to a referendum early next year.

Cuban Evangelical League Church President Alida Leon Baez said she expected more than 500,000 Cubans to sign the churches' petition.

Meanwhile, more than 60 per cent of Cuba's 11.2 million citizens are baptized in the Roman Catholic Church, which has not weighed in on Article 68, but traditionally opposes same-sex marriage.

'If the topic of matrimony is not modified in the constitutional project, we will all vote against it,' said Leon Baez. 'If this is approved, our nation is going to total destruction.'

This could put the government in a bind if it wants to prove the public consultation is a real example of participatory democracy, and not, as some opponents say, a fraud.

Cuban LGBT activists have run a counter-campaign mainly on social media. But they complain the government does not officially recognise most independent activists and occasionally harasses them.

That means they, unlike Cuba's churches, cannot do big campaigns.

'CENESEX is doing many actions,' said LGBT activist Ulises Padron. 'But we can't forget at the end of the day it's an academic, scientific, teaching institution.'Why we need a Day of Prayer for the Media

The disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi has prompted global outrage, with G7 foreign ministers calling for a 'transparent' inquiry into the issue and companies pulling out of a Saudi business conference.

What is unusual about the Khashoggi case is not that a journalist has gone missing with fears that he has been murdered, but that a reporter's disappearance has caused such an outpouring of international indignation.

Because, sadly, we are living in very dangerous times for the media.

BBC director-general Tony Hall told the Society of Editors earlier this month: 'In country after country, repression of the media seems to have become a new norm. The persecution and imprisonment of journalists for simply doing their job is all too commonplace.'

He spoke of 'war correspondents, the bravest of the brave, being deliberately targeted by regular armies' and how 29-year-old BBC correspondent Ahmad Shah had been shot dead in Afghanistan earlier this year.

Even before Jamal Khashoggi's disappearance, the New York Times was headlining 'A deadly year for journalists' and pointing out the growing risk to reporters 'even in democratic countries where press freedom has been seen as an essential part of civil society'.

The Committee to Protect Journalists, an independent non-profit organisation, estimates that 44 journalists have been killed so far this year, outpacing 2017.

BBC1 recently screened Press, a series following the staff of a London-based left-leaning broadsheet newspaper, competing with a thriving popular tabloid. Many journalists were critical of how they were depicted on screen.

Yet it did bring home some of the everyday pressures faced by journalists seeking to do their job against tight budgets, short deadlines and the temptation to cut corners to get results.

In the UK, regional and local newspapers are closing because of advertising moving online, with remaining journalists being asked to undertake greater workloads. The government has launched an inquiry to see how quality journalism can be safeguarded.

In London, St Bride's Church in Fleet Street, known as the 'spiritual home of the media' or 'the Journalists' church' has a long history of supporting those who work in the media. The church has a dedicated 'Journalists' Altar' for prayer.

Now Christians and churches across the UK are being encouraged to mark Sunday November 4 as a Day of Prayer for the Media. It's being organised by The MediaNet, a UK network that supports, encourages and inspires Christians who work in, and with, the media.

In support of the day, the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, the Bishop of Repton, Jan McFarlane and the Bishop of Dudley, Graham Usher, have joined others in writing prayers for the media.

Archbishop Sentamu's prayer reads:

Lord Jesus Christ, you speak and bring all that is seen and unseen into being: we give you thanks for the gift of the media to reach the far flung places of the earth with messages of hope and life.

We give you thanks for those who risk their security and even their lives to expose injustice and to bring news of hope.

May they strive to be the bearers of good news that all people may come to know the abundant life for which we have been created; and yet more wonderfully redeemed in Jesus Christ.

We offer our prayer in your name, in the power of the Holy Spirit for the glory of the Father.

Amen.

The MediaNet is encouraging churches to include prayers for the media, and those who work in or with it, in their services on Sunday November 4, and has produced a web area with ideas.

It says: 'At its best, the media gives a voice to the voiceless, holds the powerful to account, and highlights unjust practices while entertaining us and keeping us informed.

'As Christians we affirm and support the media's vital role in our society. We promote the highest standards in the media, and give our backing to the vast majority of people working in media as they strive for integrity and truth.'

Rev Peter Crumpler is associate minister at St Leonard's Church, Sandridge, Herts, and former director of communications for the Church of England's Archbishops' Council.

For Day of Prayer for the Media resources click here.The women who loved  and were loved by  Picasso

Picassos love affairs were legendary and they fuelled his creativity. Ahead of the sale of four portraits of his different muses from the Sam Rose and Julie Walters Collection, we focus on the women he came to depend on so passionately

I paint the way some people write their autobiography, said Pablo Picasso, explaining that his pictures were like the pages of a diary. For an artist with a prodigious sexual appetite, this perhaps reveals why many of his paintings focus on the women in his life. For Picasso, sex and art were intertwined  the procreative act in harmony with the creative act. He devoured his lovers on canvas and in the bedroom with the appetite of a Minotaur, insinuating himself into the pictures through coded symbols  often phallic. Each of his lovers represented a key moment in his career, from the illicit eroticism of his association with Marie-Therese Walter in the late 1920s, which typified his late Cubist period, to the watchful sensuality of Jacqueline Roque in his final years. On 11 November, four paintings by Picasso, each depicting a different lover, will be offered in the Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale at Christies in New York. The Washington real-estate developer Sam Rose and his wife Julie Walters spent years acquiring the portraits, and what these powerful depictions of women reveal is that Picasso had a far more complex relationship with the muses in his life than first thought. Leading the collection is Femme au beret orange et au col de fourrure (Marie-Therese), painted on 4 December 1937, which portrays Picassos clandestine mistress, the voluptuous and luminous Marie-Therese Walter.

The story of their meeting, outside the Galeries Lafayette in 1927, has entered folklore. You have an interesting face. I would like to do a portrait of you, he told the bewildered teenager. I feel we are going to do great things together. This portrait encapsulates that early impulse: the young muse depicted as a cosmopolitan girl-about-town. The art historian David Sylvester has written that Picasso probably didnt become a truly great erotic artist... until he started composing his celebrations of the joys of making love to Marie-Therese. And yet he soon tired of his languid and adoring mistress, and turned his attentions instead to the brilliant and highly-strung Surrealist photographer Dora Maar.

Bust de femme, painted in 1939, is a robust portrait of the raven-haired Maar as a woman warrior  both a Joan 0f Arc-like figure and a Cassandra, warning of the cursed war to come. For me shes the weeping woman, explained Picasso of the muse who sat for his most celebrated work, Guernica, in 1936. For years Ive painted her in tortured forms, not through sadism, and not with pleasure, either; just obeying a vision that forced itself on me. Their relationship was volatile and when Picasso left her for her sexual rival  the 21-year-old Francoise Gilot  Maar declared with dramatic intensity, After Picasso, only God.

Despite her youth, Gilot was surprisingly adept at navigating the painters desire. Portrait de Francoise Gilot, painted between 2 May and 26 December 1947, has a Spartan intensity that marks the late period of Picassos black and white phase. Consumed by the shadow of the black dog, he looked out on a Stygian post-war world and used Gilots innocence to depict it with a bleak clarity. Many years later, Picassos biographer John Richardson asked Gilot why their relationship eventually broke down. Her answer was telling: Je ne suis pas une femme soumise (Im not a submissive woman).

This was not the case of the artists final muse and second wife, Jacqueline Roque. For Picasso, this dark, compliant beauty represented an atavistic, Mediterranean ideal. Picasso likened his wifes face to the prostitute in Eugene Delacroixs Femmes dAlger dans leur appartement (1834), and in homage made his own series, Les Femmes dAlger, a version of which was sold at Christies in 2015 for over $179 million  a world auction record at the time. Buste de femme nue, painted in 1963, reflects the artists perennial obsession with his wifes Romanesque profile, one he explored in paint more exhaustively than any other.

Sign up today Christie's Online Magazine delivers our best

features, videos, and auction news

to your inbox every week SubscribeRay Fisher / Royal Dutch Shell

Venture Global LNG has signed two 20-year contracts to provide U.S. liquefied natural gas to the state-run Polish Oil and Gas Co.

The Virginia-based LNG company is building two export terminals in Louisiana. Its Calcasieu Pass facility is expected to begin operations in 2022, and its Plaquemines facility is expected to follow in 2023.Over the past year, more than 500 people have been injured or died during their visits to Texas state parks.

The spring and summer months are the most dangerous, according to data obtained from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department spanning September 2017 through August 2018. Nearly one-quarter of the incidents occurred during May or June, and 13 of the 20 deaths reported occurred between May and August.BRIDGEPORT  Two convicted felons are facing charges after officers caught them in a car with guns and seized drugs from one of their residences, police said.

Rondell Williams was charged with two counts of weapons in a motor vehicle, two counts of criminal possession of a firearm, criminal possession of ammunition, interfering with an officer and two counts of carrying a pistol without a permit. His bail was set at $150,000.

Isaac Peoples was charged with the same offenses as Williams. He was also hit with charges of possession with intent to sell, possession with intent to sell within 1,500 feet of a school and operating a drug factory. His bail was set at $250,000.

A police report showed this is the third time Peoples has been charged with possession with intent to sell.

These are bad, bad guys, said Police Chief Armando Perez.

As part of an ongoing investigation, city police task force members pulled over a car Monday on Chopsey Hill Road. Police said the driver and front seat passenger were identified as Williams and Peoples.

During the stop, Peoples attempted to flee from the drivers seat but was detained, police said.

Williams who remained in the vehicle continued to move about the front compartment even as officers were ordering him to stop.

The two were detained and task force officers saw a semi-automatic firearm on the floor near the drivers side, police said. Officers searched the car and found another firearm tucked under the drivers seat.

Both firearms were loaded and accessible to both Peoples and Williams, police said. Both parties are convicted felons and have no legal right to possess firearms and or ammunition.

After this, task force officers applied for and were granted a search warrant for Peoples residence, in the 30 block of Essex Street.

At the residence, police found more than 500 grams of heroin/fentanyl, thousands of empty glassine folds, a scale, a grinder, sifters and stamps.After a long, seven-year wait, a Laredo family says they can rest a little easier knowing that a man who killed their loved one is finally behind bars.

On Monday, Victor Manuel Palomo, 30, stood before 341st District Court Judge Beckie Palomo, who sentenced him to 99 years in prison for fatally shooting Alberto Garcia and wounding another man at an after-prom party in 2009.

Victor Palomo had been on the run ever since he failed to return from lunch during his murder trial in 2011.

On Thursday, he was detained in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico and later extradited to the United States.

READ MORE: Laredo fugitive to serve 99-year sentence after years on the run

During Monday's hearing, Palomo wanted to address Garcia's family, but he wasn't allowed to do so.

"From the bottom of my heart, I'm sorry," Palomo told the court. "I had no idea that happened. It was never my intention. It's all I can say. I'm sorry."

Edgar Garcia, Alberto Garcia's brother, said he pursued his career in law enforcement after his little brother died.

"I started climbing up the ladder in this field because I don't want any other families to go through what we went through," Garcia said. "My life has changed completely. I will never have the opportunity to see my brother again."

Webb County District Attorney Isidro Alaniz said he is happy his office came through with its promise to the family.

"I feel very relieved and grateful for this day to finally come since 2011," Alaniz said. "We made a promise to the family that justice would be served."

Palomo was arrested in 2015 near Monterrey, Mexico on a theft charge, and at that time, the District Attorney's Office advised Garcia's family that he had been apprehended and faced extradition to the United States. But Palomo and another inmate ended up escaping from a prison in Nuevo Leon using a hacksaw.

"When I first found out he was in custody in Nuevo Laredo, I held my breath," Alaniz said. "I couldn't celebrate until he was on U.S. soil. It wasn't until close to 5 p.m. that (Palomo) was deported from Nuevo Laredo to the United States. And only then could I let out a deep breath knowing that he was finally on U.S. soil. At that time is when I called (Edgar) and told him the great news. That his brother's killer was under arrest and in the United States."

Garcia said he is not happy, but he is satisfied that Palomo was caught and sentenced.

READ ALSO: Laredo man wanted in fatal family get-together detained in Corpus Christi

"It makes me feel a little more calm in my daily life," he said. "I feel that my parents are going to be a little bit satisfied as well. Even though the day came, that's not going to bring my brother back at all."

Garcia's family has celebrated Alberto Garcia's birthday every year since he was killed. This time the celebration will be more enjoyable, his brother said.

"We've always celebrated my brother's birthdays every year. Always," Garcia said. "I feel like this time, we are going to be more at peace. (My parents) are going to be more calm. We're actually going to enjoy his birthday party. He would've been 29."

In July 2011, Palomo stood trial for fatally shooting Garcia and wounding Enrique Garza at an after-prom party in northwest Laredo.

During the third day of his trial, he failed to return from lunch. A manhunt followed to no avail. The trial continued without him, and jurors ended up convicting Palomo of murder and aggravated assault. Palomo was sentenced to 99 years in prison.

Police said Garcia was killed May 17, 2009 after Palomo's friend began an argument with Garza after Garza asked him to leave a party. Palomo and his friend left but later returned. Police said Palomo entered the home and sprayed gunshots into the air and the crowd of after-prom partygoers.

Maria Salas may be reached at 728-2580 or msalas@lmtonline.comThe energy industry should be working faster to combat climate change, according to Jan Dash, editor for the forthcoming Encyclopedia of Climate Change: Finance, Economics, Policy. Dash spoke with the Houston Chronicle about what climate change means for Houston.

Dash, a physicist, also wrote Quantitative Finance and Risk Management, A Physicists Approach, which includes a chapter on the systemic risk of climate change. The famous Bloomberg Carbon Clock runs on his math.

Dash is also managing editor of the Climate Portal website, author of one-liner responses to climate-contrarian fallacies, matchmaker for the Climate Science Rapid Response Team and climate adviser to the NGO Committee on Sustainable Development in New York. He worked in quantitative finance and risk management for 30 years.

Q: Why is addressing climate change now so important?

A: Global warming tends to make natural disasters worse. Consider hurricanes. By increasing the temperature of the oceans, global warming adds energy to big hurricanes once they form, producing more wind and rain damage. By altering the jet stream that circulates the planet, global warming can make a hurricane stick around longer, dumping more water. Higher sea level from warm water expansion and melting glaciers adds to hurricane storm surges. Warming also produces more moisture in the air through evaporation, adding more rain. So global warming generally makes big hurricanes (Sandy, Harvey, and Florence) more severe. Meteorologists are now even debating adding a higher notch (Category 6) for hurricanes. Houston can look forward to an unfortunate worsening of these factors.

Another global warming impact relevant for Houston is increased human migration in the wake of natural disasters. For instance, Central America's worsening drought has increased migration to the U.S. Global warming tends to reduce agricultural yields, also resulting in more migration to the U.S., as shown by a study about Mexico. And global warming can wreak havoc on inherently unstable financial and economic systems worldwide.

Q: How might global warming wreak havoc on financial and economic systems?

A: Crises in supply chains and unstable markets could be triggered by increasingly severe climate-related impacts. Another example could be over-leveraging by our descendants forced into massive borrowing to cope with the damage if we dont act sufficiently.

Q: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers forecast indicates that sea level near Houston will increase 12 inches over the next 20 years. How serious is that?

A: Another foot of water at the shoreline means another foot of storm surge in a hurricane. One foot of extra water would be enough to flood New York City subways regularly. The U.S. Navys scenarios of sea level rise by 2100 go up to 6 feet. Sea level rise of that magnitude will flood coastal cities and farms, producing mass migrations of hundreds of millions of people worldwide with catastrophic consequences.

Q: How can we avoid a crisis?

A: The biggest step in reducing global warming requires transitioning away from fossil fuels to renewable energies. It is scientifically certain that burning fossil fuels increases atmospheric carbon dioxide, which then produces the global warming trend observed over the last 40 years. While fossil fuels made modern civilization possible, fossil fuels have also led to the distinct possibility that the Earth may become unlivable sooner or later.

Improving energy efficiency is also necessary. Putting a price on carbon will help support the development and deployment of renewable energies that can continue to replace fossil fuels. Eventually sequestering carbon out of the atmosphere will be necessary.

Q: Are there any methods for sequestering carbon that seem promising?

A: Yes, for example, planting massive forests or using chemical reactions plus underground storage. The problem is that the scale of carbon sequestration has to be enormous at reasonable cost and exceptional reliability. Better technology is needed.

Q: Are energy companies moving toward cleaner energy or otherwise acting to combat global warming?

A: Theyre starting to. There have been several distinct stages of the fossil fuel industry regarding global warming. Consider Exxon Mobil. Initially, Exxons group of excellent climate scientists conducted and reported to management their research consistent with mainstream climate science. Later, however, Exxon began an obstructive climate disinformation campaign, which included funding right-wing think tanks that attacked climate science and climate risk management.

Fortunately, Exxon has now changed its public stance and recognized the importance of supporting climate science and risk management. It is now taking some action, such as doing proactive research in carbon sequestration.

Energy companies can do much more to make global warming less onerous by supporting renewable energy and lobbying Congress to promote climate action. They can participate in the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures to calculate and disclose their climate risk. Companies can also support the We Are Still In climate action along with many states, cities, businesses, and NGOs.

In encouraging recent news, Exxon, Chevron and Occidental Petroleum just pledged $300 million toward research and are joining the Oil & Gas Climate Initiative, an industry group led by European energy companies.

Q: Do you see any other positive signs?

A: Over half of global warming comes from urban areas, and many cities are taking action. Houston recently announced a Climate Action Plan by the end of 2019. Georgetown officially became 100 percent powered by renewable solar and wind-generated energy in July. Many other cities, along with state and national governments and businesses, have climate action plans to limit their carbon footprints. Texas is supporting wind energy  which is becoming more economically attractive. Grass-roots political action is increasing, pressuring governments to take more action.

These steps are positive, but not enough. I think climate impacts will eventually force the U.S. government to reverse its present course and return to implementing policies that substantially reduce global warming. But who knows how much permanent damage will occur in the meantime.

Q: Any concluding thoughts?

A: We know many practical solutions now to reduce global warming. There are huge business opportunities in the transition to renewable energies; the scale of investment is measured in trillions of dollars. If we reduce global warming now, less future adaptation will be necessary. Specific adaptation measures will depend on the local situation, funding available and the effort. But, if we wait, efforts will become costlier, possibly overwhelming.

We have reasons to be optimistic. Today, the portable computer on my desk has more power than the mainframe I used to program when I was in graduate school. The paradigm of distributed computing that replaced centralized computing led to huge opportunities that transformed our lives for the better. I believe that similar opportunities will occur in the transition from centralized fossil fuel energy to distributed renewable energy. Looking ahead, we can have better lives and ensure that global warming will not compromise the survival of our descendants.Americans may soon be eating cotton for the first time -- not just wearing it -- as a new edible variety is poised to enter the market.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture gave the green light to commercialize a biotech version of the cotton plant whose seeds can be eaten, according to Texas A&M University, which developed it over more than two decades. U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval is still needed, which the university said it expects within months. After that, farmers will be able to grow cotton for food as well as for fiber.The Jersey Village City Council held a public hearing about the City of Jersey Village Juvenile Curfew Ordinance and whether to abolish, renew or modify the program during a regular meeting on Oct. 15.

The curfew ordinance, which needs to be approved by the city council every three years in order to be renewed, enacts a curfew for persons under the age of 17 in Jersey Village. The curfew is active during school hours, as well as between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. from Sunday to Thursday and from 12:01 a.m. to 6 a.m. on any Saturday or Sunday, according to the information packet for the meeting.

Jersey Village Police Chief Eric Foerster gave a presentation on the effects of the ordinance on the community, specifically the number of juvenile traffic stops, citations and arrests made by Jersey Village Police Department over time. Overall, the police department requested the ordinance be renewed, Foerster said.

Were not looking to write citations and punish people, he said. It really allows to contact the person, find out where they should be in school, or at home. Were looking for certain activities and certain things that we need to talk to that person about.

According to Foersters presentation juvenile traffic stops have increased from 136 to 264 from Sept. 2015 to Sept. 2018, while juvenile arrests nearly doubled from 16 in Sept. 2015 to 31 in Sept. 2018.

Foerster said that although it cannot be pinpointed exactly how, the curfew ordinance is aiding in reducing crime.

We need every tool we can use to fight crime, he said. Were preempting the criminals before the crime actually happens in [Jersey Village], hopefully.

Foerster also said other factors could be affecting the juvenile crime statistics besides the curfew, particularly when the police department begins to focus on one issue.

In 2015 there were about 2,000 more tickets written, he said. In 2015 we started the highway projects and we started getting a lot of complaints about traffic  Chief, you need to go out there and write more tickets  Doubled the amount. So, it would make sense that we would contact double the amount of juveniles.

The curfew law also gives officers the ability to approach juveniles during the specified times just for violating curfew  something they would not be able to do without the ordinance. Foerster said this is not the same as reasonable suspicion, which requires a separate reason for officers to approach juveniles.

The only criminal act now is the curfew violation, Foerster said. It does allow us contact with a juvenile based on the ordinance. The ordinance is what gives us the statutory authority to stop a juvenile we see out and about.

James Singleton, city council member, said the curfew is not a viable option for the city due to lack of consistent statistics.

Ive been struggling with these daytime curfews since I was in elementary school in the city of Houston, he said. I feel that they are ineffective at really accomplishing their goal. I think all these crime statistics [Foerster] showed do paint a very beautiful picture for this city. We cant say its the curfew. We cant say its not either.

Other comments from the city council include the curfew being used to focus on juveniles and references to several cities, such as Austin, which removed its curfews and had a drop in crime, as well as the cost of enforcing the ordinance. Several citizen comments said the curfew needs to be renewed in order to enforce crime, while others said the officers were targeting juveniles with the ordinance.

Jersey Village Mayor Justin Ray said the second public hearing, which was scheduled for Oct. 15 as well, has been moved to the next regular Jersey Village City Council meeting on Nov. 19. With the delay of voting and public hearing for the curfew, the ordinance will expire on Oct. 19. Ray said he is not worried about the delay causing more crime in Jersey Village.

I dont think it would be that big of a deal if it lapsed, he said. Im not too concerned about roving, armed bands of children walking through the city of Jersey Village at noon.

chevall.pryce@chron.comGalveston police on Tuesday recovered the body of an 11-year old boy matching the description of one of the two boys presumed to have drowned after being swept away Oct. 14 on a city beach.

A search team with the Galveston Police Marine Unit found the body of the 11-year-old at 4:40 p.m. Tuesday about two miles offshore from 9 Mile Road and FM 3005, Beach Patrol Chief Peter Davis said.

The Galveston County medical examiner identified the 11-year old boy as Noah Authement. The 16-year old, Nicholas Garner, first identified by Houston news station KPRC and confirmed by the state Department of Family Protective Services, has not yet been found.

Authement was in state custody at the time of his death. The county medical examiner declined to release the names of any next of kin.

The marine unit had been searching for the two boys for several hours, part of a larger search effort including the Galveston Island Beach Patrol, U.S. Coast Guard, Texas Equusearch and other public safety organizations since the drowning incident at 17th Street and Seawall Boulevard on Sunday.

KIDS OUTING: Missing swimmers were part of at-risk youth trip to Galveston beach

"It was a one in a million deal," Davis said. "The Galveston Police Department spotted him really close to dark, far offshore, without any air support."

Authorities spent the last two days combing the coast for the missing boys, including Garner, the 16-year-old who dived in to rescue the younger Authement after he was caught in the choppy surf. A bystander called police around 6:30 p.m. Sunday from the beach near 17th Street and Seawall Boulevard to report that Authement and a friend were caught in the rip current, authorities said. The friend managed to swim ashore.

Davis added that Garner and Authement were not wearing bathing suits when they entered the water. Authement was wearing grey sweatpants with no shirt, while Garner had on blue jeans and no shirt.

While it is presumed that Garner knew how to swim, Davis noted that swimming in open, choppy waters with rip currents is extremely difficult, even for experienced swimmers.

The search for Garner continued on Wednesday, with Texas Equusearch combing Galveston's West End as well as further south in Brazoria County. Davis said Equusearch is hoping conduct an air search via helicopter on Thursday.

"There's a lot of area over there where the San Luis Pass empties out into the Gulf, there's a whole bunch of marsh and stuff in there where potentially a tide could have pulled him in there," Davis said.

All three kids were part of a youth crisis group at The Children's Center in Galveston, a nonprofit that provides transitional living programs to vulnerable youth who may be runaways, homeless, or at risk for exploitation. The group was visiting the shore with a chaperone, Davis said. Of the four to five children in the group, only two went swimming.

The Department of Family Protective Services' division of Residential Child Care Licensing is investigating the incident, with plans to interview staff members at The Children's Center as well as any witnesses.

Vivian Putney, the chief financial officer for human resources at the Children's Center, said that the nonprofit would not be releasing any information about the incident until the state investigation is complete.

A spokeswoman for the agency said that the investigation could take 30 days or more, and that the findings of the probe would be referred to the state Health and Human Services Commission to determine whether any action will be taken against the nonprofit.

Nicole Hensley contributed reporting.

Nick Powell covers Galveston County for the Chronicle. Follow him on Twitter and send him tips at nick.powell@chron.comThe Bear Creek Community Center will be temporarily housed and have limited November classes/events at the Glazier Senior Education Center, 16600 Pine Forest Lane, Houston. Flooding following Hurricane Harvey forced the center to relocate.

In addition to scheduled activities, Harris County Precinct 3 Commissioner Steve Radacks Bear Creek Community Center is now offering special events and activities.

Free Homebuyer Seminar: Saturday, Nov. 3: 10 a.m.-noon. Join a free seminar to learn the basics and get comfortable with how the process works and what to expect. The seminar provides many valuable tips along the way to help get people closer to their dream of home ownership. Call 713-274-3190 to register.

Medicare Education: Saturday, Nov. 3, 10-11:30 a.m. or Wednesday, Nov. 28: 6:30-8 p.m. Things you may not know about Medicare or your needs and benefits. Do not wait until its too late. Open enrollment ends in December. Call 713-274-3190 to register.

Managing your diabetes: Wednesdays, Nov. 7, 14 and 28, 1-3 p.m. Individuals living with diabetes, prediabetes, caregivers, and loved ones are welcome. Understanding diabetes, carbohydrates, blood glucose levels, food nutrition labels, meal planning and preventing complications. Call 713-274-3190 to register.

AARP Defensive Driving: Saturday, Nov. 10, 9 a.m.-2 p.m. An AARP representative will conduct a drivers safety course. This course can assist people in receiving a discount on their auto insurance. The cost for this class is $15 for AARP members and $20 for non-members. Call 713-274-3190 for more information or to register.

Beginner Crochet Class: Mondays, Nov. 19-Dec. 17, 9-11 a.m. Have you admired those plush, fuzzy or warm scarves draped around everyones neck? Join us and learn to make them yourself. With just a crochet hook and yarn, you can have a scarf to match any outfit. Just bring your hook and yarn, and Jeanie will show you how to create three different scarves. Call 713-274-3190 to register.

Yoga for Everybody: Tuesdays, 5:30-6:30 p.m. Yoga for Everybody takes the best from many yoga traditions and blends them together in a class. Wear loose, comfortable clothing and bring a mat or a towel for this hour of comprehensive yoga.

Karate: Thursdays, 6:30-7:30 and 7:30-8:30 p.m. Join our marital arts class once a week and learn the art of self-defense. Classes for ages 6-12 meets at 6:30 p.m. Classes for ages 13 and older meets at 7:30 p.m. Call 713-274-3190 to register.

Chair Yoga: Fridays, 10:30-11:30 a.m. This class is perfect for anyone with mobility or balance limitations. Chair yoga involves performing specific poses while using the support of a chair. Call 713-274-3190 to register.

Circle of Friends Meditation: Fridays, 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. Come and join this circle to gain a healthy mind and body. Call 713-274-3190 to register.

Special note:

Advance registration for activities is typically requested. An adult must accompany and remain with anyone under the age of 18 visiting the center. Visit www.pct3.com for a calendar of events or call 713-274-3190 for information.The San Jacinto River Authority is releasing water from Lake Conroe after recent rains have caused the lake to rise above its normal pool.

According to the SJRA website, as of noon Wednesday, officials were releasing about 1,059 cubic feet of water per second. Officials began the controlled release to pass a portion of the inflows coming into the lake at 2 a.m. The site indicates the lake is at 201.4 feet. Normal pool for the lake is 201 feet.The Conroe Independent School District board meeting Tuesday night began with room full of excitement as trustees initiated a new tradition of recognizing one feeder zone at the start of each meeting.

Conroe feeder zone principals were recognized, and some of the zones programs were demonstrated to the board and attendees.

The excitement continued as Superintendent Curtis Null recommended naming Rotasha Smith as the principal of Conroe High School and Christopher Kuempel as the principal of Peet Junior High School.

Both principals received loud applause from the audience even before the board officially moved to accept them in their roles.

The former principal of Conroe High, Mark Weatherly, took a position in New Caney ISD just before the start of the 2018-19 school year.

In July, the district selected Smith as the interim principal at Conroe High, where Null said she has since done an outstanding job during the first grading period.

Smith had served as principal of Peet Junior High School, though she previously held positions at Washington Junior High and Conroe High as well. At the meeting, she excitedly accepted the boards official recommendation.

Im thankful to live and work in a district that has strong leadership that truly seeks whats best for all students, and I look forward to building on the tiger pride and unity that is evident in Conroe High every day, Smith said.

To fill Smiths place at Peet, the district tapped Kuempel, who was previously the assistant principal there. Null said it was an easy choice to name him as interim, citing his character and motto to work hard and be nice.

Kuempel thanked Null for his encouragement and his family for their support, in addition to thanking the board members.

Thank you for the vote of confidence and the opportunity to lead Peet Junior High School in our great school district, Kuempel said.

New vehicles approved for purchase

Soon, eight used school buses will be joining CISDs fleet.

Assistant Superintendent of Operations James Kacur presented the proposal to purchase four special needs and four large capacity buses from Nacogdoches ISD for approximately $250,000, which the board approved.

The Blue Bird model diesel buses are equipped with air-conditioning, which Kacur said was a big plus for the district as they try to get closer to a fully air-conditioned fleet. He added that a district employee has already inspected the buses and confirmed them for quality.

The board also approved the purchase of 21 vehicles for an annual estimated expenditure of about $600,000.

Most of the vehicles are for life cycle replacements, but seven of the vehicles are to be used for non-pursuit police vehicles for the districts safety and security initiative already approved by the board.

District receives high financial marks

The board held a public hearing regarding the Texas Education Agencys Financial Integrity Rating System of Texas, or FIRST.

Conroe ISD received an A superior rating, scoring 98 out of a possible 100 pointsmeaning the district is in good financial standing.

District Chief Financial Officer Darrin Rice explained that the system assures that schools are held accountable by measuring them against indicators such as their budget, financial report, administrative costs and cash on hand.

The rating was based on an analysis of data reported from the 2016-17 school year.

jane.stueckemann@chron.comA restoration project underway in W.G. Jones State Forest is anticipated to be completed by the end of October.

Connor Murnane, with Texas A&M Forest Service in the Conroe district, said with the development and amount of concrete now surrounding the forest has caused more water runoff into the forest, which led to silting in the front lake. The restoration process will help improve drainage and also dredge the lake at the forest, which is between FM 1488 and Texas 242 in Conroe.

It led to some serious flooding issues on the forest, Murnane said. The water had no place to go because the lake itself is so shallow. With this restoration project, it improving the overall health of lake. It improves ecosystems and habitats for fish and aquatic species.

The forest has also experience more of an issue since it experienced flooding with about 14 feet of water from rains during Hurricane Harvey.

There has always been a (flooding and drainage) issue, Murnane said. Post-Harvey had a really big impact on the overall drainage and depth of the front lake. A lot of sedimentation and silt polluted the lake and creek that feeds into it. This whole project is cleaning that up and refortifying the banks and the creek.

When the work began in August, the lake was about 8 feet deep. Now, after the dredging, he said it is about 16 feet deep. The front lake parking and recreation areas have been closed for the project. The agency is not paying for the project, instead Murnane said a neighboring property owner was required to pay for the cost of the restoration.

A few Eagle Scout projects are going to come in and plant wetland vegetation species that are native to Texas to improve the habitat, Murnane said. Fish habitat structures will also be sunk into the lake.

The forest is 1,700 acres that is predominantly Loblolly pine. The oldest trees are about 90 years old. The red-cockaded woodpecker has a habitat on the forest.

It is one of the most urban population of the species in the world, Murnane said noting the woodpeckers were not severely affected during Harvey. It is federally listed and protected by U.S. Fish and Wildlife service and probably our biggest management goal is to create red-cockaded (woodpecker) habitat in the forest.

There is a large population of deer in the forest, which also has a feral hog population. There are no bears or mountain lions at the forest.

The new project includes a few more perks for the community to enjoy the forest once the work is completed.

There is a new foot bridge going in with this restoration project over the creek. The parking lot is getting all re-finished and redone there, so we are excited and looking forward to it. Hopefully, we will have some fish species in there soon enough to do a lot of fishing again, Murnane said with a chuckle.

mellsworth@hcnonline.comCome 2019, Katy residents will be able to sink their teeth into a Double-Double.

According to BPI Realty, In-N-Out will open a location at 806 Katy Fort Bend Road at the Y Shops at Park West complex, which has already broken ground.At least two Houston restaurants were forced to deal with a widespread roach problem in their establishments, while health inspectors found food debris and improperly stored food at several other restaurants from Oct. 8 to Oct. 15.

RELATED: Houseflies on food, sewage backup top list of restaurant violations Oct. 1 through Oct. 8

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.

City Health inspectors distribute violations that carry a weight between 1 and 25, increasing in severity. The term "demerit" is used by health inspectors to describe the weighted value assigned to each violation.

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A driver died in a rollover crash near a Clear Lake-area neighborhood Wednesday morning, Houston police said.

The 44-year-old woman was driving an SUV southbound in the 14400 block of Village Evergreen around 2 a.m., when she lost control and struck a curb, said Lt. Larry Crowson of the Houston Police Department.

The car flipped over, and the woman was ejected. She was found dead on the scene.

Investigators will be checking to see whether the driver was intoxicated. Its unclear why she lost control of the SUV.For the second and final time before early voting begins on Monday, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and Democrat Beto ORourke will square off in a nationally televised debate.

The 1-hour debate will be in San Antonio tonight in the studios of KENS-TV starting at 8 p.m. You can watch the live stream here but it will also be broadcast in 10 other media markets live, including on KHOU-TV in Houston and WFAA-TV in Dallas-Fort Worth. It will also air nationally on C-SPAN.At least one body has been recovered while authorities carry out rescue efforts and brace for more flooding Tuesday afternoon throughout the Hill Country.

Meteorologists say the Llano River, which came close to a record-breaking level Tuesday will crest again at a similar spot Wednesday morning.

Deputies with the Burnet County Sheriff's Office removed the body from the floodwaters of Lake Lyndon B. Johnson at about 1 p.m. near Kingsland, according to Spectrum News in Austin.

Texas Game Warden Search and Rescue teams are now involved in multiple air and water rescues along the river as calls for service come in "one after the other," according to a Tweet from the department.

Christy Baught, a floodplain administrator for Llano County, said other local agencies are also assisting with rescue operations, as the flooding has placed residents in serious danger.

"The Llano River has hit major historic flood stage," reads a post from the Llano County Office of Emergency Management. "It is currently at 40' and has almost topped the bridge in Llano. Anyone living within 1/4 mile of the river should evacuate immediately to higher ground."

RELATED: Missing driver recovered from Sabinal River identified

The Llano River crested around noon at 39.9 feet, just short of the 1935 record of 41.5 feet. The National Weather Service predicts that Wednesday morning's crest will reach a "similar height."

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott ordered the Texas State Operations Center to a state of increased readiness in response to the ongoing flooding.

"When severe weather strikes, Texas will ensure our responders and local officials have what they need to respond and protect those in harm's way," he said. "I also urge all Texans to take their safety into their own hands by closely monitor changing weather conditions and heeding warnings from local officials."

The flooding has shut down several roadways and bridges in the area, and at about 9:30 a.m., the FM 2900 bridge in Kingsland, Texas, collapsed from the pressure of the raging floodwaters, according to a report from KEYE-TV in Austin.

The National Weather Service reported Tuesday morning that more than 10 inches of rain has inundated portions of the Llano River watershed since early Monday. The water has rushed into the river, causing it to rise to almost unprecedented levels.

The National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning for Gillespie and Llano counties through 7 p.m. Tuesday and a flood warning along the Llano River in Llano County, Sandy Creek near Kingsland and the Pedernales River at Johnson City.

The Llano River is in a major flood stage, meaning there will be "extensive inundation of structures and roads." Such a stage calls for "significant evacuations of people and/or transfer of property to higher elevations," according to NWS's website.

Baught said the Llano County Office of Emergency management has set up shelters at the First Baptist Church of Llano, Inman's Kitchen an the Kingsland Community Center. She did not know if anyone was missing in the storm.

Flooding has also affected other rivers in the Hill County. The National Weather Service said Guadalupe River, Sandy Creek and Nueces River are facing a "dangerous situation."

RELATED: Rain suspends search for person still missing in Texas flood

According to the Austin American-Statesman, homes near Robinson City Park, Scotts Acres, Castell, the FM 2900 Bridge in Kingsland, Kingsland Lodge and Marble Falls are expected to face severe flooding.

The following school districts have cancelled or delayed classes today:

Llano ISD has cancelled all classes

Rocksprings ISD has cancelled all classes

Burnet CISD has cancelled all classes

Fredericksburg ISD has cancelled all classes

Hunt ISD has cancelled all classes

Ingram ISD has cancelled all classes

Leakey ISD has cancelled all classes

Junction ISD has cancelled all classes

Medina ISD has cancelled all classes

Marble Falls ISD has cancelled all classes

Harper ISD has cancelled all classes

The Hill Country and other portions of South Central Texas have been hammered by heavy rain and flooding this month. Last week, four people were swept away as flood waters rushed through Junction, Texas, after storms dumped almost a foot of rain into the South Llano River. Three victims have been found and authorities on Monday temporarily called off the search for the fourth until the rain passed.

Patrick Ojeda was swept away on Friday as he tried to drive across a bridge over the Sabinal River in Uvalde County. He was found a mile downstream.

Text "NEWS" to 77453 for breaking news alerts from mySA.com

Caleb Downs is a crime reporter for mySA.com. Read more of his stories here.| cdowns@mysa.com | Twitter: @calebjdownsIn a new policy, Pearland Independent School District will begin staging town-hall-style meetings next year to boost communication with the public, with the first one to occur in the spring.

The district will conduct two annual community meetings, one in the spring semester and one in the fall semester, at campuses. Parents and taxpayers will be able to ask questions directly to board members, who will be allowed to answer them because they wont be held to normal meeting rules that apply at regular board meetings.

I am glad the Board decided to move in this direction, board vice president Charles Gooden said in an email.

Gooden created the format for the meetings, which will include an opening by school administrators followed by a question-and-answer session from parents.

I believe the community outreach meetings will strengthen the partnership between the district and the community, Gooden wrote. That is right in line with our mission statement: In partnership with the community, Pearland ISD shall prepare students to perform at their highest potential and produce global citizens of tomorow. Should be some productive conversations.

The date for the spring meeting has not been announced. The district at some point plans to post a notice for the meeting on its website under the Agenda of Special Events sections.

The board agreed to the plan for town hall meetings at an Oct. 9 board meeting.

The meeting format provides citizens and their elected officials a relaxed environment in which to interact and learn from each other, according to a district document presented at meeting.

The community meetings will be at district facilities and hosted by the board, with the superintendent and select staff in attendance, the document said.

Another Texas school district, San Benito Consolidated ISD in south Texas, last November instituted similar town halls that Gooden cited in documents for trustees to review.

Push for the change in community outreach efforts initially came from trustee Mike Floyd, who conducted a town hall meeting in March at Spring Creek Barbeque on Broadway that drew about 40 people. During that open forum, Floyd responded to parents questions on what the district was planning and said he could take their comments back to board discussions.

Floyd had been frustrated about how trustees are prevented by law from having a dialogue with residents during public comment portions of regular board meetings. The Texas Open Meetings Act prohibits elected members of city councils and other boards of taxing entities such as school districts from answering questions during the public-comment period of meetings other than to make statements of fact or recite existing policy. They also may not discuss issues raised by residents or take any action on an item that is not on that meetings agenda. Issues raised may be referred to staff for research and possible future action.

In a written statement on Oct. 17, Superintendent John Kelly said, The Boards recent decision to advance new community outreach activities is a team effort by all our trustees and is worthy of applause by our Pearland citizens.

After Floyd presented a proposal early this year to the board to allow local nonpartisan elected officials to hold free town halls at PISD facilities, Kelly had said in a March 19 written statement that he thought that was not advisable since elected representatives are empowered only as a unit, not as individuals and that taxpayers have access to board members through individual trustees involvement in civic, church and volunteer activities, along with phone calls, emails and texts.

jaimy.jones@chron.comHurricane Michael's surge across an Air Force base last week wreaked enough devastation that the service is considering transferring away some airmen and families until the base is rebuilt, military officials said Tuesday.

Tyndall Air Force Base on the Florida Panhandle suffered a direct hit from the Category 4 storm on Oct. 10, prompting fears that jets that the service could not fly away in advance were destroyed. On Wednesday, the Air Force will begin allowing families to visit their homes to collect valuables and take photographs, but it is expected to take years for the base to fully recover.

Brig. Gen. John Allen Jr., the service's director of civil engineers, compared the storm's destruction to what Hurricane Katrina caused in 2005 when it ravaged Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi. In that case, the base took nearly five years to make a full recovery.

"You can imagine what kind of effort lays ahead of us," Allen said.

Florida's U.S. senators, Marco Rubio,R, and Bill Nelson, D, along with Rep. Neal Dunn, R, in letters to President Donald Trump and the Defense Department, have urged the administration to affirm their commitment to rebuilding the Tyndall base and expedite the repair work there.

Airmen and their families are displaced all over the region, with most still on the Panhandle while staying in hotels, with friends or in shelters. Nearby military installations, including Eglin Air Force Base and Hurlburt Field, are assisting some of them.

"We're going to have to make some serious decisions on which families come back to that base or not," said Brig. Gen. Edward Thomas, who visited the base Sunday.

Numerous F-22 Raptors, worth more than $140 million each, are still in hangars that were either damaged or destroyed in the storm, Thomas said. The Air Force flew as many planes out of the path of the storm as it could, but a number of them were left behind because they were undergoing maintenance or awaiting new parts. Service officials have declined to say how many were damaged.

Thomas said none of the Raptors that faced Michael were destroyed, but a lengthy assessment will be needed to determine what repairs are required. Visually, all of the jets are intact, and it appears that the hangars mostly protected them even as the buildings were battered by the storm, he said.

Once the Raptors are pulled from the debris, the Air Force will decide how best to repair them. At least five temporary hangars, each capable of holding two F-22s, will be constructed on the flight line.

Thomas said he was struck during his visit to Tyndall by how directly the flight line was hit by the storm. On one side, most trees had been knocked over in one direction, he said. On the other, they were knocked over in the opposite direction. The eye of the storm had crossed right overhead.From time to time the New York Times publishes a recommended list of Twenty Wines Under $20. Wine columnist Eric Asimov scours the world for little known wines of above average quality from small producers  wines, he says, that may even be great.

Hes a fan of wines from off the beaten path  locales not often mentioned in wine discussions  made from grapes you may never have heard of. The wines are often made by family growers and all sound intriguing and delicious.

Heres the catch.

Asimov admits, Most of these wines are made in small quantities. Few people will be able to find all of them, and some people may not find any. Hes writing about the rich and diverse world of wines in New York City. Here in tiny Connecticut, its even harder to find these small-production wines.

I agree with Asimov. There are more interesting wines than the mass-produced national brands, but finding the latest gem from Croatia, Portugal, Sicily, or South Africa can be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Dont get me wrong. We live in a golden age of inexpensive, good-quality wine. Theres plenty of satisfying bottles between $10 and $20 and maybe even a few exceptional bottles too, although they often have a generic style.

But help is available. There are a few importers who search the world on our behalf to find hand-crafted, distinctive wines as a matter of personal commitment. Finding these importers names on the back labels will help you to cut through the wine-store clutter.

Four importers, accounting for eight of Asimov's recommendations, were names that I had heard before. They all have a reputation for sussing out top-notch wines from around the world.

The New York based Skurnik family has been importing estate-bottled wines that express a sense of place since 1987. Their selections exhibit balance and finesse, and express identity. Asimovs picks included four Skurnik wines from South Africa, Portugal, Alto Piemonte in Italy, and Spain.

Louis/Dressner, another New York firm, focuses on wines from Europe. It works with a group of often fanatical growers who make wines that are great fun, and a great pleasure to drink. Red wines from Sicily and Beaujolais made the NYT list.

Working principally in France and Italy, Rosenthal Wine Merchants selects wines for concentration, purity of flavors, and clarity of expression. They stay in close touch with their producers, visiting each of the 100 estates in their portfolio twice a year. A Rosenthal white from the Rhone was in the twenty.

In California, James Beard Award winner Kermit Lynch has been importing French and Italian wines since 1972. His authentic wines have been a mainstay on the wine list at Lynchs Berkeley, CA neighbor, the legendary Chez Panisse restaurant. Asimov included a Corsican red among his choices. Im a fan of Lynchs wines and enjoy getting his descriptive emails.

Codey Foster, Wine Director at Anconas Wines in Wilton, backed me up. He said, When youre dealing with these importers, its like fishing in a well-stocked pond. Anything you catch is likely to be a winner.

His take on some of the above is as follows:

Rosenthal and Kermit Lynch have a reputation for polished, classic, benchmark wines from Italy and France.

Louis/Dressner leans a little more toward natural wines made with low additives and fermented with wild yeast.

Skurniks portfolio includes California and Oregon in addition to Europe. Codey also mentioned Terry Theise, a division of Skurnik that specializes in German and Sparkling wines.

Codey then told me about two more importers they work with.

Zev Rovine, of Z.R. selections, only handles certified organic producers that also shun additives and ferment with wild yeast.

Fountainhead Selections, imported by Golden Vines, is the house brand of the team at Fountainhead wines in Norwalk. I always recommend a visit to their store at 12 Knight Street, across from Fat Cat Pizza. All of their wines are excellent, limited production, personally chosen by the owners, and cover a wide range of prices.

Talking with Codey put me in the mood for some wine. Macon Pierreclos, a French chardonnay imported by Rosenthal, snuggled up to Azimovs limit of $20. The modestly oaked, crisp, and vibrant wine was well-matched with our shrimp and late-season fresh pesto. Maybe well see it on next years Twenty under $20 list.

Frank Whitman can be reached at NotBreadAloneFW@gmail.com.A former superintendent of what is now Illinois School for the Visually Impaired will be honored Thursday by the school.

Frank Haven Hall, who served as superintendent of the state school from 1890 to 1893 and from 1897 to 1902, recently was inducted into the American Printing House for the Blind Hall of Fame: Leaders and Legends of the Blindness Field.

ISVI will recognize Hall for his induction into the hall of fame with a ceremony at 6:30 p.m. Thursday in the ISVI auditorium.

The ceremony will include a message from Michael Hudson, museum curator at the American Printing House for the Blind in Louisville, Kentucky.

At the ceremony, some of Mr. Halls inventions that improved production of Braille will be on display, ISVI Superintendent Serena Preston said.

The ceremony is open to the public.

Halls original design for a Braille writer remains the basis for modern Braille writers, Preston said.

In addition, Hall invented a stereotype, which had a brass template that allowed a whole page of Braille to be produced at one time.

Mr. Halls inventions changed the face of education for blind students worldwide, Preston said. The reason his inventions changed education for the blind was because they allowed for Braille to be produced faster and more efficiently than ever before by teachers and students in daily instruction. Also, the stereotype machine provided the vehicle to mass produce Braille books. This ceremony is not just to celebrate ISVI. Its to celebrate the important educational contributions of this school superintendent from Illinois.

Hall, who was born in 1843, also served as a public school superintendent at several Illinois schools. He died in 1911.

Greg Olson can be reached at 217-245-6121, ext. 1224, or on Twitter @JCNews_Greg.It was an extraordinary claim: Scientists studying a rock formation in Greenland said they had discovered the Earth's oldest fossils, a series of small, cone-shaped structures left by microbial mats some 3.7 billion years ago. The announcement in 2016 in the pages of the journal Nature generated global media coverage and potentially carried cosmic significance. These alleged fossils suggested life appeared on Earth soon after the planet cooled enough to be habitable. The implication was that, given the right conditions, life is common, sparking into existence quickly anywhere in the universe.

A NASA astrobiologist, Abigail Allwood, hoped it was true - she's in a field that has a rooting interest in life in the cosmos - but she wanted to take a look for herself. In September of 2016 she and her colleagues traveled to the Greenland site. On Wednesday they published their findings, once again in the journal Nature, a full-throated rebuttal of the previous study. Allwood and her colleagues say the Greenland structures do not have a biological origin. They're just rocks.

The "conical" structures previously identified as fossilized stromatolites aren't truly conical, the new report states. The authors say they're the cross-section of what is actually a ridge, an elongated structure formed through natural tectonic forces.

"They're not ice cream cones. They're Toblerone bars," said Allwood, who works at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

The lead author of the 2016 paper, Allen Nutman, a geologist at the University of Wollongong in Australia, released a statement saying he and his co-authors are "mystified" by the Allwood report and stand by their earlier interpretation. Nutman said Allwood focused on only one part of the Isua, Greenland, rock formation, a section he and his colleagues had avoided. He said there was another site, covered in snow, that had better examples of the fossil stromatolites.

"This is a classic comparing apples and oranges scenario, leading to the inevitable outcome that ours and their observations do not exactly match," Nutman wrote in his statement, which he sent to The Washington Post.

The new report is the latest eruption of contentiousness in the field of paleobiology, which has long been marked by sharp disagreements over what's a genuine fossil or signature of life and what's just a bit of interesting geology. In Western Australia, fossilized stromatolites have been dated to nearly 3.5 billion years ago and are accepted in the scientific community as the oldest known relics of early life on the planet. The field is hampered by the scarcity of rocks that old because the Earth's surface has been eroded and reworked over the past several billion years.

The age of the Greenland site is not in dispute. It is possible that there are relics of early life in the geological formation. But the burden of proof is on Nutman, not on the skeptical scientist who re-examined the site, said Roger Buick, a University of Washington scientist who two years ago expressed skepticism about Nutman's original report.

Buick said Nutman's extraordinary claim requires extraordinary evidence. According to Buick, "the evidence should be very strong indeed. This just ain't, and so the Allwood et al. paper is a welcome corrective to something that should never have been published in the first place with such certainty."

Allwood said she was disappointed that the Greenland structures do not appear to be biological in origin. NASA is hoping to find signs of ancient life on Mars, and an early appearance of life on Earth would make that more likely. But she said the moment she arrived at the Greenland site she knew something was amiss.

"The instant we saw the outcrop, we thought, oh, gosh, those rocks have been stretched and folded to oblivion. There's no way on earth they're not deformed," she said.

She recognizes that her paper will not end the debate over what the Greenland structures signify.

"The way to resolve this kind of thing in science is to have a lot of experts go out, relevant experts, respected experts, and go out and look at the rocks and see what they think. Otherwise it's a 'he said', 'she said'," she said.10:25

President Donald Trump has denied "giving cover" to United States' "important ally" Saudi Arabia in the suspected murder of Jamal Khashoggi and sought a full report from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in the dissident Saudi journalist's mysterious disappearance.

Khashoggi, 60, is feared to have been killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.





The incident has resulted in a global outrage, more so in the US where he lived as a legal permanent resident and worked for 'The Washington Post'.

Khashoggi vanished on October 2 after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.





Turkish authorities suspect he was abducted and murdered by the Saudis.

But Riyadh insists that the journalist, a known critic of Saudi King Salman, had left the building and that murder claims are "baseless".

Amidst mounting pressure in the US, Trump on Wednesday appeared to be resisting any move to take strong action against Saudi Arabia, arguing that it was a key ally of America.

Trump told reporters at the White House that he had asked for the audio that gives a clue of the alleged brutal killing of Khashoggi.

"We've asked for it, if it exists," he said.

The New York Times, citing the content of the audio made available through its Turkish sources, said the audio gave a detailed account of the alleged brutal murder of Khashoggi.

"I'm not sure yet that it exists. Probably does. Possibly does. I'll have a full report on that from Mike when he comes back," Trump said, referring to his meeting with Mike Pompeo on Thursday on his return from Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

"That's going to be the first question I ask him," he said.

On his way back from Saudi Arabia and Turkey, Pompeo refused to comment on the existence of the audio tape.

"Have you heard or asked to hear the alleged audio on the actual murder?" he was asked.

"I don't have anything to say about that," Pompeo said, insisting Khashoggi was missing and the Saudi government has launched a probe.

"They're going to do their investigation. I know you all are going to ask questions. I'm going to be very consistent: We're going to give them the space to complete their investigations of this incident, and when they issue their reports, we'll form our judgment about thoroughness, depth, and the decisions they make about accountability connected to that," Pompeo said.

Trump told reporters that he wanted to find out from Pompeo what had happened.

"He went to Turkey; he went all over. But he spent a lot of time with the Crown Prince, and he's going to have a full report. I'm not giving cover at all," he said, refuting allegations that he is being soft on the Saudi establishment.

"Saudi Arabia has been a very important ally of ours in the Middle East. We are stopping Iran. We're not trying to stop Iran. We went a big step when we took away that ridiculous deal that was made by the previous administration - the Iran deal - which was USD 150 billion and USD 1.8 billion in cash. What was that all about?" he asked.

"They (Saudis) are an ally. We have other very good allies in the Middle East. But if you look at Saudi Arabia, they're an ally and they're a tremendous purchaser of not only military equipment, but other things," he said. -- PTIThree weeks before Election Day, election officials in a suburban Atlanta county have rejected hundreds of absentee ballots, prompting state and local inquiries and legal challenges by voting rights advocates, who say the moves have disproportionately affected African-American, Latino and Asian-American voters.

Among the reasons cited for ballots being tossed are signatures that do not match those on file, missing addresses and incorrect birth years, according to state data.

The data show that more than 1,200 ballots have been rejected statewide. The number of rejected ballots is most concentrated in Gwinnett County, northeast of Atlanta, where 465 ballots had been tossed as of Monday night - 38 percent of all those rejected statewide.

"This is an unprecedented number of disqualifications, and it's happening in a county where there are a number of contested races that have minority candidates on the ballot," said Andrea Young, executive director of the Georgia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed a lawsuit Tuesday against state and local election officials over the rejected ballots.

"This is cumulative," she added. "It's not an isolated instance."

Gwinnett County, the state's second-largest county, has undergone a demographic transformation in recent years, moving from 67 percent white in 2000 to 62 percent nonwhite last year. Democrats have sought to mobilize the new residents in support of their efforts to turn the state blue.

It's unclear why Gwinnett County is rejecting more absentee ballots than other counties in Georgia, but some voting rights advocates said a new law that changed the information voters must provide on the envelope used to send in the ballots may have caused confusion.

Gwinnett County spokesman Joe Sorenson said in a statement Tuesday evening that the county "is committed to a process that protects the voting rights of all of its citizens and fully complies with the law in the process."

"The handling of absentee ballot applications and the acceptance and rejection of ballots by Gwinnett County has complied with the law and will continue to do so," he said, adding that there have been no allegations that county officials are violating the law.

Stephen Day, the chairman of the county elections board, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that an examination of the matter was underway. Day, a Democrat, rejected the possibility of intentional voter suppression.

A spokeswoman for Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp said his office is also looking into the ballot rejections. Kemp, the Republican nominee for governor, is locked in a fierce debate about voting access with his opponent, Democrat Stacey Abrams, who has accused him of supporting efforts to disenfranchise voters of color.

"We will not be bullied by out-of-state organizations or political operatives who want to generate headlines and advance a baseless narrative," said Kemp's spokeswoman, Candice Broce. "We will do our part to keep elections secure, accessible, and fair in Georgia."

The revelations about the absentee ballot rejections come days after the Associated Press reported that election officials across Georgia had suspended more than 50,000 applications to register to vote, most of them for black voters, under a rigorous Republican-backed law that requires personal information to exactly match driver's license or Social Security records.

Nearly 2.5 million Georgians cast ballots in the 2014 gubernatorial election, when Republican Gov. Nathan Deal beat his opponent by more than 200,000 votes. This year's contest appears to be much closer.

Republican lawmakers in Georgia have passed legislation in recent years that they say is intended to curtail voter fraud but that critics say restricts ballot access - particularly for voters of color, students and people with lower incomes, who tend to vote Democratic.

The state is home to one of the country's most restrictive voter ID laws. Changes to the mail-in ballot envelope were part of a broader law passed in 2017 requiring voters' registration applications to exactly match their driver's license and Social Security records.

Kemp has championed these policies. His office implemented the "exact match" policy long before the law was passed, but the effort was curtailed by a settlement agreement reached during litigation.

"Georgia is ground zero in the battle for protecting voting rights and voter suppression," said John Powers, a lawyer with the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, which sent a letter late Monday to state and local election officials asking that they make sure voters are quickly informed about their rejected ballots to give them time to fix any errors and cast ballots.Oct. 17, 1938: A group of Hale County boys are to exhibit swine at a show at Lubbock Saturday, County Agent C.B. Martin said.

Oct. 17, 1948: Two infantile paralysis patients were admitted Friday night to the West Texas Polio Center here.The requested page is currently unavailable on this server.

Back to [RTHK News Homepage]A $2.5 million donation from the government of Qatar will help Harris County restore an historic hospital in the Third Ward, County Judge Ed Emmett announced Wednesday.

At a morning news conference at the site of the former Riverside Hospital at Ennis and Hollman, Emmett said the site would be redeveloped into a primary care facility with a focus on mental health, to open by 2021. He was joined by Meshal bin Hamad Al-Thani, the Qatari ambassador to the United States; U.S. Rep Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston; and Harris County Precinct 1 Commissioner Rodney Ellis.

Exactly what this hospital is going to be has yet to be determined, Emmett said. But we know its going to be primary care  because that is whats been lacking, so people can have medical homes.

The donation is part of the $30 million the tiny oil-rich Middle Eastern nation, which has fewer residents than Harris County, has donated to help Texas recover from Hurricane Harvey. Qatar gave more than $100 million to Gulf Coast states after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

This commitment from his highness and the state of Qatar, and the people of Qatar, stems from the strong relations that Qatar has with the United States, and particularly with the state of Texas, said Al-Thani, who was visiting Houston from Washington. Qatar also has a consulate in the Galleria area.

The estimated total cost of the hospital project, which will be part of the countys hospital district, is $39 million. Harris Health also operates a dialysis center on Hollman and the Martin Luther King Jr. Health Center on North MacGregor.

The inscription in the archway above the officials, Houston Negro Hospital School of Nursing, offered a reminder of the facilitys importance to the Third Ward, as well as Houstons segregated past.

A group of black doctors and oilman-turned-philanthropist Joseph S. Cullinan created the Houston Negro Hospital on the site in 1918, and a nursing school followed in 1931. The facility was the first nonprofit hospital for blacks in Houston, where, like much of the Jim Crow South, they were barred from white hospitals.

The facility was renamed Riverside Hospital in 1961 and later added a substance abuse treatment facility. The hospital closed in 2015 after years of financial instability. The hospitals former president, son, and two others were convicted of a $158 million Medicare scam in 2014.

Harris County Commissioners Court purchased the vacant four-acre site in March with the help of a $5.3 million grant from the nonprofit Houston Endowment.

On Thursday, the site was empty except for several construction workers laboring over the din of an electric generator. Cracked windows and missing floors are a few of the many needed repairs, but the buildings are structurally sound. Even now, the Spanish revival architecture of the nursing school and main building make them among the most prominent structures in the area. Both will be restored and become part of the new hospital.

Ellis said though Houston boasts the largest medical center in the world, Third Ward residents lack access to local health care facilities. He said a renovated Riverside Hospital will fill that gap, and also may help the nearby University of Houston as it moves forward to create a new medical school.

You want to figure out what has a client base, and what is important to the community, said Ellis, who was born at the hospital in 1954.

Third Ward resident Louis Carter sat on his bicycle and watched the news conference from the sidewalk. He said in a neighborhood where many residents rely on public transportation, a hospital nearby is a necessity.

J.A. Ward Junior, a former Houston ISD teacher, also welcomed the development in a neighborhood he said is too rarely a target for investment.

Theres nothing like having a hospital like this in our neighborhood, he said. It provides jobs and opportunities.A family of six who survived a fiery crash aboard an Aeromexico flight in July are suing the airline, a new lawsuit filed this week in Texas reveals.

The case argues that members of the Olguin family a woman, her four children and grandmother from Clute in Brazoria County were injured in the crash due to the decision of Aeromexico pilots to take off during a storm. They suit states it was the first leg of their return flight from Mexico to Houston.

"Despite the visibly dangerous weather conditions, [Aeromexico's] pilots, for reasons unfathomable, chose to challenge the violent forces of nature rather than wait for the tempest to pass," the lawsuit alleges. "The pilots gambled with the 103 lives on board, presumably betting they could outrun the storm."

On July 31, 2018, the connecting Aeromexico flight destined for Mexico City crashed when it veered off the runway during take off. Eighty-five passengers were injured and zero were killed in the crash.

Cellphone video taken by passengers show the aircraft accelerating for take-off during heavy winds, rain and hail. The plane lost both its engines during the crash and burst into flames when it came to a stop more than 300 yards from the runaway, reported CBS News.

LATEST: Saudi man suspected of being involved in journalist's possible death visited Houston, photo shows

The lawsuit takes issue with the emergency procedures conducted by Aeromexico staff, the decision by pilots to take off during the storm, and Aeromexico's failure to reveal that one of the pilots was a trainee.

The family is seeking compensation them for their injuries, mental anguish, medical expenses and loss of pay. The lawsuit did not detail or demand a sum of money, noting that the amount of compensation would be determined during the trial.

In August, 11 other passengers aboard the flight also filed lawsuits against the airline.

See photos of the crash above.

Fernando Ramirez is a digital reporter for Chron.com. Read him on our breaking news site and on our subscriber site. | Fernando.ramirez@chron.com | @fernramirez93

Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message





UF TREEO provides staging area for utilities help

University of Florida Training, Research and Education for Environmental Occupations (UF TREEO) Center is currently acting as the State of Floridas Water/Wastewater Agency Response Network (FlaWARN) Response Center. The Response Center, normally located in Tallahassee, is facilitating requests for help from water/wastewater utilities affected by Hurricane Michael. It also provides a staging area for utilities traveling from South Florida to the Panhandle.















City of West Palm Beach water and wastewater crews arrive at UF TREEO Center to stage their equipment overnight before heading out to Bay County to restore service to those affected by Hurricane Michael.

UF TREEO is centrally located and a good overnight stopping area for utilities from South Florida heading to the affected areas. We moved from the Central District of Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) after the task of calling all utilities in the area was completed. UF TREEO volunteered to house the response center because electricity is still being restored in Tallahassee, said Carol Hinton, UF TREEO Center Director.

Water/Wastewater Agency Response Networks (WARNs) are a network of utilities organized within a state to facilitate the exchange of resources after an emergency. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has long worked with local and state government as well as water sector associations in support of WARNs, including conducting exercises and training, and developing tools and resources.

Hurricane Michael has affected more than 100 medium to large water and wastewater systems and several hundred smaller systems. According to Hinton, the FlaWARN Response Center has logged over 120 hours responding to 70 requests for assistance from utilities affected by Hurricane Michael and those numbers are growing.

Requests for help have been answered by over 30 utilities around the state of Florida with an additional 10 utilities that are in preparation to deploy. Help has also been sent from Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, North Carolina and South Carolina. Many utilities did not have personnel available but were able to send equipment or supplies, Hinton added, The majority of these resources are heading to Bay County and Gulf County.

The FlaWARN Response Team includes Hinton, Joni Synatschk, FDEP, Jamie Shakar, FDEP, Joan Douglas, Southeast Rural Community Assistance Project (SE RCAP) and Dyana Stewart, Florida Rural Water Association (FRWA).

In addition to supporting FlaWARN, University of Florida Training, Research and Education for Environmental Occupations (UF TREEO) plays a major role in the continuing education for environmental professions. Currently in its 40th year, UF TREEO offers online courses in addition to its face to face offerings in Gainesville, Florida as well as in satellite locations all over the world.A Fulshear police officer looked like he was about to be attacked by an abnormally giant spider in dashcam footage released by the department this week.

The arachnid, however, was actually just walking in front of the camera on the windshield, creating an illusion that made it look like a monster from the Harry Potter world.A Houston area man is receiving threats for posting a video online showing a prejudiced comment from a Walmart employee.

Joel Aparicio said he was doing his Sunday shopping at a Pasadena Walmart when the self-checkout machine malfunctioned and a staffer arrived to help.

As the problem was worked out, Aparicio said he asked the Walmart employee if she spoke Spanish. She said no.

Aparicio said he then asked her if there was anyone available who did speak Spanish who could help him. He said the employee managed to fix the problem anyway and left, but the error occurred again moments later.

When the same woman returned to help him, Aparicio said she told him, in Spanish, that he shouldn't be in this country if he couldn't speak English.

That's when Aparicio said he began recording their interaction.

"It's necessary to speak English then?" Aparicio asks the woman in Spanish.

"Yes, because we're in Texas," she responds.

LATEST: Texas teacher pleads guilty to improper relationship with student

"Only because of that?" Aparicio asks. The women nods.

As the checkout process continues, Aparicio tells her: "You don't have green eyes to only be speaking English."

"I live in Texas, so I speak English," she replies.

Aparicio, a 13-year resident of Houston and originally from El Salvador, said he had been going to that Walmart, located on Shaver St., for about 10 years.

"I felt bad," Aparicio told Chron.com. "No one had ever treated me like that in that store. They've always been friendly."

"I felt discriminated, to be truthful," he said. "Just because I didn't speak English."

He said it's the only time he's ever experienced something like this in Houston.

After posting the video online, Aparicio received threats from people apparently familiar with the woman.

ICYMI: Swarm of one million "killer" bees removed from SW Houston home

"Say you f**king Mexican b*tch. Learn some f**king English hoe ass n***a," read one private message sent to Aparicio. "If I find you, I'ma f**k you up big time for messing with my grandmother."

Another person posted that Aparicio recorded her mom. She threatened to "kick his mother f**king ass."

Aparicio said he informed the police about the threats.

"It doesn't have to be this way," Aparicio said of the interaction with the Walmart employee. "She looked Hispanic. We have to try to help each other."

In a statement to Chron.com, Walmart said it was aware of the video and said the incident was being addressed internally.

Fernando Ramirez covers Texas news and politics. Read him on our breaking news site and on our subscriber site. | Fernando.ramirez@chron.com | @fernramirez93



VICTORIA  A local man who used unprintable slurs to refer to Muslims and was convicted of burning down the Victoria Islamic Center early last year has been sentenced to more than 24 years in prison.

Marq Vincent Perez, 26, an electricians helper, was sentenced Wednesday. He had been found guilty in July of burning down the ornate mosque, committing a hate crime and using an unregistered explosive device in an unrelated crime. The jury deliberated only three hours to reach the verdict.

During the weeklong trial, jurors heard evidence of Perezs hatred and contempt for Muslims, often in his own words in social media postings and in comments to friends.

RELATED: 68-year-old man killed in South Side home identified as longtime San Antonio Museum of Art employee

Assistant U.S. Attorney Sharad Khandelwal quoted Perez at the opening of the trial saying, Ill burn every (expletive) with a raggedy towel on their head.

The critical witness against him was his admitted accomplice, a juvenile identified only as K.R. who agreed to cooperate with authorities.

The youth described how he and Perez had twice burglarized the mosque, with Perez setting it afire on the second visit on Jan. 28, 2017 in an attempt to send a message.

According to K.R., Perez was convinced that the Muslims in Victoria were a threat to the community and were stockpiling weapons at the mosque.

He wanted to look for guns and bombs, K.R. testified.

No weapons were found in the two-late night break-ins. Instead, the two burglars made off with two laptops and numerous cell phones belonging to the imam. They sold the phones online.

The two computers were later found by police when they searched Perezs house. The search also revealed a shotgun and explosives used by Perez in an unrelated car bombing.

Perez, who did not take the stand, had become a father on Jan. 28, 2017. His apparent alibi, that he had been in the hospital with his new son at the time the mosque was torched, was not supported by trial witnesses.

Instead, authorities showed the jury a series of damning trophy photographs they recovered from Perezs cell phone that were taken of the mosque after it was set ablaze.

The Wednesday sentencing comes several weeks after the grand reopening of the new Victoria Islamic Center with two gold domes. It was rebuilt with more than $1 million raised in a Go Fund Me site that drew donations from around the world.

The local community, including religious and political leaders demonstrated its support and sympathy for the Muslims immediately after the fire, and more than 300 people turned out on Sept. 29, for the celebration of the new mosque.Russian officials say a spacewalk to inspect a hole that caused an air leak in the International Space Station will now take place in December. It had been delayed because of last week's failed launch to the orbiting laboratory.

The hole was discovered in August in a different Soyuz attached to the station. The Russians initially believed it was caused by space debris, but later said it was the result of an errant drill, either on Earth or in space. They have been investigating the matter ever since.

Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin was supposed to conduct a spacewalk to examine the hole in November. Ovchinin was aboard the Russia Soyuz spacecraft last week with NASA astronaut Nick Hague when a rocket booster failure forced an emergency landing.

THE INCIDENT: American, Russian astronauts safe after emergency landing of Soyuz MS-10

The spacewalk was canceled after the aborted launch. But on Wednesday, Sergei Krikalyov, Roscosmos executive director for manned programs, told state-run news agency TASS it was rescheduled for December after the new crew arrives.

"We are planning this during the crew changeover," Krikalyov said. "There are no more specific dates so far."

The aborted launch last week grounded astronauts -- both NASA and otherwise -- until Russian officials determine the cause of the failed rocket booster. They anticipate the investigation will conclude this weekend, but have said the failure occurred when the first and second stages of the rocket collided during separation.

WHY IT HAPPENED: Russians say they know the cause of rocket booster failure

It has been unclear how last week's incident will impact future flights to the space station, but changes have not been made to the current schedule. The rescheduled spacewalk announced Wednesday indicates that Russia expects the next Soyuz launch to happen on schedule.

Since NASA's space shuttle program was shuttered in 2011, the U.S. has relied on Russia to ferry American astronauts to the station. The U.S. has spent billions of dollars on the space station in its 20-year lifetime, but NASA currently has no other way to reach the space station and therefore is grounded until Russia sorts out what happened.

Hague's spacewalk scheduled for Friday also was canceled, though NASA officials have said it will eventually be rescheduled. Hague and European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst -- who arrived on the station in June  were supposed to upgrade the station's power systems.

No decisions have been made on Hague and Gerst's second spacewalk, scheduled for Oct. 25.

'WILD RIDE:' NASA astronaut Nick Hague ready to fly again after aborted Soyuz launch last week

Boeing and SpaceX's commercial crew vehicles are expected to have their first test flights in summer 2019. The vehicles, which would eliminate U.S. dependence on Russia for trips to the station, were supposed to be ready this year. And the launch dates could easily slip again.

The aborted launch from Kazakhstan was the fourth major setback for NASA last week. On Oct. 8, the space agency announced that the Hubble Space Telescope was temporarily shut down because of a mechanical failure that crippled the groundbreaking observatory. Two days later, on Oct. 10, NASA's inspector general reported that cost and scheduling problems will likely delay the launch of Orion  the spacecraft being built to take humans back to the moon  past its scheduled mid-2020 liftoff.

That same day, NASA's 19-year-old Chandra X-ray Observatory went dark for an unknown reason. By Monday, however, space agency personnel had traced the problem back to a glitch with one of its gyroscopes, which keeps it pointed accurately for extended periods of time. It will return to normal science operations by next week, NASA said.

The United States funnels a significant amount of money into the space station each year  $1.45 billion in fiscal year 2017 alone, plus the $82 million it pays Russia for each seat on the Soyuz.

It's not clear if the U.S. already has paid Russia for Hague's seat  NASA has repeatedly failed to answer the question.

Alex Stuckey write about NASA and the environment for the Houston Chronicle. You can reach her at alex.stuckey@chron.com or Twitter.com/alexdstuckey.Texas Republican Ted Cruz and Democratic challenger Beto ORourke clashed in a series of sharp exchanges Tuesday night in the second and possibly final debate of their closely watched Senate race.

The two, locked in an unexpectedly tight race in deep red Texas, sought to seize the momentum in heated skirmishes about guns, taxes, immigration, and most significantly, core Texas values that they both claim to represent.

Both staked out familiar positions that made their differences plain on issues like the Republican tax cuts, which ORourke called a deficit-funded giveaway to the rich, and Democratic proposals for universal health care, which Cruz called socialized medicine.

One of the leading questions going into Tuesdays debate was whether ORourke would be more aggressive toward Cruz, who has seen a bump in some recent polls since their first debate last month in Dallas, when Cruz was often on the attack.

For subscribers: Beto ORourkes ties to his wealthy family draw scrutiny, and attack ads

ORourke was quick with an answer: Hes dishonest, ORourke said in response to Cruzs charge that he favors a $10 a barrel tax on oil. Thats why the president called him Lyin Ted. And thats why the nickname stuck. Because its true.

ORourke took the first shot in the debate when he attacked Cruz for paying more than $5 million for political services from Cambridge Analytica, the data firm that accessed private information from 50 million Facebook users to influence voters in the 2016 presidential election.

The very company that helped to undermine our democracy, said ORourke, who also blasted Cruz for failing to stand up to President Donald Trump: He wont stand up to him, and he wont stand up for us.

Cruz faulted ORourke for votes against special tax benefits for victims of Hurricane Harvey and for votes that he said would effectively result in a $10 a barrel tax on oil. That would have been absolutely devastating to the state of Texas, Cruz said.

He called ORourkes record on energy and in favor of abortion rights extreme. He also repeatedly criticized ORourke for saying he would be open to impeaching Trump, a move that Cruz said would lead to a political circus.

ORourke reminded viewers of Cruzs role in a 2013 government shutdown over funding for the Affordable Care Act, which ORourke supports. Its really interesting for you to talk about a partisan circus, after your last six years in the U.S. Senate, ORourke said, to laughter in the small studio audience.

Tuesdays debate took place less than a week before early voting in the midterm election begins Oct. 22.

The Cruz campaign took note of ORourkes more aggressive posture. When youre down 10, you better do something, right? said Cruz campaign manager Jeff Roe.

One more debate?

It was to be the third debate in the nationally watched race. But the second, scheduled Sept. 30 in Houston, was canceled when it appeared that Cruz would be tied up in the Senates confirmation process for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Behind the scenes, the two campaigns have continued to negotiate another potential debate Thursday as part of a previously scheduled CNN town hall in McAllen. After a joint town hall fell through, ORourke accepted an invitation to appear separately, along with a rally headlined by Los Tigres del Norte, a popular norteno group.

Cruz, turning down CNNs invitation for his own separate town hall, proposed Sunday that the town hall in McAllen be formatted as a debate.

If we are going to spend an hour on national cable news discussing and debating the issues important to Texas voters, we believe it should be on a stage with our opponent, Cruz campaign manager Roe wrote to Mark Preston CNN, executive director of political programming.

For ORourke, Tuesdays encounter was a chance to build on the momentum of his monstrous fundraising, which has seen him raise more than three times as much as Cruz over the past three months. The El Paso congressmans $38.1 million was the largest fundraising quarter ever for a U.S. Senate race  all raised without the help of political action committees.

Related: Beto ORourke tops $60M, obliterating Texas campaign finance record

Cruz, who raised a still-hefty $12 million over the same period, has been buoyed by a series of polls showing him with a consistent lead over ORourke, reflecting Texas historically conservative orientation.

Most recent polling in the race has given Cruz a high single digit lead, with the average margin going into Tuesdays debate favoring the Republican incumbent by 7 points, according to Real Clear Politics. Nevertheless, the Cook Political Report recently moved the Senate races rating from Lean Republican to Toss Up.

Like Republicans across the nation, Cruz has sought to rally the GOP base in the aftermath of the Kavanaugh confirmation battle, arguing that it underscored the stakes in the election. He accused Senate Democrats of smearing Kavanaugh.

ORourke, who opposed Kavanaughs nomination, questioned Cruzs record on other judicial nominations, noting that he had promoted the nomination of Circuit Court Judge Jeffrey Mateer, who has called transgender children part of Satans plan.

Cruz has sought to portray himself as the target of a national effort to reorient Texas politics. Every left-wing radical in the country wants to turn Texas blue, he told supporters at a recent rally leading up to the debate in San Antonio. And they are sending their money to Comrade Beto.

Much like in their first debate  when Cruz labeled ORourkes agenda as socialism  Cruz used Tuesdays debate to paint his Democratic opponent as a leftist in the mold of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

I want to cut your taxes, and Congressman ORourke wants to raise them, he said. He also criticized ORourke for opposing Kates Law, legislation Cruz sought to increase penalties on immigrants caught repeatedly crossing the border illegally.

Look, all youve heard from Senator Cruz is what we should be afraid of, ORourke said in Tuesdays debate. Its a campaign based on fear I want to bring people of Texas together.

Despite his past rivalry with Trump, Cruz is banking on a boost from the White House next Monday when the president holds a long-promised rally for Cruz and other Texas Republicans at the NRG arena in Houston.

Some Texas Democrats see Trumps arrival as a sign of GOP concern about Texas, where a Democrat hasnt been elected to statewide office since 1994. A defeat for Cruz, no matter the odds, would be both historic and far-reaching for Republicans nationally.

Cruz closed out the hourlong debate defending Trump and the Republicans control of Congress. Elections are about choices. Do we continue the path that were on, or do we turn back? Cruz said. I want to keep the economic boom were experiencing right now moving forward.

kevin.diaz@chron.comDemocratic U.S. Senate candidate Beto ORourke said he was determined to be more aggressive in his second debate with Sen. Ted Cruz to counter what he said was a barrage of dishonest attacks.

I became convinced after that first debate that I had to draw a very clear and clean and precise distinction, ORourke said in an interview with the San Antonio Express-News editorial board, his first interview after Tuesday nights debate.President Donald Trump early Wednesday tweeted his thoughts on Tuesday night's debate between Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and Democratic U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke.

In a series of tweets, Trump called O'Rourke a "flake" who would "blow it all" if elected.

"Watched the debate last night & Beto O'Rourke, who wants higher taxes and far more regulations, is not in the same league with Ted Cruz & what the great people of Texas stand for & want," the President tweeted. "Ted is strong on Crime, Border & 2nd A, loves our Military, Vets, Low Taxes. Beto is a Flake!"

MORE: Ted Cruz makes Chappaquiddick, Kennedy joke while campaigning against Beto in Houston

That tweet was immediately followed by another statement: "Ted Cruz has done so much for Texas, including massive cuts in taxes and regulations - which has brought Texas to the best jobs numbers in the history of the state," Trump said. "He watches carefully over your 2nd Amendment. O'Rourke would blow it all! Ted has long had my Strong Endorsement!"

During the debate, which was held in San Antonio, O'Rourke recalled Trump's previous commentary on Cruz during the 2016 general election.

HOUSTON CAMPAIGN EFFORTS: Beto O'Rourke supporter teams up with Houston homeowner to confront sign thieves in a creative way

"This is what you can expect over the course of this debate. Senator Cruz is not going to be honest with you. He's going to make up positions and votes that I've never held and have never taken," O'Rourke said. "That's why the President called him 'Lyin' Ted' and that's why the nickname stuck, because it's true."

Cruz responded by saying O'Rourke's "pollsters have told him to come out on the attack, so if he wants to insult me and call me a liar, that's fine, but John Adams famously said, facts are stubborn things."

Tuesday's debate was the most recent, and likely last, among these candidates before November's election.O'Rourke accused Cruz of being too partisan and divisive to lead Texas; Cruz criticized O'Rourke's economic strategies, including his healthcare system propositions.

The discussion also touched on their stances regarding election protections, abortion rights, climate change and immigration plans.Audio Transcript

Brian Anderson: Welcome back to the 10 Blocks Podcast. This is your host, Brian Anderson, editor of City Journal. Joining me on the show today is Andy Ngo. Andy is an editor at Quillette, where he writes about free expression, the culture wars, and much, much more. Hes written for City Journal, too and the Wall Street Journal. Andy is a resident of Portland where he is a graduate student at Portland State. Hes been on the ground to witness growing protests in the city over the last two weeks. Left-wing activists, generally ranging themselves under the heading, Antifa, have unleashed chaos on a couple occasions in the city. During one recent protest, viral videos captured black-clad Antifa protestors in the downtown area directing traffic and harassing drivers, all while officers and the citys police department looked the other way. Then this past weekend, right-wing groups opposed to Antifa arrived in the city, resulting in a street brawl between the two groups with no life-threatening injuries, thankfully. Urban unrest is nothing new to City Journal, of course, and we should mention that New York also saw its own outbreak of disturbing political violence over this past weekend. But to find out more about whats going on in Portland, well talk to Andy after this.

Hello again everyone, this is Brian Anderson, the editor of City Journal. On the line we have Andy Ngo. Andy is an editor at Quillette and a resident of Portland, Oregon. Andy thanks for joining us.

Andy Ngo: It's my pleasure to be with you.

Brian Anderson: To everyone outside the northwest, cities like Portland and Seattle appeared to have an active and increasingly violent left-wing street movement. Can you talk a little bit about your city and maybe introduce yourself to our listeners? How long have you lived there and what sets Portland apart or what sets the political culture of Portland apart from some other cities?

Andy Ngo: You know I have to refer to some of the amazing work that your colleague, Heather Mac Donald, has done on the victim ideology. I say that Portland is a city where victimhood ideology is mainstreamed and is normalized, and it flows through the ethos and hearts and minds of the denizens here. So I've lived in Portland most of my life and it's a progressive bubble. There are several factors that kind of make it a perfect storm for these radical, street, far-left violence and then the clashes that they have with the hard right groups. And so on one element you have the political which is that it's a really progressive bubble in the state of Oregon

Brian Anderson: I assume the city council is dominated by leftists.

Andy Ngo: Yes I would say that's a fair characterization. And then so there's one factor there and then the other dimension to it is demography as well, which I don't hear people talk about as much. So Portland is a majority white city and I think I've heard it dubbed as one of America's whitest cities for the size that it is. So with these two factors together, it creates this element of this extreme white guilt, I would say. I've witnessed it a lot and it makes the city vulnerable to radical leftist movements that try to exploit white guilt for their own political gain and I think that's my analysis for why we've seen the leadership of the city kind of take a hands-off approach when it comes to political violence from the far left. Because there's probably certain, perhaps, sympathies as well as a critical mass of constituents who are supportive of these groups.

Brian Anderson: Now, for people outside of Portland reading about these outbreaks on Drudge or somewhere else it's a little difficult perhaps for them to understand what's going on. Perhaps you could give a brief timeline of the most recent protests and what has set them off. I think there was a police shooting behind one of the protesters, correct?

Andy Ngo: Yes, so the viral video footage from Portland where you see people dressed in black confronting drivers and then one going as fara group of them going as far as beating an elderly man's car with weapons and pushing him when he got out. That viral footage was recorded just about a week and a half ago, and that stemmed from a response to a police-involved shooting and killing of a young black man, one with a very extensive criminal past, and he is suspected of shooting and injuring two people before the police responded to the incident. So that video footage that a lot of people have seen and has been covered in particularly conservative media, was a protest/rally that was organized by a Black Lives Matter-type of group locally, and then they also workthey have a lot of allies who are part of Antifa. And so whenever these far left groups organize events, Antifa comes up to, in their own words they say that they act as defenders in case white supremacists or whatever attacked them. I think these are unfounded concerns but that's their reason for why they show up with a, sort of, a militia-like element in addition to just a regular political protest.

Brian Anderson: And what about this brawlthis street brawlthat had occurred more recently?

Andy Ngo: Yes, so there's been a lot of focus on brawls that have happened particularly in the past year. The timeline, you have to go back a little bit furthernot too far back. Just really things reached a new low, I would say, after the election of Donald Trump. We had three days of mass protests in the city, and then on the third day it became a riot. That was when people really got to see how radical Antifas movement was because these people wearing masks, dressed in black, and organized, went in certain business districts in downtown and were destroying businessbreaking windows, smashing up property, setting fires on the streetIve lived here most of my life and so seeing that with my own eyes at the time, it felt like I was in a war zone. I couldn't believe that I was in the city in the Pacific Northwest in America. And so ever since then, every couple of months, every few months these groups, these so-called social justice groups, will organize protests for the cause of the day. So most recently it had to do with the shooting of Patrick Kimmons. But it can be any number of issues the far-left have taken on. And so this past weekend was unfortunately another street brawl with more violence and I got caught up in that. I went there to document it. I got pepper-sprayed. So there was a last-minute march/rally that was organized by a right-wing group named Patriot Prayer. Now this small group is headed by a man named Joey Gibson, and he's become a pretty infamous person locally in Portland, because he's one of the few people willing to organize pro-Trump rallies in downtown Portland and patriotic events. And so he was doing an event where a rallya protestwhere he wasthey wereprotesting the inaction of the mayor and then Antifa came to confront them, and then there was a brawl.

Brian Anderson: I see. But nobody was seriously hurt in this?

Andy Ngo: Oh people were seriously hurt. I saw people's faces were bashed onto the ground, and if people are aware of some of the things that Antifa does, they will bring weapons, particularly more like melee type weapons, and then of course they bring pepper spray, mace, bear spray, all that. So theyAntifa comes looking for a fight and I would say the Patriot Prayer group, the hard right groupthey go, they defend themselves and they defend themselves to win so they're quite brutal when they respond as well.

Brian Anderson: This is kind of madness in a prosperous successful city like Portlandmadness anywhere. What has been the response by local government officialsthe mayor, police, city councilto these incidents?

Andy Ngo: The mayor faced a lot of criticism after the footage that I helped publicize went viral, and he held a presser several days ago, saying that he was appalled at the treatment of the elderly man whose car was attacked, but that he supported the decision for the police not to intervene. So he was trying to play both sides but theyre, I believe, they're contradictory positions to have simultaneously. And the mayor just yesterday circulatedhis office circulated a draft proposal to try to restrict suchproposing that in the future certain groups would be restricted where and when they can protest. I don't think that would be held up to scrutiny in a court of law but the mayor's response just with his own history, typically mayor Ted Wheeler, Democratic mayor is, instead of stopping the violence his response tends to be trying to limit more speech. So for example last year Patriot Prayer had planned to organize an event that was very heavily publicized because it came on the heels by coincidence with the shootingexcuse mea stabbing attack that killed two people. It was, they were not related to Patriot Prayer a lot, but this particular person had gone to a Patriot Prayer event before and so the mayor, because the Patriot Prayer had a permit to hold this rally on federal property in downtown Portland, the mayor was calling for the federal government to revoke Patriot Prayers permit and even he was rebuked by ACLU of Oregon, which is certainly no fan or friend of Patriot Prayer. But that couples with his, the draft proposal that was released yesterday. It seems like his response is to limit speech rather than to limit violence.

Brian Anderson: empower the police to, you know, ensure order and a peaceful right to protest. The last question Andy, what are you working on now? I believe you have a podcast. I'd like to hear a bit about that and what it's called.

Andy Ngo: So my writing and journalism focuses on two tracks. I write a lot about what I see are the excesses of social justice, and being in Portland, I would say I am at the epicenter and I get to see this firsthand. So that's what I've discussed with you today. My other track of work is about writing on issues related to political Islam in immigration and integration, and so this past summer I spent many weeks traveling across Europe visiting what areas that are high crime, so vulnerable areassometimes the media will tell them no-go zones, although I would say that's a misnomer. But that's my other area of interest is in

Brian Anderson: As in the banlieue of outside Paris, that kind of

Andy Ngo: That is one example and I did spend time in in France, yes. So if you follow me on my social media you'll see that I tackle these two topics kind of, and they don't always intersect but sometimes they kind of do. I also run a podcast called Things You Should Ngo. It's a play on my surname Ngo, N-G-O, and on that I do long-form interviews with people that are in the so-called IDW, intellectual dark web, or tangential to it. And so I interview academics, intellectuals, writers, and the topics we talk about are ones that most people are polarized on it, on one view or another. So I try to dive into it in a way that's non polemical that gets towhere the conversation can keep going in an uninterrupted way. So topics we cover are related to hate speech versus free speech and political Islam, the alt-right, white nationalismall these very contentious topics and so I've launched now five episodes. I would welcome the listeners to please check that out. If they like the work I do and they would like to see more content from me.

Brian Anderson: And where is theexcuse me Andywhere is the podcast available, is it on iTunes or

Andy Ngo: Currently it is available on YouTube, if you just search my name, Andy Ngo, youll see it come up in the top hits.

Brian Anderson: Great, don't forget to check out Andy Ngos work at Quillette and his podcast and you can also follow him on twitter @mrandyngo and that's N-G-O. We'd also love to hear your comments about today's episode on Twitter, @CityJournal. Lastly, if you like our show and want to hear more, please leave ratings and reviews on iTunes. Thanks for listening and thanks, Andy, again for joining us.

Andy Ngo: My pleasure.

Brian Anderson: Thanks for joining us for the weekly 10 Blocks Podcast featuring urban policy and cultural commentary with City Journal editors, contributors, and special guests.For the first time in 25 years, New York City has experienced an entire weekend without a shooting or homicide. Understandably, Mayor Bill de Blasio is dining out on the good news, attributing the quiet weekend to his winning team. But as reports note, the last time the Big Apple had a silent weekend was in 1993a year in which the city saw 1,960 murders (854 of which occurred in just 12 of the citys 75 precincts). That doesnt mean that we shouldnt celebrate the fact that New Yorkers lived in relative peace this weekend; thats always worth celebrating. But we should be careful not to read too much into what one weekend means for the citys crime rate.

And on closer inspection, it seems possible that this past weekends ceasefire came about despite and not because of how de Blasio and others are approaching crime. As of October 7, New York City has seen 17 more murders and 293 more rapes through the same point in 2017, according to NYPD data. The uptick in murders is mostly concentrated in the Bronx (+15) and northern Queens (+11). Even more troubling is that rapes are up (year-to-date) in every major patrol sector and in every borough: Manhattan South (+35), Manhattan North (+59), Brooklyn South (+49), Brooklyn North (+21), Queens South (+14), Queens North (+58), Bronx (+49), and Staten Island (+8).

The numbers for shootings are more mixed, highlighting areas of the city that prove to be persistently challenging. Overall, shooting incidents are up in 28 (36 percent) of the citys 77 precincts. The city has had exactly 600 shootings through October 7423 of those (70.5 percent) occurring in the Bronx and Brooklyn. About half (203) of the shootings in Brooklyn and the Bronx occurred in just seven of the 35 precincts in those two boroughsthe 67th, 73rd, 75th, 79th, 40th, 44th, and 46th. Those seven precincts, containing largely black and Latino neighborhoods, accounted for more than a third of all shootings in New York City. By contrast, the entire island of Manhattan has seen only 67 shootings this year, 61 of which were sprinkled throughout upper Manhattan, mostly in the areas constituting Harlem and Washington Heights. Staten Island has had a grand total of 16 shootings in 2018, 12 of which happened within the confines of the 120th precinct, which has had historically elevated levels of crime (its also where Eric Garners infamous confrontation with police took place).

What these numbers tell us is twofold. First, though the dearth of shootings this weekend is heartening, broader trends are not necessarily moving in the right direction. New York City has come incredibly far in terms of public safety from the bad old days of the early 1990s, but those gains were brought about, in significant part, by the NYPDs commitment to data-driven, proactive Broken Windows policingwhich some city leaders want to walk away from.

For example, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr.to de Blasios chagrinpromised earlier this year to stop prosecuting fare-jumping, despite the overlap between such fare-beaters and more serious criminals, as illustrated by the February arrest of a man for fare evasion wanted for attempted murder in Virginia. And not long ago, then-City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito spearheaded a reform effortsigned into law by de Blasioaimed at reducing the likelihood of arrest for quality-of-life offenses such as public urination. The work of George Kelling and other Manhattan Institute scholars has highlighted the positive effects of quality-of-life enforcement on controlling crime.

Reformers see Vance and Mark-Viveritos policy changes as ways of addressing racial disparities in the criminal justice system, and that takes us to the second thing that the crime numbers tell us: violent crime remains largely concentrated in minority neighborhoods, which means that racial disparities are inevitable. It also means, though, that minority communities will disproportionately feel the effectsprobably in the form of higher crime rates over timeof the depolicing of minor quality-of-life offenses.

Though its too early to draw broad conclusions from this years crime numbers, its also unjustified to point to one quiet weekend as proof that backing off of policing minor offenses isnt costing us anything. In many high-crime areas, the evidence points the other way.

Photo: GauthierBouret/iStockThis week, after more than four years of pretrial litigation and sifting through 160,000 documents, Students for Fair Admission will get its day in a Massachusetts federal district court on allegations that Harvard University discriminates against Asian-American applicants. The trial is expected to last for at least three weeks. Based on the evidence that SFA presented in pretrial motions, Harvardwhether it wins or loses in courtis in for a long, embarrassing slog.

The case is the latest in the federal courts tortured consideration of affirmative-action policies in higher education. (Harvard, as a private university, is not subject to constitutional requirements that apply to public universities, but because it accepts federal funding, it is subject to Title VI, the civil rights law that replicates much of the constitutional structure.) The law governing affirmative-action practices is a complete mess. Racial classifications in college admissions, the Supreme Court has said, must be narrowly tailored to achieve compelling educational interests. A schools interest in a racially diverse student body is seen as a compelling interest, but schools cant simply institute racial quotas. Rather, they must first consider whether there is any non-discriminatory means to achieve diversity. If none can be found, schools can use race as a plus factor in order to achieve a critical mass of minority students. And the schools must engage in a holistic review of applicants files, taking race into account without unduly focusing on it.

Holistic review sounds healthy, like something you pick up at the farmers market. But the Supreme Court never defined the operative termsplus factor, critical mass, holisticleaving it to admission offices to determine whether their practices comport with legal requirements. The structure is a blatant invitation to gamesmanship, creating incentives to paper over the use of racial quotas and hide intent to discriminate within holistic review. Taking the Courts cue, colleges have been mouthing bromides about crafting a diverse student body and reviewing the whole file ever since.

Whether it wins or loses, SFA has done a public service by highlighting just how ugly this process can be. In June, the group filed a 45-page summary-judgment motion, accompanied by a 97-page statement of facts, outlining its evidence about what holistic means in practice at Harvard. The school assigns applicants a rating of 1 to 6, with some files afforded plus or minus ratings to indicate strength or weakness relative to others in that band. On the objective portions of this schemegrades and SAT scoresAsian-Americans outperform every ethnic group handily. They score nearly as strongly in less objective but still reasonably measurable areas such as extracurricular activities and teacher recommendations.

Where they fall far behind other groups, however, is in the entirely subjective personal rating. Harvard admission officers, SFA found, assign Asian Americans the lowest score of any racial group on the personal ratinga subjective assessment of such traits as whether the student has a positive personality and others like to be around him or her, has character traits such as likability . . . helpfulness, courage, [and] kindness, is an attractive person to be with, is widely respected, is a good person, and has good human qualities. Whats striking about this disparity is that Harvard gives two personal ratingsone assigned by the admissions office, and one assigned by alumni interviewers who actually meet the applicants. With the alumni, Asian-Americans score as high as any other ethnic group, and much higher than blacks or Hispanics. But among campus-bound officers, who review a paper record, Asian-Americans score far lower on personal ratings than any other racial group. This factor, SFA alleges, depresses the overall ratings of Asian-American applicants and substantially reduces their chances at admission: An Asian-American applicant with a 25 percent chance of admission would have a 35 percent chance if he were white, a 75 percent chance if he were Hispanic, and a 95 percent chance if he were black. SFAs analysis concluded that [r]ace plays such a decisive role in the admissions chances of Hispanics and African Americans that the percentage of Asian Americans admitted to Harvard would increase by 40% if all racial preferences and penalties were eliminated.

Harvard fought successfully to withhold a broad sample of individual student files that would have permitted more in-depth review of applicant ratings, but SFA was able to access some of these files, as well as internal documents on which reviewers entered comments about individual applicants. SFAs motion and accompanying statement of facts include huge chunks redacted for privacy, but based on the context, its clear that many of these redactions quote communications between admissions office reviewers about individual files. The trial will likely shed harsh light on the internal racial sausage-making.

The publicly available material is often stunning in its cynicism, and makes clear that Harvard admission officers employ stereotypes of Asian-Americans as conformist, obedient, and indistinguishableor, as one applicant was described, as busy and bright, but need[ing] to fight it out with many similar to [him or her]. The memo also describes Harvards initial identification of prospective students through the lop list, a measure by which the university fine-tunes the racial composition of its class once early acceptances start pouring in. One striking piece of evidence is the annual meeting of admissions officers of 17 elite and Ivy League colleges, at which they sit in a room and, one-by-one, read the percentage of admitted students from each of seven racial categories and then discuss (without taking notes). Harvard officials describe this process as educational; to the eye untrained in the finer points of holistic review, it looks an awful lot like collusion.

The result of this multistep process is a striking consistency in the percentage of Asian-Americans in Harvards entering class every yearranging between 18 percent and 20 percent. Based on academic qualifications alone, it should be 40 percent or more. No apparent natural explanation exists for this consistency; in an echo of Harvards shameful history of depressing the admission of Jewish students in the mid-twentieth century, it appears to be blatant racial engineering to prevent too many Asian-Americans from being admitted.

Lost in the abstract discussion of numbers and trends is the fact that the victimized students are real people, often from disadvantaged backgrounds, with their own legitimate aspirations built on years of sterling academic achievement. The most poignant section of a motion bristling with statistics and regression analysis is an excerpt of deposition testimony from a college admissions counselor at Stuyvesant High School in New York City. Admissions to Stuyvesant are race-blind and based on test scoresat least for now, though Mayor Bill de Blasio is advocating for a holistic admissions review there as well. Seventy percent of Stuyvesant students are Asian-American, and Harvard admits at least ten Stuyvesant students per year, though less than half of that group is Asian-American, generally. When the director of college counseling at Stuyvesant was shown SFAs analysis in her deposition, she broke down in tears:

Q. Have you ever seen statistics like this before? A. No. Q. Whats your reaction to them? A. My first reaction is that, mathematically, it looks like theres discrimination. Q. Do you think that something likedo you think that discrepancies that big couldSorry A. (Witness crying.) Q. Im sorry this is upsetting you. Would you like to take a break? A. (Witness shakes her head no.) Q. You want to keep going? You want to tell me why this is upsetting to you? A. Because these numbers make it seem like theres discrimination, and I love these kids, and I know how hard they work. And these just look like numbers to all of you guys, but I see their faces.

SFAs goal at trial will be to get courts and the public to see the faces of the Asian-American students who are the losers in an ugly system of racial balancing practiced by Harvard and other elite colleges. Affirmative-action proponents recognize the profound challenge that this case poses to the tottering edifice of the policy: the district court has been inundated by amicus briefs extolling the virtues of diversity and holistic review. Expect to see this case coming to the Supreme Court in a future term.

Photo by Scott Eisen/Getty ImagesCafod has been suspended from the Humanitarian Quality Assurance Initiative, which monitors how aid organisations operate.

Among other things, the HQAI exists to prevent charitable beneficiaries from being abused by their staff.

According to the most recent report released by the HQAI, Cafod scored zero out of a possible five points for its handling of complaints, following an audit of its services in Ethiopia and Kenya.

The HQAI report said that Cafod had a major problem in programmes which were delivered by its partners, where complaints handling was weak.

It said that the mechanism for making complaints about the charity had until recently been effectively non-functional and that there were still serious and connected weaknesses.

Cafod is not presently in position to ensure communities have access to safe and responsive mechanisms to handle complaints, the report said.

The HQAI has given Cafod six months to carry out a major corrective action request, the report said.

Chris Bain, director of Cafod, said: "We are passionate about protecting as well as serving the poorest communities overseas. Cafod requested the independent HQAI audit to hold ourselves fully accountable. We were very disappointed that it found gaps in how we welcome and address complaints from overseas communities, and we will do better.

"By shining a light into all areas of our work and taking action, we are a stronger and more accountable organisation, upholding our commitment and passion to improve the lives of the poorest and most vulnerable people."

Civil Society Media's first State of the Sector event takes place next month and will focus on safeguarding. For more information and to book click here.Fewer than 1 per cent of charities have reported a safeguarding incident to the Charity Commission over the last four years, the regulator has revealed today.

The Commission began a deep dive into incidents reported to it between 1 April 2014 and 20 February 2018 as part of the work of its safeguarding taskforce, which published its final report today.

It found that 0.9 per cent of registered charities submitted serious incident reports related to safeguarding and that just 1.5 per cent of charities had submitted any sort of serious incident report.

The Commission said that while for some charities incidents will be rare, and others may experience none at all, it seems unlikely that 99.1 per cent of charities do not experience any reportable safeguarding issues over a four-year period and concluded that we are seeing significant under-reporting.

Some 44 charities together accounted for around 55 per cent of the safeguarding incidents. The Commission said regular reporting is good practice and that some organisations, by virtue of their size or area of operations, were likely to need to report more incidents.

We need a culture change

The Commission said it was concerned by these findings and that it amounted to significant and systematic underreporting.

It called for a culture change in attitudes to reporting serious incidents.

Sarah Atkinson, director of policy, planning and communications, said: Making a serious incident report to the Commission is not in itself an admission of wrongdoing or failure. Quite the reverse: it demonstrates that a charity is responding properly to incident or concern. So we welcome the increase in reporting by some charities, especially international aid charities, that appear to have improved their reporting since Februarys revelations. But were not convinced that were seeing everything we should be.

Working with charities, we need to bring about a culture change on reporting to ensure charities are safe places, better able to make a difference to peoples lives.

Increase in reports

Since February 2018, the Commission has seen a significant increase in the number of incidents being reported.

In February and March, just after the Oxfam scandal when the Commission and the Department for International Development told charities to report any outstanding incidents, the Commission received three times as many reports as it had the previous year.

Between 20 February and 30 September there were 2,114 serious incident reports, with safeguarding concerns accounting for 68 per cent of them.

An analysis of incidents received between 1 February and 31 May revealed that overseas aid/famine relief charities accounted for 29 per cent of incidents. This was followed by disability (12 per cent), religious (12 per cent) and education/training (12 per cent).

The Commission is currently conducting further analysis of the data and said it was considering publishing more information about the number and types of serious incidents in the future.

New digital tool to report incidents

The Commission has updated its serious incident reporting guidance for charities and said that it was considering a new tool to make it easier for charities to report incidents.

Its report said: The purpose of this would be to make it easier for charities to provide the information we need at the outset. In the meantime, we are developing a checklist to sit alongside the RSI guidance to help better inform trustees about what key information we need about different types of incident when reported.

Civil Society Media's first State of the Sector event takes place next month and will focus on safeguarding. For more information and to book click here.



Since October 2, when Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist, disappeared inside the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul, horrificand unverifieddetails have cascaded from the Turkish press to our own. Fifteen men brought a bone saw through Istanbul airport in the middle of the night, we heard. The consulate hurriedly repainted rooms in the days after his disappearance, Reuters wrote. Khashoggi died accidentally during interrogation. Unless he was purposefully tortured and murdered. Once Turkish officials seemed to verify that audio recordings captured his torture and murder, The New York Times Istanbul bureau was quick to note that Turkish media leaks, frequent at first, had stemmed off when President Trump seemed to take the accusations against the Saudis seriously, and then resumed when Trump defended the crown prince and suggested rogue killers might have killed Khashoggi instead.

The struggle to double check evidence when the only sources of informationthe Turkish government and closely intertwined Turkish mediaare politically biased has been a challenge for journalists reporting the Khashoggi case. Yunus Erduran, a local journalist and creator of a citizen journalism network in Istanbul, estimates that 90 percent of Turkish media is owned by businesses that work in support of President Recep Erdogan. Details in their stories bear the hallmarks of purposeful leaks from Turkish intelligence units, Erduran says. CCTV footage features airports and the immediate exterior of the consulateareas under police control. The speed with which officials sent CCTV footage to Sabah, Turkeys largest daily, was unusual; bureaucratic red tape typically slows down access to that type of investigative evidence. It took more than one year to get the views from CCTVs for the 2007 assasination of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, he says. But here, in a couple of days, everything was served. To us, its quite obvious that it has a specific purpose.

ICYMI: The FBIs secret investigation of a journalist

Carlotta Gall, the Istanbul bureau chief for the Times, says that careful sourcing is paramount when covering leaks from an authoritarian government. Reporting the Khashoggi investigation has been incredibly difficult, she says, because there have been no official or firsthand sources willing to give their names on the record. The Turkish government was extremely careful not to make an official statement for days, she says. We were sitting on this huge story we couldnt not report.

Information so far comes from secondhand sources or anonymous Turkish officials. The day after Khashoggis disappearance, Gall went down to the consulate in Istanbul and stood on the sidewalk with Hatice Cengizl, Khashoggis fiancee, waiting for him to return. Two members of the Turkish Arab Media Association also joined Cengiz on the sidewalk shortly after his disappearance, Gall says. They fielded queries from Gall and corresponded with close connections in the Turkish government and with Khashoggis friends on her behalf. When we couldnt find second sources sometimes, they were knowledgeable enough to step in, Gall explains.

Gall says she also had to learn which Turkish officials are cavalier with the truth. Her team knows of two reporters at Sabah who are notorious for landing security briefings and breaking those stories, but the Times always treats those stories, often riddled with anonymous quotes, with caution. When Sabah published the photographs and names of 15 alleged members of a Saudi hit team and clean up squad, Gall worked with the Times teams in Beirut and New York set to work to confirm the story. In the end, the Times published photos of all 15 men, but wrote that they could only verify the identities of twoboth through personal Facebook accounts. Six days later, The Washington Post verified the identities of 11 of the suspects using social media posts, emails, and local media reports. The Post found that nine of the men have profiles on MenoM3ay, a phone directory app popular in the Arab world, linking them to the Saudi security forces and, in some cases, the Royal Guard.

Sign up for CJR 's daily email

Turkish authorities have still not released the audio recording they say they have of Khashoggis torture and murder. At this point, the audio is still only secondhand evidence, Bel Trew, the Middle East correspondent for The Independent, tells CJR. If it exists and is released, it will confirm whether Khashoggi died under a botched interrogationsomething she says the Saudis have a history with, including during the high-profile death of Major General Ali al-Qahtani. There is no precedent for planned murders in Saudi consulates, Trew says.

Trew has reported on patterns in Saudi human rights abuses to contextualize much of the information leaked through the Turkish press. An October 12 piece for The Independent described how Prince Khaled bin Farhan al-Saud, a Saudi prince living in exile, had avoided kidnapping 10 days before Khashoggis disappearance. Khaled bin Farhan told Trew that authorities had tried to lure him to the embassy at least 30 times, much as the consulate did with Khashoggi. The ploy was part of an escalating crackdown orchestrated by Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman, he explained. Trew tells CJR that she weighed the variables carefully before publishing Khaled bin Farhans name. Peoples lives are on the line, she says.

Trew and her team also made a decision early on in the investigation not to contribute to the cacophany of stories and maze of misinformation. A few days ago, she held a story based on a tip saying that Khashoggi had been murdered. The tip did not check out consistentlyTurkish authorities offered conflicting information. Its a gruesome show, she says. Be mindful theres a family there.

The work of journalists like Trew builds a more robust picture of the Saudis behavior. All of a sudden, everybodys talking about it, Yeah they did the same thing with me, Deborah Amos, a correspondent at NPR and a longtime friend of Khashoggis, says. I cover this stuff pretty closely, and I was like, the Saudis have been really busy, and we didnt know it.

ICYMI: The story BuzzFeed, The New York Times and more didnt want to publish

Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today

Amanda Darrach is a contributor to CJR and a visiting scholar at the University of St Andrews School of International Relations. Follow her on Twitter @thedarrach.As Civils cryptocurrency token sale drew to a close on Monday, it seemed highly improbable the project would make its $8 million minimum target, and in fact it did not. Civil, which is building a blockchain-powered platform for independent journalism (and already hosts a number of newsrooms, including the Colorado Sun and Popula), missed the target by a wide margin, raising less than $2 million from a little over 600 people. But co-founder Matthew Iles said in a Medium post on Tuesday the project is going ahead with a modified token sale, one that will be much simpler than the original, which was widely criticized for being overly confusing.

The CVL token sale didnt succeed. Were disappointed, but were as committed as ever to seeing Civil out in the world, Iles wrote. A new, much simpler token sale is in the works. In the meantime, the existing newsrooms will continue to publish, thanks to $3.5 million in grants from ConsenSys, the blockchain developer and venture fund that is also an investor in Civil Media Co., the for-profit arm of the project. ConsenSysfounded by Joseph Lubin, a co-founder of Ethereum, the cryptocurrency Civils tokens are based onwound up buying more than 80 percent of the tokens that were sold in the latest offering.

Existing buyers now have the option of asking for an immediate refund of the money they used to buy tokens, getting an automatic refund on October 29, or retaining the tokens and remaining part of the Civil funding drive. Some token holders had already asked to exercise the latter option, Iles wrote. I write to ask if you can ensure I do not get a refund after Mondays ICO closing date irrespective of the outcome, Iles quoted one token holder as saying. I wish my funds/pledge to be redirected into any future CIVIL plans once announced.

So what went wrong with the token sale? Overly ambitious goals given the current state of the cryptocurrency marketwhich some believe is a bubblecombined with what even some Civil staffers have told CJR was an overly time-consuming process of buying the tokens. To the usual virtual wallet and token exchange, Civil added a quiz on some of the finer points of cryptocurrency (such as the difference between a hot and cold crypto wallet). In part, Civil says this was done to weed out speculators and others who might not be in sync with the goals of the project. But those methods also seem to have weeded out a lot of potential supporters.

By the time the company decided to allow purchasers to use fiat currency (i.e., US dollars) sent directly from their bank accounts, it was too late. Yesterday, after the failed token sale, Civil staffers remained determined to raise money to operate the platform and to fund the Civil Foundation, a non-profit that also administers the Civil Council. The question is: Will there be enough interest in helping, now the first attempt at funding has failed so publicly?

More information on Civil:

A new media ecosystem : For an in-depth look at what Civil is trying to build and why, see CJRs feature on the project, based on interviews with all of the founders and senior executives, including Matthew Iles and Vivian Schiller, a former senior executive with Twitter and NPR who is now running the Civil Foundation.

: For an in-depth look at what Civil is trying to build and why, see CJRs feature on the project, based on interviews with all of the founders and senior executives, including Matthew Iles and Vivian Schiller, a former senior executive with Twitter and NPR who is now running the Civil Foundation. Confusing and time-consuming : John Keefe, a developer with Quartz, wrote a piece for the NiemanLab in which he described the 44-step process he had to go through in order to buy Civil tokens, including uploading a copy of his drivers license and passport to verify his identity and filling out the quiz on cryptocurrency.

: John Keefe, a developer with Quartz, wrote a piece for the NiemanLab in which he described the 44-step process he had to go through in order to buy Civil tokens, including uploading a copy of his drivers license and passport to verify his identity and filling out the quiz on cryptocurrency. A new constitution : One of the key documents in the Civil ecosystem is the Constitution, which the project has been crowdsourcing via an open Google Doc, as well as asking for input from media professionals in a series of symposiums both in the US and a number of other countries.

: One of the key documents in the Civil ecosystem is the Constitution, which the project has been crowdsourcing via an open Google Doc, as well as asking for input from media professionals in a series of symposiums both in the US and a number of other countries. A council of advisers : Part of the non-profit Civil Foundation is the Civil Council, a group of media experts including Emily Bell, director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia, law professor Ellen Goodman, Atlantic magazine Executive Editor Matt Thompson, and former Wikimedia Executive Director Sue Gardner.

: Part of the non-profit Civil Foundation is the Civil Council, a group of media experts including Emily Bell, director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia, law professor Ellen Goodman, magazine Executive Editor Matt Thompson, and former Wikimedia Executive Director Sue Gardner. Also a movie studio: In addition to Civils blockchain-powered platform for journalism, the company has also launched a number of other ventures, including Civil Studios, which it said will produce original content, including documentaries and podcasts.

Sign up for CJR 's daily email

Other notable stories:

A study of news deserts by the University of North Carolinas School of Media and Journalism shows more than 1,300 communities across the US have virtually no local news coverage to speak of, having lost their newspapers. More than 2,000 counties now have no daily newspaper and 171 have no newspaper at all.

Shelley Hepworth writes for CJR about the crisis at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, that countrys public broadcaster, where the former managing director was fired halfway through her five-year term, after the chairman of the ABC board tried to pressure her to fire one of her reporters.

Lesley Stahl, a veteran of the CBS news show 60 Minutes, said earlier this year that Donald Trump told her he uses the term fake news to discredit journalists he disagrees with. And yet she let him do exactly that in a recent interview without challenging him, says The Intercepts Mehdi Hasan.

Twitter has suspended about 1,500 accounts that were either created by or are associated with a troll campaign that started on the site 4chan, according to The New York Times . The accounts were fabricated to look like liberal and Democrat activists and spread misinformation about the midterm elections.

. The accounts were fabricated to look like liberal and Democrat activists and spread misinformation about the midterm elections. James Wolfe, a former senior staffer with the Senate Intelligence Committee, pleaded guilty to lying about sharing information with reporters. Wolfe admitted he lied to the FBI about exchanging information with Ali Watkins, who was then at BuzzFeed and is now a reporter for The New York Times .

. Facebook told TechCrunch it will start down-ranking sites that scrape content or republish stories with little or no modification. Such sites will show up less prominently in the News Feed, the company said. Facebook also recently said it will remove posts that contain misinformation about voting.

Democratic Senator Heidi Heitkamp apologized Tuesday for a newspaper ad she published that included the names of a number of sexual abuse victims. Heitkamp said she found out later some of the victims did not agree to have their names used, and some of those named were not actually victims of abuse.

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.The Israeli military says a rocket fired from Gaza made a direct hit on a home in southern Israel. I'm afraid "couldn't care less" understates the reality of the UNHRC's support for the terrorists.

Hamas's goal is create as much confusion and violence on the border as possible to elicit a response from the Israeli Defense Forces that could provide the terror group with an opportunity to kidnap soldiers.

The Israeli police said that "a rocket struck the city of Beersheba a few moments ago causing damage", although it did not specify the extent of the destruction.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad denied responsibility for the rocket fire, issuing an official joint statement hours after the attack that said, "The Joint Operation Room of the Palestinian Factions lauds the efforts exerted by Egypt to serve the Palestinians their legitimate demands, and we reject any other attempt to undermine the Egyptian endeavors, including the launch of a rockets took place last night".

Another rocket launched from Gaza and aimed at central Israel fell into the Mediterranean Sea, the military said.

Palestinian protesters burn tires next to the border fence during a protest on the beach at the border with Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened "very painful blows", saying Israel was very close to waging a "different kind of activity".

"If it has any sense, Hamas will cease its fire and violent outbursts - now", he said.

"We are not prepared to accept the level of violence we see week after week", Avigdor Lieberman told troops and commanders at an army base near southern Israel's border with Gaza.

Israel's defence minister said on Tuesday the protests could not be allowed to go on.

Hardliners Lieberman and Bennett have competed since late September over who might deliver the harshest statements on Israel's military action in Gaza, after Bennett claimed the Israeli response to the protests had been too weak.

Palestinians have been protesting along the border since March 30, demanding an end to Israel's blockade of Gaza and the right to return to lands that Palestinians fled or were driven from upon Israel's founding in 1948.

Seven were killed and hundreds injured during the most recent protests on Friday, with Lieberman later suspending fuel supplies to the already energy-starved Gaza Strip.

The UN says Israel's 11-year blockade of the enclave, ruled by Hamas, has resulted in a "catastrophic" humanitarian situation.

Gaza's two million residents endure dire living conditions including a shortage of safe drinking water and regular power cuts, partly because of the lack of fuel for the strip's power station.An Oklahoma school bus that hydroplaned on a wet road and crashed in Central Texas last month, injuring nearly everyone onboard, was traveling at an unsafe speed for the conditions, according to a Texas Department of Transportation report.

The bus crossed into the wrong lane on Sept. 29 as it was making a left hand curve on U.S. 281 near Lampasas, 60 miles (100 kilometers) northwest of Austin, the report said. Cleveland Elementary School principal Ty Bell, who was driving the bus, took faulty evasive action and overcorrected, which caused him to lose control of the vehicle, the report said.

Officials said the bus rolled over and struck a fence .

The unsafe speed made it difficult for Bell to maintain control of the bus. The citation doesnt necessarily mean Bell was speeding, officials said.

Bell was up to date on his training and had a valid license to drive the bus, records show.

The bus was carrying 27 people from Cleveland Elementary School and was heading to Sea World in San Antonio for a field trip.

Lampasas Police Department Assistant Chief Jody Cummings said students and staff were taken to local hospitals to treat bruises, scrapes and some broken bones. Bell was the only one not injured. There were no fatalities.

Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.About 30 members of the crew stood in the morning still of the Oregon forest as Katie Sauerbrey laid out the plans for the day. Some carried shovels or pickaxes. Others leaned against trucks and peered at maps of the area. All listened intently as she outlined the risks of their operation.

There were 1,000-foot cliffs that fell to the ocean. There were unmarked barbed wire fences. There was a steep drainage full of thorny blackberry bushes.

There would be fire. And they would be the ones to light it.

With the primary carrier being tall grasses, this thing could move quickly, she told the group. We could get some tall flame lengths. Be prepared. Keep your head on a swivel.

After the briefing, Sauerbrey, a preserve manager with The Nature Conservancy, led the crew  made up of folks from the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, the Oregon Department of Forestry, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and others  on the mile-long hike out to the 30-acre meadow they planned to burn at Cascade Head, a preserve owned by The Nature Conservancy a few miles north of Lincoln City.

Controlled burns like the one overseen by Sauerbrey are an important part of forest management, one of the tools officials use to try and make a dent in the massive buildup of fuels that has amassed over decades of aggressive wildfire suppression. But controlled burns face obstacles, namely air quality regulations that can limit their effects.

After the last two fire seasons, where portions of the state were inundated with smoke for months on end, officials have begun to ask: might it be wise to endure a small amount of limited smoke in the offseason to mitigate the smoky hellscape thats become the norm over the last few years?

A historical precedent, an unprecedented history

Tribes in the Pacific Northwest have used fire as a tool to shape the landscape for thousands of years. The touch of flame kept huckleberry and camas fields abundant. In areas where tribes hunted deer and elk, fire created a mat of forage plants on the forest floor, a favorite food for the ungulates. Burned areas recycle nutrients more efficiently and help to control the spread of invasive species.

Done in a controlled way, as a management tool, as opposed to out of control, fire improves the resources the creator has given us, said Cheryl Kennedy, chairwoman of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde. This knowledge was instilled in us and we look forward to the day when these practices are as widely used as they should be.

The tribes used rotating cycles of fires to keep land fresh. Hazelnut stands saw fire at least every 10 years, trees and bushes used for basket weaving were burned every three years or so. The frequency of the burns not only helped the plants grow. It also helped keep the landscape free of dry fuels.

The result would come to be known as the 10 a.m. rule, which stated that fires should be contained by 10 a.m. the day following their initial report.

Forests like weve never seen

In Oregon, where more than half the state is public land, forests today look like nothing nature intended, more dense than at any point in recorded history.

In some places there are 10 to 100 times more trees per acre, said Mark Stern, director of forest conservation with The Nature Conservancy.

The change in forests has changed the way fire behaves in them, said John Bailey, a forestry professor at Oregon State University.

Fire behavior is based on three things: landscape, weather and fuel, he said. The topography hasnt changed, but there are many acres out there that have more fuel than theyve ever had.

What followed was decades of aggressive fire suppression leaving forests without the naturally occurring burns that cleared out dry fuels and underbrush. Left unburnt, many forests across the western United States now look as they never have before, brimming with fuel that has accumulated, in some spots, for more than 100 years.

Fire needs to touch the land once every 10 years, said David Harrelson, a cultural resources manager with the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde. Without it, you leave room for catastrophic fires.

The way fire is managed across the west changed drastically in the summer of 1910. By August, some 3,000 fires were burning across the west including blazes in the Wallowas, on the eastern flank of Mount Hood, in the Umpqua National Forest and on Huckleberry Mountain, just west of Crater Lake.

Along with increased temperatures from climate change, the buildup of fuels has played a role in dramatic fire seasons across the west during the last few years, which have been both costly and harmful to public health.

In 2018, wildfires from Washington to California to British Columbia blew smoke into the Portland area, causing unhealthy air quality for days on end. In southern Oregon, unhealthy air lasted for months.

In total, the state spent more fighting wildfires in 2018, nearly $515 million, than in any other year.

No magic bullet

A problem of this scale, which spans millions of acres across numerous state lines, has no easy solution.

We need it all. More thinning. More mechanical treatments. More prescribed burning, Bailey said. But it needs to be strategic. You want to look for areas that havent burned in a long time so, if a wildfire does start there, maybe it will be 5,000 or 10,000 acres instead of 100,000.

On average, roughly 165,000 acres a year have been treated with controlled burns in Oregon over the last decade. Three times that area  about 470,000 acres a year over the past 10 years  have burned in wildfires. In 2018, wildfires scorched more than 830,000 acres in the state.

Still, there are examples of success. The Millie Fire, which burned nearly 25,000 acres in the Three Sisters Wilderness in 2017, could have been much worse had the area near the town of Sisters not been treated with controlled burns before the wildfire.

In 2017, the Eagle Creek fire scorched nearly 50,000 of Oregons most beloved acres in the Columbia River Gorge and rained ash and smoke on the states densest population center. That same year, the Chetco Bar fire in southwest Oregon burned for five months and scorched nearly 200,000 acres.

Firefighters had a path to approach, Sterns said. (Controlled burns) not only make fires less likely to grow, they make them safer to fight.

With fire comes smoke, though, and thats been the big stumbling block in making wider use of controlled burns. The Oregon Smoke Management Plan, adopted in 1972 to conform with the federal Clean Air Act, essentially prohibits any controlled burn that results in visible smoke in a populated area. Every five years, the plan comes up for review and that process began early in 2017 with a series of five meetings across the state.

Among the stakeholders at those meetings was Carrie Nyssen, senior advocacy director for the American Lung Association, who sometimes felt like the odd person out at the meetings as one of the few who resisted the push to relax regulations.

Its a difficult issue for the Lung Association. Its hard for us to support any policy that puts more smoke in the air, she said. But we know there is no option where theres no smoke and we want to make sure folks in affected communities know when its coming, what there options are and where they can go.

Joining Nyssen on the panels were public health officials, forest collaboratives, environmentalists, timber operators, elected officials and a tribal representative, all of whom aired their differences and forwarded a set of recommendations to state officials.

Among the recommendations: a relaxation of the threshold for smoke intrusions, but also an increase in communication to affected communities so arrangements could be made by those most vulnerable.

The benefits would be multifold, according to Bailey.

If we proactively and consciously go after this buildup of fuels, it will reduce the amount of fire, the amount of money we spend on fire and the number of fatalities we have, he said. All of that equals less smoke in the air.

State officials are reviewing comments on the proposed changes, which could be approved and put in place as early as January 2019.

Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.BOSTON HEIGHTS, Ohio - The developers of a new Akron Children's Hospital medical office announced it will give the $15 million medical complex to the hospital at the end of the initial 30-year lease.

Cuyahoga Falls-based Testa Development, owned by siblings Joel Testa and Julie Testa Thomasson, said it will give the Akron Children's Health Center, Boston Heights, to Children's Hospital rather than extend the lease for additional years.

The Testas made the announcement at a beam-signing ceremony for the two-story, 43,000-square foot building under construction at 328 East Hines Hill Road. The facility is scheduled to open in August 2019.

"In their half century of married life and their half century in business, our parents - Paul and Kathie Testa - have put their community and family first and have instilled those same values in us," Joel Testa said in a news release. "It is only natural then that as my sister, Julie, and I proceed in our own real estate development careers through Testa Development we too wish to give back to the Greater Akron community."

The health center will offer Boston Heights families an array of Akron Children's pediatrics services, including urgent care, rehabilitative services, radiology and lab services, and more than 15 pediatric specialty services.

In a statement, Akron Children's Hospital President Grace Wakulchik recognized the Testa family's vision and creativity in offering a lasting gift to the hospital.

"It's been a pleasure to work with them on this project and this gift shows they share the same vision as Akron Children's in wanting to bring the highest quality pediatric health care to the children of our community," Wakulchik said in the release. "In every way, this new facility is being designed through the eyes of a child and we know our patient families in northern Summit and Cuyahoga counties will appreciate the convenience of having all of this pediatric expertise in one place, so close to home."

Akron Children's is also poised to unveil its newly expanded Considine Professional Services building in downtown Akron. Children's has invited the public to an open house to see the seven-story building during a ribbon cutting set for 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 27 at 215 W. Bowery St.

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.BRECKSVILLE, Ohio -- More than 300 residents filled City Council chambers last week to express their opinions about a sewer-tax bailout for residents in the Four Seasons subdivision.

Of the 30 or so residents who spoke at the council meeting, about 70 percent opposed the use of hundreds of thousands of dollars in city money to pay back sewer taxes for Four Seasons residents.

Those same residents also believed that council and the administration tried to hide their actions by discussing Four Seasons in private executive sessions, then voting to appropriate funds for the sewer back taxes before the matter appeared on a council agenda.

"This conversation and standing-room-only crowd should have occurred with notice to the community before council decided that the city would just pay that (money)," Brecksville resident Janet Kleckner told council.

Kleckner said council's and the administration's lack of transparency meant that residents never had a chance to weigh in on Four Seasons until the issue was already decided.

"As a citizen of this community I am sorely disappointed, and frankly somewhat resentful, that the City Council made that decision in executive session without so much as a 'how-do-you-do' or 'by-your-leave' to the citizens of this community," Kleckner said.

Law Director David Matty said council only discussed Four Seasons in executive session -- as allowed by law for a matter that might involve legal action -- but made no decision until it voted to appropriate funds in open session on Aug. 7.

At last week's meeting, council approved an agreement with Cuyahoga County, under which the county would help Brecksville pay close to $682,000 in back sewer taxes for 80 residents in Four Seasons, an upscale subdivision.

The county will contribute $95,000 toward the payoff. The city will cover the remaining $587,000.

The bailout became necessary after the city discovered earlier this year that the county, for the last 15 years, was undercharging Four Seasons property owners for sanitary sewers built in 2001.

Transparent talk

Dale Beaver, of Orchard Drive, asked council if it had considered whether a crime involving Four Seasons had been committed. He pointed out that Frank Russo -- who was later sentenced to prison for his involvement in the Cuyahoga County corruption scandal -- was county auditor when the county started undercharging Four Seasons residents.

Matty said that to his knowledge, that possibility had not been investigated. He said the county is legally immune to negligence regarding the Four Seasons matter, but would not be immune to criminal activity.

Tom Collin, of Oakhurst Drive, said the obligation of Four Seasons residents to pay their sewer tax bills runs with the land, regardless of whether residents knew they owed more money.

"I don't see why there is any obligation on the part of the city or anybody else to relieve the homeowners of their obligation of the assessment," Collin said.

Eben "Sandy" McNair, of Pershing Drive, said he had recommended charging Four Seasons residents for their sewer taxes only for the amount of time they have lived in the subdivision. He said only Councilman Jack Petsche responded favorably to his idea.

Barbara Ruper, of Bradford Lane, said that if the city pays for Four Seasons' back sewer taxes, it should pay for flooding damage on her property. She said the flooding was caused by the city's backed-up storm water catch basins.

Lorraine Tytko, of Glen Eagle Drive, asked if council could have opted not to discuss Four Seasons in executive session. Matty said yes, if a majority of council agrees.

"Transparency is never a bad idea," Tytko said. "I'm a citizen. I think it's my right that I should know."

Bob Parker, of Chautauqua Trail, agreed.

"It's good for the community to discuss these things," Parker said. "That's what democracy is all about, that issues aren't hidden from the people."

Splitting Brecksville

Stephen Sweetnich, of Highland Drive, said he doesn't live in Four Seasons. Nevertheless, he said he was glad the city was helping Four Seasons residents.

Sweetnich said he was disgusted with "unfounded, slanderous" suggestions that city officials were guilty of fiscal impropriety with taxpayer money, and that two council members -- Michael Harwood and Kim Veres -- who live in Four Seasons were involved in wrongdoing.

"Folks, reasonable people can disagree about the way to handle situations," Sweetnich said. "But to drag the discussion down into the slime by attacking good people's intent and reputation without evidence is wrong."

Keith Yoho, of Four Seasons, said that when he bought his property in 2004 and built a home there in 2005, he was told that he would have to pay about $600 a year in sewer assessments. He said he paid those assessments as required and asked why he would be expected to pay another $600 for each year going back 13 years.

Yoho said he has agreed to pay the full assessment, about $1,200, for the next three years, as the city is asking, even though he doesn't believe he is legally required to do so.

Lori Guggenbiller, a Four Seasons resident, said the community has villainized Four Seasons over the back sewer taxes. She criticized Councilman Jack Petsche, who has opposed the sewer-tax bailout, for not meeting with Four Seasons residents.

"No one took the time to sit down with us to ask us how we felt about all these issues and what it was doing to us," Guggenbiller said.

"Mr. Petsche, I feel you were doing address profiling and character assassinations of the council," Guggenbiller said.

One Four Seasons resident, who could not be identified, said the sewer-tax issue has split Brecksville. He said his daughter was asked by a classmate why she and her family didn't pay the money they owed.

The man added that he felt bad for Harwood and Veres, whose names have appeared in media reports about the Four Seasons issue.

"I resent that," the man said. "Unless there is evidence of fault, please don't taint people's faces in front of the TV."CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Two former candidates for mayor who each campaigned against crime and violence in 2017 are now each backing efforts to address the issues at the neighborhood level.

Former City Councilman Zack Reed plans to publicly unveil his plans today during a luncheon at Cuyahoga Community College. Reed said he has invited many of the region's leaders to attend.

Businessman Robert Kilo unveiled his plan Friday at the Mount Pleasant NOW Development Corp.

Reed and Kilo both challenged Mayor Frank Jackson's re-election last year, and their plans share some components of Jackson's own anti-violence effort.

What does Reed propose?

Reed spent much of the summer meeting with youth, most ages 14 to 18, gathering their perspectives on violence in their neighborhoods, their attitudes toward police and their suggestions for what needs to be done.

He has tracked homicides in Cleveland since 2013, using data from the Cuyahoga County medical examiner to prepare maps marking each death and lists with the victims' names.

"The first thing I asked [people at his forums] was do you know somebody on the list," Reed said during a meeting Tuesday with cleveland.com editors and reporters. And someone always answered "Yes."

At today's luncheon, he is expected to urge community leaders to pay to bringing in Cure Violence, a nationally recognized anti-violence program founded by an epidemiologist at the University of Chicago School of Public Health.

The Cure Violence model approaches violence as a curable disease. It uses violence interrupters to mediate conflicts and disputes that have the potential to escalate through retaliation.

The organization has helped dozens of major cities, including Baltimore and New York, develop programs that have been credited with statistically significant reductions in violence in some of their deadliest neighborhoods.

One of those neighborhoods is Queensbridge in New York. It is the largest public housing complex in the country. At one point the complex went 365 days between shootings, Reed said.

What might that cost to do here?

Brent Decker, Cure Violence's chief program officer, told cleveland.com that the program can be done at various levels of intensity. In New York, the organization has an annual budget of about $30 million. He estimated that Cleveland could make a significant impact with a budget of $6 million.

Jackson has incorporated aspects of the Cure Violence model in some of his efforts, including the use of violence interrupters to mediate at hospitals when shootings occur and the use of the Peacekeepers Alliance organization to quell disputes at the street level.

If Cure Violence got involved in Cleveland, it would not necessarily be to duplicate those efforts, Decker said. It could come in and lend its expertise and help Cleveland strategize.

What does Kilo propose?

He and several pastors in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood hope to reduce violence and drug use with what they call the Cleveland Ten Point effort.

The plan is patterned after one used by the Indianapolis Ten Point Coalition that successfully reduced crime and drug use in that city while promoting job opportunities.

In addition to pastors, the Cleveland coalition involves former incarcerated offenders, police and community leaders. Together, they plan to walk the Mount Pleasant neighborhood, seeking to mitigate disputes as they arise.

"Now is the time for our Cleveland community to serve together to see crime in our city, especially with at-risk youth between the ages of 10 to 24, to significantly drop in our city," Kilo said in a news release. "The Ten Point model has demonstrated extraordinary outcomes in Indianapolis and we are excited to see what is possible in Cleveland, starting in Mount Pleasant."UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS, Ohio -- Cleveland Heights-University Heights school board members were left scratching their heads during a recent "data dive" into the state report card system for individual districts.

This was the first year that Ohio issued an overall grade culled from up to six individual categories, for which the CH-UH earned a "D."

In all, 42 percent of the 608 districts in the state earned an overall "C" grade, while less than 5 percent earned "A's." And the first ring suburbs around Cleveland generally did worse.

CH-UH School Board President Jim Posch believes the system is "highly suspect when you look at these numbers. This is not a measure of our success, the scholarships, the graduation rates. It's so incredibly misleading."

In what is considered the most well-known component of Ohio assessment -- the "achievement" category -- roughly half of the districts statewide earned a "D."

This was also the case for the 16 first-ring districts around Cleveland, although a substantially higher percentage flunked.

"When we drill down further, we've improved in 16 categories compared to last year," noted CH-UH Director of Data and Assessment Allison Byrd said last month. "And where we didn't improve, other districts across the state didn't either."

There were five areas where the CH-UH district's performance dropped.

And those happen to be five of the seven areas where the state's overall performance fell as well.

"It's not isolated in the CH-UH or the first-ring districts, so we're looking at what's different," Byrd noted.

For the "indicators met" component, Byrd pointed out that 72 percent of the districts in the state earned an "F," as did 15 out of 16 first-ring districts.

"That's not our kids," Byrd said. "I refuse to believe that 94 percent of the kids in our district are not meeting grade-level expectations -- who are not 'proficient.'"

To this, CH-UH School Board Vice President Jodi Sourini added, "or that 72 percent in the entire state" are not proficient.

While he does not consider himself a conspiracy theorist, Posch believes "it's all about trying to drive kids out of the public schools and supporting the charter movement. What else is it? They've gamed the system with these test scores."

Board member Dan Heintz, a teacher and Heights High grad, noted that "it is a very stacked deck when it comes to districts like the inner ring."

Heintz cited the governor's appointments to the state school board, as well as the downstate demographics for the elected seats.

Shifting the discussion away from the political arena, Byrd moved on to the "progress" component, which the district also flunked.

"We saw a huge shift in our 'progress' performance when the state switched testing vendors back in 2014-15," Byrd said. "Our grades in this particular component went from all 'A's' to all 'F's.'"

And while the district's progress grade has improved since 2015, it's still not enough to cover the lost ground since the change in test vendors.

The "gap closing" component is also perplexing, although the district has improved here by one letter grade from 2017 and actually aced the English Language Arts measure with 100 percent. Students also scored an 81 percent on Mathematics.

But what was also introduced this year in "gap closing" was a new "English Learners'" measure.

"We didn't even know how that had been calculated" until after the fact, Byrd said.

Now that district officials know what's involved, "we're in a better position to address it. That's not about gaming the system, that's just understanding what (goes into) the calculation."

Heintz noted that it would require the same metric to remain in effect next year from the state.

Byrd added that "gap closing" also looks at race, disabilities, economic disadvantages and of course English learners, but a school district has to have a certain number of each student in order to be included in the state's calculation.

While it's not a first-ring district, Beachwood -- a perennial top performer by state standards -- does not have enough English learner students to be assessed in that regard, Byrd noted.

Sourini and Posch said it seems like the CH-UH district gets penalized for its diversity.

"Whether we take a knock for it or not, it's still one of the greatest assets of our schools," added Byrd, also a Heights graduate.

Posch noted that some students transfer into Heights for and may take an extra year to graduate.

And for some reason, the 2018 school district report card is using graduation rates from the classes of 2016 and 2017, although CH-UH fared well in that category.

The district's educational assessment team will conduct two more "data discussions" later in the school year.CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A Strongsville man pleaded no contest Wednesday to a grisly killing of his fiancee's mother in October 2017, avoiding a jury trial that was to begin the same day but still maintaining his innocence.

Jeffrey Scullin Jr., 21, did not formally admit to charges in a seven-count indictment but did admit that the facts in the indictment were the truth. Investigators said Scullin shot 49-year-old Melinda Pleskovic three times and stabbed her 36 or 37 times in the kitchen of her Blazing Star Drive home.

The murder of Pleskovic, a longtime Strongsville City Schools teacher, happened days before Scullin was to marry her daughter Anna. The couple's 15-month old daughter was in the house when Scullin, who lived there, killed Pleskovic, prosecutors said.

Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Pamela Barker subsequently found Scullin guilty of aggravated murder and other charges. Scullin's attorney Joseph Patituce said in court that his client will likely be sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole in between 28 and 36 years.

The judge will sentence him Oct. 29.

Scullin's decision to enter a plea comes after a ruling Barker made Tuesday to reject a request from Scullin to suppress his confession to police and the information regarding the discovery of a knife with Pleskovic's blood on its blade at trial. Scullin's attorney argued that police overstepped their bounds in searching Scullin's cellphone and vehicle the night of the killing and accused detectives of coercing Scullin's confession.

Patituce said after the hearing that his client maintains his innocence, but that the "no contest" plea allows him to challenge Barker's ruling on appeal.

Scullin's plea happened quickly, as the court was set to begin jury selection for the trial. Scullin was not clad in a jail jumpsuit, but rather black dress pants, a black suit coat and a white shirt. He spoke quietly as he answered Barker's questions.

Pleskovic's family was not present, but Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O'Malley said the family was appraised on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning that Scullin may enter a plea.

"The nature of this crime was such that putting forth these facts in court was going to be very difficult for this family, and so certainly I think it's some relief to the family that this thing was brought to closure today and that Mr. Scullin has accepted responsibility for the brutal act that he had committed," O'Malley said.

Patituce said his client's decision to plead no contest was also motivated the family's reaction to gruesome evidence discussed during the suppression hearing.

"He saw the pain that the family was suffering ... and despite how he might be portrayed, he's not a cold-blooded killer," Patituce said, adding that his client has legitimate defenses challenging DNA evidence and evidence collection by police.

Scullin's attorney's characterization of his client stood in stark contrast to the details Assistant County Prosecutor Christopher Schroeder read before the defendant entered his plea.

Scullin had a history of disagreeing with Pleskovic, investigators said, and attacked her before dining with her husband and daughter.

Schroeder said Scullin made it seem as if there was a rash of burglaries in their neighborhood in the weeks before the murder. This included a detailed call to police four days before Pleskovic's death with a fake description of someone Scullin said tried to break into the house.

The prosecutor also said Melinda Pleskovic's husband Bruce later told police that people were breaking into their home, stealing money and car keys and setting off car alarms.

"All these things started happening when the defendant moved into the house," Schroeder said.

In addition, Scullin had not yet paid to rent the Skyview Lodge in Brunswick, where he and Anna Pleskovic were to marry on Oct. 23, 2017, Schroeder said.

The prosecutor also said Scullin lied to police about his whereabouts on the day of the killing and hid evidence, though detectives later recovered a knife with the defendant's DNA on the handle and Melinda Pleskovic's blood on the blade, a gun with Scullin's DNA and the handle, and Scullin's clothes with Pleskovic's blood on it.

Scullin later confessed to killing Pleskovic, Schroeder said.

O'Malley characterized the case as "a senseless, brutal homicide that Mr. Scullin perpetrated against this wonderful person."

If you would like to comment on this story, please visit Wednesday's crime and courts comments section.FAIRVIEW PARK, Ohio -- For the past two years, Police Chief Erich Upperman has wanted the city to move forward with renovating the 50-year-old Fairview Park Police Station. For various financial reasons, the project hasn't moved forward.

That could change soon, with Fairview Park planning a $200,000 Police Station upgrade, including the addition of a dedicated bathroom and locker room facilities for women.

"It's getting to be a real concern with our female officer and clerks," Upperman said. "It's also kind of an impediment. If we want to try to recruit or encourage more females to apply, right now, the women's locker room is a 6-foot-by-12-foot corridor with no windows and no bathroom attached.

"Currently, we have one female full-time police officer, who, if she gets, for example, sprayed with sleet and slush handling an accident on I-480, we have no facilities for her to clean up," he said.

The Police Department also has two female clerks, who double as matrons handling female prisoners, as well as two female auxiliary officers.

In addition to adding women's facilities, Upperman said the plan calls for renovating the existing men's locker room and the repurposing of an inactive shooting range, which hasn't been used in nearly two decades. Fairview Park police officers currently use area gun and rifle ranges for training.

The new space would become a specialized workspace involving evidence processing. There would also be room for storage.

Fairview Park Community Development Planner Monica Rossiter said the city is seeking a $50,000 Community Development Supplemental Grant (CDSG) for the project. Administered by Cuyahoga County's Department of Development, the funding is earmarked for a variety of community improvement projects.

For the past two years, Fairview Park was awarded the county grant, which helped pay for the construction of a playground and pavilion at Nelson Russ Park.

A requirement of the CDSG application is a public meeting, which is scheduled for Oct. 22 in the council chambers at City Hall.

"The purpose of the public meeting is to solicit input as to whether or not there are additional projects that the community wants to see," Rossiter said. "We want to hear everyone's voice and if there's a need that we haven't identified yet for this particular funding.

"So it's not just a grant requirement. It's something that we pride ourselves on bringing the public in and engaging the public through this process," she said.

In addition to the county grant, Upperman said the city is currently seeking additional funding sources for the Police Station project. If the project moves forward, the chief hopes construction could begin late next year or in early 2020.

Rossiter anticipates a CDSG decision regarding funding to be announced later this year or in early 2019.

"I'm pretty confident that our project is going to be competitive," Rossiter said. "I think we will really be able to demonstrate the need for these facilities."BROOK PARK, Ohio -- One of two Oberlin men arrested and charged after a break-in at a Brook Park home shot himself during the course of the robbery, Brook Park police said.

Adrian Kilgore and Caleb Hughley, both 19, are charged with aggravated burglary and kidnapping in the incident that happened shortly after midnight Friday, Brook Park police said in a statement released Tuesday.

The men broke into the Middlebrook Boulevard home just after midnight Friday and robbed the residents, police said.

One of the men shot himself during the robbery, police said. Brook Park police did not specify which of the men was hurt.

Messages left for Brook Park police were not immediately returned.

The pair drove away from the house, but were later stopped by the State Highway Patrol. The injured man was treated during the traffic stop and was hospitalized.

Kilgore is being held in jail on a $100,000 bond. Hughley was given $150,000 bond following the pair's initial court appearance on Friday, according to Berea Municipal Court records.

Both men have been appointed attorneys, but future court dates were not listed on the court's website.

The robbery remains under investigation.

To comment on this story, visit Tuesday's crime and courts comment section.CLEVELAND, Ohio - A Cleveland woman is accused of intentionally hitting another woman with her car during a fight that started on Facebook.

Glensasha A. Filmore, 25, is charged with felonious assault in the incident that happened Friday on West 46th Street near Clark Avenue, according to court records.

She waived her right to a preliminary hearing during her arraignment Monday in Cleveland Municipal Court. The case was bound over to a Cuyahoga County grand jury.

Filmore purposefully struck a 25-year-old woman with her 2008 Kia Optima, according to court records. The woman suffered severe bruises on both legs but declined medical treatment.

Filmore threatened the woman on Facebook before she drove to the woman's home to fight her, according to a police report. She also had a friend and three children in her car.

Filmore got out of the car to fight the woman in the middle of the street. The friend and one of the children also joined in the fight, according to police reports.

Filmore, the friend and the child got back into her car. Filmore drove at the woman and hit her legs in an apparent attempt to pin her against another car, police reports say.

Cleveland police officers arrived moments later to investigate a report about the fight. They tried to stop Filmore's car, but she kept driving and nearly struck a police cruiser as she sped away, police reports say.

The officers learned Filmore lives on West 16th Street near Clark Avenue. They went to her home and found her hiding under a bed, police reports say.

The home was dilapidated, with garbage on the floors and a severe cockroach infestation, police reports say.

The officers called Cuyahoga County Children and Family Services to notify them about the living conditions in the home and the children's involvement in the incident.

To comment on this story, visit Wednesday's crime and courts comments page.Prince Harry and Meghan have arrived in Dubbo, where they have been greeted by local officials - and a bunch of schoolchildren who jumped up and down as their plane landed.

Meghan will miss out on several pregnancy traditions.

The Duke of Sussex joked "I've got my wife" as he was offered an umbrella before taking to the lectern at Dubbo's Victoria Park, as Meghan provided shelter from his side. Meghan wore her dark hair in her signature style: a low bun with loose tendrils framing her face.

Samantha also said that "a baby changes everything and softens everyone" and she hopes there will be "some adjustment" to include her father. "When I found out Suits had been picked up for our third season-which, at the time, felt like such a milestone-I totally splurged and bought the two-tone version".

Kensington Palace confirmed the good news that a Royal baby is on its way this morning.

"It was such a nice and thoughtful thing for her to do", she said.

If you're finding it hard to understand the hype about those royal people touring Australia at the moment, you're not alone - this child was so unfazed by the meaningless concept of royalty that he actually just skipped the whole pleasantries thing and grabbed Prince Harry by the beard. Dunne says the medal was awarded to her first husband, Albert Crowne, after he died in Papua New Guinea in 1945 during World War II.

It seems like everyone's caught royal baby fever!

"You have just lived through two years of drought and despite recent welcome rain, it is going to take a lot more and a long time to recover".

"Enjoy the rest of the day", Meghan said.

And the dad-to-be is "happier than he has ever been", the Daily Mail reported. The statement added that Meghan's mother, Doria Ragland, was "very happy" and looking forward to welcoming her first grandchild - but made no mention of Thomas Markle.

Hours later, the Duchess of Sussex announced that she is expecting her first child with Prince Harry.

On Monday the pair will go to Queenslands Fraser Island, the worlds largest sand island, before jetting off to Fiji, Tonga and New Zealand.

Are you excited about a royal baby?CLEVELAND, Ohio - State Auditor Dave Yost offered a pointed view of Ohio's charter school regulation when the legislature considered reforming charter laws in 2015. "When everyone is responsible," he said, "no one is responsible."

Three years later, an online charter school called ECOT has been ordered to repay the state $80 million in taxpayers' money, after findings that it over-billed for students it did not properly teach.

That makes responsibility for lapses in charter oversight that contributed to ECOT's troubles a major issue in the upcoming election.

In the center of that debate are Yost and Attorney General Mike DeWine, key officials in a Republican-dominated state government over the last eight years. Each could have acted earlier to stop practices at the charter school that they now condemn, but neither did so until the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) broke the state's silence and challenged ECOT in 2016.

On the campaign trail, they often deflect responsibility for ECOT's problems, while Democrats say they should have acted much sooner.

Some blame and credit can go to both parties.

Democrats call ECOT "the biggest scandal in Ohio history," but they never targeted ECOT when Ted Strickland was governor and while three Democrats, including Cordray, held the attorney general's seat from 2007 to 2011. They also repeatedly say ECOT "stole" $189 million from the state, using an extrapolation from left-leaning Innovation Ohio think tank, instead of the documented $80 million.

Republicans were in charge as ECOT grew, however, and now face the toughest questions.

Both Yost and DeWine accepted donations from ECOT founder Bill Lager as he built ECOT into the largest charter school in Ohio. Over the last eight years, ECOT's annual state tax revenue grew from nearly $60 million to almost $110 million.

The problem was that ECOT collected those dollars merely because it had signed the children up for classes. Ohio paid ECOT whether or not the students went online regularly to study.

Yost is running for attorney general. His opponent, Democrat Steve Dettelbach, notes that a whistleblower brought ECOT's problems to his attention in 2014, but says Yost did not energetically pursue the matter.

DeWine is running for governor. He says in court filings that that Lager, ECOT and two companies Lager owns had an illegal conflict of interest, while those companies did nearly $200 million in business with the school over the years. DeWine's opponent, Democrat Richard Cordray, correctly says DeWine did nothing about this arrangement until this year, even though it that has been in place for at least a decade.

Yost noted the potential conflict in multiple audits, but never challenged it.

Here's a look at what today's candidates for Ohio governor and attorney general did - or did not do -- about ECOT.

DeWine: "I'm the only one that took action."

DeWine takes credit on the campaign trail for helping shut ECOT down, while charging that Cordray did nothing as attorney general. "One of us when we were attorney general did something, the other one did not," DeWine said at his first debate with Cordray. "I'm the only one on this stage that took action."

So what did DeWine do? And when? He took no action for his first five years as attorney general. He then paid private lawyer Doug Cole to defend ODE in court cases against ECOT the last three years, then sued Lager and other ECOT officials this year.

As attorney general, DeWine's office is the official lawyer for all state departments, so he must represent ODE in legal action. When ODE challenged class participation rates among ECOT students in 2016, ECOT sued to stop the investigation and DeWine hired Cole to defend the case.

Cole aggressively fought and won at the Ohio Supreme Court.

Why didn't DeWine act sooner?

DeWine and his staff blame ODE, Yost and others for not asking him to take legal action until 2016. They say he lacks authority to step into issues on his own. He also says recent court rulings give him a much stronger case today than before.

Democrats say that DeWine has stepped into other issues on his own initiative, and that he must always protect tax money. They also note that he could have easily cleared any jurisdictional hurdles by partnering with another investigatory agency.

"He does not need to wait like a potted plant by the phone for a call," said Dettelbach, the Democrat now seeking the attorney general's seat.

DeWine says Cordray did nothing about ECOT, which is factually correct. Cordray notes that he was in office for only two years, left office eight years ago, and won an important court ruling that helps hold charter officers accountable for misspending.

Cordray says DeWine could have used that ruling against ECOT sooner. DeWine has used it in cases against other charters and is citing it now against Lager and other ECOT officials.

Husted: ECOT donations "don't exist" anymore

Lager and ECOT officials have donated more than $2 million to Ohio political campaigns, mostly Republican, over the years. DeWine received $12,500 from Lager in 2015. After ECOT became controversial, he donated the money to the Boys and Girls Clubs of Columbus, according to Politifact.

But the joint campaign fund for DeWine and running mate Jon Husted still contains ECOT money. Husted's personal campaign fund received at least $28,000 - or $36,000, according to Politifact - from Lager and ECOT officials, the last from the Lager family coming in 2007, before Husted became Ohio Secretary of State in 2011.

That money has not been returned or donated to charity.

"That campaign account doesn't exist anymore," Husted told The Plain Dealer. "That money doesn't exist...so we don't have any of that money."

But Husted's campaign fund existed until late last year and contained $4.6 million, until Husted transferred the balance to the joint DeWine-Husted campaign fund.

Was Yost too cozy with ECOT?

Dettelbach says Yost was responsible as auditor for catching issues with ECOT. He notes that Yost accepted nearly $30,000 in campaign donations from ECOT officials, and spoke at ECOT graduations in 2013, 2014, and 2015. He calls that evidence of a cozy relationship.

Yost counters that since ECOT received federal dollars along with state money, Dettelbach could have taken action against ECOT as the U.S. Attorney for Ohio's Northern District for six years. He says Dettelbach had grounds because many Cuyahoga County students attended the statewide e-school.

In addition, Yost was one of the first state officials to turn against ECOT and was one of the first to call for different funding of online schools to avoid future controversy. This spring, after concluding that ECOT deceived the state about attendance to take in more money, Yost referred the case to federal officials and promised to donate ECOT campaign donations to charity.

Two issues remain for Yost

In two areas, Yost could have pressed a case against ECOT before 2016.

DeWine's conflict of interest case against Lager and Lager's two companies remains unresolved. But Yost never questioned that arrangement in his annual audits. He simply noted that the companies were related. The state auditor is charged with making sure laws are followed by all public bodies. That includes charter schools, which are a form of public school. Therefore, DeWine's argument implies Yost failed to act on a big violation.

"Auditor Yost believes that the argument has merit, but it is an open question for the courts, who will ultimately decide," Yost's office said this summer.

There's also a question of whether Yost took appropriate action when a former ECOT employee charged in 2014 that the school was playing games with its attendance to keep collecting money for students who were not regularly being taught, while removing them in time to avoid their poor test scores.

Yost's office told ECOT it wanted to see detailed attendance and class participation records. ECOT objected, pointing to a 2003 "contract" with ODE basing funding only on enrollment and educational opportunities "offered," not whether students take them.

Yost accepted that contract as valid and backed down.

"The Auditor does not get to set the law to make it easier to pursue findings," Yost's office said. "The Auditor of State audits to the standards in law and set by the regulator, in this case ODE."

But that 2003 contract did not prevent ODE from investigating ECOT's class participation in 2016. ECOT raised the contract in court, but Cole argued that it was just temporary and won that point at every level of the courts.

The timing of Yost's decision has also raised questions. ECOT objected to a thorough audit on Dec. 2, 2014. On Dec, 12, Lager and two officials from Lager's company donated a combined $7,500 to Yost's "transition" fund.

In testimony to a House committee in March, 2015, as the state was overhauling charter school laws, Yost did not mention that contract or ECOT by name. He sought multiple changes to increase accountability and transparency of charters, including a change to e-school funding, but never pointed to ECOT and the contract as an issue.

Yost says he was not aware of the donations and does not let donations affect his decisions.DAYTON, Ohio -- A 26-year-old mother is facing multiple charges after investigators say she created child porn using her 3-year-old daughter while living in Pennsylvania.

A news release from Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro says Kayla Parker, of Dayton, has been charged with sexual abuse and exploitation of children, endangering the welfare of a child and indecent assault, all felonies.

Parker has been arrested and extradited to Pennsylvania and is being held on a $1 million bond.

"This is an egregious case - a mother who preyed upon and sexually abused her own three-year-old daughter," Shapiro says in the news release.

Authorities say the crimes occurred four years ago in Upper Darby, Pa., when Parker was living with her ex-boyfriend, David Carbonaro.

Carbonaro's residence was searched in July and authorities found hundreds of images and video files of the 3-year-old victim in stages of undress, the news release says.

Parker reportedly told investigators she would undress her daughter and then leave her alone in a bedroom with Carbonaro and shut the door.

Carbonaro was arrested in July and is awaiting trial in Delaware County, Pa., for the possession, production and distribution of child pornography. He is being held on a $250,000 bond.

The Ohio Attorney General's Office assisted with the investigation.

"The crimes that this mother is accused of are absolutely appalling," Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine says in the news release.

To comment on this story, visit Tuesday's crime and courts comment section.CLEVELAND, Ohio-- A Pennsylvania attorney drunkenly groped a downtown Cleveland hotel bartender and forcefully tried to kiss a hotel concierge, police reports say.

Joseph Francis, 42, is charged with gross sexual imposition, a fourth-degree felony. He was released from jail after posting a $5,000 bond at his first court appearance on Tuesday. Francis did not return a phone message seeking comment.

Francis, who was admitted to practice law in Pennsylvania in 2003, assaulted the two women at the downtown Marriott Hotel on Mall Drive, police said.

Francis was staying at the hotel and stumbled into the hotel's banquet hall bar about 11:50 p.m. Saturday, according to police reports.

The 45-year-old bartender told police she noticed Francis was drunk and decided to cut him off, police reports say. She denied him alcohol and gave him a glass of water.

Francis made several "derogatory and sexually explicit comments" to the woman before reaching over the bar and grabbing her chest, according to police reports.

The woman pushed Francis away and called security. Security and some of Francis' family members helped take him away from the bar.

The concierge delivered an amenity to a bride and groom's room on the 19th floor and waited for the elevator, police reports say. The elevator doors opened and Francis and two others were inside, according to police.

None of the buttons were pushed so the 38-year-old woman pushed the bottom floor. Francis repeatedly told the woman she was beautiful in "an aggressive manner," according to police reports. He inched towards her as the woman slowly moved away from him, according to police.

Francis then grabbed the woman's face and tried to kiss her, according to police. She pulled away, got off the elevator and notified hotel security, police reports say.

Officers went up to Francis' room, where his brother told police Francis was passed out drunk. Francis got up and was mumbling words and was drunk.

An ambulance took Francis to St. Vincent Charity Hospital for an evaluation. He told officers that he was aware of why he was being arrested at the hospital.COLUMBUS, Ohio--The major-party nominees to be the new ethics watchdog of Ohio government are set to hold their only debate of the campaign on Friday in Zanesville.

State auditor hopefuls Keith Faber, a Mercer County Republican, and Zack Space, a Tuscarawas County Democrat, are scheduled to square off at noon in an hour-long debate at Zane State College's Advanced Science & Technology Center. Cleveland.com politics reporter Jeremy Pelzer is slated to moderate the event, which will be streamed live online by WHIZ-TV.

If there is a question you would like Faber and Space to answer during the debate, please submit it by 5 p.m. Thursday to jpelzer@cleveland.com. Pelzer will select a number of questions submitted by the public to ask of the two candidates.

Faber, Space, and Libertarian Robert Coogan are running to take over the auditor's office from term-limited Republican Dave Yost, who's running for attorney general this year.

The state auditor's office conducts audits of more than 6,000 state and local government agencies, offers financial services to local governments and promotes government transparency.

Whoever's elected auditor this year will also play a role in how Ohio's legislature (and possibly the state's congressional delegation) will look in the coming decade. That's because the state auditor serves on the state's new redistricting commission, which will draw lines for Ohio House and Senate districts following the 2020 census. (The commission will also draw new congressional district boundaries if the legislature becomes deadlocked on passing a plan).

Space's campaign previously pushed to hold five public debates this fall. Faber's campaign, meanwhile, proposed three meetings - including Friday's debate in Zanesville and a joint interview held last month with the cleveland.com/Plain Dealer editorial board that wasn't open to the public.

Coogan, a retired certified public accountant from Butler County who previously served as a vice president of internal audit at Cincinnati Bell Inc., was not invited to participate in Friday's debate.

The Libertarian nominee told cleveland.com that he is "extremely disappointed by the organizers and the two major parties themselves that they have excluded from the debate the only candidate who is an auditor."

When Coogan was asked what he would say on the debate stage if he was invited, he replied that if elected he would (among other things) audit Ohio's charter schools to ensure they're running effectively and urge lawmakers to allow the auditor's office to review JobsOhio, the state's private, non-profit economic development agency.

"I would bring objectivity to the position and a non-biased perspective on issues and positions that would come before the auditor of state," Coogan said.Rotunda Rumblings



Will work for food: While the federal government generally requires people to work to qualify for SNAP, it does allow some exceptions. In Ohio those exemptions are for people in rural, mostly white counties, with urban blacks required to hold jobs - which will have ramifications if work requirements are implemented in Medicaid, cleveland.com's Robert Higgs writes.



Back-up plan: Motorists would legally have to yield to vehicles backing out of a street parking space, under new legislation from state Rep. Tom Brinkman. The Cincinnati-area Republican tells cleveland.com that he introduced House Bill 742 after talking with elderly constituents and finding that state law was unclear about who has the right of way in such situations. When backing out, Brinkman said, "you're kind of blinded ... you're kind of at the mercy of people driving right by you." Chances are low that legislation introduced this late in the year will pass, but Brinkman says he hopes to hold some hearings on the idea.



By the numbers: The Ohio Secretary of State's office says that as of Friday, slightly over 8 million Ohioans were registered to vote, and 910,982 requested absentee ballots by mail - more than the 741,000 that had been requested at this time in 2014. So far this year, 42,470 have completed and sent their ballots back; 34,252 people voted early in person; and 7,914 military and overseas voters requested an absentee ballot. Of those, 1,176 have been cast.



Cold shoulder: The Portage County TEA Party did not endorse the DeWine/Husted ticket for governor, instead advising voters to support Libertarian Travis Irvine or leave the governor choice blank. The reasons? Republicans Mike DeWine and Jon Husted refused to sit down with 40 conservative groups to commit to their ideals, and the Republicans announced they will support Medicaid expansion.



Money comes in, money flows out: Cleveland.com's Sabrina Eaton tallied congressional candidates' fundraising and generally found Democratic challengers are raising more money than Republican incumbents. But the Dems are also spending a lot, meaning the incumbents have the financial advantage during the final lag of election season.



Outside view: The Columbus Dispatch has broken down all the federal outside money involved in the Ohio governor's race. Among groups spending big but prohibited to work with campaigns are the Democratic Governors Association, which created two political action committees to boost Richard Cordray, and the Republican Governor's Association, which has two PACs and has contributed to another PAC to help DeWine.



Garrett goes Fraggle Rock: Democrat Janet Garrett, who seeks to unseat U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, has busted out a puppet with a canny resemblance to the House Freedom Caucus co-founder in new ads, the Lima News and Washington Examiner report.



Employees file suit: Two separate lawsuits have been filed in federal court in Columbus by public employees who say they don't want to pay certain labor union fees, which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled were unconstitutional over the summer, writes Marc Kovac for the Dispatch. A spokesman for Ohio Civil Service Employees Association said attorneys behind the suits are tied to the anti-union Koch brothers.



Humble admission: Gov. John Kasich wrote in a USA Today op-ed that he learned the hard way - through trying to roll back labor unions' collective bargaining power, an effort repealed by voters - that the all-or-nothing approach to politics doesn't work. Sounding rather presidential, Ohio's outgoing governor wrote that it's harder to negotiate with the other side, but it results in the better public policy for all Americans.



Blue wave with a pink hue: The Washington Post profiled Democratic Ohio legislative candidates Lorraine Wilburn and Lauren Friedman in a piece about how women - in particular highly educated urban and suburban women - are mobilizing during the midterms. The piece compares the women to the TEA Party movement that arose during the Obama presidency.



Scare tactic? A Super PAC associated with U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan is targeting a number of competitive races with ads tying Democratic challengers to terrorism - including Aftab Pureval in Ohio's 1st Congressional District, the New York Times reports. To help U.S. Rep. Steve Chabot keep his seat, the ad notes Pureval worked at a law firm that settled terrorism-related lawsuits against Libya, but doesn't mention he wasn't involved in the settlements or that they were approved by Congress.



Stinging Steve: Change Now, a recently formed Democratic super PAC, has a new $105,000 radio campaign in Cincinnati targeting Chabot. The group's latest ad claims Chabot "voted to hurt children" by favoring the repeal of the Affordable Care Act and supporting the failed GOP replacement plan that contained cuts to Medicaid. Change Now has also spent nearly $600,000 on anti-Chabot TV ads.





Full Disclosure



Five things we learned from Steve Dettelbach's April 9 financial disclosure. Dettelbach is the Democratic nominee for Ohio attorney general.



1. Last year, he was a partner at Baker and Hostetler, a law firm.



2. Other sources of income were his federal pension from the Office of Personnel Management, American Express stock dividends and Vanguard mutual fund dividends.



3. Sometime last year he owed at least $1,000 each to Wells Fargo on a home mortgage, Ally Bank on a car loan, American Express, Key Bank and Chase Mastercard.



4. He was a board member of the Legal Aid Society of Cleveland and Hawken School.



5. He didn't receive any food, beverages or travel from Columbus lobbyists.



Birthdays



Terrence Upchurch, 2018 Democratic nominee for House District 10



Straight From The Source



"Our President is now the spokesman for the Saudi Arabian Crown Prince. Make America a world leader again."



-Ohio Democratic Party Chair David Pepper, referring to remarks by President Donald Trump suggesting he believes the Saudi Arabian leadership doesn't know what happened to Washington Post writer Jamal Khashoggi. Khashoggi is believed to have been killed in the Saudi embassy in Turkey.

Capitol Letter is a daily briefing providing succinct, timely information for those who care deeply about the decisions made by state government. If you do not already subscribe, you can sign up here to get Capitol Letter in your email box each weekday for free.Denise Nancy Rini

In endorsing Denise Nancy Rini six years ago for Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court, our editorial board wrote that her "mild manner and pragmatic focus would be assets to a court where brash personalities can turn into impediments."

Rini, 61, of Lyndhurst, a Republican who switched careers in the late 1990s to the law following more than a decade in advertising, has delivered on that promise of change and of bringing a more collaborative mindset to the court.

Challenging her re-election on the Nov. 6 ballot is Democrat Jennifer L. O'Malley, niece of Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O'Malley, who has worked in the prosecutor's office since 2010, when she received her law license. She currently serves in the office's Internet Crimes against Children unit.

O'Malley, 34, of Westlake, is earnest and committed but lacks the experience of Rini, who has spent her entire legal career focused on juvenile law.

Rini can point to a number of court improvements in which she played a role, including the court's Child Support Warrant Recall Program that helps delinquent parents come current with child-support payments without arrest and the Safe Harbor Docket over which she presides, for youth who are being trafficked. She would like to see the court's Probation Department revamped to provide more youth services and vocational support.

Denise Nancy Rini deserves re-election to Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court in the Jan. 1 term. Early voting has begun.

Early in-person and absentee voting for the Nov. 6 election has begun. For more resources on judicial races in Cuyahoga County, 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.

Incumbent Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court Judge Denise Nancy Rini, a Republican, is being challenged for re-election by eight-year assistant county prosecutor Jennifer L. O'Malley, who was assigned to the prosecutor's Internet Crimes Against Children unit last year. The candidates were interviewed by the editorial board of cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer on Aug. 29, 2018. Listen to full audio of this 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.Public libraries everywhere are a reflection of their communities. They design their programs, collections and services around the unique needs of the people they serve. For this to work well, libraries must listen to the people in their community to know what they want. Sometimes this is doA girl holds a picture of missing journalist Jamal Khashoggi during a demonstration in front of the Saudi Arabian consulate on October 8, 2018 in Istanbul.

Several of the suspects who were identified by Turkish officials in the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi had close ties to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, The New York Times reported on Tuesday.

Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist and a critic of the Saudi royal family, entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2 and has not been seen since. While the Saudis insisted that he left the consulate safely that day, Turkish officials allege that he was murdered by a team of Saudi operatives while inside.

One suspect, Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb, was a Saudi diplomat assigned to the London embassy in 2007 and has been photographed traveling with the crown prince in the United States and Europe. According to the report, three other suspects have served as part of the crown prince's security team.One of the world's top art collectors said the art market is unlikely to cool or crash anytime soon, due in part to soaring demand from new museums in China.

Bubbles and busts are nearly impossible to predict in any market, said J. Tomilson Hill, the vice chairman of Blackstone, who is about to open the Hill Art Foundation private museum in New York. But he said the art market will be fueled in part by China, and the thousands of new Chinese museums that are slated to open in the coming years.

"In 1949, when Mao took over China, there were 25 museums in China," Hill told CNBC during its Net/Net Conference. "Do you know how many museums there are in the United States today? 35,000. There are under 7,000 museums in China but they're growing at between 500-1,000 museums a year. So there is a massive demand for interesting things to either look at, to talk about."

The push is part of China's efforts to not only become the world's economic super power, but also to become a cultural force on par with the U.S. and Europe. New museums in China have been willing to pay astronomic prices for trophy works.

Liu Yiqian, a former taxi driver turned billionaire in China, paid $170 million for a Modigliani painting at Christie's in 2015. The painting was purchased for one of his two museums in Shanghai.

The Chinese government is also requiring many new real estate developments to build museums as a condition to get government approvals. That will create demand for art for years, as China's building boom continues. Last month, Sotheby's racked up sales of over $466 million at its Hong Kong sales, including a $65 million painting that broke a record for Hong Kong.

Hill also said that art remains an attractive asset for the global rich who want a store of value they can take offshore, or use to avoid taxes. The massive amounts of art piling up in duty-free warehouses in Singapore, Hong Kong and Switzerland are a sign that the rich are using art as a way to offshore their wealth, he said.

"If you're looking to avoid taxes, the art market is a pretty good way to do that," he said. "And it's really hard to track."Dutch paints and coatings maker Azko Nobel reported weaker-than-expected revenues on Wednesday, as lower volumes and adverse currency effects hit sales in the third quarter. The company reported a net revenue of 2.33 billion euros ($2.69 billion), missing Reuters expectations of 2.48 billion euros. Meanwhile, Akzo Nobel's third-quarter core profit rose 8 percent to 243 million euros, underpinned by higher prices and costs savings. When asked whether Akzo Nobel's third quarter results had helped bring a feeling of harmony among the company's executives and its shareholders, CEO Thierry Vanlancker told CNBC: "If you look at our third quarter, I think we do show significant improvement  I mean there are big headwinds on currency and on raw materials  but the fact that we deliver a stronger third-quarter result is significant proof that we are working on it."

Shares bounce

Earlier this year, Akzo Nobel sold its Specialty Chemicals division for 10 billion euros to Carlyle Group after it rejected an unwanted takeover offer from U.S. rival PPG Industries in 2017. At the time, the company vowed to increase its return on sales to 15 percent by 2020 and to improve the return on investments to above 25 percent. In the company's earnings report, Vanlancker said the company was still on course to meet these targets, although the numbers stood at 10.4 and 12.6 percent respectively in the third quarter.Anyone found responsible for the killing of missing journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, should be targeted by sanctions, investor Bill Browder told CNBC Wednesday.

Khashoggi, a journalist for the Washington Post and critic of Saudi Arabian leaders, has been missing since entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2. Turkish officials have said they believe the journalist was murdered and his body removed. The Saudis have strongly denied the allegation.

Browder said that according to reports he has read, Khashoggi was murdered and dismembered by up to 15 assassins sent from Saudi Arabia. He said authorities should impose "Magnitksy Act" sanctions on anyone deemed guilty of involvement in an extra-judicial killing.

Browder's lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, died in a Russian prison in 2009 after exposing corruption in the government.

Since then, Browder has led an anti-corruption campaign against Russian officials. In 2012, U.S. Congress passed the "Magnitsky Act," which sanctions Russians and others for alleged human rights abuses.

"If this is true, and again it hasn't been proven yet, but if this is true it is exactly what the Magnitsky Act is for. It should be for these people and those who order, going as high as it needs to go," he said to CNBC's Street Signs.

The American-born Browder, author of the 2015 book "Red Notice," worked in Russia for more than a decade  becoming the biggest foreign money manager in the country before leaving in 2005.

Now based in London, the investor told CNBC that any reluctance by authorities to properly investigate the Khashoggi case would fail to appease public outcry.

"I don't think President Trump, the Saudi regime, or the Turkish regime control the story," he said before adding "this is the most horrifying story I've ever heard and if there are not the most grave sanctions then everybody involved will lose credibility."

The investment and financial community has expressed displeasure at the possible slaying of Khashoggi with many corporate, media, and political organizations pulling out of an October investment conference organized by Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund.

Browder said investors needed to go further and withdraw capital from the country but that could only happen with legal intervention.

"Investors basically are governed by greed and fear. If the penalties for doing business with bad guys are high enough, that will create the fear not to do business with them."Campbell Soup heirs who hold roughly 41 percent of the company's shares came out in support of the soup company on Wednesday in its battle with activist investor Dan Loeb.

The descendants include Charlotte C. Weber and current board members Bennett Dorrance, Mary Alice Dorrance Malone and Archbold van Beuren.

Their support represents a significant blow to Loeb's Third Point hedge fund, which has been pushing to oust all 12 of Campbell's directors at its Nov. 29 shareholder meeting. He has also called for a sale of the soup company. Loeb has partnered with George Strawbridge Jr., another descendant of the founder, a likely play to pressure family members.

Strawbridge earlier this year revealed a 2.7 percent stake. Loeb has 6.98 percent stake.

Third Point responded in a statement, saying: "It is hardly news that the entrenched family owners, who have long enriched themselves at the expense of shareholders and the company, seek to preserve their board seats and reign of error."

Descendants of John T. Dorrance, the inventor of condensed soup, have not always been aligned on whether the best option for the soup company is to sell or stay independent.

Among those most loyal to the company are Bennett Dorrance and Mary Alice Dorrance Malone, children of Campbell's former chairman. The two, who hold 33 percent of the company, are considered some of Loeb's toughest family foes by people familiar with the family dynamics.

It has been less clear how their cousin Archbold van Beuren would vote. He is one of the few family members who has held multiple senior roles at Campbell. He is a family trustee in the Campbell Voting Trust, through which other descendants hold a combined 7.9 percent stake.

Charlotte Weber, also a cousin to Mary Alice and Bennett, holds shares outside the Campbell Voting Trust.

Campbell shares were down 3.4 percent Wednesday afternoon.Beverage-maker Coca-Cola made a marketing blunder in New Zealand, according to media reports.

The company ran a vending machine signage in the country that read "Kia ora, mate," according to online publication Stuff.

Tweet: When the languages don't mix well.

Coca-Cola's attempts to mix English with te reo Maori  the language spoken by New Zealand's indigenous people  backfired.

While "kia ora" is a form of greeting in the Maori language, which is one of the country's official languages, "mate" means death. The slogan essentially read, "Greetings, death."

In English, the word mate is commonly used to refer to friends and strangers alike in places like New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom.

CNBC has reached out to Coca-Cola for comment.

Earlier this week, a spokesperson from the company told Maori Television that the words were "meant to bring Maori and English together," and that the label was not being disrespectful to any culture.

Social media users pointed out the irony of the slogan from the beverage-maker, given the impact of sugary drinks.

New Zealand has one of the highest obesity rates in the developed world, according to The Guardian, and its indigenous community is particularly affected.

Others criticized the lack of research from Coca-Cola.

Tweet: Putting aside the failure to recognise the meaning of 'mate' in te reo Maori, I don't think I've ever heard anyone say "kia ora, mate" when speaking in te reo Pakeha. It sounds like trying too hard.

Read the full story from Stuff about Coca-Cola's marketing blunder in New Zealand here.Colorado Cannabis Convention

In the relatively new cannabis industry, Colorado has long led the labor market. But this soon may change. With more U.S. states planning to legalize medical and recreational marijuana  along with Wednesday's announcement that Canada is now the largest country with a legal national marijuana marketplace  they may seek to poach Colorado's experienced workers. "The [workforce] needs are tremendous because the growth rates are very high relative to most industries. You're starting pretty much from scratch in most of these states," said Paul Seaborn, a professor at the University of Denver who teaches a "Business of Marijuana" class. Industry publication Marijuana Business Daily recently estimated between 125,000 and 160,000 people work full-time in the U.S. industry, and market research firm New Frontier Data projects the legal market could create around 300,000 jobs by 2020. While the cannabis industry makes up a relatively small share of Colorado's total employment at 0.7 percent, economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City described it as one of the state's fastest-growing industries in an April report. In the first half of 2017, about 5.5 percent of Colorado's employment growth was attributed to the industry. By comparison, the leisure and hospitality sector was the largest contributor to total employment growth, at 23 percent, and the mining and logging sector at almost 7 percent. The Fed report estimates Colorado's marijuana industry currently employs approximately 18,000 full-time staff, a 17.7 percent increase over the previous year. That does not include indirect employment in the marijuana sector  positions that do not require state licensing, such as security guards, construction specialists and legal services  which a 2016 report from the Marijuana Policy Group estimated to equal about 23 percent of cannabis industry jobs in Colorado. As Colorado was the first state to legalize marijuana in 2012, the market there has matured to the point that opportunities for major growth and new customer segments are limited. Because of federal prohibitions, U.S.-based cannabis companies cannot move their products over state borders. These rules affect companies in all states, but the relatively established Colorado industry is especially feeling the pinch, according to Seaborn.

Knowledge transfer across the US

"What you're seeing is people starting to look at other locations, whether it's California or Canada, and see if they can take what they learned in Colorado and move somewhere else," Seaborn said. "It's actually a very challenging time because even though Colorado had this big head start, we're really limited in what we can reach as a state of 5 million people." Industry workers from Colorado's highly regulated market are now leveraging that experience in other markets, especially in the Eastern U.S. "Experienced people in Colorado are very used to working under very strict guidelines and regulations. [They] have a great experience in a mature, regulated and highly competitive market. Because of that, there are new and potentially lucrative opportunities in states that are newly legal, with similar highly regulated markets," said Ryan Smith, the COO of Cure Holdings, a Colorado-based medical marijuana company that also has operations in Pennsylvania and Ohio. Vangst, a cannabis industry employment agency, recently compiled salary data from more than 1,200 cannabis companies for the most hired positions in the industry: director of extraction, director of cultivation, compliance manager, dispensary store manager, outside sales representatives, budtenders and trimmers. While lower-skilled jobs like trimmers, who manicure and prepare harvested plants to be sold, made between $11.50 and $14.50 an hour, Vangst found the annual salaries for director of cultivation ranged from $47,000 to $250,000. A director of cultivation's duties include establishing standard cultivation operating procedures and harvest schedules. Companies in all legal markets are competing for experienced workers from growing, cultivating, processing to dispensing. "You're seeing a knowledge transfer from the West Coast to the East Coast," Smith said. He has seen a number of people in the industry leave Colorado, Washington and Oregon for eastern markets. Vangst CEO Karson Humiston said the company has noticed companies in newly legal states recruiting out of Colorado. One client in Maryland recently hired a director of cultivation from Colorado after doubling the salary offer to $180,000, "because these people are few and far between," said Humiston.

Garden Remedies operates a cultivation facility in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. Garden Remedies

"How many people have set up and scaled a legal cannabis business? All of these new companies and markets are taking the talent from Colorado, which is fine  that opens up opportunities for people to be promoted," she said. "But I think Colorado companies may be sort of mad because a lot of their talent are being stolen by new states that are opening up." Christopher Burke is one such example. Burke is currently the director of retail operations at Storehouse, a Maryland marijuana dispensary that used Vangst to hire a candidate out of Colorado. He previously worked at a dispensary in Denver. "The East Coast had a bit of appeal to me just because it was a brand-new market," said Burke. "Maryland was particularly well positioned just because of how much time there has been between when they voted it and when dispensaries and cultivators came to market. It's been a great market so far that's gotten to a high level very quickly." More from At Work:

8 ways to negotiate a six-figure salary like a pro This start-up created the first farm in America run entirely by robots Maryland legalized medical marijuana in 2013, but the state's program did not become operational until 2017. Storehouse applied for a license three years ago and was able open this past August, according to founder and CEO Jeff Jacobson. When recruiting, the company looked immediately to more established markets like Colorado. "There's a lot of intricacies that come with the business," said Jacobson. "Looking at the local talent pool, they just don't have a big knowledge base." The company wanted a candidate that understood both compliance and the retail process, so bringing in experienced talent was a crucial business decision, he said. Burke said working in the Colorado industry helped him bring a combination of the product knowledge and understanding of the intimate details that go into highly-regulated legal cannabis operations to Maryland's newer market. Employment site Indeed found Florida, California, Maryland and Pennsylvania had the highest percent increase in share of marijuana-related job postings from 2017 to 2018, according to an October analysis by the site. Those four states each had a more than 100 percent increase in such postings, with close to a 200 percent jump for Florida, which legalized medical marijuana in 2016. The share of such postings in Colorado grew 14.6 percent over the same period, though the state still has by far the highest share of marijuana job postings on Indeed, with 988.7 per 1 million jobs in 2018.

Along with the increase in job postings, Indeed has seen a rise in marijuana search terms by its users for jobs in almost every state. Oklahoma searches, in particular, shot up more than 3,000 percent from 2017 to 2018. Oklahoma became the 30th state to legalize medical marijuana in June. Colorado did see an increase over the same time period, but paced behind the vast majority of other states.

Talent war heats upConstellation Brands CEO Rob Sands will step down on March 1 as he assumes the role of executive chair, the company announced Wednesday.

The alcohol beverage company said Bill Newlands will become its next CEO.

Newlands joined the company in 2015 and currently serves as its president and chief operating officer. He is an alcohol industry veteran, having previously served in a number of leadership roles including president of Beam Spirits, and managing director, U.S. and global marketing officer of LVMH Chandon Estates.CNBC's Jim Cramer warned on the eve of Canada's legalization of marijuana for recreational use that he'd stay away from pot stocks for the time being.

"Everything related to the Canadian cannabis space has already run up dramatically and I'm worried that many of these companies aren't even worth speculating on," he said Tuesday evening on "Mad Money."

In fact, Canadian cannabis stocks such as Canopy Growth and Tilray have been soaring. Canopy has gained more than 400 percent in the past 12 months. Tilray, whose volatile trading captivated Wall Street in September, has skyrocketed more than 800 percent since going public in July.

Canopy and Tilray opened sharply lower on Wall Street at Wednesday's open.

Cramer argued, "There could be a lot of disappointment once it turns out that legal marijuana is a lot less profitable than illegal marijuana."

Canopy Growth CEO Bruce Linton, speaking with CNBC's Deirdre Bosa from one of his stores in Newfoundland, disputed that notion.Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk told the electric car company that he plans to purchase $20 million of common stock during the next open trading window, according to a filing related to the CEO's settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

"Separate and apart from the settlement, Elon has notified Tesla that he intends to purchase from Tesla, and Tesla expects that it will issue and sell to Elon, $20 million of Tesla's common stock during the next open trading window at the then-current market price," the filing read.

Tesla shares fell 1 percent Wednesday morning following the filing. Musk is the largest shareholder in Tesla, holding more than $9 billion worth of the stock or more than 33 million shares before Wednesday's announcement. The CEO bought $24 million worth of Tesla in June and $9.9 million in May, according to InsiderScore.com.

Tesla shares are down 10 percent in 2018.

The 8-K filing also detailed Tesla and Musk's settlement with the SEC. A judge approved the settlement with the SEC on Tuesday over allegations that Musk committed fraud when he tweeted earlier in the year that he had secured necessary funding to take the automaker private.The crisis is deepening in Algeria wherein political leaders and military generals are fighting for power as the countrys aging and long-serving president is preparing to run for an unprecedented and controversial fifth term in office in 2019.

Ahead of the upcoming rocky transition of power amid growing social woes and resentment, some Algerian deputies of major political parties with links to the presidencys inner circles or military intelligence apparatus are acting to protect their interests.

The struggle for power has reached its peak between Algerian MPs and Speaker of the lower house of Parliament Said Bouhadja, member of the ruling party National Liberation Front (FLN) of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika.

Tuesday, about 200 MPs blocked the parliament premises for several hours in a protest move, demanding the resignation of the House speaker.

Were here to demand the speaker resigns, said Abdelhamid Si Affif, chairman of the parliaments foreign affairs committee, after blocking the entrance with a chain and padlock.

Said Bouhadja, 80, is accused by the rebel deputies of mismanagement, exaggerated and illicit expenses and dubious recruitment. He refuses to step down and challenges his rivals as Algerias constitution and laws do not include a procedure for the impeachment of the lower house speaker who can be replaced only if he dies or is physically incapacitated or if he resigns.

Opposition groups condemned the action carried out Tuesday by the majority parties in the 462-member parliament while Bouhadja continues to cling on to his post as his mandate runs until 2022.

According to political analysts, the crisis, which has led to the paralysis of the legislative institution in a country on the verge of implosion, can be defused only by President Bouteflika by dissolving the parliament and calling for early elections.

But will the president step in to put an end to this imbroglio ? Nobody really knows how this situation will unfold in a country run with an opaque political system wherein the military and the presidents inner circle play powerful roles.

The North African country is witnessing a series of shake-ups in its security apparatus, with personnel reshuffles affecting the upper echelons of the countrys military, police and security forces.

The purge is carried out to reduce the possibility that rogue generals will act to serve their own interests at the expense of the governments as the president braces for another election mandate.

Bouteflika, 81, is urged to stand for election for a fifth term, a decision that generated mixed feelings within Algerias political sphere about whether it would be good or bad for the country.

Most political parties support his fifth term, while some nascent opposition groups have raised Algerias economic woes as a reason for embracing new leadership.

In power since 1999, Mr. Bouteflika, has rarely appeared in public since suffering a stroke five years ago. His absence has led to speculation over who is really in charge in Algeria.

If he runs for another term despite uncertainties over his health, analysts believe it would mean that the top ranks of the powerful military and security establishment failed to agree on a successor.

Algerians complain about the erosion of their purchasing power as prices have risen and their currency has depreciated, prompting strikes by Algerians demanding better pay and working conditions.

As to Algerias economic liberalization, it remains selective, tightly managed and potentially reversible if oil prices rise or if Bouteflika is no longer president.

Hydrocarbons continue to provide 60 pc of the States revenues. The country suffers from youth unemployment (28 pc), deep political crisis and systematic corruption, fueling social turmoil and anger while the Generals continue their lavish spending on defense despite austerity measures.

There is a growing regional and international concern that power struggle unfolding in Algeria may lead to a fresh upsurge of violence that may affect also its neighbors and Southern Mediterranean countries.Morocco has strongly protested against maintaining the Sahara issue as part of the decolonization agenda of the UNs fourth committee.

In an address before the committee, Moroccos permanent representative to the UN in New York, Omar Hilale, called for withdrawing the Sahara issue from the agenda of the fourth committee on grounds that it violates the UN charter and the mandate of the Security Council.

Listing the Sahara as a fourth committee issue is an aberration, he said, noting that the artificial dispute over the Sahara is dealt with within the framework of the Security council.

He recalled that Article 12 of the UN charter clearly stipulates that while the Security Council is exercising in respect of any dispute or situation the functions assigned to it in the present Charter, the General Assembly shall not make any recommendation with regard to that dispute or situation unless the Security Council so requests.

Therefore, the Moroccan ambassador stressed that the Sahara issue should no longer be examined at the Fourth Committee since it has been part of the jurisdictions of the Security Council since 1988.

Indeed, maintaining the Sahara conflict on the agenda of the fourth committee goes in total contradiction with the Security Council approach which examines the issue as part of Article VI relating to the peaceful resolution of conflicts. The Security Council has never considered the Sahara dispute as a decolonization issue.

In the same vein, the Security Council resolution has never labelled the conflict as a decolonization issue and has never called the Sahara as an occupied territory. The Security Council uses terms calling the Sahara issue a regional conflict.The Moroccan Sahara main city, Laayoune and Chiles Talcahuano signed a twinning agreement that signals the ever strengthening relations between the two countries.

The agreement was signed in Laayoune at a ceremony attended by mayor of Talcahuano Henrry Campos Coa.

The twinning is meant to build cooperation between the two cities as well as boost cultural and economic cooperation between Morocco and Chile, Talcahuano mayor told the press.

The twinning agreement also symbolizes the support of Chile for Moroccos territorial integrity and sovereignty over the Sahara.Local Problems, Global Tech Photo: me-solshare.com

In countries with a great deal of sunshine, it makes sense to want to install solar panels wherever possible. But sometimes, even if that goal succeeds, the work isnt quite done. Take Bangladesh: Over the past 15 years, the country has managed to provide, through an ambitious government program, millions of solar panels and batteries; the country today has more than 5 million solar-home systems. That statistic puts Bangladesh high in the running for the most widespread embrace of solar power in the world, but those solar panels are largely not networked the way they are elsewhere. One European-owned start-up called SolShare is trying to turn these disparate power sources into a makeshift grid, or grids.

In the U.S. and Europe, solar-home systems are hooked into the broader electrical grid. If a homeowner produces more electricity than the home needs, in many cases, that homeowner can actually sell surplus electricity back to the grid. But many of the systems in Bangladesh were installed in homes or businesses that were never hooked up to the power grid in the first place. That means that theyre now closed-loop systems, unable to share surplus power. And, due to the smallish batteries provided by the government in these systems, theres often quite a bit of surplus power in one house, while next door, theres still no electricity at all. SolShare managing director Sebastian Groh estimates that 30 percent of the power generated by these panels is simply lost because the solar-panel owner doesnt need it, and theres nowhere for it to go.

SolShare is aiming to create what they call nanogrids: tiny, localized electrical grids, where anyone with a solar panel can be their own power plant. The company installs small smart meters in the houses of people with solar panels, and connects them to other houses with electrical cabling, the same way any power company would. Those users with solar panels have the option to decide how much of their surplus power to sell; many just choose to automatically sell any power once their own batteries are full.

Houses without solar panels that have been linked into these localized grids can buy electricity from their neighbors in the same way those in the cities buy power from an electrical utility. All the buying and selling is done with a digital wallet, which can be cashed out at any point. SolShare here acts as a platform provider, charging a transaction fee for every Wh traded in our Solgrids, says Groh.

About 25 percent of Bangladeshs population is not connected to the power grid. Power off the grid is wildly expensive; without panels or access to a larger electrical grid, Bangladeshis were sometimes paying a hundred times more for electricity yielded by generators than someone in a city might pay. With our approach, the utilization of clean energy from solar can now even reach low-income households that could not be reached before, by making energy access 30 to 50 percent cheaper than any stand-alone system of comparable quality, says Groh.

The fact that people can now earn money from their panels can also spur expansion. Previously, the panels were as affordable as possible at just a few hundred dollars, and with very low interest on payments. But 25 percent of Bangladeshis live in poverty, and even those payments might prove too much. With a system like SolShare, which brings in revenue for solar-panel owners, people might be more inclined to jump into the system. After all, they might owe some money each month for payments on the panels, but those panels are also earning income.

SolShare says it has already installed grids covering 15,000 people in Bangladesh, and, ambitiously, Groh says he wants to grow that to 1 million people by 2022. I am waiting for the day, which I dont reckon to be too far away, that we trade our solar power from house to house here in Dhaka, and for that matter, in fact, all around the world, says Groh.Honduran migrants resting at a gas station in Zacapa, Guatemala. Photo: ORLANDO ESTRADA/AFP/Getty Images

A group of migrants, numbering somewhere between 1,500 and 2,000, set off from Honduras last Friday, crossed into Guatemala on Monday, and drew the ire of President Trump on Tuesday.

In one of 22 tweets sent Tuesday, Trump threatened to end all aid to Honduras, a deeply impoverished nation, if its citizens were allowed to continue their journey north.

The United States has strongly informed the President of Honduras that if the large Caravan of people heading to the U.S. is not stopped and brought back to Honduras, no more money or aid will be given to Honduras, effective immediately!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 16, 2018

Later Tuesday, he expanded the threat to include Guatemala and El Salvador, adding: Anybody entering the United States illegally will be arrested and detained, prior to being sent back to their country!

The so-called caravan, a loosely assembled group of migrants travelling by foot and bus, is the first to get Trumps attention since last April, when he tweeted a similar threat to end aid to Honduras as a group of migrants worked its way north. That threat didnt stop the caravan from reaching the U.S.-Mexico border, though by the time it did its numbers had dwindled from 1,200 to around 150.

The Central American countries on the wrong side of Trumps threat appear to be taking it seriously. Guatemalan police attempted to blockade its border with Honduras Monday, but after a two-hour standoff, the group of migrants was allowed to pass.

Walking the 14km or so up to Esquipulas from the border with an estimated 2,500 people after #Guatemala backed down and police let the #Honduras migrant caravan pass. Here's a clip of people crossing, from earlier: pic.twitter.com/HWh3tKuzvU  Sandra Cuffe (@Sandra_Cuffe) October 15, 2018

After the caravan passed into Guatemala, authorities arrested the groups spokesman, former Honduran congressman Bartolo Fuentes. He did not properly register with migration authorities, officials said, and would be deported back to Honduras.

What Trump says doesnt interest us, Fuentes said before he was arrested. These people are fleeing. These people are not tourists.

With little to be done to bring back citizens, the Honduran Ministry of Foreign Affairs put out a statement encouraging them to return to the gang-riddled nation. We urge the Hondurans taking part in this irregular mobilization not to be used by a movement that is clearly political, the statement said.

Hondurass attempt to comply with Trumps wishes is understandable. It risks a lot if he follows through on his threat, as the L.A. Times reports:

The U.S. gave Honduras more than $180 million in aid in 2017 for a range of programs designed to improve security and combat poverty and drug trafficking, according to the Washington Office on Latin America think tank. Those funds are appropriated by Congress.

Cutting U.S. aid to Honduras could be counterproductive though. Last month, President Juan Orlando Hernandez said that such cuts would only make it harder to prevent migrants from packing up their lives and heading north.The effects of small-particulate pollution are going to get worse with climate change. Photo: Jed Share/Kaoru Share//Getty Images

The list of crimes Donald Trump has committed against the planet, in just two years, is already so impeachably long that his slippery-fish climate denial registers as hardly more than a footnote. I have a natural instinct for science, the president bragged to the Associated Press Tuesday, a week after the U.N.s IPCC raised the alarm on global warming that is much faster, and more horrifying, than it had acknowledged before. And I will say that you have scientists on both sides of the picture, said Trump. On Sunday, Lesley Stahl pressed the president on his contention that there were scientists saying that extreme weather had been worse in the past: Who says that? They say? Trump responded, defensively, People say. People say.

It was an especially grotesque demonstration of bad faith, given that just weeks ago, his administration had announced that, as a matter of climate policy, it was now assuming a worst-case global warming scenario  four degrees Celsius this century, an assumption suggesting that any effort to regulate American emissions would be effectively pointless. In the blink of an eye, the Republican Party seemed to pass directly from insisting that global warming isnt happening to taking for granted a climate hellscape so inevitable that theres nothing we can, or should, do about it.

The climate is already warmer than it has ever been at any point in human history. Should we get all the way to four degrees of warming, it will be warmer than in many millions of years, since the Arctic was effectively tropical and oceans were hundreds of feet higher. But Trumps know-nothing-ism here is trivial compared to the cruel indifference of his actual policies: pulling out of the climate accords, of course, so spitefully that he had the band at the press conference play Summertime before the announcement; rolling back limits on the emission of methane, a far stronger greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. These are environmental policies scientists say could kill 80,000 per decade (actually more: they say their findings account for just a fraction of the impact), and which even Trumps own EPA admits would kill at least hundreds every year.

But one under-noticed horror arrived last week, when the EPA announced it was formally disbanding its own panel devoted to studying the effects of whats called small-particulate pollution. What is that? Its most of what you think of as air pollution  the tiny, dirty stuff that smogs up the air. Its produced whenever you burn fossil fuels  in power plants, in cars, in coal furnaces  but also by volcanoes, dust storms, and wildfires. You can also mitigate it, using a variety of clean-up and filtration technologies that are, in just about every part of the industrialized world, required to some degree. The disbanding of this panel is a sign that, well, compared to every other advanced nation in the world, the Trump administration just isnt going to worry about small-particulate matter very much.

This is very bad. The term small-particulate suggests a trivial form of pollution, but while the particles are small, the effects are actually enormous. About 9 million people die each year, globally, from small-particulate pollution  that is one out of every six deaths everywhere on the planet. This year, scientists estimated that the death toll from particulate pollution in a world two degrees warmer would be 150 million higher than at 1.5 degrees. In the U.S., the numbers are smaller, but not that much smaller: a 2013 study found 200,000 preventable deaths each year, in the U.S., from air pollution. And lesser effects are pervasive, too, and horrifying: small-particulate pollution causes dramatic drops in cognition, significant increases in the prevalence of mental illness, and is strongly correlated with dementia.

There is, actually, a silver lining here  at least that strange, now-familiar kind of silver lining for climate change, whereby awful, harrowing news seems possibly to contain the potential to wake people up from their suicidal slumber. The case for optimism is this: that a much more galvanizing appeal to action on climate change might be made from public health arguments than has yet been managed on the basis of sea level rises, which could reach six or eight feet by the end of the century; agriculture, which could lose as much as half of its global productivity; or wildfires, which could grow sixteenfold. (Sixteenfold!)

That appeal would have many component parts  there is the public-health cost of direct heat, which could make many of the most populous cities in India literally uninhabitable by just 2050, and do the same to large portions of the Middle East and North Africa by 2100, and infectious disease, which could bring malaria and other tropical diseases well beyond their historical habitats in a globalization of dengue, yellow fever, and Zika, among others. (At four degrees of warming, which we are due to reach by 2100, there would be 8 million cases of dengue each year in Latin America alone.)

But the mobilization against small-particulate pollution seems especially possible, because it builds on familiar and popular earlier eras of environmental protection (which cleaned up the air so you could see Los Angeles again from Malibu); because its effects are so massive (that death toll in the millions); and because it hits us, among other ways, in our brain function, which is both a core vanity and an immediate source of anxiety for most people in the modern world. There is already, emerging on the environmental left, a strange kind of admiration for Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who has seized the role of climate leader in the age of Trump  and who has taken aggressive action in recent years mostly in the name of public health. In 2013, a third of all deaths in China were the result of air pollution; since then, there has been an unprecedented cleanup of Chinese air, and yet more than a million people are dying each year there from pollution.

How big are the developmental and cognitive effects? The term researchers use is huge  the equivalent of having lost a year of education. Reducing Chinese pollution to the EPA standard, they found, would improve the countrys test scores by 13 percent and its verbal scores by 8 percent potential boosts in productivity that should alarm anyone concerned about the countrys rapid economic and geopolitical ascent. (Simple temperature rise has a robust and negative impact on test-taking, too: scores go down when its hotter out.) Air pollution has been linked to worse memory, attention and vocabulary, ADHD, and autism spectrum disorders. A higher pollution level in the year a baby is born has been shown to reduce earnings and labor force participation at age 30, and the relationship of pollution to premature births and low birth-weight of babies is so strong that the simple introduction of E-ZPass in American cities reduced them by 10.8 percent and 11.8 percent, respectively, just by cutting down on the exhaust expelled when cars slowed down to pay tolls. Pollution has been shown to damage the development of neurons in the brain, and proximity to a coal plant can even deform your DNA.

We are still learning, in 2018, just how much social damage was done by the many varieties of lead pollution we casually countenanced all through the postwar years  IQ declines, ADHD, criminal behavior. The literature on small-particulates is much younger, but the impacts appear to be significantly worse, and every new finding seems grimmer still. It is also a reminder, if we needed one, that climate change is not just a matter of sea levels and coastlines or even wildfires in the American West and hurricanes in the Caribbean  it is an everywhere problem, enveloping everyone on the Earth in a toxic swaddle of pollution produced by burning carbon. And we are not just condemning future generations to suffer, but  in the case of small-particulates  inflicting dementia on ourselves and hindering the brain development of our children.

But there is one upside, believe it or not, to small-particulate pollution. Those particulates are one form of what is called aerosol pollution  an umbrella term for more or less everything that is now suspended in the atmosphere as a result of human activity. Globally, that pollution may be killing millions each year, and significantly diminishing the mental capacity of those who dont die. But, while it is up there in the sky, it is also reflecting a considerable amount of sunlight back into space, which means that the Earth is somewhat cooler with that pollution  and those millions of deaths  than it would be without it. How much cooler? Estimates range from between a half-degree and a full degree Celsius. Which means that if we solve our small-particulate problem, we might also bring the planet from 1.1 degrees of warming all the way to 2 degrees  the level that the U.N. declared, just last week, an avoid-at-all-costs climate catastrophe.A group of diverse but like-minded individuals, the members of ARC have come together in their common desire to fight hatred, bigotry, intolerance and violence because of the harm these antisocial behaviors cause to our society. In that effort, we will not use or sanction the use of illegal actions (such as violence or intimidation) in pursuit of our desired aims and if we learn of anyone who does use these unethical methods we will report those individuals to the authorities. Instead, we will use the guarantees found in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms that ensure freedom of legal speech and expression.Photo: ElizabethForMA via Youtube

Do we know anything new about Elizabeth Warren, now that weve seen her DNA test results? Besides, I mean, that she seems to have questionable judgment about when and when not to take the presidents bait. Before we learned that Elizabeth Warren most likely had a native ancestor somewhere between six and ten generations ago, we knew that she did not belong to a tribal nation, and that her connection to Native American identity was based largely on family lore. We now know that lore has some evidentiary basis.

But the criticism of Warrens claims around her identity has never been about the purity of her bloodline, but about the facts of her experience as a person in the world. As Nick Martin writes on Splinter, Warren is not Native because she is not, and has never been, a Native American to anyone else, especially not Native peoples. Has the discovery of a Native predecessor changed that? If not, do we really know anything new about Elizabeth Warren?

If Warren placed a misguided faith in the power of a genetic test to speak to her true nature, shes not alone. At least 15 million people in the U.S. have mailed their spit to commercial genetics laboratories like 23andMe and Ancestry.com, the marketing material for which tends to suggest that genotyping will reveal something essential to a persons identity. At its DNA portal, Ancestry.com encourages me to click through to my DNA Story, where I can Discover the places, history, and cultures that shaped who you are today  using just your DNA.

This is, of course, bunk. Your DNA, as Sarah Zhang put it in The Atlantic recently, is not your culture, and it certainly isnt guaranteed to tell you anything about the places, history, and cultures that shaped you. The scientific-seeming results you get from a home DNA kit are fun, in the manner of a party favor, but theyre not particularly reliable, especially for people from outside of the U.S. and whose ancestors are from outside of Europe. And even if they were pinpoint accurate, what youre being told is, as British geneticist James Rutherford puts it, something that is at best trivial and at worst astrology. If you want to know who you really are, you should examine your family history, the environment you grew up in, the experiences youve had and relationships youve formed. Those tell you a lot about who you really are. Your DNA itself tells you very little.

It can tell someone else a lot, though. The same day Warren revealed the results of her DNA test, the journal Science published a study indicating that 60 percent of Americans of European descent could be identified through one of the large commercial genetic databases. By 2020, that figure will have increased to 90 percent. In taking genetic tests no more useful than horoscopes, white Americans are creating a database for cops and corporations thats more useful than mug shots and fingerprints.

To be clear, that figure doesnt indicate that 60 percent of white Americans have been individually genotyped. What it really indicates is that they dont need to be. (Though, at the rate commercial DNA testing is expanding, a little more than 21 percent of all Americans will have been sequenced by 2025.) Enough genetic sequences have been uploaded to publicly accessible databases like GEDmatch that in 60 percent of cases, a given DNA sample from a person of European descent can be identified as a third cousin or closer to an existing profile. This is, you might recall, how police cracked the Golden State Killer case earlier this year: by uploading a sample of the killers DNA, identifying a relative, and following the family tree to their suspect. Even if youve never spit in a tube and shared your results with GEDmatch, theres a decent chance someone youre related to has.

Now, if youre not a serial killer, you may not particularly care that you are likely now identifiable by your own DNA in databases to which youve never personally contributed. And, if youre a whiggishly optimistic capitalist, you might not mind that the information you provided in exchange for an infographic giving you a vague approximation of your geographic ancestry is likely being packaged and used in lucrative research by pharmaceutical companies. (GlaxoSmithKline bought a $300 million stake in 23andMe earlier this year, contingent on access to some of the testing companys data. The data 23andMe shares with GlaxoSmithKline will be anonymized, but, discomfitingly, we dont have a clear idea of how; even 23andMe notes in its privacy policy that there is a very small chance that someone with access to the research data or results could expose personal information about you.)

But other people probably do care, and the problem of widespread DNA testing is precisely that theres no real way to respect their wishes. You may not care much about your own genetic privacy, but your second and third cousins might, and your casual sharing of your genetic profile suddenly makes them much more identifiable. Or, on the other hand, you may guard your genes jealously  but how much use is that, really, if your relatives are enthusiastically uploading to GEDmatch?

Maybe none of it really matters. Its possible that the medical and law-enforcement benefits of aggregating data from millions of DNA tests could outweigh more abstract privacy and civil-rights concerns. If we lived in a world with stronger legal protections for consumers, and a clearer regulatory regime governing private DNA-testing companies, its easy to imagine us getting much of the benefit of cheap genetic testing and little of the drawback. We dont live in that world, unfortunately. As it is, genetic-testing companies are regulated by three different agencies (the FTC, the FDA, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services), and are generally subject only to a voluntary, industrywide privacy policy. There is no consistent protection against, for example, a person uploading a DNA sample belonging to someone else.

And worse, it doesnt seem at all like were getting close to that world. We live in a moment of increasing interest in the intersections between the science of population genetics and the sociology of race  interest driven in particular by people obsessed with determining and maintaining racial hierarchy. What worries me most about Warrens grand DNA-test announcement is the extent to which it provides political imprimatur to the practice of DNA testing as a measure of racial authenticity at a moment when race and ancestry are so clearly salient to the question of how people are treated under the law.

Its too bad because, well, there are good reasons to undergo genetic testing. You may want to see if youre at increased risk of certain diseases, like breast cancer. (Though experts suggest that commercial home DNA kits, whose results can be difficult to interpret, are not necessarily the best method for determining this.) You may be genuinely curious about your ancestors, and lack a detailed family tree or history to tell you more. And if you can interpret the results along the appropriate, trivial-to-astrological scale, why shouldnt you be able to get your DNA sequenced? The problem being that someone else, somewhere, might be looking at those results with very different intentions in mind.Kevin Systrom, CEO and co-founder of Instagram, announces IGTV on June 19, 2018. Photo: Jeff Chiu/AP/REX/Shutterstock

Instagram pulled out all the stops when it announced IGTV to the world in June. Though the platforms hub for longform video content  think YouTube, but with intentionally vertically-oriented video  was anything but a surprise given all the leaks leading up to its launch, Instagram threw celebrations around the world to introduce people to its newest feature. In New York, this translated to sitting in the companys new Manhattan HQ and waiting several hours for a glitchy livestream of Kevin Systrom, Instagrams co-founder and then-CEO, onstage in San Francisco. Cotton candy was served in Champagne flutes. This was all a little over three months ago and chances are good, if youd even heard anything at all about IGTV, that was the last time you heard about it. And, if youre Instagram, thats a problem.

The company launched IGTV with the help of a handful of creators who already boasted significant followings on the platform, hoping that their fans would follow them: LaurDIY with 4.6 million followers, KingBach with 16.4 million, and JiffPom, a dog with 8.9 million followers. In addition to their Instagram followings, many are, first and foremost, YouTubers. Instagram is stepping on YouTubes turf with IGTV, so working with creators popular on both platforms makes sense. (Its a turf that YouTube has proven is rife with ad money, the reason why getting IGTV right is so important to Instagram and, even more important to its parent company, Facebook.) Those creators, ideally, would be able to bring their fans from both YouTube, and traditional Instagram, over to IGTV. Scott Fisher, founder of Select Management Group  the digital talent company that represents, among others, LaurDIY  said that while some die-hard fans are watching, the audience for IGTV isnt fully there yet  even huge celebrities and influencers are struggling to get the same types of views [on IGTV] they get on YouTube or their feed.

It appears, though, that the very creators Instagram promised users would anchor IGTV havent even bothered to put in a good-faith effort to get those views. Lauren Riihimaki a.k.a. LaurDIY has just two IGTV videos posted to her channel. One is a three minute Target haul  haul is vlogger talk for a video showing off everything you bought on a shopping trip and describing it in excruciating detail  and the other is a 56-second stop-motion clip of Riihimaki walking around Los Angeles. Both were posted on June 20, the same day IGTV launched. JiffPom the dog doesnt have any IGTV videos posted at present. If creators arent creating on the platform, then it only makes sense that users arent, well, using it. Theres nothing to watch.

Facebook hasnt expressed concerns over IGTVs apparent struggles  former CEO Kevin Systrom spoke bullishly about the platform in August  but IGTV content view counts are significantly lower than what the same creators see on YouTube. And that speaks for itself. Downloads for the IGTV app in the United States have only barely cracked the top 200 in the United States in recent weeks, according to data from AppAnnie. Intelligencer spoke with over a dozen teens and young Instagram users to find out whats keeping them from getting onboard.

I just think its really unnecessary and its a YouTube knockoff, Alyssa, a 13-year-old from California, said. I dont really use it, Claire, a tenth-grader from Massachusetts told Intelligencer. Im still confused as to what the purpose is. Sometimes I accidentally click on the icon, Cole, 17, explained. No, what is that? John, 19, from New York asked when I brought up IGTV. Before we started talking about IGTV, John explained to me the importance of having more followers than people youre following on Instagram. Its just a thing you have to do, he said. This is a teen who speaks fluently about the unwritten rules and customs of Instagram, yet hes never heard of the product Instagram is targeting directly at him.

IGTV, in case youre not familiar, exists within the Instagram app, housed inside an orange icon of a cartoon television in the apps upper right-corner. Its right next to the direct message icon  the one shaped like a paper plane  so if you, like Cole, accidentally opened it, odds are you were just trying to get to your DMs. Hes not the only one. Ive only accidentally clicked on it, Sam, a 16-year-old from North Carolina told Intelligencer via Snapchat DM, his preferred method of communication. Theres also a stand-alone IGTV app, but none of the teens Intelligencer spoke with had downloaded it. Most hadnt even heard of it. Damn fr I aint even know, Sam said. (Fr here being shorthand for for real.) Haha, theres a stand-alone app? Cole asked.

Maybe [Id use IGTV] if some of my favorite YouTubers would use it, Alyssa said, listing Shane Dawson, Issa Twaimz, and David Dobrik among her top picks. Of the list, only Dawson, whos made recent headlines with a dramatic, multi-part YouTube documentary about Jake Paul, is currently using IGTV. Many of the teens who spoke with Intelligencer echoed Alyssa when it came to YouTube. I love YouTube so much, Claire said, followed by the word love three more times for emphasis. Claire said shed only watched one IGTV video in its entirety. Ive noticed more celebrities promoting and collaborating with brands on [IGTV], she said. Some of my friends use it to showcase work theyve done like performances or speeches. Claire said her preferred uses for Instagram are watching Stories from celebrities, funny dog videos, and liking photos from friends. She has never posted an IGTV video. Only one of the teens Intelligencer spoke with had ever posted a video to IGTV.

Smaller creators arent diving in, either. I tried it the first day it came out and never touched it again, said Alana, a 22-year-old social media manager who describes herself as an influencer wannabe. Alanas personal account has just under 3,000 followers. My works Instagram has tried putting out some IGTV content but it doesnt get nearly as much engagement as our Stories, she added, noting that part of IGTVs problem may be its UX design. With Instagram, you have to be mindful that people mindlessly scroll, so theyre only thinking about posts and Stories since thats what you see first.

I dont really understand why they launched IGTV, said Cathy Peshek, a full-time blogger and co-founder of The Blog Societies, a network for other bloggers. The Instagram arm of her brand, Poor Little It Girl, has over 60,000 followers. Peshek says she and her colleagues have no need for IGTV, mostly because Instagram has already given them so many other, solid outlets. Why would we do something more complicated when Instagram Stories is so easy and we can save our Stories to our highlights? Peshek explained, adding that prior to Instagram adding the option to highlight Stories  previously Stories vanished after 24 hours with no way to permanently post them  IGTV would have been clutch. (Video clips in Stories max out at 15 seconds, unlike IGTV where the videos can run up to an hour.) I have too many other things to do, between Instagram Live and Stories and posting regular photos. Theres a million other things they could do to make the platform better, but launching IGTV wasnt one of them.

For larger creators, IGTVs business model doesnt make it worth the time it takes to create custom content for the platform. Everyone was super excited when IGTV launched and creators felt reenergized because they had a new place with new possibilities, Fisher from Select explained. Theres still some of that  but theyre finding they cant put hours and hours into something and not get a business payoff. There has to be an incentive for the talent. Fisher explained there is currently no monetization system on IGTV, like ads on YouTube or partnership deals with Facebook Watch. Nash Grier told Digiday in August that he was excited by IGTVs vertical format, but that same story noted a video from Grier, who has nearly 10 million Instagram followers, got just 15,000 views in a day. Which is to say  not great returns.

An overwhelming amount of accounts I follow post to IGTV, but I presume that isnt the only medium where I could find those same videos, Cole told Intelligencer, meaning a number of accounts will just crosspost videos from other platforms, like Snapchat or YouTube, on their IGTV channels. For example, KingBach, a creator highlighted in IGTVs launch press release, has posted seven videos to his channel since then. All of them were within a week of the product launch, but five of them are just YouTube videos re-uploaded to IGTV. If youre watching those videos in IGTV you have to turn your phone sideways, just like you would watching a YouTube video. Its built for how you actually use your phone, so videos are full screen and vertical, Instagram wrote about IGTV at launch, though there is clearly nothing stopping accounts from using IGTV as a forum for crossposting existing horizontal content. Metrics-wise, content on IGTV doesnt perform nearly as well as content on YouTube. KingBachs most recent IGTV video has 285,000 views on IGTV. Its got over 4 million on YouTube, a platform where KingBach is actually making money. (Its worth noting that the video was posted on YouTube in January and on IGTV in June. But even if the views quadrupled on IGTV in the next six months, it still wouldnt come close to YouTube numbers.)

Things over at Instagram have seemed fairly fraught in recent weeks, following the departure of the platforms co-founders, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, amid rumors of clashes with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Its a new format. Its different. We have to wait for people to adopt it and that takes time, Systrom told TechCrunch in September prior to his departure. But Stories was also a new format for Instagram which blatantly copied it from Snapchat in 2016  and it didnt take long at all for people to flock to it en masse. A year later  and keep in mind IGTV still has three quarters to go  Instagram users were spending more time in Stories than on Snapchat. IGTV isnt a novel idea for Instagram. It is, once again, something it borrowed from other platforms. Something it borrowed because its working for other platforms. So why cant Instagram get it to work?

I just feel like not enough people see a point in IGTV, Nicole, 18, said, emphasizing an oft-repeated suggestion for Instagram. Instagram has so many other issues with their algorithm that they need to fix before trying to introduce something that no one asked for. IGTV seems to be failing at every turn. Young users arent using it to watch content. Theyre not using it to make content. And the people whose content they would watch arent, for the most part, making it, either. (A recent report from Business Insider did find the platform was rife with videos of potential child abuse.)

People dont go on Instagram to watch TV, Madi, a high-school senior, said, even though Facebook would definitely like them to. By 2020, Instagram is expected to account for 70 percent of Facebooks new revenue, according to a recent report from Recode. If Facebook wants to continue to use Instagram to shield itself amid its unending bad press  the company recently disclosed a hack affecting 50 million users  its going to need the platform, and all its features, to succeed with users.

The best future that I can see for IGTV is that it develops some sort of cult following like Vine, Cole said, referencing the short-lived and widely beloved video app shuttered by Twitter in 2016. Right now, I dont see it. And why would he. Instagram built Stories so well that it effectively played itself. IG Stories is now the gold standard for the ubiquitous format. Its got prime real estate at the top of the app. Its easy to use, both for the everyday phone-haver and for those in the influencing business. Instagram cemented itself as the place in the social-media landscape to come for short, entertaining video updates. Not as a place for longer, produced stuff. For that, everybody knows you can just go to YouTube.Susan Orlean. Photo: Amanda Schwab/StarPix/REX/Shutterstock

When Susan Orlean fishes for a story, she reels in a hidden world. And so the latest delightful trawl from the author of Rin Tin Tin and The Orchid Thief starts with the tale of the 1986 fire that damaged or destroyed 700,000 books in the Los Angeles Central Library. But The Library Book pans out quickly to the fractious, eccentric history of the insitution and then, almost inevitably, a reflection on the past, present, and future of libraries in America. Orlean follows the narrative in all directions, juxtaposing the hunt for the library arsonist  possibly a frustrated actor  with a philosophical treatise on why and how libraries became the closest thing many of us experience to a town hall. She spoke to Intelligencer this week about her remarkable discoveries (not all as gruesome as the three dead bodies found in recent years among the stacks), her newfound hope for libraries as humanitarian hubs, and why Trumps erasures of information arent far off from lighting a book on fire. (Spoiler: She did that, too.)

You write in The Library Book that, just before embarking on it, you had given up on writing books. What happened?

My biography of Rin Tin Tin took me a long time and it really felt grueling. Part of it is that I had a toddler. The subjects that attract me dont lend themselves easily to being made into books. When I finished Rin Tin Tin I thought, All right, Im done. I cant throw myself into another five-year project again and have it looming over me. Its a little like how the minute you give birth you just say, Oh my God, I dont know what I was thinking. But when I began thinking about libraries, it immediately came to me: Someone should write a book about a year in the life of a library. And I resisted a little, thinking it was just formless, and that is where I get myself into trouble. And just when I felt that I had resisted successfully, I heard about the fire. That did it for me. Its like in classic crime movies where somebody says, This is my last score! One last score and then Im really out.

As part of your broader research, you burned a book, a copy of Fahrenheit 451. As a bibliophile and as a writer, to put the flame to the paper  how did that feel?

It wasnt easy, believe me. It was weirdly emotional, even though I could go buy another copy of Fahrenheit 451 in one minute. It wasnt about the rarity or the preciousness of the book. But that was what I was exploring: Why does it feel so wrong? It was shocking  it happened so fast when I finally put the match to the book. Im glad I did it. It confirmed to me the sensation that we have about books being more than just blocks of paper. They have a quality that is very human.

You write, In the saga of humankind, most things are done for money. Library books are burned because they contain an idea that someone finds problematic. You detail the terrifying history of groups destroying books to amplify their ideology. When Trump took office, someone in the government removed a lot of the public information on climate change. Was that in the back of your mind?

Absolutely. The point of book burning is to not have discourse, to say, This idea doesnt even exist. These people dont exist. Culture doesnt exist. This version of history doesnt exist. The idea that a free society suffers from having information available is really, to me, anathema, and tells you a lot about an inability to tolerate divergent opinion. Thats scary. The erasure of information, whether by fire or by deleting a website, never bodes well.

Your family is Jewish, and you write that a third of all the books in Germany were burned during World War II. Im curious if you felt that this was an erasure of your own past?

Oh yeah. Jews have a very deep connection to books. For me it was really horrifying. Where they burn books, they next burn men; we saw that to be true. Im not a historian but Id be very curious to know of a culture in which books were burned where there wasnt also mass extermination of people. There probably hasnt been. Thats so much of what interested me  that the continuum is really uninterrupted from books to people.

The history of L.A.s Central Library, at least, is very well preserved; the archives survived the big fire. Theres even a section of recordings a librarian made in the 1960s about how hot it was every day in the library without air conditioning. They documented their own existence so well.

And I had no idea, until a librarian who I was chatting with asked if I had seen the archives and I said, Which archives? And he said, Well the librarys own archives, and my mouth started watering. They had 64 boxes of material from the beginnings of the library to the present time  odds and ends and ephemera and newspaper clippings and just amazing stuff  the librarys story of itself.

I was fascinated that the InfoNow department  essentially a Call a Librarian service  survives to the present day. Its funny because now theres  Google.

Even the librarians occasionally were struck by how odd it seemed that someone would call the library to ask something that was quite easy to look up. But sometimes people just like to ask other people questions  or dont know exactly how to ask the questions for Google. They have a question thats more nuanced than what they think they can ask online. They do get more for their money by calling the library. There are some people who literally make up a question so they can call. Their intent is not really to get an answer; its just to have human contact. Its an analog experience in a digital world  a nice antidote to the rest of your daily experience.

I want to talk about some of the Central Librarys librarians, like Wyman Jones, who was the head librarian leading up to the fire. Theres a picture of him in the book on the cover of a magazine called California Librarian, and he looks like a sexy Jack Kerouac.

I know! He was a fascinating, cantankerous, arrogant, brilliant man who was sure that he knew the entire story of the library in a way that no one else could ever know it. He basically said, Im not going to talk to you because Im writing my own book, and yet he couldnt not talk to me. He would lecture me about what I didnt know. I had a fascinating relationship with him. It was all on the phone, unfortunately, and he passed away not that long ago. Maybe to run an institution like that you have to be a little bit crazy and arrogant and a little bit sure that everything you know and think is the final word. And he was absolutely in the same mold as Charles Lummis [a notoriously eccentric early head of the library] and some others just these tremendous, crazy, influential figures who were probably in many instances impossible to work with, but geniuses in their own way.

A long line of women ran the Central Library at the turn of the century, a time when women were not even allowed in a lot of libraries. This book has a lot to say about gender roles in the library.

Librarianship was really dominated by men, the same way the teaching profession was  and then there was a big switch. Its this whipsawing of logic that one can barely make sense of. These women were tremendously important in the running of the library. Mary Jones, who was replaced by Charles Lummis, was a really significant, very progressive figure who had a lot of influence. And she was just dismissed for no logical reason.

Were you indignant on behalf of these women? Jones was fired because the board no longer wanted a woman in charge.

Oh God, it was crazy! Some of the women, like Tessa Kelso, were controversial figures  she was a troublemaker, and thats what got her into trouble. But Mary Jones was a shocking episode. Women came roaring into the profession once the library system expanded so dramatically in the middle of the 20th century. They needed a lot more staff, and women were willing to take those jobs for a very small amount of pay. They were pressed into service in great numbers, and by the time men blinked their eyes women were dominating it.

I expect anybody who writes or thinks about books to be a little pessimistic, but this book is brimming with hope. You say libraries could become a saving grace in our society  a real human unifier. How did you come to this conclusion?

If you spend some time in libraries you cant not notice the commitment and the real dedication that librarians have. Its truly inspiring. Im not naive about the troubles they face. Theyre always fighting for money in the budget, and they have to deal with issues that are incredibly difficult in terms of being inclusive of all patrons. But nobody becomes a librarian to be rich or famous, and so theres this incredible feeling of grace that you sense when you meet them. I also think that in the dark moment when people were scratching their heads and saying, I dont know why you need a library when everythings online, smart librarians were in place who could say thats not what its all about. Its about having a center of information, of knowledge. And libraries have done a fantastic job in reimagining themselves: No no no this is great, this is part of who we are, and now we have more room to do literacy class, to do story time, to do tax preparation.

I loved the librarian who realized he was helping drug dealers with their taxes. Then there was the security guard who told you hes found three dead bodies in the last six years. Did anything else blow your mind?

This doesnt sound sexy, but just the number of books that are in and out all the time and the number of people flowing through  it was like opening up the back of a grandfather clock and seeing the gears spinning.

Having seen The Orchid Thief turned into such a markedly distorted but fascinating film version, are you thinking that somebody could turn The Library Book into a movie?

Not to let the cat out of the bag but you can expect an announcement about that soon. I have a history of these unlikely projects coming together and so Im really happy about that.

Will you write another book, or are you really done this time?

Knowing me, I probably will. No matter how much I assure you and swear up and down that Ill never write a book, I have a feeling Ill get snared by a subject that Ill find too interesting to resist.

This interview was edited and condensed for clarity.Trump and Saudi Arabias Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the Oval Office last March. Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

Brett Kavanaughs hearings were an important moment for Donald Trumps standing with the Republican party elite, because the cause had the patina of legitimacy. Kavanaughs defenders could insist he deserved due process, and even though they were the ones denying the due process by denying the FBI the chance to interview all the witnesses, his case was presented in the garb of justice and fairness. As many conservatives joyfully noted, it brought Trump and his party elite into tighter formation than they had ever stood before.

But Trump has a way of humiliating his allies, especially when trying to morally justify their support. In an Associated Press interview, Trump used the almost holy cause of Kavanaugh as a point of reference to vouchsafe the innocence of Saudi Arabias kingdom, which nobody doubts has murdered dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Here we go again with you know youre guilty until proven innocent, he tells the Associated Press, I dont like that. We just went through that with Justice Kavanaugh and he was innocent all the way as far as Im concerned. So we have to find out what happened.

The evidence is in fact overwhelming. The New York Times reports that the suspects from the Saudi embassy in Istanbul had tight relationships with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his regime. Most recently The Wall Street Journal learned Turkey shared an audio recording of the murder with U.S. officials. Trumps ratcheting professions of support for the all-but-certain murderers, even as evidence of their guilt piles up, is a revealing display of his method of working through what everybody else regards as moral questions without applying even the slightest bit of morality.

Trump, of course, is not a civil libertarian. Trumps demands to execute the Central Park Five in the absence of any evidence of guilt, and refusal to acknowledge their exoneration when their innocence was proven, shows the kind of justice he metes out to his enemies. He is not only happy to indulge in guilty-until-proven-innocent when it suits him, he will go farther, into guilty-after-proven-innocent.

Yet most humans, and especially public figures, at least strive for the appearance of caring about justice. Whats amazing about Trump is how little interest he has in even concealing his venality.

Trump initially confessed his interest in absolving Saudi Arabias kingdom from guilt lay in the fact that it purchased lots of weapons from the United States. I dont like stopping massive amounts of money thats being poured into our country, he said of the Saudis, they are spending $110b on military equipment and on things that create jobs for this country.

Later, he conveyed that he spoke with the Saudi rulers, and seemed assured by their protestations of innocence, as if this had any evidentiary value at all.

There might be ways to finesse the issue, for Trump to punt the question to some kind of investigative body or international commission, to feign concern over the murder while hoping the media loses interest over time. Trump does not care. He is all but telling the world that the Saudis are his trusted allies, and just as he accepts Vladimir Putins claims of innocence in election meddling, so too does he accept those of his orb buddies.

Just spoke with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia who totally denied any knowledge of what took place in their Turkish Consulate. He was with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo...  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 16, 2018

...during the call, and told me that he has already started, and will rapidly expand, a full and complete investigation into this matter. Answers will be forthcoming shortly.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 16, 2018

An underdiscussed exchange in Trumps interview with Leslie Stahl Sunday night is his frank explanation about why he mocked Christine Blasey Ford at a rally. After at first denying that he did so, Trump falls back to his real rationale, namely, he won:

Lesley Stahl: And you mimicked Professor Blasey Ford. You mimicked her. President Donald Trump: Had I not made that speech, we would not have won. I was just saying she didnt seem to know anything. Lesley Stahl: No (UNINTEL) President Donald Trump: And youre trying to destroy a life of a man who has been extraordinary. Lesley Stahl: Why did you have to make fun of her? President Donald Trump: I didnt really make fun of her. Lesley Stahl: Well, they were laughing. President Donald Trump: What I said the person that were talking about didnt know the year, the time, the place. Lesley Stahl: Professor Blasey Ford got before the Senate and  and was asked whats the worst moment. And she said, When the two boys laughed at me, at my expense. President Donald Trump: Okay, fine. Lesley Stahl: And then I watched you mimic her and thousands of people were laughing at her. President Donald Trump: They can do what they  I  I will tell you this. The way now Justice Kavanaugh was treated has become a big factor in the midterms. Have you seen whats gone on with the polls? Lesley Stahl: But did you have to President Donald Trump: Well, I think she was treated with great respect, Ill  Ill Lesley Stahl: And  but President Donald Trump: Be honest with you. Lesley Stahl: But do you think  you treated her with President Donald Trump: There are those that think she shouldnt have Lesley Stahl: Do you think you treated her with respect? President Donald Trump: I think so, yeah. I did. Lesley Stahl: But you seem to be saying that she lied. President Donald Trump: W you know what? Im not gonna get into it because we won. It doesnt matter. We won.

Justifying mockery of a sexual-assault victim  while they insist she mistook her assailant, not even Republicans deny that Ford was assaulted  because he won the vote is not a moral argument. It seems terribly naive and almost quaint at this late date to point it out, but Trumps lack of interest in even pseudo-morality remains a truly shocking and unique fact about his presidency. The rationale for confirming Kavanaugh is now the same as the rationale for believing the innocence of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman: They are both on Trumps side, and can therefore commit any crimes they want.The OECD Observer online archive takes you on a journey through half a century of public policy and world progress.

Since November 1962, the OECDs experts and leading guests offer insights on the questions facing our member countries with concise and authoritative analysis, and provide our audiences with an excellent opportunity to understand policy debates and consider solutions.

Each edition of the OECD Observer reports on a core theme of the OECDs on-going work, from economics and society through governance, finance, and the environment, and articles are bolstered by tables and graphs.Construction major Larsen & Toubro (L&T) is the only Indian company to find a spot among the top 25 companies in Forbes' global 2,000 best employers list released on Tuesday. The Mumbai-headquartered firm bagged the 22nd spot on the list that is led for the second consecutive year by Google parent company, Alphabet. Not only the 25th best employer, Larsen & Toubro was, also, previously 2ranked on Forbes' top regarded companies of 2018 and was ranked 471st on global 2000 companies of 2018. The technology, engineering & construction major has also been ranked 86th on Forbes' world's most innovative companies of 2018.

According to Forbes, the ranking is based on the feedback on the likelihood of an employee recommending his/her employer to a friend or family member.

Larsen & Toubro was founded by Henning Holck-Larsen and Soren Kristian Toubro in 1938 and is headquartered in Mumbai, India. Right now, it has an employee strength of 41,466 and is led by the Chief Executive Officer Sekharipuram Subrahmanyan. The company's market cap is around $28.9 billion and its assets are worth $32.7 billion.

As per the Forbes list, there are only four Indian companies in the top 100 list of best employers, with Mahindra & Mahindra at 55, Grasim Industries at 59 and HDFC at 91. The list includes total 24 Indian companies, including the state-run GIC Re ranked 106, tobacco major ITC at 108, state-run alloy major SAIL at 139, Sun Pharma at 172, Asian Paints at 179, and HDFC Bank at 183. At 201 is Adani Ports & Special Economic Zone, JSW Steel is placed at 207, at 253 is Kotak Mahindra Bank, Hero Motocorp is ranked 295, Tech Mahindra comes at 351, ICICI Bank at 359, Wipro at 362, Hindalco at 378, State Bank of India is ranked 381, Bajaj Auto at 417, Tata Motors scores 437, Power Finance Corporation is at 479, Axis Bank at 481 and the state-run Indian Overseas Bank is ranked at 489.

American technology giants, including Microsoft (number 2), Apple (3), Amazon (5), etc, account for six of the top 10 spots. Of the top 500 employers, 185 US companies are in the list, while 80 are on the list from China and Hong Kong, said Forbes. German companies are the second most represented in the top 10, with auto company Daimler at rank 7 and BMW at rank 10.

Forbes said that over 430,000 global recommendations were analyzed by Statista to create the World's Best Employers list. "This list is based on Forbes' 2018 global 2000 rankings, which includes publicly traded companies from 60 countries that together accounted for $39.1 trillion in sales, $3.2 trillion in profit, $189 trillion in assets and $56.8 trillion in market value," the magazine said.

With PTI inputsby Bernardo Cervellera

The gathering held today will hear testimonies from Iraq, China, Cambodia, Brazil, and Hong Kong. A contribution to the Synod on Youth taking place in the Vatican. Overcoming a sociological and political view of the world of young people. Faith in Jesus Christ and the company of adult missionaries a path to exalt the qualities of young people and lead them to become builders of a new society.

Rome (AsiaNews) - "Young people who resist. Testimonies from Iraq, China, Cambodia, Brazil ": this is the title we gave at the 2018 AsiaNews Symposium, which takes place today in the AsiaNews Hall Rome, in Via A. G. Barrili, 42, starting at 5.30 pm.

Participants at the gathering include: Fr. Paul Thabet Mekko, priest at Karamles the first priest returned to the Nineveh Plain (Iraq), after the defeat and the expulsion of the Islamic State; Fr Luca Bolelli, PIME missionary in Kdol Leu (Cambodia), involved in evangelizing young people in an almost completely Buddhist society that is rising from the ashes of the Khmer Rouge; Giovanni Pang Chun Yu, Salesian educator in the megalopolis of Hong Kong; Fr. Marcelo Farias dos Santos, PIME missionary for Japan, who speaks of how his missionary vocation has blossomed.

Today's meeting hopes to be a contribution to the Synod on Youth which is taking place in the Vatican from October 3 to 28.

It is a somewhat counter-current contribution: before and during the Synod we have been bombarded with statistics on the religiosity of the young, on their attendance at Masses and Christian gatherings, on their isolation from families and from the adult world.

This sociological view does not satisfy us, nor does the purported emphasis on the "participation of young people in the life of the Church", reduced to a political question of greater spaces to be conquered, of freedom to defend, as if the Church were an institutional skeleton, old and suffocating, which oppresses young people and adults.

The testimonies we present at the Symposium are young people who found their strength and joy in their faith in Jesus Christ (not in sociology or politics). They have found in the company of the Church a fraternity that exalts their qualities: a momentum of ideals, courage, the desire to build the future. At the same time, the wisdom of the adults who accompany them helps them avoid becoming slaves not only to social networks, but also to dominant public opinion, making them capable of being builders of the society to which they belong, often marked by war, misery and anonymity.

Some commentators say that the Synod that is being held in the Vatican is keeping an eye on the West and its problems and has little or no universal vision.

In the West we are used to seeing young people marked by a constant searching and individualism, by virtual friendships and loneliness. In the East it is no different. Yet the situations we present at the Symposium, where war, underdevelopment, life in the megalopolis dominate, illustrate that something new is growing, that faith in Jesus Christ shapes the lives of young people, their vocational prospects, their commitment to their society no matter how destroyed it may be. This "newness" of the East, which is faith lived and witnessed, can also inflame the West.Advertising sector watchdog Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) investigated complaints against 208 advertisements in June, of which 179 were regarding misleading claims including those of Reliance Jio, SpiceJet, PepsiCo India, and Hindustan Unilever, among others. It noted that out of the 208 advertisements, the advertisers promptly ensured corrective action in 63 of them as soon as the complaints were received.

The consumer complaints council (CCC) of ASCI upheld 89 advertisements from a total of 145 evaluated by them. Amongst the 89 advertisements which it held misleading, 25 belonged to the healthcare category, 27 to education, 15 to food and beverages, five to personal care and 17 were from other categories, it said in a statement.

ASCI upheld the complaint against two ads by PepsiCo India's Quaker Oats finding them misleading by ambiguity and omission of the direct reference of comparison in the voice over itself. It said that the ads said 'Quaker Oats me hai 2x more protein and fibre' was qualified with a disclaimer 'per serve comparison with cornflakes'. Reference: Atlas of Indian Foods', which was not legible and not as per ASCI guidelines on disclaimers (font size, contrast, hold duration).

"The advertisement's claim 'two times more protein' was misleading by ambiguity and implication and the commercial under reference contravened ASCI's guidelines for celebrities in advertising," it said. The watchdog pulled up SpiceJet for the visual of a man inserting loose wires into a power socket and getting an electric shock, and also shown repeating this act again, which it termed as an unsafe and a dangerous practice that manifests a disregard for safety and encourages negligence.

ASCI also considered Hindustan Unilever's Lifebuoy soap advertisement to be misleading by ambiguity and implication. "The television advertisement when seen in totality creates an impression that Lifebuoy is recommended by doctors... In view of the Code of Medical Ethics prohibiting doctors from endorsing any product and in absence of any market research data indicating that medical professionals in general recommend the advertised product, such visual presentation was considered to be misleading by ambiguity and implication," it said.

It also upheld the complaint against Kraft Heinz India's Complan advertisement claim that 'only one cup of Complan has protein equivalent to one egg and other health drinks provide protein equivalent to half egg only', as they were not substantiated and was considered to be misleading by ambiguity and exaggeration as well as in contravention of the ASCI guidelines on disclaimers.

The regulator also noted that PepsiCo India's New Tropicana Essentials-Fruits and Veggies advertisement did not provide any supporting evidence to show that Tropicana Essentials was a 'new' product at the time of publishing the advertisement and found the claim to be misleading. ASCI also pulled up Reliance Jio Infocomm advertisement's claims of offering the best network and being the world's largest mobile data network for misleading by ambiguity and implication as they refer to only consumption of data and not the extent and infrastructure of network.

Similarly, it found Myntra advertisement's claim, 'here's Rs 300 on us', as misleading by ambiguity and omission that the offer is only on select products, and that the offer is subject to terms and conditions. It added that the advertiser did not provide the terms and conditions of the offer nor a link showing the same which would have informed the customer about the conditions.

The regulator also noted that in Yatra.com's advertisement, the claim offer related to the fare type 'refundable' was misleading by ambiguity regarding the extent and conditions of the refund, and by omission of a qualifier to mention that it is subject to terms and conditions. It also found Rasna's advertisement claim, 'natural fruit energy', was inadequately substantiated and is misleading by ambiguity and implication about the fruit content in the product. "The visual of celebrity Kareena Kapoor when seen in conjunction with the claim is likely to mislead consumers regarding the nature of product benefit and contravened the guidelines for celebrities in advertising," it said.The Chinese stock market has lost $3 trillion in the last six months since the beginning of the trade war with the US. The Shanghai Composite Index, the country's benchmark stock index is trading now 50% below its bubble high of 2015.

At the current level of 2,548 points, the index is down more than 50% from 5,166 level, it attained in 2015. The index has lost 22.93% since the beginning of this year and fallen 24.41% during the last one year.

In comparison, the Sensex has gained 29.20% during the last three years. The Nifty too has risen 28.50% during the same period.

However, from their all-time high level of 38,989 and 11,760 reached on August 29 this year, the indices have lost over 10%.

China's stock markets showed no signs of recovery on Tuesday after a week of declines as investors await more concrete moves by authorities to support the economy.

The drop followed a week of declines that sent the Shanghai Composite to levels not seen since 2014.

While last week's sell-off was inspired by woes on Wall Street, its continuation in A-shares this week shows that Chinese investors have little confidence in their government's willingness to support the market, said a Beijing-based trader.

"The message from the central bank has been very positive," he said. "However, markets are hoping for action, not words, to support enterprises."

The People's Bank of China's 100-basis point cut to banks' reserve requirement ratio (RRR), announced by the central bank on October 7, took effect on Monday, easing pressure on the yuan. But that has done little to restore confidence in equities, said this trader.

"Banks have looser liquidity, but the money is not finding its way to the real economy. The impact on stocks is very small," the trader added.

With inputs from Reuters2018 Kansas II: Trevor Bayne NASCAR Sprint Cup Race Preview

Posted by: newsla on Oct 17, 2018 - 06:40 AM 2018 Kansas II: Trevor Bayne NASCAR Sprint Cup Race Preview



ADVANCE NOTES



Bayne at Kansas Speedway



 Bayne will make his eighth MENCS start at Kansas on Sunday. In seven starts, Bayne has an average starting position of 22.9 and an average finish of 20.3.



 Baynes top performance came just a year ago in the spring race, where he led a lap and crossed the line 10th after starting 16th. He also finished top-20 in the fall of 2015 (18th), fall 2016 (17th) and fall 2017 (20th).



 Baynes best qualifying effort of 10th came back in the spring of 2016.



 The 2011 Daytona 500 Champion also has four starts at Kansas in the Xfinity Series, where he tallied three top-10 finishes. He crossed the line ninth in both 2011 and 2013, and finished eighth in his final NXS race there in 2014.



Last Time at Kansas



 Matt Kenseth made his return to Roush Fenway Racing in the 2018 spring race at Kansas Speedway, finishing 36th after being collected in a multi-car accident late in the race.



Matt Puccia at Kansas Speedway



 Matt Puccia will be atop the pit box for his 15th MENCS race at Kansas, and fifth with Trevor Bayne. In 14 prior events, Puccia has an average finish of 17.1 with three top-10s and one top five.



 Puccia led Bayne to a 10th-place effort in last seasons spring race for the duos best performance at the 1.5-mile track.



 Puccia also called nine races for former RFR driver Greg Biffle, earning a pair of top-10s, including one fifth-place effort in 2012. In his first ever Cup race at Kansas, Puccia helped Biffle to the pole position in 2011 before going on to finish eighth.



QUOTE WORTHY



Bayne on racing at Kansas:



Im looking forward to getting back to Kansas, a track weve had success at coming off a top-10 there last year. We survived Talladega last weekend and were able to hang tough for a solid result, so were looking to carry that luck into this weekend at another 1.5-mile track. Hopefully we can unload with some good speed and put our AdvoCare Rehydrate Ford towards the front.



Recapping Talladega

Bayne battled back from an ill-handling car early in the race and survived a flurry of late-race cautions to finish 13th at Talladega last weekend.



On the Car



Bayne will once again run the colors of AdvoCare Rehydrate this weekend, a scheme that promotes AdvoCares electrolyte drink that Bayne and the No. 6 team use each weekend at the track.



PaddockTalk Perspective



Imran Ali hanged to death today 17 October, 2018



Related News Imran Khan distributed loan cheques under Kamyab Jawan Programme PTI govt to face all challenges coming its way: Imran khan More on this View All Tips for Taking Incredible iPhone Travel Photos

Top 2021 Accessories We Know You Will Love

Types of Casino Payment Methods

Are Slot Developers Important for players?

Best Poker Hands ever played on a Casino

Hand Wash and Toiletries in Pakistan And the Role of DUPAS in Reshaping the Industry

Woke Bingo Imran Ali, who was convicted for the rape and murder of six-year-old Zainab Amin in Kasur earlier this year, was hanged to death in the early hours of Wednesday in Lahore's Kot Lakhpat Central Jail.



Ali was executed in the presence of both Magistrate Adil Sarwar and the deceased's father, Muhammad Amin, both of whom arrived early morning at the Kot Lakhpat Jail. Zainab's uncle was also present at Kot Lakhpat.



An ambulance had also arrived at the scene, accompanied by a brother of the convict as well as two of his friends. A medical officer as well as Kot Lakhpat's superintendent were in the jail as well.



Contingents of police and anti-riot forces surrounded Kot Lakhpat jail at the time of Ali's hanging.



Talking to the media after the execution, Ansari regretted that the authorities did not allow the live telecast of the hanging.



"Zainab would have been seven years, two months old today," he said. "Her mother is devastated from grief."



Ansari also thanked the chief justice of Pakistan and said that the "murderer had met his fate today".



After the execution, Ali's family  accompanied by police contingents  took his body to Kasur.



Late on Tuesday evening, jail authorities had arranged a last meeting of some 57 relatives with the death row prisoner.



Zainab's rape and murder  the 12th such incident to occur within a 10 kilometre radius in Kasur in one year  had sparked outrage and protests across the country following the recovery of the child's body from a trash heap a week after she went missing.



The heinous nature of the crime had seen immediate riots break out in Kasur  in which two people were killed  while #JusticeforZainab became a rallying cry for an end to violence against children.



Zainab had gone to a religious tuition centre near her house in the Road Kot area on Jan 4 from where she is believed to have been abducted. Her parents had been in Saudi Arabia performing Umrah, according to her family, and she had been living with a maternal aunt.



Soon after her abduction, her panicked family had received footage showing her walking with a stranger near Peerowala Road. On Jan 9, a police constable deputed to trace the girl recovered her body from a heap of trash near the Shahbaz Khan Road.



Police had said the girl seemed to have been killed four or five days earlier.

Prime suspect



A first information report had been registered against the disappearance of the girl on Jan 5, with the victim's paternal uncle as the complainant in the case. Murder charges were added to the FIR on Jan 9, after the victim's body was recovered.



Police had confirmed on Jan 13 that the results of DNA testing of samples collected from the crime scenes pointed towards the involvement of one culprit in at least seven similar cases in the district.



The Punjab government had declared the arrest of Ali, the prime suspect, on January 23 after a widespread manhunt.



The ATC had on Feb 17, 2018, handed down death sentence on four counts to the 24-year-old convict, following a four-day jail trial at Kot Lakhpat Jail.



The death penalty was handed down under four sections of laws including 364-A of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) (kidnapping a person under the age of fourteen), 376 of the PPC (rape), 302-B of the PPC (murder) and section 7 of Anti-Terrorism Act 1997 (for terrorising society by an act).



The court had further awarded life imprisonment to the convict under section 377 of PPC (unnatural offence/sodomy) and seven-year jail term under section 201 of PPC (dumping the dead body). The court had also imposed a fine of Rs1 million on the convict to be paid to the legal heirs of the victim, in addition to a collective fine of Rs3.2m imposed under different sections of law.



Since then, Ali has been indicted and sentenced to death in the rape and murder cases of at least six other minor girls.

Appeals against death sentence



He subsequently filed an appeal in the Lahore High Court challenging the death sentence handed to him in the Zainab case in February, claiming that his trial was not fair. The LHC rejected his appeal and upheld the trial court's conviction. He then appealed to the Supreme Court against the conviction.



On June 12, the SC rejected Ali's appeal against the death sentence handed to him for the rape and murder of Zainab, noting that the petitioner had admitted committing similar offences with eight other minor victims and "in that backdrop, he did not deserve any sympathy in the matter of his sentences".



As a last resort, he sought clemency from President Arif Alvi, but his plea was rejected on Oct 10 and his death warrants were issued by an Anti-Terrorism Court two days later.



The ATC directed the jail superintendent to execute the warrants and submit a compliance report.



Kasur had last attained local and international notoriety in 2015 when a gang of paedophiles running a child sex ring was busted in the city.



The gang had allegedly abducted and sexually assaulted at least 280 children in the area, had blackmailed the families of the victims since 2009, and even sold video clips and images of the assault online.



In the aftermath of Zainab's murder, lawmakers and legal experts had suggested introducing appropriate legislation and stricter legal implementation in order to prevent such incidents in the future.



Senator Raza Rabbani had said that when the Kasur child abuse scandal surfaced in 2015, he had raised concerns that the outrage would die down within a few days, which is why it is necessary that the government take long-term measures to ensure the safety of children.



Laws for the protection of children must be made in line with international laws, he said, and existing laws that deal with crimes against women could be expanded to include crimes against children.Imran Khan requested Saudi Crown to waive 2,000 riyals tax

ISLAMABAD: The Senate Standing Committee on Religious Affairs was informed on Tuesday that Prime Minister Imran Khan had requested Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud to waive 2,000 riyals tax imposed by the Saudi government on Pakistanis performing Umrah every year.



The committee, presided over by Senator Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri, was briefed about the problems faced by Pakistanis while performing Haj and Umrah.



The chairman of the committee said he had received several complaints about the Saudi government imposing a tax of 2,000 riyals on pilgrims performing more than one Umrah within two years.



I have been informed that this was some kind of a discriminatory tax on Pakistanis and the government should do something about it, Senator Haideri said.



Secretary of Religious Affairs Muhammad Mushtaq said that the rationale behind the Saudi move was to discourage repeated Umrah by a few people only and the tax had not been levied on Pakistanis only but it had recently been imposed on anyone coming from any country of the world.



However this new tax of 2,000 riyals on people performing more than one Umrah within two years has been abolished for the people of Egypt and Turkey after requests were made by governments of these countries to the Saudi government, Mr Mushtaq said.



He said that the matter had been taken up with the Saudi authorities in Islamabad and it was suggested that Prime Minister Imran Khan should make the request to the Saudi crown prince for the tax waiver.



The prime minister during his visit to Saudi kingdom took up the matter with the Saudi crown prince and he has agreed to abolish the tax, the secretary said, adding that it was a matter of time and the Saudi government would notify the waiver soon.



Some senators, however, criticised the prime ministers move saying it would benefit only a few rich people who wanted to perform Umrah every year.



The committee was informed about Haj operations 2018 and was told that the ministry of religious affairs would start preparations for Haj operations 2019 in January.



Senator Sajid Mir demanded that the draft of Haj Policy 2019 should be presented to the committee first, but Minister for Religious Affairs Minister Noorul Haq Qadri said that the committee could only forward its suggestions to the government as amendments to the Haj Policy of 2018.



Several senators criticised arrangements made by the government for Haj pilgrims last year.



The chairman of the committee, Senator Haideri, told the meeting that he had performed Haj almost every year on a special quota granted by the Saudi ambassador.



I have seen more mismanagement only on Pakistans side than any other country, he said.Media have pivotal role in promotion of democracy: Imran Khan 17 October, 2018



Related News Imran Khan distributed loan cheques under Kamyab Jawan Programme PTI govt to face all challenges coming its way: Imran khan More on this View All Tips for Taking Incredible iPhone Travel Photos

Top 2021 Accessories We Know You Will Love

Types of Casino Payment Methods

Are Slot Developers Important for players?

Best Poker Hands ever played on a Casino

Hand Wash and Toiletries in Pakistan And the Role of DUPAS in Reshaping the Industry

Woke Bingo ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan Tuesday said that as media had a pivotal role in promotion of democracy, good governance, ensuring transparency and merit as well as creating awareness among the masses, the government would extend its full support to media in that respect.



He said media had played an important role in conveying the ideology of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) to the masses and making it a success. If media would not have been there, I would not have been here (on this position). We will fully support media, he remarked.



The prime minister expressed these views during a meeting with the delegation of All Pakistan Newspapers Society (APNS) here.



Minister for Information and Broadcasting Chaudhry Fawad Hussain, Special Assistant to PM on Media Iftikhar Durrani, Senator Faisal Javed and Secretary Information Shafqat Jalil were also in the meeting.



The APNS delegation felicitated Imran Khan on being elected as the prime minister and apprised him of the problems faced by the newspaper industry.



The prime minister said a strategy was being formulated for the payment of arrears of media, pending since the tenure of previous governments, so that the problems of newspaper industry could be resolved.



The prime minister said that the PTI had attained this position after a struggle of 22 years, adding it had come to power due to its political efforts and with the support of masses.



When I entered the politics, my struggle was not against the politicians but mafias. I know which party has evolved in which nursery. The PTI has not grown in any incubation center, he remarked.



The prime minister said that no political party in Pakistans history had struggled as much as the PTI.



He said Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, who achieved his objective through continued struggle and democratic means, was his ideal in politics.



The prime minister said his political competition was with those who were criminals and calling them democrats was the insult of democracy.



He said not a single case of political victimization was registered during the previous PTI tenure in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Whereas, the Prime Minister said, over 30 cases were made against him during the previous governments tenure including eight in the Election Commission and two in the Supreme Court.



PM Imran Khan said he had to face character assassination for highlighting the Panama Papers issue.



The prime minister while making a political comparison of provinces said that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which was earlier famed for not giving the mandate twice in a row to a political party, had honoured PTI with two-thirds mandate in 2018 election.



He said as the PTI was a democratic party its government did not make any intervention in the recent by-elections in Punjab. The prime minister said after the 2013 election, he had demanded to open only four constituencies and continued to strive for that purpose for a year, but the then government did not open them.



The prime minister said media was the opinion maker of the society, and it would have to play its role to protect the country.



Prime Minister Imran Khan said Pakistan was pushed into debt-trap during the last ten years and the countrys debts had increased from Rs six trillion to Rs 30 trillion. He said every department of the country was in losses. PIAs losses had reached Rs 400 billion annually, gas sector loss was Rs 150 billion, circular debt had reached to Rs 1200 billion. The prime minister said Rs six billion was spent on daily basis just to pay installments of the loans. He said the power sector was in shamble and the government, in such a situation, had only two options, either to take help from friendly countries or go to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).



Prime Minister Imran Khan said Pakistan had vast potential as compared to others, adding that corruption had destroyed departments of the country.



A leader could only amass money when he puts his own people in government departments to destroy them. The prime minister said the government was conducting audit of Rs 30 trillion loans so that it could trace where the money was spent.



He said the FIA had unearthed several fake accounts and the government was bound to rectify that situation. He said the country had never witnessed such a critical situation in the past as it was facing today.



The prime minister said the government had started an austerity drive and added that only the annual cost of maintenance of dozens of fleets of luxury cars of prime ministers protocol and 528 staff of the palatial PM House was Rs 350 million annually. The public money was misused blatantly and that was why people avoid to pay taxes, he added.Opp parties planned to lodge protest against political victimisation

ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly is likely to witness a noisy session on Wednesday as the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, the main opposition party, has planned to lodge a strong protest against alleged political victimisation by the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government.



Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly and PML-N president Shahbaz Sharif, who has been in custody of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) since Oct 5 in the Ashiyana-i-Iqbal housing scam, is expected to deliver a speech on the floor of the house.



His production orders were issued by NA Speaker Asad Qaiser last week.



The NA session has been summoned on PML-N lawmakers requisition that they had submitted shortly after the arrest of their party president in Lahore.



Sources in the PML-N told that their members would wear black armbands to protest against the government while some members would also carry placards and posters of their leaders.



During the session, which will last one day only, other opposition leaders will also make speeches to scrutinise governments economic policies and its decision of seeking a bailout package from the International Monetary Fund contrary to PTI chief Imran Khans previous claim that after becoming prime minister he would never get loan come what may.



On Oct 6, the lawmakers of a couple of opposition parties in both the houses of parliament had met Speaker Qaiser at his residence and demanded immediate convening of an NA session and sought the issuance of production orders for the leader of the opposition so that he could attend the session.



The delegation of opposition leaders comprised PML-N chairman and Leader of the Opposition in the Senate Raja Zafarul Haq, former NA speaker Ayaz Sadiq, Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl leader Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri and PML-N lawmaker Rana Tanvir.



During the meeting, the opposition leaders demanded that the NA session be summoned immediately so that they could raise the issue of Shahbazs arrest effectively.



The PML-N had also submitted a requisition to the Punjab Assembly for immediate convening of its session so that the opposition party in the province could lodge its protest against the PTI-led provincial government.From Greg Swank, 12-4-2 You are about to read a list of 45 goals that found their way down the halls of our great Capitol back in 1963. As...Newmont Ghana today reaffirmed its commitment to transparently engaging with local communities to improve lives and collaboratively identifying solutions to mitigate impacts from its operations.



The Company has also called on the section of community farmers seeking new and additional land and crop compensation, among other issues, to allow the legal process to run its course following earlier mediation efforts.



Following reports of intimidation and threats, the police deployed personnel to ensure security and public order while protecting lives and property. Unfortunately, some individuals have been confirmed to have sustained injuries and are being treated.



The Company is calling on all sides to exercise restraint and good judgement to avoid confrontations.



Newmonts sustainability approach involves building and maintaining respectful relationships with our host communities. This means a strong commitment to direct, good-faith dialogue, while ensuring compliance with all relevant national laws, regulations, and international best practices, said Joep Coenen, General Manager  Akyem Mine.



As a responsible company, we have consistently met our legal obligations to our stakeholders since we began operations at Akyem and we will continue to do so, said Mr. Coenen. As this case is currently before the courts, we urge any protesters to let the case run its course through the judicial system.



In July, the community group embarked on a similar demonstration against Newmont Ghana to express dissatisfaction with the ongoing legal process concerning their demands for land and crop compensation and employment, as well as allegations of building cracks from mine pit blasting. Prior to this, the Company had been in mediation with the farmers led by an independent arbitrator. The parties continued to engage on the matter through the mediation process until the case was referred back to court.



Newmont Ghana will continue to focus on engaging with stakeholders to address their needs and concerns, fairly, respectfully and responsibly. We will continue transparent and respectful engagement with our stakeholders, including the farmers, Stool Land Owners and District Security Committee (DISEC) as we work towards resolving this issue amicably, concluded Mr. Coenen.

Source: Peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured VideoHe rarely comments on political or controversial issues but this time round, actor, Adjetey Anang, has joined those condemning politician, Gabby Otchere-Darko, for saying Ghanaian movies are bad.



In a Facebook post on Saturday, October 13, the politician said he was very disappointed after randomly watching 10 Ghanaian movies which he did not name. In the post, he compared the Ghanaian movie industry to Hollywood saying our industry plays a peripheral role in the country's development agenda.



The post has caught the attention of some players in the industry including Kafui Danku, Yvonne Nelson and Lydia Forson who have had harsh words for him.



Now Adjetey Anang has waded into the issue and he didn't mince words in expressing his disappointment about Mr Otchere-Darko's post.



In a letter posted on his Facebook page, Adjetey Anang popularly known as Pusher schooled Mr Otchere-Darko about the numerous challenges faced by the movie industry.



Adjetey questioned why the politician would use derogatory words to describe the industry when subsequent government including the NPP government had done nothing to push the fortunes of the industry.



Here is the letter: "Dear Mr. Gabby Otchere-Darko, First of all, I appreciate that you add your voice to the need for us to move our nation beyond aid and the need for our creative works to contribute to development agenda.



Indeed, truly, Hollywood has been a front-runner in the promotion of America as a brand and has been a key contributor to the development of America and a great influence on their world and on ours.



Beyond what the major film studios and individual stakeholders have done, I am very sure you are also aware the major role played by American governments over the years.



Enabling environment for creative arts, enforcement of piracy laws, intellectual property laws, capacity building, tax incentives, etc. Most of the Hollywood movies you see are from the top 6 studios despite the fact that there are thousands of filmmakers in Hollywood; which implies that there are some crappy ones from the same America that do not get the same attention.



Gabby's Post:



"I took my time to watch randomly ten Ghanaian movies and never felt so disappointed. It brought home to me one major deficiency in our development. The apparent lack of deliberate consciousness on the part of the creative industry in the development conversation. The presence of the creative industry appears at best peripheral in Ghanas development narrative. Our movies, our songs, our arts, by and large, do not impactfully plug into a greater development agenda. Hollywood, for the best part of a century, has been deliberately used by America to push successfully American cultural supremacy agenda; it has been used as an effective instrument of military or economic indoctrination. But, what has been the underlying consciousness behind our creative industry, if any? What role, for instance, can actors in the creative industry play to define and realize this whole important concept of moving Ghana Beyond Aid? We must elevate consciousness in Ghana if we are serious about winning."

*Which brings the question, which random movies from Ghana did u watch? I am very curious because of the blanket statement you made. I wont even go into how individuals have fought and toiled to keep the industry alive with 100% owners equity financing of movies.



Many of our movies have made significant strides on the continent n beyond with individuals hard work. Reputable international airlines buy and show Ghanaian movies, reputable international film festivals and awards in Europe, US and across Africa acknowledge and duly recognize the quality of our films which have been painstakingly financed by individuals who have used their lifetime investments to nurture these dreams with the hope that someday the government of our nation will see that we are not looking for handouts and sponsorship but governments interest that there is indeed an opportunity to make Ghanas film industry an attractive investment venture and positively project the image of Ghana.



One would expect that after watching your random movies, you would engage stakeholders or individuals who keep financing our own works to keep our little flame alive by keeping our audiences entertained, educated and informed.



Tell us what you think we can do to improve the industry, what role your govt can play in giving us that needed support etc. I am very disappointed that you rather took to the media to voice your disappointment and in a very condescending way too, to rubbish our efforts.



We arent rubbish Sir. Many of us, like myself are highly educated, talented and exposed and we simply believe that this is an untapped gold mine for Ghanas economy so despite the frustrating challenges and the lack of commensurate rewards for the volume of work we put in; we forge on working hard night and day, positively projecting the image of Ghana everywhere we go; hoping that someday our star will shine.



Please make time to engage us and listen to us as the Desiderata says *listen to others, even the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story* we can together move this industry forward, if only your comments would be constructive and not condescending.



*This issue is far from over as a number of stakeholders in the creative industry have also expressed their anger and are taking Mr Otchere-Darko to the cleaners.









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After timid initial criticism, the United States raises a wall of defense around Riyadh. White House: "hasty" conclusions on presumed guilt. Journalistic sources speak of a commando formed by "close" elements to the hereditary prince Mbs. G7 leaders look for justice. The Director General of the IMF postpones the visit to Riyadh.

Riyadh (AsiaNews / Agencies) - The United States is raising a wall of defense around Riyadh and the royal house, increasingly suspected of involvement in the mysterious disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

A critical voice of the Wahhabi leadership and, in particular, of the hereditary prince Mohammad bin Salman (Mbs), he has not heard of him since October 2nd when he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Some details that have emerged in recent days seem to endorse the Turkish version, according to which a commando came from Saudi Arabia on the day of the disappearance to execute him.

In recent days US President Donald Trump sent his right-hand man and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (expected today in Turkey) to Riyadh, for talks with King Salman and Crown Prince Mbs. The White House tenant entertained a lengthy telephone conversation with Saudi leaders, confirming the strategic commercial, diplomatic and military partnership between the two countries.

Commenting on the conversation with the royals, Trump called for calm and not to draw hasty conclusions on (presumed) guilt. "We must first understand - he underlined - what happened". Referring to the story of Supreme Court Judge Kavanaugh, he added that even in this case "its guilty until proven innocent".

According to the evidence gathered by Ankara, thanks also to the audio files sent by the Apple Watch that Khashoggi was wearing when he entered the diplomatic representation (while his cell phone was requisitioned at the entrance), he was killed.

In a second moment the body was dismembered and then made to disappear to conceal the evidence. Turkish experts carried out an inspection within the consulate and elements have emerged that would confirm this version.

Meanwhile, journalistic sources say that there are at least five people involved in the disappearance of Khashoggi, four of whom are connected directly to the Crown Prince. Testimonies re-launched by the New York Times state that one of the identified people would be a frequent companion of Mbs on trips abroad and seen in his company in the past in France, Spain and the United States. Three others would instead be part of or linked to the personal escort of the number two of the Saudi kingdom.

The story of the missing journalist threw more than a shadow on the Saudi summits, pressed by allies, the international community and large economic groups who decided to boycott a major event scheduled in Riyadh. In these hours, the G7 Foreign Ministers issued a joint note saying they were "troubled" by the fate of Khashoggi. "Those who are responsible for the disappearance - they say - will have to give an account of it".

Meanwhile, the director general of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Christine Lagarde has decided to cancel the visit to Saudi Arabia next week, to participate in the Future Investment Initiative (FII), the "Davos in the desert" from October 23 to 25. The planned trip, explain IMF sources, "has been postponed". So, in defense of Riyadh, the United States moves, after a first initial pressure, to assure collaboration and trust in a historical and essential (anti-Iranian) ally in the Middle EastJamas nos callaran



Fisica y culturalmente



Nec plus ultra, nec variatur



Precio del Brent To get the BRENT oil price, please enable Javascript.

Precio del WTI To get the oil price, please enable Javascript.

Paginas vistas en total

Dolar USA Vs Euro

Sin ellas, no seremos



Deja vu



Nada que celebrar



Hasta cuando?



Colombia Hoy



Para nunca olvidar



'Parasite' painted on a statue of Queen, Elizabeth in Kent, England



Sin palabras



La UE le apunta a la paz



Cada vez mas solo



Precio del Oro To get the gold price, please enable Javascript.

LULA y su Pueblo



Bye Bye



Homenaje al genial Quino



Fueron ellos



Una imagen que resume



Tan bajo ha caido que se deja tocar el trasero?



Porky y el Nene (archiconocido narcotraficante)



Ladrones al poder



Asi mira el perrito a su amo



Crazy



Clamor popular



La nueva inquisicion



Bolivia



Chile Hoy



Eso es todo amigos!



Piensalo!



Pinerachet



No More Trump



Adios Macri, hasta nunca



La Marioneta se desinfla



Asi o mas cinico



Almugre



Mexico en 1794



Mas arrastrado imposible



Hasta cuando!



La pura verdad



Solidaridad con Palestina



Serie Capitalismo



Espejismos de la clase trabajadora



Asi es!



Comerciantes o delincuentes



No pasaran!



Asi es la vida



USA HOY



01/01/1959



La avaricia no tiene limites



AYUDA HUMANITARIA?



Chile Hoy



Asi son las cosas



Mapa Electoral de Venezuela



Patagonia argentina?



Un aniversario mas del mayor genocidio de la Humanidad



Retrato del franquismo en Espana



Visca Catalunya!



El Chulo de Madrid



Cuando la policia se roba la democracia



Una imagen dice mas que mil palabras



La purita verdad



Asi gobierna la maldita burguesia



Mi pobre clase media



Como Chavez nadie



Comparte La Colmena via twitter Twittear

Programa de la MUD



Asi o mas clarito



Por que Trump no ataco Corea del Norte?



Hace 15 anos Por que la OEA no se pronuncio?



Una verguenza nacional



La luz que nos guia



La Union Europea Premio Nobel de la Paz?



Feudalismo ayer y hoy



Obama, el mentiroso



Curiosa coincidencia



Un mundo de cerdos



No es extrano?



La Marioneta



Los ricos protestan, los pobres celebran



MARICORI Y OBAMA



Cuantas muertes este ano?



USA TODAY



USA HOY 6



USA HOY 5



USA HOY 4



USA HOY 3



USA HOY 2



USA HOY (1)



Insaciable



Cronologia de un agresor



Guarimbear en USA



Mexico hoy



Bolivar y Chavez



Primero Amargado



Dios los cria y ellos se juntan



USA hoy (III)



USA hoy (II)



USA hoy



Mexico hoy



Mexico hoy



Mexico hoy



Obama



La verdad sea dicha



Los ricos



Que no nos vea Obama



Pobre Obama



SOS PALESTINA



VICMAN



VICMAN



VICMAN



VICMAN



VICMAN



VICMAN



VICMAN



VICMAN



VICMAN



VICMAN



VICMAN



VICMAN



VICMAN



VICMAN



VICMAN



VICMAN



VICMAN



VICMAN



VICMAN



VICMAN



VICMAN



VICMAN



VICMAN



VICMAN



VICMAN



VICMAN



VICMAN



VICMAN



VICMAN



VICMAN



VICMAN



VICMAN



Archivo del blog Archivo del blog marzo (4) abril (9) mayo (8) junio (10) julio (11) agosto (10) septiembre (17) octubre (11) noviembre (15) diciembre (10) enero (9) febrero (10) marzo (8) abril (5) mayo (6) junio (8) julio (13) agosto (10) septiembre (7) octubre (12) noviembre (8) diciembre (15) enero (17) febrero (11) marzo (11) abril (12) junio (6) julio (11) agosto (15) septiembre (5) octubre (15) noviembre (14) diciembre (11) enero (13) febrero (9) marzo (10) abril (8) mayo (7) junio (12) julio (12) agosto (8) septiembre (8) octubre (4) diciembre (8) enero (35) febrero (20) marzo (29) abril (19) mayo (21) junio (27) julio (21) agosto (28) septiembre (40) octubre (47) noviembre (21) diciembre (34) enero (62) febrero (81) marzo (117) abril (141) mayo (114) junio (111) julio (126) agosto (98) septiembre (160) octubre (234) noviembre (493) diciembre (319) enero (219) febrero (267) marzo (230) abril (291) mayo (347) junio (223) julio (179) agosto (191) septiembre (239) octubre (350) noviembre (406) diciembre (353) enero (284) febrero (202) marzo (274) abril (250) mayo (232) junio (251) julio (188) agosto (249) septiembre (230) octubre (178) noviembre (141) diciembre (164) enero (187) febrero (147) marzo (211) abril (190) mayo (199) junio (164) julio (162) agosto (174) septiembre (182) octubre (225) noviembre (114) diciembre (132) enero (223) febrero (147) marzo (133) abril (108) mayo (387) junio (465) julio (785) agosto (748) septiembre (485) octubre (681) noviembre (754) diciembre (805) enero (708) febrero (896) marzo (735) abril (831) mayo (723) junio (555) julio (658) agosto (619) septiembre (457) octubre (455) noviembre (295) diciembre (269) enero (534) febrero (556) marzo (205) abril (119) mayo (194) junio (255) julio (294) agosto (182) septiembre (207) octubre (340) noviembre (351) diciembre (281) enero (114) febrero (128) marzo (216) abril (195) mayo (116) junio (141) julio (182) agosto (181) septiembre (50) octubre (72) noviembre (104) diciembre (88) enero (168) febrero (102) marzo (151) abril (207) mayo (43) junio (72) julio (35) agosto (146) septiembre (54) octubre (46) noviembre (40)

Chavez Cuanto te queremos!



Por culpa de Chavez



Cerveza Polar







Algun dia Colombia volvera a la ideologia de Bolivar







Translate













LOS REVOLUCIONARIOS NO TOMAN CACA-COLA No se trata solamente de un capricho, sino de una sana actitud en todos los sentidos. Desde la solidaridad con el pueblo colombiano donde la empresa Caca-Cola ha cometido los mas grandes abusos contra sus trabajadores incluyendo el presunto secuestro y asesinato de los dirigentes del sindicato, hasta la proteccion de la salud de nuestros hijos, enviciados por ese jarabe de cola y azucar, que les produce obesidad prematura. Pensemos tambien los revolucionarios, que ese dinero que gastamos en los refrescos es utilizado por esas empresas para financiar el terrorismo en nuestro pais. Es cierto, no se trata solo de la Caca-Cola, sino tambien de la cerveza, de los cigarrillos y todos esos articulos innecesarios y mas que eso, daninos para nuestra salud. Podriamos incluso pensar en un dia de parada para cada uno de ellos. Es cuestion de irnos organizando. Pero para empezar, que tal si dejamos de comprar Caca-Cola y sus similares?



























Cuando lo extraordinario se vuelve cotidiano...



Discurso del Acto de Grado en Barinas en 12 de Febrero del 2005 Queridos Graduandos:



Mas que un discurso, quiero dirigirles algunas palabras que escribi anoche, despues de visitar en las clinicas, a los estudiantes heridos, a consecuencia de los enfrentamientos con la policia de hace apenas dos dias.



Me ha tocado por razones del destino, ser la persona que les otorgue el titulo que bien merecieron con sus estudios. Y me siento sumamente orgulloso de serlo. Me consta que la Universidad de Los Llanos Occidentales Ezequiel Zamora, a pesar de lo dicho por los enemigos de esta universidad, es una universidad de primera.



No tendremos la mejor planta fisica, en los salones hace calor. En el comedor hace calor. Pero no es en lo material que las cosas deben valorarse. El mayor capital es el ser humano. Y en eso, nuestra UNELLEZ, lo digo con conocimiento de causa, esta sobrada. Los llaneros venezolanos son nobles, valientes, de coraje.



En la UNELLEZ hacen vida, en este momento, aproximadamente 67000 personas. El 97% de ellas son estudiantes. Jovenes que, como Ustedes hasta el dia de hoy, buscan ese titulo, que constata los anos de dedicacion y de estudio.



Los jovenes son el rio de la vida, ustedes graduados deben ser los capitanes de esos barcos que naveguen por el rio de la vida.



Nuestra Patria atraviesa momentos muy dificiles porque decidio dejar de ser esa matrona de edad vetusta y complaciente, para ser joven, rebelde y altanera. Nuestra imagen ya no es la de una acaudalada ricachona mayamera. En nuestro rostro brilla ahora la sonrisa del Che Guevara, con su diente delantero torcido, su pelo largo y su boina con la estrella.



Entender esto, a mi me ha tomado practicamente toda la vida. Tengo 53 anos, y ya perdi mi oportunidad de derramar sangre joven a causa de un ideal.



Ustedes son jovenes, estan en la flor de la vida. No cometan por favor el error de renunciar a su instinto de rebelion. El Che Guevara fue Ministro de a Economia en Cuba. Los billetes y las monedas se adornaban con su rostro. Nada de eso le importo. Primero fue a Angola donde paso un penoso ano de combate. Despues se fue a Bolivia, donde encontro la muerte. El Che era el ultimo que comia, el que cargaba la mochila mas pesada. Siempre se sacrificaba por los demas en un estoicismo que mas parecia fervor religioso que ideologia marxista.



Si quieren un modelo de vida. Ahi lo tienen.



Dije hace unos momentos que el 97% de la poblacion de la UNELLEZ es estudiante. Se imaginan Ustedes la Universidad que podriamos tener si todos los estudiantes tuvieran la abnegacion, la combatividad del Che?



Los momentos que se avecinan van a requerir de una gran unidad del pueblo venezolano. La alternativa de continuar siendo libres o regresar a la pobreza se nos planteara en los proximos dias de forma enmascarada, o quizas peor, desenmascarada, vestida con uniforme de soldado del Imperio.



Por nuestra parte podemos esperar lo mejor. La macroeconomia no podria ir mejor, la justicia social ha mejorado notablemente. Las misiones ocupan un papel muy importante en el pago de dicha justicia social. Aqui en Barinas ya hemos cumplido con dos de las misiones, la mision Robinson y la mision Sucre. No hay analfabetismo y no hay exclusion en la educacion superior, en estas tierras de Zamora.



Pero ay malhaya! Son precisamente estos exitos los que nos hacen mas antipaticos al Imperio. Para ellos, somos inclusive un mal ejemplo que se esta contagiando al resto del continente y cuidado sino al resto del mundo.



Nunca venceremos al Imperio. Estara siempre ahi, acechando. Por lo menos hasta que el mismo no se autodestruya. Porque, sepanlo senores, el neoliberalismo es canibal. Cuando le ataque el hambre, se devorara a si mismo.



Ustedes, queridos graduandos, a partir de hoy pasan a conformar la elite profesional que debe sostener este pais en los proximos cuarenta o cincuenta anos. Anos decisivos para el logro de nuestra libertad y del rescate de nuestra Soberania.



No se dejen comprar. No se dejen corromper. No se dejen gritar. No se dejen pisar. Que nadie les diga que comer, o que vestirse, o que leer. Sean siempre autenticos, rebeldes, contestatarios. Pero eso si, profundamente patriotas, dignos de ser hijos de Bolivar.



Muchas gracias y que Dios los bendiga.





Alguna duda?



Medio siglo de Holocausto Palestino



Oscar Zanartu Nacio en Caracas en 1960. Ha realizado exposiciones individuales en las galerias Minotauro, Clave y San Francisco, y en salas de Coro, estado Falcon, y Puerto Ordaz, estado Bolivar. En Paris su obra ha sido exhibida en el Centro Cultural Tanagra, en la Exposicion Cite Internationale des Arts, en las galerias De Mars y Arver Space, al igual que en la Galeria Municipal Levallois, en Levallois Perret (Francia). En muestras colectivas, su obra se ha expuesto en Belgica, Francia, Estados Unidos y Venezuela; en Caracas intervino en la exposicion "Del genesis a la memoria", 1995, organizada por la Fundacion La Previsora. En 1982 obtuvo el Premio Nacional Critven y en 1990 la Mencion de Honor Jose Antonio Paez, en la Embajada de Venezuela en Paris. En 1991 se le concedio el primer premio de Pintura Itinerante, en Levallois Perret, Francia.



OZ1



OZ2



OZ3



OZ4



Homenaje a Jason Galarraga



La Victoria de Samotracia



Odalisca



Mas fotos de la nevada del pasado agosto 2008



























La Sierra Nevada de Merida



Nuestro precioso Churum Meru



Homenaje a Picasso



Autoretrato



Sabes lo que bebes en una Coca-Cola?

La formula de la Pepsi tiene una diferencia basica con la de la Coca-Cola y es intencional, para evitar el proceso judicial. La diferencia es a proposito, pero suficientemente parecida como para atraer a los consumidores de Coca-Cola que prefieren un gusto diferente con menos sal y azucar.

Mi profesion?

Tuve que aprender quimica, entender todo sobre componentes de gaseosas, conservantes, sales, acidos, cafeina, enlatado, produccion, permisos, aprobaciones y muchas otras cosas. Monte mi propio mini-laboratorio de analisis de productos.

Sal en la Coca Cola?

A patadas. El Cloruro de Sodio no solo refresca sino da mas sed, como para pedir otra gaseosa. Y no resulta desagradable porque la sal mata literalmente la sensibilidad al dulce... del que por cierto tambien tiene mucho: 39 gramos de azucar.

De los 350 gramos de producto liquido, mas del 10% es azucar, o sea que en una lata de Coca-Cola mas de un centimetro y medio es puro azucar en polvo. Aproximadamente tres cucharadas soperas llenas de azucar por lata!!La formula de la Coca Cola es muy sencilla:

Concentrado de azucar quemado caramelo- para dar color oscuro y gusto

Acido fosforito (para darle el sabor acido)

azucar (HFCS-jarabe de maiz de alta fructosa)

Extracto de hojas de la planta de Coca (Africa e India) y otros pocos aromatizantes naturales de otras plantas

Mucha Cafeina

Conservante que puede ser Benzoato de Sodio o Potasio

Dioxido de Carbono en cantidad para sentir freir la lengua cuando se bebe

Sal para dar la sensacion de refrigeracion

El uso del acido fosforito y no del acido citrico como en todas las demas gaseosas, es para dar la sensacion de dientes y boca limpia al beber. El acido fosforito literalmente frie todo y dana el esmalte de los dientes, cosa que el acido citrico lo hace en menor grado.Trate de comprar acido fosforito para ver las mil recomendaciones de seguridad que te dan para su manipulacion (quema el cristalino del ojo, quema la piel, etc...). Esta prohibido usar el acido fosforito en cualquier otra gaseosa; solo la Coca Cola tiene permiso. Porque claro, sin el acido fosforico, la Coca Cola sabria a jabon.El extracto de coca y otras hojas casi no cambia en nada el sabor. Es mas bien un efecto cosmetico. El extracto forma parte de la Coca-Cola porque legalmente tiene que ser asi. Pero sin el, no se nota ninguna diferencia en el gusto, que esta dado basicamente por las cantidades diferentes de azucar, azucar quemada, sales, acidos y conservantes.Sabor a que...? ja, ja, ja.

Aqui en Bartow, sur de Orlando, hay una empresa quimica que produce aromatizantes y esencias para zumos. Envian diariamente camionadas de sales concentradas y esencias para las fabricas de helados, gaseosas, jugos, enlatados y comida colorida y aromatizada.Cuando visite por primera vez la fabrica, pedi ver el deposito de concentrados de frutas, que deberia ser inmenso, especialmente los de naranja, pina, fresa y tantos otros. El encargado me miro, se rio y me llevo a visitar los depositos inmensos... pero de colorantes y componentes quimicos.

Las gaseosa de naranja no contiene naranja.

En los zumos dizque de fresa, hasta los puntitos que quedan en suspension estan hechos de goma (una liga quimica que envuelve un semi-polimero).

Pina, es un popurri de acidos y goma.

La esencia para helado de aguacate usa peroxido de hidrogeno (agua oxigenada) para dar la sensacion espumosa tipica del aguacate.

Bebidas Light?

Quieres saber la cantidad de basura que tiene un refresco 'light'? Yo ni siquiera los uso para destapar mi lavaplatos pues temo que danen los tubos de PVC. Los productos endulzantes 'ligth' tienen una vida media muy corta. Por ejemplo el

Despues de toda mi experiencia con la produccion de bebidas embasadas, puedo afirmar sin dudar un segundo: la mejor bebida es el agua, como tambien los jugos exprimidos de naranja o limon. Nada mas, cero azucar y cero sal.



Publicado por loretahur



En realidad, la formula secreta de la Coca-Cola se puede detallar en 18 segundos en cualquier espectrometro optico, y basicamente la conocen hasta los perros. Lo que ocurre es que no se puede fabricar igual, a no ser que uno disponga de unos cuantos millones de dolares para ganarle la demanda que te metera la Coca-Cola ante la justicia (ellos no perderian).La formula de la Pepsi tiene una diferencia basica con la de la Coca-Cola y es intencional, para evitar el proceso judicial. La diferencia es a proposito, pero suficientemente parecida como para atraer a los consumidores de Coca-Cola que prefieren un gusto diferente con menos sal y azucar.Tuve que aprender quimica, entender todo sobre componentes de gaseosas, conservantes, sales, acidos, cafeina, enlatado, produccion, permisos, aprobaciones y muchas otras cosas. Monte mi propio mini-laboratorio de analisis de productos.A patadas. El Cloruro de Sodio no solo refresca sino da mas sed, como para pedir otra gaseosa. Y no resulta desagradable porque la sal mata literalmente la sensibilidad al dulce... del que por cierto tambien tiene mucho: 39 gramos de azucar.De los 350 gramos de producto liquido, mas del 10% es azucar, o sea que en una lata de Coca-Cola mas de un centimetro y medio es puro azucar en polvo. Aproximadamente tres cucharadas soperas llenas de azucar por lata!!La formula de la Coca Cola es muy sencilla:Concentrado de azucar quemado caramelo- para dar color oscuro y gustoAcido fosforito (para darle el sabor acido)azucar (HFCS-jarabe de maiz de alta fructosa)Extracto de hojas de la planta de Coca (Africa e India) y otros pocos aromatizantes naturales de otras plantasMucha CafeinaConservante que puede ser Benzoato de Sodio o PotasioDioxido de Carbono en cantidad para sentir freir la lengua cuando se bebeSal para dar la sensacion de refrigeracionEl uso del acido fosforito y no del acido citrico como en todas las demas gaseosas, es para dar la sensacion de dientes y boca limpia al beber. El acido fosforito literalmente frie todo y dana el esmalte de los dientes, cosa que el acido citrico lo hace en menor grado.Trate de comprar acido fosforito para ver las mil recomendaciones de seguridad que te dan para su manipulacion (quema el cristalino del ojo, quema la piel, etc...). Esta prohibido usar el acido fosforito en cualquier otra gaseosa; solo la Coca Cola tiene permiso. Porque claro, sin el acido fosforico, la Coca Cola sabria a jabon.El extracto de coca y otras hojas casi no cambia en nada el sabor. Es mas bien un efecto cosmetico. El extracto forma parte de la Coca-Cola porque legalmente tiene que ser asi. Pero sin el, no se nota ninguna diferencia en el gusto, que esta dado basicamente por las cantidades diferentes de azucar, azucar quemada, sales, acidos y conservantes.Sabor a que...? ja, ja, ja.Aqui en Bartow, sur de Orlando, hay una empresa quimica que produce aromatizantes y esencias para zumos. Envian diariamente camionadas de sales concentradas y esencias para las fabricas de helados, gaseosas, jugos, enlatados y comida colorida y aromatizada.Cuando visite por primera vez la fabrica, pedi ver el deposito de concentrados de frutas, que deberia ser inmenso, especialmente los de naranja, pina, fresa y tantos otros. El encargado me miro, se rio y me llevo a visitar los depositos inmensos... pero de colorantes y componentes quimicos.Las gaseosa de naranja no contiene naranja.En los zumos dizque de fresa, hasta los puntitos que quedan en suspension estan hechos de goma (una liga quimica que envuelve un semi-polimero).Pina, es un popurri de acidos y goma.La esencia para helado de aguacate usa peroxido de hidrogeno (agua oxigenada) para dar la sensacion espumosa tipica del aguacate.Quieres saber la cantidad de basura que tiene un refresco 'light'? Yo ni siquiera los uso para destapar mi lavaplatos pues temo que danen los tubos de PVC. Los productos endulzantes 'ligth' tienen una vida media muy corta. Por ejemplo el aspartamo , despues de tres semanas mojado, pasa a tener gusto de trapo viejo sucio.Para evitar eso, se agregan una infinidad de otros productos quimicos, uno para alargar la vida del aspartamo, otro para neutralizar el color, otro para mantener el tercer quimico en suspension porque sino el fondo de la gaseosa quedaria oscuro, otro para evitar la cristalizacion del aspartamo, otro para realzar el sabor, dar mas intensidad al acido citrico o fosforito que perderia su sabor por el efecto de los cuatro productos quimicos iniciales... y asi sucesivamente.Un consejo final !!Despues de toda mi experiencia con la produccion de bebidas embasadas, puedo afirmar sin dudar un segundo: la mejor bebida es el agua, como tambien los jugos exprimidos de naranja o limon. Nada mas, cero azucar y cero sal.Publicado por loretahur

MARGARINA o MANTEQUILLA La margarina fue producida originalmente para engordar a los pavos; cuandolo que hizo en realidad fue matarlos.Las personas que habian puesto el dinero para la investigacion quisieronrecobrarlo asi que empezaron a pensar en una forma de hacerlo.Tenian una sustancia blanca, que no tenia ningun atractivo como comestible,asi que le anadieron el color amarillo, para venderselo a lagente en lugar de la mantequilla.Que tal esa?... Ahora han sacado algunos nuevos sabores para vender mas alos incautos como usted y yo.CONOCE USTED la diferencia entre la margarina y la mantequilla?Siga leyendo hasta el final... porque se pone bastante interesante!Comparacion entre mantequilla y margarina:

1.- Ambas tienen la misma cantidad de calorias.

2.- La mantequilla es ligeramente mas alta en grasas saturadas: 8 gramos,comparada con los 5 gramos que tiene la margarina.

3.- Comer margarina en vez de mantequilla puede aumentar en 53% el riesgo deenfermedades coronarias en las mujeres, de acuerdo con un estudiomedico reciente de la Universidad de Harvard.

4.- Comer mantequilla aumenta la absorcion de gran cantidad de nutrientesque se encuentran en otros alimentos.

5.- La mantequilla provee beneficios nutricionales propios mientras lamargarina tiene solo los que le hayan sido anadidos al fabricarla.

6.- La mantequilla sabe mucho mejor que la margarina y mejora el sabor deotros alimentos.7.- La mantequilla ha existido durante siglos mientras que la margarinatiene menos de 100 anos.

Ahora... sobre la margarina:

1.- Es muy alta en acidos grasos trans. (Si, esos que recien ahora loscientificos descubrieron que son malisimos y los gobiernoscomenzaron a prohibirlos) .

2.- Triple riesgo de enfermedades coronarias.

3.- Aumenta el colesterol total y el LDL (el colesterol malo) y disminuye elHDL (el colesterol bueno).

4.- Aumenta en cinco veces el riesgo de cancer.

5.- Disminuye la calidad de la leche materna.

6.- Disminuye la reaccion inmunologica del organismo.

7.- Disminuye la reaccion a la insulina.

Y he aqui el factor mas inquietante (AQUI ESTA LA PARTE MAS INTERESANTE! ):A la margarina le falta UNA MOLECULA para ser PLASTICO...!!Solo este hecho es suficiente para evitar el uso de la margarina de porvida, y de cualquier otra cosa que sea hidrogenada (esto significaque se le anade hidrogeno, lo cual cambia la estructura molecular de lassubstancias).Usted puede ensayar lo siguiente:Compre un poco de margarina y dejela en el garaje o en un sitio sombreado.Dentro de unos dias notara dos cosas:

* No habra moscas; ni siquiera esos molestos bichos se le acercaran (esto yale debe decir a usted algo).

* No se pudre ni huele mal o diferente porque no tiene valor nutritivo; nadacrece en ella. Ni siquiera los diminutos microorganismos puedencrecer en ella.Por que? Porque es casi plastico!!



No a la guerra, Si a la Paz



Misterios de la ciencia...



Los costos de la guerra



medicos y capitalismo...



Capitalismo...



medicos (2)



Quien educa a nuestros hijos?



Los Medios...



Sin Palabras...



Chistes feministas

- Cual es el problema, Eva?

- Se que me has creado, que me has dado este hermoso jardin, todos estos maravillosos animales y esa serpiente con la que me muero de risa... pero no soy del todo feliz...

- Como es eso, Eva? - replico Dios desde las alturas.

- Me encuentro sola, y ademas estoy harta de comer manzanas...

- Bueno Eva, en tal caso, tengo una solucion... creare un hombre para ti.

- Que es un hombre?

- Un hombre sera una criatura imperfecta, con muchas artimanas. Mentira, hara trampas, sera engreido... vamos, que te va a dar problemas... Pero, va a ser mas fuerte y rapido que tu y le gustara cazar y matar cosas... Tendra un aspecto simple, pero como te estas quejando, le creare de tal forma que satisfaga tus... eh... necesidades fisicas... Y tampoco sera muy listo, y destacara en cosas infantiles como pegarse o dar patadas a un balon... Necesitara tu consejo siempre para actuar cuerdamente.

- Suena bien - dijo Eva, mientras levantaba la ceja ironicamente.

- Cual es el truco?.

- Pues... que lo tendras con una condicion.

- Cual?

- Como te decia, sera chulo, arrogante y muy narcisista... asi que le tendras que hacer creer que le hice a el primero... recuerda... es nuestro secreto... de mujer a mujer.





Por que a los hombres no les puede dar la enfermedad de las vacas locas?  Porque todos son unos cerdos

Un dia, en el Paraiso, Eva llamo a Dios: Tengo un problema.- Cual es el problema, Eva?- Se que me has creado, que me has dado este hermoso jardin, todos estos maravillosos animales y esa serpiente con la que me muero de risa... pero no soy del todo feliz... - Como es eso, Eva? - replico Dios desde las alturas.- Me encuentro sola, y ademas estoy harta de comer manzanas...- Bueno Eva, en tal caso, tengo una solucion... creare un hombre para ti.- Que es un hombre?- Un hombre sera una criatura imperfecta, con muchas artimanas. Mentira, hara trampas, sera engreido... vamos, que te va a dar problemas... Pero, va a ser mas fuerte y rapido que tu y le gustara cazar y matar cosas... Tendra un aspecto simple, pero como te estas quejando, le creare de tal forma que satisfaga tus... eh... necesidades fisicas... Y tampoco sera muy listo, y destacara en cosas infantiles como pegarse o dar patadas a un balon... Necesitara tu consejo siempre para actuar cuerdamente.- Suena bien - dijo Eva, mientras levantaba la ceja ironicamente.- Cual es el truco?.- Pues... que lo tendras con una condicion.- Cual?- Como te decia, sera chulo, arrogante y muy narcisista... asi que le tendras que hacer creer que le hice a el primero... recuerda... es nuestro secreto... de mujer a mujer.Por que a los hombres no les puede dar la enfermedad de las vacas locas?  Porque todos son unos cerdos

Ellas...



Ellas (2)...



Tres venganzas femeninas VENGANZA NUMERO 1

Hoy mi hija cumple 21 anos y estoy muy contento porque es el ultimo pago de pension alimenticia que le doy, asi que llame a mi hijita para que viniera a mi casa y cuando llego le dije:

-Hijita, quiero que lleves este cheque a casa de tu mama y que le digas que: Este es el ultimo maldito cheque que va recibir de mi en todo lo que le queda de su puta vida!!! Quiero que me digas la expresion que pone en su rostro.

Asi que mi hija fue a entregar el cheque. Yo estaba ansioso por saber lo que la bruja tenia que decir y que cara pondria.

Cuando mi hijita entro, le pregunte inmediatamente: -Que fue lo que te dijo tu madre?

-Me dijo que justamente estaba esperando este dia para decirte que no eres mi papa!



VENGANZA NUMERO 2

Un hombre que siempre molestaba a su mujer, paso un dia por la casa de unos amigos para que lo acompanaran al aeropuerto a dejar a su esposa que viajaba a Paris.

A la salida de inmigracion, frente a todo el mundo, el le desea buen viaje y en tono burlon le grita:

- Amor, no te olvides de traerme una hermosa francesita Ja ja ja!!

Ella bajo la cabeza y se embarco muy molesta.

La mujer paso quince dias en Francia.

El marido otra vez pidio a sus amigos que lo acompanasen al aeropuerto a recibirla.

Al verla llegar, lo primero que le grita a toda voz es:

- Y amor me trajiste mi francesita??

- Hice todo lo posible, - contesta ella - ahora solo tenemos que rezar para que nazca nina.



VENGANZA NUMERO 3

El marido, en su lecho de muerte, llama a su mujer. Con voz ronca y ya debil, le dice: - Muy bien, llego mi hora, pero antes quiero hacerte una confesion.

- No, no, tranquilo, tu no debes hacer ningun esfuerzo.

- Pero, mujer, es preciso - insiste el marido - Es preciso morir en paz.

Te quiero confesar algo.

- Esta bien, esta bien. Habla!

- He tenido relaciones con tu hermana, tu mama y tu mejor amiga.

- Lo se, lo se Por eso te envenene, hijo de puta!!!



machismo y cibernetica



Chiste machista La NASA ha enviado al espacio una mision experimental tripulada por dos monos y una mujer.Apenas abandona la atmosfera, se establece comunicacion con Houston.

-Atencion, simio 1, verifique sistemas hidraulicos, controle adecuada presion de los propulsores de arranque. A 60.000 pies disminuya un 25% la velocidad.

El simio hace la sena de OK.

-Atencion, simio 2, nivele al cruzar la estratosfera y active sistemas anticongelantes. No olvide monitorear sistemas de comunicacion e indicadores de presion. Comprendido?.

El simio hace la sena de OK.

-Atencion, Houston llamando a mujer: no se olvide.

-Mujer: Si, si, ya se! -interrumpe enojada- que no me olvide darles de comer a estos monos de mierda y que no se me vaya a ocurrir tocar nada!.



.Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti.

Un abogado mantiene un romance con su secretaria.Al poco tiempo, esta queda embarazada y el abogado, que no quiere que su esposa se entere, le da a la secretaria una buena suma de dinero y le pide que se vaya a parir a Italia.Esta pregunta: Y como voy a hacerte saber cuando nazca el bebe ? El abogado responde: Para que mi mujer no se entere, tan solo enviame una postal y escribe por detras: Spaghetti. Y no te preocupes mas, que yo me encargare de todos los gastos.

Pasan los meses y una manana la esposa del abogado lo llama al bufete, algo exaltada: Querido, acabo de recibir el correo y hay una postal muy extrana viene desde Italia. La verdad, no entiendo que significa.El abogado, tratando de ocultar sus nervios, contesta:Espera a que llegue a casa, a ver si yo entiendoCuando el hombre llega a casa y lee la postal, cae al suelo fulminado por un infarto.Llega una ambulancia y se lo lleva. Ya en el hospital, el jefe de cardiologia se queda consolando a la esposa y le pregunta cual ha sido el evento que precipito tan masivo ataque cardiaco.

Entonces la esposa saca la postal y se la muestra diciendole: No me explico, doctor; el solamente leyo esta postal. Vea usted mismo lo que trae escrito.Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti."Tres con salchicha y albondigas y dos con almejas



Gol !!!!



Chistes de Borrachos Entra un borracho a su casa todo manchado con lapiz labial por todos lados hecho un desastre, y la mujer le pregunta:-Hombre que te paso?Y el borracho le responde:-No me vas a creer, me pelee con un payaso!



Este es un borracho que entra en un bar y le dice al camarero:-Me da cinco copas de whisky?Al rato:-Me da cuatro?Al rato:-Me da tres copas?Despues:-Me da dos copas?Luego le dice:-Me da una copa?Y le dice al camarero:-Ves? Cuanto menos bebo, mas borracho estoy!

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by Vladimir Rozanskij

For the Patriarchal Synod of Moscow, it is a "forced decision" after the recognition of the "schismatics" (ie Filaret of Kiev, of the independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church). Also Putin and his Security Council worried about the tensions between Orthodox of Russian obedience and of Kiev in Ukraine.

Moscow (AsiaNews) - The Synod of the Moscow Patriarchate declares that it is impossible to maintain Eucharistic communion with the Orthodox Church of Constantinople. This was announced by the patriarchal synod gathered yesterday in plenary session in Minsk in Belarus. Also present at the Synod was Metropolitan Onufrij of Kiev, head of the Ukrainian Orthodox jurisdiction loyal to Moscow.

According to Metropolitan Ilarion (Alfeev), the Russian bishops consider the decision to break communion with Constantinople a forced one, the result of "the recent actions of the Patriarchate of Constantinople". The decision means that the priests of the patriarchate of Moscow will no longer be able to celebrate the liturgy together with the representatives of the ecumenical patriarchate, including the churches of the monasteries of Mount Athos, where monks of the two Churches now in conflict are often present in the same community.

"The Church that recognized schismatics [ie Filaret of Kiev - ed], and has restored relations with them, has excluded itself from the canonical scope of the Orthodox Church," concluded Ilarion.

At the same time Russian President Vladimir Putin gathered the Security Council in Moscow, to evaluate the announced recognition of Ukrainian autocephaly. According to statements by the spokesman Dmitri Peskov, "we talked about the situation of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine, the other Churches considered schismatic do not interest us".

Responding to journalists' questions about the possible measures of the Russian government to resolve the issue, Peskov noted that "obviously the civil authorities in Russia cannot meddle in inter-church dialogue, they never have and never will, but since Orthodoxy is one of the religions confessed in the Russian Federation, everything that happens in the Orthodox world is subjected to special attention by the State".

However, Russia is determined to defend the rights of its nationals in every circumstance and in every country, Peskov recalled, even in the case of possible confiscation of the properties of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine.

In recent days, some statements by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko have thrown more fuel onWell provided what you publish is the truth you are protected by the law. However, wrongfully accusing someone, then you face civil and even criminal prosecution.

So how is it I never seem to be charged or sued over my reports?

I don't normally share this information in the public domain, as any information I do share will only be after I am absolutely certain the information is credible without a question of doubt.

I have briefed key members in Opposition that I expect to be killed for doing what I do and it is important they are clear on what to do next when that happens.

I accepted that fate a long time ago. The real threat won't come from our corrupt and stupid politicians but the foreign nationals who pull the strings from behind the scenes and profit from them.

I responded I was banking on it but appreciated the head ups. It was no surprise, when you go after high level corruption it's only a matter time you are permanently silenced.

Concerned about my safety Mr Koim went out of his way to contact me so that I would take extra care.

MADANG - Two days ago I was contacted by former chairman of Anti-corruption Task Force Sweep, Sam Koim, to inform me he had received reliable intelligence that individuals with political connections were planning to have me assassinated.

Sam Koim's response to Bryan Kramer's revelation can be downloaded at the end of this statement

Bryan Kramer MP

It's not like O'Neill has a shortage of lawyers or money to sue me, or control over the Police hierarchy to have me charged, his problem is when we end up in court, knowing I can prove everything I publish then the risk is the Court will make a finding of fact the allegations are true, where the judgment may be used in his own criminal prosecution.

So his best position is to remain silent and avoid taking me to Court.

So how come I never seem to get my reports wrong?

Well, I will only publish a story provided I can verify it through three independent sources. This is so there can be no doubt to the criminal standard of proof the intel is correct.

Just one mistake and I could end up in jail for breaching the Cyber Crime or Defamation Act that provides up to 15 years imprisonment.

Sam Koim

On the case in point I have verified the same intel of plans to have me killed from three independence sources, and it's not like Sam Koim goes around contacting people to tell them he believes they will be assassinated unless he himself is certain about it.

The intelligence being a number of individuals politically connected were secretly meeting to plan my assassination.

A number of persons engaged to do it were also behind the assassination of the late Fred Konga, former head of Border Development Authority.

In August 2017, Konga was gunned down while driving home at night after being followed by two unmarked cars.

I received intel he was killed to silence him over his alleged involvement in K124 million of K100 bank notes that was shipped to Germany by Central Bank to be destroyed.

However, the container was intercepted in Indonesia and brought back into PNG across the border. The notes were then used to bribe votes during the 2017 General Elections. His killing was described as an execution.

Specific information including how he was killed, those involved, and the evidence that exists to connect it to persons who ordered it has been made know to me.

I've been reliably informed that those now planning my assassination involve two Chinese nationals as well as three Western expatriates. Their plan is to have me killed in the same fashion Fred Konga, and make it look like it was done by the Australians.

Of course if it became known that Chinese nationals were involved then the public retaliation would be that Chinese store from Alotau to the boarder of Indonesia would be burnt to the ground.

So who better to blame than the Australians, however, who would believe such a story - well if you make the hit look professional enough, for example car bombing etc or involve white expatriates are seen on camera leaving scene then such a story would be plausible.

So why don't I name the individuals and politicians involved? Well, I'm waiting on a third source to confirm their names.

Why I am sharing this information with you?

Well in the event I end up facing the same fate before then, at least you can be clear why and how it happened.

Read Sam Loim's response to Bryan Kramer's statementWelcome Guest! You Are Here:

Home Regional News EastPORTSMOUTH, Va.  The crew of Coast Guard Cutter Legare returned home to Coast Guard Base Portsmouth Oct. 15 following a 12-week patrol in the North Atlantic, providing search-and-rescue capability and living marine resource protection, the 5th Coast Guard District said in a release.

In more than 12,000 miles of patrolling, the crew supported five search-and-rescue missions, including a disabled and adrift 438-foot liquid asphalt tanker that suffered a catastrophic engine room fire approximately 50 miles off Nantucket. The response to these missions resulted in 40 lives saved and assisted.

They also towed a disable fishing vessel through dense fog over 75 nautical miles and completed over 90 boardings, enforcing federal fishing regulations in Americas exclusive economic zone.

I could not be prouder of this crew and their incredible accomplishments during these days weve been away. I know it is not without sacrifice and certainly the families back home take on a lot of that burden, but rest assured, your sailor is doing their duty and doing it well, said Cmdr. Blake Stockwell, Legares commanding officer. The successes from this patrol highlight and remind me why I love going to sea, the sailors that bring the ship to life and serve with devotion and honor the country we love.

Legare is a multimission 270-foot medium-endurance cutter. Missions include search and rescue, maritime law enforcement, marine environmental protection, homeland security, and national defense operations.The chair of APEC Senior Officials, Ambassador Ivan Pomaleu, underlined PNGs participation in APEC as leverage to maintain its domestic policies according to the group.

As the smallest and poorest member of APEC, Papua New Guinea has framed its chairmanship as an opportunity to cash in on the digital revolution and its benefits in connectivity and employment.

The lead-up to the APEC summit, expected to become a key opportunity for PNG to unlock its economic potential, has been inundated with talks on trade and investment.

AUCKLAND - Early in March, Papua New Guinea began its chairmanship of next months Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit by receiving many senior officials for the opening set of planning meetings.

One of the controversial Maserati cars for APEC 2018. The market value is about reportedly about K229,000 each (EMTV News)

The work that has come out of APEC has allowed investors to come on shore and be part of our business community, Pomaleu told APEC Bulletin.

You really need to think in terms of what sort of structural reform and ease of business activities weve been doing and that have made it possible for new investments in PNG. Those are pegged on important APEC principles.

He added that conversations surrounding connectivity, particularly in sustainable development and climate change, were important to PNG.

A month before the summit, however, this agenda has seemingly been neglected with the import of 40 Maserati Quattroporte luxury sedans to be used by APEC leaders.

The revelation of the PNG governments purchase of these vehicles, which range in cost between $209,000 and $345,000 in Australia, has been widely condemned as an example of poor governance at a time when the country faces pressing health, education, law and order, and environmental issues.

While PNGs APEC Minister Justin Tkatchenko has told media that the costs of the Maseratis will be recovered via prospective buyers, this remains to be seen.

While the minister has not disclosed the initial costs of both the fleet and cars, PNG has unveiled plans underway to build a K400 million coal-powered plant  a far cry from its attentiveness to sustainable development.

According to the Post-Courier, a memorandum of agreement has been reached to build a coal-fired power plant in Lae.

Although this agreement is a step towards meeting the energy needs of Lae consumers, it takes PNG two steps back in its commitment to mitigating climate change.

PNGs gravitation towards cheap, non-renewable energy such as coal signals a complete disregard of its pledge to the Paris Climate Agreement.

PNG is already experiencing the effects of climate change which can be seen in the need to relocate Carteret Islanders and the dwindling access to clean drinking water, to name a few issues.

Despite these effects and coal being a key driver of climate change, Energy Minister Sam Basil is defiantly going ahead with building the electricity plant.

According to The National, Basil said that PNG had been denied that right (to burn coal) for a very long time.

He added that big nations are not reducing [coal emission], thus PNG needs a quota for burning coal to provide cheaper electricity which would subsequently lead to more jobs.

Chris Lahberger from the anti-coal group, Nogat Coal PNG, told Radio NZ that this move was uneconomical despite the developer Mayur Resources claims of increased employment and investment in a sustainable research institute.

Although PNG is not the only developing country to have resorted to coal as a source of low-cost electricity, it does have a responsibility to its people considering the Climate Investment Funds investment of $25 million.

As reported by Devex, this funding is the largest with a focus on delivering transformational change in addressing the current and future threats from climate change and related hazards in PNG.

A snapshot of the Climate Investment Funds assistance to PNG indicates a key focus on building resilience in the agriculture sector along with the mitigation of climate extremes.

Consequently, this begs the question of accountability in climate change aid as plans like the Mayur Resources coal-fired power plant are counteractive.

There is a pattern of financial aid being confined to large institutions and governments while communities suffer, as noted by Caritas New Zealand director Julianne Hickey.

Weve heard time and time again from the Solomon Islands through to Tonga, to Papua New Guinea, that it is not reaching those who need it most and those whove done the least to cause the issues of climate change, Hickey told Radio NZ.

Apart from PNGs plan to burn coal for electricity, it has an alarming rate of illegal logging which has adverse effects for its indigenous communities.

According to Global Witness, tens of thousands of Papua New Guinean people are having their land stolen by their own government.

PNGs Foreign Minister Rimbink Pato, however, refuted this claim in an interview with Radio NZ.

He emphasised that the PNG government has taken appropriate measures with regard to the illegal logging and that a policy is underway via the Minister for Forests.

Looking at climate change efforts as a whole, Mr Pato added that it is a talking point for the APEC summit.

Its one of the key issues there, and what were doing and how the world can connect, he said.

Thats why weve asked the rest of the Pacific Island countries, their leaders to come so that each of them can tell their story in their own way to the leaders of the world because the impacts of climate change are unique to each country. Its not the one and the same.

Talking point or not, PNGs implementation efforts are lacking and greater accountability is required of the government.

If PNGs absence from the High Ambition Coalition is anything to go by, it indicates poor governance to the Papua New Guineans feeling the impact of climate change.

With Fiji and the Marshall Islands leading the way in climate change efforts, PNGs status as big brother not only wanes but projects corruption at its very core.

Pauline Mago-King is a masters student based at Auckland University of Technology and is researching gender-based violence PNG. She compiled this report for the Pacific Media Centres Asia-Pacific Journalism Studies courseThe cow stranded on the roof a home in Glen Cove is the most memorable image of the flood of 1998 for many people. One of the readers, Jerry Mata, pointed out that it was his home, and the cow was rescued. Justice Department touts record-breaking increases in federal criminal charges | Main | Remarkable sentencing where district judge decided crooked cops needed more punishment than federal prosecutors sought 

The title of this post is the title of this notable new paper by Brandon Garrett now available via SSRN. Here is its abstract:

The American criminal justice system is at a turning point. For decades, as the rate of incarceration exploded, observers of the American criminal justice system criticized the enormous discretion wielded by key actors, particularly police and prosecutors, and the lack of empirical evidence that has informed that discretion. Since the 1967 Presidents Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice report, The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society, there has been broad awareness that the criminal system lacks empirically informed approaches. That report unsuccessfully called for a national research strategy, with an independent national criminal justice research institute, along the lines of the National Institutes of Health. Following the report, police agencies continued to base their practices on conventional wisdom or tried-and-true methods. Prosecutors retained broad discretion, relying on their judgment as lawyers and elected officials. Lawmakers enacted new criminal statutes, largely reacting to the politics of crime and not empirical evidence concerning what measures make for effective crime control. Judges interpreted traditional constitutional criminal procedure rules in deference to the exercise of discretion by each of these actors. Very little data existed to test what worked for police or prosecutors, or to protect individual defendants rights.

Today, criminal justice actors are embracing more data-driven approaches. This raises new opportunities and challenges. A deep concern is whether the same institutional arrangements that produced mass incarceration will use data collection to maintain the status quo. Important concerns remain with relying on data, selectively produced and used by officials and analyzed in nontransparent ways, without sufficient review by the larger research and policy community. Efforts to evaluate research in a systematic and interdisciplinary fashion in the field of medicine offer useful lessons for criminal justice. This Article explores the opportunities and concerns raised by a law, policy, and research agenda for an evidence-informed criminal justice system.The Vietnamese delegation was led by Nguyen Xuan Thang, Secretary of the CPV Central Committee, Chairman of the Central Theoretical Council and Director of the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics. The Japanese side was headed by Tanaka Yu, member of the Standing Executive Committee and Deputy Head of the JCP Central Committees Secretariat.



In his opening remarks, Thang said the eighth theoretical exchange workshop between the two parties takes place at a time when the Communists and Marxists around the world are celebrating Karl Marxs 200th birthday and the 170th anniversary of the first publication of the Communist Manifesto.

The workshop is an opportunity for the two sides to review the vitality of Marxism and share the outcomes of researches on Marxist theory and practice, thus having a better insight into the value of Marxist philosophy, he noted, adding that this would inspire the two parties to remain consistent for the ideology they pursue and the path towards socialism in the 21st century.

Thang further said that what Vietnams achievements over the three decades of Doi Moi (reform) have resulted from the CPVs Marxism-based leadership which was also a decisive factor for all victories of the countrys revolution. The exercise of Marxism and Ho Chi Minhs thought was a prerequisite for the success of socialism building in Vietnam, he stressed.

Yu, for his part, stressed that Marxism is the guideline for the JCP on its path to push for reform. He spoke highly of Vietnams victories in the past national struggle for independence as well as the countrys current reform policy and international integration.

Earlier the same day, Thang hosted a reception for Yu during which the two officials highly valued the development of relations between the two parties in recent years, particularly in theoretical exchange.

They agreed to further enhance collaboration and exchange activities between the CPV and JCP in order to promote Vietnam-Japan ties for peace, stability and cooperation in the region and the world as well.Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lu Kang's Regular Press Conference on October 17, 2018

2018/10/17

At the invitation of State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Foreign Minister of the Portuguese Republic Augusto Santos Silva will pay an official visit to China from October 18 to 23.

Q: According to reports, on October 15, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said at the Fortune Global Forum 2018 in Toronto that his country will continue to take various measures to strengthen trade relations with China. "Obviously, China is the world's second largest economy and growing and will remain an important place to do business and seek opportunities." In addition, when giving an interview to Fortune, Trudeau said that in the past few years, Canada has been strengthening its trade ties with China and it will continue to do so. Prime Minister Trudeau also mentioned China-Canada free trade agreement talks. What is your comment?

A: I have noted relevant reports. The Chinese side appreciates the relevant statements made by the Canadian leader. As important economies in the Asia-Pacific region, China and Canada are highly complementary in economy and enjoy huge potential and broad prospects for cooperation. China stands ready to work with Canada to continuously promote the construction of the China-Canada free trade area in a practical and open manner, deepen practical cooperation in economy, trade and other areas and achieve new progress in China-Canada strategic partnership.

Q: The US leader recently alleged that China is using "debt diplomacy" to expand its influence worldwide. In his visit to Vietnam, the US defence chief singled out what he described as "predatory economic behavior" by China, saying it would pile massive debts on smaller countries which are going to have difficulty repaying them. What's your comment?

A: Though faced with a large amount of facts and statistics, the US has fabricated lies time and again and made irresponsible remarks out of its political needs, which is very disappointing.

As we all know, insufficient industrial capacity, lack of self-reliant development capability, backward infrastructure and financing difficulties constitute bottlenecks for the development of many underdeveloped countries. Having faced the same problems over quite a long time, China shares the feelings of these developing countries. So we know their pressing needs and have conducted mutually beneficial cooperation with these countries under the principle of upholding justice while pursuing shared interests and provided assistance much needed to developing countries with no political strings attached based on our own experience. All this cooperation has forcefully promoted the socio-economic development and improved the livelihood in relevant countries. For instance, the Mombasa-Nairobi Railway funded and built by China has created around 50,000 jobs for Kenya. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) contributed 2.5 percentage points to Pakistan's GDP growth in 2016. Such cooperation is indeed well received in developing countries.

Frankly speaking, developing countries once hoped that developed countries who are more capable of offering help, the US included, would provide such assistance, make good on their promises and offer concrete assistance without any political strings attached in accordance with the needs of those developing countries. The relevant country, if it cannot meet that hope, should at least refrain from obstructing others from assisting these developing countries, even less hurting the benefits of these people to serve its own political needs. This is just immoral.

The US has constantly made an issue out of the so-called debt problem in disregard of facts. The truth is that, in the relevant regions and countries the US side and certain media have frequently cited to play up the issue, only a small proportion of their debts is incurred by cooperation projects with China and we have never heard of any single country fallen into "debt traps" due to its cooperation with China.

Here are some more examples I would like to share with you. Sri Lanka has been a case repeatedly played up by some foreign media recently. But by 2017, Chinese loans only accounted for around 10% of Sri Lanka's foreign debts; China's loans to the Philippines made up only less than 1% of its foreign debts. Sri Lanka's Ambassador to China clearly said that the allegation of the Chinese government dragging his country into "debt traps" is entirely wrong. And recently the Finance Secretary of Pakistan also refuted US remarks that the CPEC has caused Pakistan's debt crisis. I believe these countries have the best say over these issues.

At the successful Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation and the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly not long ago, leaders of many African countries came forward to refute the fallacy that the China-Africa cooperation has aggravated Africa's debt burden, pointing out that their countries in urgent need of capitals are aspiring for development and cooperation. The support and assistance China has offered have no political strings attached at all and does not interfere in their domestic affairs. They welcome and appreciate what China has done, and commend China as Africa's most trustworthy partner in the continent's pursuit of development and revitalization. These statistics and examples do speak volumes.

The US attempt to pin a false label on China is just unpopular. We urge the US side to put in perspective China's cooperation with other developing countries. Moreover, we would like to see the US making more useful contributions to the development of developing countries instead of sowing discords.

Q: It is reported that on October 15, US research vessel Thomas G. Thompson docked at the port of Kaohsiung. Although this ship is part of the US Navy assets, it has been used by non-governmental organizations. What is your comment?

A: We have noted relevant reports and are expressing our grave concerns to the US side.

I would like to reiterate that the Chinese side is firmly opposed to any form of military ties between the US and Taiwan. We urge the US to earnestly abide by the one-China principle and the three China-US joint communiques, stop any form of official exchanges and military ties with Taiwan and prudently and properly handle Taiwan-related issues.

Q: First, on October 15, the Russian Orthodox Church held the Holy Synod's meeting in Minsk. After the meeting, it said that it would sever all ties with the obstinate Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople in protest against the latter's support for the Ukrainian church's independence. It is learned that there are over 15,000 Orthodox believers in China. What is the Foreign Ministry's comment on the confrontation between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople? Second, according to the report released by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development on October 15, in the first half of this year, the foreign direct investment (FDI) China attracted grew by 6% against all odds, exceeding $ 70 billion, which makes China the world's biggest FDI recipient. Does this mean that the US ratcheting up pressure on China will not harm China's economic and trade cooperation with other countries?

A: As to your first question, if my memory serves me correctly, you raised this question yesterday. We are in contact with the National Religious Affairs Administration and other departments for more information.

For your second question, in fact, besides the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the relevant Chinese competent authorities recently also released some figures on China's macro-economy which showed that although China's economic development is faced with some uncertainties both internally and externally, China's economic fundamentals do remain sound in a long term. We are fully confident about this. As to what you asked about whether other countries in the world will maintain or even expand cooperation in such areas as economy, trade and investment with China under the current circumstances, I think that all countries and businesses would base their policy choices on their own fundamental interests and I believe that choices made in this way will be right ones.

Q: On October 17, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sent a "masakaki" ritual offering to the Yasukuni Shrine. What is your comment?

A: The Yasukuni Shrine commemorates Class-A war criminals of the WWII who are directly responsible for the war of aggression. We consistently oppose such wrong action by the Japanese side. China urges Japan to squarely face and show deep remorse for the history of aggression and win back the trust of its Asian neighbors and the international community with concrete actions.This years White Party for Compass, held at Pennys the Duke in Lantana, raised $1,500 for the LGBT community centers Smart Ride team.

"This was my first White Party, and I'll never forget it. The drag performances were full of energy and flair, and raising money for a good cause like the Smart Ride was an amazing feeling, said Laura Diaz, a social work student at FAU who is interning with the Compass youth department.

The Smart Ride is an annual two-day 165-mile bicycle ride from Miami to Key West that raises money for HIV related charities. This years event takes place Nov. 15-16.

Last years bike ride had to be rescheduled due to Hurricane Irma. It ended up taking place Jan. 19-20 of this year, raising $840,245. In total the organization has raised $9.3 million.

Visit TheSmartRide.org for more information.The amendment is long overdue. In 1974, Florida lawmakers passed a bill to restore the right to vote. The state Supreme Court struck it down.

On the ballot this November, Amendment 4 restores the right to vote to more than 1.5 million people in Florida with a felony conviction. One in ten people in the state are currently and permanently barred from voting because of a criminal record.

If passed, the measure would be a civil rights triumph, particularly for the LGBT community. Mass incarceration disproportionately harms queer individuals, who are three times more likely to be imprisoned than heterosexual people.

Every day, LGBT people, particularly transgender individuals, are jailed for sex work when they can find no other employment. Queer youth are forced from home and arrested for sleeping in the street. The sweep is extraordinary. At some point in their lives, half of homeless people are incarcerated and 70 percent of low-income LGBT people are homeless.

It inordinately impacts queer people of color. One in five black citizens in Florida cant vote and, like in other states, the state's disenfranchisement is wrought and rooted in Jim Crow-era voter suppression. In 1868, Florida adopted a constitution disenfranchising those convicted of felonies, with one delegate saying the constitution prevented Florida from being niggerized. The state also enacted Black Codes, levying draconian penalties for minor crimes like vagrancy and petty theft.

Its still part and parcel of Florida penal code. Trace drug possession, for example, is a felony in the state. Sleeping on public property is a crime too.

Only two other states, Iowa and Kentucky, permanently disenfranchise those convicted of felonies. Its the ugliest of politics  of racism and vindictiveness, for votes counted and culled. A federal judge recently declared Florida's process of re-enfranchisement unconstitutional, calling it arbitrary and discriminatory. An applicant must go before the governor and a clemency board where around 3,000 people had their rights restored under Gov. Rick Scott in his two terms. Under Gov. Charlie Crist, who served one term, 155,000 did.

Still, todays political landscape looks promising for the referendum, which excludes those convicted of murder or a sex offense. Two polls put support at more than 70 percent, with 60 percent of Republicans in favor in one. Its backing is bipartisan, with conservative Evangelical groups, Democrats and the Kochs political network behind it. Gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum is in support while Trump-backed Ron DeSantis opposes it.

The amendment is long overdue. In 1974, Florida lawmakers passed a bill to restore the right to vote. The state Supreme Court effectively struck it down.

Now its up to us, and a win is far from certain. A third poll conducted showed only 40 percent support, with 43 percent undecided, but did not explain what the measure stood for.

To your Republican or Democratic friends, straight and gay, please vote yes on Amendment 4 gives the right to vote to more people than any one measure since women's suffrage. It's historic, transformative and common sense. Permanent exclusion from this pillar of civic life serves no one.

Scott Greenberg is the executive director of the Freedom Fund, a non-governmental organization that works to eliminate the mass jailing of people, particularly LGBTQ individuals.Shanghai (Gasgoo)- Groupe Renault and Brilliance China Automotive Holdings Limited (Brilliance) signed on October 16 a strategic cooperation agreement with Chinese officials on behalf of Liaoning provincial government to further speed up development of LCVs (light commercial vehicles) in China. Renault also confirmed that it will bring three new electric LCV models in China over next two year.

Ten months after the initial launch of our joint venture in China with Brillance, we have a local management team in place and a LCV development plan for further growth. Starting from early 2019, we will develop 7 LCV models in China, including 3 electric models. The agreement with Liaoning provincial government will lay a solid foundation for our future growth, said Renault Chairman and CEO Carlos Ghosn.

At the end of 2017, Groupe Renault and Brilliance signed a contract for the formation of a joint venture to manufacture and sell LCVs under Jinbei, Renault and Huasong brands with the goal of selling 150,000 vehicles on an annual basis by 2022 and accelerating the growth of electrifying powertrains.

Headquartered in the Dadong District of Shenyang, Liaoning Province, the joint venture, Renault-Brilliance-Jinbei Automotive Co., Ltd, focuses on three major segmentsMPVs, medium vans and heavy vans. The electric LCV models will be added to its product range soon.SFGN has decided to reprint the endorsements of the League of Women Voters to help our readers wade through the many amendments on this years ballot, some of which are very confusing.

For more information, including which groups support and oppose these amendments, visit www.LWVFL.org/amendments.

From the League of Women Voters

The League of Women Voters of Florida is non-partisan and does not endorse political candidates, but we do take positions on education, the environment, and voting rights. These and other issues are reflected in this years slate of constitutional amendments, which is why the Leagues positions are reflected in the amendment summaries found in this voter guide.

The Leagues position is based not only on our existing position on issues but also on whether a proposal belongs in the state Constitution, which should be a framework for government operations. For example, the League does not believe that tax and spending issues belong in the Constitution. Those are decisions the Legislature should make. The Constitution should not be burdened with a litany of amendments that often are driven by politics rather than governance.

There are, however, some issues important enough to merit constitutional status. Offshore drilling is one example. While the League does not believe that bans on tobacco smoking and vaping should have a home in the Constitution, the protection of Floridas waters and shorelines from pollution should. Because the Constitution Revision Commission chose to bundle multiple and unrelated issues into single questions, such as a vaping ban with a drilling ban, the League is recommending a yes vote on Amendment 9.

The League does not take lightly the responsibility of supporting or opposing constitutional amendments. Nor should voters. These are complex issues, further complicated by the CRCs bundling of multiple questions. I urge voters to use this guide and other sources of information to get informed and to vote on Nov. 6.

Patti Brigham

President

League of Women Voters of Florida

Amendment 1

Grants an additional $25,000 homestead exemption for homes valued over $125,000. Owners of homes worth more than $100,000 would also receive an increase in their exemption.

Oppose. The League has a position that no tax sources or revenue should be specified, limited, exempted, or prohibited in the Constitution.

Amendment 2

Makes permanent what currently is a temporary cap of 10 percent on annual property value increases for vacation homes, apartments and commercial property, effectively limiting increases on tax bills.

Oppose. The League has a position that no tax sources or revenue should be specified, limited, exempted, or prohibited in the Constitution.



Amendment 3

Requires approval of any new casino gambling through a citizen-initiative constitutional amendment, effectively barring the Legislature from making those gambling decisions by passing laws.

Support. It restricts casino gambling and allows Florida voters to make any decisions regarding increases of casino gambling, consistent with League position against gambling. This amendment is also supported by No Casinos, Inc. and Disney.

Amendment 4

Would restore the eligibility to vote to persons with felony convictions who have completed their sentences.

Support. The League was one of the sponsors of this initiative. Florida is one of only four states that permanently bars felons from voting after their sentences are completed. This restriction on voting is a vestige of Floridas post-Civil War Constitution. Everyone deserves a second chance.

Amendment 5

Requires a two-thirds vote of the Legislature to approve any new or increased taxes or fees, rather than a simple majority.

Oppose. This amendment does not include a provision that would allow for tax increases in times of emergencies (hurricane, floods, recession, etc.) and is an abrogation of the Legislatures fiduciary responsibility to pass a reasonable budget.

Amendment 6

Vastly expands the scope of victims rights under the state Constitution; increases the mandatory retirement age for judges from 70 to 75; forces courts and judges to interpret laws and rules for themselves rather than rely on interpretations by government agencies.

Oppose. Victims rights are already protected in the Constitution, and this amendment would eliminate an existing provision that victims rights do not interfere with the constitutional rights of the accused.

Amendment 7

Creates a supermajority requirement for universities to impose new or increase existing student fees; enshrines in the Constitution guidelines for the State College System; mandates that employers or the state pay a death benefit to first responders and members of the military killed in the line of duty.

Oppose. We oppose a supermajority vote to increase fees or taxes. Family members of the military who die in the line of service are already compensated through the federal government.

Amendment 9

Prohibits oil drilling beneath waters controlled by Florida; prohibits the use of e-cigarettes, also known as vaping, at indoor workplaces.

Support. Our concern for the environment overrides our concern about putting vaping in the Constitution. We also believe that if this amendment doesnt pass, it sends a signal to the federal government that Florida does not care about off-shore drilling.

Amendment 10

Requires the Legislature to hold its session in early January on even-numbered years; creates an Office of Domestic Security and Counterterrorism within the Florida Department of Law Enforcement; mandates the existence of a state Department of Veterans Affairs; forces all counties to elect a sheriff, tax collector, property appraiser, supervisor of elections and Clerk of Circuit Court.

Oppose. This limits the voters in local communities from deciding on the election of county officers. It adds an unnecessary provision as the Constitution already has the power to set dates during even numbered years. FDLE is already the lead agency in coordinating efforts to prevent terrorism, and the Constitution already has authorized the Legislature to create a Department of Veteran Affairs. This amendment is clearly an effort to restrict the powers of local government.

Amendment 11

Repeals the states ability to prohibit non-citizens from buying, owning and selling property; deletes a provision that forces the state to prosecute criminal suspects under the law they were originally charged under, even if the Legislature changes that law; deletes obsolete language having to do with high-speed rail in Florida.

No position. Although we think that removing obsolete language is a good thing, there is a lot of other obsolete language that is not being addressed. Although the first issue regarding the ability of non-citizens to purchase and sell property cannot be enforced, the provision that requires criminal suspects to be prosecuted for an obsolete law should be changed.

Amendment 12

Expands ethics rules for elected officials and government employees, notably by expanding from two to six years the time that many officials would have to wait before they could lobby state government.

No position. Although there is need for lobbying reform, we felt that six years might be onerous, and this amendment does not address the real issue regarding lobbying, which is the impact of money in political campaigns.

Amendment 13

Bans wagering on any type of dog racing, notably greyhounds, as of Dec. 31, 2020, while continuing to allow dog tracks to continue offering other types of gambling, including poker rooms.

Support. This is primarily a gambling issue, and the League has held a consistent position against gambling.You gotta laugh. Someone complained last weeks senior edition did not appeal to young people. Like they read?

This has been a very weird birthday week. I dont feel a day older than I did yesterday. I am still young, nearly seven decades young. But wherever I turn, I see my friends reflecting on their lives.

I just dont have time to look back. I have a paper to put out every week.

Meanwhile, one of our former columnists, Brian McNaught, is spending time posting columns on Facebook about all the old travel photographs he and his husband have stored in their closet, fondly recalling their journeys.

Brian was once an author, but if you read his posts today you realize he has become a prophet. He understands and relishes the importance of the here and now. Every moment is precious. Hes right, especially if you forget to take your pills on time.

My favorite cousin, Nadine Baker, just posted about her 50th high school reunion. She went to Long Island last week to celebrate it. Cherished memories re-gathered to carry forward. Life is a collection of them.

One of my legal colleagues and best buddies, Alvin Entin, who shares a birthday with me, is on Facebook this week too, writing affectionately about his wife, six kids, and Dwight Eisenhower. Talk about journeys into yesterday.

Alvin wrote that Republicans are not what they used to be. Yes, once they were just Neanderthal. Now, they are mean too.

A fellow camper from the 1960s, now a respected comedienne, Cathy Ladman, just talked about turning 63. But she is still smiling and telling jokes, finding laughter in the living of life. May I dare suggest there is no laughter greater than the ability to laugh at yourself. You will never cease to be amused.

Speaking of which, last week SFGNs Senior Edition failed to write about SAGE. Thats like eating scrambled eggs without bacon. Well, their letter in this weeks paper makes up for that careless breach of common sense by my all too defensive, out of touch, too comfortably married, editor in chief.

SAGE is proof positive that aging can be full of fun, fitness, and forays into the future. We can walk in the sunshine, not dwell in the shadows. We can still be all we want to be. As long as we have breath, there is beauty to see.

Reality does invade the news daily though, damn it. Just saw that Paul Allen, Microsofts founder, has passed away from non-Hodgkin lymphoma at an age younger than me. But wait, you can beat that one, I thought. I did. Not always, I guess.

What a great and charitable life Allen lived. What a man of character, who gave his heart and hope to so many. Just like my business partner, visiting his own 92-year-old mother in Italy this week. Hes cherishing the moments he has in distant places while I am bankrupting him here at home.

I also found out this week I have some sort of new skin melanoma that requires a simple surgical removal procedure. Yeah, for the doctor who has performed the surgery many times, it may be simple. Tell that to Joan Rivers. But this seems nominal.

Still, someday the story wont be about someone else. I just dont want to think about it now. It might get in the way of a relationship with a new intern or my trip to the World Series if the Dodgers can get past Milwaukee this weekend. The Dodgers have not won in 30 years, and I swore off sex until they do again.

I have already dealt with three cardiac procedures this year. I have my own pacemaker and defibrillator. Had them painted Dodger Blue. So this new interruption should be a piece of cake, I tell myself. Entemanns, I hope. Then I remember that a captain on the Titanic first told a few passengers all they had done was just stop the ship to pick up some ice. You never know.

I got a call last night that my older brother was brought to the ER at 10 p.m., without ever considering that the Dodgers had loaded the bases with two outs in the bottom of the ninth at the time, and were down 4-0. My younger brother, who lives in Denver, texted for an immediate update. I told him the Dodgers had lost.

In the meantime, I called Alexa on Echo and ordered new hurricane windows for my home. Gotta look forward. When you are younger, you dont think as much about the future. You just live in the present.

In youth, you just get on the surfboard and ride the waves. If they knock you down, you just rise to the surface and do it again. If you bang your head on the board, your brothers and sisters, mom and dad are there for you. You arent worried. You are invincible. Not when you are older.

So here I am on Facebook looking at the stories some of my friends are posting. We seem to be reflecting on what was, not of what can be. We all need to join that group Boys with Boats. Lets be kids again, and sail the ocean blue.

Maybe you cant be a shortstop for the NY Yankees anymore, but I bet you there is a croquet tournament at John Knox Village you can win. Who is game?

We have wasted youth on the young, a famous writer once opined. But who really appreciates a hot dancer at the Boardwalk more, someone who is 17 or 70?

We can still celebrate age without celibacy, right? Just need a few heart and cholesterol pills along the way. Didnt Nelson Rockefeller die doing the happy on his desk?

I am not going to think about death and dying at all. As I push towards that number 70, I am going to think about life and living. However, when I do pass to that great ballpark in the sky, I want to go peacefully in my sleep, as my grandfather did. Not screaming like the other three passengers in his car.A kindergarten teacher was fired from a school in Qingdao last month after posting on social media about an LGBT event he attended. The principal fired him because parents might not want a gay man teaching their children, according to Reuters.

The teacher is now suing the school in what could be the first case of its kind in China, according to his lawyer, Ting Xiangqian.

"The main reason we filed this case is not just as a labor dispute but to make the gay community more visible to a wider group of people," Xiangqian told Reuters. "To let more people realize that they can easily be victims of discrimination."

The case will challenge current Chinese labor laws and their protection of minority groups. The laws currently lack specification about LGBT issues, but broad laws could be used by minorities to protect their rights, Xiangqian said.Shanghai (Gasgoo)- Hot on the heels of Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, Audi China has got the license to test L4 autonomous vehicles on roads in Beijing, China's capital, the automaker announced recently.

The company is allowed to test autonomous vehicles on several road sections in Beijing Economic Technological Development Area, Shunyi District and Fangshan District to further improve its self-driving technologies via various testing scenarios.

Audi China said it will set up a R&D and testing center in Wuxi in the first quarter next year to support the on-spot tests of autonomous driving and IoV (Internet of Vehicles) technologies. As an important part of Audi 2025 Strategy, Audi China will keep strengthening the investment in autonomous driving and intelligent connectivity areas to provide Chinese consumers with intelligent driving technologies based on Chinas road conditions, said President of Audi China Thomas Owsianski.

As early as 2017, the German automaker joined hands with Huawei, a China's leading provider of ICT infrastructure and smart devices, to test LTE-V ( the long-term evolution-vehicle) program on public roads. On July 10, 2018, Audi announced that it signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Huawei to develop in-depth cooperation in ICV area. The agreement constituted part of a broad-based partnership between companies in China and Germany initiated by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

On October 11 at HUAWEI CONNECT 2018, Huawei and Audi announced their future cooperative plan to conduct joint innovation in L4 autonomous driving area and showcased the all-new Audi Q7 as the embodiment of both parties' state-of-the-art technologies.Stornoway, a town in Hebrides in Scotland, held its first ever Pride parade on Oct. 6, with around 400 people attending.

We want to show that it is okay to be different, that LGBT+ people do not have to be afraid to go public with their sexuality. That there is nothing wrong with being gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and anything in between, Susanne Erbida, one of the Hebridean Pride organizers, told the Evening Express.

But church leaders in the Western Isles arent happy about it. They even made a last-ditch effort to stop the parade from happening, which failed.

Rev. Graeme Craig, Minister of Stornoway Free Church said the event is sad and shameful, according to Aberdeen Journals.

The sooner society returns to recognising basic biology and promoting faithful, monogamous, heterosexual marriage, the more content people will be. Following our Makers instructions is always the wise thing to do, he said.

But LGBT individuals still marched proudly through Stornoway, right past protesters, in the historic Pride parade.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.



Scientists have a new window into the search for dark matter -- an acrylic vessel that features a grouping of 12-foot-tall transparent tanks with 1-inch-thick walls.

The tanks, which will surround a central detector for a nearly mile-deep experiment under construction in South Dakota called LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ, http://lz.lbl.gov), will be filled with liquid that produces tiny flashes of light in some particle interactions.

Scientists will track these flashes of light with a data-acquisition system and reconstruct their likely sources. In addition to holding the liquid scintillator, the tanks will also serve as a shield for some unwanted particle "noise" that could interfere with other, sought-after signals, and as a veto system -- a sort of lie detector that can help scientists sort out false detections of dark matter from a real discovery.

Dark matter, which makes up an estimated 85 percent of all matter in the universe, has never been seen directly, though scientists detect its presence through gravitational effects. The stars in spiral galaxies, for example, have been observed to move around the center at about the same rate even at very different distances, which tells scientists there is something else in play that causes this unexpected effect.

While we don't know what dark matter is composed of, the LZ experiment is designed to hunt for one of the prime suspects -- a theorized particle known as a WIMP, or weakly interacting massive particle.

An international collaboration, involving about 250 scientists, engineers, and technicians from 38 institutions, is working on LZ. The U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) oversees LZ construction and installation. The LZ experiment is expected to begin taking data in 2020.

LZ's acrylic tanks were fashioned in segments in order to fit down the elevator shaft at the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF), a former gold mine in Lead, South Dakota. LZ will occupy a newly renovated cavern at SURF that was formerly home to its smaller predecessor, the LUX (Large Underground Xenon) experiment.

LZ is designed to be at least 100 times more sensitive to possible dark matter particle signals than LUX. The veto system formed by the acrylic tanks and a related sequence of light-sensing detectors will improve LZ's ability to rule out non-dark-matter signals.

LZ's four largest acrylic tanks, which are custom-designed and contoured, measure 12.3 feet tall, 7.5 feet wide, and 3.4 feet thick, and weigh 1,500 pounds apiece. Two arrived at SURF earlier this month, and the other two will be delivered within the next month. Six smaller tanks -- three that will sit atop the main detector and three that will reside below it -- will arrive by the end of the year.

"It looks like a giant light saber cut into quarters from the top," said Harry Nelson, a UC Santa Barbara physics professor who oversees the acrylic tanks effort for LZ. Nelson compares the tanks to one of mythical light swords featured in the "Star Wars" science-fiction films. UC Santa Barbara has served as the technical lead for the tanks, overseeing their design, commercial fabrication, testing, and transportation.

Researchers designed a special frame to support and protect the tanks that will allow workers to maneuver the tanks through the complex of tunnels to their resting place. A special rigging attached to this frame will be used to suspend each of the large tank components below the elevator at SURF for their journey underground.

"Each segment will be hung like a holiday ornament from the bottom of the elevator," Nelson said.

Simon Fiorucci, a Berkeley Lab physicist who oversees LZ operations at SURF, said, "This is the first instance of significant LZ detector equipment installation in the underground laboratory. It is a major milestone for the project, and it bodes very well for the busy year ahead of us."

Other physics experiments have also used acrylic for holding tanks, Nelson noted, including the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory's 12-foot spherical vessel in Ontario, Canada.

In total, the 10 tanks that will surround the cylindrical central detector at LZ will hold about 17 tons of a liquid scintillator known as linear alkylbenzene, which is more commonly used as an ingredient in detergents and other cleaning products. The central cylindrical detector is built with ultrahigh-purity titanium and will contain 10 tons of ultrapurified liquid xenon, a rare element whose atoms can emit bursts of light in particle interactions.

"Recent dark matter searches have found that neutrons can be a pernicious background, with the ability to mimic a dark matter signal," said Carter Hall, LZ spokesperson and physics professor at the University of Maryland. Neutrons are particles with no charge that reside in atomic nuclei. "The acrylic tanks and their liquid scintillator payload will provide a powerful neutron rejection signal so that LZ is not fooled."

Like layers of an onion, the acrylic tanks will fit snugly around the central LZ detector and will themselves be surrounded by a large tank holding about 60,000 gallons (230 tons) of ultrapure water.

"Everything must fit together within a quarter-inch tolerance," said Sally Shaw, a UC Santa Barbara postdoctoral researcher who has been working to ensure the tanks meet the rigorous requirements of the LZ experiment.

The tanks were each cleaned from the inside out prior to shipping to the SURF site, she noted.

"Any radioactivity inside the tanks will create light," she said. "There is a procedure that involves wiping them down with solvents. Then we use deionized water and special cleaning powder, with someone lying down inside the tanks. It involves lots and lots of rinsing, and testing the purity of the rinsed water. It's a big job."

UC Santa Barbara researchers worked closely with the tanks' manufacturer, Reynolds Polymer Technology in Grand Junction, Colo., to design and engineer the sturdy frames used to protect the tanks during transport. The frames were painted pink, Shaw's favorite color, in recognition of her many contributions to the project.

LZ researchers embarked on many trips to the site of the tanks' manufacturing site to oversee the process at various stages.

After all of the tanks are lowered to the research cavern and into the empty water tank where LZ will be installed, they will remain in protective wrapping until the final stages of assembly in late 2019.

Major support for LZ comes from the DOE Office of Science, the South Dakota Science and Technology Authority, the U.K.'s Science & Technology Facilities Council, and by collaboration members in South Korea and Portugal.

DOE's Office of Science (http://science.energy.gov) 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.

The Sanford Underground Research Facility's (http://www.sanfordlab.org) mission is to enable compelling underground, interdisciplinary research in a safe work environment and to inspire our next generation through science, technology, engineering, and math education.



Please follow SpaceRef on Twitter and Like us on Facebook.The H-II Transfer Vehicle-7 (HTV-7) from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is viewed from one of seven windows inside the cupola, the International Space Station's "window to the world." The orbital complex was flying at an altitude of about 257 miles off the coast of Canada above the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Credit: NASA.

Today - Cold Atom Lab (CAL): A Crewmember attached the Helium monitor to the front of the CAL hardware to collect readings.

The CAL produces clouds of atoms that are chilled to about one ten billionth of a degree above absolute zero -- much colder than the average temperature of deep space. At these low temperatures, atoms have almost no motion, allowing scientists to study fundamental behaviors and quantum characteristics that are difficult or impossible to probe at higher temperatures. In microgravity, researchers may be able to achieve even colder temperatures than what is possible on the ground, and observe these cold atom clouds for longer periods of time.

Lighting Effects: Crew performed a numerical and color discrimination visual test at a designated location. The Lighting Effects investigation studies the impact of the change from fluorescent light bulbs to solid-state light-emitting diodes (LEDs) with adjustable intensity and color and aims to determine if the new lights can improve crew circadian rhythms, sleep, and cognitive performance.

Radiation Dosimetry Inside ISS-Neutrons (RADI-N2): Today the eight detectors were retrieved from NOD3F3 rack front area location and handed back to the Russian crew for data extraction and download. This Canadian Space Agency investigation measures neutron radiation levels in the ISS. These bubble detectors are designed to only detect neutrons and ignore all other radiation.

BioServe Protein Crystallography (BPC)-1: A crewmember used pipettes to mix varying viscosity solutions into the crystallization plates. BPC-1 seeks to demonstrate the feasibility of conducting protein crystal growth in real time onboard the ISS. Crewmembers add solutions to the hardware, observe the crystals that form and adjust for follow-on experiments. This approach gives scientists the ability to optimize crystal growth in microgravity instead of waiting for samples to return and then launching them again.

HII Transfer Vehicle (HTV)7 Cargo Transfer: The crew continued HTV7 cargo transfer operations today. Ground specialists estimate approximately ~4 hours remain to complete transfer of identified items.

Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) Li-Ion Battery Data Logging: Today the crew initiated a charging Auto cycle of two EMU Long Life Batteries (LLB) with data logging. Over the course of three days, the Auto cycle will capture battery health data and help ground experts understand the charge and discharge capacities of these new and improved LLBs. The data will also be used to compare charging system performance between the on-orbit and ground based systems.

Completed Task List Activities:

None

Ground Activities:

All activities are complete unless otherwise noted.

Nominal System Commanding

Two-Day Look Ahead:

Wednesday, 10/17:

Payloads:

BCAT Camera Ops (NASA)

FROST2 ICE Pack Insert for LT PCG-4 (JAXA)

BPC Plate Sample load (NASA)

Systems:

ARED Quarterly Maintenance

HTV-7 Cargo Operations

SODF Warning Book Updates

Thursday, 10/18:

Payloads:

Food Acceptability (NASA)

CIR Manifold Bottle Change (Joint Ops)

SPHERES Tether Slosh (NASA)

ISS HAM (NASA)

Systems:

Water Recovery Management (WRM) Condensate Pumping

Today's Planned Activities:

All activities are complete unless otherwise noted.

Delta file prep

Life On The Station Photo and Video

Preparation of Reports for Roscosmos Web Site and Social Media

Video Recording of Greetings

Uragan. Observations and photo (Task list)

ECON-M. Observations and photo (Task list)

Visual inspection and leak monitoring using US ULD Leak Detector in Soyuz 739 . Report to MCC

Morning Preparation Work

Auxiliary Computer System [] Laptops Antivirus Software Checkout and Report

Test activation of [2] Air Conditioner System Compressor Unit from [1] Compressor, preparation

ITCS Coolant Sampling Adapter Installation at JPM1F1 Z-Panel

Test activation of [2] Air Conditioner System Compressor Unit from [1] Power Supply.

Transfer Operations - Pack and stow items on HTV

MATRYOSHKA-R. BUBBLE-dosimeter gathering and measurements.

PFS PuFF Calibration Syringe Maintenance

Radi-N Detector Retrieval/Readout

ISS HAM Service Module Pass

Radiation Dosimetry Inside ISS-Neutrons Hardware Handover

MATRYOSHKA-R. Handover of BUBBLE-dosimeters from USOS

MATRYOSHKA-R. BUBBLE-dosimeter gathering and reading data, memory card prep for return

BioServe Protein Crystallography Maintenance Work Area Preparation

mobiPV Questionnaire

BioServe Protein Crystallography Plate Mix S/N 01

HRF Generic Ambient Blood Collection Stow

Biolab RPDA Front Panel Tether release by crew

ISS HAM Service Module Pass

Wanted Poster for 4 lost CWCs

Actiwatch Spectrum HRF Rack 1 Setup

Lighting Effects Visual Performance Tests GLA Setting Subject

Exercise data downlink via OCA

Unstow of items for Incubator Isolation Filter Exchange

Cold Atom Lab Helium Monitor Setup

Actiwatch Spectrum HRF Rack 1 Stow

On MCC GO Test activation of [2] Air Conditioner System Compressor Unit from [1] Power Supply

EVA Long Life Battery Station Support Computer Relocate

Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) Long Life Battery (LLB) Initiate

Preventive Maintenance of FS1 Laptop (Clean and reboot)

Biolab Incubator Biological Isolation Filters Exchange

Semi-annual BRI maintenance. Remating CSL cables on BRI.

Restow of items for Incubator Isolation Filter Exchange

Biolab CO2 manual valve opening

Transfer Operations - Pack and stow items on HTV

BioServe Protein Crystallography Plate Mix S/N 02

Testing Inter-modular connectivity (after semi-annual BRI maintenance).

HTV Cargo Operations Conference

Cold Atom Lab Helium Monitor Teardown

Please follow SpaceRef on Twitter and Like us on Facebook.Clouds in a Jovian jet stream, called Jet N5, swirl in the center of this color-enhanced image from NASA's Juno spacecraft.

A brown oval known as a "brown barge" can be seen in the North North Temperate Belt region in the top-left portion of the image.



This image was taken at 8:58 p.m. EDT on Sept. 6, 2018 as the spacecraft performed its 15th close flyby of Jupiter. At the time, Juno was 7,600 miles (12,300 kilometers) from the planet's cloud tops, above a northern latitude of approximately 52 degrees.



Citizen scientists Brian Swift and Sean Doran created this image using data from the spacecraft's JunoCam imager. The view has been rotated 90 degrees to the right from the original image.



JunoCam's raw images are available at www.missionjuno.swri.edu/junocam for the public to peruse and process into image products.

Larger image



Please follow SpaceRef on Twitter and Like us on Facebook.WASHINGTON, Oct. 17, 2018 / Standard Newswire / -- Judicial Watch announced today that it has received 45 pages of FBI documents that reveal a "significant number" of 340,000 emails on the laptop of disgraced former Congressman Anthony Weiner were between the former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her top aide Huma Abedin.Judicial Watch obtained the documents as the result of a September 2018 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed after the Justice Department did not act on two FOIA requests for Anthony Weiner laptop investigation documents, including any Clinton emails found on the laptop ( Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No.1:18-cv-02105)).The new documents include an October 3, 2016, email to a FBI official in New York that reads:Shanghai (Gasgoo)- Tesla and Shanghai Municipal Planning, Land and Resources Administration signed a contract on October 17 saying that the Shanghai government will lease and transfer the right of using state-owned lands to the EV maker, which will make Tesla's Gigafactory in Shanghai's Lingang Area cover an area of over 1200mu (around 864,885 square meters), according to Tesla's official WeChat account.

Shanghai Municipal Planning, Land and Resources Administration said the plot of 864,885 square meters has been transferred at a price of RMB 973 million.

The Shanghai factory is Tesla's first Gigafactory outside the U.S.. The agreement we signed today is a crucial milestone for us to turn Shanghai factory into Tesla's next cutting-edge and sustainable manufacturing base, said Robin Ren, Tesla's vice president of worldwide sales.

Tesla signed an investment agreement on pure electric vehicle project with Shanghai Lingang Area Development Administration and Lingang Group on July 10. The American EV maker is planning to build the Gigafactory 3 there, which will be Tesla's wholly-owned subsidiary working on such businesses as vehicle R&D, manufacturing and marketing. Tesla plans to achieve an annual production capacity of 500,000 EVs at the Gigafactory 3, marking the largest foreign-funded manufacturing project in the history of Shanghai.

Shanghai Municipal Government and Tesla had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) in the same July. What's more, Tesla (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. and Tesla (Shanghai) Electric Vehicle R&D Innovation Center were also unveiled simultaneously.

According to the MoU, Shanghai will actively prop up Tesla to build a Shanghai-based subsidiary and an electric vehicle R&D innovation center, in order to help develop Shanghai's high-end manufacturing industry and enable the city to be a world-class auto industry center in the future.Shanghai (Gasgoo)- Baoneng Group, a China-based property and financial services conglomerate, and Kunshan municipal government, Jiangsu province, signed a range of investment cooperation agreements on October 16, which includes the program of building a NEV (new energy vehicle) base in Kunshan. Meanwhile, they also formed a partnership to jointly develop automotive e-commerce businesses.

The NEV program under the agreement will be Kunshan's first complete vehicle program, including such projects as Baoneng Auto Research Institute, vehicle assembly line, auto parts manufacturing base and automobile industry development fund, etc.

Established in 1992, Baoneng Group has formulated its nationwide development pattern so as to make further efforts to promote its 4+X industrial fields: urban comprehensive real estate development, modern logistic industry, cultural tourism and financial industry as its core businesses, and green agriculture, health care, education and elderly care as the strategic industry for people's livelihood.

The group has steered into vehicle building businesses in recent years. Last year, Baoneng Group registered an automobile subsidiary and signed agreements with local governments of Hangzhou, Kunming and Guangzhou for NEV programs. In last December, the group gained the qualification to manufacture vehicles by acquiring 51% stake in Qoros Auto.

Meanwhile, Baoneng Group is recruiting talents for its automobile cause. In February this year, Li Feng, former president of new technology research institute of BAIC Group, was hired as CEO of Qoros Auto and executive vice president of Baoneng Auto. After that, Cai Jianjun, BAIC Motor's former vice president and BAIC Motor sales company's former party secretary, executive director and general manager, officially joined Baoneng Auto as vice president and Qoros Auto's executive vice president.

Additionally, the group's NEV production base in Xixian New Area, Shaanxi Province (hereinafter Xixian base) officially started construction on March 23. The Xixian base, involving a total investment of around RMB 40 billion, possesses a planned annual production capacity of 1 million NEVs and other supporting facilities. Besides, it is expected that the output value of vehicles and auto parts will exceed RMB 100 billion per year.

The early planned NEV capacities for Baoneng Group's NEV plants in Kunming, Hangzhou, Xi'an and Guangzhou have by far aggregated over 2.3 million units on an annual basis, according to relevant reports.Egypt Today

Minister of Planning and Administrative Reform Hala el Saeed - File Photo

CAIRO - 16 October 2018: Egypts balance of payments recorded a surplus of $12.8 billion, compared to a deficit of $11.3 billion in 2012, according to Planning Minister Hala el-Saeed.

Saeed added that the volume of reserves now covers nine months of imports, compared to three months in 2012.

Regarding remittances from expatriates, she said that they increased to $26.4 billion, adding that exports marked an increase of 40 percent, targeting to hit 70 percent during the upcoming two years.

She further noted that political stability was reflected on the tourism sector, and revenues of the Suez Canal hiked 15 percent.

"We are shifting from an economy based on the exploitation of raw materials and natural resources to an economy whose focus is deepening domestic industrialization and human capital," she said, noting that the source of 5.3 percent growth comes from increased investment and net foreign trade, which is reflected in more job opportunities.

The minister referred that the overall economic and administrative reform program initiated by the Egyptian government in 2016 helped the country restore macroeconomic stability, with a growth rate of 5.3 percent at the end of 2017/2018, compared to a growth rate of 2.9 percent in 2014.

She also addressed the administrative reform system, referring to the restructuring of organizational units within the administrative system and the development of a number of new departments such as human resources, auditing and internal audit, strategic planning departments and policies.

Saeed said earlier that Egypt is expected to achieve a growth rate of 7.5 to 8 percent by the end of a four-year plan.Theres been increasing confusing over the legality of delta-8, a cannabis derivative that can be found in vape cartridges, tinctures and candy at smoke shops and CBD stores in Texas. While the Texas health department maintains that delta-8 is a controlled substance and is on the states list of unlawful drugs, the 2018 federal Farm Bill legalized the production of hemp, which naturally contains delta-8 and has less than 0.3% THC. In 2019, Texas also legalized hemp growing. Delta-8 retailers believed the substance was as legal to sell as hemp. Delta-8 is legal in Texas for now after a Travis County judge blocked the state from criminalizing it. Should delta-8 continue to be legal in Texas?

You voted: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.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.By Azernews





By Sara Israfilbayova

The average monthly pension in Azerbaijan as of October 1, 2018 increased by 8.4 percent compared to the same period of 2017, reaching 221.1 manats ($130).

The Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of Population of Azerbaijan reported that the average monthly old-age pension increased by nine percent to 249.1 manats ($146) over the same period.

Funds allocated for pensions were 7.6 percent or 186.9 million manats ($109) more than in the first nine months of 2017.

There are over 1.3 million people of retirement age in Azerbaijan, which is 13.2 percent of the total population of the country. Some 58.5 percent of pensioners receive an old-age pension, 11.5 percent - a pension due to the loss of a family member, and the rest - a disability pension.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on May 2, 2017 approved amendments to the law On Labor Pensions.

The amendments provide for the elimination of the concept of the basic part of the labor pension and the 12-year service required for the appointment of a pension, as well as the gradual increase in the retirement age for women and men up to 65 years.

The retirement age will increase every six months until 2021 for men, until 2027 for women. In view of the elimination of the concept of basic part of the pension, the law introduces the concept of minimum pension. The size of the minimum pension from January 1, 2017 is 110 manats ($64.7).

Another change is connected with the compulsory social insurance. So, now 90 percent of the deductions paid by employee on compulsory state social insurance will be reflected in his/her account.

Deductions are formed from two sources: the deductions made ??by the employer in the amount of 22 percent of the salary fund of the enterprise, and the deductions worth 3 percent of the employees wage. Formerly, only 50 percent of these deductions were reflected in employees account.By Azernews





By Abdul Kerimkhanov

Turkmenistan and the EU discussed the activation of energy cooperation, regional security, as well as the development of transport and transit routes connecting the region of Central Asia with European countries, Radio Azatlyk reported.

The official delegation of Turkmenistan headed by Foreign Minister Reshid Meredov visited Brussels on October 11-12 and met with the leadership of the EU and the European Commission.

This was the first visit of Resid Meredov to Brussels in the last 5 years.

During the meeting, further aspects of cooperation and partnership between the European Union and Turkmenistan, as well as regional security issues were discussed.

Official website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan states, on 12 October, in the first half of the day, a meeting of the delegation of Turkmenistan with the Vice-President of the European Commission for Energy Union Maros Sefcovic was held, during which issues of enhancing cooperation of Turkmenistan with the European Union in the energy sector were discussed.

Since 2011, the EU and Turkmenistan have been negotiating the construction of the Trans-Caspian gas pipeline to export Turkmen gas to Europe, as a result of the construction of a gas pipeline under the Caspian Sea, Turkmenistan will be able to export 30 billion cubic meters of natural gas to European consumers.

Turkmenistan has repeatedly declared interest in exporting natural gas to Europe.Facebook makes American society better

Facebook makes American society worse

Worse because of the way some people use Facebook

Worse because of the way Facebook itself is run

Facebook has no effect on American society

No opinion

Vote

View ResultsThe Abu Dhabi Fund for Development (ADFD) said that it has allocated nearly Dh11 billion ($3 billion) for development projects in the education and healthcare sectors to elevate the standard of living in developing countries and eradicate global poverty, a media report said.



In a report marking International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, which is observed on October 17 every year, ADFD, the leading national entity for development aid, highlighted its mission to help developing countries achieve sustainable economic growth and reduce poverty, reported Emirates news agency Wam.



ADFD provides concessionary financial resources in the form of loans that satisfy concessional conditions in accordance with the requirements of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD. The ADFD also manages Abu Dhabi government grants.



In cooperation with international financial institutions, the ADFD has worked to increase spending on key sectors such as health, food security, transport, housing, education, water, agriculture, and energy in order to reach the goals outlined by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs, as well as to achieve social and economic growth in developing countries.



Over the last four-and-a-half decades, ADFD has disbursed Dh81 billion in concessionary loans and government grants across 88 countries.



Mohammed Saif Al Suwaidi, director-general of ADFD, said, "The international community is taking great strides to improve the economic and social situation in many developing countries, which suffer from high rates of poverty and unemployment and the deterioration of health services and education. The International Day for the Eradication of Poverty is an opportunity to further mobilise international efforts and boost cooperation, ensuring the creation of job opportunities and overall socio-economic well-being."



Al Suwaidi added, "Over the years, the ADFD has intensified its efforts to finance health care as well as education projects, in particular, to reduce poverty rates and increase the standard of living in beneficiary countries."



In addition to supporting sustainable development in key socio-economic sectors, the ADFD aims to reduce poverty rates by contributing to the healthcare and education sectors.



Among the strategic healthcare projects funded by ADFD is the 200-bed children's hospital in King Hussein Medical City in Jordan. The fund earmarked Dh73 million for the first two phases of the project.



Fitted out with the latest medical equipment to offer specialised care and treatment, the hospital has contributed to the development of the healthcare sector in Jordan by enhancing the quality of health services available to its citizens. The ADFD also supported the expansion of King Hussein Medical City through the allocation of Dh735 million for the construction of a new 940-bed hospital, a state-of-the-art facility that can accommodate more than 1,200 patients daily. The ADFD also funded the Al-Bashir Hospital and the King Hussein Cancer Centre in Jordan.



In Pakistan, the ADFD provided Dh94 million to build the Emirates Hospital, an integrated specialty medical centre with 1,000 beds. The facility has the capacity to receive 6,000 patients daily. The hospital is also equipped with laboratories and lecture halls to train military personnel and civilians to perform medical duties.



In the Seychelles, the ADFD funded a Dh16.3 million integrated healthcare project that seeks to provide high-quality healthcare and treatment at an affordable cost.



In Turkmenistan, the fund allocated Dh 43 million for the development of a series of integrated health projects that aim to improve the quality of healthcare services offered by the government. The project involves the construction of specialty hospitals to treat complicated diseases in a bid to reduce disabilities and mortality rates among the population.



The ADFD also financed the construction of the Dh16 million Sheikh Khalifa Hospital in the Comoros and a Dh 562 million cardiac centre in Bahrain to reduce the pressure on specialised heart disease treatment facilities in the country.



In line with the Pakistani governments development goals, the ADFD has played a crucial and supporting role in improving and advancing the countrys education sector. In 2013, the ADFD managed a Dh46 million grant earmarked for training colleges. This project led to the construction of three training colleges for individuals living in remote areas, including Warsak College in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, and Wana College and Spinkai Cadet College, both of which are located in South Waziristan.



In 2009, ADFD allocated Dh7 million to fund expansion works at the Sheikh Zayed International Academy, SZIA, in Pakistan. In Afghanistan, the ADFD managed an Abu Dhabi government grant worth an estimated Dh27 million to develop the Sheikh Zayed University in Khost Province.



This grant helped source and enhance specialised faculties at the university, particularly in the fields of medicine, engineering, law, arts, literature, and education sciences, among other diverse disciplines. The project also includes vocational career support initiatives to prepare all students for employment and equip them with knowledge and capabilities to overcome socio-economic challenges.



In Morocco, the fund managed an Abu Dhabi government grant worth Dh239 million. The grant helped purchase equipment for the 916-bed Mohammed VI University Hospital in Marrakesh, a specialist medical complex that spans 8.8 hectares.The UAE has launched Madrasa, the largest free e-learning platform in the Arab world, a revolutionary new project under the umbrella of the Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Initiatives (MBRGI).



Launched by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, the platform offers 5,000 world-class Arabic educational videos, on subjects including science and mathematics, and targets all levels of school students from kindergarten to grade 12.



The pioneering project provides unique educational materials in Arabic, available online at no charge to over 50 million Arab students around the world and is the culmination of the Translation Challenge, an effort to bring volunteers together to translate 11 million words of educational content into Arabic.



Announcing the initiative, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum said: "Building a better future for our region starts in the classroom and e-learning can bridge the knowledge gap in the Arab world. Technology can offer millions of Arab students the opportunity to develop their scientific capabilities. We aspire to provide world-class education to every Arab child."



He added: "The project contributes to improving the quality of education in the Arab world, and I call on all those who have the ability to do so to launch similar initiatives.



Inviting all Arab students to use the Madrasa platform, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum said: My message to Arab students is: Education is your future and your weapon to navigate life.



Translation challenge



The Madrasa e-learning platform is the first outcome of the Translation Challenge initiative, launched by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum in 2017 with the aim of providing tens of millions of students in the Arab world with easy access to advanced, engaging and accurate audiovisual educational materials in Arabic.



Madrasa is the culmination of hundreds of thousands of hours of hard work put in by translators, proofreaders, designers, technicians, and voice-over artists who volunteered for the Translation Challenge.



The challenge aims to provide free world-class education to more than 50 million students, complementing the existing school system, enhancing educational content available in the Arab world, and empowering future generations to utilise their knowledge, hope, optimism, positivity, and self-confidence to contribute to an enlightened society.



School of the future



The project stems from the vision of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum to foster education in the Arab world, ultimately bridging the gap in the quality of education provided across Arab nations and enhancing the overall levels of knowledge among their populations. In addition, the e-learning platform develops the educational system through establishing the School of the Future concept.



Viewing education as a flexible system that constantly evolves to keep pace with the latest trends and scientific developments, the platform also promotes the decentralisation of education  the cornerstone of building a sustainable economy based on knowledge and innovation that empowers a new generation of Arab scientists, innovators, and engineers.



In the future, Madrasa will further enrich its content with new educational courses on subjects including Arabic language, computer science, engineering, programming, artificial intelligence, and space science. The platform will also build synergies with relevant leading institutions to advance education on a regional and global level.



User-friendliness



Madrasas minimal technical requirements and compatibility with the most common operating systems, such as Windows, Android, and Linux, enable users to access its free content across various electronic devices. The platform also features a variety of data storage solutions and search filters, allowing students to select information relevant to their level of knowledge.



Comprehensive educational process



Madrasa seeks to motivate Arab students to study scientific materials outside their regular school lessons through providing engaging and challenging content that encourages continuous self-learning, sourced and localised in line with the highest standards and international curricula. It also develops the learning capabilities of users, enhances their competitiveness and creativity, and sparks their scientific curiosity.



The e-learning platform aims to play a key role in building new generations of Arab researchers, scientists and innovators who will contribute to driving progress in their home countries, and developing a diversified and sustainable economy.  TradeArabia News ServiceWorld-renowned Dr Steven Victor from ReGen Medical, New York, will be in Dubai for three days to discuss the medical benefits of stem cell treatment, across orthopaedics, autism and beauty.



Dr Victor, from New York, is a leader in regenerative medicine specialising in regenerative cosmetic dermatology, rejuvenation and diseases of unmet clinical needs such as autism, diabetes, dementia and joint injuries. His experience in researching, developing and providing treatment spans over 30 years.

As well as being a world-renowned Medical practitioner and a well-respected expert in the field of dermatology, Dr Victor is a clinical expert in groundbreaking anti-aging and cellular therapy technologies, with a passion for creating safe, minimally invasive treatments that aid patients in living a longer, healthier, more beautiful life. His reputation for excellence has brought numerous worldwide celebrities, TV personalities and models to his practice.

On October 19 (Friday), Dr Victor will be discussing orthopedics and how you do not need surgery, as an alternative you can use your own stem cells; on October 20, he will be covering the topic of how stem cell treatment can now be provided in the cases for autism; on October 21, he will hold a beauty talk on how stem cell combats ageing process and how the treatment is related to beauty and rejuvenation.



All talks will take place at Emirates Hospital in Jumeirah from 6 pm onwards and are free to attend. -TradeArabia News ServiceSharjahs government departments and entities are showcasing online and digital services and smart applications they offer to the public and companies at the Gitex Technology Week, being held in Dubai, UAE.



Gitex Technology Week, a major information and communications technology (ICT) trade fair, opened today (October 14) and will run until October 18, at the Dubai World Trade Centre.



The officials of the various entities said that their participation in event is a demonstration of the advanced technological development achieved by the Sharjah Government, and a testament to the advancement of the emirate's digital transformation under its wise leadership, said a statement.



The 36 entities and departments participating in the Sharjah pavilion are presenting many online and digital services, initiatives and smart applications, which facilitate transactions and procedures for customers and add to the rich variety of services provided by Sharjahs government entities.



Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed Al Qasimi, director general of Sharjah eGovernment Department (DeG), said: The DeG and the Higher Committee of the Sharjah Pavilion strive to actively participate in building a knowledge-based society in Sharjah.



We seek to achieve digital transformation, in line with the vision of HH Sheikh Dr Sultan bin Muhammad Al Qasimi, Member of the UAE Federal Supreme Council, and Ruler of Sharjah, to elevating Sharjahs position as a world-leading model city and driving Sharjahs transformation into a future government, he said.



To this end, we are utilising cutting-edge digital systems and smart applications to provide innovative services to residents and visitors delivered by highly-qualified nationals through streamlined procedures that are in accordance with best international standards, he added.



Al Qasimi continued: The Sharjah pavilion in the event aims to shed light on the state-of-the-art technology trends adopted widely across government entities in Sharjah, underlining the emirates tireless efforts to achieve sustainable development and integrate modern technology across all fields.



We expect that the pavilion will be a key attraction to visitors and specialists from around the world, as this year, it features a unique design and several interactive experiences, he said.



Major General Saif Al Zari Al Shamsi, commander-in-chief of Sharjah Police, said: Our continuous participation in the event is part of our ongoing commitment to advancing the smart services system, which aims to further enhance the services we provide.



It is also part of our keenness to learn about the latest technologies showcased at the event, which will contribute to further strengthening our security services and developing police work in line with the latest technological trends, he said.



Al Shamsi added: Our participation this year allow us to highlight our achievements in this area and illustrate how our various applications work through an interactive platform showcasing our smart services. In addition, we hope to underscore our initiatives, projects and efforts that seek to provide further security to residents and visitors.



Sultan Abdullah bin Hadda Al Suwaidi, chairman of Sharjah Economic Development Department (SEDD), said: Our participation will demonstrate our latest technological strides and qualitative developments in digital services and initiatives, offering customers and investors various channels to view updates without the need to contact us.



Our keenness to participate in this international event is driven by our focus on ensuring the success of the Sharjah pavilion and to explore the best inventions and practices in the digital sector seen across the online portals of participating international companies and institutions, he said.



Al Suwaidi continued: We are currently collaborating and coordinating with various entities in Sharjah towards becoming a smart government in accordance with the directives of HH Sheikh Sultan bin Muhammed Al Qasimi, and with the support of HH Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, Crown Prince and Deputy Ruler of Sharjah. This support drives us to work with untiring dedication and speed to realise both the Sharjah strategy and the UAE vision.



Our digital transformation rate has reached 100 per cent, as all our services are now digital. This achievement marks our continued work to grow and plan Sharjahs economy by providing unparalleled and advanced services to investors, as part of our comprehensive development strategy for achieving a competitive and diversified economy based on knowledge and innovation, as well as our efforts towards furthering the ease of doing business in Sharjah, he added.



Al Suwaidi said: The digitisation of our services complements the UAEs vision of developing a smart government system to streamline transactions and services, and to achieve better customer satisfaction. These will help save time and effort thus boosting business activity and encouraging investors to benefit from what Sharjah offers, and in turn driving the growth of the economy and achieving our sustainable development objectives.



Bjorn Kjerfve, chancellor of American University of Sharjah (AUS), said: The universitys participation is part of our pledge to further the UAEs efforts towards building a knowledge-based economy.



We are working passionately to realise the vision of HH Ruler of Sharjah to integrate innovation across all government operations. We are striving towards becoming a leading research centre, which is demonstrated in the engineering and design projects that we will showcase at Gitex, Kjerfve concluded.  TradeArabia News ServiceThe unique and first Critical App Challenge for the Middle East and North Africa, organised by Airbus, has ended with an award ceremony at the Gitex exhibition, being held in Dubai, UAE, this week.



Gitex Technology Week, a major information and communications technology (ICT) trade fair, which opened on October 14 will conclude tomorrow October 18, at the Dubai World Trade Centre.



An independent jury picked four outstanding applications for the Tactilon Dabat which were developed for public safety and industries in the Middle East, said a statement.



Among the 40 companies which participated in the online contest, the companies BRAQ Aerospace (Saudi Arabia), Delta Smart Technologies (Turkey), epic.blue (Belgium) and Steerpath (Finland) presented the most convincing app solutions, it said.



The challenge was to find the best digital communication solutions for various industry staff, policemen, firefighters or paramedics who need specialised communication solutions for their regions in North Africa and the Middle East. The applications can be used on the Airbus device Tactilon Dabat, the worlds first smartphone and Tetra radio in one, it added.



A total of 40 companies proposed new ideas to Airbus within a limited amount of time in the past weeks. They had to hand in the proofs of concept of their product idea. The independent jury consisted of seven representatives from the telecommunication companies Nedaa and Moteco, the Dubai Police, Dubai Civil Defence, and Airbus. Airbus supported and initiated the entire event.



Selim Bouri, vice president and head of Middle East, North Africa and Asia-Pacific, Secure Land Communications at Airbus, said: This pioneering App Challenge for this vast region triggered a spirit of ingenuity in the app developer community.



Our company provides the right platform to gather those ideas and bring them to the regional public safety markets, he added.



In any case, those who enrolled for the Critical App Challenge gained joint cooperation possibilities with Airbus. They will be registered for the SmarTWISP program if they meet the Airbus prerequisites. Those who are interested in becoming a partner of this program can check out the Secure Land Communications website.



They will find a starter kit which helps make new mission-critical applications. Once approved for a free membership, subscribers can access guidelines, tools and the application programming interface (API). Furthermore, members benefit from special training, tools, and reward scheme, it stated.  TradeArabia News ServiceMore than 220 delegates attended the recent TMS Tanker Conference, following its move to The Atlantis Dubai, in Dubai, UAE. The visitor numbers jumped 90 per cent, officials said.



Trevor Pereira, managing director, TMS, said: We moved the conference to The Atlantis to ensure not only that we could meet growing demand from the market, but also that the venue was really upmarket as is befitting for such an elite group of tanker industry professionals.



The big rise in delegate numbers shows this was the right strategy, but also how topical and relevant the topics on the agenda were in taking the event to a whole new level, he said.



This was the third annual tanker conference staged by The Maritime Standard and took as its theme Getting the most out of more positive markets.



Clive Woodbridge, conference editor, said: Despite well-documented politico-economic concerns, there are some cautiously optimistic signs that the tanker trades are in recovery mode.



Delegates were able to hear from a wide range of top quality speakers, with expertise in different aspects of the market, who suggested some interesting future-looking strategies designed to overcome any obstacles and ensure that all available opportunities in a market upturn are fully grasped, he added.



Keynote addresses were given by Sheikh Talal Al Khaled Al Sabah, chief executive of the Kuwait Oil Tanker Company and Dr Nikolas Tsakos, chairman of Intertanko.



In addition, Shahab Al Jassmi of DP World stepped into give the keynote address for Abdullah Bin Damithan, chief commercial officer, DP World, UAE Region.



The case for a more optimistic assessment of the tanker business was persuasively made by some of the most influential and expert figures in the business. These included Captain Abdulkareem Al Masabi, chief executive officer, Adnoc Logistics & Services; Captain Anoop Kumar Sharma, chairman and managing director, Shipping Corporation of India; Tarik Al Junaidi, chief executive, Oman Shipping Company; Khamis Juma Buamim, managing director and group chief executive, Gulf Navigation Holding; and Chris Peters, chief executive, E Ships.



Other speakers who made a big impact, in discussing support infrastructure and services, included Petros Doukas, chairman, Capital Partners; Rajiv Agarwal, managing director and chief executive, Essar Ports; Tim Smith, director, Maritime Strategies International; and Gaurav Moolwaney, executive director, Standard Chartered. This session was chaired by Captain Jitendra Misra, from Emarat Maritime.



Environmental regulations, safety and security remain hot topics for the industry and the third and final session kept people in their seats. Chaired by Ibrahim Fahmy, Adnoc Offshore, speakers included Captain Stephen Bligh, DNV GL; Waleed Al Tamimi, chief operating officer, Tasneef; June Manoharan, regional director, Lukoil Marine Lubricants; Captain Tony Field, Lloyds Register; Peter Sahlen, R&D manager, and Roger Harfouche, regional director, Marlink.



Woodbridge added: The feedback we received from this year's conference was overwhelmingly favourable, and there was a great atmosphere in the ballroom with lot of interaction between panellists and audience.



We are pleased that the conference strengthened its reputation as the leading meeting place for senior figures from the tanker industry and provided such a vibrant opportunity to exchange information and market insights, he concluded.  TradeArabia News ServiceThe commissioning of Yanbu South Terminal (YST) this week marked the addition of 3 million barrels per day to Saudi Arabia's west coast export capacity.

The first VLCC was loaded at the terminal on October 12.

Yanbu South Terminal, which is located south of Yanbu City on the west coast of Saudi Arabia, consists of a tank farm and offshore facilities to receive, store and load Arab Light (AL) and Arab Super Light (ASL) crude oil.

The facilitys integration with the existing crude oil supply network adds 3 million barrels per day to Saudi Aramcos export capacity through the west coast, thereby reinforcing the reputation of Saudi Aramco as a reliable energy supplier to customers throughout the globe, said an Aramco statement.

The terminals programme was designed and executed in accordance with the latest Aramco engineering standards and specifications where operational, safety and environmental systems are state of the art.

The successful startup of Yanbu South Terminal is another milestone in reinforcing Saudi Aramco position as the worlds leading integrated energy and chemicals producer, operating in a safe, sustainable, reliable and environmentally-friendly manner, said Abdullah M Al-Mansour, executive head of pipelines, distribution, and terminals.

The successful commissioning and operation of Yanbu South Terminal is a testimony of the Companys agility in responding to the business environment, and a demonstration of the fine calibre of individuals and teams who will lead the company into the future to support the countrys vision, said Abdulaziz M Al-Judaimi, senior VP , Saudi Aramco Downstream. - TradeArabia News ServiceCanada-based Stallion.AI, an artificial intelligence (AI) research and development company, recently launched a branch in Dubai offering advanced AI solutions in multiple languages including English and Arabic.



It will act as a one-stop shop for all AI-enabled solutions and products, a company statement said.



One of the value-added services it offers is to consult on behalf of enterprises in determining what their AI needs are and offering the right technology strategies, data strategies and business solutions.



Stallion.AI has a team of top PhDs and machine learning experts, data scientists, engineers, and talents with expertise from the best AI R&D labs in the world, and proven experience in diverse AI and machine learning solutions for government and corporate clients across different industries, according to the statement.



Our mission is to empower Menas future economy by helping public and private enterprises rapidly apply AI and machine learning to achieve short and long-term goals and create additional value, said Samer Obiedat, chief executive officer. To achieve this goal, we have partnered with many of the worlds greatest minds in the AI industry.



At Stallion.AI, some of the AI solutions include:



(1) Multilingual chatbots which are designed to cater to the needs of the retail, hospitality, banking, healthcare, real estate, and other consumer-facing sectors. Their sophisticated technology understands more than 90 per cent of customer queries and provides a 24/7 customer-interfacing portal. Although the common risks associated with AI includes anxiety over human replacement, Stallion offers their clientele expert advice not only on exploiting AI solutions but on maximizing human potential in other high-value business related tasks;



(2) Document Analysis Technology that processes and analyzes English and Arabic documents within seconds and provides a holistic analysis including risk and control identification.



Obeidat explained: Large enterprises are currently spending hundreds of thousands of hours every year on manual review of agreements, reports, and audits . Stallion is offering this technology to different government bodies and large banks in Canada and Switzerland, and currently negotiating deals with many other large enterprises in the middle east.



This state-of-the-art technology also plays a big role in the future of Human Resources as it is able to analyze thousands of resumes and extract key professional and educational elements suited to each job description;



(3) Image Analysis and Interpretation Systems that methodically examine huge volumes of video data, from street cameras, retail space cameras, mobile cameras and aerial platforms to: estimate crowd sizes and movements; perform facial recognition and vehicle recognition; identify shopping patterns and detect security risks.



Stallion.AI is building the worlds first bilingual chatbot for the healthcare sector to help patients chat with their virtual healthcare assistant to check doctors availability, book appointments, check the validity of their insurance cards, pay for their visits, and request their medical reports without leaving the comfort of their homes.



This technology will not only save patients time, money and effort but will also save hospitals over 40 per cent of their operating expenses across different departments. Investifai has leveraged Stallions AI capabilities by procuring a deep learning technology called Reckon 360 which manages investment portfolios without any human interference.



Just to be clear, this is not another robo-advisor. This is an advanced AI technology (Deep Learning tech) that weve built during the last couple of years and is able to generate higher risk-adjusted returns even during market turbulences, Obeidat said.



Our intelligent portfolio comprises of over 10 different asset classes in over 70 countries around the world and is able to reallocate assets based on whats happening in the global markets, he added.



The same team also offers Sefwa, the worlds first AI-powered Islamic investment fund.



The company is currently offering a one-hour free evaluation to public and private enterprises who wish to strategize the inclusion of AI into business-related processes.  TradeArabia News ServiceSTC Solutions has partnered with F5 Networks to deliver Web Application Firewall (WAF) services to STC customers in Saudi Arabia.



Announced at Gitex Technology Week, the partnership will help STC customers to securely scale operations while coping with an intensifying cybersecurity threat landscape and Saudi Vision 2030 demands.



F5s WAFs monitor and block HTTP/S traffic to and from web applications for protection against malicious attempts to compromise systems or exfiltrate data. The solutions encompass attacks such as cross-site scripting, SQL injections, cookie poisoning, Layer 7 DoS, web scraping, brute force and credential stuffing.



The announcement follows on from F5 recently being named a Leader in the Forrester Wave: Web Application Firewalls, Q2 2018 report.



Attack surfaces are rapidly expanding as businesses look to scale and take advantage of cloud-based technologies, said Fahad AlJutaily, vice president, Cybersecurity, STC Solutions.



F5 Networks is a longstanding and trusted partner with an exceptional track record in the WAF space. Together, we can offer a powerful and increasingly vital range of solutions to help safeguard Saudi organisations futures, as well as elevate their ability pioneer new services. This will be particularly important as we accelerate our support for major digital transformation initiatives associated with Saudi Vision 2030.



Key technologies set to make an impact under the agreement include the F5 Silverline Web Application Firewall, which is a cloud-based service featuring 24x7x365 support from highly specialized security experts. The solution is available as a fully managed service for comprehensive and customized app protection, or as an express self-service for rapid deployment of expertly maintained policies.



The partnership also entails giving STC customers access to F5s recently launched Advanced WAF (AWAF) service using a variety of consumption and licensing models. The technology helps SecOps better collaborate with modern DevOps and NetOps teams to easily deploy application protection services in any environment.



Its holistic approach to application security reduces management complexity, decreases OpEx, and efficiently delivers services to neutralize attacks.



STC Solutions has a hugely impressive history working with organizations to ensure they can securely scale at speed and with optimal freedom to innovate, said Diego Arrabal, VP  Middle East, Turkey & Africa, F5 Networks.



We are delighted to once again partner with STC Solutions to make a genuine difference, and jointly bring to market industry-leading cybersecurity solutions that protect against application exploits, deter bots and, crucially, reduce costs in the cloud.  TradeArabia News ServiceDubai Roads and Transport Authoritys (RTA) Dubai Taxi Corporation (DTC) has launched its Al Yamama initiative where DTCs taxis will be fitted with smart cameras.



These cameras will monitor the movement of the taxi driver and objects in the interior and exterior of the vehicle.



DTC unveiled the initiative at Gitex 2018 as part of RTAs participation in the event that attracts a large number of visitors, traders and business leaders who are keen to keep abreast of the latest technologies. The project is a pioneering step aimed to enhance the credentials of Dubai as the smartest and happiest city in the world.



The launch of Al Yamama initiative is a quantum shift in harnessing artificial intelligence in the taxi transit service. Al Yamama will enhance the traffic safety through providing accurate information about taxi accidents, maintaining monitoring 24/7, and providing detailed information and reports about the condition of RTAs assets and facilities, said Dr Yousef Al Ali, CEO of Dubai Taxi Corporation.



Al Yamama reads billboards and directional signage on streets and identifies prime locations for placing new billboards. It also sends continuous updates about geographical information as well as new areas and roads in Dubai, he added.



Through this initiative, Dubai Taxi Corporation is aspiring to achieve its strategic goals, i.e. smart mobility and people happiness, concluded Al Ali.  TradeArabia News ServiceBahri, a global leader in logistics and transportation, has been recognised with two awards for its exceptional level of performance in the maritime business and its contributions to the industry at The Maritime Standard Awards 2018.



The awards seeks to recognise the achievements of the maritime industrys most outstanding performers across the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent and celebrate and reward their successes. The event took place at Atlantis The Palm in Dubai on October 15.



Hisham Alkhaldi, sebior vice president for HR & corporate communications, Bahri, and Khalid Alhammad, senior manager  Vessel Group, Bahri Ship Management, accepted the coveted titles of Shipping Company of The Year and Ship Manager of The Year, on behalf of the company, said a statement from Bahri.



Held under the patronage of Sheikh Ahmed Bin Saeed Al Maktoum, president of Dubai Civil Aviation Authority and chairman and chief executive of Emirates Airline and Group, the awards ceremony saw the presence of industry stalwarts and high-profile executives, it said.



Alkhaldi said: We are delighted to take home the prestigious awards, which recognise Bahris achievements that have had a significant impact on the regions maritime sector.



These accolades are a testimony to our robust performance driven by the steady expansion of our market footprint and the continual improvement of our maritime capabilities, he added.





He continued: We believe that the Maritime Standard Awards 2018 recognition will inspire us to further enhance our offerings and unlock value to our customers and shareholders.



We will continue to serve as key force playing an instrumental role in the advancement of the maritime transportation sector, while remaining committed to the highest standards of customer service, safety, and environmental performance, Alkhaldi concluded.  TradeArabia News ServiceThe Middle East is increasingly embracing fintech. The number of fintech startups in the region is predicted to reach 250 by 2020, and investment in technology-based initiatives and fintech developments is also on the rise.



While in 2016 fintech investment in the region totalled $18 million, last year that number was surpassed with a single $20 million contribution to a single payment solutions company, rising to $35 million overall .

But why is fintech experiencing such substantial growth in the Middle East? A key reason is the increasing recognition of the benefits of using technology to enhance transaction banking  including trade. Trade processes can be costly and slow, with paper-based tasks increasing labour costs and decelerating cash flow. Administrative, manual documentation required for trade operations can prevent staff from concentrating on more strategic priorities, further driving down efficiency. Such inefficiencies mean that the industry is experiencing increasing demands for digital change.



Cutting-edge technology can transform the trade space



Yet, this is far from a bleak picture. It is simply a call for change. And a number of new initiatives and developments offer the potential to generate the evolution required in Middle Eastern trade.



Artificial intelligence (AI) is one example. AI refers to simulated intelligence in machines that have been programmed to mimic human action and rational thought. As AI can be used to replace certain simple, paper-based, manual procedures with automation, it holds significant promise with respect to helping to streamline trade processes; improving transparency, reducing costs, accelerating cash flow, and  importantly  freeing staff to focus on more strategic operations, which drives up efficiency.



Moreover, with manual trade instruments often used as a tool to facilitate fraud, AIs ability to automate trade services has the potential to enhance security. For example, PayTabs a Saudi-based payment solutions company  features an AI data protection programme that has blocked over $400 million worth of fraudulent transactions. Given the global rise in attempts at financial fraud, such innovation could be particularly significant.



A new branch of AI known as machine learning has vast potential. Machine learning refers to the ability of applications to use statistical techniques and datasets to learn how to identify patterns and trends  and then apply this knowledge and understanding to then think in a logical way. Its practical functions are varied. For instance, machine learning enables algorithmic trading  basically, AI systems that make extremely fast trading decisions and chat-bots and robo-advisors that can enhance banking experiences for clients.



Robotic process automation (RPA) is also innovating trade services. Currently, banks are exploring the use of RPA to automate simple, standard business processes. Not only do robots eliminate the manual burden of administration  saving time and money  they can also improve standards of accuracy as robots are not vulnerable to human error. RPA has been harnessed by BNY Mellon to streamline trade settlement by resolving inconsistencies, performing research on orders and clearing trade transactions.



Elsewhere, banks are increasingly leveraging application programming interfaces (APIs) to enrich the client experience. An API is a software intermediary that allows two applications to talk to each other. APIs can therefore be used by banks to enable systems to share information, creating digital ecosystems that connect different parties to provide value-added services.



Another important fintech initiative that has the potential to enhance trade is blockchain technology. A blockchain is a digitalised, decentralised ledger that is inviolable and transparent. The technology records digital information and adds it to its database in chronological order  allowing market participants to keep track of transactions without a central controlling body.



Trade services often involve ecosystems of external partners, with each independent participant further decelerating the process. As blockchain facilitates transactions under one system, ongoing developments aim to support faster trade operations. While blockchain holds a great deal of promise, it remains in the very early stages of development, and much is yet to be understood about how it could be successfully applied to corporate transactions.



The Middle East embraces fintech



Given the enhancements technology could provide, governments across the region are now implementing various services to support the regions thriving fintech ecosystem. For example, the Bahrain Economic Development Board launched the Bahrain Fintech Bay earlier this year to support local fintech start-ups. It partners with large financial and non-financial companies to support the countrys digital transformation.



From a regulatory perspective, governments are also accelerating development through sandboxes, which permit businesses to test innovative products under a firm-specific licensing regime for a limited testing period.



Such sandboxes also allow governments to learn about new technologies and help shape regulations accordingly. A number of accelerator programmes featuring sandboxes have been launched across the Middle East. For example, in collaboration with Accenture, the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) launched the FinTech Hive. The Hive offers 12-week programmes allowing fintech start-ups to experiment with their platforms .Elsewhere, in Lebanon for instance, there are currently eight incubators and accelerators that provide financial support and training to fintech companies.



The degree of receptiveness to fintech change varies across the region. Yet, with the Middle Easts trade landscape formed largely of family businesses with long-established, traditional business methodologies  there is understandably a degree of caution by some with respect to implementing significant change and unfamiliar processes.



In order to harness the benefits technology offers and meet the needs of clients, banks in the Middle East should therefore re-evaluate their traditional models to bring value-added capabilities to clients, whilst also ensuring they are mindful of delivering a customised experience that supports the diverse expectations across the region.



Certainly, it is important to understand that employing cutting-edge technology for technologys sake is not an optimised strategy. Banks need to assess what digital strategy works best for their clients, and prioritise how technology can add value accordingly.



Collaboration facilitates change



Fintechs are playing a key role in helping Middle Eastern banks digitalise their offerings. By working together, banks and fintechs can combine their strengths to create enhanced solutions for clients, combining bank security and expertise with fintech innovation and efficiency.



While a bank-fintech relationship is clearly beneficial, a number of challenges hinder such collaboration. Resources can be limited, and some regional banks prefer to concentrate their investments elsewhere. Fortunately, a tripartite relationship between local banks, global banks and fintechs facilitated through correspondent banking partnerships  can help by facilitating widespread participation.



By working with fintechs, global banks can develop initiatives and digital solutions that can then be made available at a local bank level. This provides local banks with access to the initiatives necessary to enhance their operations. All parties benefit: local banks gain access to technology solutions to improve their trade processes, global banks benefit from unrivalled country-specific insights and expertise of local banks, and fintechs gain from the extended reach, resources and experience of banks.



The fintech landscape in the Middle East is gathering pace, and as client requirements continue to evolve, banks in the region must ensure they are able to adapt to the new, increasingly digital environment.



It is through collaboration  working closely with clients to understand their needs and how technology can add value; and aligning with a correspondent bank to harness the strengths of local-global partnerships that banks in the region can ensure they are equipped to deliver the technology capabilities needed to enhance trade for clients across the Middle East.



The views expressed herein are those of the author only and may not reflect the views of BNY Mellon. This does not constitute treasury services advice, or any other business or legal advice, and it should not be relied upon as such.



About the author



Bana Akkad Azhari is head of Relationship Management MEA & CIS at BNY Mellon, a US-based worldwide banking and financial services holding company headquartered in New York City.Flag carrier Oman Air has been awarded the Signum Virtutis, the seal of excellence, from the Seven Stars Luxury Hospitality and Lifestyle Awards 2018.



The airline was voted winner for the best airline in the Middle East, Africa and Europe. Competitors included leading international airlines from around the world.



The ceremony took place recently at the five-star Out of the Blue Capsis Elite Resort, located on Crete, Greece and was attended by leading representatives of the hospitality and luxury industry from all over the world.



The Seven Stars Luxury Hospitality and Lifestyle Awards, known as the Oscars of Luxury throughout the industry, was created in order to identify and to distinguish the exceptional from amongst the very best. The seal of excellence serves as a guarantee of the product's authenticity to the luxury consumer and is the highest most exclusive award in its category.



The awards evening also recognised other winners from different categories in the luxury travel and lifestyle sector including Best Luxury Hotel, Best Spa and Best Airport Lounge.



Engineer Abdulaziz Al Raisi, Oman Airs chief executive officer, said: It is an honour and pleasure to be awarded for excellence in this prestigious ceremony. This award win reflects our continuous efforts as an airline to maintain our leading position in the industry. At Oman Air, we have set a high standard when it comes to our product offerings and onboard experience, and it is immensely gratifying and motivating to see Oman Air recognised as an airline of distinction. I am really appreciative of everyone who voted for us. - TradeArabia News Service

The top team from Alpha Destination Management will be attending the World Travel Market in London, led by the companys CEO Ghassan Aridi, from November 5 to 7.



He will be accompanied by Samir Hamadeh, general manager, and Zeina Al Sayegh, product manager - UK Market, for Alpha.



Elaborating on the significance of WTM London, Hamadeh said: Western European countries led by the UK and Germany rank among leading markets into our destination. Demand for overseas holidays for the region from these countries continues to be strong. At the same time, outbound tourism for the UAE from developing markets in central and eastern Europe is forecast to grow. At Alpha, we are well placed to capitalise on these growth opportunities being a well-established brand among the top tour operators in the UK and the rest of the continent. Commanding 40 per cent market share from the UK, Alpha enjoys a pivotal position in the tourism sector



Giving details of the existing and upcoming business deals lined up at the show, Hamadeh revealed: WTM, where we have been exhibiting for the last 21 years, offers us the perfect platform to connect and conduct business with our valuable partners. Last year we signed some very significant contracts during the exhibition with leading companies such as Destinology, Hayes & Jarvis, Travelopia Group, If Only, and Winged Boots. This year, we will be formalising a major agreement with On the Beach, the fifth largest tour operator in the UK, operating 1.5 million British tourists into the Mediterranean region every year, and Dubai will be their first long haul destination. Their expectation in three years is to be among the top three tour operators to the UAE from the UK.



Hamadeh further added: In addition to this we are scheduled to sign a major commitment deal during the fair, adding an additional 50,000 room nights in the next three years into one of the UAEs northern emirates. This is a commitment towards the destination by one of the leading tour operators in the UK. Further details will be announced during the fair.



Dubai is among the top four most visited cities in the world and the best performer in the Mena region. With Expo 2020 on the horizon, the GCC represents high growth potential for the travel industry worldwide. Hamadeh stated: Dubais tourism offerings have evolved in response to market demand, increasing the emirates attractiveness among target visitor segments across key guest markets and UK is among the top three source countries for Dubai. The various visa initiatives have further fuelled growth by not only easing access into the city, but also introducing our amazing destination to new source markets around the globe.



Speaking about the expectations of tourists from the UK, Hamadeh said: Travellers from the UK are looking for greater value and unique experiences. The more the destination creates attractions and tailors its product to cater to UK tourists, the better conversion it can expect. Dubai is moving away from being a city you must visit, to a city you must experience. Our approach to UK has to be different than other markets and key to that is coming up with new ideas to grow stopover business. In order to support Dubais goal to attract 20 million visitors annually by 2020 and maintain a stable momentum of growth, there is need for new packages and offers with added-value to entice transit passengers to stay for least one night rather than simply pass by. At Alpha, we are also focusing on promoting Dubais strong calendar of events to excite more travellers to come over."



WTM London is a leading global event for the travel industry, registering more than 50,000 participants in 2017, including 10,500 buyers conducting business worth over $4.02 billion. Organisers are predicting a record year for 2018, boosted by a strong contingent of exhibitors from the Middle East region. WTM London will add seven regionally-focused Inspiration Zones to the show this year  UK & Ireland, Europe & Mediterranean, Middle East & North Africa, Asia, International and Africa  to make the event more focused on specific destinations. - TradeArabia News Service

Travelport has secured seven new agreements in Europe to deploy Trip Assist, its advanced mobile application for travel management companies and travel agencies.



The announcement was made during the companys exclusive Travelport Live Europe event in Rome, Italy, which was attended by over 200 business leaders from across the region.



The new agreements are with four Hungary-based travel agencies - Weco-Travel, Air Partner, utazom.com and OTP Travel, two UK-based agencies - Amber Road Travel and Lycafly, and Italy-based Regent International.



Since the mobile solution was launched in May 2018, Travelport has now secured more than 20 Trip Assist customers across the world.



By signing up for Trip Assist, the agencies will benefit from a fully branded mobile engagement solution that allows them to support, engage and connect with travellers at every stage of their journey. Incorporating smart itinerary management capabilities and the ability to create agency defined messages and rich push notifications; the solution will empower the agencies to build stronger relationships with their customers.



Trip Assist will support travellers by allowing them to share and organise their complex travel plans on the go and from one place. It will also give them greater autonomy to self-serve with features that enable airline check-in, the ability to import external bookings and click to call support. By giving travellers more control, the solution will also provide the agents with more time to spend on more specialist travel enquiries.



Matt Lambert, operations director for Amber Road Travel, said: Todays travellers expect support delivered 24/7 throughout their journey. Trip Assist will allow us to directly provide this via the platform travellers value most on the go  mobile. We are confident the tool will help us deliver a new standard of service, which helps further set us apart from our peers.



Balazs Horvath, managing director of Weco-Travel, commented: Success today is defined by the experience you provide to travellers. The more youre able to shape their experience from the moment they purchase a trip to the time they return home, the more chance you have of delivering something truly memorable and encouraging repeat custom. We believe Trip Assist will play a major role in helping us in this area. - TradeArabia News Service"As for arms sales, someone needs to brief Mr. Trump on the actual results of the promises made to him when he visited Riyadh last year. As Bruce Riedel of the Brookings Institution sums it up, The Saudis have not concluded a single major arms deal with Washington on Trumps watch. Moreover, an end to supplies of U.S. spare parts and technical support, something Russia cannot provide, would quickly ground the Saudi air force. That would have the welcome effect of ending a bloody bombing campaign in Yemen that a U.N. investigation concluded was probably responsible for war crimes." Washpost

-----------

Once again, I am not a great fan of Bezos or his blog, but two days in a row they have printed something I can agree with. Something has changed for him.

It has become a meme in the blather that runs shrill and shallow in the US media, that Saudi Arabia is a faithful, and indispensable ally of the US in the ME. Bezos disputes this and so do I.

A few points:

Yes, they chop heads off after Friday prayers outside the local mosque. They also do hands and feet. They stone to death women found guilty of adultery. They sew them in bags before the men present throw handy five pound rocks at them. The government is deeply approving of this. Sound familiar? Yes, it should. The jihadis whom the Saudis sponsor in Syria do the same things. The Sunni jihadis are nearly defeated in Syria and it has become clear that the Saudi government has been evacuating their leaders, probably with US connivance, so that they can pursue greater visions of jihad elsewhere.

The importance of Saudi Arabia in the world oil market is IMO now much exaggerated. They can undoubtedly do some damage by manipulating the short term contract (spot) market but this is something they would pay for heavily. The Kingdom is cash strapped. It was not for nothing that MBS turned the Ritz Carlton in Riyadh into a prison for the wealthy including many of his own kin in order to squeeze and in some cases torture them into handing over a lot of their cash to the government. Depressed petro sales at artificial prices will only further reduce revenue to the government.

The notion that Saudi intelligence contributes much to the GWOT is a joke. Saudi intelligence competence is something that exists only in pitchmen's claims voiced by TV touts. In fact, they get almost everything they have from the US and are like greedy baby birds always looking to be fed. They cannot organize a trip to the gold plated toilet. It took 15 of them to ambush Khashoggi, well, OK, 14 of them and a doctor to carry the electric bone-saw.

We need to sell them more equipment that they cannot use? It does not appear to me that any of the contracts that they promised to DJT has been signed. Their technique is simple. Keep the hope of profit for the US alive as leverage.

Lastly, the chimera of a great Arab alliance (a la NATO) is delusory. The Saudis lack both the organizational ability for such a thing and significant military power. They possess one of the world's largest static displays of military equipment. They have neither the manpower nor the aptitude to use such equipment effectively. As I have written previously, the Gulf Arabs have long had such an alliance. It is the GCC and it has never amounted to anything except a venue for the Arab delight in meetings and blather.

The basis for the desire for such an alliance is the Israeli strategic objective of isolating Iran and its allies; Syria, Hizbullah and Hamas with an eventual hope of destroying the Iranian theocracy. Israel is frightened of a possible salvo of many thousands of missiles and rockets into Israel from Lebanon as well as an eventual successful creation of a missile deliverable nuclear weapon by the Iranians. These are real and credible threats for Israel, but not for FUKUS. Israel has only two really valuable counter-value targets; Haifa and Tel Aviv. A hit on one or both with a nuclear weapon would be the end of Israel. The Israelis know that.

Adroit information operations carried out over generations by the Israeli government and its supporters have created in the collective US mind an image of Iran as a disguised 3rd Reich. This was well done. The same operation was run against Iraq with magnificent results from the POV of Israel

Saudi Arabia is a worthless ally. pl

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/who-needs-saudi-arabia/2018/10/15/3ebe473c-d0a1-11e8-8c22-fa2ef74bd6d6_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.a339b03b5abf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.China has been warned it must do more to lure neighbouring countries away from the US orbit, according to a report that predicted the US would continue acts of provocation in the South China Sea. South China Morning Post reports in its article Beijing warned to prepare for more US provocations in South China Sea that the analysis, by a think tank affiliated to the State Council, the countrys cabinet, said the Trump administration would seek to demonstrate US power and resolve because every time China makes an economic, political or security advance in the disputed waters it would be seen as a challenge to the current US-led order.

The research noted the US was expanding its cooperation with regional allies such as Australia and Japan and predicted a long-term struggle to win the support of Southeast Asian countries.

It also warned that Washington was seeking to gain the moral high ground by depicting Beijings behaviour as irresponsible by undermining the regional order and international law.

It concluded that under such an environment, Beijing has no other choices but to make more friends with countries from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

The analysis drew on US President Donald Trumps public comments and government documents such as the National Security Strategy and National Defence Strategy.

The report, by He Xianqing, an associate researcher at the National Institute for the South China Sea, was firstly published in Xiamen Universitys quarterly publication Southeast Asian Affairs and then made public on Monday via the institutes social media account.

Chinas struggle with the US over the South China Sea will be long-term, said He.

The two nations will also have a long-term rivalry over gaining the support of Southeast Asian nations.

Chinas wide-ranging claims in the South China Sea are contested by a number of neighbouring countries, including Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and the self-ruled island of Taiwan. But Hes analysis urged Beijing to put sovereignty issues aside and seek to build cooperation with neighbouring countries to jointly exploit oil and gas reserves in the waters and seek to build cooperation in less sensitive areas such as maritime rescue, research, anti-terrorism and environmental protection.

China and the United States are locked in an increasingly bitter rivalry, which has spilled over into a stand-off between the two countries navies in the disputed waters.

Last month, a Chinese Luyang-class destroyer came within 41 metres (45 yards) of the USS Decatur near the contested Spratly Islands in an operation described by Washington as unsafe and unprofessional and by Beijing as a necessary defence of its territory.

US Defence Secretary James Mattis, who is currently visiting Vietnam, will go to Singapore later this week for an Asean defence ministers meeting, during which the maritime dispute is expected to top the agenda.

Adam Ni, a visiting fellow at the strategic and defence studies centre at Australian National University in Canberra, said the Trump administration was attempting to push back against Chinas assertiveness and demonstrate US power.

US-China relations have shifted to a much more competitive footing in the last 12 months, and we are likely to see an intensification of strategic competition between US and China in the years ahead  The struggle for the moral high ground on South China Sea will continue, and affect how these countries deploy and use their military forces, said Ni.

Benoit Hardy-Chartrand, adjunct professor of political science and international affairs at Temple University in Japan, said although the US had been at the forefront of the opposition to China in the South China Sea, external actors such as Japan were becoming increasingly involved. This trend is not likely to slow down, so we can expect further tensions with China, he said.Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Morteza Sarmadi met with Tajik Foreign Minister Sirodjidin Aslov on the sidelines of the SCO summit in Dushanbe last Thursday to discussed bilateral ties and boosting cooperation. The Tajik minister, in turn, recalled the history of relations between the two countries, noting that Iran has always supported the development of regional countries, including Tajikistan. Meanwhile, Vestnik Kavkaza learned that at the meeting the sides also discussed the fate of the Iranian embassy building, which was earmarked for demolition.

In translation from a diplomatic language, the Iranian side tried to convince Dushanbe at a meeting to prevent a final break in relations. Or, at the least, avoid such pushy and demonstrative actions as pending the demolition order in respect of the Iranian embassy, even under the specious pretext of building a new government complex in Dushanbe, which will be built with Chinese money.

According to the member of the Iran-East Institute's Scientific Council, doctor of historical sciences Igor Pankratenko, this attempt by Tehran had no chance to succeed: "President of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon and his entourage consider todays demonstrative hatred of Iran and blaming it for everything wrong with the world as a pass to a new bright world. The world, where the rain of Saudi investments is poured over Dushanbe, and Donald Trump will welcome the Leader of all Tajiks and the Father of the whole nation with open arms into the modern "Fellowship of the Ring," combating the 21st century Mordor - Tehran."

However, recently, Tajikistan said that Iran is a friendly country, and their people are relatives. Both countries speak Farsi, the only difference is writing. Iran's one is based on Arabic script, Tajikistan's one is Cyrillic. Over 20 years, about 180 intergovernmental agreements have been signed. Iran implemented two investment projects in the post-Soviet republic: the Sangtuda 1 HPP and a five-kilometer tunnel in the Sughd region. The Islamic Republic of Iran provided political support to Tajikistan, especially during the 1992-1997 civil war. There was a Committee in Dushanbe to assist Tajik citizens, including financial aid. Iran has allocated a grant of $35 million to Tajikistan to build new schools.

Relationships between the two countries have started in 2013, when local businessman Babak Zanjani, accused of corruption ties with the Tajik government, was arrested and later sentenced to death in Iran. Zanjani exported Iranian oil bypassing the sanctions. The Iranian court claimed that Zanjani laundered $2 billion through the National Bank of Tajikistan. This money he allegedly stole in the Iranian Oil Ministry. Speaking with Iranian media, a member of the investigative committee on the Zanjani case, Amir Abbas Soltani, claimed that Zanjani had paid $3 million to a high-ranking representative of the National Bank of Tajikistan in order to get a false document. Sultoni said that the billionaire paid the money to the deputy chairman of the National Bank of Tajikistan. At the same time, he did not name the deputy. Amir Abbas Soltani also claimed that Zanjani had previously presented a document to the Iranian parliament, which showed that the money had been transferred to Iran's Central Bank from the Tajik National Bank. However, Dushanbe rejected this accusation, denying the possibility of a corrupt connection with the Iranian oligarch. However, Tehran is reluctant to execute Zanjani, hoping to get their money back with his help.

Having a grievance with Iran, Dushanbe accused Tehran of involvement in the coup d'etat in 2015, which was allegedly prepared by the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT) and its leader Muhiddin Kabiri. According to the Tajik version, Iran funded this party. As a result, the IRPT was recognized as terrorist organization in Tajikistan, and its activities were prohibited on the territory of the country.

Muhiddin Kabiri's meeting with Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei on the sidelines of the international conference and a picture of them together made a lot of noise. After that, Dushanbe restricted imports from Iran, stopped preferential issuance of visas to its citizens and began to shut down Iranian companies in the republic.

In less than three years, Iran has turned from a "brotherly state", a reliable business partner and one of the co-sponsors of ending the fratricidal war in Tajikistan, into a monster who was planning several coups in the republic and the assassination of prominent members of the political elite. Dushanbe even tried to accuse Iranian agents of attacking and killing Western tourists, which shocked Central Asia this summer, but then ISIS (banned in the Russian Federation) convincingly proved that the attack was carried out by its members, and not some members of the IRPT, not yet annihilated by the valiant Tajik security forces.

"There's nothing special about Rakhmons irrational hatred for Tehran. Such phenomena are not uncommon in recent history of Central Asia, the Near and Middle East, it is enough to recall how the Muhammad Salih case affected Uzbek-Turkish relations. The problem for Iran is that the sudden outbreak of Iranophobia in Dushanbe was in demand in certain circles in the international arena and was easily capitalized," Pankratenko believes.

Saudi Arabia seeks to occupy the niche previously occupied by Iran. Earlier, Wahhabism was perceived as a threat in Tajikistan, now suitable conditions have been formed for it, since its main competitors, Iran's Shiites, have been eliminated. Saudi Arabian Ambassador Abdulaziz bin Mohammed Al-Badi told the Tajik news agency 'Avesta': "Saudi Arabia is not one of those countries that talks about permanent friendship with the Tajik people, but then sticks its knife in the back." He explained that he was referring to "Iran's dubious and suspicious activities in Tajikistan."

The head of the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Centre, Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Rabeeah, said that the organization has invested $9.5 million in humanitarian projects over the past three years. In particular, the center allocated more than $1 million to the modern Emergency Committee training center with furniture and equipment, which was opened in early October. In addition, the Saudi delegation took part in the launch of a humanitarian project worth $6 million in the south of Tajikistan - Hamadoni district. Shore protection works along the 20 km sides of Pyanj River are planned there. Acts of nature will no longer threaten the area's population of 135 thousand people, and over 14 thousand hectares of farmland will be protected during flood and rain seasons.

According to Igor Pankratenko, the Saudi capitalization was not very significant. Dushanbe is praised for its adherence to the anti-Iranian position, it is promised all sorts of bonuses, but they have to wait. When it comes to assessing Riyadh's direct financial injection to Tajikistan, then the overall figures, about $65 million over the past two years, or $110 million during the establishment of diplomatic relations, do not look impressive. "Rakhmons ability to damage Iran is quite limited, and if this is the case, so why pay a lot? But the Leader of the Nation and the Founding Father do not lose hope to earn money on the conflict with Tehran. Therefore, the level of hostility towards Iran will not decrease in the near future," the expert noted.Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim Al-Jaafari has urged the Arab League to accept Syrias membership once again, as part of the intensified efforts of the Syrian regime and its allies to bring the seven year conflict to a conclusion. Middle East Monitor quotes Al-Jaafari in its article Iraq FM: Syria should return to the Arab League: No one can isolate Syria. The Syrian government is strong facing hardships. He also called for dialogue in order to restore ties as soon as possible.

The Arab League, which includes some 22 member countries, froze Syrias membership after the eruption of the civil war in 2011, which was followed by sanctions and the severing of diplomatic ties between regional governments and the regime of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad.

The Syrian premier, who was also at the press conference, thanked the Iraqi government for its continuous support over the past seven years, attributing recent victories against fighters in Syria and Iraq to mutual cooperation between the two countries.

He stressed the importance of upgrading and consolidating bilateral ties, and advocated for a greater effort to reopen border crossings.

Yesterday, the Nassib border crossing between Jordan and Syria officially opened to civilians and trade, for the first time since it was closed three years ago. The Syrian government successfully retook the area around the Nassib border crossing with Jordan in July after a Russian-backed offensive expelled opposition groups from their stronghold in the southwest of the country.

The Quneitra border between Syria and the Israeli occupied Golan Heights was also reopened yesterday, bringing the crossings four year closure to an end. UN observers, who had fled the area in 2014, have slowly returned and restarted patrols, ensuring that both sides adhere to the 1974 agreement which established a buffer zone between the two states.

Ibrahim Al-Jaafari

The opening of the crossing is a signal of the return of stability to Syria and the failure of the efforts to divide the country, Syrian army Brigadier Mazen Younes told reporters.

As the war winds down, the Syrian government has attempted to re-establish ties with regional and international actors to support its claims of victory over opposition fighters, who are largely confined to the northern province of Idlib.

We are now witnessing the early fruits of victory, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Al-Moallem said at the press conference yesterday, adding that the real victory would come when the government recaptures its territory in full, citing areas in the north including Idlib, still outside government control.

Last month, a deal brokered by Russia and Turkey averted a regime offensive on the northern opposition stronghold, home to some three million people. Initially met positively by both sides, optimism drained following revelations that the 15 to 20 kilometre buffer zone was to be absorbed entirely by opposition-held territory in Idlib, with no military withdrawal on the part of the regime. Whilst heavy weaponry was withdrawn by all major factions in accordance with the deals stipulated deadline yesterday, the longevity of the deal remains uncertain.Ankara will continue natural gas drilling work around the island of Cyprus towards the aim of sharing resources fairly, Turkey's foreign minister said on Tuesday. Anadolu Agency agency quotes Mevlut Cavusoglu in its article Turkey to continue gas drilling work around Cyprus: "Turkey will not allow unilateral activities [in the Eastern Mediterranean]. We need to protect the rights of Turkish Cypriots with actual steps."

Turkey has consistently contested the Greek Cypriot administrations unilateral drilling activity in the Eastern Mediterranean, saying Turkish Cypriots also have rights to the resources around the area.

"We will continue drilling activities around the island. We're not trying to fight with anyone. Our aim is a fair sharing of resources. However, everyone should know that we will not let the rights of Turkey, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), and Turkish Cypriots be violated in the Eastern Mediterranean," he added.

Cyprus was divided into a Turkish Cypriot state in the north and a Greek Cypriot administration in the south after a 1974 military coup was followed by violence against the islands Turks, and Turkeys intervention as a guarantor power. In 2017, after two years of negotiations, the latest attempt to reunify the long-divided Mediterranean island ended in failure.

Cavusoglu said Ankara has made efforts to find solutions to the Cyprus issue for many years. He added that it makes no sense for Turkey to sit down again just to re-start Cyprus talks, adding: "Results are needed."

Cavusoglu said Turkey is open to any idea for solving the issue. "We need to reach a political solution via diplomacy and peaceful negotiations." Also addressing the symposium, Kudret Ozersay, the TRNCs deputy prime minister and foreign minister, said the TRNC wants to turn Cyprus into an energy and electricity hub. Ozersay said a paradigm change is needed for the Greek Cypriots' defense and military cooperation in the Eastern Mediterranean.

He added that the Greek Cypriot administration is seeking more cooperation with Egypt, Israel, and Greece. "Our desire is to end migrant problems and humanitarian crises, and also to use trade and the economy in an interdependent way. This is the ideal way," Ozersay said. He added that economic interdependence would reduce the risk of instability and clashes.The Armenian parliament will continue to work after the dissolution, deputy head of the parliament staff Arsen Babayan wrote on his Facebook page, Arka News Agency reported.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan resigned October 16 to clear way for the dissolution of the parliament and holding early parliamentary elections on December 10. On the same day, Armenian President Armen Sarkissian accepted the resignation of the government.

According to Babayan, in accordance with part 5 of Article 90 of the Armenian Constitution, after the dissolution, the parliament retains its powers in full until the first session of the newly-elected National Assembly, formed as a result of snap parliamentary elections.

Pashinyan will stay in charge as acting prime minister, and members of his Cabinet will also continue to perform their duties.An explosion rocked a polytechnic college in Kerch, the east of Crimea, today, leaving a number of people dead and injured, a source in the local emergency services said.

"The blast occurred this afternoon. There are deaths and injuries. Emergency services are heading to the accident scene," TASS cited the source as saying.

"According to preliminary data, nearly 70 people were injured," the source said, noting that the exact number of deaths will be reported later.

According to the city ambulance, 18 injured persons were hospitalized, and 50 others may be sent to hospital soon.Baku hopes for more understanding from Yerevan in the talks on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov told EURACTIV.

"There is no sustainable development without building a good neighborhood policy. And the biggest part is for sure the withdrawal of Armenian troops from the occupied territory of Azerbaijan and the return of the internally displaced persons to their places of origin," the minister stressed.

"I think we made a pretty good progress in the negotiations even with the previous administration, but now there is a new one and probably they need a little bit more time to learn about whats going on in the talks," the diplomat suggested.

They need the educational process, to learn who is who and what is what, including in the negotiation process, Mammadyarov added.The German government and Chancellor Angela Merkel are offering their condolences to the people injured in the attack on a college in Crimea's Kerch earlier on Wednesday and the families of the victims, Steffen Seibert, the spokesman for the government, said, UrduPoint reported.

An attack, which left at least 19 dead and almost 40 injured, appears to have been carried out by a young man, who shot at other college students and may have detonated an explosive device.

"Devastating reports of the attack on a school in Crimea: Chancellor Merkel mourns the many lost young lives. Our sympathy goes out to the families of the victims and all the injured," Seibert said on Twitter.Irans Revolutionary Guards said they had killed the 'mastermind' behind an attack on a military parade in Ahvaz last month.

The Guards said in a statement published on state media their forces had killed a man named Abu Zaha and four other militants in Diyala province in Iraq.

One news website run by Irans state television said Abu Zaha was a member of ISIS, Reuters reported.

At least 25 people died and 60 were injured when four gunmen fired on the Iranian military parade in the Iranian city of Ahvaz in late September. Half of those killed were members of the Guard.US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said that Washington may lift sanctions imposed on Turkeyduring the dispute over its detention of a US pastor, Al Jazeera reported.

"We'll have a decision on that shortly but some of the sanctions that were put in place were directly connected to Pastor Brunson and there's a logic to now removing those as well," Pompeo told reporters as his plane refuelled in Brussels, Belgium.Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko has expressed condolences over the explosion at the Kerch Polytechnic College, his press service said on Wednesday, TASS reported.

"Why is it important for us? Because they are Ukrainian citizens. Certainly, when Ukrainian citizens are killed, wherever it could happen, it is a tragedy," Poroshenko was cited as saying by his press service which added that "the president offered sympathy to the Ukrainians who lost children, friends and relatives."Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted his Egyptian counterpart Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi for talks focusing on ways to boost trade between the two nations.

The two leaders have developed a close personal rapport and are seeking to expand bilateral ties, which have strengthened considerably over the past few years.

"We are very glad to see our friends in Russia and share opinions on the development of bilateral relations and on regional problems here in Sochi today," Putin said, starting off the restricted negotiations.

The Russian leader stressed that the economic ties between the two countries are successfully developing. "Last year we stated a sharp 62% growth in the trade turnover, plus 28% in the first six months of this year," TASS cited him as saying.

Putin stressed that it is the result of the diversification of bilateral ties. "They are rather diversified. They include agriculture, industry, equipment and vehicles," the Russian president added.

El-Sissi called on Russia to resume direct flights to Egyptian resorts, which Moscow suspended after a bomb planted by the ISIS brought a Russian passenger plane down over Sinai in October 2015, killing all 224 people on board.There are no alternatives for the Russian pipeline gas on the European market, Russian Deputy Energy Minister Anatoly Yanovsky said, adding that other suppliers cannot offer such low prices.

"Neither the Americans, nor the Qataris, nor the Norwegians, nor Africans can supply such volumes for a low price like that," TASS cited the deputy minister as saying.

Yanovsky considers it necessary for Russia to let its European partners have a try to agree with other suppliers. "They will eventually turn to us all the same, no one wants to spend cash," he said, adding that foregone volumes of gas exports to Europe will not be critical for Russia if the European Union attempts to work with other suppliers.

"Speaking about the structure of our revenues, exports of the fuel and energy complex amounts to around 60%, with gas totaling around 12%. It appears that the decrease of supplies of those 10-20 bln cubic meters will not have a decisive influence on the countrys economy," Yanovsky explained.

Poland's PGNiG signed a 20-year contract with the US Venture Global LNG on supplies of 2 mln tonnes of liquefied natural gas per year to Poland on a free on board formula.The Georgian Chief Prosecutors Office announced that they have recordings which prove that the previous, United National Movement leadership was plotting to kill Georgian billionaire Badri Patarkatsishvili.

Former official of the Constitutional Security Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs under the United National Movement government G.M. has been detained, while two other former top figures of the same agency L.K. and R.Sh have been charged for plotting murder and abuse of authority.

The Prosecutors Office said that they seized two recordings in 2016 which included conversations regarding the plotting of the murder of Patarkatsishvili, who had to flee Georgia in 2007 as he was accused of plotting a coup.

"The recordings were made on 4 and 5 February of 2007 and the three individuals who have been charged speak about scenarios of how to kill Patarkatsishvili. They say that they are collecting information about Patarkatsishvilis bodyguards and the personnel and are also discussing poisoning the man with a substance which gives the impression of natural death," Agenda.ge cited the office as saying.

The Prosecutors Office stated that Patarkatsishvilis murder "was sanctioned" by former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and all the details of plotting of murder were agreed upon with the former head of the Constitutional Security Department Data Akhalaia, who is wanted by Georgian law enforcers.

The Prosecutors Office explained that they have been studying the materials and questioning related figures over the course of two years.

Patarkatsishvili was found dead on 12 February, 2008 at his Surrey mansion in England.

Political scientist Gela Vasadze, speaking to Vestnik Kavkaza, noted that the general prosecutor's office reported not on disclosing Patarkatsishvilis murder, but on opening a criminal case regarding the plotting of the murder. "The prosecutor answered negatively to the question whether the plotting of the murder led to the murder. The case was open based on the audio files with conversations saying that it would be good to eliminate Badri Patarkatsishvili, because he is an enemy of the state. Three participants of the conversation are already in jail, the issue with the last one is being resolved, he explained.

According to the political scientist, Georgian society wonders why the case was opened now, if the files were made public in 2016? "It is clear that this is an attempt to steal the spotlight from the audio files and recordings of conversations being held about the actions of the current authorities," the expert said.

The issue of Mikhail Saakashvili's return to Georgia is not relevant now, he specified. "Everything depends on the outcome of the presidential election. If suddenly the current or next president signs a pardon decree, then he returns. Therefore, I think that no one, even Mikhail Saakashvili himself, does not discuss this issue now," Gela Vasadze concluded.Armenian President Armen Sarkissian has held a meeting today with Ambassador of Russia to Armenia Sergey Kopirkin, News.am reports.

Sarkissian and Kopirkin discussed the bilateral relations agenda, particularly attaching importance to enhancing and deepening partnership in the academic-educational and humanitarian fields.Saudi Arabia's top diplomat in Istanbul Mohammed al-Otaibi has reportedly left Turkey, hours after it was announced his official residence would be searched in connection with a journalist's disappearance.

The Saudi consul general apparently left on a 2pm flight as security forces set up barricades outside his residence in the city, Sky News reported.

It comes as police who searched the nearby Saudi consulate found evidence dissident writer Jamal Khashoggi died there, according to a senior Turkish official.

Khashoggi, a 60-year-old US resident, has not been seen since entering the building on 2 October to get documents for his wedding. There are claims that he was killed and dismembered inside the building by a 15-member Saudi "assassination squad". Saudi Arabia called the allegation "baseless", but reports suggest they may admit he died during a botched interrogation.A government plane carrying U.S. President's wife Melania Trump was forced to turn around and return to an air base in Maryland after smoke filled the cabin, according to reports

The government jet was 10 minutes into the flight to when Secret Service agents leaped up and dashed to the front of the plane. Moments later a thin haze of smoke began enveloping the plane and the burning smell became stronger.

Journalists aboard the plane told how they were given wet towels to hold over their faces, the Sun reported.

The plane was en route to Philadelphia this morning when a pilot was forced to return to Joint Andrews Air Force Base because of what turned out to be a mechanical issue.

Melania Trump was headed to Philadelphia to address a hospital conference on neonatal abstinence syndromeThe United States policy is to compete with Russia on the global energy market, U.S. President Donald Trump said.

"Look at my policies on energy Im opening up our country to natural gas and oil. It is competition for Russia," the American leader said in an interview with Fox Business.

He emphasized that it was him who had raised the issue of Germany paying "billions of dollars" for Russian natural gas.

"Everyone knew about it, but no one talked about it. I made it a big issue, Trump added.

Earlier, Trump said that Germany was completely controlled by Russia through natural gas supplies. He believes it absolutely impermissible for Germany to pay billions of dollars for Russian gas and planning to build a new pipeline to bring it in (Nord Stream 2) while the United States must defend it as a NATO ally by disproportionally spending more on defense than Berlin does, Sputnik recalls.US President Donald Trump said Wednesday the United States has asked Turkey for audio and video recordings related to Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, who disappeared earlier this month after he was seen entering the Saudi consulate in Turkey, The Washington Examiner reported.

We have asked for it, if it exists, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.The Trump administration is working with countries on a case by case basis to ensure that their purchase of oil from Iran comes down to zero as soon as possible, a top U.S. official said.

In a conference call with reporters , the U.S. Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook said that their goal remains getting countries importing oil from Iran to zero as quickly as possible.

"We are working with countries that are reducing their imports on a case-by-case basis to assure that this happens. We are confident that energy markets will remain stable," the Economic Times cited him as saying.

"We are seeing a well-supplied and balanced oil market right now, and we should focus on these fundamentals and not be distracted by the emotional and unbalanced claims coming from Tehran. We are going to continue to coordinate very closely with oil producers. The U.S. is doing its part to maintain supply," Hook added.

On November 4, a second batch of potentially more crippling sanctions will be re-imposed on Iran's oil and shipping sectors as well as its central bank. The US has asked buyers of Iranian oil to cut imports to zero starting in November.Why do young people throughout the West have an increasingly positive view of socialism? The answer has been ferreted out between the lines of a survey recently conducted for the Charles Koch Institute.

Young peoples infatuation with socialism remains one of the most lamented (or celebrated) facts of the cultural landscape  but both sides agree, it is an undeniable fact. Americans under the age of 30 hold a more favorable view of socialism than capitalism, according to a Gallup poll conducted in August. A Wall Street Journal poll from September found that people under age 35 nearly twice as likely to view socialism in a favorable light than senior citizens. One-in-three people under 30 believe the United States would benefit from adopting socialist economic policies, per a survey conducted by Fox News in July.

The same phenomenon is replicated across the transatlantic sphere. A poll conducted on behalf of CapX in August found that socialism is more popular than capitalism among people under the age of 45. Although most young Britons are more likely to have a negative view of socialism than a positive view, outright majorities see capitalism as either somewhat negative or very negative.

Chillingly, more than one-third of people aged 18 to 34 believe Communism could have worked if it had been better executed.

Those with more economic acumen (and gray hair) wonder aloud, why has this come to be? Dont they see Venezuela? Havent young Brits read about Harold Wilson?

It certainly helps that young peoples experience with socialism has been constrained to the purely theoretical. Communist atrocities find no place in school textbooks. Socialism is never described as the collectivist economic force that transferred all the means of life  and death  to political elites.

For the most part, they neither know nor remember the postwar era.

But they do remember the government bailing out financial institutions and other bad actors.

The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, which established the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), marks its tenth anniversary this year. It earmarked $700 million in bailouts  but economists argue the total federal intervention into the banks reached well into the trillions, in addition to tens of billions for the auto industry.

For the anniversary last month, the Charles Koch Institute conducted a poll that found a plurality of Americans believe government should have let bad actors, who were labeled too big to fail, go bankrupt. A large majority believe government bailouts create a cycle of financial misbehavior, leading to more government intervention.

So far, that tells us nothing about millennials embrace of socialism. But drill down into the data, and an answer begins to take shape.

People between the ages of 18 and 24, alone, believe the government should have bailed out more companies.

They are the most likely to believe the bailouts were intended to benefit the companies employees, rather than shareholders or creditors.

People 18-34 are more likely to believe the bank bailouts were helpful for the economy  but also to believe that the bailouts harmed them personally.

The takeaway? They believe someone else benefited from the policy, at their expense.

Furthermore they are the most likely to believe that the bailouts resembled other forms of government subsidies.

This has taught them a few lessons:

The governments job is to bail out those in economic trouble, even if its their own fault. They perceive that corporate welfare allows companies to net private profits and collectivize losses. They rightly believe financial leaders bank on the government rescuing them from the folly of their fiscal ways.

Government intervention is benign. The political leaders sold TARP and associated policies as necessary for all Americans. Millennials just believed the rhetoric.

Government subsidies should be more widely shared to help more people. Since they see no distinction between bailouts and other forms of federal spending, they want their share of the benefits. To this day, Wheres my bailout? nets 20,000 search results, even with Googles more restrictive criteria. If banks and corporations receive government bailouts, certainly young people can have free tuition, a guaranteed job, and free healthcare. And that is the road to socialism.

The UK had its own series of bank bailouts between 2007 and 2010, with associated losses for the taxpayers continuing to pile up. It is not inconceivable that young Brits learned similar moral lessons.

The Left is right to say the budget is a moral document. The TARP bailouts taught a generation of people to disregard the virtues of self-reliance, prudence, and personal responsibility.

Thanks to the Charles Koch Institute for bringing these facts to light.The Church is the Soul of an empire. There can be only one center. For the present Orthodox Church it is Moscow! The Church will vitalize the empire and the empire will stress the importance of the Church. Constantinople is over and Ukraine is a pawn

I am thinking that geopolitics have runneth over into Orthodox church politics. Lets not forget that Patriarch Bartholomew is supported by the American Greek Orthodox church, and other behind the scene groups and would thus be influenced by America with money and other illegal support

Hmm.Catholics support this move! Hmm

The Orthodox Church is on the brink of a new Great Schism | CatholicHerald.co.uk

For centuries, the archbishops of Constantinople could credibly claim to be the Ecumenical Patriarch. Their see was the New Rome, centre of the oikoumene, the inhabited world. Today, their successor, Patriarch Bartholomew, looks beleaguered. The guards around his residence in the Phanar quarter of Istanbul reveal his threatened position in an increasingly Islamified Turkey. But now he seems poised to gain other powerful enemies, this time within the Orthodox Church itself, by unilaterally recognising a Ukrainian Orthodox Church independent of Moscow.The renascent Church of Russia, thought to comprise more faithful than all the other Orthodox Churches combined, covets Constantinoples leadership role. Styled the Third Rome since Tsarist times, Moscow believes geopolitical reality should give it more weight than Bartholomews aura of the Byzantine past.

Source: The Orthodox Church is on the brink of a new Great Schism | CatholicHerald.co.uk

and

US officials openly reveal the fact that the Patriarchate of Constantinople is under the auspices of the US administration.In the same time way, in April of 2018, the former US Ambassador to Ukraine, and now the ambassador to Greece, Geoffrey Pyatt[18] visited Mount Athos and without any concealment, wrote on Twitter that he:Had the honor of meeting Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos at Vatopedi. We had an important discussion on Orthodoxy worldwide, and U.S. support for the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

Source: What moved Patriarch Bartholomew to lay to ruin Ukrainian Orthodoxy? / OrthoChristian.Com

Dont play the video unless you like heavy metal rock like I do.well, I like all music, just about. Rap kinda sucks.and it is what they play in McDonalds around Moscow.ewwww.

Lets dance to a Holy War

WtROct 17, 2018 | By Thomas

XJet, the Israeli company that develops ceramic and metal 3D printing solutions, has officially opened its Additive Manufacturing Center in Rehovot.

With an investment of over 10 million dollars, the 8,000 square foot facility in Rehovot Science Park is home to the largest collection of metal and ceramic 3D printers worldwide, comprised entirely of XJet Carmel AM systems.

Leveraging XJets patented NanoParticle Jetting (NPJ) technology, the XJet Carmel line of AM systems enables ceramic and metal 3D printing by using nanoparticle inks of either material to build objects up. More specifically, XJets NanoParticle Jetting technology uses sealed cartridges filled with solid nanoparticles in a liquid suspension. When these are loaded into the 3D printer, they are jetted using a complex system of nozzles, which deposit ultrafine drops of the build and support material inks onto the build tray. Inside the build envelope, extremely high temperatures effectively evaporate the liquid suspension of the ink, resulting in dense layers made from ceramic or metal. Finally, once the printing process is complete, the printed parts can be sintered and support materials can be removed.

Due to its unique approach, the NPJ technology produces highly complex parts with superfine details, smooth surfaces and pinpoint accuracy. According to the company, The AM Center aims to support XJet in developing new 3D printing materials and applications.

XJet CEO Hanan Gothait, said: The new AM Center is a crucial part of our pursuit for wide-ranging multi-material printing. XJet Carmel AM systems are currently available with one of two printing materials, stainless steel or zirconia. Our vision is a platform that prints with a multitude of metals and ceramics on the same part. We will use the AM Center to develop and demonstrate specialized applications, print test parts for our global customer base, and trial new metal and ceramic materials.

We have very high goals and expectations for the AM Center and, as such, have placed our best resources here, led by Dr Ophira Melamed. Under her expert guidance Im very excited to see what the AM Center will deliver.

The AM Center inauguration follows less than a year on from the commercial launch of XJets first AM system. XJet also announced that it has chosen UK-based Carfulan as its first official distributor. The company, in attendance at the opening, will receive the first Carmel AM system by the end of the year.

Im extremely proud of the progress made by the XJet team over the last year. In addition to opening the AM Center, which will speed up operations at XJet, we also held our first open house event at YBI in North America, and started working with a turnkey manufacturing company, states Gothait, NPJ technology delivers a step change in metal and ceramic additive manufacturing, and with huge potential in each market were working hard to build an infrastructure to support the rapid growth we will drive for the business. We look forward to sharing even more progress with the wider community at formnext next month.



Posted in 3D Printer Company

Maybe you also like:











Liquid silicone rubber

Growing demand for Liquid Silicone Rubber in surgical tools estimates the growth of Liquid Silicone Rubber Market by 2023

Market Introduction 

Liquid silicone rubber (LSR) is a pure platinum-cured silicone elastomer. Market Research Future (MRFR) has published and released a research report about the global liquid silicone rubber market that predicts growth for this market during the forecast period between 2016 and 2023.

The primary factors and trends enhancing the growth of the global liquid silicone rubber market include growing the demand for LSR in equipment and surgical tools required for the treatment of the rising geriatric population. Electronic industry is rising due to extensive research and development in innovating material technology. The rise of the electronic industry will also aid the growth of global LSR market. Growing markets of some products whose manufacturing requires LSR can also aid the growth of LSR market. Other factors benefitting the LSR market growth include changing the standard of living, demand for electronics and consumer goods, easy compatibility of products, and rapid urbanization.

Key Players

The key players in the global liquid silicone rubber market include Dow Corning Corporation (USA), Elkem Group (China), KCC Corporation (South Korea), Momentive Performance Materials Inc. (USA), Reiss Manufacturing Inc. (USA), Shin-Etsu Chemical Co., Ltd. (Japan), Simtec Silicone Parts, LLC (USA), Stockwell Elastomerics Inc. (USA), Wacker Chemie AG (Germany), and Zhejiang Xinan Chemical Industrial Group Co., Ltd. (China)

Sample Report Pages ofLiquid Silicone Rubber Market Research Report- Forecast till 2023@https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/5421

Latest Industry News

German chemical company, Wacker Chemie, will soon expand its ACEO 3D printing services for silicone rubber by opening a US-based printing lab later this year. The facility is the companys first regional 3D printing lab outside of Germany. It will be located at Wackers R&D center for silicones in Ann Arbor, Michigan. 20 SEP 2018

A group of South Korean companies has signed an agreement to acquire MPM Holdings Inc., the parent company of Momentive, the global silicones supplier, for about the US $3.1 bn. The 9 businesses run by Momentive include ceramics, coatings, electronics, elastomers (heat cured rubber and custom compounds and liquid silicone rubber), sealants, silanes (including those for tire and rubber), specialty fluids, quartz, and urethane additives. 15 SEP 2018

Segments:

The global liquid silicone rubber market has been segmented on the basis of application, grade, and lastly, region. The application-based segmentation of this market segments the market into automotive, consumer goods, electrical & electronics, medical and others. Based on grade, the market has been segmented into food, industrial, and medical.

Regions:

Latin America has anticipated witnessing higher growth in the market during the forecast period due to increasing demand for liquid silicone rubber in many segments mentioned in the report. The significant country-specific markets in this region are Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico, followed by the rest of Latin America. After North America, Europe is the third largest market for LSR. The MEA region has been estimated to witness remarkable growth in the market due to factors that include growing adoption of liquid silicone rubber in consumer goods and healthcare industries. The key country-specific markets in this region are Bahrain, Turkey, Israel, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, North Africa, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates (UAE), followed by the rest of MEA region.

The report projects Europe to witness higher growth rate during the forecast period due to technological advancement to manufacture LSR in end-use industries. In this region, the growth of the market has been attributed to the growing demand for lightweight material in the automobile industry and growing mergers & acquisitions among the leading companies. These country-based markets that benefit most from these factors are France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Russia, and the United Kingdom (UK), followed by the rest of Europe.

The report predicts significant growth for North America during the forecast period. The major factors enhancing the market growth in this region include growing application of LSR in the electronic industry, installation of huge research and development (R & D) facility, rising expenditure on medical devices, and technological advancement in medical devices. Many key players in the North American, as well as global market, are based in the United States of America (USA), the strongest economy in this region. Another important country-specific market in this region is Canada.

Exclusive Report Details are Available@https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/liquid-silicone-rubber-market-5421

Geographical Analysis

The report covers brief analysis of the major geographic regions namely Asia Pacific, Europe, North America, Latin America, and the Middle East & Africa.

Intended Audience

Liquid silicone rubber market manufacturers

Traders and Distributors of Liquid silicone rubber market

Production Process Industries

Potential Investors

Raw Material Suppliers

Nationalized Laboratory

Media Contact

Company Name: Market Research Future

Contact Person: Abhishek Sawant

Email: Send Email

Phone: +1 646 845 9312

Address:Market Research Future Office No. 528, Amanora Chambers Magarpatta Road, Hadapsar

City: Pune

State: Maharashtra

Country: India

Website: https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/liquid-silicone-rubber-market-5421Online Quran Tutor

Pakistan has turned into a worldwide center for online Islamic instructional classes and courses as an ever-increasing number of individuals in western nations end up keen on studying the Holy Quran, reported Washington Post.

The matter of instructing from a large number of miles away, utilizing new technologies, for example, Skype, is flourishing in light of the fact that there are insufficient mosques as well as Muslim theological schools in the West to take care of demand, as indicated by Pakistani business people.

Individuals in the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States are continually letting us know: We do have mosques, we do have appropriate setups, yet we could never discover one-to-one lessons and exercises, Usman Zahoor Ahmed, 32, proprietor of myqurantutor.us stated.

Whats more, in this present climate, they need to recognize what sort of educating is being given to their youngsters  they need the lessons and exercises in their house, where mother or father is continually watching, he included.

Ahmed began his call center eight years back alongside just two representatives and only a couple of students. Presently, nevertheless, he hires 22 instructors who work throughout the night teaching 320 learners, around 40 % of whom living in the US.

As indicated by Ahmeds sibling Saqib, who assists run the center from the underground room of Ahmeds home, more than 50 similar centers work in Pakistan, and somewhere around one has more than 1,000 learners.

An educator at the center, Safeer Ahmed, 20, states, I as of now got the instruction and education yet now feel it is my service and support of spread it as well as instruct it to other people.

Despite the fact that, law implementation authorities in the United States and Europe have cautioned of the risk of Westerners getting to be radicalized on the web, Ahmed state fears in regards to online radicalization have little to do alongside authentic Web organizations that match learners with online educators for a visit through the fundamentals of Islam.

In case that somebody gets some information about jihad, which they seldom do, we would respond it alongside a strict elucidation of Islam. Jihad is somewhat just permitted by a state  it is anything but an individual thing where somebody could depend on a firearm plus take up weapons, he states.

The center proposes learners a half hour lesson and exercises five days per week for about 25 dollars per month. At first, the lessons and exercises center around the best possible pronunciation and elocution of verses of the Holy Quran. There are likewise pictorial exercises and lessons on every day Muslim practice  offering prayers for five times a day, for instance. The lessons and exercises at that point move to interpreting as well as translating the Holy Quran, which needs eight years of daily exercises and lessons.

The Ahmeds states that they pull in 6,000 dollars to 7,000 dollars per month from their 320 learners. They pay the instructors 100 dollars to 220 dollars per month or 1,200 dollars to 2,640 dollars yearly.

Online centers of the Online Quran Tutor are on the ascent yet Ahmed wouldnt fret the increased rivalry.

There will be three billion Muslims all over the globe [by 2100], as well as they are generally our market, he states. All you require is a PC, Skype, headset, and microphone.

Shaukat Ullah Khattak, a religious researcher who runs a theological school in northwestern Pakistan, stated such kind of courses satisfy the profound needs of online Quran teacher, online Quran tutor, and students.

It is obligatory for each Muslim to learn and take in the Holy Quran as well as spread it to other people. Online Quranic institutes, online Quran teacher and online Quran tutor, are doing extraordinary services and facilities. Furthermore, kids in the West are presently taking a keen fascination, Khattak stated.

Notwithstanding, Edgar Hopida, a representative for the Islamic Culture of North America, stated Muslims in the US are centered around building their very own instructive organizations and online Quran teacher and online Quran tutor.

We do not see individuals turning back to Pakistan or different nations to learn and take in the Holy Quran, Hopida stated. It is easy and simple to learn here in the United States.

Media Contact

Company Name: My Quran Tutor

Contact Person: Media Relations

Email: Send Email

Phone: +923330266969

City: Lahore

Country: Pakistan

Website: https://myqurantutor.us

SmartFreight Directors Kerry Holmes and Neil Page, and MD Ken Aitken

Sydney, Oct 17, 2018 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Global logistics solutions group, WiseTech Global ( ASX:WTC ) ( OTCMKTS:WTCHF ), today announced the acquisition of IFS Global Holdings ('SmartFreight'), a leading parcel and LTL (Less Than Truckload) shipping software provider.Headquartered in Sydney, SmartFreight offers multi-carrier shipping software solutions to over 3,300 customers across Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Ireland, South Africa and Asia. Its solutions address traditional bricks and mortar, B2C and B2B customers across all industries including organisations such as 3M, Mazda, Hyundai, Seiko, Epson and Pandora Jewellery, as well as transport and logistics providers such as DHL, Australia Post Group, Parcelforce, TNT, Toll Group, Aramax and Royal Mail. In Australia alone, SmartFreight processes over 50 million parcels annually.WiseTech Global Founder and CEO, Richard White, said "As e-commerce continues its rapid exponential growth, the importance of omni-channel parcel and LTL shipping for customers, and the logistics industry globally, will increase by an order of magnitude. We value the parcel logistics and technical expertise within the SmartFreight teams and their extensive coverage of parcel and LTL carriers and rates, with electronic connections to over 650 carriers, in Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, the UK and South Africa. These adjacent markets complement those covered by our other WiseTech businesses - parcel shipping TMS provider, Pierbridge, and specialist LTL TMS provider, SaaS Transportation, while our Gartner-rated specialist WMS, Microlistics, can beneficially partner with SmartFreight for e-commerce fulfilment domestically in these crossover geographies."Importantly, bringing SmartFreight into the WiseTech group will also accelerate the global expansion of our next-generation CargoWise One e-commerce offering for both international and domestic e-commerce fulfilments. This innovative solution is in pilot with a major air-freight forwarder and will soon be launched globally for country-of-origin depot functionality - a great fit with SmartFreight capabilities."SmartFreight's Managing Director, Ken Aitken, said "The days of global supply chain solutions working in regional silos are over and the exponential growth in international e-commerce makes the need for total supply chain visibility and transparency a necessity for our customers. Joining the WiseTech Global group allows us to plug our 21 years of experience in first and last mile delivery into their leading integrated global platform, which is being continually enhanced and expanded. This is a great opportunity for us to improve and scale up our shipping solutions and grow in key markets."SmartFreight solutions include SmartFreight, its flagship product for shippers of all volumes, SmartFreight Tracker to provide end to end visibility and SmartFreight Tracker4Transport for own fleet shipment tracking. Underpinning its broad selection of products is SmartFreight's ability to route optimise shipments through the selection of the best price, service time or lowest CO2 footprint to any destination.SmartFreight also brings seamless integrations to over 170 WMS, ERP, e-commerce and accounting platforms along with dozens of online market places, such as Shopify, Magento 2, WooCommerce and PrestaShop to facilitate order fulfilment and tracking.Remaining under the leadership of Ken Aitken, SmartFreight will continue to work with its partners to deliver innovative parcel shipping solutions to shippers worldwide. SmartFreight will also have access to the 8,000 logistics providers across the world who utilise WiseTech's integrated supply chain execution solutions.Across 130 countries, CargoWise One enables logistics service providers to execute highly complex transactions in areas such as freight forwarding, customs clearance, warehousing, shipping, tracking, land transport, e-commerce, and cross-border compliance and to manage their operations on one database across multiple users, functions, countries, languages and currencies.This transaction follows WiseTech's other recent logistics solutions acquisitions in Argentina, Australasia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, North America, Spain, Taiwan, Turkey and Uruguay, and is in line with WiseTech Global's clearly stated strategy of accelerating long-term organic growth through targeted, valuable acquisitions.About SmartFreight(R)Founded in 1997, SmartFreight specialises in multi-carrier LTL and parcel shipping solutions. Customers include organisations such as 3M, Mazda, Hyundai, Seiko, Epson and Pandora Jewellery, as well as transport and logistics providers such as Australia Post Group, DHL, Toll Group, Aramax, Parcelforce, TNT, and Royal Mail.SmartFreight provides its clients with an agnostic optimisation selection from their chosen transport providers, shipping by price / service / delivery time or CO2 footprint coupled with client branded end-end tracking visibility and final transport provider invoice reconciliation.Headquartered in Sydney with distribution networks in New Zealand, South Africa, Ireland and the UK, SmartFreight has a team of over 50, together providing considerable logistics and technical expertise.SmartFreight has won 10 Australian Business Award Wins in the last seven years.'SmartFreight' refers to the parcel shipping solutions provider, IFS Global Holdings Pty Ltd.For more information on SmartFreight visit http://www.smartfreight.com About WiseTech Global Ltd

WiseTech Global Ltd (ASX:WTC) is a leading developer and provider of software solutions to the logistics execution industry globally. Our customers include over 17,000 of the world's logistics companies across 160 countries, including 41 of the top 50 global thirdparty logistics providers and all of the 25 largest global freight forwarders worldwide2. Our flagship platform, CargoWise, forms an integral link in the global supply chain and executes over 50 billion data transactions annually.

At WiseTech, we are relentless about innovation, adding over 4,000 product enhancements to our global platform in the past five years while bringing meaningful continual improvement to the world's supply chains. Our breakthrough software solutions are renowned for their powerful productivity, extensive functionality, comprehensive integration, deep compliance capabilities, and truly global reach.

For more information about WiseTech Global or CargoWise, please visit wisetechglobal.com and cargowise.com

Wanfuteng Bank Now Live with Probanx CorePlus

Nicosia, Oct 17, 2018 AEST (ABN Newswire) - iSignthis Ltd ( ASX:ISX ) ("the Company") is pleased to announce that its wholly owned subsidiary, Probanx Information Systems Ltd ("Probanx") has completed integration with Wanfuteng Bank (www.wanfutengbank.com).Highlights- Wanfuteng Bank now integrated to core banking platform "CorePlus"- Joins 16 other banks as a customer- Probanx core banking platform services banks located across 3 continents- FY2018 (Calendar) EBIT for Probanx business unit revised to EUR275-300kWanfuteng Bank, headquartered in Hong Kong and operating in Vanuatu, is now integrated with the Probanx CorePlus platform.The CorePlus integration including the following features;- eBanking with Strong Customer Authentication,- Mobile Banking,- Loans and Mortgages,- Standing Orders,- Deposits,- Fixed Assets Management,- SMS And Email Notification,- Language support for English, French and Simplified Chinese, from a selection of 10 languages.- Portfolio Management,- IBAN Validation API,- API for Payment Services Directive 2 'open banking' support,- ATM POS API,- Swift/SEPA Integration,- Teller Cash ManagementWanfuteng joins Novum Bank (MT, www.novumbankgroup.com ), Societe Generale (CY, www.sgcyprus.com ), HFCL (Seychelles), AN-other EMI (UK, www.an-other.co.uk ), Frux Private Bank (ES, www.fruxprivatebank.com ) and Luxburg Carolath FBS Bank (CH, www.luxburgcarolath.group) as a customer of Probanx.Probanx Business UnitProbanx is an independent business unit of iSignthis Ltd, providing core banking platform software solutions for banks and financial institutions.EBIT performance for the full FY2018 year is expected to be stronger than originally forecast, with full year performance anticipated to be in excess of EUR275k, with EBIT contribution of EUR200k prior to purchase of Probanx by iSignthis.iSignthis purchased Probanx on the 18th September date, with EBIT contribution to iSignthis group performance attributable from that date. The final results subject to audit as at 31 December 2018.The Company has also commenced integration of Probanx with ISXPay(R), and will support its eMoney Account (EMA) customers via the CorePlus platform, from late November.Probanx will integrate direct with SEPA/Target2 and SWIFT schemes on behalf of ISXPay(R) and will generate and validate IBAN accounts for ISXPay customers.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.

Quarterly Activities Report

Ballarat, Oct 17, 2018 AEST (ABN Newswire) - White Rock Minerals Ltd ( ASX:WRM ) provides the Company's Quarterly Activities Report.Red Mountain Zinc VMS Project HighlightsThe Company continued extensive on-ground exploration activities at its 100% owned Red Mountain high-grade zinc - silver - lead - gold volcanogenic massive sulphide ("VMS") Project in Alaska. Field activities included simultaneous diamond drilling, ground CSAMT geophysics, geological reconnaissance mapping and surface geochemical sampling programs. The 2018 field program concluded in September as planned. Exploration program highlights for 2018 include:- Discovery and successful drill testing of the new Hunter prospect massive sulphide mineralisation with 1.4m @ 17.4% Zn, 3.9% Pb, 90g/t Ag & 1.6% Cu for 25.8% ZnEq(see Note 1 below) (HR18-01)(see Note 2 below). This discovery remains open east and west and down dip with massive sulphide mapped for over 500 metres along strike on the surface.- Best drill intersection in the history of this project at the West Tundra deposit with 3.5m @ 15.1% Zn, 6.7% Pb, 518g/t Ag, 2.1g/t Au and 0.2% Cu for 35.2% ZnEq(see Note 1 below) (WT18-28)(see Note 3 below).- Best drill intersection in the history of this project into the Discovery Lens at the Dry Creek deposit with 4.7m @ 19.5% Zn, 7.8% Pb, 466g/t Ag, 6.9g/t Au and 1.5% Cu for 49.7% ZnEq(see Note 1 below) (DC18-79)(see Note 4 below).- Down dip extension of the Fosters Lens at the Dry Creek deposit achieved with 4.3m @ 4.8% Zn, 2.3% Pb, 1,435g/t Ag, 2.2g/t Au and 0.5% Cu for 43.2% ZnEq(see Note 1 below) (DC18-77)(see Note 4 below) and remaining open down dip.- Completion of a detailed regional stream sediment program across the majority of the Company's 143km2 strategic tenement package to assist in focusing follow-up work for the 2019 field exploration program.o The field crews collected 435 stream samples, 1,835 soil samples and 330 rock chips samples across the company's tenement holding. Stream samples are awaiting assaying.- Successful application of portable XRF analysis of soil samples to deliver rapid target generation.- Successful orientation ground geophysics across known mineralisation with the CSAMT geophysics technique accurately identifying massive sulphide mineralisation at Dry Creek and West Tundra enabling the technique to be a rapid reconnaissance tool for identifying drill targets within zones of anomalous geochemistry and favourable stratigraphy.o The CSAMT geophysics crew acquired 40 line kms of new data along strike of the Dry Creek and West Tundra VMS deposits. This work assisted to identify follow-up drill targets.- A total of 24 drill holes for 4,111 metres of diamond core drilling was completed during 2018. The drill rig has been demobilised and stored at the camp site ready for rapid re-mobilisation in 2019.The successful progress of this exploration program resulted in the signing of a cornerstone investment and strategic relationship agreement with Sandfire Resources NL ( ASX:SFR ) (Sandfire). The company welcomed Sandfire as a strategic partner and cornerstone investor that shares White Rock's vision for the exploration and development of the Red Mountain Project. Securing a high-quality partner with world leading expertise in the exploration and development of base metals projects is a strong endorsement to the quality and potential of White Rock's globally significant high-grade zinc VMS Red Mountain Project.Notes:1 ZnEq = Zinc equivalent grades are estimated using long-term broker consensus estimates compiled by RFC Ambrian as at 20 March 2017 adjusted for recoveries from historical metallurgical test work and calculated with the formula: ZnEq =100 x [(Zn% x 2,206.7 x 0.9) + (Pb% x 1,922 x 0.75) + (Cu% x 6,274 x 0.70) + (Ag g/t x (19.68/31.1035) x 0.70) + (Au g/t x (1,227/31.1035) x 0.80)] / (2,206.7 x 0.9). White Rock is of the opinion that all elements included in the metal equivalent calculation have reasonable potential to be recovered and sold.2 Refer ASX Announcement 20 August 2018 "High Grade Zinc Discovery at the Hunter Prospect, Red Mountain".3 Refer ASX Announcement 18 June 2018 "Initial Drilling Delivers High Grade Zinc Results at Red Mountain".4 Refer ASX Announcement 4 July 2018 "High Grade Zinc-Silver Drill Intersections Extend Mineralisation at Red Mountain".5 Refer ASX Announcement dated 26 September 2017 "White Rock Minerals Independent Research Report".To view the full report, please visit:About White Rock Minerals Ltd

White Rock Minerals Ltd (ASX:WRM) (OTCMKTS:WRMCF) is a diversified explorer and near-stage producer, headquartered in Ballarat, Victoria. The Company's flagship exploration project is Red Mountain in central Alaska. At Red Mountain, there are already two high grade zinc - silver - gold - lead VMS deposits, with an Inferred Mineral Resource of 9.1 million tonnes @ 609g/t AgEq / 13% ZnEq. The Company is also exploring its recently discovered large intrusion related gold anomaly at Last Chance, also located in the Tintina gold belt of Alaska, home to multi-million gold ounce deposits like Pogo, Fort Knox and the Donlin Project. The Company also has the Mt Carrington project, located near Drake, in Northern NSW, which is a near-production precious metals asset with a resource of 341,000 ounces of gold and 23.2 million ounces of silver on an approved mining lease, and with a Gold First PFS and JORC Reserve.

Share Purchase Plan - Offer Letter

Sydney, Oct 17, 2018 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Your board is writing to you today with an offer to participate in a Share Purchase Plan ("SPP" or "Plan") which entitles Eligible Shareholders (defined below) to purchase new shares in DroneShield Limited ("DRO" or the "Company" or "DroneShield") ( ASX:DRO ) ( OTCMKTS:DRSHF ) at the price of $0.14 per share, up to the value of $15,000 each. The Company intends to raise approximately $750,000 under the Plan.Patersons Securities Limited ("Lead Manager") has agreed to act as the lead manager. In the event that Eligible Shareholders do not subscribe for Shares under the Plan to the amount of $750,000, the Lead Manager may place the resultant shortfall to its clients provided the shortfall does not exceed the placement capacity of the Company pursuant to ASX Listing Rules 7.1 and 7.1A ("Shortfall Placement"). If total applications from Eligible Shareholders under the Plan exceed $750,000, the directors of the Company may, in their absolute discretion, accept or scale-back all applications on an equitable basis. Directors may also, in their absolute discretion, decide to increase acceptances in the event of oversubscriptions and increase the size of the Plan (subject to compliance with the Corporations Act and ASX Listing Rules).In addition to the Plan, DroneShield may, in consultation with the Lead Manager, elect to undertake a placement of additional shares at the same price as the shares offered under the Plan ("Top-Up Placement"). The maximum number of shares that may be issued under the Top-Up Placement would be equal to the Company's then placement capacity pursuant to ASX Listing Rules 7.1 and 7.1A (which is currently 42,489,055 Shares), subject to compliance with the ASX Listing Rules.The Lead Manager will be entitled to a fee of 6% of the gross amount placed by the Lead Manager under the Shortfall Placement and the Top-Up Placement, a management fee of $7,500 plus one option to acquire a share (exercisable at $0.22 on or before 14 June 2019 each) for every four shares placed by the Lead Manager.The Board believes that the funds from the SPP will assist the Company with an expansion of its marketing efforts globally, as well as its working capital requirements while the multiple governmental tenders and other product sales processes in which the Company is participating internationally run their course.Recent ProgressThere has been a proliferation of cheap commercial off-the-shelf drones and an exponential increase in their use for nepharious purposes (including terrorist attacks, attacks on heads of state, use by non-state actors on the battlefield and unlawful use around airports, critical infrastructure, prisons, stadiums, events, commercial venues and VIPs). Among others, recent reports have included:- October 2018: Christopher Wray, the Director of the FBI stated the following in written testimony to the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee: "The FBI assesses that, given their retail availability, lack of verified identification requirement to procure, general ease of use, and prior use overseas, UAS [drones] will be used to facilitate an attack in the United States against a vulnerable target, such as a mass gathering."- September 2018: Passenger jet carrying 240 people nearly hit a drone at 15,000ft in the UK airspace- August 2018: Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was attacked by weaponised drones during a live televised speech in Caracas- May 2018: FBI hostage rescue team was reported to have been attacked by a swarm of drones during a hostage raid- February 2018: Drone "dive bombed" a passenger jet above Las Vegas- January 2018: Homemade drones bombed a Russian Airbase in Syria- November 2017: The U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued a terror bulletin focusing on the threat of weaponised drones- November 2017: A drone struck an Aerolinas Argentinas passenger Boeing on final approach to Buenos Aires Airport in Argentina, and the passenger jet sustained damage- October 2017: Footage uploaded to YouTube reportedly showed an armed ISIS drone destroying an arms depot in northern SyriaThe drone detection and interdiction industry is in its nascent stages. It did not exist until several years ago, and governments did not commence to allocate funding to this industry until recently. However, with the substantial increase in malicious drone activities, virtually every government now concerns itself with how to protect its infrastructure and people against such activities.DroneShield is at the forefront of this effort. The Company has built on the 2017 launches of its cutting-edge products, and has made substantial progress, in recent months. This includes the following.- A June 2018 $3.2 million order for 70 units of DroneGun TacticalTM for use by a substantial Middle Eastern Ministry of Defence, approved by the U.S. regulator in September 2018- An October 2018 order for multiple units of DroneGun TacticalTM for use by a major Asian government agency- An October 2018 Central American government order for DroneSentryTM and DroneGun TacticalTM units- Deployment at 2018 Winter Olympic Games in South Korea- Deployment at 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia- Deployment at 2018 ASEAN Summit in Sydney- Deployment at the United States Marine Corps / United States Navy 2018 Urban 5th Generation Marine Exploration and Experimentation Exercise (U5G 2018)- Sale of DroneGunsTM to the Paraguayan military- Placing DroneShield products on the United States GSA Schedule, making them available to U.S. governmental users on an off-the-shelf basis- DroneGun TacticalTM certification for human exposure- United States / Canada DD2345 Certification- Assignment of NATO Stock Number for DroneGunTM- Partnership with ISI for an on-vehicle counterdrone solution- Safety for deployment at airports certification- Setup and commencement of operation of the European Hub- Participation at numerous high profile events such as AUSA, Eurosatory and DSA (with support of Team Defence Australia), Land Forces, SOFWERX Thunderdrone, FIDAE, Modern Day Marine and others- Receipt of number of grants, awards and recognition by Company or its staff, including R&D Tax Incentive Grant, NSW Export Awards Finalist, 2018 Young Innovator Award, and SME Innovation Grant- Launch of multiple additional products, based on end-user feedbackThrough its network of approximately 60 distributors in approximately 50 countries, DroneShield is capitalising on its recent sales successes and its reputation as a leader in the space, by pursuing dozens of contracts ranging in size from tens of thousands of dollars to tens of millions of dollars each. (see Note below)Funds raised under the SPP will be used towards expansion of the Company's sales and marketing efforts, further development of and improvements to products to accommodate specific customer requirements and general working capital.All of the shareholder directors intend to participate personally in the SPP as a sign of confidence in the Company.Please refer to the Company's ASX platform ( ASX:DRO ) or www.droneshield.com for further details with respect to the Company's operations. The Company's investor presentation is enclosed.Your continuing support is greatly appreciated.Note: Necessarily, not all (and there can be no assurance that any) of the Company's sales opportunities will result in sales.To view the Share Purchase Plan and Investor Presentation, please visit:About DroneShield Ltd

DroneShield Ltd (ASX:DRO) (OTCMKTS:DRSHF) is an Australian publicly listed company with its head office in Sydney and teams in the US and UK. We specialise in RF sensing, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, Sensor Fusion, Electronic Warfare, Rapid Prototyping and MIL-SPEC manufacturing.

Our capabilities are used to protect Military, Government, Law Enforcement, Critical Infrastructure, Commercial and VIPs throughout the world.

Through our team of primarily Australian based engineers - we offer customers bespoke solutions and off-the-shelf products designed to suit a variety of terrestrial, maritime or airborne platforms.

DroneShield is proudly exporting Australian capability to customers throughout the world and supporting Australia's defence, national security and other organisations protect people, critical infrastructure and vital assets.

.

Wiluna Open Pit Mining Commences

Perth, Oct 17, 2018 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Blackham Resources Limited ( ASX:BLK ) ( OTCMKTS:BKHRF ) (Blackham or the Company) is pleased to advise it has commenced open pit mining at Wiluna of its recently defined free milling ore. It has been 10 years since open pit mining last took place at the Wiluna Mine.Highlights- Wiluna open pit mining commences in free milling ore from surface- Wiluna average ore grades higher than the Matilda ore- In line with the mine plan adopted at the start of the year, the remaining open pits at Matilda will be mined concurrently with the Wiluna open pits for the rest of this financial year- Processing of higher grade Wiluna ore will take place from Oct'18- All the Wiluna open pits are located within 3kms of the plant, significantly lowering haulage costs- Grade control and mining of free milling pits will significantly de-risk the larger sulphide pits prior to re-commissioning the sulphide circuitSuccessful drilling programmes totalling 100,000m over the last 18 months have successfully delineated gold resources of 18.6Mt @ 2.52g/t for 1.50Moz. The free milling resources total 5.1Mt @ 1.43g/t for 236koz (96% indicated).Drilling since Mar'18 has focused on targeting shallow free milling mineralisation close to plant. Generally, oxide and transitional ore in the top 60-80m has been oxidised and is free milling. Metallurgical results averaged leach recoveries on the oxide and transitional ores of 90.8% and 84.3% after 24 hours.Wiluna open pit probable reserves as at 30 June 2017 were 669,000oz (7.7Mt @ 2.7g/t Au). Reserves for the Matilda-Wiluna Operation were last estimated as at 30 June 2017 and are currently being re-estimated.Latest reserves for the Wiluna Open Pits are in the process of being finalised and will be published in the near future.Recommencement of mining at the Wiluna Mine is expected to increase plant feed grade, reduce haulage costs and significantly reduces mine sequencing risks due to more mining areas. Mining of the Wiluna free milling pits will significantly reduce both geological and mining risks associated with the larger sulphide pits prior to recommissioning the Wiluna plants sulphide circuit.To view tables and figures, please visit:About Wiluna Mining Corporation Ltd

Wiluna Mining Corporation (ASX:WMC) (OTCMKTS:WMXCF) is a Perth based, ASX listed gold mining company that controls over 1,600 square kilometres of the Yilgarn Craton in the Northern Goldfields of WA. The Yilgarn Craton has a historic and current gold endowment of over 380 million ounces, making it one of most prolific gold regions in the world. The Company owns 100% of the Wiluna Gold Operation which has a defined resource of 8.04M oz at 1.67 g/t au. In May 2019, a new highly skilled management team took control of the Company with a clear plan to leverage the Wiluna Gold Operation's multi-million-ounce potential.

Fire & Flower Store and Licensing Update

Perth, Oct 17, 2018 AEST (ABN Newswire) - MMJ PhytoTech Limited ( ASX:MMJ ) ( OTCMKTS:MMJJF ) ("MMJ") is pleased to note, ahead of the legalisation of recreational cannabis in Canada tonight, the attached media releases by that Fire & Flower Inc. ("Fire & Flower") confirming that it:- Has acquired a licensed cannabis retail shop in North Battleford, Saskatchewan that will commence operations tonight;- Will open its first retail shop in Saskatchewan tonight, in addition to the abovementioned store acquisition, after receiving an interim licence from the Saskatchewan Liquor and Gaming Authority. Each store will be part of the few first cannabis retail outlets to operate in the province; and- Has prequalified for the Manitoba lottery for cannabis retail licences to be issued by the Manitoba Growth, Enterprise and Trade, Procurement Services Branch.MMJ has CAD$1 million invested in Fire & Flower. Fire & Flower is expected to list on the TSX Venture Exchange later this year.To view the releases, please visit:About MMJ Group Holdings Ltd

MMJ Group Holdings Ltd (ASX:MMJ) is a global cannabis investment company. MMJ owns a portfolio of minority investments and aims to invest across the full range of emerging cannabis-related sectors including healthcare, technology, infrastructure, logistics, processing, cultivation, equipment and retail. For MMJ's latest investor presentation and news, please visit: http://www.mmjphytotech.com.au/investors/It is sad that teenage gay boys and lesbians do not know about Matthew Shepard. He was killed, murdered in an horrific hate crime case before they were born.

Matthew was a 21-year-old gay freshman at the University of Wyoming. One Autumn evening 20 years ago he was at the Fireside Lounge in Laramie, Wyoming.

Also at the Lounge were two homophobic young men, Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson. The two started to taunt Matthew when they realized he was gay. They kidnapped him, threw him in a truck, drove out to a lonely part of town, beat him, robbed him, pistol whipped him and left him to die, tied to a split rail fence on a cold, near freezing October night.

He survived tied to that fence for 18 hours when a bicyclist saw him. He first thought it was just a scare crow but when he got closer he realized it was a human being. Police and an ambulance were called and they brought him to a hospital. For three days he laid in a coma with his parents at his side. Just past midnight on Oct. 12, 1998, Matthew Shepard died. Murdered at age 21 just because he was gay

This horrendous crime became national news. A picture of the desolate fence was a TIME magazine cover..Hundreds attended his funeral. Raucous pickets protested at his funeral. They did not give his parents the respect of a solemn funeral for their son.Matthew was cremated but his parents were afraid to bury his ashes in a public service for fear "the pickets" would disrespect his grave.

Dennis and Judy Shepard took the remains of their son home with them for a last time. The murderers are both serving life terms in prison.

On Oct. 12, 2018, the 20th anniversary of his death, it was announced that Matthew Shepard's final resting place will be in the National Cathedral in Washington,, D.C. A true place of honor, where U.S. Presidents have prayed, and one is buried.

Matthew has endured as a symbol of violent hate crimes against the LGBTQ community, In the past 20 years he has been revered and remembered by many.

In 2009 President Obama with Mrs. Judy Shepard at his side signed into law a National Crimes prevention act named after Matthew Shepard in a White House ceremony.

A movie was made of his life and the production of "The Laramie Project" has played in local theaters here on Staten Island and around the nation. His parents have become LGBTQ activists, Mrs. Judy Shepard had attended an event at Wagner College to talk about her son.

On Oct. 26 Matthew Shepard can finally rest in peace in the nation's capital.

Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, Mariann Budde said, "A lot has changed, but not everything has changed. It felt really important for us to say we believe the LGBTQ people are beloved children of God, not in spite of their identities, but because of who they are-who God created them to be."

Bishop Budde will preside over Matthew's burial on Oct. 26 alongside Revered V. Gene Robinson who became the Episcopal Church's first openly gay Bishop in 2003.BELIZE CITY, BELIZE, SUNDAY, 14 October 2018 (CRFM)A Protocol on Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Management in Fisheries and Aquaculture was approved for CARICOM States during a recent high-level meeting of the Ministerial Council of the Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism (CRFM).

At the 8th Special Meeting of the CRFM Ministerial Council held in Barbados on Thursday, 11 October 2018, during the Caribbean Week of Agriculture, the ministers approved the protocol to the Caribbean Community Common Fisheries Policy (CCCFP), which promotes cooperation and collaboration among Caribbean people, fishers and governments in conserving, managing, and sustainably using fisheries and related ecosystems, as well as improving the welfare and livelihood of fisherfolk in the region.

CRFM Executive Director, Milton Haughton, said, This protocol is of paramount importance in the region, given the urgent and ever-increasing threats to fishing communities, fishers and the health of marine ecosystems and associated fish stocks in the region posed not only by warming waters and climate change but also by the acidification of the oceans as a result of increased absorption of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Haughton said that among the obvious challenges are the bleaching and destruction of corals reefs, frequent massive blooms of Sargassum and other harmful marine algae, and the devastation caused by storms, hurricanes and floods that States must now contend with.

The damage our countries suffer is not limited to what is seen on land but also extends to the valuable natural resources under the sea which we often do not see, the Executive Director added.

Haughton explained that the protocol provides pragmatic tools and measures to enable States and stakeholders to adapt and build resilience by working together and sharing experiences and best practices. He also emphasized the need for donors and international development partners to recognize the challenges faced by the countries in the coastal and marine environment, and to support their initiatives by providing tangible technical assistance and funding to help with implementation of the protocol.

In May 2018, the CRFM Ministerial Council approved another protocol under the Caribbean Community Common Fisheries Policy; that is, the Protocol on Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries for Caribbean Community fisherfolk and societies under the Caribbean Community Common Fisheries Policy, aimed at improving livelihood and welfare of small-scale fishers who are involved the harvesting, processing and marketing of fish and seafood.

The approved protocols were submitted to the CARICOMs Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED), which met on Friday 12 October, at the culmination of the Caribbean Week of Agriculture.

The development of Protocol on Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Management in Fisheries and Aquaculture was fast-tracked with support from the Climate Change Adaptation in the Eastern Caribbean Fisheries Sector (CC4FISH) Project, funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF). The initiative was implemented in the context of a technical cooperation agreement signed earlier this year by the CRFM and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

At the Ministerial Council meeting, chaired by David Osborne, Minister of Agriculture, Trade, Lands, Housing and the Environment (MATLHE) of Montserrat, the policymakers also addressed social and welfare issues in the fisheries and aquaculture sector by issuing a policy statement on gender, youth and decent work as follows:

The Council accepted that international and national norms regarding issues pertaining to gender, youth, and decent work be adhered to, and be incorporated into all CRFM policies, protocols, programmes, and plans.

In addition, the Council approved a concept note for a proposed project to reduce the vulnerability of coastal and marine social-ecological systems across CARICOM to Sargassum influxes. They also called upon the donor community and development partners to provide the technical assistance and funding needed to support implementation of the project, as well as the two Protocols adopted under the Common Fisheries Policy.Note: Todays guest post was written by Mary Brown, a reading intervention specialist at Franklin Local School District. She can be reached at mary.brown@franklinlocalschools.org .

Everywhere you turn in the education community these days, people are talking about data-driven instruction. And thats great! More information about what students understand and where they still need help is a good thing.

But were educators, not data analysts, and sometimes all these numbers can feel like, well, a whole lot of numbers that arent connected to real students with real learning successes and struggles. However, by taking a step-by-step approach to analyzing and acting on data, a school or district can turn all those numbers into improved student learning.

As a literacy specialist for nearly two decades, I have had the opportunity to use a slew of intervention programs and, though they were all perfectly fine, it was always incumbent upon me to determine the specific foundational skills students needed to work on to grow and progress toward grade-level benchmarks. For the last four years, my district has truly embraced tech-enabled literacy instruction. Here are six steps weve taken to make data work for us.

1) Begin with solid assessments and reports.

To generate reports that help our literacy team and district collect data and put it to work for our students. The assessments and the data generated allow for both diagnostic and prescriptive instruction. Unlike in years past, I have every tool I need to provide data-driven instruction, as well as generate reports for local and state accountability.

The standards report we use illustrates the level of mastery for each Ohio State Standard for every student, as well as their projected growth toward each. The Pathway to Proficiency Report has strong correlations to our state test, and the line recalibrates each time the student is assessed, so teachers instantly know who is on track for reaching proficiency.

2) Establish your benchmarks early...but not too early.

The next step is to assess students to create benchmarks of where they are when the school year begins. Accurate information means not wasting unnecessary time on intervention for those who really dont need it and keeping those students moving forward in their classroom with daily, rigorous, districtwide adopted reading instruction.

It can still be a challenge to ensure benchmarks are accurate, so we try to improve the accuracy of early assessments a few ways.



First, we allow time for students to get past their back-to-school mode after summer vacation by not testing for the first week or two that theyre back.

Teachers make sure to provide quiet testing environments with limited distractions. Some even offer noise-cancelling headphones.

Finally, teachers give clear pre-test instructions and explain the importance of the assessment to their students.

3) Look beyond obvious metrics.

Students reading proficiency isnt the only thing you can benchmark during these assessments. For example, we all know that some students will persevere where others may not. To help build their stamina, I track the actual time they spend on the test and reward their effort when they spend a little more.

4) Build groups.

Using the benchmark assessments, we build our reading groups with students scoring above the 40th percentile constituting the non-intervention group, those between the 40th and 25th percentile being on watch, and students who performed below the 25th percentile flagged as being in need or in urgent need of intervention. This school year we are raising those benchmarks.

I form groups so I can target instruction and provide practice for interventions based on Stars skill recommendations for each range of scores. I also use learning progressions to determine the prerequisite skills my students need to understand and determine the most critical skills they need to learn next.

5) Intervene and monitor.

We set goals for students who need intervention and monitor them for progress every two weeks to ascertain if the interventions are appropriate and effective. Once we have four data points from progress monitoring, we begin building trend lines.

With each test, we have immediate access not only to a students percentile ranking, but to their grade-level proficiency and their zone of proximal development (ZPD), which allows teachers to gear the students independent and instructional reading assignments according to the Lexile scores where the optimal range of reading challenge is provided and the most reading growth will occur.

A new tool Im looking forward to using this year is Renaissances new custom assessments tile, which will allow me to plan assignments based on the median score of my intervention groups and pull up activities that correlate with the skills my students have demonstrated they need, saving time in planning targeted instruction.

As students are monitored, I like to look back at how each of my intervention students performed during the quarterly benchmarks of the previous year to see if there are any trend lines.

6) Abandon habit for choice.

Not choice, but habit rules the unreflecting herd, said William Wordsworth. Sometimes teachers, just like anyone else, can fall into the rut and comfort of habit.

As we have learned over the past four years, accurate data applied in a consistent and thoughtful manner can remind us that we have a choice in how we reach out to students, and it can empower that choice significantly.Aaron Ramsey transfer balls: Everton ready to trump Liverpool and Man United for Arsenal player

Does the BBC need to clickbait Arsenal fans with news of Wales midfielder Aaron Ramsey? The BBC says Ramsey is set to leave Arsenal for Everton on a free transfer in the summer. Wasnt he heading to Manchester United, Spurs, Liverpool, Manchester City or Chelsea? Earlier this week, the BBC told its reader that Ramsey was open to joining one of Arsenals top six rivals if he leaves Emirates Stadium on a free transfer in the summer. Everton are not a top six side. And that was if not when.

The BBC also told us that Real Madrid want Ramsey; and Liverpool and Man United were looking to get Ramsey in a cut-price deal this January.

Now were told, Everton are ready to offer the 27-year-old a 15m signing-on fee. Says who? Says the Sun, which actually says nothing of the sort. The BBC cites the tabloid as the source of its news, but when you head to the Sun, it tells us Ramsey can command a stunning 15million signing-on fee. He can. But will he? Everton could also pay the injury-prone player 150,000 a week to be the main man in Silvas midfield.

Ramsey wants 250,000-a-week to stay at Arsenal on a four-year contract, working out at 52m. The Gunners rejected that option to nearly double Ramseys current salary. And now Everton will offer him 15m plus 31m in wages  thats 46m over four-years. Although the Sun doesnt say how long any contract offer will be for  just as it doesnt says Everton are going to offer the player a 15m signing-on fee.

What next for Ramsey? The BBC hasnt got the foggiest idea. He might yet stay at the Gunners. Look out for that theory on the BBC

Anorak

Posted: 17th, October 2018 | In: Arsenal, Back pages, Sports Comment | TrackBack | Permalink(ANSA) - Paris, October 17 - Amnesty International on Wednesday accused the French authorities of committing "systematic violations" of the rights of refugees and migrants at the border with Italy. The French section of the NGO reportedly the alleged violations of rights on the basis of an observation mission on October 12 and 13 at Briancon, in the French Alps, conducted with a number of other associations. This is not far from the Italian village of Claviere, where a French gendarmery police van was seen dropping off two men, suspected of being African migrants, in woods last week.

This incident has caused tension between Paris and Rome, with Interior Minister and Deputy Premier Matteo Salvini refusing to accept a French apology on Tuesday. Amnesty International said it had found a "long list" of violations and said the "French government must stop turning a blind eye". It said the violations included the pushback of "26 people at a police check at the border at Montgenevre towards Claviere, the first village on the Italian side, without individual examinations of their situations, nor the possibility to request asylum".

(ANSA) - Berlin, October 17 - The European Commission will reject Italy's budget bill, Budget Commissioner Guenther Oettinger told Der Spiegel on line Wednesday. The magazine said a letter from Economic Affairs Commissioner Pierre Moscovici should arrive in Rome on Thursday or Friday.

Oettinger said "the hypothesis that the 2019 budget draft is not reconcilable with the EU's existing obligations has been confirmed." Moscovici will not make a counter-proposal, Der Speigel said, but will restrict himself to pointing out the violations of the reference data.

Rome sent the budget draft to the EC on Tuesday night, at the last minute, Der Spiegel said.

The EC is reacting unusually quickly, it said, since it had two weeks to reply.

Italy will now have to present a new draft, the magazine said.

(ANSA) - Taranto, October 17 - A 22-year-old man from the Gambia killed himself after his asylum claim was rejected, the Babele pro-migrant association said Wednesday.

Amadou Jawo was reported to have hanged himself from the cornice of his home at Castellaneta Marina near Taranto where he lived with other Gambians.

Babele has launched a subscription drive to pay for his body to be flown home.

It said "his claim was denied and he could no longer stay in Italy".

"He wanted to go back to Africa but he was afraid he would be marked out as a failure and he was ashamed. He thought he had no choice (but to commit suicide)".

(ANSA) - Rome, October 17 - French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire warned Wednesday that the euro risks being undermined if States take decisions without considering the other countries that have the single currency. "All the decisions made in Berlin, Rome, Paris and Brussels have an impact on us, the other countries of the eurozone," Le Maire told Radio Classique when asked about Italy's budget plan, which foresees the country's deficit-to-GDP ratio rising to 2.4% next year.

"Decisions taken without consideration for the partners will lead absolutely nowhere. "They will do nothing but weaken the eurozone". The Commission has expressed concern that Rome's plans for the deficit would lead to Italy breaching the Stability and Growth Pact.

On Tuesday Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker suggested that the EU was unlikely to give the thumbs up to Italy's draft budget saying that "if we accepted the slippage, some European countries would cover us with insults and tirades".

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz echoed Le Maire's concerns.

"As regards Italy, I'd like to say that it is absolutely decisive that what has been agreed upon is respected, for the economy and for the monetary union," said Kurz, whose country holds the duty presidency of the European Council. "The Maastricht criteria are valid for everyone. "I hope there is a clear line. Anything else would endanger not only Italy, it would also have negative effects on the eurozone". German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Wednesday that all the eurozone States must help maintain the area's financial stability. "We are so closely connected to each other that national decisions can affect all the others," she said.

The European Commission will reject Italy's budget bill, Budget Commissioner Guenther Oettinger told Der Spiegel on line Wednesday - before correcting himself and saying it was a "personal opinion" that Italy would have to make some corrections to the draft.

The magazine said a letter from Economic Affairs Commissioner Pierre Moscovici should arrive in Rome on Thursday or Friday. Oettinger later denied having said this.

Oettinger said "the hypothesis that the 2019 budget draft is not reconcilable with the EU's existing obligations has been confirmed."

Moscovici will not make a counter-proposal, Der Speigel said, but will restrict himself to pointing out the violations of the reference data.

Rome sent the budget draft to the EC on Tuesday night, at the last minute, Der Spiegel said.

The EC is reacting unusually quickly, it said, since it had two weeks to reply.

Italy will now have to present a new draft, the magazine said.

(ANSA) - Moscow, October 17 - Sanctions against Russia are "economic, social and cultural madness", Deputy Premier Matteo Salvini told Russian industrialists in Moscow on Wednesday.

"I come here free of charge because I think the sanctions are economic, social and cultural madness", he said.

Salvini also called the sanctions "an absurdity".

The interior minister and leader of the anti-migrant Euroskeptic League party added: "I feel at home in Russia while I don't in other European countries".

He said: "the problems of 2018 are to be solved sitting at a table and not with tanks at the borders".

(ANSA) - Brussels, October 17 - European Budget Commissioner Guenther Oettinger on Wednesday clarified remarks reported by Der Spiegel that Italy's budget will be rejected, saying it was his "personal opinion, based on the numbers, that is it very likely that we will have to ask Italy to correct the draft budget." He stressed "I did not say there was a decision by the Commission on Italy, nor that the letter with the rejection (of the budget) will be sent on Thursday or Friday".

Earlier Der Spiegel online reported that Oettinger had told it the European Commission will reject Italy's budget bill. The magazine said a letter from Economic Affairs Commissioner Pierre Moscovici should arrive in Rome on Thursday or Friday.

Oettinger said "the hypothesis that the 2019 budget draft is not reconcilable with the EU's existing obligations has been confirmed." Moscovici will not make a counter-proposal, Der Speigel said, but will restrict himself to pointing out the violations of the reference data.

Rome sent the budget draft to the EC on Tuesday night, at the last minute, Der Spiegel said.

The EC is reacting unusually quickly, it said, since it had two weeks to reply.

Italy will now have to present a new draft, the magazine said.

(ANSA) - Moscow, October 17 - Sanctions against Russia are "economic, social and cultural madness", Deputy Premier Matteo Salvini told Russian industrialists in Moscow on Wednesday.

"I come here free of charge because I think the sanctions are economic, social and cultural madness", he said.

Salvini also called the sanctions "an absurdity".

Asked if Italy might veto the renewal of the sanctions at the EU, Salvini said "we can only use once the trump card of the veto in Europe".

"There's the question of the EU budget, the question of migration, and the budget, which I don't know what to play if they reject it but we'll carry on all the same..." He said an assessment of what was most in Italian interests would be made. The interior minister and leader of the anti-migrant Euroskeptic League party added: "I feel at home in Russia while I don't in other European countries".

He said: "the problems of 2018 are to be solved sitting at a table and not with tanks at the borders".

(ANSA) - Rome, October 17 - Libya's migrant jails are like concentration camps or gulags, Pope Francis told Jesuits in Vilnius on September 23, it emerged on Wednesday.

"I'm thinking of footage that shows the situation of some prisons in north Africa built by human traffickers," he said.

"When governments send back those who had succeeded in saving themselves, the traffickers put them in those prisons, where the most horrible tortures are practised.

"We rend our garments today for what the Communists, Nazis and Fascists did...but today? Isn't it happening today too? Certainly, it's done with white, silken gloves".

Gaza: 'one dead' in israeli raid after rocket strikes Negev Israel closes Erez and Kerem Shalom crossings

(ANSAmed) - TEL AVIV, OCTOBER 17 - The health ministry in Gaza, which is ruled by Hamas, said Wednesday that a Palestinian has died in Israeli air raids that were carried out after a rocket was launched from the Gaza Strip last night against the Jewish State. The incident occurred in Beit Hanoun, in norther Gaza. The same source said that at least three people were injured in Rafah, in the southern part of the Strip.



The Palestinian rocket fired from the Gaza Strip hit a home in Beer Sheba, Negev. Nobody was injured although the attack spread panic among some of the residents, Israeli military radio said.



The Palestinian attack preceded by a few hours a special meeting of the Israeli government's defense council that was summoned for the second time this week to discuss growing tension with Hamas in Gaza. Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman has ordered the closure of the border crossings of Erez (for people) and Kerem Shalom (goods) with Gaza. The decision follows a rocket attack last night from the Strip against Beer Sheva and the metropolitan area of Tal Aviv. Lieberman also reduced to three miles the fishing area for boats from Gaza.



On Wednesday morning, Israeli air strikes targeted ''terrorist objectives'', reportedly military positions of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, killing one and wounding three people, according to an initial toll provided by Palestinian medical sources.



In Israel, tension is very high. Chief of Staff, General Gady Eisenkot interrupted a visit to the United States and is travelling back to Tel Aviv.



According to military radio, meanwhile Iron Dome defense systems are being deployed to protect the main cities of southern Israel. In Beer Sheba, Negev, and Israeli localities close to the Gaza Strip, schools will remain closed as a precaution.



In Ashqelon, rocket sirens went off on Wednesday morning and the population hid in shelters. At the same time, in the northern part of the Strip, an Israeli aircraft hit some Palestinians who were about to launch rockets against the Israeli city, which is geographically very close, according to an Israeli military spokesman. (ANSAmed)Tata Steel did not revise its bid in August and sought directions from the Supreme Court to quash re-bid for BPSL.

New Delhi: Taking an aggressive stance, Tata Steel plans to match the highest bidder in the race for debt-ridden Bhushan Power & Steel (BPSL) as it looks to retain control of Singhal familys erstwhile companies. It has already bagged Bhushan Steel (BSL) and long steel maker Usha Martin in keenly fought auctions.

For Tata Steel, acquisition of Bhushan Power assumes strategic interest, as it would synergise its steel operations in the eastern parts of the country where it already has plants in Jamshedpur and Kalinganagar (Odisha). The Bhushan Steels acquisition has further strengthened its position in the market.

Sources privy to the development said Tata Steel would approach the committee of creditors (CoC) seeking an opportunity to match the highest bidder for BPSL as the company had emerged as the successful resolution applicant and issued letter of intent (LoI) in the earlier rounds of bidding conducted in supervision of the insolvency court.

Tata Steels move means it would revise its bid to Rs 19,700 crore from its earlier Rs 17,000 crore. In the revised bid invited under directions from the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) in August, JSW Steel is understood to have made the highest offer of Rs 19,700 crore followed by Rs 19,000 crore bid from UK-based Liberty House.

Tata Steel did not revise its bid in August and sought directions from the Supreme Court to quash re-bid for BPSL. But with the apex court throwing the ball again in the court of NCLAT to decide the fate of re-bids, sources said Tata Steel thought it is right to approach the CoC seeking rightful opportunity to match the highest bidder. It is not clear on what grounds CoC could give this option to Tata Steel but experts said that a clear winner of an earlier round of auctions could be asked to match the highest offer if auction process got entangled in procedural and legal complications.

With Tata Steel looking to come back into the fray for BPSL, the bidding war is expected to heat up again as other two companies are also keen to take over the steel making entity.

Though BPSL owes about Rs 45,000 crore to lenders and has been referred to NCLT for insolvency resolution in June last year, it is considered a prized asset for bidders at a discount. The insolvent entity integrated operations with steel-making capacity of 3.1 million tonnes per annum in Odisha. The plant is close to iron ore mine sites and also has a captive power station.

BPSL received two resolution plans from domestic steel companies Tata Steel and JSW in the first round of bids early this year. While Tata Steel offered Rs 17,000 crore, JSW made an offer of Rs 11,000 crore. This was revised upwards by more than 80 per cent to Rs 19,700 crore when Tata Steels challenge in Supreme Court against a rebid ordered by NCLAT was defeated.

Tata Steel has also emerged as the higher bidder for Bhushan Steel (with an offer of Rs 32,000 crore), another group company facing insolvency process. It is thus keen even to acquire Bhushan Power that will offer increased synergy in operations. BPSL is among the first list of 12 non-performing assets (NPAs) referred by the Reserve Bank of India for NCLT proceedings.

For JSW, acquisition of Bhushan Power would allow it to retain the numero uno position in the Indian market for a long time to come with targeted capacity of 40 million tonnes by 2030.

But for both the companies, BPSLs acquisition would add pressure on their already high levels of debt. JSW has a total debt of about Rs 45,000 crore while Tata Steel is sitting on debt to the tune of about Rs 76,000 crore.He said the Raichur Thermal Power Station with 1,720 MW capacity has zerocoal stock now.

Citing acute shortage of coal in thermal power plants in Karnataka, chief minister H D Kumaraswamy has urged Union Coal Minister Piyush Goyal to ensure adequate supply to the state. (Photo: ANI)

Bengaluru: Citing acute shortage of coal in thermal power plants in Karnataka, chief minister H D Kumaraswamy has urged Union Coal Minister Piyush Goyal to ensure adequate supply to the state.

He said the Raichur Thermal Power Station (RTPS) with 1,720 MW capacity has zerocoal stock now as it was "short supplied" about six lakh tonnes by the WCL, a central-government owned coal company.

"WCL has short supplied about six lakh tonnes of coal to RTPS this year against the Fuel Supply Agreement quantity, resulting in no coal in stock," the chief minister was quoted as saying in an official release here Wednesday. Kumaraswamy asked Goyal to make adequate supply of coal to the state thermal units from Mahanadi Coal Fields (MCL).

He urged the union minister to ensure that the WCL supplied coal per the FSA agreement in full for sustainable power generation in the state.The title Divine Wind stands for the Japanese Kamikaze pilots who were selected for suicide missions where saying no was not an option.

In the face of the many odds that Arab cinema has been facing  material, economic and psychological  and the closure of festivals (Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Damascus) that once gave it fulsome support by way of generous development grants, the recently launched El Gouna film festival in Egypt has stepped in to fill the gaps. The CineGouna Bridge is a forum for dialogue between different cinematic voices, set up to establish a link between filmmakers from the Arab world and their international counterparts. And the CineGouna Springboard is a project development and co-production lab that helps in getting financial support for Arab filmmakers.

But above all, El Gouna is where some alluring Arab films can be viewed. They throw open the crucial concerns of filmmakers from much of the Arab world. And this is where my primary interest lies. What haunts Arab filmmakers whose countries have been plagued by extremism? How do they handle the daily struggles of people, the warped mentalities of terrorists, the fallout of war and violence? How do they envisage their own future and the future of their children? Quite simply, how do they get by?

For example, the Algerian-French-Lebanese film Divine Wind by Algerian director Merzak Allouache was a story of a tough young woman (its hard to tell how young she actually is) and a weak, pliable young man. She is back in Algeria from Syria. Tough, unsmiling, unlikeable, fearless, ruthless and determined, and as dry as the sands around her, she acts like she is on the warpath. Nour is out to find recruits for the extremists.

In Algeria, she is after the young Amine. In fact, the film starts with him. He drives his car in the desert, stops it, runs out and cries. In his equally arid home, there is nothing and no one except a portly old African maid who cooks. Amine prays, reads holy books, does martial arts exercises and little else. He meets no one. Maybe he is just the kind of recruit Noor is looking for.

We see the old maid in the market (she will prove to be an informant) where a man hands her a mobile and tells her to inform him of anything suspicious. Things are brewing but few are aware. Nour bosses over the man and the maid; she even has sexual proclivities, and there are a couple of emotionless encounters between her and Amine.

But that is no big deal. She is here to blow up the well-guarded oil refinery in the Sahara with help of an unwilling Amine. He resists, he will not wear the detonator suit she gives him, he does not want martyrdom. Divine Wind is studded with the mention of Allah, ISIS and paradise.

Who will win this real and psychological war in the desert? The film, writes festival director Intishal Al Timimi is a condemnation of the distortion and disfigurement that has afflicted Algeria. And actor Mohamed Oughlis says, I worked hard to study the character of a passive extremist, manipulated and confused.

The title Divine Wind stands for the Japanese Kamikaze pilots who were selected for suicide missions where saying no was not an option.

And then the flip side of the coin: Dear Son, an Algeria-France-Lebanon co-production directed by Tunisian filmmaker Mohamed Ben Attia, it won for Mohamed Dhrif the Best Actor Award in the Narrative Feature Competition section. A young man, who is about to take his school-leaving exams, suffers from migraine. A visit to a psychiatrist seems to help and then comes the inexplicable jolt to his parents. The young fellow who seems unable to decide between his parents expectations of him  study, marriage, family, work  and a life of his own choosing, simply disappears. A brief note he leaves behind states tersely that he has gone to join the jihadists in Syria. The parents world is ripped apart. They had imagined a normal life for him. Now they must contend with questions that seem to belong to another world: Is this really their son? Did they ever know him? What pushed him to join the jihadists? The father (Mohamed Dhrif) does the unthinkable: he goes looking for his dear son, and the search becomes a journey of self-discovery for him. It was a splendid performance full of warmth and humanity, of anxiety and love.

Then there was The Cord, a Syrian short film by Al-Laith Hajjo, shot partly in a flat and largely in a small street just beneath in the middle of a thoroughly shattered town. The street has symbolically become a life-and-death frontier for the neighbourhood residents. Step out or cross it and you wont live  snipers are everywhere. On one side live ordinary middle-aged people, on the other, a young couple. The woman who is pregnant, gets her labour pains well before her due date. But how can her husband take her to the clinic? It would mean getting into his ramshackle car and moving. And in any case the fatigued car wont move. Nor can help come from the midwife or the neighbours who hear the womans cries but can only watch, not run across the street to help. Amidst unbearable tension, as the woman lies in the back of the car, the midwife and other women yell instructions to the husband about how to deliver a baby. And he does what he is told, much to his own fright. That the director seems to say are the daily travails of a war that are unseen, unknown, but lived every day.

Soudade Kaadan, the director of a Syrian-Lebanese-French co-production The Day I Lost My Shadow, places her story at the start of the Syrian war in 2012. The first words on the screen: On the other side of the city, shadows are abandoning their owners.

Winner of the Luigi de Laurentis Venice Award for a Debut Film, the simple yet psychologically complex story is about a young woman, Sana, and her eight-year-old son Khalil. Sana works in a pharmacy while her husband (as we learn later) has left for Saudi Arabia some years ago in search of work.

The film begins, develops and ends with a feeling of fear, haste and restlessness. Yes, its war again. People live with power cuts, gas and water shortage, helplessness, and, of course, bombardments.

A trip to a nearby town to refill her empty gas cylinder takes her inadvertently into the conflict zone. Accompanied by a weary and angry brother and sister, the three are left to fend for themselves when the man who gave them a ride, abandons them and scoots. Over three days, even as she worries about her son, she discovers that people in these affected areas have lost their shadows. What could this mean? Have they lost their souls  traumatised as they have been by the cruelty of war? Does having no shadow mean that the light somewhere around you has died? Like some exquisite shots of branches with no leaves, or of women digging graves for people who are likely to die? Soudade Kaadan ventures into a world of magic realism as ideas merge with reality.

But she offers no solutions. Her attention is on how people try to live normally in times of terror, especially for the sake of their children, but losing inevitably something of themselves in the process.

In The Gunshot by Karim El Shenawy (Egypt), which is set against the backdrop of the countrys January 25, 2011 revolution and its aftermath, we have a forensic doctor Yassine who turns to alcohol for succour. There is an unusual line about the films theme penned by Amir Ramses, El Gounas artistic director. When lies are nobler and more poetic than the truth, and when the masses want to believe whats false, which path should you take: following collective consciousness or clashing with it?

Which is what the film is about. The doctor writes a report about a body that has been found near the site of clashes with the police. His report creates a storm. Yassine says that the man died due to a gunshot wound from close quarters, not by a snipers bullet. But death by a snipers bullet would make the man a martyr and that is what people want to believe. Their defence of the revolution means, among other things, the creation of martyrs, and anyone opposing this would be a traitor. Its a question of blind adherence to what you want to believe in (even if it is for the larger good) rather than to the truth. A detective film with connotations that are both ideological and idealistic.

But there are films of another kind too. In The Gift (director Latifa Doghri from Tunisia), a young couples first wedding anniversary is round the corner. Myriam, the young conservative wife and a scarf-wearing kindergarten teacher, looks forward lovingly to a celebration. But her taxi-driver husband is cold. What he yearns for is a long life and obedience.

And so she decides to give him a truly novel gift  the reconstruction of her hymen and her virginity! It is a desperate gesture, but she hopes it will put some life into him. Her female friend in whom she confides is outspoken: Will you get your hymen re-sewn every time he loses interests? she asks scornfully.

In the event, the husbands response is both catty and explosive: was her intact hymen a gift even on their wedding night?

That for Myriam is the last straw, and paradoxically, a renewal. She charges into the street, a new look on her face, a new spring in her step, a new liberation in her veins and no scarf on the head. She has understood herself, her husband and her life. She gives away the new scarf that her husband had just gifted her to the first woman she meets. She wont be needing it anymore. And from then on, theres no looking back.

To be sure, there were other Arab films with themes far removed from the agonies of war and terrorism. But for me, it was gratifying to see the strength of what each filmmaker conveyed: an open mind, and a heart of gold  often in the midst of debris within and without.

The writer is an eminent film critic and has been on the jury of several national and international festivalsThe trek to the Lord Ayyappa Shrine began at 3 pm and the entry to the doors of the Sabarimala temple at 5 pm.

The Kerala police ordered that anyone trying to obstruct entry will amount to criminal conspiracy. (Photo: File | PTI)

Kochi: After the historic Supreme Court ruling last month revoking ban on women of all ages to enter the Sabarimala temple, the renowned shrine in Kerala opened its doors to women for the first time at 5 pm today.

The apex courts verdict had, however, received mixed responses with scores of protesters taking to the streets of Kerala demanding an overturn in the ruling citing that it is against their traditional beliefs.

In Thiruvananthapuram, the meeting between Travancore Devaswom Board and the pro-tradition group comprising tantris and Pandalam ex-royals on Wednesday to find a via media solution fizzled out over whether the board would prefer a review petition before the Supreme Court.

Devotees, both men and women stopped vehicles and evicted young women they thought were headed for the hill shrine.

Around 1,000 police personnel, 800 men and 200 women, have been deployed in Nilakkal, the main gateway to Sabarimala, to ensure a safe passage to the pilgrims to the Lord Ayyappa temple.

The Kerala police ordered that anyone trying to obstruct entry will amount to criminal conspiracy.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had, in a press meet on Tuesday, said that government will not submit a review petition and that they will ensure facilities to allow all devotees to go to Sabarimala shrine today.

Here are Live updates of Sabarimala temple opening:

07:07 pm: Devotees climb the sacred Pathinettam Padi to enter the Sabarimala Temple to offer prayers.

(Photo: Twitter | ANI)

06:54 pm: Ministry of Home Affairs has taken cognisance of the incidents of violence that took place in Kerala today, news agency ANI reported quoting sources.

06:42 pm: Section 144 (prohibits assembly of more than 4 people in an area) has been imposed in Pampa, Nilakkal, Sannidhanam and Elavungal.

06:26 pm: Prayers offered at Sabarimala Temple after its portals opened at 5 pm.

#WATCH: Prayers being offered at #SabarimalaTemple after its portals opened at 5 pm; devotees can offer prayers till 10.30 pm today. #Kerala pic.twitter.com/rBuneRDatN  ANI (@ANI) October 17, 2018

05:18 pm: Congress is not attacking anybody and definitely attack on journalists is not tolerable. Those who are protesting there are BJP and RSS people. Nowhere Congress people are engaged in this kind of hooliganism or vandalism: Ramesh Chennithala, Congress

05:00 pm: Portals of Sabarimala Temple opened at 5 pm today. The devotees can offer prayers till 10.30 pm today. The portals remain open till 22nd October.

04:40 pm: ANI reporter Ayushmaan Kumar was attacked by protesters at Nilakkal base camp when he was taking the pictures of women checking the buses for women devotees. Police was also present at the spot when the attack took place.

04:34 pm: Network of Women in Media, India (NWMI) vehemently denounces attacks on journalists, including several women journalists, at Nilakkal/Sabarimala. It demands that the chief minister and Kerala government take immediate action against agitators who let violent assailants loose on journalists.

It is incumbent on the government to create a secure environment for journalists to report from Pamba and nearby areas on an issue that is of interest and concern to the public. Government must immediately ensure the safety of journalists and assure media that lives of reporters are not in danger NWMI said.

04:29 pm: LDF govt is fully responsible for any law and order situation in the state. It's a very unfortunate situation, we aren't responsible. No BJP worker is involved, we're condemning that attempt: MS Kumar, BJP

04:14 pm: India Today journalist Mausami Singh and its crew were also attacked by the protesters at Nilakkal base camp.

#WATCH: India Today journalist Mausami Singh and its crew in a police vehicle. They were attacked by the protesters at Nilakkal base camp. #SabarimalaTemple #Kerala pic.twitter.com/R7rsSBK8fx  ANI (@ANI) October 17, 2018

04:10 pm: Activist Rahul Easwar has been arrested by from Nilakkal base camp and a non-bailable FIR has been registered against him. He is kept at Pamba police station. Easwar told news agency ANI, I didn't hit any woman there. I was moving to the other direction. It's a vendetta against me.

04:04 pm: Police lathi-charge and pelt stones at the protesters gathered at Nilakkal base camp, in Kerala.

#WATCH: Police lathi-charge and pelt stones at the protesters gathered at Nilakkal base camp, in Kerala. #SabarimalaTemple pic.twitter.com/DMC1ePz0l2  ANI (@ANI) October 17, 2018

03:57 pm: National Commission for Women (NCW) takes cognisance of the attack on women journalists. A meeting is underway at NCW office for further steps to be taken.

03:29 pm: "I can predict what is going on there, I think it is intentional. It's dirty politics they (protesters) are playing. We can't say if they are actual devotees. Supreme Court's order is Constitutional and the government is bound to implement it", says KK Shailja Teacher.

03:00 pm: Women journalists -- one from The News Minute and the other from Republic TV -- were attacked by anti-women protesters when they had gone to cover the agitations near Sabarimala temple. Protesters blocked and attacked Republic TV journalist Pooja Prasanna's car in Pathanamthitta.

01:51 pm: RSS and BJP are taking double standards. On one hand, 5 advocates associated with the BJP gave petition in the apex court over entry of women of all ages in Sabarimala temple and on the other BJP is leading fight against the verdict. Now BJP trying to make it a law and order issue, says Kerala minister VS Sunil.

01:41 pm: A total of 30 people have been arrested in Pamba, 9 on Tuesday and 21 on Wednesday, in connection with protests against entry of women in age group 10-50 to Sabarimala temple. Two of them have got bail.

01:16 pm: 50 people have been taken into custody in Pathanamthitta district for protesting against entry of women of all ages to Sabarimala temple.

01:03 pm: Over 20 people including former Travancore Devaswom Board president Prayar Gopalakrishnan were taken into custody in Nilakkal and Pamba for protesting against entry of women in age group 10 to 50 to Sabarimala temple.

12:50 pm: Congress party leaders hold a peaceful protest in Nilakkal against the entry of women of all ages to Sabarimala temple.

12:15 pm: Two women devotees on their way to Sabarimala temple turned away by protesters.

11:49 am: Police detain people protesting in Pamba against the entry of women of all ages in Sabarimala temple.

11:30 am: According to reports, stones were pelted at a vehicle carrying women devotees in Nilakkal, Nobody was injured in the incident. Stones were pelted when protesters insisted on searching the vehicle but the police refused. In retaliation, they pelted stones and shattered the windshield of the vehicle.

11:00 am: Women protest in Nilakkal against the entry of women in the age group of 10-50 to Sabarimala temple.

Also Read: Watch: Protesters on streets, agitate over women's entry to Sabarimala temple

09:59 am: Protests being held near Pamba base camp against entry of women in the age group 10-50 to Sabarimala temple.

Kerala: Protests being held near Pamba base camp against entry of women in the age group 10-50 to #SabarimalaTemple pic.twitter.com/JTZ2negQ5L  ANI (@ANI) October 17, 2018

09:20 am: Pilgrims begin arriving at Nilakkal, the base camp of Sabarimala Temple as the portals of the temple are all set to open today.

(Photo: Twitter | ANI)

08:45 am: Seven protesters were arrested for creating ruckus. Police said that every devotee will have straight passage to Sabarimala. Protesters will not be allowed to gather at the base, they added.

08:16 am: As hundreds of additional police have been put on high alert across the state, police spokesperson Pramod Kumar told news agency AFP that, "Things are under control, and we are closely monitoring the situation".

08:00 am: A total of 1,000 security personnel, 800 men and 200 women, deployed at Nilakkal and Pampa base. 500 security personnel deployed at Sannidhanam.

(Photo: Twitter | ANI)

07:55 am: Devotees of Lord Ayyappa who have gathered at Nilakkal said, "We are facing problems as administration is not giving clear answers on when doors will open."

(Photo: Twitter | ANI)

07:35 am: The trek to the Lord Ayyappa Shrine to begin at 3 pm and the entry to the doors of the Sabarimala temple at 5 pm.

07:30 am: After the Supreme Court verdict lifting ban on entry of women in menstruating age in Sabarimala temple, many had strongly opposed it. Addressing the protesters in Kollam on Friday, Malayalam actor Kollam Thulasi had allegedly said, "Women in the restricted age group who visit the Lord Ayappa Temple should be ripped apart."

07:27 am: Devotees block cars and buses to check for women travelling to Sabarimala. Few women were evicted from the bus and were asked to go back near Nilakkal in Sabarimala ahead of its scheduled opening for women of all ages for the first time today.

(Photo: AP)

07:25 am: The Lord Ayyappa temple has traditionally barred women of menstruating age as the deity is a celibate and does not want the presence of women in the age group of 10 to 50 years. The Sabarimala temple's rule followed the belief that menstruating women are "impure".

The custom in the temple was challenged by a clutch of petitioners who argued that women cannot be denied the constitutional right to worship.Journalists were attacked at Pamba by anti-women protesters when they had gone to cover agitations near Sabarimala temple.

The News Minute reporter Saritha S Balan (L) and Republic TV's South India bureau chief Pooja Prasanna (R) were attacked by anti-women protesters near Sabarimala temple. (Photo: Facebook, Twitter Screengrab respectively)

Mumbai: Protests have intensified in Kerala hours ahead of opening of the Sabarimala temple where women of all ages will be allowed to enter the shrine for the first time.

In the latest turn of events, two women journalists -- one from The News Minute and the other from Republic TV -- were attacked by anti-women protesters when they had gone to cover the agitations near Sabarimala temple.

Reports said personnel from News 18, CNN-IBN and Aaj Taj were also targeted.

The shrine of Lord Ayyappa, traditionally closed to women of menstruating age between 10 and 50 years, opens its doors to women today after following Supreme Court verdict last month.

According to The News Minute report, the anti-women Sabarimala protesters had attacked reporter Saritha S Balan in Pamba.

The reporter was on a state transport bus that was carrying devotees to Sabarimala, when a mob of 20 men -- allegedly belonging to Karma Samithi -- surrounded the bus and tried to pull her out.

The report added that Balan was verbally abused and physically attacked. One person in the mob had kicked her on the spine.

"She was kicked from behind as angry devotees took her photograph, called her derogatory names and chanted slogans in the name of Ayyappa. A woman also tried to throw a water bottle at Saritha," The News Minute reported.

The report said Saritha, who is now at a police station, is surrounded by the goons who call themselves devotees.

In a tweet, Republic stated, "Mob of 100 smash car, attack Republic TV's South India bureau chief Pooja Prasanna". The mob of anti-women Sabarimala protesters had snatched batons from the police and attacked the television crew. Prasanna is safe.

The Supreme Court last month lifted centuries-old ban on women of menstruating age -- 10 to 50 years  stating that they must not be barred from entering the shrine. After the verdict the doors of the temple will open today.

Lord Ayappa, the presiding deity of the temple, is considered to be celibate by the devotees.

On Wednesday morning, two women, who were among the first to begin the trek to the temple, were stopped by protesters mid-way and were forced to return by the protesters.ABC/Randy HolmesShinedown frontman Brent Smith and guitarist Zach Myers will visit Washington, D.C. this Saturday to participate in the Out of the Darkness Community Walk, an annual demonstration held to benefit the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, or AFSP.

"People from all walks of life must be compassionate and understanding toward one another," Smith says in a statement. "When we do that, we can help save lives."

"We will walk on Saturday to show our support for our fellow brothers and sisters, and show the entire world that we recognize that mental health is just as real as physical health," he adds.

Shinedown's song "GET UP," the current single from the band's new album ATTENTION ATTENTION, is about bass player Eric Bass' battle with depression.

For more info on the D.C. walk and walks in your community, visit AFSP.org.

Copyright  2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.Earlier in the day, a video went viral in which Digvijay Singh is heard saying that his partys votes get reduced if he campaigns for it.

Bhopal: On the second day of his campaign in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh, Congress president Rahul Gandhi continued visits to shrines and raised the issue of suicide by Hyderabad research scholar Rohit Vemula in 2016 to strike a chord with dalit voters, while targeting governments in BJP-ruled states for their alleged failure to protect the weaker sections and minorities who are living in perpetual fear.

During his public meetings in the Gwalior-Chambal region, which has a sizeable dalit population, Mr Gandhi recalled the misery of Vemula that purportedly forced him to commit suicide.

All Rohit Vemula wanted was to study. But, he was put under pressure and forced to commit suicide, he said while addressing a series of roadside meetings.

Vemula, a dalit research scholar of the University of Hyderabad (UoH), hanged himself to death 15 days after he was expelled from his hostel along with four other researchers over due to alleged casteist excesses.

Mr Gandhi said weaker sections and minorities are living in perpetual fear in many parts of the country such as Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat following attacks on them. An atmosphere of fear rules the whole country, he said.

Mr Gandhi staged a 71 km-road show in the region after paying beisance at the Data Bandi Chhor Gurudwara, located in the Gwalior Fort, before winding up his two-day tour to the state on Tuesday.

During his public meetings, Mr Gandhi criticised the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government in Madhya Pradesh for not addressing the problems of malnutrition, farmers distress and youth unemployment plaguing the state.

He also attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi while apparently referring to the allegations of sexual harassment against minister of state for external affairs M.J. Akbar.

Modiji says Beti Padhao, Beti Bachao but it so happens that when complaint against his minister comes, he keeps quiet, Mr Gandhi said while addressing a public meeting in Joura area of Morena district.When an Uttar Pradesh MLA rapes a woman, UP CM Yogi (Adityanath) keeps quiet and the Prime Minister keeps quiet. Their true slogan should be Beti padhao aur beti ko BJP ke neta, mantri aur MLA se bachao, he said.

Continuing his tirade against the Prime Minister, Mr Gandhi said that Mr Modi had claimed that he wants to be a chowkidar (watchman of the country) but he actually proved to be a chowkidar of Anil Ambani, Mehul Choksi and Nirav Modi and has been working for them since last four years.

Significantly, Tuesdays public meeting in Joura was attended by senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh, who had been conspicuous by his absence during most of the programmes and rallies addressed by Gandhi in Madhya Pradesh over the last few weeks.

Earlier in the day, a video went viral in which Digvijay Singh is heard saying that his partys votes get reduced if he campaigns for it.

Meanwhile, chief minister Chouhan took a potshot at Mr Gandhi over his temple visits during election times, saying, Shrines are not places to do politics for votes.

Rahul Baba should realise that one cannot get votes by moving around sporting tilak on ones forehead during election times. One has to be with people all the time and work for them tirelessly to win their confidence, the chief minister said at a public meeting in Vidisha district.

I have absolutely no objection if Mr Gandhi visits a temple or a mosque. But, he is seen making temple visits only during elections. People are aware of his tricks. He should not think people are fools, Mr Chouhan said.

He dared the Congress to give an account of the works done during the partys 10-year rule from 1993-2003 and said the state was made sick during the period because of non-performance of the then Digvijay Singh government.

The chief minister also took a swipe at Mr Gandhi for promising to waive farm loans if the Congress returns to power in MP, saying that farmers were given loans at 18 per cent interest during the Digvijay Singh government, whereas the current BJP government has made loans interest-free.The district administration closed all schools and educational institution in the city as a precautionary measure.

The operation turned into an encounter after terrorists opened fire on security forces. (Photo: File)

Srinagar: Three terrorists were killed in an encounter with security forces in the city on Wednesday, prompting authorities to close down schools and snap internet services, an official said.

Security forces had launched a cordon and search operation in Fateh Kadal area of the city following an information about the presence of terrorists there, he said.

The operation turned into an encounter after terrorists opened fire on security forces. The operation was going on till last reports came in.

The district administration has closed all schools and educational institution in the city as a precautionary measure and internet services on moblie have also been snapped.The doors of Sabarimala temple will be opened to women for the time at 5 pm today.

Slogans were raised as women marched in protest at Nilakkal, the main gateway to Sabarimala. (Screengrab | ANI)

Kochi: Hours ahead of Sabarimala temple opening its doors to women of all ages in the renowned shrine in Kerala, protesters, mostly women, took to streets agitating against the Supreme Court's last month verdict.

Slogans were raised as women marched in protest at Nilakkal, the main gateway to Sabarimala.

The doors of Sabarimala temple will be opened to women for the time at 5 pm today.

#WATCH: Women protest in Nilakkal against the entry of women in the age group of 10-50 to #Sabarimala temple. #Kerala pic.twitter.com/GuxDZo0R7G  ANI (@ANI) October 17, 2018

Pilgrims have started arriving at Nilakkal.

Also Read: Historic day: Doors of Sabarimala temple to open for women of all ages today

Meanwhile, 7 protesters have been arrested for creating ruckus. Police said that every devotee will have straight passage to Sabarimala. Protesters will not be allowed to gather at the base, they added.Akbar stepped down Wednesday following a spate of allegations of sexual harassment during his days as editor of several publications.

In a brief statement, Akbar said he had decided to seek justice in a court of law in his personal capacity. (Photo: file)

New Delhi: Women activists Wednesday welcomed the resignation of Minister of State for External Affairs M J Akbar, terming it a victory of the #MeToo movement in India, and asserted that the determination and courage of about 20 women journalists "belatedly forced" the Union minister to step down.

Akbar stepped down Wednesday following a spate of allegations of sexual harassment during his days as editor of several publications. In a brief statement, Akbar said he had decided to seek justice in a court of law in his personal capacity.

Kavita Krishnan, secretary of the All India Progressive Women's Association, said it was the determination and courage of 20 women journalists who came forward to expose Akbar that has "belatedly" forced him to resign.

"PM (Narendra) Modi's silence and tacit support for Akbar so far would have continued had it not been for the steady flood of women who refused to be deterred by the defamation case," Krishnan told PTI. Women rights activist Ranjana Kumari said Akbar should be ashamed that he did not resign earlier and that he was still fighting against the woman who called him out.

Activist Mariam Dhawale said it was a victory of the women's movement and Akbar's resignation was "long due".

"He should stop the terror tactics he is using to intimidate women who came out against him," Dhawale said. Over the last fortnight, about 20 women have come forward to narrate their experiences of alleged sexual harassment at the hands of Akbar.

On Tuesday, around 19 women journalists, who have worked with 'The Asian Age' newspaper, had come out in support of their colleague Priya Ramani who has accused Akbar of sexual harassment, a joint statement issued by them had said. The journalists had urged the court to hear their testimonies against Akbar, claiming that some of them suffered sexual harassment by the minister and others have been witness to it.Sri Lanka says media reports that Sirisena had blamed RAW of plotting to assassinate him were utterly false and mischievous.

New Delhi: Sri Lanka on Wednesday denied Colombo media reports that President Maithripala Sirisena had accused an Indian intelligence agency of being involved in a plot to assassinate him, with President Sirisena calling up Prime Minister Narendra Modi to personally deny these reports. President Sirisena told Mr Modi that the mischievous and mala fide reports were utterly baseless and false, and seemed intended to create a misunderstanding between the two leaders as well as damage the cordial relations between the two friendly neighbours. Speculation is rife in Sri Lanka of a turf war between its President and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, who incidentally will begin a three-day visit to New Delhi on Thursday.

The external affairs ministry in New Delhi said President Sirisena also told Mr Modi in the telephone call that he regards Mr Modi as a true friend of Sri Lanka, as also a close personal friend, emphasising that he greatly valued the mutually beneficial ties between India and Sri Lanka, and remained steadfast to work with the Prime Minister for further strengthening them. It said Mr Modi appreciated the prompt steps taken by the (Sri Lankan) President and his government to firmly refute the malicious reports by publicly clarifying matters.

But what President Sirisena initially said has become the subject of much speculation in Sri Lanka. Interestingly, the denial of the media reports by the Sri Lankan foreign ministry said President Sirisenas remarks had been taken out of context. According to some media reports from Sri Lanka, Cabinet spokesman and minister Rajitha Senaratne said President Sirisena did not say the (Indian) Research and Analysis Wing was allegedly involved in a plot to assassinate him and the President at the Cabinet meeting had actually said attempts were being made to implicate RAW in the alleged plot to assassinate him and damage India-Sri Lanka bilateral ties.

Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe will, incidentally, hold talks with Mr Modi and external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj on Saturday, in which the entire gamut of India-Sri Lankan ties will be discussed.

In a detailed statement, the Sri Lankan foreign ministry said: The attention of the ministry of foreign affairs has been drawn to media reports attributed to President Maithripala Sirisena alleging the involvement of an Indian intelligence service in a plot to assassinate him. The ministry wishes to clarify that the media reports in this connection are baseless and false. The ministry wishes to emphasise that relations between Sri Lanka and India, including at the highest levels of government, are strong, encompassing multiple spheres, including intelligence-sharing.

In New Delhi, the MEA said: The President of Sri Lanka, Maithripala Sirisena, called Prime Minister Modi on telephone today. The President of Sri Lanka stated that he categorically rejected the reports in sections of the media about him alluding to the involvement of India in any manner whatsoever in an alleged plot to assassinate the President and a former defence secretary of Sri Lanka. He mentioned that the mischievous and mala fide reports were utterly baseless and false, and seemed intended to create misunderstanding between the two leaders as well as damage the cordial relations between the two friendly neighbours.The symptoms of postpartum depression may appear at any time in the first year of a newborn's life, and may last weeks or even months.

Postpartum depression is in part caused by the dramatic hormonal shifts women experience during and following pregnancy.

A new research now reveals that persistent pain after childbirth may predict postpartum depression - even the woman's labour and subsequent delivery were not particularly painful.

While doctors for long knew that pain related to childbirth was linked to depression afterwards, they had not been about to specify what period of pain was most closely associated with the mental health condition.

The research carried out at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital have now uncovered that it is the post-birth period that needs special attention.

They advise that doctors need to make sure that women are not sent home to suffer in order to protect their physical and mental health.

The symptoms of postpartum depression may appear at any time in the first year of a newborn's life, and may last weeks or even months. However, the trajectory is different for everyone.

Postpartum depression, in many ways, resembles other forms of the mood disorder, with symptoms like deep general sadness and fatigue, but it can also cause women to feel violent toward themselves and their newborns.

The disorder can interfere with the ability of a woman and her child to bond, leading to poorer health outcomes for both.

Experts say that it is, in part,

Postpartum depression is in part caused by the dramatic hormonal shifts women experience during and following pregnancy, but that's made worse by the emotional rollercoaster and exhaustion of taking care of a new baby.

Doctors believe other factors, including how much physical pain a woman is in, contribute to whether or not she will develop postpartum depression. According the authors of the new study found, if a woman has a great deal of pain during her recovery after giving birth.

Complications such as tearing or wounds left by a caesarean section have a greater than expected impact.

According to Assistant Professor Dr Jie Zhou, who led the study from Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, said that the research suggests doctors need to focus more on helping new mothers manage pain after the baby is born.

The findings were presented by the American Society of Anesthesiologists in San Francisco.He was allegedly drunk and walks into the womens washroom.

New Delhi: The son of former MP has been booked for brandishing a pistol at former Congress MLA's son in south Delhi's Hyatt Regency hotel in the wee hours of Sunday.

The incident took place at about 3.40 am on Sunday.

The accused, identified as Ashish Pandey, is the son of Uttar Pradesh politician Rakesh Pandey, a former parliamentarian of Mayawati's BSP (Bahujan Samaj Party). His brother Ritesh is a sitting BSP MLA from Jalalpur constituency in Ambedgar Nagar, UP.

The former Congress MLA from Model Town, Kanwar Karan Singh, said his son, who was shown a gun by Pandey, was in trauma after the incident and that was the reason why he did not inform the police.

Singh said they have recorded their statement with the police and have full faith in the law of the land.

We have given our version to police and submitted our written statement. We were in trauma after the incident. My son was shown a gun and he was in fear and that is why we did not lodge a complaint before, he said adding that, My son was numb with fear after he was shown a gun. We do not believe in violence and stay away form indulging in fights. Police have started their investigation and we believe in them.

DCP (southwest) Devender Arya said a complaint was received on Monday from the asst. security manager of the Hyaat hotel regarding the incident. Accordingly, a case under sections of the Arms Act were registered.

In a 90-second clip, Ashish Pandey could be seen with a pistol in his hand as he argues with a woman and her friend and threatens them, allegedly after she objected to his walking into the women's washroom.

A female friend of Pandey and a hotel security guard could be seen trying to pacify him and calm him down. Later, he was dragged away by the hotel staff as he continues to shout from inside his luxury BMW sedan.

According to the police, Ashish, who hails from Lucknow, was in an inebriated state.

Police said he was in Delhi to meet a businessman-friend named Sahil. The incident occurred at a party thrown by Sahil for a woman friend who had come from Dubai.

A Lookout circular, which alerts the police at borders, airports and railway stations about a wanted man, has been issued against him, after which a team of Lucknow police arrived at the residence of Pandey.Khan, who hails from Jammu and Kashmir had submitted his resignation on Monday and Congress president Rahul Gandhi accepted it, sources said.

NEW DELHI: The National Students' Union of India (NSUI) president Fairoz Khan stepped down from his post on Tuesday, following charges of sexual harassment.

Mr Khan, who hails from Jammu and Kashmir had submitted his resignation on Monday and Congress president Rahul Gandhi accepted it, sources said.

His resignation comes in the backdrop of the metoo movement and an outpour of sexual harassment cases being spoken about in the country.

An NSUI office bearer from Chhattisgarh had in June this year levelled charges of sexual harassment against Mr Khan, following which the Congress leadership had formed a panel to probe the allegations against the chief of the party's student union.

She had also filed a police complaint against him.

The three-member internal panel submitted its report on Friday.

The Congress worker from Chhattisgarh also lodged a complaint against the chief of the youth wing at the Parliament Street police station, saying that she feared for her life.

She had also said that Mr Khan has been sexually harassing young women in lieu of political appointments.

The complainant reportedly sent a letter to the media with details of several WhatsApp conversations between Mr Khan and two others and claimed that they approached Mr Gandhi and several other Congress leaders.

During the same time, an open letter asking Mr Gandhi to intervene was also shared by another user, who urged him to take action against Mr Khan and Chirag Patnaik, a member of the party's social media team.

However, Mr Khan had claimed that the charges against him were absolutely baseless and politically motivated and that all his communication with complainant had been via the mail.

The committee comprised All India Mahila Congress president Sushmita Dev, Lok Sabha member Deepender Hooda, and the party's national media panellist Ragini Nayak.The woman said she was raped and molested over a span of four years.

Pune: The Pune police on Wednesday booked four Army personnel for allegedly raping and molesting a woman with a speech and hearing impairment.

According to the FIR, the woman, a 34-year-old Grade IV employee of the Military Hospital in Khadki, Pune, was raped and molested over a span of four years from 2015. She is a widow and has a 12-year-old son.

The woman alleged that a jawan had raped her while she was posted on the night shift. She also alleged that when she told another Armyman about the incident, he initially told her that he would reprimand the accused. But, he too sought sexual favours from her and allegedly raped her, the police said. After some days, two more personnel approached the woman and allegedly took advantage of her, the police official said.

Later, the woman approached an Indore-based NGO run by a couple for the welfare of hearing-and-speech-impaired individuals in July.

The NGO subsequently approached the Indore police. On Tuesday night, the Indore police informed its Pune counterparts about the matter, after which it registered a case against the accused.

The Army is also conducting a court of inquiry against the accused. An official of the Armys Southern Command said, The court of inquiry was initiated well before the police complaint was registered.The speaker makes no attempt to seek your attention with its minimal design.

Keeping up with the theme of simplicity, the BW-AS1 only has four buttons on top.

Rating:

Kickstarter crowdfunding campaigns generally don't end well. So when a Hong Kong-based company BlitzWolf promised an elegant wireless speaker on a budget, many were sceptical of this claim. Now that the company not only raised the money but also readied the product on time, let us see if BlitzWolf has delivered on its promise.

Design

The BlitzWolf BW-AS1 is made of a solid block of anodised aluminium. Little wonder then, it is incredibly sturdy. What's even better is the elegant design. The speaker makes no attempt to seek your attention with its minimal design. However, the speaker begins to grow on you with its build precision. The curved sides and chiselled outlines flow perfectly well. In fact, it feels right at home when placed near a MacBook.

Keeping up with the theme of simplicity, the BW-AS1 only has four buttons on top. That's about the right number, as too many controls become overwhelming at times. At the rear, you have notches for micro USB port and 3.5 mm audio jack.

The BW-AS1 is an indoor speaker, so it is not very compact. And at 748 grams, it is not lightweight either. But then, I don't mind the heft as it is mainly due to the high-quality metal components.

Features

The speaker supports Bluetooth 4.2, which is known for going easy on the battery. You can also hook it up to devices using a 3.5 mm AUX jack. The BW-AS1 can also be used for conference calls. The four buttons on the top have multiple functions. The Play / Pause button doubles up as a call receiver. The volume up and down buttons can be used for going to a previous or next track.

Performance

The BW-AS1 packs in two 10W drivers. The setup produces enough sound to fill a large room. The speaker does a great job at producing. The best part is that even with volume set to very high, there's no sign of distortion.

The speaker's strength lies producing highs and mids. Annie's Song by John Denver sounds great on the speaker. The passive diaphragm enhances the bass to a certain extent. However, as a fan of rock music from the 80s, I would have liked the bass to be punchier. Perhaps, BlitzWolf should add a separate bass boost toggle to let the users choose their preference.

The speaker lacks water and dust resistance. While this is not something to brag about, there's definitely a silver lining to it. With no protectives measures in place, the speaker produces clear sound as opposed to the muffled audio on some waterproof devices.

Battery

The BW-AS1 has a 5200 mAh battery. It takes almost four hours to fully charge the battery, which is a bit annoying. However, once fully charged, the device offers eight hours of music playback.

Verdict

BlitzWolf BW-AS1 is priced at Rs 4,528 on Bangood.com. For that price, its sound quality is quite good. And it is one of the best-looking wireless speakers in the market. It does lose out on features such as water resistance, NFC, and microSD card playback. However, if you are looking for a no-nonsense Bluetooth speaker with good battery life, the BW-AS1 won't disappoint you.

Pros:

Elegant design; Sturdy build quality; Good sound quality; Aggressive pricing.

Cons:

Lacks water resistance; Could have had more features.

(Source)The Chinese company overtook Apple this year to become the number two smartphone maker by units.

The new line-up includes the Mate 20, with list prices ranging from 799-849 euros.

Huawei unveiled new flagship smartphones with a novel smart camera and video features on Tuesday, as it seeks to sustain momentum among price-conscious consumers.

The Chinese company, which overtook Apple this year to become the No. 2 smartphone maker by units - behind South Koreas Samsung - introduced its Mate 20 phone series using Leica camera technology.

Huaweis new premium phone line-up has four models available around the world, except in the United States where sales are effectively banned over whispered national security concerns.

The new line-up includes the Mate 20, with list prices ranging from 799-849 euros ($925-$983), depending on memory configuration.

The fuller-featured Mate 20 Pro, is priced as low as 799 pounds at some UK retailers and list priced at 849 pounds or 1,049 euros across Europe. A comparable iPhone X Max from Apple costs 1,099 pounds in the UK.

The new phones include a new ultra-wide angle lens, as well as a 3x telephoto lens and a macro that shoots objects as close as 2.5 centimetres (1 inch).

Mate P20 models take advantage of artificial intelligence features built into Huaweis own Kirin chipsets.

Features available to Mate 20 users include being able to isolate human subjects and desaturate the colours around them in order to highlight people against their backgrounds.

Huawei incorporates bigger light-sensing chips than rival phones to take better pictures in low-light conditions.

Gartner analyst Roberta Cozza said that in a highly commoditised smartphone market of look-alike phones, Huawei is managing to differentiate itself with a camera and personalisation features.

With the Mate 20, Huawei is setting the bar for what users can expect from photography using a smartphone, Cozza said.

The Chinese phone maker managed to surpass Apple to take the No. 2 spot in the second quarter, industry data shows, despite being effectively excluded from the US market.

However, Apple commanded 43 per cent of the premium market and a lions share of profits, CounterPoint Research estimated.

Huawei is clearly ticking all the key boxes needed to displace rivals  and not just Android-powered rivals, said Ben Wood, research chief of mobile industry consulting firm CCS Insight.

Wood said Huaweis move to match Apple iPhones characteristic swipe gestures and face unlock features on its Mate 20 Pro could, in theory, make it easier for committed Apple buyers to switch, although he said that was unlikely near term.

But its clear that Huawei has an eye on the future and is ready to take share from Apple if the time comes that a loyal iPhone owner decides to try something else, he said.

The new premium phone line-up from the worlds biggest telecom equipment maker includes four models, the Mate 20, Mate 20 Pro, Mate 20 X, with a 7.2-inch display screen, and a Porsche Design limited edition phone.

(Source)Three other suspects are linked to Prince Mohammed's security detail and a fifth is a high-level forensic doctor, New York Times reported.

Journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi national who criticized policies of Salman's son Crown Prince Mohammed, has not been seen since Oct 2, when he went to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. (Photo: File)

Washington: A suspect identified by Turkey in the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was a frequent companion of the kingdom's powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, The New York Times reported on Tuesday.

Three other suspects are linked to Prince Mohammed's security detail and a fifth is a high-level forensic doctor, the Times said.

The account could raise doubt about US President Donald Trump's claim -- after Saudi King Salman strongly denied to him any knowledge of what happened -- that "rogue killers" might have been responsible for Khashoggi's disappearance.

Khashoggi, a Saudi national who contributed to The Washington Post and criticized policies of Salman's son Crown Prince Mohammed, has not been seen since October 2, when he went to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to obtain official documents for his upcoming marriage.

Turkish government sources have said police believe the journalist was killed by a special team of 15 Saudi officials sent to Istanbul especially for the task.

Riyadh insists that he left the consulate safely.

The Times said it confirmed that at least nine of the 15 worked for the Saudi security services, military or other government ministries.

The newspaper said it gathered more information about the suspects through facial recognition software, a database of Saudi cell phone numbers, leaked Saudi government documents, witnesses and media.

Who are the suspects?

One suspect, Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb, was a diplomat assigned to the Saudi embassy in London in 2007, it said, citing a British diplomatic roster.

Mutreb, perhaps a bodyguard, has been photographed emerging from planes with Prince Mohammed on recent trips to Madrid and Paris, the newspaper reported.

It added that Mutreb was also photographed standing guard during Prince Mohammed's visits in the United States to Houston, Boston and the United Nations.

The Times said three other suspects are Abdulaziz Mohammed al-Hawsawi -- a member of the security team that travels with Prince Mohammed -- Thaar Ghaleb al-Harbi, and Muhammed Saad Alzahrani.

Harbi and Alzahrani have the same names as two people who have been identified as members of the Saudi Royal Guard, the Times said.

The fifth suspect is an autopsy expert, Salah al-Tubaigy, who the Times said identified himself on his Twitter account as the head of the Saudi Scientific Council of Forensics.

He also held high positions in the Interior Ministry and the kingdom's top medical school, the report said.

On Monday, CNN cited two sources as saying the Saudis are preparing a report that Khashoggi's death resulted from a botched interrogation, while The Wall Street Journal said the kingdom was weighing whether to say that rogue operatives killed Khashoggi by mistake.US Trade Representative Lighthizer said the administration notified Congress of its intent to negotiate the three separate trade agreements.

The move follows the Trump administration's renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico and its push to correct what Trump maintains is an unbalanced trade picture. (Photo: AP | File)

Washington: US officials announced Tuesday negotiations for separate trade agreements with Britain, the European Union and Japan as part of efforts by President Donald Trump's administration to rebalance global commerce.

US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said the administration notified Congress of its intent to negotiate the three separate trade agreements.

"We are committed to concluding these negotiations with timely and substantive results for American workers, farmers, ranchers and businesses," Lighthizer said in a statement.

The move follows the Trump administration's renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico and its push to correct what Trump maintains is an unbalanced trade picture.

In the notifications to Congress on Japan and the EU, Lighthizer cited "chronic US trade imbalances" and said that US exporters have been long "challenged" by tariff and non-tariff barriers in Japan and in Europe.

The goal, he said, is to achieve "fairer, more balanced" trade with the US trading partners.

Lighthizer said the US would seek a trade agreement with Britain as soon as it exits the European Union in 2019.

The letter to Congress said Washington would seek to address tariff and non-tariff barriers and achieve "free, fair and reciprocal trade" with the United Kingdom.

Playing Hardball

Trump has been playing hardball with US trading partners, using tariffs and threats in an effort to boost US exports and curb the longstanding deficit in merchandise trade, despite warnings from many US lawmakers and the International Monetary Fund.

Trump in May had ordered Commerce to investigate the possibility of imposing tariffs of up to 25 per cent on foreign autos and auto parts, a prospect that alarmed the industry and could have serious repercussions for Japan and Europe.

"We need to work together to de-escalate and resolve the current trade disputes," IMF chief Christine Lagarde said at an IMF and World Bank gathering in Bali last week.

Trump has levied or threatened tariffs on goods from economies around the world, notably China, but also on traditional allies such as the European Union.

More tariffs and their countermeasures "could lead to a broader tightening of financial conditions, with negative implications for the global economy and financial stability," the fund warned.

The new talks, if successful, would address trade with Europe and Japan but leaves the thornier challenge of China, which accounts for more than half the US trade deficit.

The US trade deficit ballooned in August to its highest level in six months, according to government figures showing American consumers snapped up more imported cars and mobile phones.

The total US trade deficit rose 6.4 per cent over July to USD 53.2 billion, overshooting analyst forecasts.

Despite Trump's efforts to attack the trade deficit, so far this year it has risen 8.6 percent over the same period in 2017.

The gap in goods trade with China rose to USD 38.6 billion for August and with Mexico hit USD 8.7 billion -- both the highest monthly totals ever.

The August figures suggested retaliatory tariffs imposed by China continued to whipsaw American farmers, whose rural counties Trump's Republican Party traditionally counts on for political support.Law enforcement officials said they were treating the incident, in which many of the victims were teenage pupils, as a terrorist attack.

Rescuers carry an injured victim of a blast at at a college in the city of Kerch on October 17, 2018. - Thirteen people were killed and 50 more wounded, most of them teenagers, after a blast tore into a college canteen in Russian-annexed Crimea in what Moscow called a 'terrorist' attack. (Photo: AFP)

Moscow: Eighteen people were killed and dozens injured at a college in the Black Sea region of Crimea on Wednesday when at least one attacker set off a bomb in the cafeteria and went through the building shooting at random, officials said.

Law enforcement officials said they were treating the incident, in which many of the victims were teenage pupils, as a terrorist attack.

Sergei Aksyonov, the head of the Russian-backed administration in Crimea, a region Moscow annexed from Ukraine four years ago, said the main suspect was a male student a the college and that he had killed himself.

Video footage from the scene showed armoured personnel carriers and military trucks lined up on the approach to the college, in the Crimean city of Kerch. Russia's Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said the military was sending forces and supplies to help the victims.

Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, prompting international condemnation and Western sanctions. Since the operation to annex the peninsula, there have been no outbreaks of violence there.

Aksyonov, the regional head, told Russian state television the death toll from the attack now stood at 18, up from a previous estimate of 13.

Olga Grebennikova, the college's director, described a scene of bloodshed at the college, which provides vocational training. Its pupils are mostly teenagers.

"Childrens bodies everywhere"

"There are bodies everywhere, children's bodies everywhere. It was a real act of terrorism. They burst in five or 10 minutes after I'd left. They blew up everything in the hall, glass was flying," Grebennikova told Crimean media outlets.

"They then ran about throwing some kind of explosives around, and then ran around the second floor with guns, opened the office doors, and killed anyone they could find."

The Investigative Committee, the law enforcement body that investigates major crimes, said initial information was that an explosive device packed with metal objects had gone off in the cafeteria of the college.

It said in a statement that there were around 50 people wounded in the attack.

Russian news agencies quoted a senior official with Russia's National Guard, a law enforcement agency, as saying that the attack was being treated as terrorism. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

An employee at a hospital in Kerch was quoted as saying that 18 people had already been admitted with injuries from the explosion, and that doctors were expecting around 50 more wounded people to be brought in.

"There are already lots of people in the emergency room, and in the operating theatre," the TASS news agency quoted the employee as saying.

Anastasia Yenshina, a 15-year-old student at the college, said she was in a toilet on the ground floor of the building with some friends when she heard the sound of an explosion.

"I came out and there was dust and smoke, I couldn't understand, I'd been deafened," she told Reuters. "Everyone started running. I did not know what to do. Then they told us to leave the building through the gymnasium."

"Everyone ran there... I saw a girl lying there. There was a child who was being helped to walk because he could not move on his own. The wall was covered in blood. Then everyone started to climb over the fence, and we could still hear explosions. Everyone was scared. People were crying."

Photographs from the scene of the blast posted by local media outlet Kerch.FM showed that the ground floor windows of the two-storey building had been blown out, and that debris was lying on the floor outside.

Emergency services teams could be seen in the photographs carrying wounded people from the building on makeshift stretchers and loading them on to buses and ambulances.by Fady Noun

A prelate from the Holy Land calls for unburdening bishops of their administrative tasks so that they can be shepherds again. Young people in the Middle East deserve a future of peace and security, jobs and a family without the danger of fanaticism present in other faiths. Staying in ones land is a vocation.

Beirut (AsiaNews)  Mgr Georges Bacouni, Greek-Catholic archbishop of Akka, Holy Land, called for unburdening bishops of their administrative tasks so that they can be once more shepherds among the faithful. The prelate made the appeal during his address to the general congregation of the Synod on Young People currently underway (3-27 October) in the Vatican.

The archbishop, who has called for stronger Christian unity and a better and safer future for Christians in their home countries, is one of the Synod participants from the Middle East, a region where Christians are often victims of violence and persecution. Two days ago, we published the first part of a reflection on Lebanon as a "mix of cultures and religions that makes it a leader par excellence".

Bishop Georges Bacouni is one of the Middle East voices at the Synod on Young People. As the Greek Catholic Archbishop of Akka, Holy Land, he heads a congregation of 70,000 faithful.

In his address last Thursday to the general congregation, the prelate, who is one of the youngest leaders of his Church, pleaded for a lighter administrative burden on bishops in order to let him "become shepherds again".

"When I was ordained bishop 13 years ago," said Archbishop Bacouni to the French Catholic channel KTO, "the last part of the ceremony was about the lost sheep. I was told, You are a shepherd, you must go in search of the lost sheep. I ended up realising, taking on my episcopal tasks, that I no longer have time to look for the lost sheep. nor even those who are not lost. We are too involved in office work, the administrative side of things. Id like us to be free from this. The bishops must be released so that they can become shepherds again."

"For a long time, long before this Synod, I started listening to young people. They have many expectations, but most of all, they want pastors who are close to them to be true witnesses. I attended the previous synod, devoted to the family, and some of the things that are said today were said at that time, Mgr Bacouni explained.

"Families also expect pastors to be close to them. So do the young, the old, migrants. Families are correct in their expectations. But where can we find the time within the existing system where we are overwhelmed? he wondered.

Staying in the East: a vocation

With respect to the challenges facing young people in the Middle East, Bishop Bacouni goes on to say: "The first challenge, which is common to all young Christians in the Middle East, is their desire to have a better and safer future. They want to find work and have a family in a safe environment. At the same time, they fear fanatical currents in other religions.

This is why some young people want to leave and not stay in the East. This is one of the essential issues of vocational discernment at home. Those who still wish to remain in the Middle East  except for the poor who cannot leave  are young people who are convinced that God is calling them to stay in the East."

The bishop also touched on the theme of unity. "Young people say: you speak of one Church, you speak of brotherly love, love one another, but one of the signs of such love is being united, at least in our festivals, with other apostolic Churches, both Catholic and Orthodox. Note that I am talking about the expectations of young people, of what we hear them say. Young people here do not bother with ecumenical considerations."

"Sometimes," he added, "I feel that certain leaders are insufficiently aware of the need to work more on Christian unity."by Kamran Chaudhry

A conference in Lahore brought together the democratic exponents of India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The Christian mother, in prison since 2009 for blasphemy charges, could be released soon. Judges fear religious extremism: "Only courage and morality can defeat intolerance".

Lahore (AsiaNews) - Human rights activists from various Asian nations are demanding the release of Asia Bibi and an end to religious intolerance in Pakistan. The appeal was launched during the first conference dedicated to the memory of Asma Jahangir, a great pioneer of human rights in the country who died last February. Entitled "Justice, key to emancipation", the event brought together figures from Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka.

Farooq Salheria, a lecturer at the Beaconhouse University of Lahore, explains: "It is obvious that the prosecution failed to prove the allegations against her. Her latest hearing has increased hopes for the acquittal. However the facts show that even highest court is afraid of reaction from Islamist groups".

Khadim Hussain Rizvi, leader of the Muslim extremist movement Tehrik-e-Labaik, has promised a "horrible end" to judges who dare to free Bibi. Salheria emphasizes: The use of religion to divide people has seeped deep in our society. TLP fielded highest number of candidates in July general elections and are now dictating their terms and narrative by force".

In theory, the verdict on the liberation of the Christian woman was issued last October 8th. However, it is "confidential", and the judges have forced journalists not to talk about it for fear of triggering riots across Pakistan. The family of the prisoner stressed that it will be "very difficult for her, in case of liberation, to remain in Pakistan". Yet a petition to the High Court in Islamabad demands that she be prevented from leaving the country.

Nimalka Fernando, a well-known Sri Lankan activist, believes that "only courage and morality can challenge fundamentalist religious groups. Religion cannot become a cause of violence, because in this way it is destroyed. South Asia is full of cases in which the legal interpretation of a religious belief becomes a matter of life and death for women and children. This is wrong".

For Indian feminist, Kamla Bhasin, religious intolerance is closely linked to politics: "The situation in one nation has influence on the neighboring nation. I believe that today things in India are worse than ever. We continue to ask our government to maintain a secular attitude in its public functions, but violence continues to erupt. One solution may be to insist on constitutional rights. But even films, songs and poetry can help ".By Mata Press Service

As a diplomat stationed at Indias consulate in Vancouver, Suresh Makhijani never missed an opportunity to taste the culinary delights of Canadas west coast city.

This is a fabulous city for all kinds of food from all over the world, said Makhijani, who was back in Vancouver last week in his new role as de facto Food Ambassador, working to establish a more robust food corridor between Canada and India.

More Indian food products in Canada will help Vancouvers culinary reputation to grow globally, Makhijani told the South Asian Post.

He urged the Indian diaspora in Canada to continue showcasing food products from India.

They are the best ambassadors of Indian foods, he said.

Canada is home to one of the largest South Asian communities abroad per capita, with approximately 3.6 percent of Canadians or 1. 2 million people being of Indian heritage.

Makhijani, who is now the joint director-general of the Trade Promotion Council of India (TPCI) was in Toronto and Vancouver this month meeting with Canadian food importers, processors, and supermarkets to invite their representatives to attend Indus Food  the largest food export promotion event in India.

We will have about 600 global buyers meeting with about 500 Indian food suppliers in 15 product zones, Makhijani said.

Indus Food is Indias official, export-focussed F&B Trade fair showcasing the countrys best line-up of food and agri-products to global buyers, he said.

Makhijanis mission to help create a strong food corridor between the two countries is part of Indias plan to double up its food and agriculture exports from the existing US$30bn to US$60bn by 2022.

In terms of market size, the Indian food market was worth USD 193 billion in 2016 and is expected to cross USD 540 billion by 2020.

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has plans to invest about USD 72.3 million to strengthen the food testing infrastructure by upgrading food testing laboratories and setting up new mobile testing labs.

In 2016-17, marine products, meat, and rice together made up 52% of Indias agri-export basket. India also exports spices, cotton, fresh fruits and vegetables, sugar, coffee, groundnut, oilmeals, and cashews, which together with marine items, rice and meat comprised over 80% of the agri-export basket in 2016-17.

India is growing as a market for new products such as breakfast cereals, pasta, infant food, bakery products, foreign liquor and different types of oils and sauces, said Makhijani.

Indias frozen food market, which stood at $310 million in 2017, is also projected to grow over 16 per cent to reach $754 million by 2023.

Last April, Canada was one of eight countries that India signed deals with for agricultural exports as it seeks to grow its farm exports.

Makhijani said, Indus Food provides the ideal platform for the Canadian food industry to source, network and connect with key players in the Indian Food & Beverage market.

There is a huge potential at the event for Canadian food importers to explore India in multiple food product segments and source from India, he said.

A total of US $650 million business was generated in last years Indus Food event in form of spot orders, he said.

The second edition of Indus Food will be held on January 14 and 15, 2019 at the India Exposition Mart in Greater Noida, outside New Delhi. The Indian government is providing airfares and hotel accommodation for Canadian food importers wanting to attend the event.

More information on the Indus Food Exposition can be found at www.tpci.in

By the numbers

40% of the global production of mangoes and guavas.

23% of the global production of tea.

22% of the global production of rice.

70% of the global spice production.

21% of the global production of pulses and sugarcane each.

43% of the global production of buffalo meat.

27% of the global production of bananas.

19% of the global production of milk.Guest Commentary

By Paula Arab

When your last name is Arab, and youre not a Muslim or terrorist, you defy a few Islamophobic stereotypes yourself.

Im Arab in name, but my fathers religion is Maronite Catholic  an early branch of the Roman Catholic Church. I was brought up Roman Catholic and indoctrinated in Papal infallibility. So, the idea of the Aga Khan, a spiritual leader who represents all of the foibles and eccentricities of us mere mortals, it is itself a revelation, never mind the many other ways he smashes stereotypes about Muslims.

The Aga Khan, a direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad, has a dualistic approach to life. He lives firmly in both the material and spiritual worlds. This duality is reflected in an interview he gave Vanity Fair.

An Imam is not expected to withdraw from everyday life, he said. On the contrary, hes expected to protect his community and contribute to their quality of life.

Therefore, the notion of the divide between faith and world is foreign to Islam. The Imamat does not divide world and faith. Thats very little understood outside Islam.

Those words embody the Aga Khan, the spiritual leader of 15 million people around the world, including 120,000 in Canada, who belong to the Ismaili faith.

Theirs is a religion that is peaceful and progressive, fueled by philanthropy to overcome the challenges of everyday life.

Known as His Highness, a title conferred on him by Queen Elizabeth shortly after inheriting the Imamat at 20, the Aga Khan preaches plurality. He has dedicated his life to fighting poverty and has spent a large portion of his wealth building schools and educating millions of children in the developing world.

Much has been made about his philanthropic contributions during his 60-plus years as Imam. Indeed, he will make history again this week in Vancouver, when the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University confer joint honorary doctorate of laws degrees in a simultaneous ceremony Friday (Oct. 19th) in recognition of his lifelong service to humanity, and his contributions to both institutions.

This comes two days after he is to be awarded another honourary doctorate of laws from the University of Calgary.

The Aga Khan wields Ismaili philanthropy as his leaderships central mandate to improve the quality of life, not only of his followers but for of all the worlds most vulnerable people.

Tomes have been written about his global charity work and efforts to eradicate societys ills.

But its his approach to human frailties that I find far more interesting.

The Aga Khan has lived all of the trials and tribulations of his followers, including the emotional rollercoasters of love, marriage, divorce, and heartbreak.

Because of that, he is someone who can inspire, teach and relate to me and all my fellow Canadians, regardless of faith.

The Aga Khan builds bridges between people, religions, and cultures. He fosters collaboration rather than conflict. And he is successful in upholding the dignity of humankind because his is a spiritual leadership that is grounded in reality, and in his own experience of human joys and suffering in all of its forms.

Paula Arab is a Vancouver-based freelance columnist and media strategist. She can be reached at arabpaula@gmail.com.By Dennis Paglinawan,

Special to The Post

Canada has undergone a shift in the way it has executed redressing historical injustices Aboriginals or First Nations people in this country have endured due to British and French colonialism. Verbal apologies, the erection of facilities  such as the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, which plays a role in Canadas reconciliation process with Indigenous groups  the removal of statues of key historical figures from public properties and the re-naming of public structures, have unfolded in the media. This includes in the last few years the removal of Edward Cornwallis statue in Halifax, the renaming of the Hector-Louis Langevin Bridge to the Reconciliation Bridge in Calgary, as well as the removal of Sir John A. MacDonalds statue in Victoria.

Do these actions suggest that political correctness has gone amok with regard to our colonial history, or have Canadians been progressive in refining what should be accepted to be part of their historical narrative? This issue has been a very polarizing one  some perspectives argue that we should stop celebrating images of people who played key roles in the oppression and genocide of peoples,  that the time has come to bring forward the truths of historical atrocities once ignored by Canadian governments, while other perspectives include the views that people in history are just that  part of history that cannot be ignored and should not be completely demonized in the backdrop of the work they did to form a great country. Tough debate, but is there no compromise on this issue? What does Calgarys Filipino community say?

A member of the community mentioned that instead of removing statues completely  but without leaving them erect as they are  government jurisdictions could change the narratives that accompany these statues. Plaques affixed to statues and academic texts in schools could, not just acknowledge the achievements of these figures but also, outline the dark involvements of the known atrocities committed by specific individuals. By doing so generations moving forward will know the achievements and the darker parts of their history, and that shaming certain individuals for their actions is the price for what their victims paid for colonialism. Canadians may continue to learn and acknowledge how far their society has come, how much further it progresses towards reconciling how Nations of people became victims during Canadas colonial past.

As the statues come down before us, do members of Calgarys Filipino community support the removal of statues of John A. MacDonald and Edward Cornwallis? Do they see these steps as being overly politically correct, or are these steps the progression of Canadas polity as a democratically reconciled nation and a nation of peoples? These are two extreme positions on the issue, and no doubt the views will be multiple in the community.

Perhaps the Filipinos in Calgary have unique perspectives on whether these statues should be taken down, and perhaps this is due to their own colonial past. The Philippines was a Spanish colony and then later an American one after the Spanish-American War. Atrocities can be cited throughout the colonial and pre-WWII eras. Do Filipinos here in Calgary or in the Philippines support the removal of statues of historical figures in Philippine or Canadian colonial history if those historical individuals were tied to any atrocities?

Dennis Paglinawan is a Calgarian who has worked and studied internationally. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Studies from the University of Auckland, New Zealand.

By Dennis Paglinawan,

Special to The Post

Canada has undergone a shift in the way it has executed redressing historical injustices Aboriginals or First Nations people in this country have endured due to British and French colonialism. Verbal apologies, the erection of facilities  such as the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, which plays a role in Canadas reconciliation process with Indigenous groups  the removal of statues of key historical figures from public properties and the re-naming of public structures, have unfolded in the media. This includes in the last few years the removal of Edward Cornwallis statue in Halifax, the renaming of the Hector-Louis Langevin Bridge to the Reconciliation Bridge in Calgary, as well as the removal of Sir John A. MacDonalds statue in Victoria.

Do these actions suggest that political correctness has gone amok with regard to our colonial history, or have Canadians been progressive in refining what should be accepted to be part of their historical narrative? This issue has been a very polarizing one  some perspectives argue that we should stop celebrating images of people who played key roles in the oppression and genocide of peoples,  that the time has come to bring forward the truths of historical atrocities once ignored by Canadian governments, while other perspectives include the views that people in history are just that  part of history that cannot be ignored and should not be completely demonized in the backdrop of the work they did to form a great country. Tough debate, but is there no compromise on this issue? What does Calgarys Filipino community say?

A member of the community mentioned that instead of removing statues completely  but without leaving them erect as they are  government jurisdictions could change the narratives that accompany these statues. Plaques affixed to statues and academic texts in schools could, not just acknowledge the achievements of these figures but also, outline the dark involvements of the known atrocities committed by specific individuals. By doing so generations moving forward will know the achievements and the darker parts of their history, and that shaming certain individuals for their actions is the price for what their victims paid for colonialism. Canadians may continue to learn and acknowledge how far their society has come, how much further it progresses towards reconciling how Nations of people became victims during Canadas colonial past.

As the statues come down before us, do members of Calgarys Filipino community support the removal of statues of John A. MacDonald and Edward Cornwallis? Do they see these steps as being overly politically correct, or are these steps the progression of Canadas polity as a democratically reconciled nation and nation of peoples? These are two extreme positions on the issue, and no doubt the views will be multiple in the community.

Perhaps the Filipinos in Calgary have unique perspectives on whether these statues should be taken down; and perhaps this is due to their own colonial past. The Philippines was a Spanish colony and then later an American one after the Spanish-American War. Atrocities can be cited throughout the colonial and pre-WWII eras. Do Filipinos here in Calgary or in the Philippines support the removal of statues of historical figures in Philippine or Canadian colonial history if those historical individuals were tied to any atrocities?

Dennis Paglinawan is a Calgarian who has worked and studied internationally. He holds a PhD in Political Studies from the University of Auckland, New Zealand.Allergen food labelling failing, medical experts want government intervention





THERE is no reliable labelling system protecting consumers with food allergy from anaphylaxis, say Australian medical experts calling for government intervention on food labelling to help save lives.

The University of Melbourne researchers want food labelling regulations tightened after their study found some people with allergies had anaphylactic reactions to packaged foods.

Potential allergens must be declared on Australian food labels when they are present as ingredients or as components of food additives or processing aids. But the Precautionary Allergen Label (PAL) is voluntary and uses statements such as may contain traces or may be present.

Lead researcher and Melbourne School of Population and Global Health Allergy and Lung Health Unit postdoctoral research fellow Giovanni Zurzolo is concerned that an allergen-specific PAL was missing in more than half the anaphylaxis examples recorded in the study.

Current industry PAL practice failed to consistently provide safe food choices for those with allergies, who still had to take risks, Dr Zurzolo said.

There is no reliable labelling system that protects consumers with food allergy from anaphylaxis, he said.

Life-threatening

The studys senior author, MCRI and University of Melbourne Professor Katie Allen, said anaphylaxis was a serious health issue.

This research shows how important accurate food labelling is, she said. These reactions can be life-threatening.

The study found government regulation and improved labelling was needed to standardise the PAL system and, in doing so, improve the quality of life for consumers with food allergies.

As most consumers [who] experience a reaction do not often report the incident, it is likely this represents an underestimation of true prevalence, the researchers found.

We believe government regulation is required to aid in the standardisation of PAL.

Further to this, we advise clinicians to caution consumers about the possibility of allergic reactions to packaged foods, in particular high-risk foods such as chocolate, ice-cream, sweets/candy and baked products.

Also in Australian Food News

The survey

The survey of 864 Allergy & Anaphylaxis Australia members found that over nine months, 58 (6.7 per cent) reported anaphylactic reactions to a packaged food where the suspected allergen was not a listed ingredient.

Of the 58, five (8.6 per cent) said there was no Precautionary Allergen Label (PAL), 31 (53.5 per cent) said there was a PAL but it didnt specify the suspected trigger food, and 22 (38 per cent) said there was a PAL that did list it. Suspected trigger/s were peanuts (19), other tree nuts (11), cashews (8), milk (9), eggs (5) walnuts (3), sesame seeds (2) and prawns (1).

Symptoms included difficult/noisy breathing, tongue swelling, throat swelling/tightness, difficulty talking and/or hoarse voice, chest tightness and shortness of breath, wheeze or persistent cough, persistent dizziness and/or collapse, pale and floppy as part of a generalised allergic reaction (in young children only).

Published in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice, the study involved the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute (MCRI), the University of Melbourne, Victoria University, Royal Childrens Hospital and the University of Sydney.

The results were similar to an earlier study based on Australasian Society of Clinical Immunology and Allergy health professional reports. That study was published in the Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health in January.

MORE: Australians experiencing anaphylaxis attacks from unlisted allergensMandatory labelling looms for pet food after Senate report





AUSTRALIAs pet food industry would be forced to obey mandatory labelling and testing standards if a Senate committee gets the federal government to roll over.

The upper houses regional affairs committee has recommended a pet food safety review focus on ways to mandate pet food standards and labelling requirements.

Serious consideration should be given to tightening laws around food standards to include what pets eat, the report released on Tuesday found.

Centre Alliance senator Stirling Griff said the status quo had to be changed, urging the government to implement the reports recommendations.

Pet food should be regulated to the same standards as human foods. I cant see why we cant replicate that process, Senator Griff told parliament on Tuesday.

The report calls for the consumer watchdog to establish a reporting system so pet owners can dob in concerns with dodgy animal food.

A review of pet food standards should look at requirements for feeding trials and other testing prior to sale as well as mandatory labelling standards detailing ingredients including preservatives and additives.

The senators also want the federal government to work with state and territory counterparts to develop an education campaign to raise awareness of pet foods reporting, investigation and recall regime.

The Labor-chaired inquiry was established after more than 70 dogs have fallen ill and several have died earlier in the year from megaesophagus, believed to be related to an issue with pet food.

MORE: Mars Advance Dermocare dog food voluntarily recalled

MORE: Pet humanisation changing pet food sales, IBISWorld

Also in Australian Food NewsMegatrend: Woolworths invests $30m in organic food supply chain





WOOLWORTHS is putting its money where our mouths are, investing $30 million to drive supply chain innovation in the organic produce mega-trend.

The supermarket today launched its Woolworths Organic Growth Fund to help Aussie farmers meet the growing consumer demand for organic fruit and vegetables.

The fund will allocate grants and interest-free loans over the next five years to Australian organic fruit and vegetable growers looking to expand their operations and those keen to become part of the burgeoning organic industry.

Farmers will also have contracted purchase volumes, providing them with the certainty of longer-term supply of organic fruit and vegetables to Woolworths.

Woolworths CEO Brad Banducci in March this year, while presenting at the Global Food Forum in Sydney, declared organic food a megatrend.

Though he also pointed out the lack of innovation in supply chain meant organic was often twice the price of non-organic. The Woolworths health-focused Macro label is worth $600 million a year in sales.

Demand grows 20% Y-O-Y

Today, Woolworths managing director Claire Peters said: Theres no doubt more Australian customers are choosing to buy organic and are seeking fruit and vegetables that are the product of the best of what Australias natural farming resources have to offer.

In the last five years, demand has been growing at a rate of 20% year on year in the organic produce category.

Working with Heritage Bank, the Woolworths Organic Growth Fund represents our long-term commitment to satisfying this growing consumer demand, allowing us to continue our partnership with local farmers to make sure were ready for future demand.

With the assistance of the funds interest-free loans and grants, we can help farmers adopt innovative approaches that will enable the range of organic fruit and vegetables on offer to grow, making it more readily available and affordable for customers.

MORE: Australian Organic Market Report 2018 excites new investment

MORE: Organic trend: ALDI joins Coles and Woolworths expanding category

Coles, ALDI

ALDI this month announced it is growing organic product range, offering three exclusive brand lines, one of which is Just Organic. The Just Organic range includes organic brie, yoghurt, pastas and baked beans. Theres also kombucha. Its grew almost 50 per cent in 2017.

Coles offer their own line, Coles Organic. They expanded their Health Foods category with over 250 products earlier this year, with category manager Samuel Griffin confirming thered been an increased demand for organic and gluten free products in the past 12 months.

Increased demand for organic products inevitably means investment in supply chains, manufacturing and processing that meets stringent industry standards for organic food. The existing standards for food labelled organic are not policed as thoroughly as in America and Europe. This will be the next step.

Fourth generation family-run apple orchardist R&R Smith from Tasmania will be the first farm to benefit from the Woolworths fund.

Owner and manager of R&R Smith, Andrew Smith said: We continue to see ongoing demand for our organic apples. The support from the Woolworths Organic Growth fund will be instrumental in helping us develop a new organic apple variety and bring it to market  an Australian first.

MORE: Organic trend: ALDI joins Coles and Woolworths expanding category

Also in Australian Food NewsBy Bronwyn Orr, Veterinarian and PhD candidate, University of Sydney

Flickr/Tiomax, CC BY

Compulsory rules for the standards and labelling of pet food in Australia are among the recommendations in a Senate inquiry report released late Tuesday.

The Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee inquiry was set up in June following several cases in which dogs fell ill after eating pet food.

Currently, the pet food industry in Australia is self-regulated. The Australian Standards for the manufacturing and marketing of pet food are voluntary, and published behind a paywall.





Read more:

Is your dog happy? Ten common misconceptions about dog behaviour





There is no mandatory recall system for pet food, and no mechanism for consumers to report adverse events. Essentially, there is minimal government oversight of this industry. This makes it hard for pet owners to be confident the food they feed their beloved pets is both safe and nutritious.

The Senate report makes seven recommendations including calls for:

the standards to be made mandatory and publicly accessible

a national pet food manufacturing and safety policy framework to be established

for the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to create a consumer reporting mechanism and improved recall systems.

The inquiry considered more than 150 public submissions from veterinarians, welfare organisations such as the RSPCA, industry groups, and concerned individuals. It also included two days of public hearings. Most of those submissions and presentations called strongly for change.

Sick dogs prompt food recall

This inquiry into pet food regulation started after public outcry around the recall of Advance Dermocare dog food. The product was recalled in March this year after several dogs developed life-threating oesophageal weakness (megaoesophagus) while being fed the food.

It took the pet food manufacturer three months to announce the recall after being notified of the cluster of sick dogs in December 2017.

Although this seems slow, there are actually no specific laws in Australia that force a pet food manufacturer to initiate a recall if their food is making pets sick.

There is a system called PetFAST, which is a voluntary recall initiative between the Australian Veterinary Association and the pet food industry body, the Pet Food Industry Association of Australia (PFIAA).

The PetFAST system arose after two incidents spanning 2007 to 2009 resulted in the deaths and illnesses of dozens of cats and dogs. Irradiated cat food imported from Canada caused paralysis in cats and imported chicken-jerky treats for dogs from China caused kidney toxicity.

At the time, no recall mechanisms for pet food safety incidents existed. The PetFAST system has helped with recent recalls of both cat and dog food. But it isnt perfect.

It relies on veterinarians to recognise a possible link between a disease and a pet food, and on the pet food manufacturer to investigate and recall a product if required. Unfortunately it isnt able to be used by consumers to report safety incidents, only veterinarians.

There are some laws that restrict what a pet food manufacturer can and cant claim about a particular pet food. There are also restrictions around the importation of pet food products.

But the standards around the safety and nutrition of pet food arent mandatory. Combined with the lack of independent oversight of the industry, this creates a situation in which consumer trust and industry transparency are thin on the ground.

Weve been here before

This weeks Senate report isnt the first to call for improvements in the pet food industry.

A government working group into pet food regulation was formed in 2009 after the pet food safety incidents involving irradiated cat food and chicken-jerky treats.

Another working group into pet food regulation was set up this month by the federal government, pre-empting the Senate inquiry report. Although some improvements arose from the original working group, such as the PetFAST recall system and voluntary standards, what we really need now is definitive action.

The pet food industry in Australia has a revenue of more than A$4 billion a year and pet owners want to know that food is both safe and nutritious.

Submissions to the inquiry from the main manufacturers in Australia, as well as industry body the PFIAA, show increased regulation and mandatory standards are likely to be supported if recommended by government.

These measures are also supported by veterinarians, animal welfare groups such as the RSPCA, and consumer groups such as Choice.





Read more:

Whose best friend? How gender and stereotypes can shape our relationship with dogs





What are the next steps? Both federal and state governments need to take action. The RSPCA also recommends mandatory auditing against the standards and expanding the standards to cover other pets such as rabbits and birds.

We know what needs to happen and there is widespread support for change. The new working group formed by the federal government to investigate pet food safety in Australia will report within 12 months.

Lets hope the federal and state governments are willing to act on the report this time around. Its been a decade since this issue was brought to the governments attention. Australian pet owners shouldnt have to wait any longer for real change.

Bronwyn Orr is the Scientific Officer for Companion Animals at RSPCA Australia. She is representing RSPCA Australia on the working group of the upcoming federal government review into the safety of pet food in Australia. She is also a member of the Australian Veterinary Association.

Richard Malik does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Originally published in The Conversation.- T. S. Eliot

Thoughts After Lambeth

"The World is trying the experiment of attempting to form a civilized but non-Christian mentality. The experiment will fail; but we must be very patient in awaiting its collapse; meanwhile redeeming the time: so that the Faith may be preserved alive through the dark ages before us; to renew and rebuild civilization, and save the World from suicide."Professional Video Services



Promovision PV Video Production Vallarta - Nayarit

Professional Video & Photo Services





PromoVision Professional Video Services  Puerto Vallarta, Mexico  From the US, call +52 [322] 294-5808 In Vallarta, call: 044-322-294-5808  Email: Info(at)PromovisionPV.com  Website: PromoVisionPV.com

Specializing in corporate, tourism, real estate and special event videos in Puerto Vallarta and the Riviera Nayarit, Promovision PV has more than 30 years experience in video technology and production, so you can be assured of the excellence and effectiveness of your project.



PromovisionPV recognizes that your project is important and we handle your video needs in a professional, cost effective, and timely manner with "Cutting Edge Technology and Old Fashioned Service!"



We provide video production services for a variety of applications. On the corporate or commercial side, we can produce excellent videos of business meetings and seminars, training sessions, sales presentations and other events, as well as for the promotion of products and services.



Real Estate & Rentals Multimedia Marketing





Promovision is a professional provider of video home tours for Real Estate residential Villas, condos, commercial listings, hotel and resorts. Our video productions allow viewers to see full motion video tours of your property, business, agent's profile or community.



We also offer professional real estate photography services, photo tours and digital image manipulation. We can design a digital media distribution plan to help you achieve your connected marketing goals. Each of our productions are custom designed to meet the needs of our client. We offer packaged services so that you can take advantage of greater savings.



On the consumer side, Promovision can produce video souvenirs and special events, such as weddings, anniversaries, graduations, promotions, award ceremonies, etc. We use digital cameras, professional audio equipment, and a digital editing system to produce spectacular videos for you.



Puerto Vallarta Wedding Photography and Video Services





Your wedding is timeless - a day to be remembered forever. Your wedding photography is a chance to record the essence and feeling of the most important day of your lives. Our goal is to capture all of the magical moments of your wedding day so you can relive them over and over.



Our Puerto Vallarta wedding videographers offer brides and grooms a unique service, because we recognize the individuality of each couple. For that reason, each wedding video we produce is distinctive and unlike any other we've created.



Let the professional photographers and videographers at Promovision PV provide you with wedding day memories that will last a lifetime.



About Promovision PV



Promovision is a client-focused production company concentrating on the development of powerful and creative multimedia products. We offer high quality attention-getting results that are designed to meet and achieve the specific goals and target markets of each individual client.



Our MISSION is to apply the special power of the video medium to our client's purposes by producing creative and compelling videos delivered on time and on budget.





Promovision uses professional High Definition and 4K UHD digital cameras to ensure perfect picture quality throughout the production. All video editing will be done on the latest digital non-linear editing system, so there will be virtually no loss in quality from the original footage to your edited master.



Let us create an effective, entertaining, and/or informational video for your event or business needs, from concept to completion. We can help you plan your video program, create an effective script, do all of the production and editing, and even make videos for social media platforms.



Our passion to deliver innovative and quality products to customers has kept our vision to maintain high standards and excellent value. We continue to develop first-rate relationships with our customers, which has been the foundation for our success.For more information, call Ray at: 044-322-294-5808, email info(at)PromovisionPV.com, or visit PromovisionPV.com.



Site Map  Print this Page  Email Us  Top

The African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) launched its African Masters in Machine Intelligence (AMMI) at its AIMS Rwanda Campus in partnership with Facebook and Google.

"Fifteen years later and over 1800 graduates later, we still hold firm to those three principles and the AMMI program provides young Africans an incredible opportunity to use AI and machine learning to advance knowledge and solve the continent's challenges," said Zomahoun.

Thierry Zomahoun, President and CEO of AIMS

Prof. Moustapha Cisse, Founder and Director of the AMMI program at AIMS and Head of the Google AI Center in Ghana

AMMI is novel one-year intensive foundational masters that will offer Africa's talented scientists and innovators world-class training in machine intelligence, preparing them to think about new ways to solve local and global challenges."When Neil Turok created the AIMS in 2003, he was motivated by the notion that curiosity and intellectual ability was not limited by geographical location or race. He believed Africans could and should be doing cutting-edge research in Africa. He was also motivated by the desire to see young Africans using advanced research in all fields to solve the challenges the continent faces," said Thierry Zomahoun, president and CEO of AIMS.The first cohort of AMMI includes 31 students from 11 countries including 40% women. Using the existing AIMS model of learning, lecturers from all over the world will teach in two three to six-week blocks."Every course at AMMI will be lectured by leading experts from prestigious international institutions and we plan to expand the program to other African countries starting next year. My secret dream is that in five years every course will still be taught by the best scientists in the field, the only difference will be that those scientists will be AMMI alumni," said Prof. Moustapha Cisse, founder and director of the AMMI program at AIMS and head of the Google AI Center in Ghana."I really enjoyed meeting the first cohort of the AMMI. What an amazingly diverse, eager and bright set of students! Facebook is really thrilled to support the AMMI and help nurture AI talent in Africa as it will be immensely valuable to whole AI community," said Dr. Jerome Pesenti, vice president of Artififical Intelligence at Facebook.Charl-Johan Lingenfelder has been an inspirational tour-de-force as a musician, composer, writer, performer, and like-minded friend since I first met him 24 years ago. His heavenly collaboration with director Christiaan Olwagen, Kanarie, is a proudly South African film taking the world by storm.

Kanarie is most definitely one of the most important and relevant films made in South Africa. What sparked this masterful creation?

Was it a difficult journey from page to screen and how long did it take from inspiration to first draft?

Its most definitely a very personal film, your views on this?

Tell me about the one of the most mind-blowing opening scenes I have ever seen: Our lead character John, dressed as a bride, then walking down a street and through his life, with all the different versions of his younger self, cross-cutting to him in his Boy George incarnation, dancing with his younger selves to the stunning tune of Smalltown Boy. What inspired this phenomenal scene and how difficult was it to bring it to life?

The film is brilliantly divided into chapters, taking us through a narrative guided by militant precision.

The characters of the two Chaplains are another stroke of genius, giving us both sides of the same coin  the liberal versus the conservative  with out of this world performances by Jacques Bessenger and Gerard Rudolf.

An interesting statement from Johan that perfectly captures the essence of his journey: His reason for joining the Kanaries will give him the opportunity to live all that I believe, all that I love, and all that I am to the fullest. Your thoughts?

The scene with the boys being stripped of their identity and transformed into numbers is very powerful. What inspired this?

The nightmarish basic training scene is sure to stir some emotions with Beer Adriaanse perfectly capturing the essence of a roughneck corporal from hell, breaking away from the stereotypical versions we have seen in other films, allowing the rawness to cut to the bone. Your views?

The connection, intimacy, and love that develop between Johan and Wolfgang are heartbreaking. How perfect is the casting of Schalk Bezuidenhout and Hannes Otto? It must have been an emotional journey for everyone involved?

Lets talk about Germandt Geldenhuys, who chews up the scenery as the gayest of gay characters who innocently does not buy into the whole issue of being gay, but just is, without knowing, still radiating such a positive role model for those struggling with their sexual identity?

Then theres the powerful connection with Anna Marts zany designer who encourages Johan to fly away from this God Forsaken country with all its sirs and madams and rules and regulations and all its bullies! Telling him that the biggest bully is the one he stares at in the mirror. Your thoughts?

And then theres Jennifer Steyns heated scene that truly reflects Johans angst and the political angst of the era?

The song Ek Verlang Na Jou will never be the same again, with Johan at a concert at the border, allowing us to see the troepies differently, blending homoerotic images culminating and the killing of terrorists and a young black boy clasping a bomb. It is also interesting that at in the border scene a seasoned white homophobic soldier wears a t-shirt that states: Happiness is 100 confirmed killings and a black soldiers t-shirt reads I love Soweto!

The feedback and string of international awards are well deserved. Did you expect the film to reach so far into the hearts of audiences worldwide?

Kanarie is a film that is not only life-changing but an eyeopener to a past legacy tainted by divide and rule, inbred hatred and religious conservatism that destroyed many lives. In South Africa today we can celebrate our sexual preferences without shame. Was this one of the aims of making Kanarie?

What do you hope audiences will get from watching Kanarie?

Kanarie is a life-changing film and alters jaded perceptions, a heartbreaking journey into the life of a conscripted soldier in South Africa in the 80s, who finds self-love and affirmation of his true identity through the love of another young man.Kanarie is one of those rare films you cannot resist falling head-over-heels in love with.This is the second collaboration on film between Lingenfelder and Olwagen, they won a Silwerskermfees award for the soundtrack of Johnny Is Nie Dood Nie.Christiaan and I were driving to the KKNK in Oudtshoorn and I just started telling him about my military training. He had no idea that Id been in the army and was very surprised when I told him about the Kanaries. Hed never heard of them either and as we drove, he kept asking me questions and that led to this idea of a film about this very strange set up in the apartheid military. He also immediately saw all the symbolism with regards to the idea of a bird in a cage and the canary in the coal mine. He read so much more into the story than I ever imagined  and that was the beginning of it all.Kanarie was made in a shockingly short amount of time. Christian pitched the idea to kykNET without me knowing about it and he phoned me from the car afterwards to tell me that he had just pitched my story and they wanted a screenplay. So we started writing the screenplay in August 2016 and by November of that same year, we were shooting. Digging up all this history was extremely difficult, but necessary. We wrote the first draft in about three weeks. We started shooting on draft four of the screenplay. A few things changed during the shoot but that was mainly because of limitations of our locations.I believe one of the strengths of the film is the fact that it is a very personal story and that it is true. People are very surprised when they find out that approximately 95% of it is factual. Its not often you get to watch a film of this nature where the narrative is so close to what really happened. We didnt have to invent a whole lot  it was all just ready to be told.Christiaan always knew that he wanted to start the film with a sequence that would show our protagonist back in his home environment and what had led to him becoming who he was, by the time the audience meet him.I had told him about the incident with the wedding dress and he immediately thought this would be a perfect opener to the film. Id also played him an incredible amount of 80s music and the first time he heard Smalltown Boy by Bronski Beat, he fell in love with it. Something about the lyrics, the tone of it  it is very melancholic and he thought it would be perfect for the opening sequence.We approached choreographer Louisa Talbot, who choreographed all the dance sequences in the film, and she put together a group of dancers who did the opening sequence.In the sequence, the characters entire life is being depicted  from his childhood as a four-year-old boy to slightly older as a ballet dancer, and a pianist and doing floral arrangements and fighting over a Barbie doll. We shot the sequence on the second day and luckily everybody was still very fresh because it was a very difficult shoot. There were so many elements involved  traffic, weather, etc. But we finally managed to get the perfect take, just as the municipality was reopening the main road to traffic.The first thing Christiaan and I did was sit and collect all the stories from my military training. We sat with all these ideas on cards and started moving them around and tried to get a narrative that was coherent. But there was already something about the story that very easily fit into the constraints of a movie narrative structure. The way that the military structure functioned and with our basic training being the beginning of the film, the tour being the second section, and then Johans big crisis being the section leading towards the end  it all just made sense in terms of film writing. So that is how we got our structure, and once we decided on it, we didnt have to make that many changes.Once again it is true, life being stranger than fiction, sometimes. Even though I exaggerated the characters for the sake of dealing with opposites, they pretty much did fall into those categories.At every screening that I have attended thus far, people always laugh when the protagonist talks about his passion for his church and for his country.The script at that point is literally just taken from what I know I wouldve said back in 84.In those days, we simply did not question everything the way we do today. We didnt know we had the right to question anything. We grew up in a patriarchal society that dictated what we thought and what we did. Johans response smacks of naivety and he has no idea how prophetic those words would end up being. All he is trying to do is be a good citizen and a good Christian at that stage, unaware of the journey he is about to embark on.Christiaan has always had a thing for using the film camera the same way you would use stills camera. Having actors stare at the camera as if you are about to take a photo, but just letting it roll. Something happens in those moments. Initially, there is an awkwardness and a shyness, but, eventually that drops away and you get to stare into the soul of this person in front of you. We wanted to see these people for who they were at that age. And, of course, theres the military machine of receiving your uniform, having your hair cut, going through your medical examination, it is one aspect of military training that everyone, who has been through it, will always remember.It was a very difficult scene to film because the guys had to perform the physical exercises and it was really exhausting. But ultimately we were happy with the way that the scene came across. We couldnt spend a lot of time on showing the audience the training that the Kanaries had to go through, so we had to try and condense it all into one or two scenes which would encapsulate the hardship of military training. The corporals language is quite extreme, but it is very true to what was being spoken in the army.We did a lot of research and found almost all of the quotes somewhere online or we were told by people who had encountered that in the army. So once again we didnt have to exaggerate at all  it was all there all along.What I love most about the casting of Hannes and Schalk is the fact that they are two normal guys. They both are beautiful people but they are not necessarily models and it was important to me that people can watch a gay film without perving over some hot boy on the screen the whole time.I wanted these boys to be believable and I want people to care deeply for the people they were  not because of what they looked like.It is so much closer to what life is and I think that is something that a lot of people have picked up on and can relate to.I have known many people like him in my life and I never refer to them as gay  I think of them as tannies. Sexuality is a very strange thing in their lives. I dont think they necessarily identify with any label regarding sexuality. It is not who they are. Germandt immediately just understood this character and made it his own. There was always the fear that it could become a caricature, but luckily he is such a technical actor that he could play the part with great integrity. But the importance of his character in relation to the other two in this trio of friends is unmistakable. And thats exactly the way it was with my friends when we were in the army.This is such an important message in the film. This is a moment that every single person can relate to. The terror of staring into the mirror and acknowledging that you are the greatest bully of them all. People relate to this aspect of human nature all over the world, but it is very apparent with in the Afrikaner nation that we tend to put each other down and not encourage anyone to fly as high as they possibly can. And that is why it was so enlightening to encounter people like the ones on which Anna-Marts character was based, in real life  people who could open your eyes to the idea of full potential.Indeed. The scene is a big eye-opener. The political agenda outside the military had not been heard at all, by that stage of the film. Not by us as an audience; neither by our characters in the film. So as we discover certain things about South African society, our characters discover them for the first time as well. There was such naivety about politics back in the day. We all simply believed what we were told. Any other opinion was clearly wrong. But isnt that the way that politics still go today? Is anybody ever willing to listen to an opposing idea?Once again it is the idea of photographs coming to life. Every single one of those images (with the exception of the Kanaries) are re-posed images we had found from the actual border war. Including Laudo Liebenbergs Happiness is a 100 confirmed kills t-shirt.Absolutely not. But, obviously, we are overjoyed. We have realised that clearly there is something in the narrative of this film that speaks to people everywhere. You do not have to understand the history of South Africa or the history of racial relations in this country, to understand this film.Christiaan and my motto on set was: what would it have been like if we had seen a film like Kanarie when we were 18? How would it have affected our lives? And by looking at young people watching the film and talking to me after about their lives and their experiences, I understand what this film can mean to so many people. It shows you that no matter who you are and what your situation, whether you are being bullied for being different or fat or whatever the case may be, you are not alone.I am Afrikaans and we made this as an Afrikaans film to be seen by Afrikaans people. Obviously, weve never wanted to limit it to them, but it is important that they see this film. The characters talk about acceptance and it is important for people to know that even today, questions about religion and sexuality are all at the forefront of making people feel as if they do not fit in or belong.There is so much unhappiness that has been caused by a society that will not embrace people who think and feel differently to them. And it is time for peoples eyes to be opened to the reality of what it feels like to walk around burdened by these thoughts and being in constant turmoil. But it is also time for people to stare into the mirror and realise that they can overcome their own demons, their own wars that they are constantly fighting within themselves. They need to celebrate themselves and even though it is not easy, they should never stop working towards that.Right now, data compliance is top of mind for practically every South African business, and for good reason. The European Union's GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) came into force earlier this year, and by this time next year, our own POPIA (Protection of Personal Information Act) will almost certainly be in place.

Daniel Lotter is is head of tenders and bids at Itec SA

So what do you do?

POPIA is based on the individuals right to privacy, which is enshrined in our Constitution, and will fundamentally change the way we deal with our customers information. How we gather it. How we use it. Most importantly, how we protect it. And frankly, its an incredibly exciting opportunity for local businesses to overhaul not only their data policies, but their entire approach to data security, and go beyond mere compliance to create a source of trust and advantage with their customers.In the past few years, weve seen numerous high-profile leaks of customer data. British Airways. Liberty Life. Most recently, Facebook, where were told that hackers obtained access tokens for 50 million user accounts.The ramifications of these leaks are terrifying for any business: you cant tell people you care deeply about their data, which could contain their most personal information when you werent able to keep it safe from prying eyes. The loss of trust is immediate and devastating.The costs of data breaches are astronomical. The Ponemon Institutes research suggests it costs companies an average of $3.62m per breach across the world. The real cost is that people will leave your customer base because they cant trust you anymore. Your cost to acquire new customers will double after a data breach.Unfortunately, no business is safe. Its no longer a case of if you will be attacked, but when. Youve got more chance of being a victim of a cyber-attack than you have of getting the flu. Thats why compliance with data protection is not something that we simply leave up to the IT or legal departments. Every department, and individual, in an organisation, is responsible. Because lets face it, if youre hacked, you will be held responsible  by government, by regulators, and most importantly, by your customers and the public.For a start, you work harder to protect your customers identities. This probably means your business has to change its approach to customer information as a whole, and its a conversation that has to be driven from the top downwards.You need to educate your people to be POPIA-savvy, and know your responsibilities at every stage of the data journey  collect, store, retrieve, use, retain and destroy. You also need to make people data-savvy: its estimated that 25% of data breaches are due to stupidity, like people leaving their computers open or their passwords on a sticky note on their desk.From a marketing point of view, youll have to rethink how you reach new customers. The days of buying a database, and bombarding them with your ads and marketing messages, are long gone. Legally, your T&Cs documents will have to change. You cant just have catch-all clauses: you actually have to get peoples express consent to gather and use their data. And if they want to be forgotten, you have to let them go.The fact that we still have a bit of time before POPIA is implemented means we have some time to start getting our houses in order. If ever there was a time to spring-clean your information, this is it. Ask yourself: What personal information do we hold? How do we get it, and why do we have it? Is the consent we have valid under POPIA?It sounds like a lot of work. And it is. But the benefits of having a happy customer base that trusts you are too great to ignore.According to reports from the, the Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed following a seven-minute execution inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. An anonymous source claimed to have heard an audio recording of Khashoggi's final moments, which were captured on the journalist's Apple Watch, shortly after he entered the consulate on 2 October 2018.Read more on this story at the Daily MailR2K calls for Competitions Commission to step in on high data costs

The Right2Know Campaign (R2K) has called on the Competitions Commission of South Africa to mediate on high data costs in South Africa.



R2K called for the mediation at a data services market inquiry at the Competition Commission on 17 October 2018.



The non-profit organisation made a number of recommendations for regulatory reform before the Competition Commission's public hearings.The Healthy Living Alliance (Heala) held a protest outside Coca-Cola Africa's offices in Rosebank. Heala is calling on the beverage company to honour its pledge to stop advertising its products to children and remove all billboards and mass advertising targeted at children immediately.In addition, they are also calling on Coca-Cola to stop the supply of sugary beverages in schools.Public affairs and communications head of Coca-Cola in South Africa Asyia Sheik responded by saying that the company had accelerated its efforts to remove the remaining Coca-Cola-branded signs from schools, adding that more than half of all branded signs in schools have already been removed.She also stated that Coca-Cola has reduced or removed the sugar content of many of its products as well as reduced package sizes of its beverages.Read more on the Rosebank Killarney GazetteA criminally negligent homicide charge has been dismissed against 30-year-old Cody Neal Gilliland in the shooting of his fiancee at the Hidden Creek Apartments in East Brainerd.

General Sessions Court Judge Clarence Shattuck granted the dismissal after listening to the 911 call Gilliland made after the July 2 incident in which Lauren Bnnema, 25, died. The judge also listened to an emotional statement he gave to police shortly after the incident.

Attorney Lloyd Levitt said of the case, "This seems to be an absolute 100 percent accident. All he's asked about is her family and how they are doing."

Prosecutor Andrew Coyle said, "Frankly, judge, this is a very close issue. I don't believe there's any proof of intent. It's a horribly sad situation."

Judge Shattuck said, "There is no doubt it is a horrible, horrible situation. My heart goes out to the victim's family. My heart goes out to Cody and his family."

He said under the law as charged he felt the case should be dismissed.

Gilliland said he came home for lunch that day with Ms. Bonnema and her young child that day, then returned after getting off work. He said he played with the baby and their dog, then went back into a bedroom to look at a gun about 8 p.m.

He said he was holding an AR15 rifle in the bedroom when the dog jumped on him. He said he pushed the dog off, but the dog kept coming back at him. He said he yelled and tried to kick the dog away, then the gun went off.

Gilliland said he was surprised, saying he did not think any of the numerous weapons in the second-floor apartment were loaded.

He said he could see a bullet hole the shot left going toward the living room and kitchen. He said he wondered if the baby was okay.

He said he then went out and found Ms. Bonneman lying on the floor with blood coming out of her mouth. He then called 911. Responding personnel said he was holding the baby when they arrived.

During his police interview, when officers were out of the room, he could be heard saying repeatedly, "Please don't die on me."

He had been released on $50,000 bond in July on condition that he live with his mother, not have any weapons and not go around the victim's family.

Investigator Zach Crawford said the bullet went in by the victim's mouth and came out the back of her head.

He said the charge was brought because of the defendant's background in the military, his familiarity with guns and with proper safety measures, and the indication that he had his finger in the trigger well. He said, "You should never have your finger in the trigger well unless you are prepared to shoot."

The detective added, "Any time you pick up a weapon you should treat it as loaded."

Police found a bullet hole in the door of the master bedroom with blood spatter covering the area of the bullet hole. The AR 15 was soaked with blood.

Officers observed blood transfer on AR 15 magazines in the master bedroom closet.

The medical examiner said the entry wound was to the front of the victim's mouth.

Police earlier said Gilliland's "gross negligent handling of the loaded rifle and his actions of anger towards his dog led to the death of Ms. Bonnema."

Ms. Bonnema was a lifelong resident of Chattanooga and a member of Brainerd Hills Baptist Church. She was serving in the Army Reserves and was an avid music and animal lover.

Click here to listen to the court recording.Georgia Northwestern Technical College Computer Information Systems Program Director Dr. Dwight Watt and Georgia Northwestern Technical College Computer Technology Instructor Jill West spoke to information technology specialists around the globe on Oct. 11. It was part of the month-long international webinar series, CyberFest 2018.



CompTIA, the Computing Technology Industry Association, hosted the event. The session hosted by Dr. Watt and Ms. West was called, What Is Your Network Built With? Hay, Sticks, or Bricks? It is all part of a series helping promote National Cybersecurity Awareness Month (October). The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the non-profit National Cybersecurity Alliance first launched the initiative in 2011.



Attendees from the United States, Sweden, India, Thailand, and other nations took part in the two-hour online event. It was a wonderful opportunity to reach out to people around the world and help them take the next step in information technology, said Dr. Watt. Sharing what we know with our students in the classroom is an amazing opportunity for us throughout the year. Of course, getting a chance to make an impact on someone on the other side of the planet is also pretty impressive.

The session covered networking and computer technology issues in the home, workplace, and in the classroom. The series also offered a special focus on end-user security, IT project management, infrastructure security, and Cloud security.



Dr. Watt is a Doctor of Education (University of Georgia) who holds more than 30 certifications in various areas of information technology expertise, as well as taught courses in the industry on the collegiate level for more than 35 years. He also writes a newspaper column helping users with miscellaneous computer technology issues.



Ms. West holds a Masters Degree in Elementary Education (University of Memphis). She has taught computer technology to all education levels from elementary school through college level coursework. West has also co-authored networking textbooks during her career.

CompTIA is one of the worlds premier information technology trade associations. The CyberFest 2018 series is offered through the CompTIA Instructor Network. Learn more about the association at CompTIA.org.

Dr. Watt teaches CompTIA certification preparation courses at Georgia Northwestern Technical College.

For more information on those courses, or any of the areas covered by the colleges programs in Information Technology, visit the GNTC.edu website. Or, you can call Georgia Northwestern at 866 983-4682. GNTC offers courses online, as well as on six different campuses across Northwest Georgia.WASHINGTON CROSSING >> In preparation for the nations Semiquincentennial in 2026, the Pennsylvania State Society Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) unveiled a DAR America 250! Patriots Marker on Saturday at the Washington Crossing Historic Park Visitors Center. Pennsylvania DAR State Regent Elizabeth Watkins joined Judi Biederman, Washington Crossing DAR Regent, and Hope Bailey, Washington Crossing DAR, to unveil and dedicate...(L-R) Reginae Carter, Lil Wayne and Jacida Carter-Photo by Prince Williams/WireimageThe BET 2018 Hip Hop Awards aired Tuesday night from Miami, Florida with comedian DeRay Davis serving as this year's host.

Lil Pump opened up the show with a variety of songs, including "ESKEETIT," "Gucci Gang," and the Gucci Mane-assisted "Kept Back."



Other performance that night included Cardi B., T.I., Yo Gotti, YG and A$AP Rocky.

Drake, who dominated the nominations with 11 nods, won just one award.

Cardi B, who was a close second with 10 noms, took home five -- the most of any artist last night.

One of the major highlights of the night was Lil Wayne who was recognized with the special I Am Hip-Hop Award. His long-awaited album, Tha Carter V, released September 28, achieved the second-biggest streaming week ever for an album. In a heartfelt speech, flanked by his daughter Reginae and mom Jacinda, he thanked his friends, family and fans for refusing to give up on him. On that note, he paid particular attention to a homicide detective he called "Uncle Bob," who refused to give up on the recording artist after his brush with death -- even after the EMTs apparently did. "He refused to let that die," Wayne said.



Additionally, the show featured several highly anticipated cyphers, from the likes of Vic Mensa, G Herbo, Taylor Bennett and Erykah Badu who closed out the all woman cypher featuring Bri Steves and Neelam Hakeem.

Pre-taped some time ago, Vic Mensa's freestyle was notable for his dissing of XXXTentacion. Mensa directly addressing allegations of domestic abuse against the late rapper: "Only time you bear arms is in a wife beater, loser/Your favorite rapper's a domestic abuser."

On Instagram, Mensa apologized to XXXTentacion's family who were in attendance, but did not back away from his criticism of the late rapper.

The show ended on a high note, with comedian Lil Duval preforming his viral hit song "Smile (Living My Best Life)," feat. Snoop Dogg & Ball Greezy, with the help of some of his friends.

Here's the 2018 BET Hip Hop Awards winners list:

Best Hip-Hop Video

Childish Gambino -- "This Is America"



Hot Ticket Performer

Drake



Album of the Year

The Carters -- Everything Is Love

Video Director of the Year

Karena Evans

Lyricist of the Year

Kendrick Lamar



MVP of the Year

Cardi B



Producer of the Year

Pharrell Williams

Best Collabo, Duo or Group

The Carters -- "Apes**t"

Single of the Year

"Apesh*t" -- Produced by Pharrell (The Carters)



Best New Hip-Hop Artist

XXXTentacion

Best Mixtape

BlocBoy JB -- Simi



Sweet 16: Best Featured Verse

Cardi B -- Motorsport (Migos feat. Cardi B & Nicki Minaj)



Impact Track

Childish Gambino -- "This Is America"



DJ of the Year

DJ Khaled



Made-You-Look Award (Best Hip Hop Style)

Cardi B



Hustler of the Year

Cardi B



Best Hip Hop Online Site/App

Worldstar

Copyright  2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.Tom Arnold, principal at Ooltewah Elementary, will be reassigned to the position of assistant principal at East Ridge Middle School. Mr. Arnold had spent the last 10 years at Ooltewah Elementary. School officials said the reassignment "was the result of a personnel issue that did not involve academic or school financial responsibilities related to the role of principal."

Mr. Arnold will serve a 10-day suspension before beginning his new position at East Ridge Middle.

Ooltewah Elementary will be led by a veteran administrator as Margo Williams will take over as interim principal while the district seeks a permanent leader for the school, it was stated.

Ms. Williams retired as principal of Westview Elementary at the end of last school year. She had been at Westview since 1999 and was the longest tenured principal in Hamilton County Schools when she retired.

Mr. Arnold issued this statement:

To Whom It May Concern,

The announcement will be made today by Hamilton County Schools that I will no longer be principal of Ooltewah Elementary School. The reassignment from principal to assistant principal is the result of mistakes that I have made in my personal life and I accept responsibility for my actions and the resulting change in positions in the school district.

At no time did my personal issues negatively affect the academic integrity or financial stability of Ooltewah Elementary. I will always treasure my time at Ooltewah Elementary. The school, staff, students and community have been a big part of my life.

I ask that you please respect my privacy and my family as we move forward past this moment in time.

I look forward to working with the children, staff, and community at East Ridge Middle School.

Thomas Arnold

Mr. Arnold began his education career at Nolan Elementary in 1999 as the schools physical education teacher. He became assistant principal at Bess T. Shepherd Elementary in 2006. Prior to arriving at Ooltewah, he served as the interim principal at Harrison Elementary for the spring semester of 2008.

He graduated from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga with a Bachelor of Science and completed his Master of Arts degree in Instructional Leadership from Tennessee Technological University. He was also a member of the Leadership Fellows with the Public Education Foundation.A semi-finalist from ITVs Britains Got Talent is to lead a comedy night in Burnham-On-Sea this November.

The Ritz Social Club in Victoria Street will host a night of laughs featuring three great comedians on Saturday 17th November.

Nick Page, pictured above, was a semi-finalist on the ITV talent show and was also awarded the title of English Comedian of the Year in 2017.

Liam Pickford and Kelly Convey will also be performing alongside MC Dan Thomas.

Burnham Ritz Social Club says the event is the first of a new series of regular comedy nights.

We feel there is a need for regular comedy nights in Burnham given that the closest comedy clubs are in Taunton and Bristol, Paul Hale, General Manger at the Ritz, told Burnham-On-Sea.com.

We have teamed up with Odd Night Out to provide a regular venue for some top class comedians.

After a couple meetings with the representatives from Odd Night Out we agreed to commit to several comedy nights in addition to our already popular tribute nights.

Im hopeful that the support will be there to make this an even more regular event.

A limited number of tickets are available at 6.00, from the Ritz bar which is open 7 days a week.Residents have reacted with anger at plans to shut down Highbridge Library early in 2019 unless a new community group can be formed to run the service.

As part of major cost-cutting plans, Somerset County Council announced on Tuesday (October 16th) its recommendations for the future of Somersets Libraries Service, with a final decision due next month.

The council has published a detailed report that sets out how Somersets Libraries Service would be delivered across the County.

The council recommends that 19 existing library buildings  including Burnham-On-Sea  will be retained.

However, for the remaining 15 library buildings, including Highbridge, Somerset County Council is seeking to develop Community Library Partnerships (CLPs) where communities support library buildings in partnership with the council.

Residents speak out over library plans

Local residents have spoken out against the plans on Burnhams Facebook page:

Holly Dorothy Rockett writes: Disaster. Libraries are so important. You can take away everything from someone but you cannot take away a good education. With education you have the building blocks to start over.

Alfy Mckay said: I want to be apart of Saving the library. Without knowledge or stories from books, life is pointless.

Mark Saunders said: Its absolutely disgusting that the council are cutting every thing to the bone. Its always the vulnerable things that get cut. Its about time the councillors all took a pay cut. Start at the top. These councillors should hang their heads in shame. I am sure they will trot out the same old c***. You have to pay the most to get the best. Well they are not the best! Its about time the public voted them all out. And yes if l was a councillor l would take a pay cut.

Lynn Vaughan said: Everytime money is tight cut the library, youth service, shut swimming pools. We have been here before fighting for BOS Library and the swimming pool! SCC, is there anything left now  what do the youth have locally? How dare they shut Highbridge library.

Becky Lyons added: Id be interested in helping if a group forms.

John Doh added: Libraries are so important for communities. For the elderly often on their own they can be a lifeline. Times have changed and you just need a different business model. Irrigation of a cafe come art gallery or maybe post office.

If the overall plans are approved, the slimmed-down libraries service across Somerset would save the cash-strapped council 345,000 for 2019/20 to include 270K from the proposed reduction in operating library buildings and 75K from savings directly identified from consultation feedback such as reduction in management costs.

A council spokesman added: Where this proves not to be possible, library buildings will close and alternative means of delivering library services in communities such as outreach services and/or mobile library stops would be implemented.

The 19 libraries where services are recommended to remain the same are: Bridgwater town centre, Burnham-On-Sea, Chard, Cheddar, Crewkerne, Dulverton, Frome, Glastonbury, Ilminster, Langport, Martock, Minehead, Shepton Mallet (likely to move to a new location, which would be determined next year), Taunton town centre, Wellington, Wells, Williton, Wincanton and Yeovil town centre.

Community Library Partnerships expressions of interest will now be invited from these 15 communities: Bishops Lydeard, Bruton, Castle Cary, Highbridge, Milborne Port, Nether Stowey, North Petherton, Porlock (with the aim to continue their existing Community Library Partnership in its present format), Priorswood (Taunton), Somerton, Street, South Petherton, Sunningdale (Yeovil), Watchet and Wiveliscombe.

Cllr David Hall, Cabinet Member with responsibility for libraries at Somerset County Council, said: We received excellent feedback from this years library services consultation and thank you to everyone who took part. It reinforced what we already knew; strong, thriving, modernised library services are as important to you as they are to us.

Many people told us they would prefer no changes to our libraries service, however staying the same is not an option if we are to put the libraries service on a sustainable footing for the future. We have listened, and the recommendations have taken account of the feedback.

We are making funds available to support Community Library Partnerships and we are proposing to restructure libraries management in a bid to keep costs down. Were now recommending changes to fewer libraries than set out in the original consultation proposals. We are also following up suggestions made by communities.

Cllr Hall, right, added: This is a once in a generation review. The network of library buildings in Somerset has remained unchanged for around 40 years. We have to modernise library services and re-design them to meet local needs more effectively. We need to strike the right balance of delivering a thriving, dynamic and comprehensive library service, which meets our statutory obligations, whilst living within our financial means.

The 15 communities which would be affected by the recommendations are now invited to submit a Community Library Partnership (CLP) Expression of Interest by mid-day on 15th November. If unable to agree CLPs, alternative library services as set out in the report would be implemented (such as outreach services and mobile van library stops) and library buildings could start to close from early 2019.

Cllr Hall added: We are heartened by the number of communities interested in exploring CLPs. This model has worked well in Porlock for the last four years and in many other libraries across the country. We are committed to supporting CLPs through training, ongoing technical support, the provision of book stock (including a regular supply of new books) and ICT equipment such as computers, printers and scanners. Some would receive ongoing financial support. If we are unable to develop CLPs, we will meet our legal duty to provide library services in other ways.

The recommendation report will go to Scrutiny Committee for Policy and Place on 24th October before Cabinet will make a final decision on 5th November. If approved, implementation would start from January 2019.

For a link to the councils recommendation report, see here. For further details about the library services redesign, including further information on Community Library Partnerships, please click here.Middle Tennessee State University signed an agreement Tuesday to extend the MTSU Promise to Cleveland State Community College, a pathway for students with associate degrees from the college to move seamlessly to the four-year university.

MTSU President Sidney A. McPhee and Cleveland State President Bill Seymour also signed a transfer agreement to make it easier for Cleveland State students who earn an associate degree in mechatronics technology to transfer to MTSUs mechatronics engineering program and earn a bachelors degree.

The presidents signed the documents on the Cleveland campus, as MTSUs True Blue Tour, a 14-city, four-state caravan to recruit prospective students, stopped in nearby Chattanooga, en route to Atlanta.

Dr. McPhee noted that 91 former Cleveland State students are currently enrolled at MTSU, making the college one of the most valuable sources of transfer students for the Murfreesboro campus.

MTSU is the No. 1 transfer destination in Tennessee, Dr. McPhee said. Extending the MTSU Promise to Cleveland State steps up our partnership even further and will allow our advisers to help these great students transition to our campus.

Dr. Seymour agreed, saying the cooperation between the two mechatronics programs underscored the unique partnership between the two institutions.

"Perhaps no other program at Cleveland State has developed so quickly and strongly as our Advanced Technologies programs, Dr. Seymour said. This agreement is also timely due to the establishment of our new Mechatronics Honors Institute  and these students will be strong candidates for completing their bachelors degree at MTSU."

MTSU launched its MTSU Promise program in May with an agreement signed between the Murfreesboro campus and Motlow State Community College.

The MTSU Promise pledges support to help students at partner schools to help them complete their associate degree, then move forward in seeking a four-year degree.

The agreement calls for Cleveland State to share with MTSU directory information of the colleges students so they are included in tailored communications of emails and hard-copy mailings that support the process of planning for the bachelors degree after successful completion of the associate degree.



Also, the agreement says Cleveland State students who agree to participate in the MTSU Promise will sign a reverse transfer agreement, meaning if they fail to complete their associate degrees prior to transfer, they would automatically receive their associate degree from Cleveland once sufficient credits have been completed at MTSU.

MTSU is No. 1 in the state in using the reverse transfer process.

MTSU, through its existing Guaranteed Transfer Scholarship Program, will provide aid for Cleveland State students who transfer to MTSU in the amount of $3,000 per year for two years, or a maximum of four semesters, based on achievement of a 3.0 GPA.

Students transferring to MTSU will not be eligible to apply to receive the Guaranteed Transfer Scholarship until after completing 45 credit hours at Cleveland State.

Deb Sells, MTSUs vice president for student affairs and vice provost for enrollment services, said the application deadline annually is Feb. 15, which means the majority of participating Cleveland State students will have completed 60 credits before transfer.

Dr. Sells also said MTSU will revise letters of rejection for students in the Cleveland State service area who apply to MTSU for freshman admission, but who are not admitted.

The letters will also say the student is being placed in a "deferred admission" category, and that MTSU recommends that they enroll at Cleveland State for two years of study under the Tennessee Promise, the state-funded scholarship that pays tuition and fees for two-year colleges.

MTSU will also guarantee to such students that if they complete 60 credits with a 3.0 GPA at Cleveland State, they will be guaranteed admission and a scholarship to attend MTSU for their last two years of study, Dr. Sells said.

Meanwhile, the agreement between the institutions on mechatronics education was hailed as an exciting day, three years in the making by Tim Wilson, chair of Cleveland States Advanced Technologies Department.

This agreement is also timely due to the establishment of our new Mechatronics Honors Institute. Students in this program will be strong candidates for completing their bachelors at MTSU, Dr. Seymour added.



Mr. Wilson said Cleveland State started this process to give our students an opportunity to complete their undergraduate degree in mechatronics engineering. MTSU now is an excellent avenue by which those students may complete their studies in an engineering program of study."

Dr. McPhee concurred, underscoring the partnership both institutions enjoy with Siemens Mechatronic Systems as part of the global companys certification program. Siemens recently donated advanced software, with a commercial value of $278 million, to the mechatronics program at MTSU.

We welcome this opportunity to invite these excellent students from Cleveland State to continue their education at MTSU in a facility that is clearly one of the best in the nation, Dr. McPhee said.



| BY Ricki Green |

Authored by Australian Nowlab director Robert Tilt, Isobar, has published a playbook to explain what blockchain is, the technology in practice and how it can be integrated into businesses today. The playbook unpacks blockchains potential impact on the global media and marketing industry including media supply chains, transparency, brand management and creativity, as well as explaining what marketers should do next. The playbook is available to download from isobar.com.

Says Robert Tilt, director of Isobar Nowlab, Isobar Australia: At its core, blockchain is a technical solution to two key promises that have forever plagued the business world: transparency and trust. When applied to the right scenarios, it can transform how our industry operates, creating massive efficiencies, and ultimately freeing up resources for more innovation.

Blockchain has launched a decentralised technology revolution, with Gartner forecasting the business value-add of blockchain will grow to slightly more than $176 billion by 2025, and then it will exceed $3.1 trillion by 2030. Isobar believes the potential of the technology has far reaching implications for the media and marketing industry, in areas such as supply chain, commerce, transparency and identity management.

Says Vikalp Tandon, global chief technology officer, Isobar: Digital has changed the way we live and work forever. If the past is evidence, whenever a near monopoly emerges, a new technology also emerges that disrupts the industry. Blockchain could be that opportunity.

Says Dave Meeker, chief innovation officer, Isobar: Our innovation teams are already consulting with clients on Blockchain technology, and its potential for providing experience-led transformation solutions, and we have written this global playbook to kickstart more conversations.

The playbook also features contributions from Vikalp Tandon, Isobar global chief technology officer, Shawn Mishra, SVP, Isobar global managing partner, Isobar Commerce Practice, and Simon Gill, Isobar EMEA chief experience officer, and other Dentsu Aegis Network subject matter experts.

It covers:

 The history of the ledger & a simple definition of blockchain, and a glossary of terms

 In practice: cryptocurrency and Initial Coin Offerings (ICO); financial services, supply chain

& proof of origin; data insights & authenticity

 Deep dive into high growth markets: India, China & Brazil

 Blockchain in media & marketing, and as a creative medium, and implications for supply

chain

 Commerce & payment on the blockchain

 What is holding blockchain back?

 What should marketers do next?| BY Ricki Green |

The Works has promoted Paul Swann (left) and Tom Harber (right) to the newly created roles of managing partners as the agency continues to build its integrated offering with RXP Group.

Swann has been a creative partner at The Works for more than six years, during which time he developed work for accounts including Optus, Jim Beam, Visit Canberra, Unilever, and GSK and won numerous local and international creative and effectiveness awards. Prior to The Works he was managing partner at Naked and has held a number of senior roles at agencies in the UK and Australia.

Harber joined the agency from the UK in 2014 as creative project leader and group account director for Jim Beam globally, becoming head of project management two years later. He has led brands including Jim Beam, Optus and Canadian Club and and more recently has led new business development.

As managing partners Swann and Harber will be responsible for the day to day operations of The Works including creative output, business development, people, culture and finance.

Says Damian Pincus, founding partner, The Works: Its a testament to the depth of talent at The Works that we have been able to promote from within and appoint Paul and Tom to take leadership roles at the agency. Both are massively experienced in building relationships with clients, producing effective work and harnessing the award winning culture weve developed at the agency. They understand the business inside out and together with the creative partners will continue to drive the agency and our people forward.

Says Swann: Its an incredibly exciting time for us, were now able to combine our skills in brand building with our customer experience expertise to achieve even greater impact for clients. Were seeing our remit broaden which also means lots of exciting new creative opportunities.

Says Harber: The industry has struggled to reconcile the impact technology has brought to creativity, but with our partnership with RXP we truly feel like we have cracked the code. We have been working to future proof the agency by developing a model that meaningfully fuses creativity and customer experience with technology enablement. Our offering and agency culture is stronger than it has ever been and we have the right people, capabilities and operating model to demonstrate tangible results for our clients. I look forward to stepping up and leading at The Works alongside Paul.

Both will report to founding partners Pincus and Kevin Macmillan who will continue to work closely with the agencys clients, in addition to identifying prospects for increased collaboration with digital transformation consultancy RXP Group which acquired The Works in August last year. Partner Douglas Nicol will continue to drive strategy across the business and focus on pushing innovation through social messaging agency On-Message.| BY Lynchy |

Geometry Malaysia worked with CIMB, one of Malaysias largest financial services providers, to ideate and develop the Sound of a Nation, a digital campaign that combines the biological signature of everyday Malaysians and the talents of the countrys leading musicians to deliver a message of unity on Malaysia Day.

The symphony was unique in its approach. Geometry Malaysias idea was to demonstrate how Malaysias people of different ethnicities could come together as diverse melodies to form a single, harmonious piece of music; therefore paying tribute to unity. For this effect, they employed facial recognition technology. Geometry Malaysias Interface Development Team Lead, Chinling Yeo explains in the Making Of video:

Facial recognition can identify over 27 points that make a persons face unique. We developed an algorithm that collects the most prominent points into three key zones. We put these points into a musical transcript. This gives an individual his or her unique melody.

Launched exclusively on the internet, the Sound of a Nation campaign engaged the public on all digital fronts: on social media as well as through Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) who shared their individual melodies with followers. Most importantly, Geometry Malaysia connected the unique national optimism of this project with the brand CIMB, a bank that grew through the merging of different homegrown banks to become the leading ASEAN bank, to deliver this message to the public. CIMBs A New Day, an online film for National Day, invited the public to submit and translate their face images into melodies at a CIMB microsite specially developed by Geometry. Within a week, close to 1,000 face images were collected with over 500 individual melodies selected to compose the final symphony.

The creative team at Geometry Malaysia then turned to cultural expert and music celebrity Sean Ghazi to create this symbolic piece of music, together with head composer Aubrey Suwito who composed the final symphony and recorded it with a host of leading Malaysian musicians. At the beginning of music production, Aubrey Suwito, Musical Director of Sound of a Nation and accomplished Malaysian composer, musician and producer, expressed his passion for the piece:

My job is to work with these fine excellent musicians to take these melodies and put them together into a meaningful, beautiful piece of music. A reflection of the unity that defines Malaysia. A unity that we see every day in our daily lives.

The full-scale orchestra expanded to include musical instruments of traditional or sentimental significance to the Malaysian people, including a variety of ethnic flutes and drums as well as the electric rock guitar. The final symphony was distributed among this wide array of instrumentseven the percussion and drum patterns were produced from the participants data. This unprecedented orchestral performance was filmed and produced for online release. Unveiled on Malaysia Day weekend, the online film alone garnered more than 1.7 million in total achieved views in just two weeksbringing the total achieved views of all films in the campaign, including A New Day and the Making of video, to more than 4.7 million.

The Malaysia Day film concludes with a fitting quote from our Bapa Kemerdekaan (Malaysias Father of Independence). The creative team at Geometry Malaysia felt that Tunku Abdul Rahmans reference to the strength of unity has found new relevance in this hour of the nations history. Michael Fillon, Executive Creative Director of Geometry Malaysia who conceived the project, puts this unity in a global perspective:

If you ask anyone from outside the country, What does a Malaysian look like?, youd be hard pressed for an answer. Thats because the country is so ethnically and culturally rich, that its identity cannot be condensed into a single description. Growing up in such an environment has given Malaysians a strong sense of tolerance towards different cultures, religions and family values. But the one thing all Malaysians hold in common is the desire to move their country forward, and to do it together as one people. Sound of a Nation is a musical tribute to this solidarity.

Because of these special times, Fillon believes that CIMBs Sound of a Nation campaign truly struck a chord with the people:

While this Malaysia Day was unsurprisingly filled with brand communication all focussing on togetherness, it was CIMB that showed how Malaysians can create something amazing togethertranslated into music, the things that make Malaysians different from one another are also the things that make the countrys unity both beautiful and powerful.

To hear the final symphony, watch the Sound of a Nation video now exclusively available on CIMB-YouTube, CIMB Malaysia Facebook and the Sound of a Nation microsite at soundofanation.cimb.com| BY Lynchy |

McCann Health Singapore has announced the hire of five new talents: Nicole Lade as General Manager, Sean Riley as Executive Creative Director, Liz Clark Martinez as Head of Planning, Rebecca Murphy as Director, HCP Planning and Communications, and Charles Williams, as in-house medical writer.

These senior hires bring the McCann Health Singapore staff strength to 25  the largest and most experienced group of health and wellness experts in Singapore.

In making the announcement, Stuart Black, Group CEO of McCann Health Singapore and Australia said, As the pace of change in our industry continues at break-neck speed, the quality of our people remains the constant that sets us apart. That such an impressive array of talent is joining us in Singapore validates our drive to build McCann Health as the leader in strategic, scientific and creative excellence in SEA.

Nicole Lade joins McCann Health Singapore as the General Manager. Returning to the agency after 7 years away, Lade most recently acted as the Global Projects Director for medical/scientific publisher Wiley.

Sean Riley, a 19-year McCann Health veteran, also rejoins McCann Health Singapore as Executive Creative Director after close to 3 years in Japan as ECD Japan and North Asia. Sean is a multi-awarded creative leader whose work has been recognised at Cannes, the One Show, London International Awards, Clio and ARCHIVE.

With 15 years experience in healthcare, Liz Clark Martinez joins McCann Health Singapore as the Head of Planning. Liz was most recently Planning Director at VCCP Health in the UK, working on marketing and communication solutions in Global (including Asia Pacific and South America) and European markets.

Rebecca Murphy joins McCann Health Singapore as Director, HCP Planning and Communications, after senior stints both agency- and client-side  including Langland UK, Grey Healthcare Group Sydney and most recently, as Senior Brand Manager for urology products for Astellas Australia.

Charles Williams joins McCann Health Singapore as in-house Medical Writer, bringing with him experience as a clinical and community pharmacist, as well as client-side expertise from a variety of industry roles, both commercial and medical, with GlaxoSmithKline Hong Kong, Boehringer Ingelheim and Astellas Australia.

Wati Mohd Taib, Director, Expert Marketing, has been a key member of McCann Health Singapore for 8 years and brings continuity and experience to the leadership team.

Lade said, I am delighted to be back at McCann Health, and even more delighted to be joined by such an experienced and passionate team of health and wellness experts.

Our goal is to set a new standard for our industry  a world-class standard, here in Singapore and across the region.

Photo caption from left to right: Nicole Lade, General Manager; Sean Riley, Executive Creative Director; Rebecca Murphy, Director, HCP Planning and Communications; Liz Clark Martinez, Head of Planning; Charles Williams, Medical Writer; and Wati MohdTaib, Director, Expert Marketing.Red Bank commissioners passed an ordinance on the final reading to allow a zoning change for property at 121 and 133 Culver St. from Single Family Residential to Townhouse / Zero Lot Line. The two lots can now be divided into three narrower ones.

Three nearby residents spoke at a public hearing two weeks ago in opposition because they said zero lot line homes did not fit in with the neighborhood, but all believed that the 1,800-2,000-square-foot, three-bedroom two-bath townhomes with garages would be done well. Their reluctance was that the owner Greg Jones might rent the houses or sell the rezoned lots to someone who might do a poor job of building them. Mr. Jones already owns rental houses in the area and takes care of the property, it was stated. He told those in opposition that, if rented, these too would be taken care of. The council voted to approve the zoning change on second and final reading at the commission meeting Tuesday night.

Also approved was the acceptance of a grant from the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security. This is a 100 percent grant of $36,995 and it will pay for a distracted driving reduction program. There is no match required from the city. Interim City Manager Tim Thornbury said the city applies for and receives this grant every year and it pays for police overtime, which will use the extra time patrolling.

After the final audit was received and reviewed, the commissioners voted to put aside $71,101. that will be used for a two percent employee cost of living increase. It will be retroactive to July 1, 2018, the beginning of the citys fiscal year. The employees do a great job, said Mayor John Roberts.

The city has been warning of the closure at the intersection of Ashland Terrace and Dayton Boulevard for almost a year, said the mayor. It is now 10 days away and the city has started putting up signs to announce the closure and detours to drivers. A box culvert that carries water under the road will be replaced. The intersection is expected to be closed for 30-40 days. Detour maps are available at city hall.

Commissioner Terry Pope said that free yard signs can be picked up at city hall for residents who want to slow down traffic in their neighborhoods. The signs say, Drive like your kids live here

Commissioner Carol Rose would like citizens of Red Bank to know that the city codes are now available online at the Red Bank website. The website will direct to the MTAS address where the codes can be seen. They can be read entirely or can be searched by category to find a particular code, she said.

Mayor Roberts said that by the end of this year, the city expects to announce two new developments that are coming to Red Bank. One is a new residential development and the other is a redeveloped commercial project.Chattanooga Gas Company filed a petition Feb. 15 with the Tennessee Public Utility Commission requesting to increase service rates by $6.1 million annually. The company proposed a 27.75 percent increase to rates for residential and small commercial customers. The company last increased service rates in 2010.

The Commission held a public hearing from Aug. 20-22 in Nashville to consider the companys rate request. The Consumer Protection and Advocate Division of the Attorney Generals Office and the Chattanooga Regional Manufacturers Association were both granted interventions and participated in the hearing.

After considering all evidence and positions presented by the participants to the hearing, the Commission made its decision at a publicly held conference on Monday. The Commission determined that additional annual revenue of $1.4 million, which equates to an overall 4.36 percent increase, is sufficient for Chattanooga Gas Company to continue provisioning safe and reliable service while also providing the companys shareholders with a fair return on their investment. The Commissions decision authorizes the company to increase residential service rates by $1 per month.

The mission of the Tennessee Public Utility Commission is to ensure the safe and reliable provision of the public utility services to the citizens of Tennessee. TPUC strives to serve the best interests of the public in its utility oversight and agency operations. For more information, visit www.tn.gov/tpuc.





Cougars claim Sectional championship Carroll football, under first-year coach Blake Betzner, will play in its first regional in 18 years when it hosts North...

Statewide housing stability partnership launched The Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority will accept applications from renters in all 92 counties for the Indiana Supreme...

DCSC approves preventive maintenance contract Delphi Community School Corporation (DCSC) Board of School Trustees decided some months ago it would be prudent to practice preventative...

Delphi Chamber votes to dissolve A unanimous vote was cast Monday night in favor of the resolution to dissolve the Greater Delphi Chamber of Commerce....Nine Lee University students attended the 26th Annual McNair Scholars Research Conference at the University of Maryland, Baltimore campus. The students who attended the conference  Judith Bell, Kati Coats, Alex Gann, Cassidy Gray, Torah Harding-Laman, Tamia Jordan, Elizabeth Landry, Brittney Perez, and Audriana Trevino  represented a range of majors including anthropology, digital media, English, and pre-med.

Five of the participating students presented their research. Ms. Bell presented Like Mother, Like Daughter: Parental Expectations in Alice Walkers Everyday Use, Ms. Coats presented Assessing the Reach of the 4th Amendment: A Matter of Property, Ms. Harding-Laman presented Wai Wah! (Lets Go!): Tsimshian and Language Revitalization in Southeast Alaska, Ms. Perez presented The Portrayal of the Latino Culture in Young Adult Literature, and Ms. Trevino presented Identity: An Ethnographic Study on Latinx College Students in Appalachian Bible Belt.

All five presenters were positively received, said Dr. Donna Summerlin, who accompanied the students on the trip. The moderator for one of our sessions commented that she found our students presentations to be truly outstanding.

Dr. Summerlin joined the Lee University faculty in 1988 and currently serves as the chair of Lees Department of Language and Literature.

While at the conference, students were able to network with scholars from other institutions around the country, tour the graduate programs at Johns Hopkins, and meet representatives from a number of other graduate programs.

I was blown away by the opportunities that this program is providing for our students, said Dr. Summerlin. I was also blown away by the quality of work being done by our students, as well as many of the others I encountered there.

Lee University began its McNair Scholars program in October 2017 upon receipt of a Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program grant, a federal TRIO Program within the U.S. Department of Education. This conference opportunity for Lees McNair Scholars was funded in part by the federal grant.

For more information about the McNair Scholars program, visit http://leeuniversity.edu/mcnair/.







UPDATE 5:00 P.M.

A Russian container ship with hundreds of tonnes of fuel on board was drifting without power in rough seas off British Columbia's northern coast on Friday.

But there was conflicting information about where the ship was headed, with a nearby First Nations community saying the "worst-case scenario" of the ship running aground was just hours away, while the Canadian Forces said the vessel was not drifting closer to land.

The Canadian Forces' joint rescue co-ordination centre in Victoria said the Russian carrier Simushir lost power late Thursday night off Haida Gwaii, also known as the Queen Charlotte Islands, as it was making its way from Washington state to Russia.

Navy Lt. Paul Penderghast said the ship was nine nautical miles, or about 17 kilometres, from the shore of Haida Gwaii, though he said the vessel was largely maintaining that distance from land.

"It is drifting, but it's drifting parallel to shore," said Penderghast.

The Council of the Haida Nation, however, warned the ship could run aground by Friday evening. Haida president Peter Lantin said the council was preparing for the ship to potentially reach land in a remote, rocky section of coastline along the southwestern edge of Haida Gwaii, raising the possibility the vessel could break apart.

"I think all efforts are being made to revive the ship and deal with the mechanical failures that have happened, so for us that's the best-case scenario if they're able to fix it and keep it from running ashore," Lantin said in an interview.

"Right now, there is no optimism that this thing is going to be salvaged. We're preparing for the worst-case scenario."

The Simushir, which is 135 metres long, was carrying "a range of hydrocarbons, mining materials and other related chemicals," said acting Sub. Lt. Ron MacDougall of the joint rescue co-ordination centre. Also on the ship were more than 400 tonnes of bunker oil and 50 tonnes of diesel.

The vessel is not a tanker but rather a container ship. In comparison, the Exxon Valdez, which ran aground in Alaska in 1989, spilled out 35,000 metric tonnes of oil.

The ship had 11 crew members on board, though the captain was injured and had to be removed by helicopter. MacDougall didn't know the nature of the captain's injuries or what caused them.

It wasn't clear why the ship lost power.

The Canadian Coast Guard ship Gordon Reid was heading to the area and was expected to arrive Friday afternoon. A tugboat from Prince Rupert, on the northern B.C. coast, was expected to arrive by early Saturday morning.

In addition, the United States Coast Guard had a helicopter on standby in the event the entire crew needed to be removed from the ship.

Numerous federal and provincial agencies were involved co-ordinating the response, including the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Transport Canada and B.C.'s Environment Ministry. Western Canada Marine Response Corp., which is contracted by the federal government to respond to oil spills, said it had been notified and its crews were on standby.

Rough weather was also a concern. MacDougall said there were winds of almost 30 kilometres per hour with seven-metre seas, though he said that was easing up as the day progressed. Environment Canada had issued a storm warning for much of the northern coast, including the area around Haida Gwaii.

The Haida Nation set up an emergency command centre in Old Massett, located on the northern tip of Haida Gwaii, in the event the vessel runs aground.

Lantin, the Haida president, said an oil spill along the coast of Haida Gwaii would be a disaster.

"This is home for us. If this thing runs aground and hits in one of the most culturally sensitive areas of Haida Gwaii, it's going to have catastrophic effects," he said.

The potential for marine disasters along B.C.'s coast has become a particularly sensitive subject in recent years amid the debate over the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline. The project, if approved, would include a terminal in Kitimat, B.C., and would see tankers carrying heavy crude from Alberta traversing B.C.'s northern coast.

Lantin, whose community has staunchly opposed the Northern Gateway pipeline, said a spill in Haida Gwaii would only strengthen that opposition.

"This feels gigantic, but when you think about what's being proposed, for Haida Gwaii to bear the risk of these tankers coming in, the scale is enormous compared to this," said Lantin.

"What this gives is a real-life example of what needs to be considered. If it does (run aground), it's going to ramp up the opposition. This will change everything for us."

The Simushir is registered in Kholmsk, Russia, and owned by Russian shipping firm SASCO, also known as Sakhalin Shipping Company, according to the company's website.

The SASCO website says the ship was built in the Netherlands in 1998.

Photo: Contributed - http://www.marinetraffic.com The container ship Simushir

ORIGINAL:

A container ship carrying hundreds of tonnes of bunker oil and diesel is adrift off the north coast of BC, though the navy says the vessel is maintaining its distance from shore.

The Canadian Forces' joint rescue co-ordination centre in Victoria says the Russian carrier Simushir lost power overnight as it was making its way from Washington State to Russia.

Acting Sub. Lt. Ron MacDougall says the ship is currently about 17 kilometres off Haida Gwaii and carrying 400 tonnes of bunker oil and 50 tonnes of diesel.

Eleven passengers are on board, and MacDougall says a helicopter has been dispatched to remove the ship's captain, who is injured.

A Canadian Coast Guard vessel and a tugboat are also en route, while the U.S. Coast Guard has a helicopter on standby.

Heavy winds are expected today, but Navy Lt. Paul Pendergast says the vessel is currently drifting parallel to the shore and its maintaining its distance from land.Chelsea Powrie

Marijuana is now legal in B.C. and the rest of Canada, but local guidelines on how and where it can be ingested have been murky, so Castanet hit the streets of Penticton to find out how residents are feeling about legalization.

"It won't change anything for me. I don't do it, but I'm just curious about how things are going to work for the rest of the public when someone is smoking it. Is it going to be out on the street our behind closed doors?" said one man.

"No, it's not going to make any change in our habits, but I'm allergic to pot smoke, my throat closes. So if they're allowed to be everywhere, I'm going to be on my inhaler all the time," a woman said.

"People are smoking cigarettes all over the place and putting things in their arms all over the place, so I think smoking a joint is the least of it," another woman opined.

One woman said she's happy about legalization because it means easier access to marijuana for her friends who use the drug to mitigate mental illnesses.

"I think that'll be great. A lot of people I know use it for mental illness, anxiety, that kind of thing, so I think that will be good overall."

Another woman said she hopes local bylaws will treat marijuana similarly to cigarettes and alcohol.

"Where you can't smoke cigarettes, you shouldn't be able to smoke marijuana," she said.

Penticton has yet to pass specific bylaws regarding marijuana usage, having decided to wait until after the Oct. 20 municipal election.

If you have an opinion on the matter, drop us a line at [email protected].Photo: The Canadian Press Green Party leader Andrew Weaver.

The man who holds the balance of power in the B.C. legislature says he has several concerns over the government's real estate speculation tax.

The NDP government introduced the controversial tax in the legislature Tuesday.

Green Party leader Andrew Weaver says he has three main concerns:

That it treat all Canadians equally.

That local governments need to have a more direct role.

That the tax shouldn't unfairly target homeowners who aren't speculators.

He says he'll review the legislation before determining his next steps.

I still have concerns that Canadians are not being treated equally and that there is an insufficient role for local governments in determining what happens in their communities, said Weaver.

Addressing the affordability crisis is a key shared priority between our caucus and the government. We also agree that tackling speculation in our housing market is one of the best ways we can make a difference. However, I have been clear that the governments approach on this particular piece of legislation is not the one I would have taken."

Weaver says there are many examples of homeowners who are not speculators who are being unfairly impacted.

"In addition, I have raised concerns about the impact of this tax on land under development and its implementation in stratas with no-rental clauses."

The proposed tax is calculated at rates of 0.5 per cent, one per cent or two per cent of assessed value in urban centres, with the highest rate applied to foreign owners and so-called satellite families.

Kelowna and West Kelowna are included in areas where the tax will be levied.

Mayors of both cities have been lobbying the government to be excluded from the tax, saying it would have an adverse affect on development.

At the recently completed Union of BC Municipalities convention in Whislter, mayors Colin Basran and Doug Findlater met with Weaver to voice their concerns.

Mr. Weaver is very much on the same page as us," Findlater said after the meeting. "He knows this tax will hurt our community, and he said he is going to vote accordingly when the matter is before him."Photo: Contributed

Tyler Luscombe says his younger brother Braydon hasn't asked for any help his whole life, despite having had his right leg amputated at the age of five.

Braydon, 26, didn't let the amputation, which was a result of flesh-eating disease, stop him from becoming a top-tier athlete, competing as a skier in the Paralympic Games in Russia and South Korea.

Now Tyler, 28, is helping his brother out with a fundraising run, the proceeds of which will go towards equipment and other costs relating to Braydon's upcoming ski season.

"They have to pay their team fees and equipment fees, and they don't get paid too too well, so we're doing whatever we can to help alleviate that for him," Tyler said.

Tyler and two friends will be undertaking a 432 kilometre run from Penticton, where Tyler lives, to Braydon's home town of Victoria. They are looking for sponsors for each kilometre of the run, and they anticipate the trip will take about 10 days in total.

"I was raised, like a lot of people, that you have to give a little to get a little, so this is kind of my little sacrifice to do to get something back from it," Tyler said. "I feel it's the best way to kind of raise some funds."

The team has stocked up on warm clothes to prepare for their run, which kicks off Nov. 2.

"We will have a motor home behind us just warning people that we're running," Tyler said. "We're counting on doing 20-kilometre shifts at a time, so when the person is done running they can head back to the motor home and warm up, then get back out there when they're ready."

The team is hoping to raise a total of $10,000, $5,500 of which goes to team fees and $4,500 of which is for equipment. Tyler said this is the least he can do for his inspirational brother.

"His attitude, since the day he lost his leg, the way my parents dealt with it, they treated him like a normal kid," Tyler said. "I think it set the path for him. I've never heard him complain. He never asks for special treatment, and he's never asked any of us for help in any way."

Tyler is also hoping the run will shine a spotlight on Canadian Paralympic sports, which he thinks the general public doesn't always appreciate.

"I've been to two Paralympic games now, and even myself, who's watched my brother through this whole situation, I'm still blown away every time I watch these athletes do literally the exact same course that the able bodied athletes do int the Olympic games," he said.

"Some people have the stigma of thinking it's not really real sport, but it's hands down just the same."

To pledge support for Tyler's run, click here.South OkanaganWest Kootenay MP Richard Cannings called on the Trudeau Liberals Monday to take greater action on climate change.

Cannings spoke at length during a House of Commons emergency debate on global warming spurred by a bombshell United Nations report last week on predictions of what will occur if warming is allowed to continue unchecked.

The IPCC report states that the world would have to cut greenhouse emissions by half by 2030 and then achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 to meet the 1.5 C target that Canada so proudly proclaimed and led the world on at the Paris Agreement, Cannings said. We are just over the 1 C increase now and under present policies we are headed for 3 C or maybe 4 C.

We have already seen some of the early effects of that 1 C increase, such as more fires, more floods, more heat waves and more extreme weather of all sorts, he added.

Cannings suggested summertime highs of 44 C in Osoyoos could become commonplace, and noted Canadas efforts to fulfill the Paris climate targets have been ranked as highly insufficient, in the same category as China.

He said Canada has to do better," instead of investing in the TransMountain pipeline, and could have spent the money on electric vehicle infrastructure and building retrofits.

Cannings called on the government to adjust its climate change targets to those in line with United Nations recommendations.

They should have admitted, 'gee, we were wrong', that the world's scientists are telling us that we have to do this if we are to do our bit and show the world that we are at least pulling our own weight, if not showing some leadership.

He also went after the Conservative party for fighting the carbon tax and putting political gain above the world they will leave our children.Photo: Jon Manchester Bill Tieleman

Proportional representation doesn't create extremism  but it does enable it, says Bill Tieleman.

Tieleman, a noted B.C. journalist, political strategist and campaigner, will debate B.C.'s upcoming referendum on electoral reform with Maria Dobrinskaya on Wednesday in Kelowna.

Dobrinskaya is B.C. director at the Broadbent Institute and a member of the Vision Vancouver party. She was unavailable for an interview Tuesday, but Tieleman stopped by the Castanet studio after arriving at Kelowna Airport.

Tieleman has been speaking across the province since both the Yes and No sides were given $500,000 by the province to promote their causes.

He says he and Dobrinskaya are friends who "agree on most things, but not on (proportional representation)."

He's done 30 or 40 events so far, and says, depending on the audience, "You can be Daniel in the lion's den or the conquering hero."

"We know from polling that the province is quite split. About one-third support keeping things as they are, one-third support prop rep, and one-third remain undecided," said Tieleman the night before the debate.

The chamber of commerce-sponsored event takes place at 11:30 a.m. at the Coast Capri Hotel.

Tieleman, a former communications director to then-premier Glen Clark and a B.C. Federation of Labour communications director, said he feels quite confident the No side will carry the day, especially since British Columbians have twice rejected proportional representation.

He said our current first-past-the-post system is "simple, stable and successful."

He noted the recent Swedish election, in which a nationalist far-right party garnered 18 per cent of the vote, and German and New Zealand elections in which it took months of negotiation to sort out the balance of power under prop rep.

While he said PR isn't responsible for extremism, "it gives it legitimacy and a platform."

Proponents of PR make the argument that every vote counts, "but that doesn't mean you get your way."

"Ask Christy Clark if every vote counted in the last election, ask anyone who lost by a slim margin if every vote counted. Of course it does," said Tieleman.

B.C. residents will vote via mail between Oct. 22 and Nov. 30 in the referendum.Photo: The Canadian Press FILE - In this March 12, 2017, file photo, Shohrat Zakir, chairman of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, speaks on the sideline of the National People's Congress in Beijing, China. The senior Chinese official is describing the mass internment of ethnic minority Muslims in the country's far west as a system of training centers that saves Muslims from religious extremism by teaching them to speak Mandarin and accept modern science. It was a rare instance of the ruling Communist Party publicly detailing its vision of what the extrajudicial detention of an estimated 1 million ethnic minority Uighur and Kazakh Muslims is setting out to achieve.

China on Tuesday characterized its mass internment of Muslims as a push to bring into the "modern, civilized" world a destitute people who are easily led astray  a depiction that analysts said bore troubling colonial overtones.

The report is the ruling Communist Party's latest effort to defend its extrajudicial detention of Central Asian Muslim minorities against mounting criticism.

China's resistance to Western pressure over the camps highlights its growing confidence under President Xi Jinping, who has offered Beijing's authoritarian system as a model for other countries.

About 1 million Uighurs, Kazakhs and other minorities have been arbitrarily detained in mass internment camps in China's far west Xinjiang region, according to estimates by a U.N. panel. Former detainees say they were forced to disavow their Islamic beliefs in the camps, while children of detainees are being placed in dozens of orphanages across the region.

The report by the official Xinhua News Agency indicated that key to the party's vision in Xinjiang is the assimilation of the indigenous Central Asian ethnic minorities into Han Chinese society  and in turn, a "modern" lifestyle.

Xinjiang Gov. Shohrat Zakir said the authorities were providing people with lessons on Mandarin, Chinese history and laws. Such training would steer them away from extremism and onto the path toward a "modern life" in which they would feel "confident about the future," he said.

"It's become a general trend for them to expect and pursue a modern, civilized life," Zakir said, referring to the trainees. He said the measures are part of a broader policy to build a "foundation for completely solving the deeply-rooted problems" in the region.

China has long viewed the country's ethnic minorities as backward, said James Leibold an expert on Chinese ethnic polices at Melbourne's La Trobe University.

Leibold described Beijing's perspective on minorities as: "They're superstitious, they're deviant, they're potentially dangerous. The role of the party-state is to bring them into the light of civilization, to transform them."

Despite growing alarm from the U.S. and the United Nations, China has maintained that Xinjiang's vast dragnet of police surveillance is necessary for countering latent extremism and preserving stability.

The Turkic-speaking Uighurs (pronounced WEE-gurs) have long resented restrictions placed on their religious practices. They say they experience widespread discrimination in jobs and access to passports.

In the Xinhua report, Zakir said authorities provide free vocational training in skills geared toward manufacturing, food and service industries. Zakir said "trainees" are paid a basic income during the training, in which free food and accommodations are provided.

The report appeared aimed at disputing accounts provided by former detainees, who have said they were held in political indoctrination camps where they were forced to denounce Islam and profess loyalty to the party.

Ethnic Uighurs and Kazakhs have told The Associated Press that ostensibly innocuous acts such as praying regularly, viewing a foreign website or taking phone calls from relatives abroad could land one in a camp.

Zakir said the training centres were for people "who are influenced by terrorism and extremism, and those suspected of minor criminal offences" who could be exempted from criminal punishment.Photo: Twitter

UPDATE: 7:40 p.m.

Youtube is back in service.

Videos appear to be playing as normal, as of 7:40 p.m.

The site has yet to say what caused the global outage.

ORIGINAL: 7:15 p.m.

YouTube not working for you? You're not alone.

The video hosting website is down, all across the globe.

If you're wondering why Castanet videos aren't working, that's why.

Sorry, something went wrong. A team of highly trained monkeys has been dispatched to deal with this situation, an error message says when you attempt to play any video.

Thanks for your reports about YouTube, YouTube TV and YouTube Music access issues. Were working on resolving this and will let you know once fixed. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and will keep you updated, YouTube tweeted about 6:45 p.m. B.C. time.The Urban League of Greater Chattanooga has announced the winners of the 2018 Community IMPACT Award and 2018 Inclusion Award. The awards will be presented to the winners at the 36th Annual Equal Opportunity Breakfast presented by BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee and Volkswagen Group of America on Tuesday, Oct. 30, at the Chattanooga Convention Center.

The 2018 Community Impact Award will be presented to Hamilton County Department of Education for their development of the Future Ready Institutes. This award is presented annually by the Urban League of Greater Chattanooga to an organization/business who has launched an innovative program that strives to strengthen Hamilton County communities. Through their Future Ready Institutes, Hamilton County Department of Education has developed a collective impact model that identifies needed and futuristic career occupations, coupled with industry partners to fully engage students, enrich their learning experiences, and prepare them to be successful in college, their careers, and beyond. In the past, this recognition was awarded to the Chamber of Commerce for their recruitment efforts of Volkswagen; EPB for its introduction of the Gig Technology; and Chattanooga 2.0 for its collaborative efforts to insure that all students receive a stellar education, said officials.

The 2018 Inclusion Award will be presented to the founders of Chattanooga Connected, Franklin and Tresa McCallie and Eleanor and Mel Cooper. This award is presented annually by the Urban League of Greater Chattanooga to a business or organization that intentionally seeks out opportunities and provides platforms to improve race relations in our community. Over the past six years, over 1,000 new friendships have been cultivated, business ventures have been developed, initiatives have been developed and supported, and most importantly culture differences have been accepted, appreciated and celebrated through the groundwork laid by the Interracial Dessert Conversations hosted by Chattanooga Connected.

Over 800 business and community leaders are expected to gather to honor the 2018 Awardees the 36th Annual Equal Opportunity Day Breakfast. The breakfast begins at 7:30 a.m. and Janet Marie Stovall, UPSs executive communications manager and inclusion crusader, will be the keynote speaker.

To purchase a table or to be a sponsor of the 36th Annual Equal Opportunity Day Breakfast call 756-1762, send an email to sales@ulchatt.org, or visit ulchatt.net. Tables start at $800. All proceeds from the event will support the Urban Leagues empowerment programs.Photo: Contributed ANatsumi Kogawa is shown with Victor Schneider on Sept. 8, 2016

An audio interview of a man facing a murder charge has been released as the jury deliberates on the case.

Former Vernon resident William Victor Schneider is charged with second-degree murder in the death of Natsumi Kogawa.

The interview took place at a pre-trial centre on Oct. 18, 2016, about three weeks after Schneider was arrested in connection to the 30-year-old Japanese student's death.

The interview does not provide much information on the death of Kogawa whose body was found in a suitcase on the grounds of the Gabriola Mansion in Vancouver on Sept. 28 2016.

Officials were unable to determine the exact cause of death.

During Schneider's interview with police, he describes meeting Kogawa in a library, where they bonded over a book about beer.

"We met, we met, and then we continued to meet. And it  suddenly got very, very heated and, and then went wrong," he tells police in the recording.

It's unclear what he means by "wrong," and he does not specify when asked to elaborate.

Schneider was homeless at the time, but told the officers he never revealed to Kogawa that he was staying in a shelter. He said they wanted to have sex, so he proposed that they meet in a tent.

Schneider maintained he did not know how she died.

"I actually don't know if she die - if her heart went or if it was her breath," he said.

Schneider is charged with second-degree murder and interfering with human remains.

He pleaded not guilty to both counts, but surprised the court Monday by changing his plea on interference charge to guilty shortly before closing arguments began.

- with files from CTV VancouverPhoto: The Canadian Press President Donald Trump listens to a question during an interview with The Associated Press in the Oval Office of the White House, Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2018, in Washington.

Facing the prospect of bruising electoral defeat in congressional elections, President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he won't accept the blame if his party loses control of the House in November, arguing his campaigning and endorsements have helped Republican candidates.

In a wide-ranging interview three weeks before Election Day, Trump told The Associated Press he senses voter enthusiasm rivaling 2016 and he expressed cautious optimism that his most loyal supporters will vote even when he is not on the ballot. He dismissed suggestions that he might take responsibility, as his predecessor did, for midterm losses or view the outcome as a referendum on his presidency.

"No, I think I'm helping people," Trump said. "I don't believe anybody's ever had this kind of an impact."

Trump spoke on a range of subjects, defending Saudi Arabia from growing condemnation over the case of a missing journalist, accusing his longtime attorney Michael Cohen of lying under oath and flashing defiance when asked about the insult  "Horseface"  he hurled at Stormy Daniels, the porn actress who accuses him of lying about an affair.

Asked if it was appropriate to insult a woman's appearance, Trump responded, "You can take it any way you want."

Throughout much of the nearly 40-minute interview, he sat, arms crossed, in the Oval Office behind the Resolute Desk, flanked by top aides, including White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and communications director Bill Shine. White House counsellor Kellyanne Conway listened from a nearby sofa.

The interview came as Trump's administration was being urged to pressure Saudi Arabia to account for the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Instead, Trump offered a defence for the U.S. ally, warning against a rush to judgment, like with what happened with his Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, who was accused of sexual assault.

"Well, I think we have to find out what happened first," Trump said. "Here we go again with, you know, you're guilty until proven innocent. I don't like that. We just went through that with Justice Kavanaugh. And he was innocent all the way."

Weeks away from the midterms, Democrats are hopeful about their chances to recapture the House, while Republicans are increasingly confident they can hold control of the Senate.

Trump has been campaigning aggressively in a blitz of rallies aimed at firing up his base. He said he believes he's doing his job, but allowed he has heard from some of his supporters who say they may not vote this November.

"I'm not running," he said. "I mean, there are many people that have said to me ... 'I will never ever go and vote in the midterms because you're not running and I don't think you like Congress.'" He added: "Well, I do like Congress."

If Democrats take the House and pursue impeachment or investigations  including seeking his long-hidden tax returns Trump said he will "handle it very well."

The president declared he was unconcerned about other potential threats to his presidency. He accused Cohen of lying when testifying under oath that the president co-ordinated on a hush-money scheme to buy Daniels' silence.

Trump on Tuesday declared the allegation "totally false." But in entering a plea deal with Cohen in August, federal prosecutors signalled that they accepted his recitation of facts and account of what occurred.

Trump said that Washington lawyer Pat Cipollone will serve as his next White House counsel and that he hoped to announce a replacement for U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley in the next week or two. He again repeated his frustration with Attorney General Jeff Sessions over the special counsel investigation, saying, "I couls fire him whenever I want to fire him, but I haven't said that I was going to."Photo: The Canadian Press President Donald Trump speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in the Oval Office of the White House, Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2018, in Washington.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticized rapidly mounting global condemnation of Saudi Arabia over the mystery of missing journalist Jamal Khashoggi, warning of a rush to judgment and echoing the Saudis' request for patience.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Trump compared the case of Khashoggi, who Turkish officials have said was murdered in the Saudis' Istanbul consulate, to the allegations of sexual assault levelled against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearing.

"I think we have to find out what happened first," Trump said. "Here we go again with, you know, you're guilty until proven innocent. I don't like that. We just went through that with Justice Kavanaugh and he was innocent all the way as far as I'm concerned."

Trump's remarks were his most robust defence yet of the Saudis, a U.S. ally he has made central to his Mideast agenda. They put the president at odds with other key allies and with some leaders in his Republican Party who have condemned the Saudi leadership for what they say is an obvious role in the case. Trump appeared willing to resist the pressure to follow suit, accepting Saudi denials and their pledge to investigate.

The Oval Office interview came not long after Trump spoke Tuesday with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. He spoke by phone a day earlier with King Salman, and he said both deny any knowledge of what happened to Khashoggi.

After speaking with the king, Trump floated the idea that "rogue killers" may have been responsible for the disappearance. The president told the AP on Tuesday that that description was informed by his "feeling" from his conversation with Salman and that the king did not use the term.

In Turkey earlier Tuesday, a high-level Turkish official told the AP that police investigators searching the Saudi Consulate had found evidence that Khashoggi was killed there.

Also Tuesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with the king and crown prince in Riyadh and said the Saudis had already started a "serious and credible investigation" and seemed to suggest it could lead to people within the kingdom. The secretary of state noted that the Saudi leaders, while denying knowledge of anything that occurred inside the consulate, had committed to accountability "including for Saudi Arabia's senior leaders or senior officials."

Pompeo was heading next to Turkey, where officials have accused the Saudis of using a 15-member team to kill Khashoggi inside the consulate.

Trump said he hoped the Saudis' own investigation of Khashoggi's disappearance would be concluded in "less than a week."

In the meantime, there were signs at home that Trump's party was growing uncomfortable with his willingness to defend the Saudis.

In an interview with Fox News, a prominent Trump ally in the Senate called on Saudi Arabia to reject the crown prince, known as MBS, who rose to power last year and has aggressively sought to soften the kingdom's image abroad and attract foreign investment.

"This guy has got to go," said Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, turning to speak to the camera. "Saudi Arabia, if you're listening, there are a lot of good people you can choose, but MBS has tainted your country and tainted himself."

Khashoggi, a Saudi citizen who was also a resident of the United States, has been a contributor to The Washington Post and a critic of Saudi leaders, especially Crown Prince Mohammed.

International leaders and business executives are severing or rethinking ties to the Saudi government after Khashoggi's high-profile disappearance. Trump has resisted any action, pointing to huge U.S. weapons deals pending with Saudi Arabia and saying that sanctions could end up hurting the American economy.

He said it was too early to say whether he endorsed other countries' actions. "I have to find out what happened," he said. But his complaint about "guilty until proven innocent" and comparison to the Kavanaugh situation suggested he was giving the Saudis more leeway than other allies.

Khashoggi went to the consulate on Oct. 2 to get documents for his upcoming marriage to a Turkish woman while his fiancee waited outside. She and Turkish authorities say he never emerged and he has not been heard from since.

Khashoggi, 59, had been living in the U.S. for a year in self-imposed exile and writing columns for the opinion section of the Post.

Trump said Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin's trip to attend a Saudi investment conference is still on but could be cancelled by Friday depending on what the investigation finds.

"I think we'll also be guided by what other countries are doing," he said.Photo: The Canadian Press A view of the Saudi Arabia consul's residence, in Istanbul, Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2018. A high-level Turkish official says police who searched the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul found evidence that Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi was killed there. Authorities meanwhile prepared to search the consul's residence nearby after the diplomat left the country. State media say security forces began setting up barricades in front of the residence just hours after Consul Mohammed al-Otaibi flew out of the country on a 2 p.m. flight.

Police searching the Saudi Consulate found evidence that Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi was killed there, a high-level Turkish official said Tuesday, and authorities appeared ready to also search the nearby residence of the consul general after the diplomat left the country.

The comment by the Turkish official to The Associated Press intensified pressure on Saudi Arabia to explain what happened to Khashoggi, who vanished Oct. 2 while visiting the consulate to pick up paperwork he needed to get married.

The crown prince "told me that he has already started, and will rapidly expand, a full and complete investigation into this matter. Answers will be forthcoming shortly," Trump said in a tweet.

The president later appeared to take a stronger stance in defence of Saudi Arabia, criticizing the global condemnation against the kingdom and comparing it to the allegations of sexual assault levelled against now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearing.

"Here we go again with you're guilty until proven innocent," Trump told AP in an interview.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo travelled to Saudi Arabia to talk to King Salman and the 33-year-old crown prince about the fate of the journalist who wrote critically about the Saudis for The Washington Post.

While it was all smiles and handshakes in Riyadh, one prominent Republican senator said he believed that the crown prince, widely known as MBS, had Khashoggi "murdered."

"This guy has got to go," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, speaking on Fox television. "Saudi Arabia, if you're listening, there are a lot of good people you can choose, but MBS has tainted your country and tainted himself."

Attorney General Jeff Sessions said "serious evaluation" was being given to whether U.S. law enforcement officials would aid in the investigation of Khashoggi's disappearance. He declined to comment further, or to say whether he had any concerns with the current investigation.

Saudi officials have called Turkish allegations that a team of 15 Saudi agents killed Khashoggi "baseless," but U.S. media reports suggested that the kingdom may acknowledge the writer was killed at the consulate, perhaps as part of a botched interrogation.

The close U.S. ally is ruled entirely by the Al Saud monarchy, and all major decisions in the ultraconservative kingdom are made by the royal family.

Washington Post Publisher and CEO Fred Ryan said the Saudi government "owes the Khashoggi family and the world a full and honest explanation of everything that happened to him," noting that Tuesday marked two weeks since the disappearance of the 59-year-old journalist.

"The Saudi government can no longer remain silent, and it is essential that our own government and others push harder for the truth," Ryan added.

The high-level Turkish official told the AP that police found "certain evidence" of Khashoggi's slaying at the consulate, without elaborating. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing.

Police planned a second search at the Saudi consul general's home, as well as some of the country's diplomatic vehicles, Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said. Leaked surveillance video shows diplomatic cars travelled to the consul general's home shortly after Khashoggi went into the consulate.

Consul General Mohammed al-Otaibi left Turkey on Tuesday afternoon, state media reported, just as police began putting up barricades around his official residence. Saudi Arabia did not immediately acknowledge he had left or offer a reason for his departure.Photo: The Canadian Press Betty L. Petty of Sunflower County Parents and Students United, addresses a meeting of the Black Voters Matter Fund and several Mississippi grassroots organizations at MACE, Mississippi Action for Community Education, headquarters in Greenville, Miss.

They're asking pastors to text their congregants about the importance of voting. They're connecting with thousands of Puerto Ricans displaced by Hurricane Maria. And they're relying on groups like the NAACP, which has tripled its spending from 2016 to energize black voters.

Less than three weeks before Election Day, Democrats are sparing nothing to make sure their voters head to the polls. It's all part of an effort to avoid the disappointment of previous elections when low turnout dashed high expectations.

"2016 was a low point for a lot of us," said Jamal Watkins, vice-president of engagement at the NAACP. "People have awakened and said, 'Wait a minute, we can't lose, and we can't lose like this.' Folks are fired up to reinvest in turnout."

Younger voters and voters of colour tend to stay home in non-presidential elections, making the midterm electorate older, whiter and more Republican-tilting. But that could change this year, Democrats and outside groups say, if unprecedented efforts to reach so-called infrequent voters galvanize people who previously sat on the sidelines.

Democrats have reason for optimism: The party saw strong turnout in nearly a dozen federal special elections ahead of the midterms, with Democratic candidates consistently outperforming Republicans.

But the organizing flurry comes amid concerns over ballot access and election security, which have become a flashpoint in the high-profile gubernatorial race in Georgia. There is also mounting anxiety about whether efforts to mobilize Latino voters will translate into votes, particularly in several key races in heavily Latino districts.

The party is spending big to ward against such threats.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the party's arm focused on House races, is spending more than $25 million in 45 battleground districts to mobilize female voters, millennials, African-Americans and Hispanics, officials said. That's a far more significant investment than past cycles.

The committee is putting an emphasis on turning out African-American women, including running advertising focused on black women ages 18-39 in more than 40 districts. The DCCC has also run Spanish-language TV and radio ads across the country.

Between field efforts and paid media, voters of colour in targeted swing districts will have heard from the DCCC more than 100 times in the closing 60 days of the election. And in a twist, some of the outreach this year will be facilitated by local community leaders instead of anonymous politicos.

"As an example of the local voter contact and text messaging program that we are doing, we are partnering with a series of pastors and local validators across the country," said DCCC Executive Director Dan Sena. "When you're getting a text message saying 'hey - early vote's starting,' you're not getting it from someone in Washington D.C. You're actually getting it from somebody in Georgia that has a big delegation, or you're getting it from someone on campus that you know."

The Democratic National Committee also beefed up its voter database, purchasing 94 million cellphone numbers, according to a DNC official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal strategy. The official said the additional cellphone numbers have helped with voter contact in key races across the country, including encouraging sporadic voters to participate.

Republicans say they have their own well-organized, well-funded turnout machine that dwarfs Democrats' efforts.

A Republican National Committee aide said the organization has raised more than $250 million this cycle, invested in 28 states, more than 540 paid staffers and thousands of volunteers who are focused on turning out Republicans who don't vote often and swing voters who participate more frequently. The committee raised more than $150 million during roughly the same period ahead of the 2014 midterms. The aide said the RNC has made more than 50 million voter contacts, either over the phone or by going door-to-door.Over the last several years, the use of social media in political arenas has become common practice. In many cases, tidbits of information are sprinkled around and have replaced truth, knowledge and common sense.

This current civic election has seen the underbelly of our humanity. It pales in comparison to how Facebook and Twitter can disrupt a U.S. election, but nevertheless lies are spewed, friendships are ruined and decent people are otherwise reduced to their childlike selves.

As a tech entrepreneur who has studied the impacts of social media, I can assure you that little good comes from these online smear campaigns, but lives can be ruined. I also grew up to a single mom, lived in affordable housing and spent a great deal of my time with addicts, so I am informed.

I believe one side in this race is hoping your confusion will be enough to win the vote.

In the mayor's race, I have met both candidates. I know Colin Basran more than I know Tom Dyas. They both have served this city in different ways, using their time to bring this city to its current state.

At one time, I also know that these two men were once good friends. I have met passionate people on both sides of this race who deeply believe in their candidates. Unfortunately, in an age of social media where a tool is weaponized, lies replace truth and behind the scenes of these candidates are often mothers, and in one case a mother with young children.

I am a dear friend of Leanne Basran. She is an honest, loving, caring and deeply passionate mother, wife and friend. She does not come from pampered roots, she understands deeply the needs of families. She understands those who have struggled with addiction and what it is like to survive. She is a survivor.

She is strong and loving and will without question bring to all of our attention the truth.

I may not agree with every decision council or Mayor Basran makes, but I do believe that this council has the collective capacity to seek truth. Balance is key.

I believe the Basrans truly love this city. Do not settle for gossip. Step away from Facebook and take a walk in our great city. It's time for all of us to return to hope, respect and yes, love.

Janice Taylor, KelownaKelowna is a progressive city and is attracting people to live here from all over the world. We have a vibrant cultural district filled with local artists. We have a world-ranked university, attracting almost 10,000 students every year. Our technology industry is attracting top talent and is beginning to rival Vancouver and Silicon Valley.

So why would we even dream of regressing?

Once upon a time, Kelowna had a homophobic mayor. For years, he failed to include the word pride in his Lesbian and Gay Pride Day proclamation. The mayor, wrongly, believed his personal view was right. Even taking his case to the human rights tribunal, he lost his argument and was soon out of office with his outdated thinking.

Happily, this former mayor realized it was time for change and embraced it. After which, this mayor once again was trusted to lead our city.

Why would we take one step forward and two steps back? Back 30 years to a time of ignorance and intolerance. A time when children were beaten because they just wanted to be themselves. A time when bullying was accepted and adults looked the other way. A time when our youth killed themselves because of taught self-hate.

We are making strides moving forward, away from this period in our history. We must continue to move forward, together!

Tom Dyas stated that someone he loved chose a path of extreme diversity. Dyas wrongly believes sexual orientation is a choice, and an extreme one at that. This is an outdated concept. Attitudes evolve. Leaders grow.

Why would I vote for someone who is stuck 30 years in the past? We know, it is no more a choice than being able to choose one's sex at birth or one's parents.

Being mayor is about leadership; having the trust of your employees and citizens to bring them to new heights. Thats exactly what we have in Colin Basran. We wont always agree with Colin. However, its undeniable, Colin brings people together to do great things.

Dyas says it will be his responsibility to be inclusive to everyone in Kelowna. Mayor Basran said he "has and will continue to march in the Pride Parade and the Trans march whether I am elected mayor or not." I believe this to be one of the glaring differences. Dyas will march only if he is mayor because it is his civic duty, that is a march of protest, not pride.

When we choose our mayor, we have to take a look at the good, the bad, and the ugly in order to make an informed decision. One that serves all the citizens. A mayor who cares about all the people. A mayor who cares about all the homeless. Not one, as Dyas said, who sends them to live off somewhere on a ranch.

A mayor who cares and and wants the average person in Kelowna to be able to afford to live here. The last person we need leading our city and council is a backward-thinking politician. We need one with a clear vision moving forward, one who believes children should grow up here, be educated here, and find good jobs here.

For that reason, we are actively campaigning for the re-election of Mayor Colin Basran.

Jeffrey Simon, Hylton Harrington, Tyson Cook, Dustyn Baulkham and Anas Qartoumeh,

KelownaIt was 2007; I was sitting at home at the kitchen table when my brother and his friend walked into the kitchen.

They threw open some cupboards and started piling up ingredients to make god knows what. As the two young men chatted and joked, I found myself starting to chuckle. I was laughing because whoever my brother brought into our house was someone very interesting and charming. He seemed kind and welcoming, was very warm, and extremely funny.

He looked over at me, smiling, and said Hi! Im Loyal.

That was the day I met Loyal Wooldridge.

As the years flew by, I moved away, and so did my brother. Although, we kept Loyal close in our hearts, the busyness of life made Loyal a Facebook friend and an Instagram follower. Over the years, I watched him grow a small business into a thriving and popular hair salon. I acknowledged his hard work, dedication, and ambition. He grew into someone I genuinely respected and admired.

Seven years later, I decided to move back home to Kelowna. I, too, am a hairstylist, and was seeking a new position in my hometown. I reconnected with Loyal, and without a concern, I joined his hairstyling team.

Its now been six months of me working alongside Loyal full-time and witnessing his dedication to his new passion  politics.

I am amazed by the genuine concern and true desire he has for wanting to grow and improve our community. From the hours he spends researching potential solutions, to the integrity he demonstrates as a business owner, Loyal has proven himself to be successful, while building and maintaining strong relationships.

Loyal runs his business with the concept of togetherness. We are not his staff, we are his team. He believes that when a group of people come together, they will achieve much more as a group rather than individually.

While working under his wing, I am able to see first hand the drive and resources he has for bettering this city. Like others, he is able to pinpoint current and future concerns, but his creativity beams through during his hunt for a solution.

My brother would always tell me to never burn bridges because you never know who youll reconnect with in the future. Being back in my hometown, Im able to get caught up in the lives of the ones who stayed. Loyal is one them.

I can truly say that, not only has he not burned bridges, rather he has created pathways for connecting this community, in hopes to bring people closer. He always says that together, we are stronger.

By first building close connections, he believes that each others encouragement will allow us to stand strong as a community. A strong community will allow us to effectively problem solve and positively evolve.

I hope this city will join me in accepting Loyal as a city councillor.

Lindsay Brown, KelownaAn Indian Army soldier was arrested on charges of espionage in Uttar Pradesh's Meerut. The interrogation is underway. The soldier and several others were held on an alleged espionage ring that was supplying secrets to Pakistans Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)

A soldier of Indian Army's Signal Regiment has been arrested in Meerut cantonment on the charges of espionage, interrogation is underway. pic.twitter.com/pZGsbcgzsw  ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) October 17, 2018

The army soldier was arrested for sying in the Meerut cantonment. The soldier belongs to the Indian Army's Signal Regiment. The accused was being interrogated, reported news agency ANI.

The arrest of the Army soldier comes days after the Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS) of the Uttar Pradesh police held BrahMos Aerospace engineer Nishant Agrawal for allegedly sying and passing off sensitive information to Pakistan's ISI.Important information

You are currently not logged in to my.chemeurope.com .

Your changes will in fact be stored however can be lost at all times.Take the Red Line to Argyle Street, and you'll find yourself in the midst of a pho paradise, with seemingly every other storefront serving the soup. It's hard to go wrong at Pho Loan (1114 W. Argyle St.), where the broth has a rounded depth and all the meat is wonderfully tender. But you'll have to travel a little farther away for my favorite. Located in a random strip mall on the Far North Side, 5 Lua Pho (6261 McCormick Blvd.) stands apart because of its incredibly complex broth, which is deeply beefy and fragrant with star anise and ginger. The pho dac biet ($8.75 for a very large small bowl) comes brimming with all manner of parts from the cow, including thin sheets of flank, tender brisket, squishy tendon, bouncy meatballs and whole sections of oxtail. My only advice is to peek over the rim of the steamy bowl, grab your spoon in your left hand and chopsticks in the right, and don't look up until it's all gone.So it was really about how to activate the creativity of the community  to make people aware of their own creative possibilities  and that was a fundamental way that people came to understand a new identity for themselves during this really radical period. And it was a way to see the resources of the black community, rather than taking what the dominant media was showing, which was all about deficit, blight and hopelessness.In 2015, President Barack Obama let it be known that he was taking Chernows Washington: A Life along to his family vacation on Marthas Vineyard. Obama already knew Chernows work well: When a young Broadway writer-performer named Lin-Manuel Miranda had picked up a copy of Chernows Alexander Hamilton biography right before a Mexican vacation in 2008, thus changing the trajectory of the American musical theater, the first songs to come out of Mirandas skull were performed in front of Obama at a White House Poetry Slam. The Obamas subsequent embrace of Hamilton was as heartfelt as it was financially consequential. Michelle Obama would go on to describe the musical inspired by Chernows biography as the best piece of art in any form that I have ever seen in my life. No wonder the Obamas were eager to participate in the musicals coronation at the 2016 Tony Awards, contributing a videotaped introduction for a performance by the Hamilton cast.The results have been impressive. Within five years, the stillbirth rate in Iowa dropped from 6.13 to 4.36 per thousand births (it ticked back up between 2015 and 2016, but declined again the next year, according to the Iowa Department of Public Health). While other factors might explain the reason for the drop, no one has identified any changes other than the campaign to explain it.Volunteers from PAWS arrived in Gainesville on Monday. They loaded the vans  one with 24 cats and kittens, the other with 11 dogs and puppies  on Tuesday morning and headed for Chicago, Price said.The refugees arrived at 8 a.m. Wednesday at PAWS Chicago Medical Center. Those that are cleared medically will be taken to the organizations adoption center at 1997 N. Clybourn Ave. Price said staff members are paying close attention to the pets mental and emotional well-being.Enyia, the director of the Austin Chamber of Commerce, has little if any campaign money and is an unknown among some media types. But she said Chance would help her increase voter turnout, which the Democratic Party has intentionally kept low to allow the status quo to hold onto power.COLUMBUS, Ohio  I am a strong proponent of the death penalty. I think that for certain crimes, taking the criminal's life is a just and fitting response by society.

I believe that, rather than eliminating the death penalty, it should be expanded to encompass some crimes that are currently not considered capital offenses -- I think of some of the cases of the systematic torture of helpless children I have covered, and I see no reason why the torturers should be shown any mercy at all by society.

Advertisement

Having said that, I have been deeply moved and impressed by the excellent reporting by Tribune staff members, reporting that has shown how innocent people can end up on Death Row. Illinois Gov. George Ryan, in response, has declared a moratorium on executions in the state until such time that the system can be fixed, and I think the governor's decision is the proper one.

But favoring a moratorium is not the same thing as favoring doing away with the death penalty. People of good faith can disagree on this -- and I certainly respect those who think that my position is wrong.

Advertisement

Rather than talk about all of this in theory, though, let us look at a case that has unfolded this summer in the small north-central Ohio town of New Philadelphia.

I will tell you in advance that what the prosecutor in New Philadelphia said at the sentencing hearing this month will stop you in your tracks -- no matter what you think of her words.

But that comes later in the column.

On the evening of May 23, two girls from the area -- Elizabeth Reiser, 17, and Brandi Hicks, 18 -- were at a video-rental store in New Philadelphia. A man named Matthew Vaca, 27, told them that he had no way to get to his home. He said that he would pay them $20 if they would give him a ride.

The girls were members of a church group that taught that they should always help others in need. So they agreed to give Vaca the ride.

In the car, Vaca provided varying directions on where he wanted to be dropped off. The girls, sensing something was wrong, stopped the car and asked Vaca to leave.

He pulled out a gun. He pointed the gun at the girls and ordered Brandi Hicks to drive her car to an isolated field.

He tied her to the steering wheel of her car. Then he led her friend Elizabeth Reiser into the field.

Advertisement

Using a linoleum-cutting knife, he slashed Reiser's neck at least three times. He took the blade and cut a 10-inch long, 21/2-inch-deep wound across her throat, severing her trachea. He stabbed her in the neck, the back, and -- five times -- in the scalp.

Vaca then got Brandi Hicks from the car, walked her into the woods, and made her see for herself that her best friend was dead.

Vaca led Hicks back to her car. He drove to a railroad car on a track near New Philadelphia. He made her carry a six-pack of beer for him. In the railroad car he attempted to sexually assault her. On a trestle above the Tuscarawas River, Vaca attempted to snap the girl's neck.

Brandi Hicks passed out -- and then pretended that she was dead. Vaca pushed her off the trestle and into the river. She floated in the water, not wanting Vaca to believe that she was still alive. She could see him on the trestle, kicking stones into the water and smoking cigarettes. After Vaca finally left the trestle, Hicks waited to make certain he was gone, then crawled up on a river bank and managed to motion for help to a car that was passing by.

All of this came out in open court this summer. Brandi Hicks was there, as were the families of both girls.

This was not a death penalty case. The reason was that prosecutor Amanda Spies Bornhorst did not want to put the families through the endless appeals that inevitably follow capital convictions. "The death penalty does not provide the swift justice it was intended to," Bornhorst said. "Do I think you deserve to die for the crimes you committed? Absolutely."

Advertisement

She allowed Vaca to plead guilty in exchange for what is in effect a life sentence -- he will first be eligible for parole in 2096.

And here is what the prosecutor said to Matthew Vaca in open court:

"I want you to understand what you have to look forward to [in prison]. You will be beaten repeatedly. And you will be brutally raped. And you will lose every ounce of dignity that you have left in your body.

"And you will live in terror -- not for the hour or so that Liz Reiser did, or for the hour that Brandi Hicks did, but for every minute for the rest of your life."

Too tough? Insensitive? Unforgiving? Cruel?

Each reader can make up his or her own mind about that. But Matthew Vaca has been allowed to live. That is a consideration he never gave Elizabeth Reiser -- and that he thought he wasn't giving Brandi Hicks.

Advertisement

Executions? They go on in this country every day. They are carried out by people like Matthew Vaca -- executioners like Vaca who administer the death penalty just because they choose to. And for their victims -- for Elizabeth Reiser, and all the innocent people like her -- there are no candlelight vigils before they are killed. They are not offered their choice of a last meal.Viral misinformation about the flu shot  an injection that is recommended to everyone 6 months and older  and other vaccines can have long-term implications: The percentage of U.S. kids under 2 who havent received any of their recommended vaccines has quadrupled in the last 17 years, a recent CDC study states. Thats led to outbreaks of diseases thought to be all but eradicated  and can make flu season more deadly.Still, more than 93 percent of students in the Class of 2017 took the ACT despite the fact that the state was no longer paying for or requiring the testing. Experts had said that Illinois would probably have seen a larger drop but for the fact that some districts and schools opted to pay for the test.In the almost two decades since then, McReynolds said much of the shiny new electronic equipment has been shredded or dumped in scrap metal facilities. Now theres a rush back in the opposite direction, meaning that we need to have a paper ballot associated with every vote cast, she added, particularly in light of cybersecurity concerns surrounding the 2016 elections.He added that Mexico has been doing its share and is no longer the little guy in the backyard. But hes concerned that the new trade deal, now known as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, will cause a backtracking of the incredible progress to make North America the most competitive region in the world, because Trump is saying Im going to be great by myself, Fox said.The announcement came at a news conference with Cadigan and about a dozen other state and local officials who gathered to outline steps theyve taken to try to combat hackers. The state has hired cybersecurity specialists and completed a Department of Homeland Security Risk and Vulnerability Assessment, among other things.The lawsuit filed Tuesday alleges that African-American and Latino campaign staffers are herded into race-specific positions where they are expected to interact with the public, offered no meaningful chance for advancement, and receive less favorable treatment than their white counterparts. Of the 10 campaign staffers named as plaintiffs in the suit, nine are black and one is a Latina.All the tires were slashed, as was the drivers seat, the center console and the dashboard, Blanchard said. Inspector general investigators spoke to sheriffs and county officials with significant experience in law enforcement and executive protection who said the damage in the vehicle appears inconsistent with damage typically associated with vehicle theft. All keys to the vehicle are accounted for, and there were no signs of the car being forcibly started, the report said.The mayors speech also was noteworthy, however, for what it did not mention: the citys ongoing struggles with violent crime, the continued difficulties of economically impoverished neighborhoods on the South and West sides and a looming, massive cliff in increased pension payments  all sizable problems that will be left for the next occupant of City Halls fifth floor to tackle. Later Wednesday, Emanuel hinted that he would give a major speech on pensions in December, but he declined to say whether he would move forward with a plan to address the issue or simply lay out a recommended road map.Reached by phone Tuesday on a number listed in MenoM3ay, Zahrani denied being in Turkey and declined to say if he works for the crown prince, saying what he does for a living "is personal information." When told that The Post had been provided a copy of what purported to be his passport from Turkish officials, which includes patriarchal names, Zahrani asked if a reporter knew his mother's name. The reporter said he did not, and Zahrani hung up.During Pompeo's visit to Saudi Arabia, the top diplomat and the crown prince smiled for the cameras and emphasized the two countries' mutual interests. When asked if he had learned any details about Khashoggi's disappearance, Pompeo told reporters that "I don't want to talk about any of the facts; they didn't want to, either, in that they want to have the opportunity to complete this investigation in a thorough way."There's no indication, though, that Mueller is ready to close up shop, even if he does make some findings, according to former federal prosecutors. Several matters could keep the probe going, such as another significant prosecution or new lines of inquiry. And because Mueller's investigation has been proceeding quietly, out of the public eye, it's possible there have been other major developments behind the scenes.Marshall knew how to read people and he knew how to make people comfortable doing business with him and doing business with each other, said Bob Wislow, chairman of real estate firm CBRE Chicago. He had an impeccable reputation, and he had a very disarming personality, but all the intellect and knowledge and savvy of the business to go with it.Again, though, our foreign critics proved more prescient than we were. France and Britain are much closer to the Middle East than we are, and their governments were deeply involved in the Middle East long before we were. Whatever they gained from their perspective could have been useful to Bush and Rumsfeld. Theres no shame in learning from the mistakes of others.The California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment has concluded, and hundreds of scientists have testified, that the chemicals in coffee, including acrylamide, pose no significant risk of cancer. So how can it not be misleading (to use the Supreme Court's language) for the sellers of a product that is not accused of causing cancer to be obliged to place a cancer warning on it? And how can such a compelled disclosure be viewed as justified, let alone uncontroversial, when it is obvious that purchasers of marked coffee will understand it to mean that they are buying a cancer-causing product? Why else would the warning be there?